Page 2859

If only the boy knew how bad it really was. The last thing Caster wanted to do was crush his hopes, but maybe that would be for the best. Maybe he should just confess to his own crippling insecurities here and now, in front of everyone. That was the point of these meetings, after all. If anyone would understand, it would be the guys.

But he still hesitated.

Paulie wasn't entirely wrong. Caster did want to be something of a role model for all these poor bastards. He wanted them to be able look at him and see something for their future selves besides dying in obscurity.

So this was a lose-lose situation for him, in other words.

What else was new, eh?

Before he was forced to make a decision, however, Deacon chimed in and saved him. "Caster has had many of his own struggles with this over the years. You can't just point to him and act like it's such a straight line to where he's standing."

"First of all, he's sitting, not standing," said Paulie. "And second, I'm not saying it'll be straightforward or easy. I'm just not ready to give up. Just because Morgunov couldn't crack it doesn't mean it's uncrackable. He could've missed something. I mean, he can't be that smart."

Dead silence arrived.

Ah.

That had not been a wise thing to say.

Luckily for Paulie, it didn't take him long to realize his mistake. "Uh. W-what I meant was that, he might have been too busy to really look into it, y'know? Like, if the problem didn't interest him enough, then, er, he wouldn't have had enough, ah, motivation to... um... dig into it for real... since he's not destruction himself, right? That's all I was getting at."

The others in the group were still just staring at him.

Truth be told, Caster's own sympathy for the boy had lessened quite a bit, too. This may have been a place for having difficult conversations, but that was most assuredly not one of them.