greedy algorithm
They stood at paces, postures relaxed but eyes keen. Any proposition made to Margulis must be made with sword in hand - Jin knew it was his grandfather who had afforded him the particular distinction that drove his current position. There was no use in bucking this fact. And so, Jin's errand of the moment...
"There is no reward for duplicity."
There was no room for duplicity either. Jin had no one to answer to. What pride could he have? None like Margulis's.
"Not safety?" called Jin, with a rising, open inflection. He ignored the voice telling him that Margulis might respond more favorably to determinism.
"You trade safety now for vulnerability later."
Later? What later?
So then, determinism after all.
"We will trade it. You know you can't escape me. We're forever bound."
By the scar. By the blade. By the betrayal, and all that surrounded it.
"I could kill you."
"You won't." Jin didn't refute Margulis's claim of ability.
Without Jin, Margulis would have only U-TIC, Ormus, Heinlein. Plundering. Controlling. Grandstanding.
"You are foolish."
The only person Jin could set his sights on was the person set on killing him. This was clearly not meant to be a wise man's errand. "I don't ask that we ally with each other, Alexander."
Margulis didn't just flinch at the utterance of his first name, he outright grimaced. Indeed, the vulnerability was his ultimate fear. Sasha was the same way, now. It wasn't enough to recognize the present framework of their lives; they both committed to it so fully that it was impossible to tell if they were merely inuring themselves or if they truly owned their outlooks.
Impossible to anyone but Jin. He was intimately familiar with their flavors of conviction.
No, not allies. Just shaking hands over the contorted past as a shed snakeskin and agreeing to be satisfied with not killing each other. It accomplished nothing, did it not? What kind of goal? Set it aside.
A big ask for Margulis, nearly as romantic and far more facile, puerile than the fatal fights themselves.