District 42-Chapter 159: No trust

"Trust in you...?"

The Aesir shook his head towards Casper, looking intently into his eyes. That sad expression was still behind his mask, though, and the soldier felt that it wasn’t the best idea to trust entirely on that man.

"I mean, it depends on what do you want to do with me, you know?" Casper was trying to find a way to leave that bed without no one getting in his way.

"I mean, I let him diagnose my body, but it’s an entirely different thing to let this man do whatever he wants to do with me... He will be making something on my brain, after all... I don’t even know what’s their intentions..." He thought.

Casper was getting more cautious around people from District 42 after all that happened in Halden, particularly with eccentric people, and in anything regarding his brain.

Also, he didn’t know exactly what were Vick’s intentions towards him and, as far as Casper was informed, he was still a threat. It was a big deal to not have a mask. Someone can open holes in a laboratory and destroy a city if they didn’t wear one, after all.

"Look, that’s a no-go. I won’t let you touch my brain, do you understand? I put myself at risk just to take this diagnosis, but that’s enough!"

Facing that statement of Casper, Vick got red of angry behind the mask and walked beside him stomping the floor. She nearly let appear her secret side but could keep her cool to prevent doing so.

In front of the others, she needed to be that cold and imponent lady, after all. She couldn’t let the anger get the better of her.

"Why not? Stop being a shrimp and pass for this already! What do you think you will lose?" She asked. The soldier didn’t look to her for a moment, and she forced him to do so.

Casper’s face was empty, blank, he didn’t let any emotions show. The soldier was good at controlling himself. He wouldn’t commit the mistake to let the Princess know what was going on in his mind at that moment.

He looked back at Rurik, staring at him intensely, showing that he had made up his mind.

"You fear that we try to put a mask on you, didn’t you? You still cannot trust me..." Her voice was in the same tone as before, as frozen as a harsh blizzard, but the lady was hurt inside.

Casper didn’t answer. It would be pointless to do so at that point. Also, he didn’t want to start to argue, and he knew that the Princess either would have her pride hurt or her plans ruined, whatever she was planning for Casper.

"I cannot do what I can’t do. It’s really considerate, though. But I can do something myself..."

During those times, Casper thought for a long while why he was cooperating with the Princess for so long.

Since the start, he didn’t know anything about the intentions of both groups: Frelsi and Jarls.

Casper was blindfolded until that point, there were a lot of things he still needed to discover, and something that was still a mystery were Vick’s intentions towards him.

That woman didn’t see Casper as a pawn for a reason, and it wasn’t because he could help in the Midwest battle or because he could escape from the prison. There were points that Vick didn’t clear for him before.

"There is a lot to be discovered. I still need to do plenty of research. Until now I have been going with the flow and accepting some things but that’s something I can’t afford anymore. It’s not time to keep being passive here."

The Aesir kept looking towards Casper. His rejection seemed to make him get even depressed.

"That sucks... Why do I need to discuss this with a brat? Darn..."

"Hey, I am pretty sure you are just a year or two older than me, you know?"

Rurik kept complaining for some more time, with his eyes getting even more lifeless throughout his vent. Casper wondered if his brain injury would make him get like that guy, and he felt a bit disgusted by that.

"I think I prefer that they put a mask on me, then." He grimaced, rambling about it.

Just when Casper was with his guard lowered, he felt that a hand was sliding on the mattress and passing slightly through his waist. He jumped to the side, looking to the right with startled eyes.

"Got it..." Rurik spoke. It seemed more cursing than celebrating, actually. It was hard to find someone as dead as Alfar seemed to be, but the soldier needed to wonder if Rurik might have been his teacher or something.

Casper was with his heart racing. He first guessed that the doctor had sedated him without him noticing, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

Just when he looked to his hands that he understood what "Got it" meant before.

Rurik had in his hands the Black mask made for Casper.

"What... When you saw...?"

"I am not an idiot, why do you think I was crouching all this while? I was trying to sort out if this thing was real or not, and it seems that is real, indeed..."

Vick, who was already flabbergasted by Casper’s denial, also as his serious injuries, looked at that mask with the air leaving her lungs.

"C-Casper you... I mean, they did..." The soldier was paying attention to what the Aesir had to say to him, so he ignored the Princess for a while.

"It’s a long story, Rurik, but I do have this thing with me. So what? It’s disabled already. I messed completely with its code lines, and differently from the masks from the prisoners, I doubt that it will recover again." Casper was confident in the work he made on that mask since he spent more time working on his mask than in another one.

Both Rurik and Vick were amazed by that. Casper didn’t explain very well, but the thing was that he could find a way to mess with one of Forger’s works. And, worse, he did it with the mask as a whole, not just partially.

"If you did what I think you did..." The doctor started, slowly. "And this mask is really yours... Then we can find a way to vanish your worries about us."

Vick understood very well what it was, and finished the proposal of the Aesir.

"You will understand it better when you get back to the Main Lab and start to make questions for people from there, but in short, Casper, we can’t replicate your mask. There is no way to do another one. This thing will be unique forever.

"That is, if you want to prevent being mentally ill, and physically as well, because you can’t trust on us because of fear to lose your freedom or something, then you can find a way to prevent us to get your mask. Lend it to someone, put inside a safe box or something like this."

Casper wasn’t understanding very well what they meant by that, and he wasn’t willing to trust in the Princess for information, besides the ones that he could get naturally or through manipulation.

The soldier got up from the bed.

"I will sort out what to do. Also, Rurik didn’t say that it is something urgent, right?"

The doctor nodded, but hesitantly.

"Yes and no. I mean, in your ankle’s case, don’t push it again will do some good to not worse. Your brain will degenerate bit by bit, but we can’t predict if it will increase the speed..."

"Well, that’s concerning, but, as I said, I will sort it out. If your talk about the mask is true, then I can consider it." Casper stole his mask from the hands of Rurik, then attached it to his waist again, walking off the room. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Thank you for taking care of me. And I will do my best to not mess with my ankle."

The Aesir and the Princess remained in the room for some more time. The red-haired man looked at her with a worried (and dejected as per usual) expression.

"Do you think we can let this on his hands? I mean, I can sedate him, or knock him out..."

She shook her head slowly, glancing at Casper’s back as he walked through the hospital’s corridors.

"We can’t just force him to do anything now. If I lose more of his trust in me, it will be difficult for us. I need that Casper stays beside the Jarls and, above all, besides the district entirely."

Vick knew that the fact that Casper wasn’t willing to give her even a little trust was because of the past events.

Halden had changed the soldier forever, it left its marks on him. And everything that Casper discovered being there got him even more cautious.

"I need to talk to him about what happened and explain, or even lie, about whatever he discovered there. He needs to understand or reasons to do what we are doing..."

With this, Vick briefly said goodbye to Rurik, promising to get back later, and then hurried towards the soldier.