Just a testament to the kind of treatment he's accustomed to enduring, perhaps, that the words themselves leave little impression on him-- he's had worse, after all, throughout all the seconds minutes days years down there in that bright-lit blood-scented place, with Mother and all her cutting criticisms. Her obvious disapproval of him. What Zollner has done to him, it's an irritation at best in the face of all that.
The man keeps talking, and Giovanni observes him assessingly, red eyes running him up and down and all the way through, as though trying to discern some quality in him that might make this 'escape' a possibility. He won't refuse his help - why look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that - but it's clear from his demeanor that he remains skeptical.
"We're in the Mayor's chambers, in the central building. But you must have noticed that when you came inside," and the man he'd seen, Zollner Neubauten, is of course the mayor, among other things. Which brings Giovanni to his next question.
"You know what he is, I suppose? Or perhaps you don't. It seems not many do," and then, as an afterthought, the edges of his words tipped in darkness, "I wasn't aware myself. If I'd been informed, things might have gone differently."
Why Mother hadn't briefed him on this one essential fact, that Neubauten is like him, only better stronger faster and in possession of a Spine that can control his own, is a source of delicate pain for him. As though perhaps she'd wanted to be rid of him.
no subject
The man keeps talking, and Giovanni observes him assessingly, red eyes running him up and down and all the way through, as though trying to discern some quality in him that might make this 'escape' a possibility. He won't refuse his help - why look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that - but it's clear from his demeanor that he remains skeptical.
"We're in the Mayor's chambers, in the central building. But you must have noticed that when you came inside," and the man he'd seen, Zollner Neubauten, is of course the mayor, among other things. Which brings Giovanni to his next question.
"You know what he is, I suppose? Or perhaps you don't. It seems not many do," and then, as an afterthought, the edges of his words tipped in darkness, "I wasn't aware myself. If I'd been informed, things might have gone differently."
Why Mother hadn't briefed him on this one essential fact, that Neubauten is like him, only better stronger faster and in possession of a Spine that can control his own, is a source of delicate pain for him. As though perhaps she'd wanted to be rid of him.