Detroit, Michigan

[hockeyking]

"... And in addition, I'd like to propose that you pay the workers in your new Mexican plant two to three American dollars more per hour than you plan to give them now."

Several of the General Motors board members laughed out loud at the suggestion, but Victor's face remained unmoved. If anything showed, it was a twinkle in his eye.

"You hired my company to market your product for you, ladies and gentlemen, but advertisements and viral marketing can only do so much. You're building this plant so that you can produce your cars for the same cost while paying your workers a tenth of what they'd make in the States. Yes, that'll produce profits, but you can do better."

The board members seemed dubious, but at least they were listening. That was all Bay needed.

"When Ford Motor Company created the five-dollar day in the early twentieth century," he continued, "Ford was hailed as a revolutionary; as the people's champion. In turn, those workers with their increased wages turned around and bought Ford cars with their newfound money. Not only that, but just seeing the generosity of Ford, and believing that it could set an example for the rest of the industry, spurred the whole country to buy Fords. The profit Ford made was mindboggling."

Bryce Miller, possibly the hardest sell on business transactions with GM, leaned forward with a raised eyebrow. "And you think that the same thing can be done in Mexico?"

"Yes," replied Bay, "I do. It's not like big American business has been kind to Mexico before; I think you'll be surprised by the loyalty a significant wage hike will bring you. Plus your workers will still be working for a third of what they are in the States."

A moment of silence washed over the room for a few seconds, before the man at the end of the table, Drake Akenson, stood up. The rest of the board followed suit. "Thank you for your presentation and your proposals, Mr. Mulder," he said. "We'll take them into careful consideration. I'm sure we'll see one another soon enough."

"As long as we get your check in the mail by next Friday, I'll be looking forward to our future endeavors, Mr. Akenson," replied Bay.

---

For the bad reputation that Detroit had had since the seventies, Bay found Downtown Detroit quite charming. The architecture was beautiful and interesting, and the food was delicious. Sure, it wasn't the greatest place by any stretch, but it certainly lived up to the standards of a major city's downtown. It was a shame that the outskirts of Detroit were so destitute; after the race riots, the city was simply too large for its own good. Now its reputation suffered for it.

As he exited GM headquarters, he brought his Nexus 4 out and dialed the number he'd gotten from the lovely lady he'd met the night before at Blue Nightclub. The phone rang twice before it was answered on the other end.

"Hey, it's Vic," said Bay. "I was thinking of going to Slowe's tonight. What? It's world renowned! How could a woman like you not have- yeah, it's in a shadier part of town, but it's on a major street, it's not like any criminal with a brain would- hang on."

He opened the door to his Ford GT supercar, stepped in, turned the keys, and spun out of the lot.

"I'll pick you up. Don't worry. Nothing will happen to us. I'll- listen, I'll protect you, okay?... Because the food's worth it! Okay, I'll pick you up at seven. Bye."

Bay sighed and rolled up to the stoplight. An man walked up to his window. His face was wrinkled and dirty, and it looked like he hadn't changed clothes in a couple of weeks. Bay rolled his window down.

"Please, I'm homeless and hungry," he begged. His voice sounded course, dry, and weary.

Bay pulled his wallet out and opened it. Only fifties. "Here," he said, handing two of them to the man. "Good luck."

Before the beggar could thank him, he drove away, thinking about the big fake breasts of his date that night, and the night he'd had with her before.

[Shubit]

A man who could have stepped out of an 80's gangster movie pulled up on 2138 Michigan Avenue. In the car he exchanged words with his driver who opened the door for his employer. In the street lights the man looked rather handsome. His blonde hair was pulled back to show a clean face that hosted a pair of striking blue eyes that appeared to glow. The designer labelled tuxedo which he was wearing may have been purchased that same day.

The driver revved the engine and drove away. The man turned his head from one slow arc, left to right and then walked quickly in the direction of the main road.

He walked past a line of parked taxis, where a group of squabbling women in their night dresses stepped out with their handbags and heels to match. There was some giggles and comments but this man paid no thought. A couple of police officers walked past him looking officiously towards Roosevelt Park--he looked beyond them.

As he approached his destination he pulled from his suit jacket a small business card.

Inside the restaurant the noise was quite something. He passed the standing queue with ease and under some confused glances smiled at the lead waitress who stood at the reception. He flashed her the business card which had a peculiar picture of a tower printed on it. She paused briefly when examining it and then quite suddenly, she changed, now absolutely delighted to be in his presence. She pulled him into the restaurant like an old friend. They walked hand in hand across the length of the room to where there was a table for two in the far back corner.

He gave her another smile and she politely let go of his hand and moved away from the table. It was at this moment that he put his suit jacket to one side and laid the business card to rest on the table, face down.

Printed in some very old but clear hand writing there were the following words:

Slows, 7:58pm A man named Victor will enter with a lady.
You owe him $100.
Tower calls.
Tower calls.
Tower calls.

[hockeyking]

At 7:55, a limousine stopped in front of Slow's BBQ. There wasn't room between cars to park the long vehicle, so it simply stopped in the middle of traffic. Horns blared behind it, but neither the driver nor his passengers cared. It's not that Bay wouldn't have rather taken his GT; the area that Slow's is in just wasn't fit for a supercar. Still he was sure that Jill, his beautiful gold-digging arm candy was having the time of her life in the luxury of a limo, wearing her nicest blue silk dress and the tallest heels she could find. After all, if this night went well, she could be on her way to dating a wealthy, handsome young businessman; at least that's what she probably thought.

Soon, the door was opened for Jill, and their chauffeur helped Bay and his date out onto the sidewalk, asking Bay what time he'd like to be picked up later. Bay thought a moment about whether he'd like dessert today or not. "Nine will be fine, thank you," he answered, shaking hands with the chauffeur as Jill wrapped her arm about his. They then proceeded past the large wooden door into the restaurant.

It was bustling, to be sure. There appeared to be a wait of at least an hour for those coming in for an impromptu seating. It was just loud enough with the patrons' voices to have a hard time talking but just quiet enough to allow one to think. Luckily, Victor had to do neither.

The hostess, as she saw the suited man and his stunning date, walked directly past packed group of people waiting for a place and held out her hand. "Mr. Mulder," she said with a bright smile and good posture. "Your table is this way, if you'd please follow me."

Victor shook the girl's hand and followed her to a booth near the back corner, where it was slightly less loud than it was in the rest of the room. Victor casually observed the people and the atmosphere around him as they moved, and the only thing that caught his attention momentarily was the white-suited businessman sitting alone at the table opposite of his booth, and that was for but a moment: the man was probably just waiting on his date's return, although he did eye Victor a little too long for Bay's liking.

As the hostess departed with a "your waitress will be here shortly", Bay sat his lady down, then followed suit on the other side of the booth. The seats were wooden. For a place with such a stunning reputation, they should be able to afford more comfortable seating than wooden booths, Bay thought.

"What are you thinking about," asked Jill from across the table, wearing an innocent smile as she leaned forward with less than innocent intentions. Subtlety clearly wasn't her strong suit.

Bay's eyes followed downward appropriately; if she was going to offer the view, he might as well take it. "You, of course," he lied in return, though some parts of him certainly were focused in her direction. "As is most of the room, I'm sure."

Jill giggled and began to speak. Victor hardly listened.

[Shubit]

'Are you all right, sir?' asked another waitress, who must have caught sight of the man looking anxiously between his watch and the business card on the table.

'Yes,' he said with voice that had a hint of impatience. 'I'm fine, thank you.'

The minute hand of his watch pulled up to the 12, and he entered the 7:58 of the hour. It was in that very moment that a man appeared with a lady, presumably his date. They strolled gracefully through the crowd and sat down across from him. For a moment this calm and seemingly impenetrable skin that this man was wearing was stirred and he couldn't believe his own eyes. He looked around to make sure that there was no-one else who could fit that description, but not even the restaurant manager in his suit matched this man's grace and obvious wealth. He left his gaze on the man for ten seconds, before they met eyes where he snapped his attention elsewhere.

Thus he had confirmed three things: firstly this was the man that matched the brief description, secondly, that he had met this man in person before, and thirdly; the Tower never, ever lied.

He took some calm, deep breaths. If this card was correct then perhaps all of the promises made to him were also correct. As he rose from his chair the feeling of confidence that rose in his chest were tremendous as he realized what needed to be done. The lady was talking about something completely nonsensical, low, tedious and clearly not interesting to his target. This made it more a delight as he strolled over to their table.

From his trouser pocket he produced two $50 bills, and placed them under Mr Mulder's nose.

'Mr Mulder,' he said with a warm smile. 'Please accept this as payback. You took me, a poor man off the streets several hours ago and I couldn't owe you more. It will be an honor if you could join me at my table.'

[hockeyking]

It was always the same. Young woman, riding on her looks, dressed to impress and seduce, telling Victor everything she thought he wanted to hear so that he'd fall for her. What none of the women who tried this ever stopped to consider was that if they all tried this same method, then it would become stale and predictable, and they'd sink their own ships trying to win their target over. Victor had reached that point several years back; now, Jill's efforts were futile because Bay didn't even bother looking for anything more than beautiful company for the night.

He listened halfheartedly to the jarble that Jill was telling him and responded accordingly while spending most of his energy on thinking of other things and observing his surroundings. This allowed Bay a few seconds of preparation as he watched the man who'd sat across from him approach the table. Next thing he knew, Bay was virtually smelling a couple of fifty-dollar bills.

Bay's instinctual response was rage. How dare some stranger wave money in his face. But not anger nor any other emotion ruled Victor Mulder. With his best poker face, Bay plucked the bills out of the stranger's hands and studied them, flipping them over twice, then placing them on the table. He stared up into the stranger's eyes. There was an air of familiarity to the man, but Bay chalked it up to mere resemblances. After listening to the man's request and statement, Bay laughed.

"Nice ruse," Bay said, glancing about for some kind of hidden party to jump out at him. "So, are you an actor who played a bum? Because," Bay couldn't help but chuckle, "if you can take a hundred bucks and turn it into a suit like that in a few hours, I'm gonna have to hire you to teach me your secret."

[Shubit]

The man in the white suit stood very still and met Bay's unfathomed expression with the same.

He was entirely locked into this moment and the more time that passed, the more his focus penetrated through his eyes as if something extraordinary was about to happen.

'You are exactly like the Tower described,' he said, revealing a card from his suit jacket, weighing it in his hand. 'Denial was a predictable response from you, and it was for me as well. I was not prepared for the chain of events that would lead me to you this evening, nor what the ramifications of your generous gift of charity would do for my life, yet the Tower promises and the Tower delivers,'

The man paused for a moment, his gaze looking over Bay's shoulder to a group of laughing girls dressed for their hen night.

'I am not an actor,' he said. 'Several hours ago I was a beggar on the streets of Detroit and now I am something different entirely. I cannot explain how this happened to me, I can only show you... give you a presentation, so to speak,'

He grinned revealing his pearly white teeth. 'You know a lot about presentations, don't you Mr Mulder?'

[hockeyking]

Victor didn't like this man. In fact, he tended to dislike anyone who beat around the bush, or who talked in riddles and mysteries to give himself the upper hand. That made Bay a hypocrite to some degree, but that hadn't concerned him yet.

Still, in an odd way, Bay was enjoying this. Conflict wasn't necessarily a bad thing; he always cherished an opportunity to prove himself to himself and others around him. More importantly, this presented a rare break in the established monotony of classy dates and getting laid in various big cities around the country.

"Vic, can you believe this guy?" asked Jill from across the table, laughing at the man's claims. Her laughs dampened as an array of different thoughts and emotions began to show on Bay's facial features. "You don't actually believe him, do you?"

"Of course not," Bay responded without bothering to look at his date, instead staring into the stranger's face. "What he's saying doesn't make any sense."

But Bay's mind was now leading him down this new path of excitement. How would this encounter end? Would he humiliate this man attempting to scam him? Or was there actually something behind this man's words for Bay to uncover?

"Humor me, though, my friend. What is this tower you speak of? And what is this presentation you want to pitch?"

[Shubit]

OOC: Just wanted to say Tim: great posts. This thread's awesome

IC:

'I will tell you,' began the man. 'After I order another drink.'

A waitress went to the bar and returned with three icy cocktails. He sipped his glass with a sigh before looking back to Bay. There was hesitation. After a few breaths of silence the man began the story.

'The Tower saved me. I can only explain it like this. When you handed me the $100, I went to the nearest mart to buy myself some food. The last time I ate was a few weeks ago and I was planning to go crazy in there, only I bumped into this lady.'

The man glanced at Jill and back to Bay. 'She looked nothing like your date, if I can say so politely. She had a certain amount of...let's say, class, about her. For one thing she was wearing a trench coat and while she was beautiful it was her eyes that did the talking and not her, well, you understand me.'

The man chuckled. 'Now, you could probably understand my surprise--me, a poor beggar still in my dirty clothes with my long beard and a plastic bag full of cooked chicken and chips, with the world's most beautiful woman there smiling back at me, engaging with me in conversation. I must admit, I'm not a religious man--but in that moment I thought you were the devil and I'd sold my soul, because next thing I knew she had grabbed my hand and was pulling me into a white limousine.

'I'd only ever seen one before and that was in the movies. It was so fancy inside and there were leather seats and a drinking bar and yet she went on talking about how I was chosen, and how the Tower was behind it. And I asked: "What tower?" and she told me she would show me. The only thing that went wrong was it had been three months since I had slept on something so soft, and I fell asleep almost instantly.'

The man took another sip, looked back at Bay to check he was still following and continued.

'Next thing I knew I found myself awake in a modern apartment in a skyscraper somewhere up town. I was wearing this suit and I smelt clean and fresh as if someone had bathed me. My hair was cut and my beard was cleanly shaven. I couldn't believe my eyes when I stared into the mirror. I looked younger than I had before, and I swear my arms looked bulkier too like those models that they throw up on the billboards.

'As I walked around the apartment I realized there was a card left on the bed.' The white suited man placed it down in front of Bay with the writing face up.

'As you can see it told me to come and find you and gave me the exact time when you'd arrive, it even mentioned your date and the $100. This was two hours ago. I had to find out who was behind it and at least say thanks for polishing me up good. A car was waiting downstairs for me and the driver took me to exactly where I wanted. He told me that he would collect me and you once we had finished here and I told him that this story would sound mad to anyone, and he seemed to agree. So, he gave me another parcel...'

From his jacket he revealed a large brown envelope and lay it down next to the card. 'Here, have a look at this,' he said, pulling what appeared to be a series of photos out of the packet. 'He told me that this would help you believe me.'

He made sure that it was only Bay who could see them. Printed on the photos were 100 small shots of Bay. Some of them when he was 3 months old, some when he was a toddler, a kid and a teenager and a young man. All of the shots featured Bay not posing for the shot rather as if these had been taken from an unidentified camera man. More ominously in the background of every shot was a haunting black monument that stood behind him. It was a tower.

[hockeyking]

Bay listened to every detail that came from the mysterious man's mouth, scrutinizing, maintaining a poker face that could win him good money in Vegas, interrupting only once to say, "please don't insult my date," before letting him continue. Jill was, at this point, fuming enough that Bay's courteous words were clearly not enough to pacify her, as she then gathered her purse, glared at Bay, and mentioned the restroom before walking away. Good, no need for pleasantries then.

The man's story got less believable by the second, but Bay was in no rush, and he could afford a crazy man (or a con man, or even a crazy con man) enough time to finish his story before being shot down. It was the least common, most spontaneous thing that had happened to Bay in God knows how long, and that was enough to keep him in good spirits.

Then the formerly homeless man dropped the photos on the table, and Bay's poker face cracked. His breath shortened as his heart began to beat faster, and his eyebrows rose involuntarily in some combination of horror and shock.

"This," he said as he picked up one photo to look at it, making sure it was he at its respective age, then picking up another one and doing the same. "This..." he spread the photos out so they were all visible at once, instead of a pile. "This," he looked up at the not-so-homeless man and pressed his finger down onto the middle of the spread "is some sick shit."

Bay placed his hand on the wall side of the table in preparation to slide the photos off the table in a fit of anger as he stood, then carefully began picking them up instead. These could be used; he could have his family members cross-referenced by a detective to find some insight into how these were all attained. As for the tower in them? They must have been photoshopped.

Halfway through picking the photos up and piling them neatly, Bay abruptly stopped and stood up next to this man preaching of the Tower, whatever that was. While he kept his voice low, Bay said in a clearly shaken and angry tone, "So you're telling me that some hot bitch picked you up off the street for no reason, and you fell asleep in the car, and next thing you know everything about you's changed and you're on some fucking divine mission?"

Bay grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and clenched it in his own fist.

"I don't buy it. Who do you work for? What game are you playing?"

He swung himself and this man around so that the beggar was positioned above the seat he'd just been occupying.

"And on the chance that you're serious, you actually believe this shit?"

He pushed the man down into the seat.

"You were probably drugged into that sleep. Did you feel a little groggy when you woke up? Does your asshole hurt? You didn't find any of this even a little bit shady?"

By this time, Bay's voice had raised somewhat, and parties around were looking worriedly in the pair of men's direction. Without letting the beggar reply, Bay jumped to his next conclusion. "Of course you didn't; you had nothing and all of a sudden you're living a dream. Who are you to question." Bay let go of his guest. He stood up, composed himself, looked around, and then looked back to the beggar.

"Take me to this car and driver you told me about," Bay said, letting his hand nonchalantly play across his right pocket, where his small 9mm handgun was safetied and adequately concealed. Perhaps he could get some answers from the driver in a gunpoint interview.

[Shubit]

For a while the man in white thought Bay had taken the matter well, until of course Bay started cursing and he was swung around like a flower in the wind.

'Hey! Wait! You got it all wrong!' he said feebly.

It was better to remain silent; he had received a fair share of black eyes in his life.

As Bay went on with his inquiries he sank further into his chair, lifting his head only to look apologetically at their audience.

When Bay requested to see the driver, the man breathed a sigh of relief.

'Fine,' and he said this with some authority, as if to regain his pride. 'Follow me,'

The trees outside the restaurant were glistening with rain and they were hanging under the skyline which was starless. Down the main street, past squabbles of partying people, over the road, and through another set of double doors which were part of a large skyscraper hotel building, the man in white took Bay.

The stark blackness of the night was contrasted strongly in this room, as all that Bay could see was pristine white. As the man in white walked in front of him, Bay would realize that he could have been part of the place, for when they walked past the reception and entered the elevator, Bay was greeted by several other white suited people. There were two ladies and an old gentleman, and they looked splendid in their suits and extremely beautiful to look at. What the man in white mentioned before about Bay's date was echoed here, for the women while beautiful, also carried this gravity of splendor and grace about them which was only natural among princesses or duchesses of monarchies or other wealthy descent.

Yet they looked at Bay casually as if he was one of them.

'Greetings friend,' said the old man, and just like that they arrived on the 19th floor. The man in white stepped out and took Bay down another corridor. Yet this one had lost the antiquity of downstairs and was heavy with time, for the walls were faded and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were filled with cobwebs.

There were only three doors on the right hand side, and two on the left. The rest of the spaces were covered with thick concrete as if the doors had been punched away by an invisible hand.

'In here,' said the man in white.

He flashed a key card on one of the available doors and switched on a light.
The room lit up, and what Bay would see would possibly scare him.

Hanging from the ceiling, like a huge washing line were thousands of photographs dangling from little pieces of string. They were not of Bay, but of other people, thousands of other people. Some of toddlers, others of old men and women, and people from all walks of life.

In each picture was the fuzzy black outline of a tower, the same gloomy expression that had been present in Bay's photos.

For a moment the room seemed still in the dim lighting. Then something stirred from the back, and a very tall man loomed from where he was standing.

He was so tall that the view outside the window was barely visible behind his large frame.

'Welcome,' and his voice would chill the bones. 'We have been expecting you, Mr Mulder...'