Chapter 25: Iris’s Visitor
[HA Headquarters]
The security guard sat, confused, before multiple screens that displayed what the cameras all over HA saw.
He could’ve sworn he had been about to press the alarm, yet for some reason, he couldn’t recall why.
"I knew drinking on the job was a bad idea," the man muttered as he massaged his forehead before turning back to the screens.
***
Meanwhile, in the HA’s containment facility, a place designed to hold the world’s most dangerous villains, a lone figure walked down the corridor with both hands in his pockets.
Ahead of him were two awakened humans acting as guards, and even though the lone figure was unauthorized personnel, he continued approaching them.
"Evening," he casually greeted, but the two didn’t even acknowledge his presence.
They stood completely still, almost as if frozen in time.
The lone figure just continued past them as he looked at the tags on the cells by his sides, searching for a specific one.
He passed by cells containing some of the most dangerous awakened humans currently in HA custody, and not a single one of them made a sound as he walked by.
Well, it wasn’t as if they could, since, like the guards, they also seemed to be frozen in time.
The figure continued walking for a while before stopping and leaning back, looking at the cell door to his right.
On the screen by the door was the tag he was looking for.
Cell: D-07
Factor: Teleportation type.
Rank: Gamma.
"Here we are," he muttered before walking towards the door and placing a hand on the scanner.
By all rights, the scanner should have rejected his fingerprints, and the alarm should have sounded the very next second.
Instead, it let out a soft beep as the indicator turned green, and the containment cell opened up, granting him access.
Inside, Iris could be seen lying on the bed in the cell with a book lying on her face.
Even though she had noticed the cell door opening, she expected it to be just another guard doing a routine check, so she chose not to react.
But after a few seconds of silence and without the sound of the door closing, she lifted the book off her face and glanced towards the side.
Her guard immediately went up as she quickly sat up and looked towards the open door behind the person.
"I wouldn’t try that, not that it’d work anyway," the person standing just a distance away from the doorway said, "after all, the factor suppressors within the walls are still active."
"Who the hell are you?" She asked since she couldn’t quite make out his appearance.
The man walked closer and into the light, revealing a face that caused her eyes to go wide.
"Hello, Iris."
***
The morning after, Riley could be seen walking towards her office with an annoyed expression on her face and a cup of coffee in hand.
The officers around seemed to carefully avoid making eye contact with her as she passed, which was good instincts.
After all, even a simple greeting right now would be enough to piss her off even more.
Riley soon reached her office, slammed the door behind her and took a seat behind her desk.
"That idiot," she let out, the idiot being referred to being Sable.
She let out a breath to calm herself down before taking a sip of her coffee, only to almost spit it back out.
It was hotter than she expected, and thanks to Sable, she had burnt herself.
Sable was not at fault this time.
Riley stood up and walked towards her case board; perhaps that would help her calm down.
She looked at the pins connecting cities abandoned due to the Fracture Event for a while.... Unfortunately, they did nothing to distract her from the annoyance she currently felt.
"Would it kill him to tell me that he was adopting a child?" Riley let out as she walked away from the board.
"Who’s adopting a child?" A voice suddenly caused her to freeze and slowly turn around.
"For someone with a Factor that deals with awareness, you seem awfully unaware of your environment."
Standing by the doorway was a familiar face, one from the HA,
Emily, Volt’s agent, who also happened to be a friend of Riley.
Riley just let out a sigh and went back behind her desk before replying to Emily’s first question, "just an idiot."
"I see," Emily nodded before walking towards the couch within the office and making herself comfortable, "and I’m guessing that idiot is your ex?"
"Why are you here?" Riley ignored the question and asked one of her own.
Emily looked at her friend for a while before chuckling and asking, "I’m not allowed to pay my lonely friend a visit?"
"I’m not lonely," Riley argued, "and no, I know you don’t have enough free time on your hands to pay me a visit."
Emily just let out a sigh in response as she nodded, "You’re right, being a hero’s agent is quite the headache. "
"..."
Riley didn’t respond as she waited for the Hero agent to get to the point.
Anyway, to why I’m here," Emily stood up, withdrew a folder from her bag and walked towards Riley before laying it on her desk, "it’s about the villain you handed to the HA."
"Iris?" Riley asked in confusion as she picked up the document before her, read through it, only to pause and look up at Emily, "Is this true?"
She had been worried that Iris might reveal information on Liam, or rather, Zero, hence the reason she requested Emily to keep an eye on any information that regarded her.
Though Emily was certain of why, she just blamed it on the fact that Riley was trying to catch the awakened human traffickers since the HA had been weirdly passive about that.
She nodded in response, confirming what was written in that document,
"Iris seems to have lost her memories."
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