The three of them turned to face whoever had called out. It was a young man who was moderately tall, with a round face. Copper hair shining in the spring daylight. He was wearing some expensive looking clothes and extremely gaudy jewelry. Jack stared puzzled for a moment. It wasn’t just the voice, their face looked familiar as well. Finally, he shook his head. It just wasn’t coming to him. He was sure that if it was important it would come to him eventually.

“Aren’t you people going to say anything? I have taken the time to come here in person and be updated on everything that has happened here. The director of the facility told me that you would inform me of an advancement…” The young man had an arrogant tone, as if they should think his mere presence was a blessing.

Jack paused for a moment before he slowly said, “Sure, I suppose we can let you know. Who are you exactly?”

“What? You mean to tell me that you work for my family and can’t tell who I am? What rock did you crawl out of to be so unaware of the corporation that you work for?” The young man was clearly upset by the question. As he took a closer look at Jack, he paused for a moment cocking his head before he asked “Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar.”

“I’m not sure. You look pretty familiar to me as well. Wait… did you just say your family owns this company?” Jack shrugged before he realized just what the man had said.

“Yes? My family does own the company.” The man’s voice was slow as if explaining to an idiot before softening slightly as he asked, “Are you a new hire or something?”

Jack ignored the question, instead thinking back to when he had been exploring the facility. There had been a room that had hinted at just who the owners were. “What was it that I saw in that breakroom? Ah! Telipar! Rites venerating the agier Telipar! I know who you are! You’re fucking Carlos Ross-Telipar! Was it you who fucking did this to me? I know I fucking pissed you off by embarrassing you in public but damn man talk about fucking escalation. I don’t think embarrassing you because you can’t get a fucking hint is enough reason to condemn someone to what theoretically was life imprisonment.”

Carlos’s eyes opened wide at Jack’s exclamation. As soon as the public embarrassment was called out, he knew exactly who Jack was “It’s you! The asshole who was in the Adventurer’s Guildhouse! The one who used that terrible fake name and came to embarrass me because of your hate of the agierian clans. I don’t know what the fuck you are on about but it doesn’t have shit to do with me.”

“I don’t hate the agierian clans. I don’t like them sure; I think they have far too much power and the members of them can get away with things that should never be gotten away with. Doesn’t mean I hate them as a whole. Just specific people. Also, my name might be fucking horrific, but it is my name.” Jack rolled his eyes at Carlos’s presumption that his family mattered to Jack’s life. Jack had enough on his plate that even thinking about trying to go against the established families was off the table. “Also, of course it fucking has to do with you. You are one of the only people I can think of that has the knowledge of much less the motive to have fucking tried to turn me into a meat puppet for that cursed parasite.”

Carlos laughed derisively as he responded, “Meat puppet? Yeah, fuck no. I might be aware of that thing but by my ancestor I wouldn’t fucking touch any of that shit unless necessary. My family would kill me if they found me messing with any of that damned stuff outside of my job.”

By this point the two of them had moved close enough to each other that as they bellowed spittle would fly out and hit the other. Charise and Dr. Trovihn gave each other a nervous look. It seemed like the argument could easily break out into violence at any moment.

“Riiight.” Jack drawled out in a sarcastic tone. “You would never do something that could get you in trouble. Just mysteriously two people that embarrassed you or got into arguments with you somehow ended up infected by something that mostly only your family really knows about and get held captive in their “long term care” complex. Yep, I fully believe you there.”

“Two people? What the fuck are you talking about? And what was that you said? That it was your real name? HA! Nobody would ever name their child that. Much less anyone who shares a name with one of the clans. Don’t try that mutantshit on me.” Carlos looked confused for a brief second before he shook it off and expressed his disbelief at one of Jack’s claims.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t get to choose my name. That was the fucking bitch that birthed me. Not everyone has a fucking happy childhood with those that care.” At the possibility of him lying Jack found his fury spiking further. He managed to restrain himself to simply prodding Carlos hard in the chest several times as he spoke for emphasis. No matter how much he wished to just cave in the arrogant fop’s face.

Jack took a deep breath and continued, “Also don’t try and fucking pretend. There is no way that you didn’t know that Dilacy Fawler wound up here as well. Right after you got back from the mission where you two had several agierdamned arguments as well. You had cause and motivation. I’ll be honest I had almost ruled you out. Even though a whole slew of people chased me to earn favor with you.”

“Ha! Serves you right you filthy jack.” Carlos grabbed Jack by the shirt and sneered in his face. Carlos paused for a moment and shook his head, “And no, I had no idea that Dilacy was here. I just knew she went missing. But then so did almost all of the rest of the group she was joining. She was just the first to have it happen.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Jack was just about to angrily retort when the second part of what Carlos said penetrated his anger, “Wait what? The rest of Wolven Freedom went missing?”

“You didn’t know? I figured if you knew one of them you would have known that.” Carlos seemed surprised at Jack’s lack of awareness

Jack looked at Carlos in askance, as if he were an idiot, “How the fuck would I know? I’ve been stuck here for long enough that it became agierdamned spring.”

“Well then, yeah, over the last few months they have all gone missing. Or at least most of them have. One was found comatose and is in the long-term care ward of the hospital.” Carlos’s tone became more moderated as he told Jack the news.

Jack stopped and took a deep breath. Letting it out slowly he shook his head trying to get his anger and emotions under control. “Well… I didn’t fucking see that coming. I was looking into her case from the assumption that she had targeted personally, not because of her associates. And you really didn’t implant me with the fucking parasite? Are you willing to swear that using an oath?” He sighed again looking at Carlos’ expression. “Of course you are. Well fuck me sideways”

Carlos sighed and let Jack go, “Look I get it. We had a big fight and from the sounds of it circumstantially I am a great fit. But no. I wanted to pound your teeth in for doing that shit to me. I still halfway do and it’s been months at this point. And yeah, Dilacy and I had had several arguments during the course of our last mission together. The two of us worked together fine, we just didn’t really mesh personality wise. But yeah, hate to burst your bubble but I had nothing to do with what happened to either one of you.”

Jack let out a huff of air and said exasperatedly, “Okay, okay. I do deserve that. It’s always been one of my biggest problems. My mouth getting away from me I mean. I probably should have found a better way to talk to you before and not just make an ass out of you. It’s something I need to work on.”

“You’re fucking right it is.” Charise muttered over on the side, having already seen Jack manage to make several situations worse by just opening his mouth. The two men hadn’t noticed but at some point, she had moved to be standing right next to the them and even had an arm between them.

“And you are?” Carlos asked a little surprised at the fact that yet another person wearing the outfit of his family’s company seemed to value both him and the person he was arguing with equally.

“Me? I’m Charise Riverstone. I was also being held here. I was actually this fucker’s first lab rat. It’s how he figured out his idea to treat us worked.” Charise answered jerking her thumb at Jack.

“Ah.” Carlos nodded at her introduction. He snapped his fingers. “Right, treatment. That was the entire reason I came over here in the first place. Wait, it was you that came up with the new procedure? It actually works? The director was saying that it does, it’s just hard to believe.”

Jack shrugged awkwardly, not stepping back as he didn’t want to seem weak. “Yeah. It was an idea that I had when I was recovering. It worked once. And hopefully once the patient wakes up, we will be able to see if it worked a second time. I have no doubt that there will then be a bunch more testing and figuring out how to do with your equipment.”

Carlos nodded and gave Jack a slight glare, silently telling him to be the one to back off. “That’s right, the director had said something about a test. I was quite surprised to hear about this as I was sent to check in about the containment breach situation. I guess that’s a silver lining for this whole thing.”

At this point both of them got shoved backwards as Charise got tired of having to stand there. “Can you two knock it off? It seems you two aren’t going to be fighting and I’m not dealing with your pissing match. Clearly you were in the wrong to start and should fucking apologize, and you or your people way overreacted and should apologize for that. Just do it and stop this shit already. You are fucking adults. Act like it.”

Carlos and Jack both looked at each other, their embarrassment and irritation clear on their faces. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them he looked at Charise and sighed. “You’re right, I already said that I should have not acted that way. I should actually apologize as well.”

With that he turned to face Carlos and said, “I’m sorry, I should have found a better way to get it across to you that… erm… Fuck I don’t remember just what it was that I called you out on. It was something. Well still, I’m sorry.”

“It was the fact that the lady I was trying to get to go out with me was not interested in men. Which you were right about. Looking back on it, if you hadn’t called me out like that, I probably would have just ignored whatever you wanted to tell me. I was… let’s say purposely ignorant.” Carlos admitted.

When Carlos didn’t say anything else, Charise glared and him and cleared her throat. “Is there anything you want to add to that?”

Carlos rolled his eyes slightly and huffed, “Right. I’m sorry too. I should have responded better to your provocations, both then and today. That is my failing as an upstanding member of the upper class. I should be comporting myself respectably in public and I failed to do so.”

Jack shrugged. “It’s alright. It all turned out good in the end. Fuck it I guess, if you want, I can buy you a beer sometime to make it up to you. Admittedly it will have to wait until all this is over and I can see where I am at with my finances. Been stuck here long enough that I am sure the Fawler’s think I ran off with their money, and I probably lost my home.”

As the two of them settled their differences the group eventually did turn to the topic that Carlos had come over to discuss in the first place. Jack along with Dr. Trovihn explained to him just what exactly had been done with both Charise and Dilacy and how it was different then his freeing himself.

To say Carlos was flabbergasted by what Jack had done was an understatement. Many of the things that Jack was being blasé about were considered impossible for a sentient to do as they would interfere with their and ruin their psyche. Much less the fact that Jack had accomplished all of this as a jack with terrible aspects.

Eventually as their discussion began to wrap up one of the nurses ran over to them. “Hello sirs, and ma’am. Just wanted to let you know that Ms. Fawler has awoken and we are about to do the next stage of testing that you talked of earlier. Madam Blue sent me to fetch you.”