Overclocked -ch 20-

The door opened with a soft pop.

An older man walked in that had a clear an obvious look of being a Mender. He was wearing a brown-coat with more pockets than Wrench thought any piece of clothing had a right to have. Each one looked to be filled with one thing or another as well.

He had pale-blonde hair that wasn’t gray or white, but looked like it wouldn’t be long before it began trending that way. It was short and receding, the hairline fading with the pass of time.

Brown-eyes that were warm and unaging peered out from under thick eyebrows. A small frown was creasing a mouth that was ringed with a trimmed beard.

“Ah… ah? You’re awake,” said the old-mender, sounding surprised.

“Just woke up,” lied Wrench, then sat up and turned to face the man. Letting his legs dangle off the bed. “I’m Wrench.”

“I-hello, Wrench. I’m Small-Boy,” the Mender replied with a dip of his head. He came straight over to Wrench as his hands began to fidget and fish around in his pockets.

“Probably should go to him first,” Wrench said, then indicated the Brawler that’d been stabbed. They were looking rather pale on the bed and Wrench really didn’t like the trail of blood that was flowing down from his side still.

If it was still bleeding, it was likely going to continue doing so.

“Oh. Oh! Yes, goodness me, I didn’t even-I’ve never had someone awake when I came in before. I’m so sorry,” apologized Small-Boy, shuffling over to the Brawler in question. “Ah… stab wound. Someone snuck in weapons again it seems.

“That’ll go over poorly when the Tongsta figure it out. They will eventually but it’ll take a little time. Always seem to track what I’m doing and what I use then follow it back. Can’t hide a damn thing from them even if I wanted to.”

“Oh. Err. It’s common for weapons to be snuck in?” Wrench inquired, wondering if he should admit he had the two knives with him.

“Extremely uncommon, actually. Those responsible are usually punished fairly severely. It’s up to the Tongsta to make sure we don’t get outside weapons,” Small-Boy murmured. His hands were fluttering across the knife-wound with some type of device. The ragged skin smoothed and looked considerably healthier in only seconds. “The Tongsta responsible will get punished for it.”

“Should I get rid of the weapons I took from them, then?” asked Wrench. “I took the two knives they snuck in. I have them with me.”

Wrench set down the two weapons beside himself on the bed.

“I’ll trade you for them,” offered Small-Boy. “I can use them for materials and I’m always looking for more.”

“Okay,” Wrench agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. He had no idea what he was trading for, but he wasn’t too concerned either. He’d gotten them for free, didnt’ want to hold onto them if they were likely to get Goodie in trouble, and he could use the good-will of a Mender.

Small-Boy stuck the device back into a pocket, then pulled out something else from a different one. He had a small blue-disc in his palm.

The Mender stuffed it into the wound and pulled out a roll of fabric from yet another pocket. He unrolled a short strip of it, tore it from the roll with his teeth, then slapped it to the wound.

Pushing it down against the wound for several seconds he held his hand there.

“Was he the only injury?” asked Small-Boy, looking up from the Brawler to Wrench.

“I think so? I’m not sure. I think he got his face banged up pretty good,” Wrench answered, pointing to the other Brawler.

I need to learn their fucking names.

This is ridiculous.

“That’s fairly normal for the preliminary fights. Rather barbaric to have everyone fight with their hands and feet. Usually takes a while and causes a lot of broken bones in the hands, feet, face, and ribs,” grumbled Small-Boy. “Damned Tongsta. Devils, all of them.”

“Not all of them,” argued Wrench, immediately thinking of Goodie. “My Tongsta, Goodie, is particularly wonderful to me. She always wants whats best for me. Always.”

“You wouldn’t be here if that were true, now would you?” countered Small-Boy.

“I told her I wanted to be here. That I wanted to fight. I’m going to earn rewards for myself and her at the same time,” Wrench declared.

Small-Boy didn’t say anything to that, he just looked back to his patient.

Lifting his hand up from the tape he pushed a finger at the edge of it. It seemed to be stuck there quite firmly.

No sooner than he’d confirmed that then the mender went to the other Brawler. He laid his hands to the unconscious man’s face. Turning it one way, then the other.

Looking him over with a critical eye.

“Certainly broken bones. Yet also nothing I can do for him here,” complained Small-Boy. “He’ll have to come to the ward later so we can put it back together.

“Probably as soon as he wakes up and is in considerable pain. That’ll spur him on to seek me out then and I’ll handle it at that moment.”

Coming over to Wrench now, Small-Boy stood in front of him. He hesitated for a moment then reached up and laid his hands to Wrench’s face.

Cold and thin fingers probed and prodded at his temples. Then came up under his jaw and pressed into his throat. With his left hand he took Wrench’s hand in-between his fingers and laid them to the inside of his wrist, his right hand still at his throat.

“Your heart-rate is odd given what you’ve gone through,” muttered the man.

Fuck.

Wrench disabled his Systems with a thought. Pushing them to go back to normal.

Small-Boy twitched, looked confused, and then just stood there. His eyes slowly trailing to one side as he stood there. What’d been a flat-line for his mouth squiggled around from a frown, to pursed lips, to pushing to one side.

Likely watching Wrench’s heart-rat flip into a far more normal rhythm. Thankfully from his own point of view, it didn’t feel that different. Other than his skin started to feel a bit cooler suddenly.

“Uh. Huh… that’s… huh. Well, your heart-rate is normal now, I suppose,” Small-Boy said. “You seem fine but it’d be good for you to drop by later for a check-up.

“We’ll be moving straight into the Games in about six hours. That’ll be enough time for everyone to be patched up and ready for the next go-round.

“There’ll be a brief intermission in the middle for meals. They’ll figure out who’s fighting each other in the latter matches at that point as well. Then we’ll move into the final fights of the preliminary. The whole of it will be over rather quickly.

“The intermediate and showcard fights won’t be for a few days and those’ll have more run up to it.

“Don’t kill anyone if you don’t have to. If it happens during the fight, it happens. If you can avoid it, avoid it. Less likely for a Tongsta to get angry for killing their Hume if it’s part of the fight, rather than you executing them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” offered Wrench. “Uh… any entertainment or anything? Anything to do while we wait?”

He was curious about who was here and what he could learn of other Habs and situations. Information and rumors were always going to flow in a place with more than two Humes.

It wouldn’t hurt him at all to learn some things.

“Entertainment?” asked Small-Boy with a laugh. “You can go mingle in the common area of the Hab. Don’t go into any of the other rooms though without being invited, even then be careful.

“There’s been murders or rapes here before by those unwary enough to go into a room with someone. Just keep your head on your shoulders.”

Small-Boy pulled a plastic bottle out of a pocket and opened it. He popped it against his hand and then pulled the bottle back. In his palm were eight red and blue pills.

The Mender considered the number, shrugged, then held them out to Wrench.

“For the knives, this is what I can give you. They’ll give you energy and stamina as well as help you recover if you get injured. Just take one at a time, will handle almost anything that doesn’t kill you immediately,” the mender explained and dropped the pills into Wrench’s hand. He took the knives, tucked them away, and left.

“Right. Medicine,” Wrench said to himself, looking at his palm.

This was likely far more than the knives were worth.

They just weren’t that useful to him.

“But I can trade them to others. Lots to trade for here. Especially with my knowledge of the future,” remarked Wrench.

Then he grinned.

Let’s go see if we can earny anything, shall we?

A few trades here, a few there, maybe get something in our pockets that we can use for the future.

Never know till we look around.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something great to take back with us.

***

It only took an hour for Wrench to discover he was severely over-estimating the Brawlers.

There was nothing to trade for.

No information to gather.

In fact, there wasn’t much to do, other than glower at one another, offer insults casually, or make thinly veiled remarks to the handful of female Brawlers of what they’d like to do them.

All in all, Wrench was very much missing his own Hab.

He even missed Dickheads Hab, at this point.

Rather than hang around any longer with the towering figures of intelectual debate, Wrench had retreated to the ward. He was now sitting in a chair in the lobby listening to Small-Boy treating patients.

At first it’d just been a way to escape the rather unpleasant back and forth.

Now he was actively listening and absorbing what was being said and done. Taking the time to poke and prod at his Systems window as he did it to try and understand more as he went.

He’d already learned quite a bit more about what the Integumentary System really was and all the things he could do with his skin. There would need to be a number of experiments later in regards to the elasticity of his skin and what he could do with it.

Not to mention… I can obviously slow my aging process down.

In fact, I bet if I pin it right now, I’d never grow a day older.

I wonder if I can make it go in reverse, too.

I mean… there’s no reason I couldn’t. He was literally just talking about the fact that aging is just that the body slowly produces inferior versions of itself the longer it exists.

I can just… change every System to produce better copies of itself. That’d move me backward, woulnd’t it?

More and more to test. Always more.

Though that-

“Didn’t like being out there?” Small-Boy asked, wandering over to stand in front of Wrench.

“Uh… no. They’re not the brightest,” Wrench admitted. “Lots of grunts, curses, and harassment. Unpleasant to say the least. I can see what you meant about not going into other people’s rooms.”

“That’s actually rather polite out there right now,” Small-Boy said with a hooked thumb indicating the doorway. “Usually there’s a lot of shouting and screaming by now. I think your presence cowed a lot of them into being a bit more civil than normal.

“Especially since you didn’t engage in any of that behavior. That is most especially likely.

“Your presence, prowress, and clear ability puts you head and shoulders above others.”

Wrench suddenly fell ill at ease.

That was far too many compliments in a short period of time for someone he didn’t know for more than twelve hours. This was more of a tactic of someone who wanted something from him.

Or so he’d gathered from his previous life.

If this was his original time-line, his original life, he doubted very much he’d have noticed the over complimentary nature of the conversation. That Small-Boy clearly wanted something from him and would get to it eventually.

“Thanks,” Wrench said benignly with a smile. “I’m just here to win prizes. Nothing grand or anything like that. Just to live a good life and do what I can.”

“That’s what we all want I suppose,” Small-Boy added and then sat down next to Wrench in the chair next to him. “What we all want. Even those who aren’t living in the Habs just want the best life they can.

“Living as a Hume should. Freely.”

Uh… huh.

I wonder if this is a resistance recruitment.

Cause this feels really similar to how Blue-Bill recruited me. Really similar, in fact.

Though that was more for my ability as a Fixer, than a Brawler.

I guess it’s different because I showcased my ablities in fighting.

Wracking his brain, Wrench tried to piece together through his memories where the resistance should be right now. If everything he’d learned about where the resistance was, and what it was doing, from Blue-Bill about this period, they should be hiding in a Tongsta’s home. In an overlapped enclosure under an enclosed storage area.

One that had a number of Oxygenators supplying a breathable environment for them. All gathered in pieces from Habs as well as a couple water reclamators.

There was even crops that they’d somehow managed by bringing in Hab soil.

The whole thing had been a long term project done through several generations of continuous work. Blue-Bill had always talked about it as if it’d been the beginning of the end for the resistance.

“How’s the resistance doing?” Wrench asked, deciding to jump straight to the end. He’d decided it’d be better getting straight to the end point and then just act like he was well aware. “The person I knew that’d been in the group was my mentor as a Fixer. He was killed by a Brawler.

“He never told me his resistance name, but he did tell me everyone had their own. That it was unique to them and chosen by themselves, rather than a Tongsta.”

Small-Boy was staring at Wrench with wide eyes.

“What, is it that hard to believe people know about the resistance?” asked Wrench. He’d heard the rumors about them a few years after this point, but he’d still heard them. This was the perfect opportunity to drop information on someone who was linked to the resistance. Give them the possibility of making a change that they wouldn’t realize they needed till it was too late. “My mentor said he was concerned that the Tongsta were getting a bit weird when he got caught.

“He only thought of it afterward, but that maybe the Tongsta were noticing a change in the atmosphere. He wanted to use sealant to keep the oxygen escaping. That if it kept getting more and more obvious like that, eventually a Tongsta would come find them.”

Small-Boy blinked twice, then just continued to stare at Wrench. The man was intelligent but also likely didn’t really understand the same things a Fixer would. A concern about atmosphere wasn’t likely something to cross his mind.

But it would for a Fixer.

“Just mention it to whoever the Fixer is right now. They’ll understand,” Wrench brushed aside with a wave of his hand. “I take it there’s no news though? Nothing interesting? Or are you just concerned about revealing too much because I actually like my Tongsta.”

Small-Boy continued to say nothing.

Then he sniffed once, bobbed his head at Wrench, and stood up.

He walked away and left him sitting there in the chair.

Hm.

Whatever.

I did what I could to help them with that. There’s not much else I can do for them at the time being.

There ya go Blue-Bill. I repaid my debt to you in a way that you’ll never actually understand, or even realized happened.

Well… providing they listen.

Small-Boy seems smart enough though. I think he’ll relay the message before he says anything further.

Wrench realized he didn’t want to hang around here any longer.

Or to be more accurate about it, he didn’t quite feel welcome.

Disregarding the ache that feeling caused, Wrench stood up, and left.

He’d done what he’d wanted to here, even if it hadn’t been the original reason for coming to the ward. He’d done what he could for the Resistance in the moment. With any luck they could prevent destruction of their main base with the information he’d given them.

Leaving the ward, he re-entered the lobby.

There’d been some loud boasting when he entered that died away as he entered. It fell into mutters, then whispers, and finally nothing.

Glancing around, he saw it was exactly as he’d left it.

A big room, lots of chairs, tables laden with simple food and water, and nothing else at all.

The population was divided as well.

Male Brawlers had taken up on side, and the female population, being outnumbered five-to-one, were all clustered together as well. Wrench couldn’t really blame them for that.

Deciding to put himself right in the middle of it, because he was feeling somewhat petty, Wrench went over to where the female Brawlers were. If they wanted to shout at one another, goading the other side, then they could do it with him putting himself in a place where he could react.

A position where he didn’t side with either group, but it was obvious he’d intervene if someone did something stupid he didn’t like.

Wrench made sure he didn’t enter the female group, or remain in the male group. Instead he went right up to row of seats that neither side was inhabiting as a buffer zone.

With a nod of his head to the women nearby, he sat down in one of the seats. Looking to the male side he nodded his head at them as well.

Then Wrench leaned back in the seat. He put his feet out in front of himself he closed his eyes, stuck his hands in his pocket, and proceeded to let his mind wander.

Whispers started up almost immediately.

Wrench ignored it.

Ignored them all.

Right up until someone said something louder than a normal talking volume, only to be shushed by those that were with them.

Good.

We can all sit here and enjoy the quiet together.

Stupid fucking Brawlers.

Worse than Adminis.

I think I’d rather be with the School all day and their overly-friendly mixed signals.

Sheesh.