Chapter 15

Waking up after turning around to days was always weird to me. My body goes to night-shift mode with the snap of a finger, but turning back around so that I sleep at night and am awake when the sun is up is a total bitch. Caffeine helps, but it’s a crutch and you need to use (abuse) it with caution. I’m totally addicted now, so that particular battle is lost.

Feeding my addiction and lighting a candle had become my morning ritual and I was halfway through this most religious service when my new telephone rang. It’d been handed it me when I’d left the cops after agreeing to be their stooge.

“Pack a bag, two sets of nicer clothes, two sets of inconspicuous tourists clothes, two hats and all your toiletries. We pick you up in 15.” The voice that sounded like the ‘Mace’ guy. He didn’t say anything about my passport or wallet so I figured we’d be staying in-country. They were coming too, but the fact that he hadn’t said anything about them made me nervous for some reason.

Sixteen years with a traveling hockey team gives you some pro skills at packing a bag, even then, the car was out front before I’d managed to zip the case closed.

“Where we headed?” I asked, thinking that the two remaining days I had off should be enough to visit some prisons nearby and scoop weapons and Silver from our convicts.

“The morgue” came the tight reply from the front seat. Mace hadn’t told me to get into the back, but I’d just done it anyways. “Think of it as a test ... and signing bonus.”

I thought back to those who I’d taken from. Some of those had died, and two of them had to die for me to get this skill but I’d never actually tried to loot a corpse. “Funny, but I don’t recall signing anything. In particular I don’t recall ever seeing a pardon for my previous misdeeds ... you know, the ones that are either ‘real or imagined’.”

“Test first, paper second, assignment third” was his curt reply, and I stayed in my own thoughts for the rest of the ride.

The car pulled up to a hospital in about twenty minutes. It was a generic one and I’d never been to this particular edifice before but it looked like it’d been designed by someone trying to copy old Soviet-block boring-grey efficiency. Mace parked the car in the police designated spot and told me to leave the bag behind. We walked in without opposition; down elevators and through twisted corridors to a small room with three chairs and a small table.

“This is the morgue?” I asked, expecting something else.

“That is the morgue” said the huge black guy in the same brown suit I’d seen him in each time before. He was pointing at the far wall. “Your target is in cold storage on the other side of that wall.”

I was surprised, but recalled his cryptic comment about a test. There had been a vague idea in my mind to ‘Nerf’ my skills, and just report that I couldn’t take the dead’s stuff just their Silver and weapon. Problem was that they’d cornered me here. I couldn’t tell if the guy (girl?) on the other side of the wall was alive or dead. They could be another agent for all I knew. They weren’t moving around though, and to me it didn’t appear to be any different than normal. I had to play this straight. “I can see it, what do you want me to do with it?” I asked calmly.

“Dump it all on this table...” Mace’s low voice rumbled.

A large scimitar, 30 Silver, a big wood pipe (that was full of something called ‘pipeweed’) and a single Brass key. “So it works, can I keep it?” I asked, pretty certain that this was a setup but also kinda interested in getting fucked-up on that pipeweed stuff.

Mace raised an eyebrow, “I guess that was the deal” he grumbled just as I glanced down to see the Scimitar disappear. I guess that answered that question. “But it’d probably be better if you got outta here before she gets here, that thing looked sharp” he grinned as he applied some mint-scented lip balm.

My personal life-preservation skills kicked into overdrive and I raced out into the hall where my experience from Xavier’s saved my ass. Turning into the nearest storage closet, I grabbed a set of generic green scrubs and dropped the rest of my stuff into the pockets. Loading up my arms with towels and blankets, I exited the room just in time to avoid being run down by one of the largest, fastest women I had ever seen. Her tight brown braids flying as she ripped open door after door poking her head in and quickly looking about. She crossed the hall, paying me and my pile of towels little or no attention before ripping open the door to the room I’d been in with Mace.

“You!” She screamed in both anger and shock.

There was a low grumbling that could well have been Mace laughing. I hustled down the hall, leaving my shirt and chinos behind. A small price to pay for avoiding that particular situation. I may have been able to steal that woman’s weapon, but she moved faster than I’d ever seen anyone that size move before. Given her size she could well have beaten me senseless, weapon or no weapon. I could take her stuff, but I still would have had her to deal with, as well as all her skills (whatever they were). I was going to have to think about how I eventually spent my own Status points. Right now, the ability to run away really really fast seemed like a damn good idea.

The cafeteria coffee here was as bad as it was at Xavier’s. It’s really not all that hard to make well, and yet every ‘corporate’ cup of coffee manages to include the taste of soap, wax, and fabric. It’s just too weird.

The cafeteria was where Mace found me about a half hour later. He didn’t just step off the elevator, see me in the corner and make a bee-line for the table. Instead he just stepped around the column and sat down opposite me as though he knew where I was already.

Interesting.

“You seeing that nurse?” I asked casually, while contemplating another sip of the brown dishwater before me.

“She’s a Doctor, actually”. He was trying to play it cool, but I got the impression that my comment bothered him. “We needed to see if we could trust you” he continued. Using the ‘We’ to reduce his responsibility for the event.

“She could’ve killed me...” I deadpanned.

“Yup” he smiled. “You wouldn’t last a second against her. Let’s go.” and he turned and strode off back again through the twisting corridors of the bowels of the place. One sign I kept noticing was a small one that pointed to the morgue.

Holy Smokes, he wasn’t kidding about that.

We entered the nondescript double doors and found ourselves in a small waiting room, a note on the wall asked that we ‘Ring Bell For Attendant’.