Probably one of my least favorite things in the world had to be opening my eyes for the first time in a while and seeing what I saw now. Admittedly, it wasn't all the sight, the ceiling above me could have been any number of places. But the smell of sterile disinfectant, jammed up my sinuses as much as the plastic tubes only confirmed what I knew when I saw that damn ceiling.

The hospital, again. At least I knew why this time, though my head felt heavy with missing memories and too much sleep. I looked left and saw a cart displaying my vitals on a silent yellow holo. To my right was a curtain. In front of the curtain, a chair; and in the chair, a woman, with straight dark hair, shoulder-length, with streaks of faded purple in it, her typical bandanna missing and her thick plastic glasses askew on her small nose.

She was snoring slightly, sagging in her seat with her mobile plugged into some parts near some tools on a table next to her. And more on another table near me. And on the chair next to her. Whitney really liked to take over.

I tried to sit up but almost immediately collapsed back from the pain. My leg was...one thing, but my back was another. It felt like I'd been thrown into a wall.

Which...as my memories sizzled, I had been, hadn't I? I was trying to think when I was blinked at, Whitney fixing her glasses as she blinked and rubbed her eyes.

"Oh hey, you're up, friendo," she said, through a yawn. "Welcome back."

"Where are we? What happened? Is everyone...did anyone…"

She gave me a small wry smirk but it faded quickly. So things were okay but also not okay, I surmised. I also surmised that I was thinking more clearly than I had in hours, thanks to that damn machine. Wait, hours?

"How long was I out?"

She glanced at her holo and tapped it. "Two days, just about."

And I wasn't sedated to hell. That explained the pain. I took a breath and then peeked under the covers at myself.

Mostly, bandages as far as I could see. One of my legs wouldn't look out of place in a sarcophagus. The other was...just absent, above the knee. I closed my eyes and fell back into my pillow, taking several deep breaths.

"Look, uh...John," she said, rapping on the corner of her frames. "I'm uh. Um."

"John?"

She shook her head at me. "Or...whatever your name is. John Doe. Because nobody knows who you are, right?" I blinked at her, wondering if she'd hit her head. This was definitely Whitney, the stray parts forming piles around her proved that much. "Gah, I wish we brought AEGIS to do this instead."

"To do what? I'm so lost."

"Yeah, that's my bad. Look, uh, John. 'Fact is, that uh, nobody here knows who you are, and you didn't have any ID on you. They ran your biologicals, a couple times actually but there was computer trouble," she emphasized "with their computers that made the computer have a problem finding a match."

"Are...are you okay?"

She rubbed her eyes under her glasses again. "Look, let's pretend you were somebody with a...shady past. Like a wanted man or something. If you were, the second the hospital ran your records, there'd be a policeman or...or something...sitting here instead of me." She looked around and cleared her throat. "I happened to just be a pedestrian on the street when you fell, incidentally. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. The staff think I have a crush on you, and I'm harmless, so I'm rolling with it."

"Um. Okay," I said, starting to get a clearer mental picture, despite Whitney's astounding simultaneous lack of, and surplus of explanation. "So, miss uh...whatever your name is?"

"Whitney."

"Miss Whitney, is it just...you here?"

"There's one other with me, but not here. She was...looking into the computer issues a little. That's kind of her thing."

"Okay. Anyone else?"

She shook her head, her lips forming a minute frown. "Maybe we can talk more candidly later. But for now, it's just you, me, her, and my friends here," she said, picking up her mobile. "The ones I didn't lose anyway."

"And where are we all, exactly?"

"UCSF Medical Center. 'Frisco, friendo."

"San Francisco?"

"Yep."

I sunk further into my pillow. What?

How'd I get all the way to San Francisco? How did AEGIS and Whitney, and nobody else? Just what the hell was going on, and how was Soran wrapped up in all this?

It'd been days now. Tem and Moon couldn't have possibly held out that long, they were failing before I even went down. And Karu...she'd been in the vehicle wreck with me, maybe even worse off for not being in an exosuit and getting thrown wide of the crash. Chiho was still back there, and...and Lia and Rito were somewhere.

As more thoughts flooded in, I felt like I was going to lose consciousness again. My back felt like someone was squeezing my spine somewhere, and the rest of me just ached. There was so much I didn't know, but I wasn't sure I was ready to. And all I had for answers was Whitney, and this stupid secret-agent game we were playing.

"Just tell me," I asked her. "Did Soran send you here too?"

"I don't know who that is," she said, as someone entered the room and she began speaking louder and faster "but as I said, I'm just a woman who was passing by and found you after you fell."

The curtain pulled back and standing behind it was a tall, grim-looking man with a face as angular as his glasses. He looked like the kind of doctor they sent to tell drug users to knock it off or they'll die. I swallowed hard as he read his clipboard in silence for a moment.

"What is your name, sir?" he asked, in an even, flowing voice, less stern than he looked.

"Uh." I blinked at him. "Jack." The guy's tall, rigid demeanor brought someone else involuntarily to mind, although his smile was definitely lacking.

"Jack what?"

"Jack be nimble?" I suggested. When his expression turned stony, he really looked like he could cut glass with his glare alone. "Sorry. Jack...Jackson."

"Jack Jackson?"

"Well my father was just Jack, but...I'm his son, so, yeah."

Jesus Christ, I needed to stop talking.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Jack...Jackson...junior, then?"

"Yes," I nodded seriously. "But uh, you can just call me JJ." I took my own advice and bit my tongue before I got cutesy with J cubed or something.

"Well Mister JJ, for some reason, you aren't in any records we've been able to pull. We've done all the biometrics, DNA, fingerprinting, facial scans, you haven't come up once in any database. That's the first time this has ever happened and I've been working here a long time. Do you care to elucidate?"

I looked at Whitney who was glancing back and forth between us with nerves palpable in her every antsy movement. She was fidgeting hardcore with parts in her hands, practically sweating as she seemed completely unaware of how to act or behave innocently.

"Uh, no," I answered, which was really the only answer. And then I remembered Lia's life tips on how to be a better liar -- just say as little truth as possible. "I don't have to, right?"

"You don't," he said "but if you'd like access to treatment or rehabilitation options...or drugs," he emphasized, and I realized by the way he said it, it was intended to be bait. "Then we will need your information."

"Well...I won't then." I said, crossing my arms. Which was a monster mistake because shifting that weight made my back flare up, and I really had to wonder if half my vertebrae were broken or something. It felt like someone used me as an accordion, to play something with a BPM to get people dancing.

He just stared at me. "You need help, Mister JJ, and as a doctor and a member of this medical facility, I'd like to provide it for you. But without access to your records, your allergies, your pre-existing conditions and medications, that's not something we'll be able to manage lightly or well. Please consider your own health, whatever other troubles you might have, sir."

I looked at him evenly, trying to get a read on the man, but he appeared just as in my first impression. He could have been a hardened doctor with a heart of gold, urging me to look out for myself because that was his hippocratic duty, or a Narc-y louse, just playing on the sorta violently blinding pain I was in to get me to turn myself in.

What I did know is I did want drugs pretty bad. The shit AEGIS had put me on was so many thousands of miles ahead of where I was with this whole leg situation than right now, it felt swollen and heavy, even though it should have been lighter. And my back. And the hundreds or thousands of cuts and bruises everywhere else across me.

I was a giant wreck, wasn't I? Maybe that's why this doctor was so invested. But as much help as I might need, if I took the chance of letting him run my records, I might be hurt this badly twice over when the XPCA came calling here. As much as I wanted to just get shot up and drift away from the pain again, the prospect of it coming back even worse made it a non-issue.

"Sorry, can't help you, Doc," I said, remembering not to shrug to upset my spine. "Guess I'm just not in the system."

He rapped some fingers on the clipboard for a moment. "I guess not. Mister JJ, your leg was very recently amputated. If you want any hope of reintegrating into a normal life again, you'll need a prosthesis, counseling, therapy, and rehab. If you can't cooperate with us, we can't cooperate with you. Please reconsider -- you're young, and whatever trouble you think you're running from, you shouldn't let it cost you the rest of your life."

"I'm sure I'll be just fine, Doc. Thanks for your concern."

The longest part of getting checked out was Whitney packing up all her things. After that, she just helped me into a wheelchair and we headed out the door without anyone so much as looking at us twice, her walking along wearing a small, nervous frown, and me with just the sexiest blue tarp of a gown.

Outside was...definitely San Francisco, I thought. Although we were in a medical plaza, I could still tell that this was an urban area; the streets were narrow and lined with evenly-spaced, well-trimmed trees. Cars aggressively ran through lights they didn't make and pulled into spots into which they didn't fit, pedestrians filtering across the streets whenever the flow of traffic permitted.

Tall, concrete buildings of beige and glass. The ocean horizon visible down gaps in streets and buildings. Girls in skinny jeans and guys in skinnier ones.

I'd never been here before, despite the relative proximity to LA. On one hand it was always somewhere I thought it'd be neat to go, but on the other hand, Socal and Norcal had something of a typical pointless rivalry -- north and south, Stanford and Cal, Giants and Dodgers. Something I cared about a lot more back when I was still in high school, and if I did have the opportunity back then, I'd have to stop and consider if trying something was worth the risk of liking it.

That sounded so infantile, thinking back, but I guess that really just spoke to how, no matter how pointless or miniscule, people would always find conflict in their life to seem big at the time.

There was a line of cabs parked, driverless ones, and Whitney helped me into the passenger seat of one before she ran off with the wheelchair, warning me not to leave without her with a smirk. When she came back, she gave the cab an address I certainly didn't know, and the vehicle hummed to a start.

It'd been less than one block of walking, err, rolling, and already I wanted nothing more but to be laying down and just...resting. I'd been beat up pretty badly before, but in retrospect, the XPCA, or Cosette specifically had always had our backs when it came to being put back together afterwards. I wasn't on that team anymore, I didn't have her. For a moment I considered how my troubles back then were like being a care-free high schooler, so sheltered from real danger by those who wanted to see me succeed.

And now I'd torn and burned those safety nets. Now it was just me, and Whitney, and AEGIS somewhere. Hiding out. Legless, in pain, in a strange, new city.

I'd meant to ask Whitney all the questions I had bubbling up in my head but now that we were moving and rolling around in a cab, none of them seemed relevant anymore. Right now, I just hurt. There was a lot else for me to know, but it wasn't like knowing would help or change anything -- I'd had information before, too much information even, and that had pushed me into stepping out and fighting Dragon and starting this whole disaster. Here, for once, I could stand to just be along for the ride.

I found myself woken up and pulled from the cab bodily by AEGIS, as slowly and deliberately as she could, but having her carry me directly was...the pain was so blinding I thought I'd throw up at her touch. I'd wanted nothing more than to reach into my own back and just...pull things out, try to smooth out my own spine or something, anything, but if this is what being touched felt like, fuck that. Never touch me again.

"Sorry," she muttered.

I just grit my jaw and closed my eyes. The smell of salt air was heavy here, as well as the sounds of birds and the cold air rustling the trees. None of which, I realized, I associated with city life, and we hadn't been in the car that long.

"Where are we?" I whimpered, more than I intended.

"A campground, on the north end of the city. It's the best I could do with our budget and access, I'm sorry."

"I like camping."

"I wanted to put you up in a nice hotel or something, but I didn't have a lot of time, or anything in the corporate servers around here. San Francisco really hasn't been a focus for me, but the parks system is federal, so I managed to get us a reservation--"

She babbled on nervously and I reassured her that whatever she'd gotten, it was fine. "We'll make do, as long as there's somewhere for me to lay down," I told her.

"Well, the lodging is a ways further. Trails and stuff are usually a plus in these things, you know. We also might want to leave on the weekend. They were all full up, and while I could boot the original reservees, I think that might draw attention we don't want. Of course, I'd rather not move you if I don't have to. If only Lia were here, I bet she'd...she'd...uh..."

I opened my eyes enough to look up and see AEGIS chewing her lip and looking somewhat pale. "AEGIS, it's okay. I'm sure she's fine," I assured her, though I had nothing to assure her with, and hardly believed it myself. By all accounts, we'd just lost everything, and everyone but the three of us were lost, in captivity, or dead. But it also just hurt my heart to hear her talking so quickly and nervously, see her struggling to try to steer us towards right choices all on her own, worrying about every little thing as she did. "You sound good," I told her. "You all fixed up?"

"Yeah, mostly. Last couple days it's just been me and Whitney, so, y'know. Damage wasn't that bad structurally either, mostly system damage this time. Whatever they hit me with, it didn't smash as much as it penetrated."

"Yeah, that's what I'd expect from high-tech guns. I'm just glad you're okay."

She looked down at me like she wished she could say the same, and I tried to put on my least sympathy-demanding face. Although if I didn't keep my jaw grit, I felt I might scream at even her gentle gliding steps. But fuck, if she could try to keep us all together and intact, I could try to keep her from worrying about me.

"Here we are," she said, her tone adding dysmal to the preexisting worry. "Home sweet...whatever this is."

She held me rock-steady as we surveyed...well, a tent. Exactly what you'd anticipate from a campsite. A little two-person dome, green and red, with all the mesh and zippers and strings pulled taut you'd expect.

"Thrift store pickup. I had Whitney sniff it to make sure it didn't smell funny. Uh, it was cheap. I need to sit down and hack us some creds at some point in a way that's completely safe, but as it turns out, getting money for free is kind of surprisingly difficult, especially without Lia...uh...but until then we're just kinda...coasting on what Whitney had on-hand at...the time."

"It's fine," I assured her, wondering if 'the time' was going to become a shorthand for things nobody wanted to talk about by name from now on. "Just make sure there's no rocks under my back and I'm ready to sleep for another couple of days."

"That's probably best. I don't have many drugs, but I could give you something?"

"No, save 'em," I told her. "For the next fight."

She shook her head at me and started moving again, carrying me down the grassy hill towards our latest, humble home.