St. Gygax Memorial Hospital
“That was fun.”
August, sitting by her hospital bed, turned to see Alexia, finally conscious and with a wide grin on her face. He lets out a chuckle and sigh of relief, telling her “Only you would call that fun.”
“How long was I out?”
“Close to an hour. How you feeling?”
“Like I just got my skull smashed in. What did the doc say?”
“Your skull is fractured, but there probably won’t be permanent neurological damage, but but you should see a neurologist just in case. Also said that you were damn tough and lucky to get off essentially scott free from something like that.”
“Well pro’ly not lucky but” Alexia weakly raised her hands and gestured to herself “we both know I’m the toughest bitch on the planet. How you doing?”
“I’ll live; just some bruised knuckles. Oh, and there’s a detective here that wants to talk to you, get your witness statement.”
“Pfft. Well, send him in the cop. Don't have anything better to… do…”
The carefree look of Alexia, which August had learned to be her default state, fades.
“Oh God, that cop.” Alexia continues. “That guy he- he just ripped her open. A fucking cop!”
August, who allowed his worry of his best friend to push thoughts of the cop out of his mind, does not have words of comfort. For his friend or himself.
“Yeah. Yeah, he uh- he did.”
Alexia lets a deep breath in and out, before saying “Okay, get the detective, August. Let’s see what we can do to help.”
In Another Room
“How are you holding up?” Jessica asks the young woman sitting by an unconscious middle-aged man’s hospital bed. The girl is reapplying make-up that was lost to tears earlier and quickly puts the compact away when she sees Jessica’s head poke through the open door.
“Fine. I’m holding up just fine.” Willow responds, too distressed to make the lie convincing. “Not to sound ungrateful, and believe me I am beyond grateful,” she continues “but what are you doing here? Isn’t your job done?”
Jessica shrugs. “I guess I just felt kinda guilty about the whole thing. I decided to fight that man instead of help and your daddy lost quite a lot of blood because of it. I just wanted to check on him. How is he?”
“The doctors are letting him rest. They told me he’ll be good as new in a few months. Whatever they’re paying you, it is not enough. Not enough to deal with crazy bastards with rapiers, anyway.”
Jessica decides to not correct her mistake of referring to what the EMT remembers to be a bat as a rapier. Seems like a bad time. “You’re right about that. I’m a volunteer, don’t get paid at all.”
“Wait, seriously? If you’re not getting paid for this than what are you doing it for?”
“Um… cause people need EMTs? What more reason do I need?”
Willow pauses for a moment, considering what Jessica just said.
“But you’re providing a valuable service to people. Don’t you deserve compensation for that? You’re giving up your time and putting your life on the line.”
Jessica shrugs again. “Maybe, but I’m happy as long as I know that people have better lives because of me.”
“Well here.” Willow tells her, getting up and reaching inside of her purse. She pulls out a roll of hundred mercuan bills. “Take this; it's the least I can do in return.”
“Well, I’m not going to refuse, but you don’t have to do this. You can just accept the free help.”
“No. You gave me your time and help and resources so I need to give you something in return. Look this much money is a drop in the bucket for me, okay? Just take it.”
Hesitantly, Jessica does so. “If you insist, but there is such a thing as altruism, you know.”
In Yet Another Room
“Knock knock.” Detective Sanders says as she enters Vito’s hospital room. Vito is currently getting his left shoulder stitched up, a task he insisted on going through with out pain meds. He’s slightly regretting it at the moment.
“Hey, Sands. You here to check up on me? Didn’t think you cared so much.” Vito told her, smiling through the pain.
“Actually I’m here to collect your statement. Boss man has decided to burden me with figuring out who decided to try and kill one of the mayor’s favorite people so I could really use it.”
“Man, sucks to be you right now. Okay, let me see. It was about 10:30 or so. Sam and I were sitting in the car and… talking.”
Sanders gives a knowing nod, all too familiar with conversations with Officer Samantha.
Vito continues. “Then this crowd, well mob of runs out of the mansion and this woman runs up to the car and starts screaming about some guy with an ax killing Sirocco. I run in and she sends the message over the radio. When I get in there, this man in a large trench coat is attacking Sirocco with an ax. I open fire, though I’m not sure if I hit him.”
Sanders suppresses any reaction of frustration to his statement. She had interviewed all of the others that fought the man and what they remember him wielding and wearing varied wildly. One said he was wearing a biker get up and a helmet, another said a construction worker’s uniform and hard hat. One person said he was wielding an honest-to-God sword and one said a sledgehammer. It is only natural to expect the statements to vary in details, human memory being the imperfect process that it is, but having such massive discrepancies between memories of people that fought the man was… strange.
“He turns and sees me, runs over and I keep firing, but I just can't hit him. He took a swing at me and missed and his ax got stuck in the floor. He pulls it out and Sam comes in just in time for him to take a swing at her and rip her guts out.
…
Which was absolutely terrible, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Then those other three people came in. I have no idea where from, but I’m certainly not complaining. They helped me fight him off, well, helped me survive long enough for backup to arrive. We fought him for… just a few seconds, really. Oh and the Sirocco girl was there but, surprisingly enough, was smart enough to stay in the hallway. The rest of cops showed up soon after and you know the rest.”
Back in Sirocco's Hospital Room
“Willow?” Mr. Sirocco says, pushing through the fog of his half-awakeness.
“Daddy!” Willow responds, more excited than she had been in a long time. She rushes over and hugs her father prompting-
“Ow! Ow!” he tells her, causing her to recoil quickly.
“Sorry! Sorry, I just-”
“It’s fine, honey. I’m happy to see you to. Especially after what just happened.”
Willow stands hugging the bed, making sure to not touch her father. “Who was that? Who attacked you?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Sweetheart, can you hand me my phone? I need to make a call and make sure the company is all right.”
“Uh, yeah yeah, sure. Here-” she grabbed his phone from a table on the other side of the room “-you go.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. Also, can you fetch the doctor, please? Let him know that I’ll be moving to Dr. Elliot’s care.”
“Yes, of course.” She said, turning and walking to the door before turning back and saying “I’m really glad that you’re okay.”
“And I’m really glad that you’re okay, Willow.”
With that, she heads off and Mr. Sirocco makes his phone call.
Sirocco Industries R&D Office
As Mary finishes an email composed of mostly beration of one of her underlings for his incompetence, a terrible feeling of darkness envelopes her. Just as she begins to wonder where this feeling comes from, she gets her answer. Her phone rings and without even looking at it, she knows, deep in her soul, that it’s her boss calling to berate her for her incompetence. She takes a deep breath and answers the call that she has been dreading for the past few hours.
“Good evening, Mr. Sirocco.”
“Mary. Explain.”
“Roughly three hours ago, the subject of Project: Juggernaut escaped his holding facility, killing the entire present staff on his way out, and taking back his old uniform and weapon. Next thing we know, he’s attacking your charity ball.”
“Where is he?”
“We’re looking for him.”
“How the hell did this happen? Why didn’t I know about it earlier?” her boss demands to know, pushing as much anger into his words a possible without raising his voice.
“As I said, he killed the entire staff on shift. He cut power and communications and then made sure no one left to to tell what had happened. There was simply no one alive to tell us.”
“Fix this, Mary. Or it’s- thank you, Mary. I’m glad to see that everything is running smoothly.”
Back in Sirocco’s Hospital Room
Willow brings the doctor in just as her father finishes talking with some highly placed employee. He hangs up just in time to hear the doctor’s protests.
“Mr. Sirocco, I must insist you stay under our care. The police will be far more capable of protecting you here.” the doctor.
“I appreciate your intentions, Dr…. Maxwell,” Sirocco responded, eyeing the physician’s ID tag “but I have my own private physician and security detail. Should this man strike again, I can’t very well make the staff and especially the patients pay the price of my misfortune. No, my daughter and I will be moving to a private safe house.”
“While that is noble-”
“Don’t bother, Dr. Maxwell. My mind is already made up on the matter. As soon as I can reclaim my effects, my daughter and I will be out of you hair.”
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