Getting the assurances that Jack sought took less effort than he thought they would. In his imagination it would require fierce verbal debates about how soon they could be released and what procedures they would need to go through finally culminating in a strained agreement written down in blood upon oathbound paper.

Instead of augments there were simple reasonable suggestions from both sides that were outright accepted or objected to with valid concerns. The only things that were really true out of all of his imaginings were the necessity of procedures to ensure that a person was truly free of the system’s power and the use of oathbound paper to make it so that everyone’s words were kept.

It was only a short while before everything was written up and awaiting their signatures to finalize the contract. The reason that it was not signed already, was that for the oaths to fully bind the signatories it needed a mana rich environment not the dearth of energy that they were currently in.

It had helped the process a great deal having Charise present. Not only was she a working example of what they were looking for, but she was also far more mentally stable and helpful then Jack was currently. It was more amazing to everyone that was there that even with his numerous wounds he was functioning at all much less the fact that when he was able to focus on what was going on. Even more surprising was that when he was able to bring his attention back to the present his suggestions were actually good.

Once everything was prepared, Charise and Madam Blue stood up from the table and made to head out of the tent. Jack attempted to stand, only to find that he was unable to move from his seat. His immediate thoughts went to treachery. That the director had been waiting for this moment the entire time and that a platoon of security was just about to burst through the tent entrance and wrestle him to the ground.

As Jack lost himself in his delusions Charise leaned over and asked, “Hey. Everything okay?” When he didn’t respond, she poked him in the side hoping to get some kind of reaction out of him.

Her poke to his side did indeed get a reaction. Jack managed to halfway stand while mumbling out “Nahgonna geme. I managet dis far. I gonna… I gonna.”

His body swayed at his attempt to stand. He promptly fell forward, smacked his head on the edge of the table, bounced off and collapsed in a heap on the ground. Both women stared in shock for a second at the sudden bout of clumsiness and self-injury that had resulted.

Charise broke free of her stupor at what occurred and knelt down next to Jack’s body to check him over. She let out a sigh of relief after checking his pulse. He was still alive and his pulse was steady. She had known he was in a bad state and had been getting progressively worse as time went on, but from just how he performed under pressure she had thought that he would make it all the way to the signing of the contract itself before he collapsed not just simply the creation of it.

She turned toward Madam Blue and stated. “If we can let him rest for a little bit here and do the testing and everything here after he wakes up. I think we’re still all good.” She paused briefly before adding. “Could use a bandage for his head though.”

Madam Blue nodded. “I was going to suggest retiring for a time myself once the contract was signed as it seemed to be a poor choice to proceed while Mr. Bertrand here was in such a dismal state. Considering the safety’s worked into the contract it would likely still be a good idea to see if we can rouse him so that we can accomplish that step here before too much time goes by.”

Charise became slightly nervous at that. Did the director want to rush the signing because she had hidden some kind of clause or language in there that would fuck them over? Taking a deep breath she thought through the possibilities, and realized that she would have felt nervous no matter what the director had said. If the director had immediately agreed instead to letting Jack rest and recover then she would have been suspicious that by not signing the contract they would just be taken prisoner instead and forced back into the complex to be used as lab rats.

Shaking her head slightly to clear out all of her extraneous thoughts Charise nodded and waved a hand at Jack’s unconscious body. “Sounds good. If you got someone we should probably have them take a look over him and make sure that he’s really okay.”

Madam Blue nodded and made a gesture over Charise’s shoulder. Soon after there was the noise of the tent flaps hitting each other. Charise looked over and saw them swinging gently to a stop. Glancing back toward the director she raised in eyebrow silently asking just what had occurred behind her back.

Madam Blue smiled softly and replied to the unspoken question. “Bjorn was checking in due to the noise that Mr. Bertrand made falling over. I sent him to comply with your suggestion that we have one of the medical staff look him over. He should be going right now to see if we have any of them on hand at the moment. If we don’t, he’ll call one in or have them sent over to us. We should have at least one on hand right now however to help deal with any injuries that occur during our reestablishment of order in the facility.”

Charise considered what was said for a minute before giving a curt nod and sitting back onto her heels next to Jack. While Jack’s anxiousness and her own feeling of being thrown into the deep end after waking up from a long slumber certainly caused her to be worried, the director and other staff had also not given her any particular reason to distrust them. Madam Blue had admitted to being disingenuous to Jack in terms of what he had gone through after he had freed himself from the control of whatever the parasite was, but that very same honesty made Charise feel that they would honor their word and the contract even before it was fully codified.

Either way, she didn’t really have any other option but to trust them. It wasn’t like she would be able to pick up Jack’s unconscious body and be able to flee from the camp. She still had no mana to fuel her enhancements and as she was in a meeting with the director there were certainly more guards around them then just Bjorn.

A few minutes ticked by and Madam Blue excused herself, stating that she needed to get back to overseeing their operations. As she walked from the tent, she added that all they needed to do was send someone to notify her when Jack woke up and they would proceed with the signing of the contract.

More time passed and Charise found herself playing silly children’s games to stave off the boredom. Eventually after about half an hour Bjorn reappeared with a small woman in tow.

She was a fairly young woman, wearing a white doctor’s smock completely coated in blood, making it look like she had just come from a war zone. Charise found it a bit odd as other then the bodies that they had found in the security office she hadn’t really seen any grievous wounds on anyone. It was certainly possible that she had missed something but all she could recall were more minor injuries or those caused by blunt trauma. Besides that, it really should not have been too difficult for the woman to be able to either get her equipment cleaned or replaced.

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The lady walked over to where Jack was laying upon the ground. He was still in the same location that he collapsed as Charise did not want to chance making anything worse by moving him. As the doctor approached him Charise sidled over to Bjorn and whispered, “Why is that lady soaked in blood? Did I miss something? I know that I didn’t see anything while we were coming out of the building that would have caused even half that mess that she is covered with.”

A look of thought crossed Bjorn’s face as he listened to Charise. He looked back over at the young woman, now crouched right above Jack, just in time to see her pulling a sharp knife out from the inside of her clothing. As soon as he saw the glint of metal he reached down to his waist and pulled his sidearm out and shot. Due to the speed, his aim was slightly off. Only managing to get her in the left hip. The shock and pain of the blow was enough however to cause the woman to drop the weapon.

As the weapon fell Charise dashed forward tackling the girl, taking her down hard. Jack let out a loud wheeze as the two women landed on top of him solidly, the sudden impact waking him up.

His eyes wide open the only thing that Jack could see was a mass hair and cloth right in front of his face. Too close to really make much sense other then there was a mix of blond and bark brown hair and red, white, and purple fabrics. As the mess right in front of his eyes moved, he was able to tell that it was two women fighting right on top of him. Their struggle for dominance causing him to be trapped and hit repeatedly.

Not wanting to be stuck and injured anymore then he already was Jack joined into the fray. It taken a bit for his tired mind to associate the faux blonde hair and purple fabric to his companion of the last few hours but as soon as he did, he tried his best to help secure the dark-haired woman.

The frantic action ended and time snapped jarringly back to normal speed. Between the two of them Jack and Charise trapped the girl’s 0arms and legs and made her unable to move. As they sat upon the wiggling body Bjorn came barreling over with a pair of runic bracelets, shouting “Here put these on her!”

Quick enough that Jack felt like he had blinked and missed it, Charise snatched the bracelets from Bjorn’s hands and snapped them in place on the girl’s wrists. As she did so the woman let out an angry scream, “Grrraaah. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you! You can’t keep us here forever. The Great System punish you for what you have done!”

Jack was shocked at the realization that this was another of the victims being housed within the facility. How had the people here not noticed both her escape from the building as well as whatever she had done while in the makeshift camp itself? Just as he was wondering that he heard shouting from outside the small tent that they were all standing in. It was someone bellowing that they needed people over to the medical tent immediately.

He looked back over at the bound woman and now that he wasn’t distracted by being awoken to a melee taking place on top of him, he could see that what he had originally thought to be a mix of red and white fabrics was in fact a blood-soaked doctor’s coat. Turning slightly so that he could keep at least one eye on her he asked Bjorn and Charise. “Do you know where she came from?”

Charise shrugged and pointed at Bjorn, “He brought her in here from somewhere.”

Bjorn looked embarrassed and scratched the back of his head as he admitted. “I went over to the medic’s area and just grabbed the first person I saw wearing their gear.”

Looking at him in askance Jack couldn’t stop himself as the words came out “The blood stains and everything weren’t a warning sign that something was wrong?”

“Erm. Well, I didn’t look at her from the front. I just grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her here. Please don’t tell the madam. I need this job and it wasn’t easy getting hired on here.” Bjorn explained.

Charise shrugged and looked back at Jack as he was the one who had almost been killed from Bjorn’s mistake. Jack meanwhile had no idea that he had almost died yet again, as his stabbing had been prevented before he woke up. To him, it was just a simple mix up that had been sorted as soon as they had realized. He told Bjorn as much waving it off. “Sure. It’s fine. That kind of thing can happen to anyone. None of us were hurt, well other then the new bruising on my chest, and this pain in my head.” As he started listing his new pains he paused before asking, “Also… what happened? Last I remember, we were still going over contract details with the director.”

“I’m not surprised. We had finished up while you were kinda out of it. Just as we were all about to head over to where we could sign the thing, you stood up, mumbled something, no real idea what the heck you were trying to say, and then fell forward bashing your head on the table. It’s why this guy here was grabbing a doc. They were supposed to look you over and make sure you didn’t… you know. Injure your brain or anything.” Charise spoke loudly, almost yelling to be heard over the shrieks of the bound woman. “Where did you find her anyway? I mean all this blood had to come from somewhere.”

Bjorn shouted back. “Oh! I found her by the medical tent! Thought I said so earlier.”

Even as Charise shrugged and called back that he may have and she just missed it Jack thought back to not even a minute ago when he had heard yelling from outside that mentioned the medical area. “Hey. Bjorn, right?” He yelled, interrupting Charise and Bjorn’s loud conversation.

“Yeah? What is it?” Bjorn’s shout back rung in Jack’s head.

His headache pounding Jack couldn’t deal with the constant noise of the captured woman anymore. He tore off one of his gown’s tattered sleeves and stuffed it into her mouth as a makeshift gag. Letting out his breath in appreciation at the sudden silence, he looked over to Bjorn and told him, “You might want to take the lady over to some of the others and let people know that you have her. I’m pretty sure that the people outside have been trying to find someone that had something to do with medical. I have a feeling that the blood covered lady that you picked up in that area may just be who they are looking for.”

Bjorn smacked a closed fist down into an open palm and exclaimed. “That makes sense! I’ll go do that now!” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he grabbed the girl from Charise’s hands, hoisted her up over his shoulder and dashed off.

Jack stood there stunned for a moment before turning to Charise and saying. “Huh. Really isn’t the brightest light array is he?”

“Nope. Nice enough fellow though.” Charise replied shaking her head.

Jack just nodded in response as both drifted off into silence for a moment. Eventually, Jack broke it to ask. “So, what happened with the contract? Did the director sign it?”

Charise started slightly at his voice before asking him to repeat himself. “Huh? What was that? Sorry I didn’t catch what you just said.”

“I was just asking if the director signed the contract that we were doing earlier. I’ll be honest I’m not too sure how much I remember about the discussion is real or how much of it was from flights of fancy. Considering how everything for the last month and some has been it feels like it could be either way. I’ll throw a guess out there about the group of thieves having been imaginary as I don’t see any damage to the table.” Jack did so before babbling on.

Charise chuckled dryly and said, “No, no thieves at all. The discussions were pretty simple with no real problems or anything. She accepted many of our suggestions and had reasonable responses to those that she didn’t. Not really what I expected from someone in power at one of the major corporations.”

Jack nodded slightly. “That’s good. I’m glad that went well. What about-”

“Oh, right. No, she hasn’t signed it yet. We were waiting for you to wake up before all of us would head out of the dead zone to sign it and make sure that the oath took full effect on everyone. I suppose we need to send someone to go get her…” Charise interrupted Jack as she realized that she hadn’t actually answered his initial question before trailing off as with Bjorn’s disappearance she wasn’t sure of who they could send to go inform Madam Blue.

Jack however didn’t have that same unsurety he simply shrugged and headed for the tent’s exit while telling Charise. “Well let’s go find someone to do that then.”