The Edge

Matteo: Part Two

Edward nodded. "I'll go with her. I'll keep her safe, I promise."

"Sounds good." The guy seemed solid, so Matteo wasn't super worried about leaving his sister with him. Still a little bit, but it was a better option than wasting time trying to talk Tola out of going. "See you guys there."

That left him, Carrie, and Nathan, who still looked pretty sullen but also low-key fascinated by their surroundings. Matteo couldn't blame him; while the place had a rough-and-tumble edge to it, it was heaps cleaner than the last place, way less desperate, and with way more interesting architecture. Wooden buildings with sloping ceilings contrasted against more brutalist-shaped boxy structures, somehow all slotting together like bizarre Tetris. It was the kind of place Matteo would want to look around and take a lot of pictures, if he weren't currently in a crisis. "Let's...figure out public transport, if there is any?" Matteo suggested. "We could try a cab, but a bus might be cheaper." That and he wasn't sure he trusted cabs in a place where one guy had given them mob snitch vibes.

It took some effort to find the bus, not helped by the fact that the first batch of people they asked spoke Icelandic or something, and either didn't or wouldn't respond to English. Eventually, someone pointed them to a bus that went to the hospital. They had to go through downtown, past more of the weird disparate-but-weirdly-similar buildings. It must've been the shared building materials. Even if the shapes were dissimilar, it kept everything from being too jarring.

The hospital presented the starkest contrast. It had the same boxy architecture a lot of the buildings in town had, but it was made of a white material, surrounded by carefully groomed lawns and plants, looking like some kind of rehab center in a pamphlet. There was a lot more security, which made him feel both nervous and secure. It took some convincing to get the receptionist to tell them where Roland was; Tola had to come back herself and confirm that yes, they were, in fact, with her. "At least they take security seriously," Matteo whispered to her, tilting his chin towards a guard watching them with suspicious eyes.

"I noticed. I asked the nurse, and she just said...some people don't know when to leave well enough alone. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad."

"Agreed." Damn it, was Cassandra going to go to every weird and dangerous planet leading to the Edge? At least the hospital looked legitimate on the inside, too, and the place still didn't give the vibe of a refugee camp. "How's Roland?"

"It's definitely an infection, but they haven't seen anything like it before. I guess they sent some skin samples back for further examination and got him started on antibiotics. That's probably what he's needed the whole time."

"Did you tell them what you've...done so far...?"

"No. They never asked, so I decided against it. It doesn't interact with any medications as far as I know, so it should be okay."

"Good." They might have been surrounded by medical professionals and not overtly seedy sorts (outside of the standard institutional bullshit that refused to die in the medical field), but that didn't mean Matteo trusted them with that information. She wasn't the only person in the stars who could do what she did, but her gifts were pretty rare—rare enough that people could and would do stupid things to get access to her. No sense in trusting just anyone. "How's the reception in here? I need to call the o-"

There was a loud whining in his ears, then a static pop, and suddenly the space around him was a lot quieter.

Matteo closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. Okay, okay, okay, don't get mad, don't get mad, don't... He didn't get mad. Not mad-mad. But he did allow himself one swear word: "Shit."

"Are you okay?" Tola signed with a worried expression.

"I'm fine, just...stupid hearing aids." Matteo pulled them out and examined them. It didn't look like there were any external issues, but you really never knew. Medical tech companies weren't above some planned obsolescence to turn a profit, and the inner workings of standard-market-issue stuff didn't always hold up to extended space travel, for reasons no one had been able to figure out yet.

Or maybe it's the Edge working its spooky magic. Nah, probably not, but he was more than willing to blame the locale as long as he was irrationally blaming everything.

"I might have to go without for a bit, until I can get this fixed," he added as he shoved them into his pocket. He could probably smack them a few times or take the batteries in and out, but that wouldn't guarantee a fix. Matteo definitely preferred mostly deaf and reliant on other support mechanisms over a faulty piece of tech randomly cutting out and making awful noises in his ear.

It would be rough, definitely. But entering Roland's room and seeing the kid lying in bed, pale and weak-looking, reminded him that it could be a lot worse.

Matteo let Tola in first and went to shut the door behind him. Before he could, he hesitated. He felt like there were eyes on him. He glanced over his shoulder, half-expecting to see another guard giving him the stink eye. There were more guards, two of them talking to a tall dude in a suit and a woman in a blue dress, but it was the guy who stood just apart from them that caught his attention. He was dressed in a less fancy getup--coveralls, boots, a cable-knit cardigan with matching beanie--and holding a white cane. The utter lack of eyes in his face was probably the reason why. There weren't even prosthetics, just the skin-covered holes.

That was fine on its own. Matteo wasn't going to shrink away from a fellow disabled person, and he admired the gutsiness of not wearing prosthetics for the comfort of others. But he had a weird feeling that the guy was looking right at him. It could've been coincidence, as the guy definitely couldn't see and might've just been thinking his thoughts with his head turned in Matteo's direction. But...

It was stupid, and probably a bit insensitive, but Matteo waved experimentally.

He felt a lot less stupid and a lot more freaked when the guy waved back.

Some kind of ESP or something? That would explain the wave, and the stare, but it didn't explain why Matteo was being waved at by a psychic blind guy. The only thing that stopped him from immediately slamming the door shut and barricading it was the lack of any this is dangerous vibes on his part. Since there was no immediate threat of danger, he just nodded, thought Good luck with whatever in case the guy was a mind-reader, and closed the door like a normal person.

...that was weird.

Hopefully, it would be the weirdest thing to happen to him all trip.