Though a few people attempted to approach us, she quickly walked for the front entrance and I followed behind. Since we were still in a party, she appeared as a yellow dot on my minimap, with the many Sapients walking around appearing, much like Vanessa back in the ViewFinder, as a myriad of blue dots. It was just a bit overwhelming and with a quick mental switch, I disabled the Sapients from appearing on the map. The once cluttered outline of the hospital was suddenly far easier to read.
“Uggggh when’s Codex going to wake up, you’re being so boring,” Angie groaned as a pair of nurses stopped what they were doing, their eyes wide as we passed by with another set of smiles and waves. We approached a door that had a sign clearly labeled “Authorized Personnel Only” that buzzed and opened as soon as we were within a few feet of it and I looked toward Swansong curiously.
“Seriously, why are you just following her and not waking Codex up for a second opinion? Are you dumb? She's clearly up to something!” Angie complained.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Angie,” I said as we stepped into an elevator. Swansong hit the button for the fifth floor and the elevator lurched upward as she leaned backward against the wall. A hand raised up, tucking a wavy strand of hair back behind her ear as she stared forward at the door.
“Why can’t these elevators have music from this decade? Why’s it always this weird jazz stuff that only plays in elevators? Who’s even making it?”
I felt myself blink as she suddenly rattled off the questions and a sudden laugh escaped her.
“Sorry… I tend to ramble when I’m nervous,” She said by way of explanation.
“I never really got jazz, although I did go to a jazz club recently,” I said, looking up at the top of the door just as the floor meter ticked over to the third floor. This caused Swansong to let out a nervous giggle.
“Yeah… I’ve heard about that,” she said and I cocked a brow as I looked back over to her. Another rapid blush spread across her cheeks. “You’ve uh… You know you have a bit of a reputation at this point… right?
“Huh?”
“Like, you wondered why I would want to team up with you when I had ‘only seen you fight once’ when there’s like, at least half a dozen different videos of you on the news and online,” She explained. I wasn’t sure what look I must have given her because the blush that had only been pink suddenly threatened to turn her as red as a tomato. “Not that I’ve seen all of them! But I- I just… I’m just going to shut up now until we get to where we’re going cause it’ll explain better than the rambling that I’m clearly doing...”
“No, please, keep going, this is oddly entertaining,” I said, unable to stop myself from laughing and she shot me a glare.
“I’m just saying that you are leading the pack when it comes to our side of things and what you did to that spider back there is pretty dang good confirmation that it’s not an accident or mistake that you're up there,” she said just as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
We were just about to keep moving when a man dressed in a long white coat stepped in front of us. He had strikingly white hair and a thick beard that gave me a sudden flash of another man in a white lab coat. Highlighting the man eased the tension I felt slightly, as I discovered it was a Sapient man by the name Dr. Walter Hill and not the non-Sapient scientist that TechWarden had had enslaved in a tunnel underneath the city.
Dr. Hill began speaking with Swansong, mentioning a handful of patients that must have just checked in as I slowly caught my breath. I had been pleasantly surprised by just how naturally I was able to fall into the fight with the Clockwork Spider, but I knew that had been partially adrenaline that had carried me through. It didn’t seem like a good sign that the simple sight of a lab coat could threaten to give me a panic attack.
I had never gone back to check on them, to check if they had escaped. Hydramental had already tried to kill them once, and my stomach turned at the thought of the fate I may have left them to. It didn’t matter to me that they were non-Sapients and not “real” people. If he had killed them simply for the work they were being forced to do, it was just another nail in the coffin as to why I couldn’t work with Hydramental. I looked at Swansong, watching her as she looked over a list the doctor was presenting to her with a smile on her face.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of any of this, or what she was really after, but it didn’t feel right that I was treating her so suspiciously either.
“I have a few things to take care of this morning, but I have plenty of time later, just give me a call and I'll swing back through,” Swansong said as I finally got out of my own head.
“Of course, thank you Ms. Swansong,” Dr. Hill said before looking toward me and giving me a nod and walking away.
“Trouble somewhere?” I asked curiously and she just nodded.
“Nah not yet, I told Dr. Hill that I’d swing through the cancer ward later tonight. He has been bringing in rounds of patients for me each day since we can’t exactly just bring in every single person with cancer in the city in the blink of an eye,” she explained and started walking down a long hallway.
“Cancer?” I started and then thought about it for a second before reopening our chat window.
I stopped in my tracks as she kept walking and found myself staring at her slightly slack jawed. She continued a few more feet before she realized I had stopped and turned to look at me.
“What?” She asked.
“Sorry, that’s just… kinda amazing actually,” I said, prompting yet another blush from her.
“Oh… thank you… I’m just doing what I can,” She said with a soft smile and then nodded at a door just a few more feet up the hall. “It’s this one right here.”
“You know, you still haven’t exactly told me who you’ve brought me here to meet or why it’s so important,” I said and she just smiled.
“Ok, I know this is gonna be a bit weird,but uh… well I think he might just be in the running as your biggest fan,” she said, holding up a finger to stop the immediate question that I began to ask before pushing the door open, spinning on her heel, and entering the room. “Hey Ryan, how’s my favorite trooper doing?”
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“Swansong! Three days in a row, that’s so cool! Did you figure out how to sing this away?” I heard a voice reply to her and slowly inched toward the door.
“Nah, not yet, but once I do, you’ll be the first one I visit,” she replied and I could hear clear humor in her voice. She was blocking my view of the rest of the room but she looked over her shoulder as I entered and smiled. “I’m actually just passing through before I go up to 6 and heal another floor of people, but I have a friend here that I thought you’d like to meet.”
“A friend?” The voice asked. I kept walking forward, finally seeing just far enough around the corner to put my eyes on a preteen with short buzzed hair that, even as short as it was, was fiery red. He sat in a hospital bed, an entire leg wrapped in a cast and held aloft by a harness as he smiled up at Swansong. His bright blue eyes widened as soon as I came into view and his attention darted between Swansong and myself. “Th- th- that’s Loophole… You’re Loophole… You know Loophole…. Oh my god, when did you meet Loop-”
“Take a breath Ryan,” Swansong sighed and I looked from her and down to the kid who couldn’t have been older than maybe 10 or 11. I highlighted him, already suspecting I knew what the outcome was going to be.
“Warning: Information on this Sapient NPC has been blocked due to the Secret Identity rule, preventing me from disclosing more information to you.”
I thought about Jon for a few minutes and how much he had always talked about getting powers as well and couldn’t help but suppress a laugh as Ryan practically buzzed in his bed, looking between the two of us.
“Mr. Loophole, I’ve watched all your fights! I think you’re so cool and I love your outfit, orange is such a cool color and I, I wanted to, I…” Ryan tried again, the words stumbling over each other as he spoke himself right out of breath. The chat window faded away as I focused on the boy. He stared at me with clenched fists and a fierce glare of determination as he calmed himself down with short shallow breaths. “The way you took down all of those snakes! You were moving around like you were in total control and then PEW! You went rocketing up into the air and then POW! You went and wiped the whole group out in a single sweep!”
I couldn’t help but laugh as I stepped up to Ryan’s bedside and held out a hand toward him. He quickly grabbed it with both of his smaller hands and started to shake my arm almost like he was trying to tear it off.
“It’s nice to meet you Ryan, Swansong told me you’re uh… my biggest fan?” I said and saw him shoot Swansong a glare that vanished as soon as he looked back over at me.
“On that note, I’m going to go and take care of the sixth floor,” Swansong said as she slowly started to back toward the door. “Ryan, you keep resting, that leg needs to recover and I still don’t have a way to knit bone back together. Loophole, meet me up on the roof in fifteen, sound good?”
“Sounds good, Swansong,” I said, not wanting to push her for now. I gave a thumbs up as she backed her way out of the door. As I had been slowly trying to let become a habit, my Area Sense ability activated and even beyond the wall I could feel as she came to a stop just on the other side of the door, leaning back against the wall.
To be fair, I couldn’t blame her, though I could question her judgement in bringing someone she didn’t even really know into such close proximity to her family. Him being a fan of mine didn’t even fully explain why she wanted me to meet him, though I was eager to try and find out. I held a hand out toward a chair at Ryan’s bedside.
“Mind if I take a seat, I just took out a giant robot spider and I could really use a break,” I said and he nodded enthusiastically as he grabbed a tablet from the table on the other side of his bed.
“It’s already online! That punch was incredible! I’ve been trying to figure out what your powers do but nothing makes sense!” He practically complained and I suppressed a laugh. Ryan was practically a little version of Jon. “I mean, at first I thought you were some sort of super strong telepath, but that didn’t make any sense after the snake swarm fight. I want to say it has something to do with gravity but then there’s a few shots of you teleporting too! What the heck is your power?!”
“I can do a little bit of everything,” I said, not exactly lying. I thought about it for a second, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder toward the door where I knew Swansong was still lingering before I continued. “I think you’re the first person to pick up on the gravity aspects though, so good eye.”
Ryan buzzed in his bed as something seemed to suddenly occur to him. He looked from side to side, leaning over and reaching into the table next to his hospital bed. A moment later he was holding out an orange sharpie toward me with an extremely eager expression.
“Could you sign my cast!?” He asked with a wide smile and I couldn’t help but return it to him.
While some of the non-Sapients and even more than a few Sapient adults had shown me admiration or had cheered for me during or immediately after fights, there was something different about the unrestrained excitement I could feel leaking off of Ryan. He was looking at me like… well like I was actually a superhero and I couldn’t help but feel an odd sensation of pride. I stood back up and took the sharpie from him.
“Of course I can, though I haven’t really signed this name just yet, so sorry if it looks funky,” I said and he just beamed back up at me.
"That makes it even cooler that I'm getting one of the first!!!"
His cast was relatively new, with only a few random signatures I didn’t recognize already on it. Near the top of the cast, just over his knee there was one in large, looping letters that read “Swansong” and I decided to sign underneath it.
“So how come I’m your favorite?” I asked, thinking about how to sign “Loophole” and realizing that that’s probably something I should at least have a basic idea of how to do. I didn't exactly plan on stopping and signing a whole lot of autographs, but even if I only signed a few others I needed to at least know how to do it. I decided to wing it and signed the name as quickly as I could, though it came out looking slightly wobbly and jagged.
“What’d’ya mean? You’re so cool and you work in the same city as me! I didn’t think I’d get the chance to actually meet you so soon but oh my god it’s so cool and maybe I actually owe Swansong an extra thank you!” He rattled off, his words threatening to merge together again. His energy was practically infectious as I smiled at him and handed the sharpie back over to him that he held up. "Plus like... no heroes ever really wear orange. It’s my favorite color!”
“I mean, I totally get that, I wouldn’t be rocking this jacket if I didn’t,” I said, and stepped back to the chair to sit back down. “But didn’t Swansong heal you? Kinda feels like that might boost her up higher, right?”
“She’s cool too…” He said, for the first time since I had entered the room he finally calmed down just a bit. “She kinda reminds me of my big sister though and she’s a jerk. I do really think Swansong is cool, but I mean, look at all the cool stuff you’ve been fighting and doing already! You're fighting snakes and bikers and giant robots and you can fly around and just- and just-”
“Well all I’m saying is I couldn’t have done that last punch on the robot spider without her,” I said, reaching over and patting him on the shoulder as the excitable kid tried to calm himself down again. He nodded and gave me another wide smile.
“She did just become even cooler now that I know she’s friends with you too!”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, though I smiled as Ryan started to rattle off a few more questions my way. I sat with him and talked for a little bit, letting his infectious energy give me something I hadn’t felt in quite a while. Real satisfaction.
The craziness that I had gotten embroiled into had felt like a weight that continually pushed me downward. While I had enjoyed some aspects of my powers, especially the flight, I had largely seen most of the world I had fallen into as a chaotic mess. Having Jon to help certainly did ease some of the burden, but even he seemed to take the craziness like it was just another drop in the bucket when it truly felt like a monsoon. Ryan, even though he was nearly a teenager, was still just a kid, and his admiration came from nothing more than pure, unadulterated wonder.
After a bit over fifteen minutes had passed, I excused myself from Ryan’s room, promising that I’d come back and see him before he got discharged.
Swansong fell into step beside me as we started for the elevator and looked at me hopefully.
“He’s a good kid,” I said as soon as we stopped, hitting the button to head for the roof. We stepped into the thankfully empty elevator and waited for it to close before Swansong hit the button for the top floor.
“I know it doesn’t make sense and that it’s probably a bit unreasonable,” She explained, anticipating my question as the elevator lurched upward. “But things are only going to get crazier, I know that that’s coming. I got lucky with the first phase and was able to just heal my way through it… but if things are going to get harder… if things are going to be dangerous enough that we need to rely on other people…. I need to be able to protect him… to protect my family…”
“I… I get that but again, what I still don’t get is… why me?”
Swansong looked at me with a mix of amusement and disbelief. “You really can’t be that dense right? You’re the top ranked Guardian, Loophole… Even if I did help, I just saw you take out over 75% of a giant robot’s health, that was higher leveled than you at that, with a single punch… and you wonder why I think you’d be a good person to team up with to protect the people and neighborhood I care about?”
“Yeah… but…” I started but stopped myself. Although I knew about TechWarden’s status at a Guardian, something that to me spoke to a complexity in the alignment system that went beyond “good and evil,” as far as I knew, I was the only one actually aware of that discrepancy. “Okay, I guess that makes sense… But maybe let’s not just go diving into a Squad just yet.”
“Okay, okay, that's fair, we did just meet after all and you might get better offers... How about we be friends for now and if we run into any more robots we can give each other a holler?” Swansong gave me a wide smile as the doors to the elevator opened and we moved around to the stairs that gave roof access. A new window opened as Swansong sent me a Friend Request that I immediately accepted.
“That much I can very much do,” I said, taking in a breath of fresh air as we pushed our way onto the roof and back into the crisp late autumn air. “Just promise me something,” I added as I stretched, checking to make sure the Exhausted debuff had faded from my status bar.
“What’s that?” She asked curiously.
“If you’re actually going to be secretly working with another Augment to try and kill me, just leave snakes out of it.”
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