Chapter 46: The Rival
A few days after his first surveillance attempt, Julien decided to try again. The conclusion written in his file remained unbearably vague: Aldric worked, bought groceries, read novels, and got along well with his coworkers. No strange behavior, no suspicious meetings, and most importantly, nothing Julien could use to convince Emma to keep her distance.
Julien refused to believe that a few hours of observation were enough. He went through the information accumulated in the ALDRIC DE VALDOR folder once again, checked the depot’s schedule, and chose another day to continue his investigation.
Julien opted for ordinary clothes and waited near the depot.
Shortly after six in the evening, Aldric appeared. Julien immediately straightened and resumed following him. He followed him to the metro, boarded the same train while keeping his distance, and got off a few stops later in Aldric’s neighborhood.
Once outside, Aldric walked for another few minutes before reaching his apartment building. Julien began to wonder whether all this surveillance was going to end with the least interesting discovery possible: Aldric was going home.
“Seriously?…”
Less than ten minutes later, Aldric came back out of the building. He had changed clothes and was now wearing sweatpants, running shoes, and a dark T-shirt.
“Ah.”
A training session could reveal a lot. Maybe Aldric was meeting someone, going to a particular gym, or using his runs as an opportunity to meet an old contact.
Aldric picked up his pace until he settled into a steady run. Julien waited until about fifty meters separated them, then started running too.
For the first minute, everything went according to plan. Julien maintained the distance and even began to wonder why he had imagined this part of the surveillance might be a problem.
By the third minute, he was already breathing much harder.
Julien stared at Aldric ahead of him. The distance between them was beginning to grow, forcing Julien to speed up.
“Okay…”
He just hadn’t warmed up. That was all. He spent most of his days sitting in front of several monitors, and the last time he had run for more than five minutes had been several years ago, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of following someone on a jog.
Two minutes later, that explanation already seemed much less convincing. His breathing had grown loud, his legs were starting to feel heavy, and an unpleasant heat was spreading across his face. About fifty meters ahead of him, Aldric was still running at exactly the same pace.
“He could slow down a little…” Julien muttered as he tried to maintain his pace.
A few more minutes were enough for his T-shirt to start sticking to his back and for his ambitions as an investigator to give way to a much more basic objective: keep breathing while keeping Aldric in sight.
When he reached the first intersection, Julien slowed down to look both ways. He spotted Aldric much farther down the street to the left, already heading into the next block.
“How is he already over there?” he gasped before turning left after him.
Julien pushed on through gritted teeth. His legs now protested with every stride, and a stitch was beginning to form in his side. He forced himself to maintain his pace despite the burning in his lungs.
“No… way…”
Julien saw Aldric approaching another intersection before disappearing around the corner of a building.
When he finally reached the second intersection, Julien turned left as well. The street stretched for several hundred meters ahead of him, but there was no sign of any figure over six feet three.
Julien put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath.
“No… How… did you… disappear already?” he gasped between breaths.
Julien looked around. Two people were waiting at a bus stop, a man was walking his dog, and several pedestrians were making their way along the street.
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“No, no, no…”
There were three possible directions. He looked left, then right, before continuing straight ahead for a few meters.
Still nothing.
He pulled out his phone, checked the map of the neighborhood, and spotted a small park less than two hundred meters away. A path led into it from a parallel street.
He turned around and kept going until he saw the entrance to the park. A figure had just passed through the gate. Tall. Dark T-shirt. Same steady pace. Aldric.
“I found you…”
Julien entered the park after him. His relief was replaced by a new certainty: this time, he had something. Aldric had left his original route to come here, which meant he had a reason.
Maybe he was meeting someone. Maybe he was using the park to reach somewhere more secluded, or taking a route he didn’t want to use on the main streets.
Julien wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and kept running. Aldric followed one path around, took a second one, and came back toward his starting point.
“I hate you…”
Aldric disappeared behind a group of trees. This time, Julien abandoned any pretense of athleticism and slowed from a run to a walk. He put his hands on his hips, took a breath, and stared at the ground.
“Alright…”
He had learned enough for today. Aldric ran, had excellent endurance, and apparently had no secret contacts in this park. Julien could go home and add all of that to his file once his lungs had returned to normal. He straightened and finally raised his head.
Aldric was coming toward him.
Julien froze. The path formed a loop, and Aldric had just run all the way around it.
“No…”
Aldric slowed as he approached, and his eyes settled on him.
“Julien?”
“Aldric!”
“You run too?”
“Regularly…”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We’ve never talked about everything.”
“That’s true.”
“I was planning to do a few more laps. We can run together if you’d like.”
“Of course.”
Aldric started running again, but Julien immediately realized he had slowed down to match his pace. The difference was too obvious for him to convince himself otherwise. Julien gritted his teeth.
“Do you run often?” Aldric asked.
“Several times… a week.”
“How far?”
“Depends.”
“I understand. I try to stay physically active even when workdays are busy. The job mainly works certain muscle groups. Running helps maintain endurance.”
“Yeah…”
“Do you do any other activities?”
“A little.”
“Which ones?”
His brain, already occupied with managing his breathing, produced the first answer available.
“Strength training.”
“Interesting.”
His breathing was becoming increasingly difficult to hide. Every time Aldric looked in his direction, Julien tried to straighten his back and put on a normal expression before returning to his struggle for survival.
“Your job is fairly sedentary,” Aldric continued. “That makes physical activity even more important.”
“Yeah.”
“You told me you spend a large part of your day in front of several monitors.”
“Yeah…”
“I’d be interested in seeing more of how your work operates someday.”
“Mmh.”
“Are you alright?”
“Perfectly.”
“Your breathing seems unusually heavy.”
“Sometimes I run… very fast.”
“I see.”
Julien couldn’t tell whether Aldric believed him or was simply too polite to comment further. They continued for almost another five minutes.
When Julien spotted a bus stop, he pulled out his phone while still running.
“Ah.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I just remembered I have to… do something.”
“Now?”
“Yeah…”
Aldric slowed to a walk, and Julien did the same.
“Something urgent?”
“Pretty urgent.”
“Then you shouldn’t be late.”
“Yeah…”
“It was nice running with you. We should do it again.”
“Whenever you want.”
“Alright. Have a good evening.”
“You too.”
Aldric started running again while Julien made his way to the nearest bench and dropped onto it, planting both hands on his thighs.
“Never again.”
His chest was still heaving, and he remained motionless, waiting for his breathing to return to something resembling an acceptable rhythm. When he finally felt capable of thinking about something other than his legs, he pulled out his phone and found a notification from the group chat. Emma had just sent a photo of a dish she had made.
“All this because of you…”
He put his phone away and remained on the bench for a while longer before finding the courage to head home. Once inside his apartment, he took a shower, changed clothes, and sat down at his computer with a bottle of water.
The ALDRIC DE VALDOR folder appeared on the screen. Julien opened the results of his two surveillance attempts.
Even if he discovered Aldric’s true origins, it wouldn’t change the immediate problem. Emma liked him far too much, and so far Julien had mostly tried to understand, observe, and wait for Aldric to make a mistake big enough to convince her to keep her distance.
Unfortunately, Aldric didn’t seem inclined to cooperate. Julien rested his elbows on the desk and thought. If he couldn’t find anything to use against him, he would have to create a situation himself that might change the way Emma saw him.
An idea occurred to him. He hadn’t known Aldric for long, but one thing was certain: the man had an irritating talent for impressing people. He was huge, incredibly strong, knew how to wield a sword, and told his stories about battles with a seriousness that fascinated Maxime.
Emma saw all of that, and until now, Julien had been looking for something that might tarnish that image. Maybe he was overcomplicating the problem. He didn’t need to prove that Aldric was dangerous or hiding something. Maybe he only needed to remind Emma that Aldric couldn’t possibly be exceptional at everything.
And Julien knew exactly one area where he had years of experience on him.
Video games.
PLAN 1: VIDEO GAMES
Objective: Show that Aldric isn’t exceptional at everything.
Method: Direct competition.
Julien looked through the games he owned. He needed something he knew well, something where Aldric couldn’t compensate for his lack of experience with tactical thinking.
Aldric barely knew the buttons on a controller, while Julien had mastered several characters, knew their main combos, and knew exactly when to attack, dodge, or punish a mistake.
Julien returned to his document and wrote:
Probability of success: Very high.