After ensuring everyone was okay and didn't have worms inside them, Shay went to the palace to consult with the elders in my place to prevent a fight and left the captains in charge.
The captains, Sue and Benjamin decided it was best to keep the teams apart for them to come up with suggestions of how to proceed since, as Shay put it, "there was no protocol for when the teams collaborated and when the judge was out. Because some asshole," that would be me, "never bothered to come up with one."
But i did. It was just earlier than I planned.
She knew it. We did it together. I just laughed outloud at the insinuation and opened a new phone packet to replace the one Suzy broke.
So while the two teams had to strategize and find info while apart since their version of Thoth couldn't activate with them in the same room. I was busy recovering the data i lost with that one.
Once done, i made a note, Need to configure Thoth out soon.
Or just merge their databases. But I'll do that later. Not now.
I closed my eyes and sighed, shortly before i saw a vision of the flaming sword losing its fire.
He was dying, finally.
"I'm sorry but i need to go out." I told them as i got up and they all looked at me.
"You didnt hear anything I just said, have you?" Suzy asked leaning on the chair in the front of the table.
"Sorry, but it's a personal errand." i said and ignored her as i headed for the door. She screamed i'm coming with you as she followed me.
I closed my eyes and sighed, Maybe its time i told her something about me other than me being the kid her great grandfather feared or a guardian.
"okay, but don't say or do anything until i tell you so." i said and brushed my hair back, i took a deep breath and put a smile on, praying the smile looked kind and warm. Not sadistic and scary.
i opened the door of the office and walked through to the other side, half the world away.
"hold on a sec, let me get my..." Suzy said as she followed me and after walking out of the office, stopped dead on her tracks and froze.
She looked behind her then in front of her. I stopped and turned to her before she freaked out. Too late. she was silently freaking out.
"i used magic to travel. we are now in Macao. Not American peninsula." i told her the simpliest she could understand and she murtered, Guardians. I ignored her insolent comment and led her into the hospital.
She followed me silently, like Shay used to do back before i was a teen. She looked around as i bought an ice cream cone and led her to the children's ward. She looked at me with curious eyes then at what i was staring at as i sat in the bench on the corridor of the ward.
A tired looking mother, walked defeatedly along the corridor with her worn out handbag and messy clothes. her eyes full of the sadness of the entire earth.
she dragged herself past us and weakly walked towards the exit. she had bags of tears in her eyes and huge black bags of lack of sleep to go with the swollen eyes. should one have said she was a panda, i wouldnt blame them. she even smelled. but that was a mother. a broken mother worried only about her spawn nothing else.
"she looks haggard. torn." Sue said sitting next to me.
"she is." i silently replied. "her son has been in and out of a comma for the past few weeks. he will die today.'
"How do you know that? do you have access to the book of life?"
"No, ive been keeping an eye on the kid since he was born in 2012. He has spent the better part of his entire seven years of existence in a hospital, anemia since birth, viral and bacterial infection since a year old which got worse, now he has kidney failure, no compatible donors."
She paused for a bit as she looked at the old woman. "poor woman. So what actually were you in a rush for?"
"you'll see." i spoke as the alarm rang from the room the woman came out of. A group of doctors and nurses came running out and headed straight for the room.
they ran out of the room a minute later pushing the bed the kid was sleeping in and headed to the intensive care unit.
we followed then as she kept on asking why we were here really. when joining the task force, she reminded me, they vowed not to interfer with the natural order of things. they did, not me.
"We are not interfering with human life, we are here to just nudge him in just a little direction." I excused myself as we entered the ICU section.
"Aren't we gonna get penalized for this?"
"No, not even Thoth knows we are here, so who's gonna report it? You?"
"But there are cameras all over."
"Yeah. But this is my private mission so Thoth isn't documenting it nor anything."
She looked around as if something srossed her mind. "Is this part of your missing hours?"
"My what?"
"Missing hours. It's what Shay calls the hours were you're off the map and nothing can momentarily track you."
"Hours? How many have i accumulated?"
"Three years, roughly." The way she looked at me told me she was looking for something in my face. "So what did you do in those hours?"
"When did she start recording them?"
"2012. After you disappeared for nine hours."
Oh. So she... she's interrogating me. I realized as she looked at me. Guess Shay has been a bit more secretive than i thought.
"So what have y'all figured out?" I asked her, maybe just maybe they had something that would help Nat and help reel her into her role.
"You disappear randomly. Shay thought you saving people and fighting monsters that we couldn't fight, but there never were any abnormality when you disappeared anywhere. Except a few times when you checked on a little korean girl who was saved by a swan in 2012."
She knows about Eun. Okay. Not bad. But worserthan i thought.
"I expected something solid."
"The girl's info is barricaded way more than my Grandad's info."
"Well, when you have time next week, can you pass by Switzerland, heard its quite nice this time of the year."
"I dont like winter. Besides, I'm supposed to be dead, remember? If i were to show up in Switzerland where most Guardian corp retirees are, I'm sure questions would be raised. And Natalie would keep on hunting me."
Ha ha ha. I thought as i looked at her. Funny.
"What afraid of the girl who broke all your training records?"
"No, we are a ghost unit. I don't wanna screw that up."
"Okay." I wonder what would happen if i told her i was trying to make Nat oversight and potentially replace her granddad as guardian corp grand commander. Would she freak out?
"When are you going to tell us the whole truth?"
"Remember what i told you when we first began? Never want to be fed answers, ask questions, and find answers on your own. Or the other backstory. Not follow the answers given. Besides, now you can follow Shay ten percent, and use your head seventy percent. The other twenty, take clues everywhere, that's the test you all were given but haven't figured it out yet, if you do, you'll see why I chose you all."
We sat in the ICU waiting room and the mother came looking more desperate than desperation itself. she sat down and started praying and crying at the same time. then got up and ran up and down the hallway.
"he's here." i told Sue as i got up and waved the ice cream towards the kneeling mother.
"who?" i forgot. i touched Sue at the back of her head and showed her the spirit of the seven year old boy desperately trying to comfort his mother and wipe her tears but failing dismally. he was just a soul and his hands went through his mother's body.
"Mom, dont cry." he said as Sue looked at my face with shock and disbelieve. i ignored Sue and focused on the boy who was trying to hug his mother but kept going through her.
The kid turned and saw us. He slowly got up. I smiled and he turned and ran through the icu. Asian kid ghosts.
"He just.."
"Sue, i'll be back."
"Hey! Nope! not in..." she started, but i interupted her.
"take care of the mother, i need to talk to the kid." i said and followed the kid to the tree slide he hid in.
"I don't think running is going to solve your problem." i said sitting at the end of the slide.
"im not leaving mommy alone."
"i know, its why i told the grim reapers to screw off."
"you are a grim reaper."
"I'm not. I am an angel." i told him, "but i am not here to take you to heaven."
he slowly got out of the slide and looked at me. " i dont see your wings."
"You are not dead yet, so you cant see them." i lied. "but i do have them. you will see them one day." i intensionaly put the ice cream down next to me and he looked at it with hungry eyes. I smiled secretly. "but i know something i can show you."
i conjured a lamp i saw in the genie in the box. his eyes enlarged as he saw the damp lamp.
"wow, is that..."
"Aladdin's lamp. yep!" i gave him a smile and passed the lamp to him. "wanna rub it?"
"would i get three wishes like in the movie?"
"hmmm." i responded and almost quickly regreted thinking of alladin and the lamp. but what tales did i know? how was i going to get him to be open to me? "i dont know. i just have the lamp i was told has the genie inside, does it give wishes?"
"Alladin's genie can give three wishes to anyone who rubs it and..." he started talking like a child that drank coffee. no full stop and he excitedly recanted the entire alladin story. but he didn't touch it yet. nor the ice cream next to me.
Sue stared at me from the window at the end of the corridor and smiled as i talked to the kid.
His mother carressed his hair and held his hand as he lay on the motionless on the bed.
by the time the kid was done talking, the ICU visiting hours were done, and i learned of the entire disney fairy tale cannons i didnt even know existed. i thought they were just seperate cartoons. the ice cream had melted, and hadnt i refroze it, it would have flowed away.
i told him to take one of the things i put in front of him. the lamp or the ice cream.
he looked at them quietly and i felt bad. i knew he wanted the lamp. but the ice cream was the only thing he wanted to give his mother. he even had bought it a month ago for her birthday and before he could give it to her, he fainted. landing here for almost a month.
"can i only take one?" he asked looking at me with puppy eyes. i think.
"mmhm."
"can i take this and wish for an ice cream?" she pointed to the lamp and i couldnt help but smile. clever kid.
"no, if you take this, you lose this. you wont ever have ice cream or wish for it."
"ever?"
"ever."
"not even a taste?"
"not even a taste."
he sulked and looked at it intently. then smiled. "mom can buy me ice cream if i get well."
"no, if you take the lamp, you can never touch ice cream ever. nor taste it. nor buy it. even if you are big and have money for it. you take the lamp you give up ice cream."
he stopped and looked me.
"time goes, tick tock! tick tock." i shook my head side to side as i said tick tock tick tock over and over again.
"what if i take the ice cream?" he asked.
"you are the devil you know that?" Sue spoke out of my watch and i wisphered shutup.
"i dont give you any wishes."
"Okay, i'll take the ice cream." he said with a broad smile that radiated happiness. i knew he was going to take this option at every turn but, the question was why?
"why that?"
"mommy like ice cream. i'm going to give it to her."
"why?"
"mom smiles when she eats ice cream. i'm going to give it to her. can i?"
"go ahead," i told him and he tried to grab the ice cream but his hands went through it.
"sorry." i apologized as i got up to his small face. "i think it's time you woke up." i told him before i softly tapped his forehead. his soul flew back to his body in an instant.
i got up and walked back into the ward.
"did you know the kid had Rh null phenotype blood?" Suzy asked and i smiled at her.
"yeah, golden blood, why do you think i came here?" i asked as i directed her towards the elevator.
"i checked the mother as you asked, she's not holding on well. she has debts and she's depressed. she probably would die shortly after the kid dies."
"good prognosis, but, we have to leave."
"we don't do nothing? we dont help them or anything?"
"you know something about intelligience? sometimes a single drop of water in the right place can drop a plane half way across the world."
"i thought it was a single coin, didnt you... wait was it you who taught shay how to manipulate people and predict the future?"
"pay her bills with the money you won from the bet and check on her in a week's time." i told her with thinned out lips.
"what bet?"
"the bet you all made when i started college. One about me losing my virginity in the first year."
"Oh, you know about it?"
"i know a few things i'm supposed to know especially when it comes to the people around me." I agreed. But i guess i didn't word it right it almost sounded like a threat on her side.
"I'll do that." She said looking down and away from me. "But you're hidding something too."
"Yeah." We stopped in front of a door i didn't know what it led to. "And you'll be suprised how big a thing I can hide."
"Like?"
"A few planets. Besides, I never hid anything from you all, I just told it all to you from the beginning. You all either thought i was kidding, or delusional, or just plain talking nonsense."
"We didn't."
"This is your stop." I said opening the door in front of her. "Before you go, can you promise me something?"
"What?"
"You don't tell anyone about the kid. He's a good kid and he'll help you sometime in the future."
"What do... you are not just a guardian are you? Are you a watcher?"
"Everyone will know the truth in a few days. I promise."
"what did you mean a few planets?" she caught that?
"I've hid a lot of things, I cant... I lost track of them in the past six seven thousand years of my existence."
"I thought you were joking about it."
And they say I am secretive. she nodded as she saw her fault and looked down.
"I promise." I smiled. she was going review everything I've said over the past seven years. maybe she was not a lost hope. but still it took a long time.
"But keep an eye on him."
"Ok."
I let her through the door back to the safe house and went another way. Guess its what I'll call another addition to my missing hours.