04 – A Breath of Fresh Air

Erika woke with a sudden gasp, confused and disoriented. She sat on her side, just as she had been ten seconds ago. The room around her was no longer The Castle’s operating theater. The last thing she saw was The Orderly, warning her that she would feel a burning sensation in her arm as she added some anesthetic to Erika’s IV line. Erika distinctly recalled feeling a heat in her wrist. She opened her mouth to comment on it, then…

The recovery room didn’t look much different from the room Erika had first woken up in, containing her bed, a desk, a cabinet, and a small clock on the wall. Forty-five minutes had passed since Erika went into surgery. Shaking her head and slapping her cheeks, Erika sat up and quickly checked herself over.

The cast around her chest was gone, as was the splint on her arm and the brace on her leg. The only evidence left by the cast was a series of small marks on her skin, not much different from those left by a vaccine. She stretched and twisted, feeling no pain.

“Any troubles?” The Orderly asked, pushing aside a curtain to the small recovery room. “Aches, sharp pains, dull throbbing, etcetera?”

“Not at all,” Erika answered, arching her back in a long stretch. “I don’t even feel groggy.”

“Naturally. Modern anesthetics are quite good, but I think mine are a little better,” The Orderly said with no small amount of pride in her tone. “Still, I would recommend against driving, operating heavy machinery, or making life-altering decisions for the next four hours.”

“Noted,” Erika said, testing her balance as she pushed herself off the bed. She compared the feeling to sneaking a bit of wine from her mother’s stash, noting she felt even less impaired now, but still nodded to The Orderly’s guidance. “So that’s it, right? All the pins are out, no more surgeries?”

“Correct. As far as medical is concerned, you are cleared to leave; however, the Director wishes to meet with you once more before you depart.” The Orderly pulled open one side of the cabinet. “Your clothes are here. I will wait outside. Call for me when you’re ready to go.”

“Sure thing,” Erika said, tossing the hospital gown onto the bed as The Orderly slipped back through the curtain.

Three days with The Castle was more than enough for her; she was ready to be out of their weirdo asylum. Some unnaturalness, or whatever The Butler had been worried about, wasn’t why she wanted to leave. Nor was it that she had things which needed doing outside this place—though that was definitely a contributing factor. It was the constant required escort everywhere. She couldn’t even visit the bathroom without The Butler walking her there. Even with these annoyances, Erika’s opinion of The Castle was overwhelmingly positive. It was hard to find fault in people who put them all back together, literally in Anna’s case. Rick would remain a few more days until Anna woke, but The Orderly was optimistic about her surgeries. Erika herself planned to return, if only to apologize again.

“I’m ready,” Erika called out after dressing herself, leaving only her makeup untouched. She glanced at her reflection, eager to get home and fix the glaring gap in her ensemble.

The Orderly returned, still dressed in her fifties-style nurse uniform—cap, mask, and thin white gloves included. Erika studied her attire, recalling she’d never seen the Orderly wear anything else, just as The Butler always donned a tuxedo. In contrast, The Gadget’s wardrobe rotated several times a day, and The Maid, seen only in passing, dressed like a fashionista while off duty. Erika wondered about the reason behind their clothing choices; it didn’t seem mandatory.

Erika’s eyes drifted to The Orderly’s mask, noting the way it did not move as she spoke. “Very well. I shall guide you to The Director.”

Deciding not to ask about what that mask hid, Erika followed The Orderly through the eerie halls of The Castle’s asylum. Even without the place being literally hostile architecture, Erika doubted she could find her way. The section they walked twisted and turned, broken up by dozens of cross-hallways, all identical.

On the way, they passed a creature prowling the hallways that made Erika’s heart skip a beat. It stalked forward with an unnatural grace. Its elongated limbs folded and unfolded in eerie, insectile motions. Each step was silent. Toes splayed and tipped with claws never quite touched the floor. It hunched forward as if on the hunt. Its skin—or was it armor?—gleamed a slick, oily green-black. It was stretched tight over a body that was all sinew and impossible angles. Glossy, flat eyes oscillated toward Erika from an otherwise blank mask of a face, dissecting her with its gaze. The Orderly did not break stride. The way she simply glanced to the creature—its flexing ribcage, the tubes and ridges that ran along its spine, pulsing faintly, as if something alive slithered just beneath its surface—was so mundane and unconcerned that she was the only reason Erika hadn’t whipped out her bat already.

“One of The Mind’s servitors,” The Orderly said, her voice echoing in the corridor’s hush. “Pay it no… mind. Heh.”

“I don’t think I’ve met The Mind,” Erika said, watching the long, segmented tail swish back and forth as the servitor prowled further into the asylum’s darkness.

“The Mind does not get around much. The Director and The Doctor created the servitors to act as The Mind’s body, though they are unable to operate outside the asylum.”

Erika filed away the note that The Mind apparently did not have a body, but she was still more focused on that thing. “Did they have to make it so… predatory?”

“The Mind is a fan of old horror movies.”

“Oh, so it’s deliberately creepy,” Erika said, feeling a little better about the situation. She had told The Butler that she wouldn’t get weirded out by The Castle’s oddities, but something about that thing had to have been designed to unnerve people, and she was glad to have that suspicion confirmed.

The Orderly shrugged, reached a door identical to the rest, knocked twice, and entered.

The Director sat in a high-backed executive chair, looking almost like he fit despite his diminutive stature. He was probably sitting on a dozen books, hidden beneath the large desk topped with one of The Gadget’s strange computers. He wore a simple green vest and bowtie today, looking dapper enough.

But upon entering, Erika’s attention was drawn to a man seated on a long couch up against the wall. He wore a long trench coat over a simple suit, meshing well with his darker skin tone. His face twisted to a wary look as Erika walked in. Nevertheless, he stood quickly and approached.

“This is The Prescient,” The Director said as the man offered a hand.

“Ah, the one who had the vision?” Erika asked, taking The Prescient’s hand in a firm grip.

“The Mind has spared me the worst of the vision, but yes, that would be me.” He paused a moment, getting an odd look in his brown eyes, before he twisted Erika’s wrist to look at her palm.

Erika tensed, ready to pull her hand away, but curiosity kept her still. She watched The Prescient’s movements closely. “Seeing any trouble in my near future?” she asked, flashing a sly grin as he examined her palm.

“If palm reading could tell the future, it would indicate some awfully strange things about the nature of human biology,” The Prescient absently answered, tracing a finger across a line on her palm. “That said, you’ve been under considerable stress lately. Given what I have seen of the future, I recommend relaxing as much as possible.”

Erika pulled her hand out of his loose grip with a grumble. “Easy for you to say.”

“No, no, it isn’t. I would prefer to say, ‘leave Chicago and never return’ or something to that effect. However, I am well aware of the futility of such a question, both because of your nature and the drive of our mutual enemies.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The Prescient shrugged. “Are you going to leave Chicago? No. Even if you did, would the tattooed cult stop chasing you? No. Thus, futility. Don’t need to see the future to see that much.” Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a deck of cards. With practiced dexterity, he fanned them out, face down, for Erika. “Take one. Look at it, but don’t tell me what it is.”

“I don’t know,” Erika half-joked, “The Orderly said not to make life-altering decisions.”

“It’s just a card.”

Frowning at the gold-on-black eye patterns of the cards, Erika decided on one of the cards at the very end of the deck. She slid it out from under The Prescient’s grip; a fair number of magic tricks relied on the magician knowing the bottom card in advance and using that to find her card, though she wasn’t sure how many regular magicians were actually supernatural. The card was of a naked woman, making Erika click her tongue in annoyance. On the card, the woman was in the midst of pouring water from two pitchers onto the ground, all beneath a starry sky. XVII sparkled at the top of the card—except the card was upside down. Erika didn’t know the meaning of the card, but the image depicted was fairly obvious given that naked woman from the hotel. Did it foretell a future encounter with her? Given that she had partially ignored Erika’s breaking ability, finding a real way to take her down was at least good knowledge to have in advance.

“Ah,” The Prescient hummed, watching her face. “One more, please.”

“I get to pick a new fortune if I don’t like my current one?”

“Free will exists; there is no set fate. I, of all people, must believe that, or I may as well lie down and die right where I stand.”

With a harrumph, Erika selected a card without thought, drawing from the dead center of the deck. Depicted upside down, a skeletal angel blew a trumpet at a group of naked people down below, making Erika wonder if she was reading too much into the naked person aspect of the first card or if nudity was just a thing with tarot. Labeled as XX, Erika just shrugged; nothing about this one really stuck out to her as important or portending.

“If I may,” The Prescient said, plucking the cards from her fingers. Without looking at their faces, he slipped them back into the deck and began shuffling, cutting, and shuffling some more. Once he finished, he drew a card, looked at it, then replaced it without changing his expression. He simply looked to The Director, nodded his head, then returned to the couch.

“Uh…” Erika looked between him and The Director. “What?”

“The Prescient had a prior encounter with the monk you faced,” The Director answered, hands clasped together on the desk, “during which he had his initial vision of a dark future. He simply wished to confirm a few things. Verily, it seems we have nothing to worry about for the time being.”

Erika doubted that, but if he wasn’t going to tell her, she wasn’t going to waste her breath asking. “Speaking of… I spoke with The Fixer last night. They want access to the monk. The guy killed… someone they cared about,” Erika said, not quite sure how much The Fixer wanted to share.

“The monk is currently within the secure cells, access could be arranged, but I doubt the monk is capable of speaking. His jaw is fractured in forty-eight different points—the musculature that works the jaw cannot operate under such conditions.”

“I don’t know how much they want to talk,” Erika admitted.

“I see. I will see about making arrangements. We would prefer if the monk were alive, however, for while dead men do tell tales, it is often easier to extract information from the living.”

“I’ll let him know. Maybe when we stop by for Anna after she’s on her feet again?”

“That will likely work on our end,” The Director said, penning a note on a paper calendar. “Expect a call within the week. Until then, The Mind recommends you take some time for yourself, but do not forget that we do not have much time, lest The Eclipse unintentionally unleash a horde of monsters upon the city.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call them soon…”

“Good,” The Director smiled, clasping his hands together. “I look forward to working together. The Orderly will see you out.”

Erika turned to find The Orderly waiting patiently by the door. Although she wasn’t sure if there was more to say, Erika figured she wasn’t supposed to be making real decisions today anyway. Wanting nothing more than a normal bed for at least a little while, she turned and started following The Orderly down the asylum’s halls once more.

“Hey,” Erika said as they turned down one corridor. “You guys took a peek inside me, right?”

“I…” The Orderly raised a slim eyebrow. “I guess? When setting some of your ribs and applying my osteoregenerator paste, we did peel back your skin. More invasive operations were not necessary—we did not delve below the ribcage, if that is what you are asking.”

“Right, right.” Erika shuddered a little at the thought. “I was just wondering if you noticed anything odd inside me.”

“Odd how?”

“I don’t know. Machine parts, maybe?”

The Orderly paused fully, giving Erika a strange look. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing. If you didn’t see anything, that’s good to know, I guess.”

The Orderly stared with her oddly crossed eyes for a moment longer before she continued walking. “When you exit,” she said, “you will find yourself in Chinatown, near the old theater. You will not be able to regain access on your own. If you find yourself without transportation, please call The Butler or me, and we will readmit you.”

“Yeah, The Fixer will be somewhere nearby, so don’t worry about that.” They didn’t have an exact location due to some oddity in how the asylum connected to the rest of the world, but Erika had gotten into contact with The Fixer the night before and let them know where and when to pick her up. “Thanks for fixing my friends and me up.”

“It is what I was made for,” The Orderly said, stopping at a seemingly random door in the middle of the hallway. “I would avoid making it a regular occurrence. The Director wishes for your assistance now, but he may not in the future, and I would be upset to see our hard work go to waste.”

That was a big red flag that they would only get free healthcare so long as they were useful to The Director. “Good to know.”

With a nod of her head, The Orderly pushed the door open to a slushy alley tucked between two buildings. Erika stepped out, shivering a little, and turned back to ask The Orderly if she could wait inside until The Fixer pulled up, only to find a solid brick wall in her face. She patted it, but there was no sign that it was an illusion or fake. There wasn’t even a keyhole to try to pick. Something told her that if she broke down the wall, she would find a regular building on the other side.

Running her hands up and down her arms, Erika hurried out of the alley, texted the street name to The Fixer, and huddled down to wait. Luckily, the old Corolla pulled up in less that a minute, welcoming her with nice, heated air.

Leah’s look was less welcoming, turning the warm air in the car to an awkward, stifling atmosphere.

“You don’t know how worried I was when Leslie told me what happened.”

Erika tried to muster a grin, but it faltered before it could form. “It…” Her voice caught in her throat. She stared down at her hands, flexing her fingers over and over again. “It was probably worse than you heard.”

Leah’s face softened, her anger dissolving into worry.

Erika felt the weight of that concern more than anything. She had planned to downplay everything, to shrug it off, to carry on in her usual boisterous style with some joke about hospital food. The words wouldn’t come. Her throat felt tight.

She looked out the window, watching the snow melt in dirty rivulets down the glass. “I thought I could handle it,” she whispered. “I always do, and with a grin on my face the whole time. Before The Fixer, I had a fancy superpower like some cartoon hero. It made me, like, untouchable, but it didn’t matter here, not when it counted.”

Leah reached over, her hand warm and steady on Erika’s shoulder. Erika flinched at first, then let herself lean into the touch as her bravado crumbled.

“I almost lost everyone,” she said, voice trembling despite her efforts. “Rick and Sofia might have walked away from the crash, more or less, but that monk would have killed them just out of spite because I chose to fight him instead of going with him and planning for a better opportunity.” Erika drew in a shaky breath. “And Anna… she definitely would have died had The Castle not showed up out of nowhere. In fact, I don’t know if she did die—they were being a bit cagy about the whole thing.” Erika tried to force a laugh. “I had a whole joke about how she was going to get cool zombie powers to try to lighten the situation.

“I just keep replaying it, over and over. The crash, the monk, the way everything just fell apart so quickly. I didn’t know how to put it back together… but I guess I’m not good at that kind of thing.”

“You did what you could, Erika,” Leah said, squeezing her shoulder, grounding her. “The Fixer has been out of sorts since, feeling like he failed you with the faulty watch.”

“The watch worked fine,” Erika said with a scoff. “Sure, we didn’t know it would be so loud, metaphysically speaking, but I knew that it would send out those ripples. And they did warn me that storing large amounts of ripples could be problematic. I was lax.” Erika slammed her fist into the side of the door, not breaking it, or her hand, but just to let out some of her anger. “I thought we were so far away from Chicago that there would be nothing to worry about. If we had been on the move when the watch went off, if we had planned to mix in with a crowd instead of being the only car on a long and lonesome road, if I had thought about anything…

“Leslie said you managed to take down your attacker before passing out. That alone might have saved everyone.”

Erika shook her head, feeling a pit of frustration swelling in her stomach. “It doesn’t feel like enough, especially not when they were only in danger because of me to begin with.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of the heater and Erika’s shaking breaths. Then Leah pulled her into an awkward hug over the Corolla’s armrest, and Erika let herself be held. For once, she didn’t try to be the strong one, she just let herself be.