Jared couldn’t say he was having the greatest days of his life. The doses for the elderly hadn’t been delivered at the scheduled time, forcing them to lower the doses across the board or stopping some entirely. Those who were still aware of their pasts and could control their powers were given a day to play around them to make sure that those who barely knew their face could stop themselves from throwing the entire world into a temporal vortex.

“Please don’t start any improvised fireplaces, Miss Freeman,” Jared politely asked the woman he was adjusting the cushion off. “If you need the room to be a bit warmer, we can increase it with the thermostat.”

“You could also just give me the controller so I could do it myself,” the old lady requested, a few of the others chuckling at the display. “It’s so awfully cold here. It would be easier if I could just adjust it without your help.”

“I am sorry, Miss Freeman, but we have to stick to the rules,” Jared said, showing the old lady the controller that was fixed to his belt with a piece of elastic. “There’s a lot of things on this remote we’re not allowed to let the people press. I will send in a request to the office to get you a controller if you want me to.”

“Oh, then don’t worry about it,” Miss Freeman said, her frail hand waving the words away. “I sent in a request for another pillow five years ago and they’re still ‘processing it.’ Those people couldn’t read a piece of paper if their lives depended on it.”

The laughing continued long after Jared left the room to do other things, including checking on the sleeping patients. A few of the oldest and most powerful ones were still on their afternoon naps. Jared knew that the system would alert him if any of them woke up before they were meant to but he never wanted to take a chance with them. It wasn’t too hard for some of them to break out accidentally. The young man could remember the aged Shifter they’d found in the tree outside just last week. If not for Clara they would have never gotten him down from those branches.

Thinking of that man’s abilities, Jared briefly considered resigning at that moment. But, no, he had to stay in place for now. The thought of changing his own body like that disturbed him too much. Also, he’d seen the effects of what happened when somebody ripped through their clothes to transform and then left with nothing to wear once they changed back. It was the curse of Shifters all around, those with stronger abilities having to wear specialised suits if they wanted any form of decency. Maybe that was why there were so few Heroes who had such power.

Walking down the hallway to the break room, Jared was able to pause his work for ten minutes to get some lunch in, the sound of a chair being thrown across the room was heard. Jared knew for a fact that’s what he heard, that very same sound coming across oh so many times in the past days. It wasn’t hard finding the person who’d done it either, only three people in the entire facility having the physical prowess to carry and throw a chair.

“I really can’t advise you to go around destroying our furniture, Clara,” Jared said, closing the door of the break room quickly to make sure the elderly heard nothing. The last thing he wanted was them complaining about sound again. It took two weeks for them to forget the smoke alarm in the kitchen going off. Chairs being thrown around would at least be a month. “I’m pretty sure those are pretty expensive.”

“Expensive? Everything here is a pile of junk!” Clara shouted back, clearly not caring if any noises coming through the walls. They were made to be sound-insulated but all equipment had limits. “The people leading it as well! I know you can hear this, John! I want you to know that you are the biggest piece of-”

“Maybe save that for later?” Jared requested, putting his hand over the woman’s mouth. Listening closely, he could hear some of the patients outside, moving around to figure out where all that shouting was coming from. Half of them could barely hear when he was saying their names directly to them but some far-off shouting was right in their hearing range. “Also, any reason we need to be vocal about this so suddenly? The issue with doses happened yesterday and you seemed to be over it then.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I am not over it and I never will be,” Clara corrected, taking deep breaths to calm down. The woman was red in the face, tears nearly ready to fall. “John cut our paychecks for the month, Jared.”

“What?” the man said outright, confused. “Why?”

“The money isn’t coming in from the headquarters so ‘our pay is delayed for the foreseeable future.’ I spoke with John and we’re meant to expect it to last up to several months!” Clara continued, raising her voice gradually. A pat on the shoulder calmed her down once more. “Two of the others quit so we have an entire eight hours where nobody is scheduled to be here.”

Well… wasn’t that just glorious. Jared had a deep appreciation for Clara for not doing more than that, the young man sharply sitting down in thought. With four people left, they would need to move over to full twelve-hour shifts all week long. It was easy to say that wasn’t possible in the long run, working eighty-four hours not being in anybody’s schedule. Yet, the alternative was to leave them alone which was outright impossible to do.

“Has John put out any plans on how to make this work?” Jared asked. “Maybe a new hire?”

“He has said to figure it out ourselves,” Clara answered, sitting down on a chair as well. “We might be able to move the night shift down to only one person and have three others work for the remaining sixteen hours. We need two people no matter what during the afternoon but early morning and late afternoon can be done single-handedly. It will be extremely stressful but we should be able to make it work.”

“I am glad to see you having it handled already,” Jared said with a smile.

“Oh, trust me. I have not the slightest understanding of anything at this point,” Clara said with a smile. “If I did, I would have figured out how to get more people to sign onto this sinking ship.”

“That’s certainly one way to look at this place,” Jared commented thoughtfully. “If you think of it as a sinking ship, why haven’t you left as well?”

“Because most of the passengers can’t?” Clara asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “These people need us, Jared. If we leave, nobody will be left to take care of them. John doesn’t care enough at this point. It’s just one big money fund for whatever addiction the owners have. I can’t fathom the idea of them caring about this place.”

Jared leaned back in his chair and couldn’t help but agree just a bit. There was mismanagement and then there was whatever he was sitting in. Maybe they were hoping to play the game of insurance fraud. An entire building destroyed due to freak accidents of elderly Manipulation Users was certainly something nobody would question too much. And with the doses failing to come around and the people made to quit, it was almost the perfect set-up.

‘Almost’ was the key word. Not a single person in the world could have expected Clara to be there. Jared was fastly nestled in the idea that the woman would stand before the old patients until the day she died if she had to. She wasn’t even doing it for the money anymore. It was admirable. If he had any class, he would have said as much.

“This place would fall apart without us, I suppose,” Jared said, getting up from the chair again. He had meant to spend some time eating but his desire for that had depleted near-entirely. “I’ll get the people back into their seats. They seem to be a bit rowdy.”

“I’ll-” Clara began to say but Jared pushed her right back down in the chair.

“You’ll stay here and get something to drink and eat,” Jared said, ending the sentence for the woman. “You need the energy if you are to get any more of those bright ideas. God knows the rest of us can’t do it for you.”

Leaving the woman back in the break room, Jared began the job of herding the elderly back into their respective seats, making sure to give all the aching ones a dose of healing. It didn’t work too well with most, their pains were only able to be solved with the medicine that Jared wasn’t able to give them anymore.

Taking a glance at some of the furniture, the young man did see Clara’s point. Some of the chairs would need a bit of tape soon, or else the rustling of movement on them would make them fall apart. The walls were cracking as well. Jared didn’t doubt it would take one power-related accident before it crumbled away.

And the window! Jared couldn’t even begin to think about when those had last been cleaned. They were dirty and stained, and the face of a crazed man looking through them and directly at them was not very helpful.

… Wait. The Healer at the elderly home rushed over to the window to get a better look but the person outside had already run off. By the time that Jared could get outside, they would’ve already been out of sight.

“Who was that young man?” Miss Freeman asked Jared, the lady trying to raise her back enough to look through the window as well.

“I am not too sure,” Jared said, putting the event into his mind for future reference. Chances were that they would be robbed soon. He’d read the occurrences in the daily news and it didn’t come as a surprise that they were on the list now as well. The only question was when they would strike. “Maybe it’s best for us to not think about it. Now, are you sitting alright?”