Chapter 25: Chapter 23: Suspicion 

Ceres woke up in a medical ward, absolutely sure that he went to sleep in the shared bunk room with the others right after cleaning up Uncle Dawn's workshop. The first thing he saw was Ann Lesion, the orphanage director sitting next to his bed, reading her multi for the latest news and replying to emails.

He tried to ask something, but his throat was so dry and pained that it came out as a croak instead. His face was covered by a mask connected with three tubes that pumped various chemicals that made the air smell funny.

It was then he noticed that his body was slightly shrivelled up, with his arms hooked on a drip plus various other medical equipment that pumped nutrients directly into his bloodstream, as though he went through a period of fasting.

Ann heard the croaking sound and immediately ran over to the bed.

"Hey kid, how are you feeling? Any issues? Are you paralyzed? Just nod for me if you can" Ann asked with a concerning look on her face

"He's not paralyzed, and he won't be not if I could help it. I won't let him die on us." An older man wearing a doctor's coat floated in on anti-grav clothing, still slurping a nutri-paste packet that had a single tube to suck the paste out.

Doctor Wu had rushed over here despite it being his lunch break when he got an automatic notification that the patient had regain consciousness.

Ceres didn't know how to reply with his throat blocked , instead only going with just nods and shakes of his head to Ann's questions, forgetting the order in which the questions were asked.

He barely recognized Doctor Wu, who was a lead doctor in Zone 4 Seras General Hospital that explained the nerval jack installation procedure to them in less than three minutes before they were sedated and sent off to surgery.

"Let's get over the facts quickly. It's been a week since you've been admitted, your nerval jack is still fine, you're not paralyzed as far as the equipment can tell.”

“As for the reason why you were knocked out on the night right after your installation procedure, it pains me to say that I don't actually know the what, how and why. I also can't understand why is your body burning off so much fat during your coma, so here I would like to ask you a few questions." Doctor Wu shooed Ann away from the bedside, taking over her position.

"Answer with a simple nod or shake for yes or no. Understand?"

Nod.

"Did you log onto to any nerval plug device for more than an hour?"

Shake.

"Did you consume any psychedelic drugs, alcoholic drinks or recreational boosters?"

Shake. Ann gave a sharp stare at Doctor Wu for his absolutely lack of trust in her orphans' integrity.

"Did you physically tamper with the nerval jack?"

Shake.

"Is there any special activities that you may have performed that might have led to such a condition?"

Shake.

“Do you feel any burning sensation at the nape of your neck?”

Shake.

"Well, there's your answer, Ms Lesion. We already confirmed that our installation procedure was perfect, we verified that his nerval jack still works and his amazing NEIR level of 1.8 was not affected all. He's not paralyzed and only a bit thinner than usual. He will be able to get out of bed soon enough."

Ann sighed a breath of relief. "Thank you, Doctor. I know it's a great burden on you to take care of him."

"Don't mention it, I wouldn't want him to die on us, for the sake of the both of us." The doctor floated out of the room. Ann grabbed Ceres' hand, her face filled with relief and a tinge of concern, giving Ceres a sort of motherly feel.

“Calm down Ceres, she’s your fucking orphanage director, don’t get any weird thoughts,” Cres thought to himself.

But suddenly he remembered the upcoming graduation competition that was happening in less than six months! What would happen to his training procedure if he was immobilized for a month?

He tried to get up from the bed, but his muscles could barely handle the movement after being dormant for a week, causing him to slump right back.

Looking at the state of his body now and remembering how confident he was in his newfound strength after the installation, he felt disgusted at himself and depressed, the months of bodybuilding and nutritional paste gone to waste, causing tears to well up in his eyes.

"Hey Ceres, everything is going to be alright, I will do everything in my power to help you get better. There's going to be a few injections later that will make the physiotherapy a lot better, and you'll be up and running in no time. I already sent a message to your friends, they will be coming over tomorrow, stay strong for me alright?" Ann gripped Ceres' hand with both her hands.

Ceres nodded slightly, with Ann standing up to leave, excusing herself due to other job priorities. He already felt much better that there was another adult looking out for him with such concern, understanding why Henry said that Ann was the reason that he won the competition.

***

"Seems like you're going through round two of puberty, brother Ceres, last I saw a few days ago, you looked like a shrivelled shrimp" Braton joked as he entered the medbay, earning an elbow from Erik.

Ardan laughed for a bit, finally being able to joke about someone’s else body size, stopping as soon as Erik gave him a glare.

Ceres chuckled, but immediately grimaced in pain as his throat started to flare up in pain due to having a tube stuffed down it when he was in a coma.

"Sorry Ceres, Lisa refused to come because she said she didn't want to catch 'cripple syndrome' or whatever that is" Erik said, taking a seat next to Ceres' bed.

"I'm not that close to her, Erik." Ceres wondered as to why Erik will even bother asking Lisa when they hardly hung out together.

"Wait I thought you guys had a thing going on, like her finding you first out of all people when she was skipping school."

"That's called bullying."

"Not in the masochist's dictionary, which includes “Insult ASMR” and getting “cripple syndrome”."

Ceres rolled his eyes, and stared at Ardan who surprisingly was the only one who brought a gift. "Here, a flower vase from my dad. Err….It was supposed to be a replacement for the one you broke at my aunt’s office, but I think it will be better here."

Ardan gingerly placed the flower vase on the bedside table, sending a wave of internal "awws" through Ceres. However, Ceres spotted something on the vase and immediately squinted at Ardan.

"Are you sure this vase is from your dad?"

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"Yes, it is!"

"Then why is there a hole the same size on the side of the vase that I cut out in your aunt's office?"

"It's a err... design choice."

"I can still see the burn marks, Ardan."

"Fine, you got me. I didn't have anywhere else to put it."

"Thanks for the second-hand gift, Ardan."

"No problem, Ceres," Ardan smiled forcefully, as Braton and Erik rolled in laughter at Ceres' expense. Ceres couldn't help but smile too despite having received such a gift.

"Well at least he thought about it and fixed it," Ceres thought to himself. The boys continued talking, joking and laughing over the smallest things, sharing what they did over the last week.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Ann Lesion was desperately pacing the office of Doctor Wu, "You're absolutely certain?" Ann asked again for probably the umpteenth time.

"Yes, now please go away, you're making my precious brain hurt." Doctor Wu shooed her away with a motion, exasperated at the continued annoying of the orphanage director.

"If this whole thing goes sideways..."

"I don't need you to remind me. Of course, it would be terrible if the kid died, but much more so for us than him. I guarantee you for the last fucking time, the nerval jack installation is okay.”  Doctor Wu sighed audibly.

“Nothing went wrong, nothing was found wrong and nothing IS wrong. We already had several external doctors check it and they found absolutely nothing, so keep your doubts to yourself and please for the love of the Emperor, stop pestering me. Everything is and WILL be alright."

Ann Lesion let out a sigh as she left the doctor's office. She was extremely afraid that Ceres had suffered a severe injury to his nervous system, which thankfully didn't happen, but she still had doubts.

Pulling up her multi, she called Henry Lesion, the only person she could rely on.

"Hi Mom, what's up? I don't have to go back to do another talk, do I? I’m kinda busy for the next four weeks. There’s talks of a new space division being set up for the enforcers soon."

"Henry, do you mind following up on this 20-year-old kid, Ceres, from the orphanage? I need to know what he was doing on the day he entered a coma about a week ago."

"Mom, you're asking me to stalk an adolescent citizen of the Empire using police resources. I don't think I can do it. And can’t you just ask him?"

"Please, you're the only one I know that's willing to put in effort for an orphan, I need to know what caused him to collapse. He doesn’t recall what happened either so I can only count on you."

"Well okay, but I can only show some street cameras, there's not a lot of them installed in the outer zones because they spook people."

"That's fine, any footage or any information or location that he did before curfew. Send them to me via email."

"Alright, but I gotta do this after work hours. About five hours from now?" Henry ended the call, leaving Ann Lesion hoping that nothing out of the ordinary would be found.

***

"Thanks for bringing me back here, Ms Lesion" Ceres smiled as the orphanage director pushed his wheelchair towards Uncle Dawn's workshop. It’s been a few days since he woke up, so he was finally given permission to go out. Ann had volunteered to escort him around.

"No problem, I fondly remember Uncle Dawn too when he was working for the orphanage, but I'm surprised you could afford to keep the workshop running."

"Well, I had a lot of help from the locals as well to support the rent.” Ceres inwardly cursed, wondering for the fifth time today why did the director suddenly want to see the workshop. "Thank god I cleaned it up before going off into a coma, otherwise the director may flip about the leftover chem-fried chicken." Ceres thought to himself.

As they neared the door of the workshop, Ceres suddenly recalled Mrs Qiu's adverse reaction to the box, and suddenly sweated.

What if the same thing happened to the director? He had no way of knowing what effect the box would have on people.

"Err… Ms Lesion, sorry to bother you but I left the workshop in quite a mess, do you mind waiting outside for a bit while I clean it up?" Ceres tried to worm his way out of having to body slam Ms Lesion out of the workshop, and he wasn't sure how he was going to achieve that while he was on a wheelchair and could barely stand for more than 30 mins.

It's only been three days since he woke up, which counted as quite a fast recovery but not fast enough on Ceres timeline.

"Oh no, Ceres, how could I make you clean it up? I should be helping you, why don't you wait outside while I remove any trash, ok? Anything important to the workshop, I'll be sure to ask you before arranging them." Ann Lesion reached forward for the door while Ceres grabbed her arm.

"No no, Ms Lesion, this is my mess so please let me clean it up. I want to feel like I'm able to do something."

"No Ceres, I insist." The two of them were embroiled in a mini tug-of-war, causing Ann's suspicion of what was in the workshop to peak, making her forcefully open the door, while Ceres was left outside.

Fortunately for her, she didn't see anyone at all in the workshop, and there was no sign of anyone living here long-term or short term, the place being neatly packed.

As she walked into the center of the workshop, Ceres acted as normal as he could and pushed his wheelchair to position between her field of view and the mysterious white box.

Despite his previous experiences with the locals, the box didn’t attract her at all, even when she gazed at it as she walked around Ceres, scanning the workshop.

“What is this box even? Is Mrs Qiu more qualified than our director to be a hero?” Ceres thought to himself. Still a bit wary that something might go wrong, he tried to distract her as much as he could.

Ignoring Ceres' attempts at trying to describe various other equipment in the workshop that was not anywhere close to the bookshelves, Ms Lesion paced around the workshop rapidly, looking for signs of people other than Ceres having entered here.

This raised a doubt in Ceres' mind for the sixth time today as to why the orphanage director wanted to see the interior of the workshop.

"What are you looking for, Ms Lesion?" Ceres asked curiously, to which she suddenly stood up straight and put on a smiling face.

"Well, I just wanted to make sure that there were no harmful objects or devices here that could potentially tamper with your body and especially your nerval jack. I wouldn't want you to get hurt before the competition!" Ann Lesion smiled gently, only showing a pure face of concern. In her mind, she truly felt relieved.

As they finally departed the workshop, Ceres heaved a large sigh of relief. “I really don’t understand this box at all! But I don’t have time to figure it out, I’ll do it after the competition!”

 

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