Thea

The cement hallways of the hospital basement were dingy, but it was the strangely sterile kind of dingy that only a well-maintained hospital could manage.

I teased Bryce every chance I could, and she gave nearly as well as she got. It seemed like she was doing okay, and that kind of worried me.

She was clearly compartmentalizing, which wasn’t great long-term, but also kind of necessary given the circumstances. It felt like the best I could do was watch her, and pull her back to the now if she started to slip. The whole situation made me feel oddly helpless, and I kind of hated it.

We eventually reached another pair of elevator doors, but as I approached the console, Bryce stopped me.

“Wait, Thea, I want to check the stairwell for a staff entrance or an emergency exit first. It’s better if we can avoid walking around upstairs where we’re more likely to run across somebody who knows we’re not supposed to be here.”

I shrugged and tried the nearby doors, but they only opened partway before they were stopped by a chain.

“So much for ‘use stairs in event of an emergency,’” I said.

Bryce raised an eyebrow and gave me a cocky grin. “Do you think you could get them open? Oh, mighty duchess of doors?”

“‘Duchess of doors’? What happened to ‘Slayer of innocent doors’? I think I liked that one better.” I pulled the door as far as the chain would allow, so that I could inspect the padlock that was holding it together.

“Do you? I thought you preferred ‘Seducer of Errant Princesses.’ Did you give up the noble pursuit?”

Was that a pun? I snorted and continued to inspect the chain while responding over my shoulder.

“I think I learned my lesson with that one. Errant princesses are not to be seduced. They are to be approached with optimistic caution, and never enter an elevator alone with one, they’re nature’s perfect predator.”

I closed the door most of the way and then pulled it open hard. There was a loud metallic crash as it swung open. The chain dropped to the floor with the handle still attached.

Bryce startled at the loud crash, then glared at me. I just returned the glare with an innocent smile and tried to direct her through the open door.

“So much for stealth, I suppose.” She stepped past me and started up the stairs towards the next level.

I followed her. It wasn’t like we had seen a single person since we arrived. Besides, trying to melt through the chain would have probably just set off the fire alarm, which wasn’t something that I was in a hurry to repeat.

There was a pretty substantial landing at the top of the stairs, which had more stairs and a pair of doors. One door presumably led back into the hospital. The other made me think it was an emergency exit, and I figured an alarm would sound if we tried to open it.

I mostly thought that because there was a bright red sign on it that read “Emergency Exit Only: Alarm will sound if opened.”

Bryce clearly lacked my deductive reasoning skills, because she just walked right through the door.

When no alarm sounded, I did the same, and we found ourselves in a dark parking lot.

“Wasn’t there supposed to be an alarm?” I asked.

“I noticed that somebody had disconnected the power to the door. The hospital staff probably just wanted an easier way to get to the employee parking lot.”

Fair enough, I supposed. Honestly, I probably would’ve done the same in their position. Not that I could imagine myself ever working at a hospital. I would make a truly horrible doctor or nurse, although I could probably pull off a nurse’s uniform pretty well…

“Do you think I’d look good in a nurse outfit?” I asked. “The skimpy kind, not like a real one.”

“Wha—what? Where did that come from?” Bryce started giving me an incredulous look, but that didn’t last long before it turned to an adorable blush.

“Just thinking about stuff.” I clapped my hands together, then rested them on my waist. “Okay, we’re out of the hospital, mission accomplished. What now?”

“Um, right, now we need to find somebody who can set up a meeting with Teolix,” Bryce said. “I don’t actually know anybody with that kind of connection, but I figure if we can find somebody breaking the law, then we can just ask them nicely to direct us towards somebody with enough clout to set up the meeting.”

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“Where do we find somebody breaking the law?”

Bryce scratched at the top of her head, which caused more of her curly hair to come loose from her failing ponytail.

“Well, that’s kind of the question, I suppose. The crime rate in New Eden is pretty high and we’re on the outskirts, which is where most of that crime happens. We can probably just walk around and something will pop up.”

“Wait, you’re not serious. That’s your master plan? Walk around and hope for crime?” It was my turn to try on the incredulous look, and I was aiming it right at a very sheepish Bryce.

“Well, yeah. That’s the basics of it.”

“Huh. Alrighty then, lead the way I guess.”

~~~~

We walked around aimlessly for about an hour. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any crime, but we did find a bodega that was selling a mystery meat product on a skewer that made my stomach growl. So, we took a quick break and bought a few from a very nice human gentleman behind the counter.

Bryce was looking kind of defeated sitting on the corner with me. She had hardly even touched her mystery stick meat. So I tried my best to cheer her up.

“It’s okay, Bryce. I’m sure that somebody is getting robbed or murdered somewhere not too far from here. We just need to keep searching. I mean, this neighborhood is pretty terrible, it really is just a matter of time.”

The guy from the bodega must have heard what I said because I heard a series of curses coming from inside that were clearly directed at me. I noted the more colorful ones that I hadn’t heard before, just in case I needed to use them in the future.

Bryce looked towards me and started to respond, but stopped as her gaze shifted past me, further up the street.

I turned to look and saw a greasy-looking man a few meters away. He had a hand in a pocket of the overly loose pair of pants he was wearing.

It looked like he had a weapon. At least, I hoped it was a weapon, because I didn’t want to have to explain the bulge with anything else.

He seemed kind of twitchy and was walking like his right knee didn’t bend very well.

Thankfully? He spotted us and was heading in our direction. I had never been so happy to be approached by a likely high and potentially armed, or masturbating, man.

“Hey look, it’s a friend.” I elbowed Bryce. She had a look on her face that made it seem like she was now regretting her plan even more than when she had thought that New Eden had miraculously become crime free overnight.

“You girls looking to party tonight?” the greasy, twitching man asked.

“Oh, thank the gods, you’re a drug dealer.” Bryce actually sighed with relief at the revelation.

Greasy perked up and smiled, revealing a set of perfectly rotted teeth. It seemed like he wasn’t used to a beautiful woman like Bryce being happy to see him.

“Selling anything good?” I was curious what drugs they had on the mortal planes. Besides, I figured we may as well mix a little pleasure with our business.

Greasy directed his charming grin my way and pulled his hand out of his pocket along with the bulge. That must have startled Bryce, because she reached an arm out to push me back so that she could put herself between me and our new friend.

It really was a useless gesture. I was the only one that was armed and I was also physically much stronger than her.

I also thought that the mystery meat on a stick was a bigger threat to our health than Greasy was.

“Whoa, it’s alright, no need to get jumpy. I’m just trying to show your pretty little friend here the merchandise.” Greasy held up both hands in a placating manner, one of which had a large bag filled with smaller bags. Each small bag contained various amounts of illicit substances in wonderfully vibrant colors.

I was starting to like Greasy; he thought I was pretty.

“We’re not looking to buy any drugs. We need to set up a meeting with Teolix and I expect you know somebody who can get us in touch with him.”

Greasy’s eyes went wide, and he shoved the bag of drugs back into his pocket before backing away slowly.

“Sorry, can’t help you. Have a wonderful night, ladies.” He turned and started shuffling away, so I stood up and moved at what I would hardly consider a fast walk to get in front of him. He was really slow with his bad knee.

I placed a hand on his chest and got close enough that he could hear me whisper.

“How much for the entire bag?” I spoke in a low tone so that Bryce wouldn’t be able to make out what I said.

“But your friend—”

“Look threatened dammit! And don’t speak so loud. How much for the entire bag, and do you take gold?” I interrupted him and tried my best to look threatening.

“Nine-hundred credits, and no, I wouldn’t even know what to do with a bunch of gold.”

Nine-hundred was nearly all of what I had won off of Daelin playing cards, so I could technically afford it. The only problem was that I had no idea how much nine-hundred credits actually was, so I didn’t know if it was a ripoff.

“Hey Bryce, is nine-hundred credits a lot?” I leaned past Greasy’s shoulder to ask Bryce.

She was holding her forehead in her palm, but responded after a long-suffering sigh.

“Yes, Thea, it’s a lot, but not an unreasonable amount for a large bag of mystery drugs.”

“Oh sweet, here you go.” I pulled the credits out of my storage and offered them to the bewildered man. He cautiously took the money before dragging the bag of drugs out of his pocket and handing it to me. I disappeared the bag into my storage and looked back up towards Greasy.

“Okay, we’re all good here. You can head out.”

Greasy nodded and almost walked away before Bryce interrupted the poor guy.

“No, we’re not done here. Now you’re out of product and loaded up with cash. You’ll want to go back to your supplier to restock and I imagine your boss is going to want to meet your biggest customer of the night.”

“I really can’t. The boss doesn’t like it when—”

“If you don’t want to take us to them, then I’m sure the devil standing in front of you wielding a sword would be more than happy to convince you of the many merits of our company.”

Greasy looked to me as a lifeline, but I only brandished my sword and mouthed an apology in reply.