“What have I done?” Dr.Whisper asked, horrified.

I continued to clap and slowly began to chuckle, “Ooooh, you’re in trouble.”

Dr.Whisper looked at me in fear and stammered, “It— it’s not my fault! You! You—made me do this! You injected me with something!”

Raising a finger, I asked, “Is it, though? Let’s review. Adjani, what did you see?”

Adjani put a hand to his chest and said, “Why, officer, I saw Dr.Whisper go crazy and threaten to kill us when dis poor nurse walked in, and Dr.Whisper brutally murdered her in cold blood.”

I smirked and asked, “Are you sure that’s what you saw, Mr.Adjani?”

Adjani played along and raised his hands in surrender, “I saw nothin’, officer. I was nowhere near the murdered nurse.” After his little act, he smirked, too, and turned to Dr.Whisper, “So, what is it gonna be? De decision is up to yuh.”

Dr.Whisper looked between us, and fear and realization slowly dawned on her face before resignation. “Please help me,” Dr.Whisper pleaded, hanging her head in shame.

“Sorry, what was that?” I asked teasingly, enjoying her despair.

“Please help me!” Dr.Whisper begged, louder this time.

A manic smile spread across my face as I got the opening I was looking for, “I’ll help,” I answered, and a small glimmer of hope bloomed in Dr.Whisper’s eyes, “But only if you agree to join my crew. We need a proper doctor, and a Dr.Whisper is the best we know. Now that’s you. So what do you say? You’ll be well compensated.”

Dr.Whisper thought for a single second before nodding, “I’ll help however I can.”

“Excellent!” I exclaimed and stood. Blinding, searing, hot pain shot through my leg, and I bit back a scream as I collapsed, cursing and squealing quietly to myself. Through blurry, tear-filled eyes, I saw Adjani laughing his ass off with his hand over his mouth, trying to keep quiet. I pointed at him menacingly from the floor and growled, “Shut the fuck up and hide the body! Clean up as much blood as you can as fast as possible! Doc, help me up!”

Adjani didn’t stop laughing but did as told and dragged the body into the bathroom, leaving a thick trail of blood while Dr.Whisper helped me up and into the wheelchair. I grabbed a blanket from the bed and tossed it to Adjani as he laid it down on the ground to soak up the blood, turning the white blanket red.

“What now?” Dr.Whisper asked, sounding more than a little panicky.

I tapped my ear and called Oni, who answered immediately, “What’s the situation?”

“We’ll need a semi-quick extract. Get my ship ready for take-off,” I said before cutting off the communication and answering Dr.Whisper’s question, “Now we all walk out of the hospital calmly. My ship is in the landing bay near the elevator doors on the top floor.”

Dr.Whisper nodded and took several deep breaths, “Okay. What do I say if somebody asks what I’m doing with you going up to the landing bay?”

“Tell them I’m being transferred to a different hospital because you don’t have the materials for my bone replacements,” I answered as Adjani finished cleaning up the blood.

“But we do have materials for your bone replacements,” Dr.Whisper answered, not understanding.

“No, you actually don’t. You have a usable substitute. The bones used in my prosthetics are made with carbon alloys that need special machines and materials to be recreated. A special blend of your fathers that can endure a lot of stress and can take quite a beating.”

“Then how did you break your leg?!” Dr.Whisper asked in astonishment.

Adjani winced and said, “With a lot of screamin’ and a lot of tries.”

I nodded, “Should we continue reliving my past pain, or should we leave the room with a dead body in it?” the answer became apparent to everyone very quickly when I asked that rhetorical question. We all left the room with Dr.Whisper pushing me in the wheelchair and Adjani following close behind.

As we walked calmly and slowly down the hospital corridors, full of nurses and people visiting other people, I hacked the security cameras one by one and turned them off and back on as we walked past. Ensuring that we never showed up on any of the camera footage. It was smooth sailing all the way to the elevators, although I almost thought we would be stopped when Adjani slipped the nurseman in blue scrubs his contact info. Once we reached the elevator, Dr.Whisper hit the button and waited for it to arrive on our floor.

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Once the door opened, I quickly hacked the camera inside and shut it off as we entered. So far, so good. Just a short elevator ride away from freedom and my new leg. The doors of the elevator slowly closed, and just before it did, a hand stuck in, and the door opened again. I took in an involuntary breath as I recognized the person on the other side. Sergeant Hernanda Diez, in uniform, and her brown eyes on full display with her sunglasses hanging from her shirt collar.

“Hello, Dr.Whisper!” the Sergeant exclaimed happily, “How’s my men?”

Dr.Whisper shrugged, “Doing well. They should be out soon.”

The Sergeant nodded happily, “Good to hear! And could you press the landing bay button for me?” she looked down at me as Adjani pressed the button for her since he was closest to the buttons. The Sergeant blinked a few times as she stared at me and leaned against the far wall with a small datapad in her hand. The elevator closed, and she finally asked, “Sorry, have we met before?”

I looked her up and down before answering with a flirtatious smile as the elevator started to move, “No, but I wish I had a good leg so I could ask you to go dancing with me.”

The Sergeant blushed a little as she smiled and said, “Cute, but I am already involved with someone.”

I slapped my good leg playfully, “Well, darn. I guess I don’t have a shot.”

With a slight chuckle, the Sergeant turned her attention back to her datapad, “Sorry, I guess you just have one of those faces.”

I nodded as I watched the elevator slowly move up from the third floor to the fifth. All the while, I kept an eye on the Sergeant, looking for any change in expression. As the elevator reached the seventh floor, I saw the slightest change in her eyes as they widened for a fraction of a second. That’s when I quickly hacked her datapad to see what she saw.

DANGEROUS CRIMINAL: VIOLET V. VERMILLION

ALLIES: THE REAPER

DO NOT APPROACH!

DO NOT ENGAGE!

RUN AS FAR AS POSSIBLE!

INFORM THE LOCAL MILITARY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

ECT…

What followed after the warnings was the long list of crimes I was accused of and suspected of doing in my short life. I sighed, “Would you mind hitting that emergency stop, please?” Adjani pressed the big red button at the bottom of the panel, and the elevator stopped halfway between the seventh and eighth floors. I rubbed my temple and said, “Why couldn’t you have just played a dumb game on your pad like everyone else does with their tech?”

Sergeant Hernanda Diez lowered her datapad and started to reach behind her back, but she stopped when she noticed Dr.Whisper reach for something in her pocket as well. “Because when I have a suspicion about someone, I like to know what it is. And in your case, it’s kidnapping children. Where are they?” The Sergeant spat, still primed to pull her gun.

I sighed and turned to face her, “One, if it were just me right now in this elevator, you would probably win since I’m severely injured and can’t fight back,” I laughed at my misfortune and sighed again as I added, “But it’s not just me. It’s me, a hired killer, and hostages.”

“The kids are here?” She asked, a little hopeful.

“No,” I answered quickly to get the conversation going, “I’m going to make you a one-time deal since fighting in an elevator is a pain in the ass. Let us go, and I don’t kill dozens of people in the hospital.”

The Sergeant squinted her eyes at me and said, “You’re bluffing.”

I looked the Sergeant in her brown eyes and said, “The only people who bluff have brown eyes. It’s a sign they’re full of shit. Dr.Whisper, how many patients are in the hospital?”

Dr.Whisper didn’t answer immediately as she thought about the answer, “Umm, about—about two thousand. Spread across four sections of the hospital.”

“How many of those patients are on life support?” I asked, and the Sergeant looked as though she was catching on.

“I—I don’t know the exact number, but around a hundred spread across the sections. Maybe more,” Dr.Whisper admitted, sounding saddened.

“Sergeant Hernanda Diez, I have hacked into the hospital’s power systems. I can and will shut off life support for them if you don’t let us leave unbothered,” I threatened.

The Sergeant looked between Dr.Whisper and I multiple times as she asked, “Can she do that?”

The good doctor nodded slowly, “Each section is on its own power grid with its own security system. So, she can’t possibly be able to shut off more than one section. That’s still twenty-five people or more.” Dr.Whisper answered truthfully, “And she was in the ER section of the hospital. We have the highest number of people on life support. Sergeant, you have to let us go!”

“What?!” Sergeant Hernanda Diez exclaimed, shocked.

I, too, was a little surprised but was able to keep my emotions under control. Then, the doctor did something I wasn’t expecting. She stepped between the Sergeant and me with her hands raised, “Please. Let us go. They need me alive to treat her. So, I’ll be safe. I need you to worry about the people on life support and not provoke her.”

The Sergeant gritted her teeth and raised her hands in surrender, “Fine.”

I smiled and hacked into the elevator, setting a protocol to annoy the Sergeant. “I’m glad you saw reason. Don’t get off the elevator until the first floor. I’ll make sure you follow that demand. Once we hit the atmosphere, I’ll lose connection with the hospital, and everyone will be safe and allowed to live as a vegetable another day. You have my word,” I said as the elevator continued its ascent.

“Like I’d take you at your word!” The Sergeant skoffed.

The elevator dinged, and the door opened to the landing bay, “Good,” I said as Dr.Whisper wheeled me out of the elevator, “Not trusting me will keep you alive longer.” As Adjani left the elevator, the doors closed on the Sergeant’s glaring face, I flipped her off. Once the elevator started moving again, I yelled, “RUN!! GO! GO! GO!”

Dr.Whisper jumped as Adjani grabbed my wheelchair and ran. “Why are we running!?” Dr.Whisper asked, feeling the panic.

“BECAUSE I WAS BLUFFING, AND I PROGRAMMED THE ELEVATOR TO STOP ON EVERY FLOOR WITHOUT OPENING THE DOORS UNTIL THE FIRST FLOOR! ONCE SHE FIGURES OUT I LIED SHE’S GOING TO BE PISSED!!”’

“You pushed all the buttons on the elevator like a child?!”

“YEP! NOW RUN!” I yelled back as we got to my ship and quickly boarded, taking off immediately.

***