System Of Retribution

Chapter 4

The man standing in the doorway didn't look like hospital security. Hospital security wore soft polos and apologetic expressions.

This man wore a stiff black jacket with no hospital logo anywhere on it, and his eyes moved across the room like he was cataloguing exits, not checking on a patient.

"Mr. Cole," he said again. "I need you to come with me."

“This is not hospital staff,” the system said quietly in his head, like it found the whole situation mildly interesting rather than alarming. “Heart rate elevated. Recommend caution.”

"Funny," Ryan said out loud, easing himself upright despite every nerve in his body voting against it. "Didn't realize hospitals hired their security from wherever you're from."

The man's jaw tightened. "I'm not asking twice."

"You haven't actually asked once," Ryan said. "You've just said the same sentence at me. Try a question this time."

Something flickered behind the man's eyes, irritation maybe, or recalculation, like he hadn't expected a half dead patient to have this much mouth left in him. He took one step further into the room, hand drifting toward his jacket in a way that made every instinct Ryan had left snap fully awake.

“Threat probability rising,” the system said. “Recommend you do not let him get closer.”

"Then maybe give me a reason to stay still," Ryan said, stalling, eyes flicking toward the call button clipped near his pillow, just out of reach.

"Tyler wants to know how you're still breathing," the man said. "I'm here to ask you politely."

Ryan almost laughed, the sound coming out rougher than he meant it to. "Tyler sent someone to a hospital to ask me politely. That's either really stupid or really desperate. I'm leaning desperate."

"Watch your mouth."

"Or what, you'll hit me? Your friends already tried that tonight. Pretty thorough job, actually. Tell them I said thanks for the workout."

The man's hand fully cleared his jacket now, and for half a second Ryan saw the dull metal glint of something that didn't belong anywhere near a hospital room.

“Now would be a good time to press that button,” the system said.

Ryan didn't wait to be told twice. His thumb hit the call button hard enough to nearly snap it off its cord, and the man froze, head snapping toward the door as the sound of the alert chimed somewhere down the hallway, followed almost immediately by the squeak of fast moving sneakers on linoleum.

"You've got maybe ten seconds before this room is full of actual nurses," Ryan said, voice steadier than he felt. "And I don't think Tyler's paying you enough to explain a weapon in a hospital to the police."

The man's eyes cut toward the door, weighing it, and Ryan watched the exact moment the math stopped favoring him.

"This isn't over," the man muttered, shoving the weapon back out of sight just as a nurse appeared in the doorway, frowning between the two of them with the particular suspicion of someone who had clearly walked into something she hadn't been told about.

"Is everything alright in here?" she asked.

"Wrong room," the man said quickly, already turning, walking away, brushing past her with his head down before she could ask anything else. The nurse watched him go, then turned back to Ryan with an arched eyebrow.

"You want to tell me what that was?"

"Honestly," Ryan said, easing back against the pillows, heart still hammering, "I'm starting to wonder myself."

She didn't push, just checked his vitals with the brisk efficiency of someone who had seen stranger things in this hospital than an unmarked man fleeing a patient's room, and left him alone again once she was satisfied he wasn't about to die in the next five minutes.

Ryan exhaled slowly, staring up at that same water stained ceiling tile, and felt the system stir again at the edge of his thoughts.

“That man works for Tyler Briggs,” the system said. “Tyler is currently unaware you have changed. He believes you are still the man from the alley and that misunderstanding will not last.”

"Good," Ryan said quietly. "Let him keep underestimating me a little longer."

He was discharged two days later with a stack of medical bills he had no way of paying, a final notice already waiting for him taped to his apartment door when he got home, and exactly forty three dollars left in his checking account.

He stood in the hallway outside his own apartment for a long moment, reading the eviction notice twice like the second read might change the numbers, then laughed, short and humorless, because crying about it felt like too much effort for a body this tired.

"Forty three dollars," Ryan said out loud to the system, the universe in general. "That's what nine years of loyalty gets you."

“Forty three dollars and one system,” the voice said. “Some would consider that a fair trade.”

"Some people have never seen my bank statement."

“Your bank statement is about to become significantly less embarrassing,” the system said. “Tyler Briggs continues making mistakes without your involvement at all. His negligence is doing half the work for you.”

Ryan unlocked his door and stepped into an apartment that was already half packed into boxes he didn't remember packing, courtesy of a landlord clearly eager to move someone else in, and sat down hard on the one chair that hadn't been taken yet.

"Then let's help him make a few more," Ryan sai