As the seasons changed, the fields and roadsides were awakened with the flamboyant colors of changing leaves. The sunlight filtering through trees in a broad daylight, unusual wildflowers blooming of bur marigolds, heath asters, and purple prairie clovers. I watched the scenery from the window of the car where I was seating inside.
Earlier today, I was ready to go to work when one of Marvel's subordinates appeared by my bedroom door, dragging me into the car. He said I wasn't allowed to refuse, knowing who told him to do it, I did as he instructed.
Without any further explanation, he drove me in silence and before I realized, I had arrived at an unknown house, talking with an unknown man.
"Nice to meet you, I guess?"
He; an old man who was sitting across my seat, was Plainn Jeremia. He spoke to me in a friendly tone while smiling, his gesture welcoming.
Although without a typical scientist-like hairstyle or a familiar knee-length white coat, that middle-aged man is a doctor.
Under a modern house, there was a hidden basement connected by the garage. A metal-based and soundproof room with a strong smell of anesthesia was Doctor Plainn's clinic. Kidney, heart, brain; any kind of human organs were inside the jars that contained a mixture of formaldehyde dissolved in a solution of water, displayed neatly inside a cabinet in the locked room behind his chair, divided by a wall of thick, transparent glass.
Whoever sitting on the patient seat where I'm sitting right now will be able to see that peculiar sight.
Doctor Plainn is a physician and medical professional who operates on the wrong side of the law, or at least the illegal side such as performing organ transplants, transforming DNA profiles, transplanting fingerprints, eyeballs, and the likes. As a black market doctor, he's been working both under licensed and unlicensed, and is famous for the practice of performing face-changes for prominent criminals and conglomerates.
"I don't have all day. Give me a prescription for tranquilizers and I will leave," I said, ready to get up. "Even benzodiazepine works just fine with me."
I have difficulty sleeping, so I need medication to help my muscles relax and increase my sleeping time.
Since I did this mission, the sudden change of environmental atmosphere gave me certain pressure and I found myself unable to stay asleep because of anxiety.
"No, I can't," Plainn rejected and I didn't understand why.
"Aren't you an illegal doctor? Why can't you give your illegal patient a few milligrams of benzodiazepine?" I insisted.
"I can't," the doctor kept rejecting, trying to explain properly this time. "That drug changes the chemistry of the brain. It's difficult to recover once you're addicted."
When he fixed his glasses, I noticed he had a slight tint of purple shade in the eyes. It was the first time I met people with such eye color, likely because the parents carried mutation genetics.
"I can't do something that means damage to you. Marvel will come killing me if I don't take good care of his favorite person," he continued with a tease and I didn't respond.
What a load of nonsense.
But, from what Plainn said the moment I got here, it was the first time Marvel ever made his workers visit this place when he usually just let them go to some local hospitals. It surprised even the doctor; the way Marvel did this because he didn't want to expose me.
"You have acute anemia. I will give you a treatment to restore the hemodynamics of your vascular systems to create new red blood cells," explained the doctor, opening the green curtains to reveal the patient bed behind it. "Lie down."
"What?" I snapped, suspicious of his intention. "How could you know when you've never examined my body?"
For a moment, Plainn returned my question with an astonished face, stopping on his track, as if it was the first time someone asked him something like that, then he burst into laughter of disbelief.
"You're right," he agreed, though, still laughing. "Then, please allow me to examine you first."
"I must refuse," I quickly declined, my voice low.
"Why?" Rather than confusedly, he asked innocently this time. "Are you scared of something?"
Yes, you.
I couldn't turn my answer into sound, but somehow Plainn understood my state of mind and so he laughed again.
"Ah... So interesting," he mumbled, his eyes glimmering with tears after laughing too much. "Now, I understand why Marvel likes you."
It was amazing how he always considered Marvel's feelings even though the actual person wasn't even present. Claiming to be much closer than acquaintances, I'd like to know more about this old man's relationship with Marvel.
"If I can prove you have severe anemia without examining your body, you're not allowed to refuse my medication."
Plainn proposed, and I could only remain silent, curious of the challenge.
"First of all, let me ask you some questions. Which of your body parts Marvel often touches? Is it your wrists, your shoulders, or..."
The light purple orbs moving down alongside the pause of the words, watching the area around my waist. I cleared my throat, confronting a discomfort toward his behaviors.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to stare," he denied although I had the proof and I knew he knew. "So, which part?"
I frowned as I found his question ridiculous. Seating across each other, the absence of sound between us was unavoidable.
"So, you're not going to answer," Plainn concluded impatiently, leaning against the backrest as he sighed.
When I watched him closely, he was grinning mysteriously and he creeped me out. Before I could form a plan to get away from that dull situation, he suddenly grabbed my left arm and squeezed it harshly.
"Wha- What are you doing?!"
I lashed out and pulled away immediately, my reflex staggering as I got up, my chair tumbling down behind me. I tried to rule my breath and heartbeat, gripping my arm which was throbbing.
"You're the one who was making the game difficult for me, so I couldn't help but play it rough too."
Plainn still embarrassingly defended himself and to be honest, I wanted to punch his face at once, yet instead, I had successfully composed myself before I was engulfed by my anger.
"I'm leaving," I turned around without looking back.
"I don't think it's okay to leave now, though. The one who told you to come is Marvel, right?"
The name he mentioned served my steps to stop, and somehow I was no longer sure of my decision.
"Should you leave?"
When Plainn asked me this time, his voice was serious and I knew I would soon turn back to the situation I was in before.
Inability to hide my temperament, I righted the chair and seated back on it, facing that old man again with a glare. He cupped his face with his hands on the table and brightly smiled, welcoming me as if the first time.
"If in a minute your arm gets bruised, I win," he excitedly told.
An endless gaze linking and a relentless clock measuring the time, there was another silence and I felt the chill in my blood, coldness bringing my brain to a still, yet I could endure. Part of it was a pain, not enough to complain about, but too much to ignore. I hesitantly pulled up my sleeve then saw a fresh reddish gripping mark above my skin.
The doctor's lips slowly curved into a grin.
"You're not refusing anything I'm going to do to you, brat," Plainn declared his victory and I cursed inwardly, walking voluntarily toward the patient bed I had refused to lie down on earlier.
I know I suffered from anemia when I was a kid, but I don't think it's still with me now.
But then, when a certain person regularly makes me stay up late in exhaustion, I guess it can't be helped if the disease is getting worse.
"By the way, how's Marvel been doing?" Plainn asked out of the blue, his voice cheerful to melt the dense air between us while preparing the equipment he needed. "I thought he was coming with you."
"Why don't you ask the person yourself? I thought you two are close," I scowled, yet somehow making Plainn laugh, and at that moment I believed something was off with his head.
"You're so talented in playing with your words. Marvel must have let you talk a lot," he returned with heavy irony and I glowered in irritation.
To tell the truth, Marvel doesn't let me speak unless it's a "yes" to his words.
Without a doubt, Plainn is the only underground medical practitioner Marvel trusts. The fact that he didn't accompany me to visit a place as vague as here was how much he trusted the doctor. Since Plainn is, by definition, unregulated, caveat emptor, and it's better to have someone watching my back in case it might be me who gets broken down for parts under anesthetic... Just thinking about it gave me goosebumps.
As the lightheadedness I felt since this morning had been killing me and the whole arguments we had made me even dizzier, I thought I might have fainted anytime. I was glad I made it here.
A prickling pain stabbed my forearm and within five minutes after the injection, my body felt much lighter as if it would float. Every thought gradually faded and my senses slowed down. The last thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling before my sight turned completely black.
BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!
The beeping sounds appeared thrice and then a single loud clack following; the sign of correct passcode has been entered to gain access to Plainn's clinic. The heavy noise of a metal door being pushed open, then a tall and handsome gent in a black suit coming into view.
"You came," Doctor Plainn confirmed while turning around to welcome the intruder. He warmly smiled. "Rather late for the best part, though."
Locking gazes; ecstatic light purple versus emotionless steel-blue. The latter one turned to the unconscious body lying on the bed, silently observing the condition. A new bruise on the arm caught his attention, making his brows furrowed in displeasure.
"You did something unnecessary to verify your arrogance, didn't you?"