Chapter Thirty-One – Saying Hello to the Good Doctor

Chapter Thirty-One – Saying Hello to the Good Doctor

“You want to be doctor?

Get real medical degree! Cheap! Six easy paiments!”

–A pop-up ad on the University of New Montreal homepage, 2027

***

“We don’t have far to go,” I said as we walked down yet another maintenance corridor. It was becoming a habit to spend time in cramped spaces with a bunch of pipes and terrible ventilation. At least it was better than the actual sewers, though not by much.

“How do you want to do this?” Gomorrah asked. “The way I see it, we have a few potential approaches. Doc Hack’s… I can’t believe that’s their name.”

“I’m called Stray Cat and you’re named after a city,” I said. “Glass stones.”

“Glass… the expression is casting stones from a glass house. There’s nothing about glass stones,” Gomorrah said.

I shrugged. “Sure. I just figured stones made of glass would suck to deal with. All that shrapnel, you know?”

“I suppose,” Gomorrah said. “We’re getting off-topic.”

“Right, you want to know how to deal with Doc Hack?” I asked.

“More like I want to know how we’ll reach him. He’s not terribly far from here. A couple of levels down. But the route to get to his… lab, I suppose, isn’t exactly straightforward.”

She wasn’t wrong. The fastest path Myalis had outlined involved going into the sewers again, travelling uphill a ways, cutting into a maintenance elevator, then up to the level where Doc Hack was from below.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

“Are you imagining unreasonably powerful explosives being used in confined spaces in defiance of all common sense?”

I nodded. “I wasn’t going to say it with such a negative tone, but essentially that, yeah.”

Gomorrah nodded, and my map flickered as it updated. Our path now went through two floors as if there weren’t several feet of concrete in the way. “We should be able to bypass any traps if we demolish our way to the heart of the enemy’s installation. I think it’s our big advantage in fighting a foe that wants to use the terrain against us.”

“I like it,” I said.

“Are you two certain that this Doc Hack is so antagonistic?” Franny asked.

“I mean, he’s called Doc Hack.”

“Yes,” she said with the strained patience of someone dealing with a brat, which I found rather insulting. “But other than his association with the Sewer Dragons, you don’t know that he’s really the person who ordered all of the kidnappings. For all we know, he could be at least somewhat innocent in all of this.”

“That sounds real unlikely,” I said. “But we’re packing non-lethals, and I don’t plan on blowing that big a hole in this place. We’ll try to ensure he stays alive enough to answer some questions.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’re sounding like exactly the kind of person a saint would despise?” Franny asked.

I paused and thought about it. “Nah.” I was way too cool for any samurai to despise me. Besides, something in my gut was telling me that Doc Hack wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. No one with a name like that living in the sewers was going to be a friendly old man who handed out lollipops to orphans and only wanted good in the world. Best-case scenario, I could imagine him being chased down here for fucking up and somehow acting like the local doctor, but that was a big ask.

“You’re very confident in yourself, aren’t you?” Franny asked. I didn’t miss the bite in her words.

“Franny, for a long-ass time, all I had going for me was a heap of confidence and a lack of shits to give. I don’t see why becoming a samurai should change any of that.”

“You would think those are some traits that might fade when given so much power,” she said.