42
Proposition Call

Miles knocked on the door to Luna’s room at -7. The intercom next to it buzzed.

“Come down the hall,” Barry’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Left, first door.”

Miles made around thirty feet around the corner before he noticed the door and rang two knocks. The door quickly flew open, and Barry looked like he was leaning forward through the doorframe.

“Come in.” A smile flushed on the second-in-command’s face before a gloved hand was outstretched towards the interior. 

The door was pushed shut, its lock turned, and Barry moved toward the desk. He put a finger on the side button of the transceiver, and spoke into it. 

“-7. Guard requested.” The finger let go of the button after the beep and buzz. The hands clasped together and gestured toward an empty seat. “You can sit down if you like.”

“Of course.” Miles was slower in his actions, and his eyes were fixated on the imported pants that went along with his own dinner jacket before his hands went to smoothen out the creases.

The gloved hands captured the disorderly-stacked pile from the wooden desk, before Barry turned around, had himself on the stool, and placed the papers on his lap. 

“Allow me to be frank, Miles. I trust that you have seen Luna in those... videos?” Barry’s voice reflected off the sheets as his fingers rummaged through the individual pages. 

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me a little more on that?” Barry pulled out a silver matte pen with a chrome ring separating its two halves from his waistcoat pocket, and gave it a twist to protrude the tip. Near the top of the pen is a series of micro-drilled holes, and his thumb pushed down on the plunger. 

“Whatever you say.” Miles’ voice faltered as he took note that the butler had his head intent on scribbling something unintelligible among the papers. “It was fed into a television screen, they were in both Irvine and LA.”

“Okay. They have trains that can do that. One sec.” Barry continued to scribble onto the paper. “What else did he tell you in week three?”

“Something about destiny, I had no concrete idea in what he's saying. I'm sorry.” Miles’ hand went behind his head and scratched his scalp. “Can I just hand you the cube, I'm—“

“How did they treat you?” Barry’s head swiveled up at him. 

“The um, jail thing, or uh, the um Circle—“ His eyes failed to focus on anything as his head turned and sulked and his lens muscles contracted and compressed. 

Barry looked at him with the same face he did towards Luna in one of their last engagements. He turned around and reached for the transceiver. 

“Send the cart. We have an 8.” Miles with his mouth slightly agape, fixated on the walkie-talkie. His gaze kept at it as the butler reached back towards the dock, but no before mouthing another string of commands in. “Leave it at the door. Lids on. Stat.”

“They won’t come in. Don't worry.” Miles recognized that smile from him as one of the same that he saw from Luna a while ago. 

Miles looked at the ground, had a brief shook of the head, and gulped. 

“I'm not an interrogator.” Barry returned the documents to the desk before concentrating on him. “I just wanted some help.”

Barry sighed and looked up before staring at his own bed. 

“I wasn't supposed to tell you this, but, Miss Ferrule’s not safe. And you being her friend should make you one of the people that will root for her. And now Mr Ferrule likes you enough—“

Miles looked at him with still eyes. 

“Would you like to help? I think if you could pitch in, sir, she might just be able to come home. Because truth be told, Mr Ferrule wasn’t clued in, and I trust that Hunter—“

“Hunter has a bit of a screw loose. He had a dead wife and something seemed off.”

“Anything else?”

“He's always away.”

Barry pulled the orange-backed spiral-bind and handed it to him. 

“Our sources inside Manhattan told us as much. But because you're in there— I'm not really supposed to tell you this— we need someone on the inside. All you have to do is tell us what you saw, what he's saying, and what you think he's planning to do next.”

The bell rung. Barry stood up and made it to the door as Miles’ eyeballs traced the butler’s path. The door was unlocked, pull inside, and a metal cart rolled in with about a dozen plates covered in their respective lids and a second layer underneath with spouted canteens and a few upturned glasses. 

A green-band attendant had her hands on the beam on one end of the cart, pushed her foot into the brake that locks the wheel in place. Miles looked on. 

“Mr Hector. Barry.” The green-band clicked her heels, though those sneaker soles dampened some of the sound. “Should I turn them over?”

Barry turned over the top packet of the stack before returning a look back at her. He then shot one towards Miles. 

“Hungry?”

“Yeah, sure, wouldn't hurt.” 

“Go ahead, Amelia.” The green-band took the wrapped silverware by another fellow catering staffer that stood in the doorway, then swiped the metal lids into a stack before retreating her hand back near her waistcoat. “Is this to your liking, sir?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Miles’ eyes flung themselves to the wall and his hand came in a swatting motion. 

Amelia looked at Barry with tensed eyebrows. The latter gave the former a nod and a jerk of the head towards the door. 

“Please enjoy. We’ll allow you some privacy.”

“Thank you.” The two attendants that bore essentially the same outfit as Barry sans the band color pulled out of the door, before the red-orange pushed the door shut, and turned the lock. 

“It’s a plea from us, sir.” Barry’s gaze fixated on his as he sat back down. 

“I’ll do it.” Miles picked up a fork in almost the fashion of the tycoons that came before Ryan. “On one condition.”

Barry pushed his eyebrows up. 

“Kayla will have no knowledge of this.”