The Edge

Matteo: Part Four

Eventually, he and Tola left to get more robust meals for everyone, which gave them a good idea of who was actually being treated (or visiting) at this place. Tola wasn't wrong; the line for the cafeteria was at least half people with prosthetics or weird body mods. Limbs, the odd eye, the sort of heavy-duty hearing aids (or implants) that did a fair bit more than get your hearing to the normal range of 20 to 20,000 Hz. He'd almost guess they were military grade if they weren't all consistently fun colors (lots of green and golds, though he spotted some blues as well).

"Do you think something bad happened here?" Tola signed, tilting her head slightly towards one guy with both legs and an arm replaced.

"...honestly? I'm starting to think it's voluntary." Tola looked baffled. She might've been a lot less sheltered than she once was, but she wasn't really familiar with body modding. "Some people get prosthetics for like...superman type things. Varying degrees of superhuman. There's some guys who want to get as robotic as possible."

Tola made a face. "That's silly. God gave them their bodies. They're fine as they are."

"Yeah, I don't understand it, either, but as long as they're not taking medical services away from disabled people..." They usually didn't. You went to certified body modders or underground types, not the kind of specialists Matteo knew far too well. "...no skin off my back. I mean, unless one of them is trying to stab me with their finger knives."

Tola giggled. "Arian would do that."

"Why do you think I go out of my way to make sure he doesn't lose any limbs? I don't want to give him an excuse." It looked like she laughed harder at that. "I'm only kind of joking."

His phone hummed at him; when he checked it, there was a text from Arian. Speak of the devil... Despite the fact that it was probably news (or at least, a precursor to news), Matteo's stomach started twisting itself into knots. No news was no news was stressful, but news suddenly didn't seem that great, either. Still, he opened up the text.

From: Arian: we're at the front door but they won't let us in :(

Sent: Yeah they're serious about security. Give us a sec to grab food and we'll get you

Sent: Who else came with

From: Arian: me + luca he needed a break and everyone else is shaking down a lead

From: Arian: idk if its metaphorical shaking or literal w gideon it could be either

Fair enough. Although, if Gideon were there, he might not need to do any literal shaking. The dude had a very impressive death glare. Sometimes the height advantage was enough, depending on who they were speaking to.

They got the food as quickly as possible before going to the front door. Luca looked like he wanted to curl up in a ball and die, but Matteo expected that. If there was one person who hated hospitals more than Matteo, it was Luca. The decision to come with had probably been a lesser of two evils situation. If Arian felt antsy, he didn't let it show. "How's the kid?" he signed.

"Improving," Matteo replied. "They said the infection looks slow to heal, but that could be because of...whatever the hell it was that got in it."

"They don't know?"

"Nope. Who are the others shaking down?"

"Some PI that works on stolen ships. I don't know how they're going to explain everything, but Adoette is good at that."