Arcade's Dungeon

Hunter Hero 13: Stories

For break and lunch for the next few days, I made sure to keep my face out of sight. No, what I said on Monday evening wasn't necessarily wrong, but it did make Savannah silent enough that I felt bad for striking her bubble of fantasy. Driving home with Nita was my only saving grace that night that kept me from feeling too bad.

     Because I was right.

     After watching that film, there was no doubt in my mind anymore that Selinker was coming for me. And if not that psycho, then another from the system. From HUNTR. I'd been so worried before about, "Well are they coming for me? Are they not? If It's an S-rank? If it's SS-rank?"

     But that night, I made peace with it.

     It was strange putting the buzzer on after not wearing it for so long. It fit right over my ear like always and suction-cupped to my head, but after not getting a haircut for so long and almost letting it grow past my shoulders, it was hard trying to keep it out of the way. I had to brush all the waves out of the way for the button, pressing it. Waiting for the system to boot up after charging the stupid thing since it'd died.

     The voice changer clicked on as I began to call Chandra.

     "Finally! I've been trying to call you for so long now! Nike-"

     "Chandra, I know this is abrupt, and I'm sorry for not being in contact for so long. But I have a request."

     "What? Already? I was just about to tell you about this incident going down right now-"

     "And I'm sure there's already another hero in the area taking care of it."

     "Dumpster Fire took over your area saying it'd be easy and, well, it's not going well. Apparently he didn't read the news and see that downtown has a lot more crime than uptown."

     "He'll learn. Chandra."

     It took her a few moments to accept that I wasn't coming back, but I wasn't worried. She was my handler and two others. She wasn't wanting for a partner that badly - just the one that made her life easy. She accepted her fate and asked in a flat tone, "What?"

     "You get to work at around three, right?" The same time Dad started his shift.

     "Yeah, why?"

     It'd have to be a very fast bathroom break then. Conveniently, looking at the lunch menu for the next day, the school had thought to cycle spicy chicken back through. No one would suspect if I was gone for a few minutes.

     "Do you think you could print out my file and put it on the hood of your car? I want to run by and grab it if possible."

     "Rather than playing mission impossible and trying to download it off the boss' computer."

     "Rather than that, yes." I wanted to spend our time together on Friday grilling him for what was definitely HUNTR's actions. It was hero territory, my town, even when a dungeon opened up. Even then, hunters had to work with our company in order to clear it if one of us didn't do it first. "What would be the best time for you around then?"

     "Hm...this means you'll be too fast for me to see you, right?"

     "I would be leaving in the middle of class, so yes."

     She gave up. "Fine. I'll put it on the roof of my car, in a yellow little thing parked next to Starbucks underneath the orange picking mural, at 2:57 PM on the dot. I'll stand there drinking my coffee for a minute. If you don't pick it up, I'm going to hold it in my office till you do."