Chapter three
During most of his years Emanuel never stopped feeling alone, although his foster-fathers' servants were constantly nearby to watch him and take care of him that feeling of isolation never leaved him. From an early age he knew it would be this way, any signs of hesitating Mortmain's choices resulted in punishment. Therefore it was decided that Emanuel would bury himself into the assignments he was given to make Mortmain proud and forget the depressing environment he was in.
In another way Emanuel knew he was lucky, an orphanage with no family to care for him wouldn't receive the education he was granted. Private tutors from the best schools around the world taught him in subjects such as mechanism, maths, physics, chemistry, language and so on. Eventually when Emanuel entered his teen years Mortmain presented the automatons, the specimen that he was told to develop and test on. Emanuel had worked with the automatons with his mechanic teacher, who after some years went up in smoke and didn't return. Since this happened to many people Emanuel met in his life the boy figured this was Mortmain's doings. It bothered him and sometimes it wasn't unavoidable to think it was his fault they had to leave, this developed to guilt thoughts. Life wasn't the greatest for him, he thought but the determination to survive was greater than the losses in his life.
Because of the lack of companionship and possibilities to meet others and form any relationships Emanuel had to dive into books where all the fictional characters were his friends. Late nights were spent near the fireplace in the bedroom and in his mind he followed his strange, witty and eccentric friends to where their adventures brought them.
Mortmain began to notice how his foster son became less and less detached to the real world, sometimes it was as if the boy wasn't present in his mind but only his body. It became a realization that things needed to change, so every Sunday night Mortmain dined with his son. At first it was unbearable for him to sit with the boy, every minute not working on his plans was a waste of time but he knew it would pay off eventually.
The little boy was only excited to feel as if someone had finally acknowledged his existence. Though he was little Emanuel knew that his foster father found him annoying so he decided to behave and only speak when being spoken to.
The idea worked and the two formed some strange bond to each other, not the relationship shared between a father and a boy, neither the one between a teacher and the student but the relationship between people who somehow needed each other for survival. For those years Emanuel spent with Mortmain the relationship functioned though a drastic switch in Emanuel's environment and the beginning of his real task only meant one thing for this relationship; that it would eventually break as such do all things built on lies.
