Published at 12th of August 2022 9:14 pm

Book 2: Chapter 66: Bad News

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Dan ran into Freya first. He caught her leaving the cafeteria, ambling along the westernmost corridor of the hospital, and the ICU. She was holding a Styrofoam cup of steaming liquid in one hand, with another stacked on top of it. She held a tray in her other hand, the flat ceramic piled with plastic-wrapped sandwiches. She balanced her burden with effortless grace, weaving between the hospital staff like she was dancing.

“Freya,” Dan called out.

She stopped on a dime, adjusting her hands as her load swayed. She turned on her heel and her gaze found Dan. She looked haggard. with sunken, black rings around her eyes and ruffled clothes. She had discarded her police vest but still wore her simple work blouse and pants. Her hair was pulled tight into a messy bun, and her skin had lost some of its luster. But when her eyes met Dan’s, he saw not a hint of red. She hadn’t been crying. It wasn’t her way.

“Daniel,” she greeted with a strained smile. “How are you?”

“Been better,” Dan replied simply. “You hear what’s been going on?”

She shook her head, expressionless. “We’re off duty and have been preoccupied. Everyone is giving us space. It’s very kind of them.”

“Connor still here?”

She nodded. “He’s with our uncle. I’m bringing him some dinner. Would you like to come?”

Dan nodded and fell into stride with her. After a few steps, he offered to take the tray. She passed it over without a word, and plucked up the balanced Styrofoam cup with her free hand. As they moved deeper into the hospital, the foot traffic lessened.

Dan had never visited St. David’s in his old dimension, though he’d heard the name once or twice, but he doubted it was shaped the same. The hospital was shaped like a straight-edged spiral. From above it looked like a hedge maze, or a series smaller and smaller squares nestled within each other, all interconnected. Like most crucial infrastructure in Dimension A, it was built like a fortress. The ICU wasn’t nestled at the center, but it was fairly close.

The doctor’s office had been at the end of the spiral, while the hospital entrance was placed at the first ninety degree turn. It was a long, winding walk to the inner sanctum of the hospital. There was a central corridor connecting each individual square, but it was reinforced and sealed shut. It only opened for hospital personnel, and was used to transport emergency patients throughout the building. It wouldn’t open for Dan, or Freya, or any outsider. They had to walk.

Dan was happy to. It gave him time to word his news properly. He’d hoped Connor and Freya had already heard about the night’s events, but it seemed he wasn’t that lucky. He imagined the videos were only just now circulating the internet. He imagined that the APD had perhaps noticed the cluster of witnesses, had found them and stalled them. Maybe they’d collected phones, and wiped data. They could do that, here, when a villain was involved. It wouldn’t matter. News always got out, somehow. There were too many people who’d seen it.

“Cornelius awake?” Dan asked, once the silence became unbearable.

“No,” Freya replied. She did not elaborate, and did not need to. His body had entered something like a healing coma, partially as a result of his upgrade, and chemically assisted by his doctors. He’d wake, eventually. That had been a promise. The ‘when’ of it, however, was still in question.

“How’s Connor taking it?” he asked.

She gave him a hard look. “How do you think?” Each word was precisely enunciated and emphasized. Freya was a master of insulting someone through tone alone. Dan felt like a moron, but that was nothing unusual.

“Has…” Dan furrowed his brow. What was Connor’s dad’s name again? He couldn’t remember. “Has Mr. Graham dropped by?”

Freya scowled, but not at him. “Briefly.”

“But he’s not here?”

“He’s a very busy man,” Freya said. “Especially now.”

You have no idea, Dan thought.

They rounded the final few corners in silence. Dan had never been in an ICU, before. He had a vague childhood memory of a relative falling ill and having limited visitation, but things were either different here, or cops had special privileges. Probably the latter. Freya was allowed in through a pair of floppy double doors with nothing more than nod. Dan followed on her heels, and was let through on Freya’s say-so.

The ICU bulged out of the hospital’s spiraling pattern like a tumor. Each patient had their own large room, and Dan saw over two dozen rooms. It was a gargantuan protuberance in the side of a gargantuan hospital. He wondered how often it saw use. It certainly had these past few days. Nearly every room was occupied, most with members of the APD’s SPEAR Teams. Freya walked straight ahead without turning, her eyes focused on a specific room. She stacked her Styrofoam cups, turned the nob on the door, and pushed it open.

The room was revealed. It was not what Dan had expected. Cornelius was entombed in a pod of some kind, almost completely obscured. Soft light played over his arms and legs, visible even from outside. There was a vitals monitor mounted on the side of the pod. It didn’t beep, but Dan watched the line rise and fall with the slow, steady pulse of a heartbeat.

Connor sat slumped in the corner, on a cheap wooden chair. He looked much the same as Freya, only worse in every possible way. The lines around his eyes were darker and deeper, his clothes more disheveled, his skin more pallid. He held an empty Styrofoam cup in one hand, its top missing. He glanced up at his fiancée like a zombie, and she mutely passed over a fresh drink. He took with a tired nod, placed his old one on a nearby counter, then drained the new cup with a single, long draw.

He placed it down beside the other, then pressed the palms of both hands against his bloodshot eyes and pressed down, hard. They came away wet, his eyes rimmed red. He turned back to Freya, a weary, fond smile growing on his lips, before finally noticing Dan.

“Newman,” Connor said, his voice hoarse. His posture straightened, and he quickly smoothed down the front of his shirt. Dan noted a few brown stains where the younger man had spilled coffee on himself.

Connor coughed into his fist twice, hard, and cleared his throat. “How are you doing? Have you made any progress with Officer Pierre-Louise?”

Dan managed a brief grin. “I’m still here, so something must be going right. Did Gregoir fill you in on what we found?”

“Briefly,” Connor nodded. “It’s been several hours since we last spoke.”

He scratched the side of his face, where noticeable stubble had sprouted. Freya strolled over to his side, and sat in the seat beside him. Dan remained standing, hands tucked into his pockets.

“Some stuff has happened.” Dan paused. It seemed like such an inadequate statement. “Bad stuff.”

“I saw several of our people leave,” Freya noted. “More than I would have thought sensible, given the situation here.”

“Yeah,” Dan said slowly, “I’m thinking you might revise that opinion.”

She stared at him. Connor’s eyes had drifted back to his uncle, lingering on the vitals monitor, but Freya’s bore into Dan.

“Tell me,” she said.

So he did.

“Cannibal,” Connor said numbly, once Dan had finished summarizing his adventure at the motel. He’d kept out his reason for being at the motel—that bit of unpleasantness he’d save for after—and the news he’d delivered was so unexpected that the pair hadn’t asked.

“The Cannibal?” Freya clarified, as if there were somehow any other.

“I think so,” Dan said. “I saw his picture before. He was almost exactly the same.

“Almost?” Freya pressed.

“He looked starved,” Dan replied. “Like something you’d see in a prison camp. Emaciated. But still ridiculously strong.”

“And Gregoir fought him?” Connor asked, his voice filled with worry. “Gregoir’s still alive?”

“He was alive when I left,” Dan said. “I think he’s fine. Cannibal ripped off his arm, and Gregoir just used it like a baseball bat.”

Freya winced. “That is not reassuring information.”

“He put it back,” Dan reassured her. “Popped it back into the socket like he was a ball-jointed doll.”

Connor looked a little green. “I’m glad he’s okay,” he said, a little shakily.

“More than okay,” Dan said. “He kicked ass. Though, nothing seemed to really hurt Cannibal. He just shook it off. Looked more than ready to fight the entire APD by himself. He might’ve won, too.”

Dan hadn’t mentioned his own attempts at killing the villain. Let someone else try and explain it. Freya would ferret out his every secret in seconds if Dan were to try. Friends or not, admitting to attempted murder was never a good idea. Not even against a villain.

“And then Champion showed up,” Dan concluded.

“It couldn’t have been Champion,” Freya replied decisively.

“Looked like him,” Dan repeated. “If Cannibal is alive, it stands to reason that Champion could be too.”

“Delayed aging could conceivably exist within Cannibal’s known powerset,” Freya said with all the authority of a turbo-nerd speaking on her favorite subject. “Champion had no such ability. He could make others obey him. You think he, what, told time to leave him be?”

Dan shrugged. “Why not?”

“Powers don’t work like that!” Freya exclaimed. “They’ve never worked like that! A power might grow in strength and scope. It can be utilized in clever ways, and its expression, its appearance, might seem to change, but its most basic function will always be the same!

“Champion’s power lay rooted in communication. It was an outward expression of authority, from him to someone else. It didn’t even need to be verbal. Gestures were enough, so long as they were understood. When he ordered someone to obey, they did. But only someone, not something. He couldn’t order around inanimate objects. He couldn’t make a car run by shouting at it, or order a lock to open itself. He certainly couldn’t boss around time itself!”

Dan blinked at the sudden influx of information. Connor stared at his fiancée. Freya shifted minutely under their combined gaze, which was the closest she ever came to blushing.

“What?” she demanded imperiously. “I’ve been researching Naturals, for obvious reasons.”

Dan hid a smile. “Couldn’t Champion order himself not to age?”

“He couldn’t give orders to himself,” Freya said.

“How could you possibly know that?” Dan asked.

Freya shrugged. “I listened to an old radio interview. He was very open about it. Apparently, it’s the first thing he tried, once he realized how he’d been changed. Said he didn’t like the idea of forcing other people to obey him. Quite admirable, really. Too bad it didn’t work.”

“A radio interview?” Dan repeated. “I thought he was an illegal vigilante, leading a team of illegal vigilantes.”

“He was well regarded at the time. Even now, really,” Freya replied with another shrug. “Vigilante or not.”

Connor shifted in his seat. “It feels surreal,” he commented. “I think I should be worried, but it’s just…”

“Yeah,” Dan said. He understood completely. Dan had been there, and it still hadn’t sunk in properly. It was just too strange, too inconceivable. It was like Santa Claus knocking on your door at Christmas to complain that your chimney is blocked up. Or maybe Santa coming at you with his flying sled, an army of reindeer, and a big ol’ mallet, all because you made the naughty list. It wasn’t a thing that could ever happen. How did someone even go about processing such a thing?

“How long ago was this?” Connor wondered.

“‘Bout thirty minutes.”

The younger man snorted. “The internet must be exploding.”

“I’m a little afraid to check,” Dan admitted. “I don’t know if any major network has picked it up yet. They probably have to verify it or something. So I’d expect some panic around here pretty soon.”

Freya spoke, “It’s most likely been squelched. The mayor can audit news broadcasts in a time of crisis. He can order information to be withheld.”

“That’s legal?” Dan asked, incredulous.

Freya shrugged. “Prevents panic.”

Dan shook his head, but said nothing. The room was silent for a minute.

“Thanks for stopping by, Daniel,” Connor offered into the quiet. “Awful considerate of you to update us.”

Dan sighed. He dragged over a free chair, plopping himself off to the side of Connor. “That wasn’t why I came.” He paused, then corrected, “Well, it wasn’t the only reason.”

Freya looked at him inquisitively. He recognized the piercing look in her eye that she got whenever her upgrade kicked in.

“More news?” she asked.

“More like a warning,” Dan replied. “About Andros Bartholomew.”

Connor twitched at the name. His gaze slowly moved from Cornelius’ bedside, to meet Daniel’s eyes.

“Tell me,” he demanded softly.

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