The room was silent after their exchange. Manhattan's skyline burned through the glass, twinkling like a false heaven, the wind pushing faint howls between steel bones. Maxwell stood firm. Elijah remained half in shadow.
"You say I trust too easily," Maxwell began, voice level. "But I've seen what happens when no one does. When people give up on the idea of each other. That's when the bombs drop."
"You're mistaking chaos for design," Elijah replied. "They don't just fail us, Maxwell. They build systems that intentionally forget the weak. Then they smile. They ask for votes. I don't forget."
"You punish the guilty with no trial. What happens when you're wrong?"
"I've never been wrong."
Maxwell blinked. "That's not pride. That's delusion."
Elijah turned. "Delusion is believing every man deserves a second chance. Ask the woman who lost her child to a man you spared. Ask the orphan raised on drugs and rent collectors."
"I've made mistakes. But so have you."
"I don't wear mine like medals."
The tension pulsed like a heartbeat. Neither flinched.
---
Two Philosophies
"You hide in the dark," Maxwell said. "Because you're afraid to be loved again. Afraid to fail like they made us think we would."
"I hide," Elijah replied, "because the light is reserved for men who play the game. I don't play anymore. I change the rules."
"You think you're saving people."
"I know I am. My numbers are clean. My streets safer than yours. And my enemies? Erased. Not archived. Not protected. Not reformed. Gone."
"You sound like the people who made us."
"And you sound like someone who still thinks this world wants to be saved."
Maxwell exhaled through his nose. "What do you want from me?"
Elijah stepped closer. "I want you to stop pretending there's a middle. There isn't. You either control the fire or you burn with it."
"And if I say no?"
Elijah's eyes narrowed behind the mask. "Then I stop you. Because you're the last obstacle. And the world doesn't need a boy scout. It needs a shadow."
They stood there, closer than brothers, more distant than strangers.
Neither moved.
But both understood.