Chapter 7 - The Commander-in-Chief (1)

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room.

Hushed whispers tickled my ears. All I could see was a white ceiling. I turned my head slightly and saw the backs of people's heads.

My injured arm and leg felt numb, but there was no pain. They must have given me something.

As I blinked, someone approached the head of the bed.

"You're awake?"

At the doctor's voice, everyone around me turned at once. I felt awkward under the sudden barrage of stares.

"Yes. Oh, was I asleep?"

"Not asleep. You passed out for a bit. Lost quite a lot of blood."

"Are you okay? How do you feel?"

The doctor answered, and Ami craned her neck to ask.

I planted my elbow on the mattress and pushed myself upright. A familiar room came into view: a spacious white room full of medical equipment I couldn't identify, people sitting on round stools, and a bed against the wall. It was Dr. Samuel Han's infirmary. The place I'd visited yesterday.

Large gauze dressings covered my forearm and ankle. I couldn't see much beneath them, but the wounds didn't look shallow. Yet they didn't hurt at all. Had they given me painkillers?

In any case, I was incredibly lucky to have faced that thing and escaped with only these injuries.

I took stock of the people around the bed. Riccardo and Ami were sitting on stools. The handsome man with braids stood looking troubled. Samuel was studying a tablet.

I nodded, rubbing my neck with my good hand.

"It doesn't hurt at all. Thank you. For saving me... I feel like I've done nothing but cause trouble since yesterday. I'm so sorry."

"And what exactly did you do wrong?"

"Rick. Don't be sarcastic. It's a bad habit."

"Stay off your feet as much as possible for a week."

I turned toward the doctor. Samuel Han set his tablet on the desk and looked at me, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his white coat. His clear blue eyes held the assured confidence of a seasoned professional.

"I'll do my best."

Though I had no idea how I was supposed to live for the next week.

As if he'd read my mind, Riccardo gave a lingering chuckle. With a sly smile, he nudged the braided man's side with his elbow. The man regarded him silently, then firmly pushed his elbow away and took a step toward me.

"Mr. Hilde."

"Yes. Ah, Hildebert Taleb."

"I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself sooner. I'm Aide Ska Owen."

What?

This man was the aide? My eyes widened as I studied the man standing before me. The one who had just rushed out and saved my life.

He'd been handsome even upside down, and looked far more striking right side up. Attractive bronze skin, braids falling to his shoulders, a perfectly fitted suit, and several silver piercings in his ear. A faint scent of cologne.

Ska Owen was a handsome man who looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties.

The aide, whom I'd met quite unexpectedly, spoke.

"First, please allow me to apologize."

Why was he apologizing?

"I noticed your bleeding far too late. I'd been told you had an enhanced body, so I simply assumed you would have healed... It was an oversight on my part."

"No, not at all. If you hadn't saved me, I wouldn't be alive right now."

"Protecting civilians from those things is my job."

As I'd expected, these people didn't have ordinary jobs. But whatever his job was, it didn't change the fact that he'd saved my life. Before I could say so, Ska continued.

"Also, I'm afraid your meeting with the commander-in-chief will be delayed quite a bit. This is the first time creatures have appeared near headquarters, let alone two at once. There were no fatalities, and you were the only person injured, but the media is in an uproar. I suspect it'll take a week for things to settle down."

"Oh. That's all right. At the moment, I... As you know, I have no home to return to, or any memory of one... I don't have anything in particular to do, and I don't even know what I ought to be doing."

I'd originally planned to go out for brunch with Ami and Riccardo, but the monsters' sudden appearance had kept us from eating. Thinking about food made me ravenously hungry.

What time was it?

"What time..."

"Twelve ten!"

Ami blinked as she answered.

"You must be hungry."

I nodded sheepishly and looked around. Sunlight pouring through the window bathed the hospital room. The sounds of people bustling about filtered in through the doorway. It was an ordinary midday scene, full of life.

Hard to believe I'd nearly been killed by a bizarre creature just now.

The doctor abruptly offered me some chocolate.

"Have this for now."

"Thank you."

"Tell him where he'll be staying for the week. Take him there in a wheelchair. We'll look into the abnormalities again once he's fully recovered."

"There's something else strange about me...?"

Was there anything normal about me at all?

At my weary mutter, Riccardo's smile widened. The doctor picked up his tablet and explained.

"Yes. Normally, enhanced healing, including arrested aging, has to come first for an enhanced-body transplant to take successfully. But you have the transplant without the vastly superior healing ability that should come with it."

Well, then.

"Not that your healing is at an ordinary person's level. Your aging seems to have been properly arrested, too. Still, the fact remains that you heal more slowly than the average Badger, so let's run some more tests in a week."

The doctor spoke casually, tapping his tablet.

I let out a hollow laugh as I watched him make a note. I was so dumbfounded by my own body that words failed me. Why did strange things about me keep cropping up?

After entering something on his tablet, the doctor looked up and spoke decisively.

"For now, go get some rest. The tests aren't urgent."

I nodded as I chewed the chocolate. But I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't in pain, but my limbs felt numb. Since he'd told me to use a wheelchair, I probably wasn't in any condition to walk normally...

One arm and one leg were fine, so couldn't I get around if I found a wheelchair?

When I turned to get out of bed, everyone around me reacted.

"Mr. Hilde, wait a moment. Rick. A wheelchair."

"Hey, don't just move around like that!"

"What? Oh, yes. Sorry..."

"Just wait. I'll find you a ride..."

Aide Ska reached out to stop me from planting my good foot on the floor. My sudden movement must have startled the doctor, who spoke up sharply. Riccardo rose to find a wheelchair.

Ami hurried over and took my arm. I gave an awkward little nod.

"Thank you."

She looked up at me.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine, apart from being hungry."

"Good. Remember the room you slept in yesterday? We'll take you there. I've already ordered brunch so we can eat together now that you're awake."

"Thank you so much. And please, you don't need to be so formal with me."

I didn't know my age, but surely I was under seventy?

Riccardo wheeled over a chair from somewhere in the infirmary. I put my weight on my uninjured foot, and Ami took a firm supporting grip on my arm.

What a grip she had.

"Okay. No more formalities, then."

Ami practically lifted me into the wheelchair in one swift motion.

"Let's go have brunch!"

Riccardo and Ami wheeled me away. Before long, they brought me to the room right next to the one where I'd stayed. Inside were the brunch Ami had bought, the clothes Riccardo said he'd had delivered, and the clothing Zhu had given me.

Riccardo left, saying he had work to do. That left just Ami and me in the new room.

"You need to rest here for a week."

Ami ambled over and unpacked brunch.

"I'll come visit lots this week. Let's get to know each other while you're recuperating here."

I realized I was expected to stay quietly confined here for a week. It probably had something to do with the enhanced body transplanted into me. My sudden appearance in the portal zone would be part of it, too.

Then there was my imperfect healing... And perhaps those two bizarre creatures whose appearance at headquarters had apparently been unprecedented.

But dwelling on it now wouldn't give me any answers. I watched the young-looking woman bustle about, then slowly nodded. Setting my tangled thoughts aside, I ate brunch with someone I'd only met yesterday.

* * *

The week I spent confined to the room was more peaceful than I'd expected. My injured leg would have kept me from going anywhere anyway, so I decided to enjoy the situation now that I was in it.

It was certainly an environment I could enjoy. Ami and Riccardo took turns bringing me food, and all I had to do was eat it. I spent my days having meals, reading the books they'd bought me, or chatting with them.

"I'm living the good life thanks to you."

Riccardo said this with a broad smile on the evening of my third day cooped up in the room.

"Assigned to watch an unregistered enhanced-body recipient who appeared in the portal zone. I can hardly tell whether I'm on duty or on vacation..."

That put me a little more at ease. Being a burden had been weighing on me. Even while I laughed and chatted with Riccardo and Ami, guilt had gnawed at my stomach...

Even if it wasn't true, I was grateful he'd said it.

Time passed as I tried foods I remembered and foods I'd never seen before, all of them astonishingly delicious. I spent seven days wrapped in an atmosphere as languid as the midday air.

A week in which I learned little of substance.

There was no television or computer.

"This is where the senior leadership comes to rest," Ami answered when I asked whether this world had television.

"They've kept outside stimulation to a minimum so people can switch off completely and relax."

I nodded and asked no more questions. She probably wasn't lying. But I could infer that she also meant I wasn't allowed to watch television.

Sometimes, I thought, keeping quiet was wiser than asking questions. I'd work through my backlog of questions little by little once my leg healed. After I'd earned more of Ami and Riccardo's trust.

And after the commander-in-chief, the organization's highest decision-maker, had decided what to do with me.

The commander-in-chief wasn't mentioned once all week. Aide Ska visited once during my confinement, and Zhu, the head of HR, also stopped by, but neither said a single word about the commander-in-chief. I'd almost forgotten he existed.

Lulled by the leisurely routine, I passed the days without thinking about what lay ahead.

And after that week, I came face-to-face with the commander-in-chief.

* * *

"Mr. Hilde."

The commander-in-chief turned his head, calling my name in a husky voice.

"I'm terribly sorry it's taken so long for us to meet."

He turned from the window to look at me. I stopped in my tracks as I entered the office, staring blankly at the man by the window. The sunlight pouring in etched his appearance vividly into my eyes.

Skin so white it seemed devoid of pigment. Jet-black hair. His large eyes had gentle curves, and his features were delicate. If not for his impressive height and the black suit fitted snugly to his lean frame, I might briefly have mistaken him for a woman.

This was the man with the final say here.

"Hello, sir."

An imposing presence I couldn't quite put into words left me tongue-tied.

"I'm Hildebert Taleb."

After introducing myself, I remained where I was.

It wasn't an overbearing gaze that made me tense. If anything, he seemed to have the gentlest air of anyone I'd met so far.

But those eyes.

Despite his unmistakably twenty-something appearance, his eyes left no doubt that he'd lived a great many years. Faced with the sorrow and resignation accumulated in the commander-in-chief's large eyes, and the seasoned understanding born of them, I was speechless.

That was where his imposing presence came from.

Eyes that belonged only to someone who had lived through years riddled with suffering.

"I'm Lee Yehyeon."

He spoke gently, glancing over my leg and arm.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. How are your injuries?"

"Much better, thanks to everyone's help... I was just told they've healed completely, and all the gauze and bandages have been removed."

"I'm glad to hear that. Please make yourself comfortable in that chair. We have a great deal to discuss."

"... Yes."

I walked toward the chair in front of the large desk. Once I'd settled into its soft cushions, the man watching me slowly moved as well. He walked over, pulled out the chair behind his desk, and sat down. Then he dismissed the holographic windows floating above the desktop.

He raised his head to look at me.

"May we begin?"

Yehyeon spoke courteously, his expression unreadable. I nodded slowly.

"Yes."

My interview with Commander-in-Chief Lee Yehyeon began.