Manuel 2015

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By Erik. Originally posted on x_project.


Manuel adjusted his tie as he sat in the battered folding chair. The room stank of cigarettes and desperation and broken people. Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he adjusted his cellphone to its vibrate setting and waited for the facilitator to begin the meeting. When it did, he stood up and looked at the other half-dozen people in the room. "Good evening." he said politely. "My name is Manuel de la Rocha, and I'm ... unwell." he said. "I had a very bad time a few years back, and as a result of some extremely emotional and poor judgement calls on my part I managed to damage my emotional mind. But I hold down a very good job on Wall Street, I own an condo in the Upper East Side, and a second home in Southern California. My co-workers call me the Iceman." he said, with a secret smile none of the other broken souls in this room would understand. "I don't get emotional. It was suggested by my psychologist that group therapy might be beneficial."

"The technical term for what is wrong with me is "anti-social personality", what used to be call sociopathy. In less judgemental terms, I do not react to emotional stimuli very well. The condition is normally treatable chemically, but in my case that is impossible. I am also a mutant. I have not consciously used my power in four years. I am single, and I live alone. I have no desire to hurt anyone, which is why the label of sociopath is not, strictly speaking, correct. I merely wish to be left alone." An awkward silence, and then Manuel nodded his head. "Thank you." he said as he sat down.

The rest of the counselling session passed without incident. The usual collection - mental defectives, abuse victims, the typical dregs. Manuel attended these sessions because it was a condition placed upon him in exchange for his autonomy. Manuel kept half an ear on the conversation, in case he was called on to give his commentary upon whatever scenario was being discussed. Inside his mind, he was a million miles away. Profit and loss, balance sheets, P/E ratios, cyclical trend analysis, and ROI. He was going to dump his Stane International stock. The new Iron Monger medical systems were too little too late, and the creditors were beginning to break out their long knives in preparation for making the final kill. He should be able to flip it and still make a healthy profit over what he'd bought it for. His clients would be quite pleased.

Finally, the meeting ended. Manuel made the socially-acceptable banal noises at the others, and then slipped out the door to walk to the garage where his Porsche was parked. A logical choice for someone like him - it was perfectly in line for a man of his age, demographic, and socioeconomic bracket. The smaller configuration was ideally suited for city traffic, and there was enough horsepower under the hood to get him from place to place quickly. But if insurance continued to trend northwards as it had in the last twenty-four months he might have to reconsider his decision. It was really quite logical.

As he drove home, he mentally reviewed his schedule for the next day. More of the usual stuff, plus he had a power lunch with Saul Morrow to discuss the 401(k) account he was managing for Samara. He was fairly sure that Saul would be pleased with the fund's progress. Not just anyone could make such a complicated set of diversified investments grow 40% in one fiscal year, yet he had managed just that. Saul appreciated logic and precision and he paid handsomely for Manuel's services.