Ask for Y

I’m here to track down a rumor. I’d heard there’s a man who grants wishes out in Las Vegas, the city of sin. Not just any wishes, mind, but one’s based on reality. You could no more ask to fly—unless you wanted him to grant you an airplane—than ask for immortality. This is a long shot, I knew, but at this point, I’m all out of options.

It started in a bar in Chicago, like most fairy tales. Alcohol. Conversation. Gossip. The liquor flows, lips loosen. I was just trying to drown my sorrows by trying to literally drown myself with whisky. On the verge of blacking out or being kicked out, the grapevine opened for me, words somehow coming through clearly despite the raucous bar noise.

In Vegas, yeah. Ask for ‘Y’ between the first and second mile of the Boulevard. Show ‘em this card if they say ‘Who’s asking?’

I’d heard the rumors. Who hadn’t? A man that grants wishes? The other half of the coin though is that commensurate to the “ask” is what Y wants in return. Want to be a millionaire? Y may impoverish your friends to balance the scales. Need someone killed? Y might ask you to name someone you love to even things out. It seemed farfetched the first time I’d heard of the mysterious Y. 

Now, I’m only hopeful. I need this Y to exist or everything I’ve done to get here will be for nothing, and worse, I’ll have failed. I stole the card from the man in Chicago through force a few days ago. His scared look still haunts me. I’m starting to wonder if I didn’t do him a favor.

Standing on the Las Vegas Strip, people milling about on either side of me, I’m out of my depth, at a loss. What am I even doing here? I wonder to myself, thinking that If I leave now and head home it’ll probably be too late. I take out the card I stole and look at it with a shake of my head. It’s a black card with a small white square in the center, nothing else. I crumple it with anger and go to throw it away.

There’s a well-suited man standing before me; the crowd serpentines around him. He looks not at me, but at the card I crumpled. I open my palm and unfold the card. He approaches in three quick strides.

“I… I’d like to see… Mr. Mr. Y. Please,” I stammer.

“Who’s asking?”

I hold out the crumpled card, dumbstruck.

The man smoothes out the wrinkles of the card and tucks into his inner jacket pocket. “Follow me,” he says. 

I expect a long walk. We take about five steps towards the boulevard’s road. A jet black limo glides up to the curb. The man opens the rear door and motions me inside.

My mind say’s no; my heart says yes.

I’m inside and the limo’s off, wondering if the decision was somehow made for me.

Y’s there, a dignified man in the finest suit I’ve ever seen. He watches and waits.

“Thank you for seeing me,” I say, a tremor in my voice. I’m scared to death, more that I’ll misstep and not get what I came for, rather than for my safety.

“That card wasn’t meant for you.”

How does he know? I almost blurt out the words. There’s nothing supernatural about this guy I remind myself. The cards must be marked, tracked in some way, only given to certain people for whatever reason. Maybe the other guy at the bar works for Y, it’s plausible.

“I have more need of it than the other guy,” I respond.

“Need? Or want?”

The limo slurs around a corner. I’m not sure where we’re headed. I may never be seen again. I realize this conversation jeopardizes two lives, not just my own.

“Need,” I affirm.

“Hm.” Y appraises me with a dark stare. “Speak.”

Moment of truth. Chips on the table. All in. “The reason I tracked down a rumor, traveled all the way from Chicago, is because my sister is dying,” I start. “She has stage four cancer. The doctors say she’s terminal.”

“Then it’s beyond my power to help,” Y says.

“I know.”

Y’s eyes narrow. “Then what is it you’re asking for?”

“I want your power, your resources. I want to at least try. I know I’ll fail,” I tell Y. “My sister’s as good as gone. But do you know why she got cancer? Because the company she worked for hid the fact they knew the ‘hazardous materials’ they work with cause cancer. They also refused to insure her, saying she had agreed to the company policy about the materials. She could have gotten treatment nearly a year ago. She could—” I don’t know how to continue.

“And you want revenge?” Y asks.

“More than that. I want to be you. I’m asking for your position.”

Y’s face registers surprise. Then, a grin. “I have waited a very long time for someone to ask this of me. You must understand that to be ‘Y’, you must retain balance, equally weighted,” Y says, holding out his hands at shoulder height like a scale. “Without balance, you will become nothing, toppling over or crushing under the weight, and the cabal shall enforce its ruling.”

This was the first time I heard of any cabal; it wouldn’t be the last, but that was a worry for another time. My sole focus was that of my sister and a misguided lust for a violent recourse.

Y and I shook hands that day. He got out of the limo with a smile and a look on his face that appeared to be seeing the world for the first time. I never saw him again. I wish we had talked longer. I wish I had asked the right questions, any questions really, pertaining to the truth of the Mantle of Y or the Cabal of Letters, a shadow organization that manipulates global events. But I’d gotten what I’d wanted so I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Everything else is just a rumor at this point.