“I’m going to be talking to the Head about fall protection,” he says to Tyko. “This is getting out of hand. I’ve spent more time splinting limbs since that course went up than I have doing anything else. Someone is going to die on it.”
“Not if they do it correctly,” Tyko insists.
Doctor Ares’ hand is on the back of my neck. He runs it down towards my back, stopping abruptly at the base of my neck.
“There’s something here,” he says.
“Tracking implant,” Tyko sighs, somewhat impatiently. Tyko knows a lot more about me than this doctor does, and he obviously can’t be bothered explaining it.
“That’s… large for a tracking implant,” the doctor says, pressing his fingers around the foreign object which haunts my body. “And it seems to be fused into the spinal column.”
“Tracking. Implant. Doc.” Tyko says the words heavily, as if they’re not meant to be questioned.
Ares shoots a look over at Tyko. It’s hard, but it’s not angry. It’s just firm.
“Listen, she’s not a normal patient. She doesn’t need to be looked at over and over. She’ll heal up soon. I just need to put something on the report, for the Head.”
“I’m not here to help fill out paperwork. I’m here to take care of the people who work here.”
“If you want me to call the Head because you don’t want to do what I’m telling you your job is….”
The doctor ignores Tyko and keeps examining me. I’m too busy smirking at Tyko to notice what the doctor is doing. Suddenly, there’s a sharp pinching sensation in my arm as Doctor Ares doses me with painkiller. I let out a growl and glare at him, but he’s smiling, and I can’t quite gather the rage needed to hurt him. He has me thoroughly off-guard.
“Alright, young lady,” he says, smiling. “You be careful and I will see you back here tomorrow. First thing in the morning.” He looks over at Tyko. “First thing.”
I nod and give him a thumbs up.
“Yeah,” Tyko says. “We’ll see.”
“Is there some reason you’re unable to follow simple orders?”
I let out a snort of laughter. Ares is pulling rank hard with just a simple sentence, and it is such a joy to watch. Tyko is always swaggering around. He thinks he’s hot shit because he’s the one assigned to my case. The feral freak everybody else is afraid of. He thinks he has me tamed. He’s wrong.
“Look what you’ve done,” Tyko snaps at me as it finally occurs to him that the doctor isn’t going to back down on this condition. “We’re going to have to reshuffle missions because of this. You need to be more careful. Your body doesn’t belong to you. It’s property of the government.”
“Easy,” Doctor Ares says. “That’s no way to speak to a lady.”
“She’s not a lady,” Tyko replies. “She’s a tool. To be used.”
“There’s only one tool here,” I grumble under my breath.
Doctor Ares looks at me with a mixture of surprise and amusement. I guess I’m relaxed enough to talk again. Selective mutism always surprises people. They hear the mute part and forget about the selective bit before it. I can usually speak just fine. I choose not to most of the time, unless I’m sassing or swearing. Nobody listens to me anyway.
“I will deal with you when we get back to your cell,” Tyko snarls at me, threatening me right in front of the doctor.
I look at Ares with big blue rescue me eyes. This is a tactic I was taught during training. I’ve been told that big strong men like to feel as though they’re rescuing a weak little female. My strength should always remain hidden until I need it.
“Cell?”
Oh, now Tyko’s let the cat out of the bag. The doctor didn’t know they keep me locked up.
“Why would she be in a cell?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about your patient, doctor,” Tyko says. “You should stop asking questions.”
“Stopping asking questions doesn’t make sense as a strategy if there’s a lot I don’t know,” the doctor replies with a dry smirk. Oh I like him. He is sassy, in a muscular way.
“You’re not cleared to know. This matter is top secret. I shouldn’t have brought her here,” Tyko says. He is incredibly stupid. He only realizes he’s made a mistake about half an hour after he’s made it. This has worked in my favor more than once. “Should have asked for a doctor cleared to the top levels.”
“The top levels of top secret topness,” I giggle under my breath.
Tyko lifts his hand to cuff me, then realizes what he’s doing and puts it down. He’ll still hit me. Just later, when there’s no doctor to file an incident report about the matter.
“I don’t think she should leave medical,” Doctor Ares says.
Aw, he’s trying to save me. It’s not going to work, but he’s trying and that is rather sweet.