“Good morning!”
Brock opened his eyes, then screamed, almost wetting himself for the second time in as many days. KB drew back slightly, two arms still busy scanning Brock’s body, multiple devices extended from them. The rest of its whip-like appendages were doing the same across the room around Verdant, who yawned and glared sleepily at Brock.
“What’d you have to go and do that for?” she sniffed. “It’s too early in the morning to be that loud.”
Brock tried to bring his racing heart under control. It seemed like in this world, he was going to have to get used to waking up with horrible things above him. KB’s hellfire eyes brightened briefly, then the robot retracted the devices.
“Your vitals are strong and stable, Brock. I recommend a hearty breakfast in the cafeteria. Captain Swift let me know she will be arriving shortly to begin your testing regimen for the day. It has been my pleasure to assist you.” The robot turned completely towards Verdant. “You are recovering nicely, Operator Haze. The pathogen is under control, and should be completely neutralized by tomorrow evening. I am clearing you for light walking and moderate photosynthesis. Please report to rehab after you’ve eaten.”
“Yay,” Verdant said half-heartedly. “I love rehab.”
“You know it is necessary,” KB chided her.
Verdant pouted in response, then swung her feet out of the bed and into some fuzzy slippers. Brock noticed they had small pink flowers embroidered on them. When he looked down at the side of his own bed, he saw the same pair of light blue generic slip-ons he’d worn yesterday, the kind available in any hospital. They matched the color of the thin cotton pants he was still wearing.
Surprisingly, despite wearing the pants all day yesterday and sleeping in them, they still felt fresh and clean, as did Brock himself. A worm of suspicion gnawed into his mind.
“Uhhh, KB? Did you guys give me a bath or something? While I was asleep?”
KB let out the buzzsaw shriek that Brock was now pretty sure was its version of mild laughter.
“The beds have hygiene spells woven into the sheets and mattresses. It saves time when dealing with patients who have lost control of bodily functions, or cannot be moved.”
“Uhhh, cool, I guess. Thanks.” He pulled on the white t-shirt that Cap had tossed at him the day before. It, too, felt like it had been freshly laundered. His belly rumbled, and he looked around. “Where’s the cafeteria? And the bathroom?”
“Operator Haze, would you mind showing Brock the way? I have a pharmacy order coming in soon that I must attend to, along with some cleaning chores.”
Verdant paused at the exit to the room, letting out a small sigh.
“Yeah, I guess. Follow me, Sekkie.”
She started forward again and Brock hastened to join her, his slippers thwacking against the infirmary’s tile floor. Verdant’s blond hair bounced in front of him, and he finally caught up as they passed the entryway desk. A small disc that resembled a razor-blade frisbee hovered above the reception seat, a dangerous-looking cannon attached below its body. The whole thing was painted in cheerful shades of pink and yellow.
“Thank you, Verdant.”
KB’s voice came from the strange device, and Brock suspected it was one of the robot’s drones, a suspicion that hardened into certainty when he noticed the sticker running along the side of the cannon. It read, “Don’t Worry About The RUFF Stuff,” and featured a smiling dog’s face at the end, tongue hanging out to the side.
Verdant palmed open the door and led Brock into the slowly-becoming-familiar wood-paneled hallway outside, but took a left at the first intersection instead of the right Cap had taken him to meet the Director. After passing several more unmarked doors in silence, she took another left through an open archway.
The room beyond was an airy, open space featuring rows of polished circular metal tables surrounded by comfortable-looking red chairs. Groups of people were sitting at almost all of them, chatting happily while lifting food to their faces, or, in the case of some of the more esoteric individuals, crunching through precious gems, inhaling purple fumes from incense bowls, or replacing dead racks of batteries with fresh-glowing new ones. Potted ferns and other plants hung from the ceiling and along the side walls, giving the room an outdoor feel, and the back wall was entirely taken up by a long counter, beyond which could be seen a variety of cooking devices. A hint of moisture filled the air, carried by the suspended river coiling through and around the plants. Large fish swam through it with flicks of their silvery tails.
Verdant gave a brusque wave.
“There. The cafeteria. Bathroom’s in the back right corner.”
She marched along a central aisle towards the rear counter, clearly attempting to leave Brock behind, and he trailed after her, unsure of what to do. He didn’t see any menus or instructions for ordering, nor what the prices might be. As they approached the waist-high ledge, he cleared his throat nervously.
“Uhhh, excuse me, Miss Verdant-”
“What?” she snapped, spinning around to face him.
“How do I get food here?”
She spun forward again, blond hair whipping back and forth.
“You tell George what you want,” she pointed to a bluff, red-faced man in an immaculate, high-collared chef’s outfit and tall white hat standing behind the counter, “and he makes it. Duh.” Verdant stopped in front of the counter. “I’ll take a massive meat breakfast burrito and two UV soakers, please.”
“Coming right up, Operator Haze,” George replied cheerfully. As Brock watched in amazement, the man danced between various stoves, fridges, ovens, and other, stranger devices whose functions Brock had no clue of. It seemed like he was somehow in multiple places at once, and seconds later a chiming “ding” announced the appearance of an oval plate in front of Verdant. On it was a packed burrito nearly a foot long covered in red sauce and melted white cheese, and a pair of small lamps.
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“Thanks, George,” Verdant said, and carried off her food. The man gave her a small tip of his head, then smiled at Brock, a wide grin that stopped below his cheeks.
“And what can I get for you, Operator Vandal?”
Brock didn’t answer at first, confused by the name. Was the man talking to him? George’s eyebrows slowly rose in matching bewilderment, and then he noticed the choker around Brock’s neck. A complicated series of expressions flashed across his face, something Brock thought might be contempt mixed with glee. He leaned in closer with a conspiratorial air, his eyes sharpening.
“Ahh. I see. And what’s your name?”
“Uhhh, Brock. How’d you make that food so fast?”
George looked around, then unbuttoned the topmost button of his shirt, up near his adam’s apple. He tugged the collar aside slightly to reveal a familiar metal shape around his neck.
A Limiter.
When he saw Brock recognize it, he quickly rebuttoned his shirt.
“They don’t like to see it when I’m on the job,” he muttered. “Oh they’ll eat my food happy enough, all ‘please George’ this and ‘thank you George’ that, but seems like they lose their appetites when the shackles are visible.” He pulled back slightly, but kept his voice low. “So, how many NPCs did you get before they collared you? Couldn’t have been many, I just saw Operator Vandal yesterday.”
“I... I’m not sure-”
“Ooh, an indiscriminate one, eh? Good on ya.” George’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly his face was back in the cheerful mask he’d been wearing earlier. “NPCs coming,” he whispered. “Find me once you’ve been released and we’ll talk. The High Score; it’s a bar in the Sekkie District. I’m there every night.” His voice returned to loud joviality. “So, what can I make you?”
Brock felt lost. Again. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was hungry, and that it might be one of the only problems facing him he could currently address.
“...some scrambled eggs, please? With bacon? And orange juice?”
“Coming right up!”
George went into his frenzy of motion, and seconds later there was a “ding.” An oval plate packed with fluffy yellow eggs and crispy bacon lay on the counter in front of Brock, along with a set of silverware wrapped in a napkin and a brimming glass. It looked amazing, and his stomach rumbled again.
“...thanks.”
“My pleasure. Be seeing you!”
Brock picked up his meal and stepped away from the counter. A large troll replaced him, rumbling out her order in a voice that sounded like an avalanche mating with a thunderstorm. Brock didn’t pay attention to her words. He was looking for a place to sit, but all the tables were occupied, and he felt uncomfortable joining a group of strangers.
Finally, he spotted Verdant at a small table near some potted plants, ploughing through her burrito in massive bites, and made his way over. When he got close, she looked up and scowled, cheeks bulging around her current mouthful.
“Can... can I join you?” Brock asked tremulously. For a moment, he thought she was going to refuse, but then she swallowed and nodded. “Thanks.” She grunted, and went back to eating, ignoring the sauce covering her fingers except to periodically slurp it off. Brock arranged his napkin on his lap, then grabbed his fork.
The eggs were as deliciously light and fluffy as they looked, the salty crunch of bacon in his mouth was divine, and the orange juice tasted like it had been squeezed bare seconds before. The only sounds at their table for the next few minutes was the clink of fork on plate and Verdant’s smacking lips as she tore off pieces of her burrito.
Eventually, Brock put his fork down, satiated.
“Mmmm. That was delicious.” Across from him, Verdant had finished her burrito and was setting up the two lamps that had come with her meal. When she had them arranged to her satisfaction, she flicked a switch at their bases, and a deep purple light appeared on the table surface in a long rectangle. She rested her arms to the sides of the rectangle, and then green sprouts shot out of her skin and twined together in the glow. They seemed to pulse slightly, as if they were feeding off it.
Brock tried not to stare, but clearly failed, since Verdant looked up at him in annoyance.
“What? Didn’t your parents ever tell you it’s rude to gawk at someone while they’re eating?”
“I... what... you’re eating? I thought you ate the burrito?”
“The burrito was for me, dumbass. The UV is for my symbiote.”
“Your... symbiote?”
“I’m part plant, courtesy of some long-ago Sekkie asshole with a dryad fetish.” She sniffed. “It passes down through the female line of my family.”
“...how does that work?”
“How should I know? It’s your people with the warped mentalities, go ask them.” She smiled evilly. “There are some perks, though. For instance, it lets me control plant matter in a certain volume around me.”
Brock felt the cotton fabric around his legs and waist tighten, squeezing his thighs painfully. It reached his crotch, and he flushed, then whimpered as it continued to constrict. His bladder, and other things, felt like they were going to pop. Verdant grinned even wider.
“You’d be amazed at how many things have plants in them.”
Suddenly she sagged in exhaustion, face paling, the green leaves around her brow drooping, and the constriction around Brock’s nether regions eased slightly. He let out a huge whuff of breath, then gingerly tried to rearrange himself as unobtrusively as possible. Verdant slumped even lower, and Brock grew uneasy.
“Are you okay?”
Her head lolled to the side, and Brock jumped up to keep her from falling out of her chair. He almost dropped her as a circular shape hurtled through the air at them, slaloming around the heads of eating people. It banked to a halt next to the table.
It was KB’s pink and yellow drone, a small red alarm blinking around its edges. The cannon wagged up and down, almost like an angry finger, and it blatted a stern noise at Verdant.
“Operator Haze! I only cleared you for moderate photosynthesis! Report back to the infirmary at once!”
Verdant groaned, and waved a hand feebly at the drone.
“Bugger off, KB. I’ll be fine. Just need some more UV.”
“You are most certainly not fine! To the infirmary!” A light appeared at the end of the cannon. “Please stand back, Brock.”
Brock took a wary step back, one finger still on Verdant’s shoulder to keep her from tipping over, and then a web of light snapped out of the drone’s cannon and surrounded her entire body in a crackling cage. It sent a shock through Brock’s finger, and he snatched it away with a yelp of pain, sucking on the end of it to ease the burning. Somehow, the drone used it to lift Verdant out of her chair and arrange her in a prone position, as if she was lying on a stretcher. It didn’t appear to be causing her any discomfort, despite what it had done to Brock’s fingertip.
“Just you wait until I tell the Captain about this,” KB’s drone said peevishly. “You were supposed to be rehabbing today, not re-injuring yourself! Now I have to write up an incident report!”
“Not... boss... of me...”
The drone zipped out of the cafeteria, still lecturing the semi-conscious Verdant tucked beneath it, and the other diners watched with varying degrees of interest and amusement before returning to their food. It seemed like something they had seen before.
As Brock tracked the drone’s progress through the archway, he saw a familiar form walking towards him - a raven-haired woman with an eyepatch. She was dressed in a black business suit with a white dress shirt today instead of the black tactical gear, her hair tied back in a ponytail, but her wrists and fingers were still draped with silver rings and charms. She also carried a stack of folded gray clothes.
Cap shook her head as she stopped in front of him.
“Looks like you and Verdant are getting along like a house on fire,” she remarked, eyeing Brock’s now-skintight pants. “What’d you do to her?”
He blushed.
“I didn’t do anything! We were having breakfast, and I just asked her about her vines, and then, well, she did that.”
He gestured vaguely towards his waist, and then blushed again. His pants really didn’t leave much to the imagination anymore.
“That was very forward of you,” Cap said drily. “Usually you should take someone on at least a couple dates before you ask them about their vines.” Brock’s face felt like it was going to burn up from sheer embarrassment. Cap tossed the bundle of clothes at him. “Here, I brought some workout stuff for you to wear during the testing. Why don’t you go get changed while I eat. We’ll head out when I’m done.”
Brock clutched the clothes to his groin and fast-walked to the bathroom. Hopefully he could find a way to get the pants off before his bladder, and other parts, exploded.
At least, he thought to himself, the day can’t get any worse.