The counter fell silent as the three of them stared at Masque who was locked in the most visually disconcerting loop as he regarded the piece of paper, unknowingly realizing that he lacked the required emotional bandwidth to appropriately react to the confounding scribbles he just read.
"Is he okay?" Isaac asked, virtually oblivious, causing Callisto to glare at him before turning the glare to the fidgeting Masque.
"Masque." Her voice was low but the sharpness cut through Masque's static frenzy.
The cosmically lost mutant looked at his long time leader and croaked out softly, his voice trembling as he did.
"… Callisto, w-what is t-this?" his head swerved to Isaac and pointed a shaky finger at him. "W-what is he trying to do, Callisto?"
Isaac looked at Callisto with a small disappointed frown on his face. He huffed and tutted his displeasure.
"Miss, my little business is run on the utmost transparency and cultivating trust. Am I to assume that his general confusion is because you failed to inform him of the potential trade?"
"He would have found out regardless." She said with a derisive scoff and returned Isaac's stare with one of her own. "And I fail to see how any of that is your concern. Shouldn't your concern be only on the trade."
The frown on Isaac's face bent into true displeasure on hearing Callisto's words. Ignorance was bliss, maybe in a handful of situations, but in most cases it was hubris. And Callisto was making sure to stand on it on her two feet.
"Listen here, miss," his tone took on a slightly harsh edge and was downright lecturing, "no trade will happen unless the customer is willing to make the trade of their own will and my store ensures the sovereignty of that will by protecting them from any sort of influence, supernatural or mundane."
Callisto wanted to say that Masque was not being influenced by anything but Isaac wasn't through with his little exposé.
"It also means that their minds are protected and free from making decisions under duress, be it by intimidation, coercion, threats, blackmail or even psychological manipulation. The choice is his and his to make alone. My domain makes sure of that."
The customer's choice is to be respected, above all by the Merchant themselves and they take every precaution available to ensure that it stays that way. So even if they were being forced or controlled to make a trade they are slightly reluctant against, whatever form the influence takes is severed as soon as they cross the entrance threshold.
This was why Masque has been mostly confused and shocked by everything because his decision to be here was made sorely by his fear and submission towards Callisto, so when that broke he suddenly found himself with a clarity that left him utterly lost and confused.
While the Merchants themselves have no business or personal interest in the private lives of customers and people that exist outside their doors, they also had to take precautions to prevent any instances of a lawsuit from their customers… like say maybe a petition for a refund and compensation for a transaction made under duress, in whatever extreme form it takes, no thank you.
Callisto came short. Her eyes narrowed upon understanding what Isaac was trying to say, and while normally she would doubt the veracity of such an absurd claim, she found herself being unable to. Why? She had absolutely no idea.
Maybe it was because of the look in Isaac's eyes. Maybe it was the fact that all six of her senses were picking up absolutely nothing to indicate a threat. Or maybe it was the fact that the store felt like it was thrumming and was also staring at her with a daring glare.
"Masq—"
"I apologize, miss, but that will be enough from you for now. Let him make his decision without you trying to burn him with your eyes. Sheesh." Isaac finished his Callisto-dedicated piece and addressed Masque who looked so dumbfounded at the one-sided back and forth. "Now then sir, I'm terribly sorry for you being kept out of the loop."
Masque shook his head as the oblivious haze was slowly clearing from his head and handed back the paper to Isaac.
"Basically, this is the quotation for the price of your X-gene if you want to sell it. The trade can only continue if you willingly decide you want it to."
Masque looked at Sunder and then at a silent frowning Callisto and then back at Isaac and gulped down the phantom rock in his throat.
"I-I can s-sell it?" The question was so ludicrous but it was the only thing he could ask, or rather the first thing that came to his mind to ask.
"Yes you can. And this is the price I'm willing to pay for it." Isaac waved the paper.
Masque swallowed heavily. "…. W-will i-it… w-will i-it ta-take…"
Isaac nodded in understanding, stopping cold Masque's hopeful stuttering. "If you're asking if you'll lose your physical alterations upon sale, then yes you'll lose it as it is an active part of your X-gene. Though those you've made alterations to won't lose theirs."
"L-let me see." Isaac handed back the paper to Masque who greedily read through it multiple times.
The hopeful light in his eyes couldn't be hidden. This was his ticket to a normal and comfortable life on the surface. This… this was it.
He looked at Callisto and Sunder, mostly at Callisto, and asked. "You were going to take the money, weren't you?"
"Of course." She answered easily, not a shred of hesitation in her words. "It will be the first thing that you ever did to help them."
"You of all people don't get to condemn me, Callisto."
"I'm not condemning you. I'm just telling you the truth. It will be the first thing you ever did to help them, and maybe you won't hate yourself as much if you were no longer a mutant. I see it as an absolute win."
It was such a Callisto way of saying things that it left no room for further interpretation. She wasn't doing this out of spite or anything of the sort. She wanted him to sell his ability to… some guy, leaving him completely human, so she could use the money to take care of the rest of Morlocks.
The rest of the Morlocks.
Ah, so that was where the trepidation came from.
"Will I still be a Morlock?" 'Even if I'm completely human' was the part he just couldn't say. Being a Morlock has been his identity for decades, almost for as far as he could remember.
"If you want to be. If you want to leave then don't come back." She said with casual indifference
He wanted to laugh, but it came out as a gargled croak. He cursed himself once more.
"Everything changed when he came." Masque hissed in venomous hate. "You started changing too. You only cared about keeping them alive and nothing else. You didn't care what I did."
"I don't." Callisto answered. "I hardly do even now… no that is not entirely true. I started caring with disgust when I realized you would continue doing so even when I tell you not to. I told you not to."
"He's not one of us." Masque argued, but even he knew it wouldn't hold. He was trying to mask his excuses as justification.
"Everyone who finds their way there and wants to stay is one of us. Just like I did. Just like you did. Just like Caliban did. Just like he did."
Masque hissed. "THAT DOESN'T MEAN HE GETS TO DECIDE HOW WE DO THINGS!"
"It does." Callisto's reply was sharp and apathetic. To her, Masque's emotions, his opinions, thoughts and feelings, were completely irrelevant. They were to her as the sewer rats. "We fought. He won. He gets to lead. The rules are his to make."
"But–"
"But he decided not to lead after sparing my life and told me to stop what you were doing. I told you to stop and reverse everything you did and what did you do? You refused my orders and tried to kill him that night. Tried and failed. If it was me, I would have killed you then and there and you know it. You disobeyed not only his orders, but mine too, then you tried to kill him, and failed too."
Masque grounded his teeth together as that ugly feeling rumbled in his lungs and mixed with his breath.
Mikhail's arrival and subsequent order had stirred up that old bitter hate Masque had tried to forget throughout his life. The beauty of people that looked normal while he looked like a squashed Play-Doh pricked at the bile in his mouth.
"Decide quickly. I don't have all day to spend here. There are dozens of people back at the camp I can easily replace you with. Stop wasting my time."
And that was it. Callisto did not see him as important as he saw himself to her. She never did, while he deluded himself she did.
She let him do what he wanted all this while in the camp, not because she supported him or deferred the authority to him, but because she did not care about the physical appearance of the other Morlocks. Her only concern was that they were safe, fed and housed.
Air left his lungs and suddenly he felt tired… and just nothing. He was so low that he temporarily lost the emotional bandwidth to care about anything else right now.
He looked at the paper and all he could see was that he would finally stop looking like this. He would be losing a part of himself, sure, but it was a part of himself that he always hated. And if he could no longer use his abilities on the other Morlocks, then he hardly saw a reason to care about it.
He would no longer be a mutant as he understood it, and that was fine. As long as he could remain as a Morlock. That was… he could live with that.
"…"
"Sir?"
"…" he let out another breath and took one last look at the paper in his hands. "…. Take it. I'll trade it. Just… just do what you have to do."
He could care about this later. He could care about Callisto and Mikhail later, or hate them. This was probably the only decision he would make in his life without him being pressured or forced to do so. Neither Callisto nor Mikhail could order him to do this, and for now he would take it.
"How are you going to do it?" He asked. If possible, he hoped it wouldn't involve him being strapped to a table.
"Just give me your hand. It'll be done in a short moment. You won't feel a thing, except probably a slight case of vertigo for a few seconds."
Masque didn't know what to expect, only that he was hopeful and that this somehow works out, so he took the man's hands, greatly envying the man's looks and his semi-formal sleeve and vest outfit.
His vision drowned in colors and light and a sensation of loss doused his whole body only for it to be filled with something that was slightly muted. It wasn't that much of a jarring difference, but it was noticeable.
He opened his eyes with a gasp as if he was drowning and finally got to air with his last stroke. Everything was slowly spinning but it wasn't bad enough that he had to keel over for balance.
His vision corrected itself a few seconds later and he saw the man, Isaac or whatever, holding some dark green haze that covered his fist in his hand.
"Nice." Isaac said with a pleased smile as he inspected his work. "Please give me a second."
He retrieved a glass tube from under his counter and funneled the green haze into it before corking it close. They all saw the laze turn into a DNA strain after it settled inside the tube.
"Splendid trade, my dear sir." Isaac said after storing the tube somewhere and shook Masque's hand while making a mirror appear on his other one.
He let Masque get dumbstruck at his new(old?) face before calling back his attention to the final stretch of this wonderful trade.
"$14.7 million as agreed. Mind you, I'll be deducting the price of the tube as part of the trade." Isaac looked at Masque who could only share a dumb nod. "What would you like it in? Cash, deposit, store credit, or in gold – conversion costs apply. Or perhaps you would like to purchase something?"
Masque could hardly think about anything else as he was lost in the recent memory of his normal looking face and smooth tumor-free body.
"Give me the top. She gets the remaining $10 mil." He said, his non-gargling croaked voice sounding both strange and soothing to his ears. "Is there a way you can help me with that?"
"I can create an obscure bank account for you for the cost of $50,000. Are you okay with that?" Isaac asked as his hands got to working while Masque nodded absentmindedly.
After receiving the details to his bank account(which was prepared very fast, in less than 2 minutes), Masque retreated a few steps from the counter to bask dazedly in his new state while Callisto started talking to the Merchant, Isaac.
He remained in his jaded flow even when they returned to the tunnels, even through the surprised horror on everyone's faces when they realized who he was, until he got to his tent and fell atop his padded bed to sleep.
He didn't know what Callisto bought with the money or what she planned to buy, but to his credit that was the farthest thing from his mind. There was hardly any thought in his mind, even until he fell asleep, and even then there was no dream. Just a feeling of openness and possibly… relief.
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