Health

I’m still marveling over the fact that I’m not fried to a crisp when I remember my clothes. My pants are blackened around the waist, but still serviceable. My shirt is gone. “Uh, Doc?” I turn around. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare shirt lying around, would you?”

“There are spare scrubs in the exam room.” She picks up the hazard suit and returns it to its hook on the wall. Doctor Allison collects the tray and the portable screen and herds me back out into the lab. She balances her burden in one hand and slaps the door switch with the other. The double doors of the airlock hiss shut. She nods to the right, toward the double door with the red cross above it. “Through there, the first door on the right. You’ll find scrubs and towels and such.” I walk quickly. The air is surprisingly cold in here. Is that a side effect of being fireproof? Maybe. Allison said it’d only last five minutes though. Maybe it’s just cold in here.

I push through the white doors. Soot smears black handprints across the pristine surface. Oops. I wipe my hands on my pants. “Try not to touch anything, stupid,” I mutter to myself. The doors lead into a short hallway that turns off to the right. It’s lined with unlabeled doors. I guess if it’s just Allison here, there’s not a lot of need for labels. This place definitely violates the fire code though. I chuckle at my own dumb joke. I pull the silvered knob of the door I was told I needed. Inside is a series of shelves filled with assorted black clothes and white towels. I make a guess and grab from the top of a pile. A shirt unfolds in my hand. I pull it over my head. It’s long enough, if a little baggy. Good enough. I’m not going to risk making more of a mess in pursuit of being dressed right now. I head back out into the lab proper.

I head over to the workstations. The doc has a sheaf of papers piled next to my things on one of the desks. I head over and pick up the pile. “What’s all this?”

“In many ways, you are an ideal test subject, Brinks.” Doctor Allison looks up from her monitor. “In other ways, there is work to be done.” I flip through the papers. There is a nutritional guide, several sets of contact information for gyms, apartment listings, and several suggestions for self-defense courses.

“Wow,” I say. I pat my stomach. “I didn’t think I was in that bad shape.”

“You are underweight.” Allison walks over to me. “Energy has to come from somewhere. More than one of the things I will be injecting you with will draw on your body for fuel. You don’t have much in the way of fat reserves, so you will need to increase your caloric intake.”

“I see.” I guess that hadn’t occurred to me. “So how much energy did it take to survive your flame-thrower?”

“That’s one of the things we will be tracking. I know it works, but I don’t know how taxing that particular one is. Regardless, it won’t do to have you waste away in the middle of testing.” She tugs at the baggy scrub tunic. “More so, I mean.”

“Point taken.” I flip to the apartment listings. “What about this?” I ask.

“I expect any equipment I send into the field to return to me. Either your current home needs to be made secure, or you need to move to one that is.”

“Aww, you’re worried about me!” I grin. I look at her. Her face remains expressionless. “Is that why I’m signing up for karate too?”

“The equipment you’ll be using is valuable.” She is quiet for a moment. Then, “Yes, I suppose I’d rather you not be mugged or beaten, either.”

Still In

“Hold still,” she says, and a gout of flame streaks into my chest. The stream bursts and spreads over me like I’m a rock in a stream. There’s a scream. It’s probably mine. I frantically slap at my chest while my childhood memories let the age-old mantra of stop-drop-and-roll surface. I have no idea how much time has passed, but it can’t have been much; I’m not feeling any pain yet. I grit my teeth and drop to the ground. I start rolling around back and forth, trying to put out the fire. “Asher, get up,” a voice says. After a moment, it penetrates my consciousness. I roll over onto my back and look up. The doctor is still standing there holding the flame thrower. “Mister Brinks, stand up,” she says again. I look down. My pants are blackened at the waist. My shirt is gone. My skin – my skin is fine. I’m not hurt at all. I roll over and pull my feet under me. I see the silvery pill that is the thermometer on the ground. I pick it up and put it back in my mouth as I stand.

I turn to face Doctor Allison. “Did you swallow the thermometer?” she asks me. I shake my head. “Did you drop it?” I sigh through my nose. I nod. The canned voice at her hip sighs. “We are going to have to work on this.” I’m listening, but only halfway. I run my hands over my suddenly bare chest, feeling for wounds. My hands come away black and grey because of the remnants of my shirt, but I’m seemingly unharmed.

“How long does this last?” I ask.

“About five minutes,” she says.

“And I’m fireproof?”

“At least in a conventional sense. I don’t know what your maximum heat tolerance is. Greater than this can deliver, at any rate.” She nods to the flame thrower for emphasis.

“You know you scared the shit out of me, right?” I’ve stopped checking myself over. I cross my arms.

“Yes, I know.” She pokes at the palm screen for a moment. “I thought it fair to show you what you were hired for. It’s not too late to back out.” We stand there in silence for what feels like hours. It’s probably barely a minute. I weigh my options. I try to come up with some other plan. Then I think about how I just survived a direct spray from a flame thrower. That’s cool as hell. There’s no choice to be made.

“I’m still in,” I tell her. “What’s next?” She doesn’t answer right away. She disassembles the flame thrower. Then she picks up the tray with the spent needle and the handheld screen. I spit the thermometer into my palm and drop it on the tray. She mashes the black mushroom button and the airlock slides open. I follow her into the entryway. She sets the tray down and starts to pull the big silver suit off. I take the initiative and go to the far doorway and hit the black button. The double door behind us slams shut and there’s a loud hiss. My ears pop again as the pressure changes.

“Asher,” Doctor Allison says to my back. “There will be occasions where we have to be decontaminated.” The double door opens in front of me as I look back. “Not everything I’m working on is as… Safe… as the heat resistance.”

“You’ll let me know when we’re working on those things, right?” I ask her.

“Of course.” She’s stepping out of the hazard suit.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about.” I grin. I’m euphoric now. I was fireproof! I think about what it would mean for a firefighter to be able to just walk into a burning building and pull people out. Movies about heroically dead firefighters would be a thing of the past. I can’t wait to see what else she’s got in those syringes.

Burn

I follow Doctor Allison into the chamber. She stops to let me past, then pushes a black, mushroom -shaped button on the inside wall. The doors slam shut again. The interior of the blast chamber is about fifteen feet in diameter, with a high ceiling made of steel grating. I hear a rush of wind. Fans must be supplying us with air from somewhere. With the exception of the window ring, the whole of the place is tiled in some kind of black ceramic. “You ever think about adding a little color to the place, Doc?” She ignores me and sets the tray down on a rolling cart. There is some apparatus on the lower shelf of the cart, but I don’t really recognize it.

The doctor picks up a cotton ball from the tray and beckons me closer. “Hold out your left arm,” the speaker at her waist hisses. I comply, and she wipes my arm. The evaporating alcohol gives me a shiver. Or maybe that’s the nervousness. I can’t tell. She turns and grabs more stuff from the tray. She hands me a silvery pellet. “Put that in your mouth. Don’t swallow it.”

“What is it?” I hold it up to my face to inspect it.

“It’s a wireless thermometer. It transmits your temperature to the monitoring station.”

“Where’s this monitoring station?” She points to the cart. There’s a portable screen there. Ah. I put the thing under my tongue. I resist the urge to ask what would happen if I swallowed it. It’d probably just suck to have to fish it out of the toilet. Doctor Allison holds up a syringe. “Gonna make me stab myself this time?”

“Not yet.” She takes my left wrist with her hand and places the needle on the clean spot on my arm. I’m pretty sure she’s not on a vein, so I ask.

“You don’t want the vein?”

“You would bleed much more, and some of the compound would be lost.” Oh. That makes sense. “In the future, I have a much more efficient delivery system in mind.” Then she stabs the needle in. The puncture itself isn’t so bad, really. I was braced for it. It’s the next part… Just as I’m thinking about how much better I’m handling it, my arm starts to burn. I wince and grit my teeth. The fire spreads through me, creeping down to my fingertips and up into my chest. I start to panic – did she poison me? Am I allergic? I can’t breathe for a second. It burns so bad! And then suddenly it stops.

I open my eyes. I hadn’t realized that I closed them. Black spots swim in my vision, but they fade quickly. I unclench my teeth. I take a deep breath. “That kind of sucked,” I tell her. She doesn’t respond. She’s holding out a Zippo. I take it. “What’s this for?”

“Light it, then run your hand over the flame as slowly as possible.” I flip open the lighter and spark a flame with my right hand. I run my left hand over the flickering orange teardrop of fire. “Slower.” I do so again, more slowly. The flame gutters and dances around my fingers. I wait for the pain of burning, but it never comes. I place my hand over the flame and hold it steady. My palm starts to blacken, but there is no burning. The doctor is busy fiddling with the apparatus on the bottom of the rolling cart, but I’m too busy to pay it any mind. I flick the lighter closed and examine my palm. I wipe away the black to reveal the undamaged pinkish skin.

“This is fucking amazing!” I hold my palm up to the doctor, but she’s busy shouldering something. There’s a small grey tank with a strap that is now hanging from her shoulder. Also attached to that tank is some sort of box that I would guess is a control mechanism and pressure gauge. A pair of hoses run from the tank to a wand that the doctor is aiming at me. Suddenly I know what I’m looking at. I have a thermometer in my mouth. I’m holding a lighter that has failed to burn my hand. She checked to see if I had worn my favorite shirt. “No! Wait –”

“Hold still,” she says, and a gout of flame streaks into my chest.

Blast Room

“I’m all in, Allie.” She holds a pen out to me. I reach for it, but she doesn’t let go.

“One thing. Don’t call me Allie.” I snatch the pen from her outstretched hand. I put the paper down on the nearest table and hastily scrawl my name across the line at the bottom. Man,that felt good. My euphoria is dampened a bit when I remember that I just signed up to be jabbed with needles like it’s my job. Whatever. Beats going hungry. Maybe I won’t have to resort to robbing people who live in shitty apartments like mine now. I hand the paper back to the doctor. She’s got that piercing stare leveled at me again. I take a deep breath and match it.

“So, when do we start?”

“Right now. Did you wear your favorite shirt?”

“No,” I say as I look down. I’ve got a white shirt with the logo for some brand of whiskey on it.

“Good.” She turns and walks over to the refrigerator. I follow. “You’ll want to remove your jacket and any valuables.”

“Do I need a locker or something?” She shoots me a glance over her shoulder, then busies herself with something she’s pulled out of the fridge. I guess that’s a no. I strip the brown work coat off as I head to the work table closest to the door. I pull my keys, phone, and wallet out of my pants pockets and drop them on the coat.

“Follow me, Mister Brinks,” the doctor calls from across the room. She heads for the huge cylinder with the window ring in it. I trot to catch up. As we approach a set of heavy looking steel doors, she tells me about the cylinder. “This is the blast chamber. Any on-site testing will be done in here.” She balances a tray of equipment on one hand and mashes a button on the right side of the doors. Both panels slide into the walls. Inside, there is a small bench on one side and a pair of garment hooks on the other. There is a bulky silvered suit hanging from one hook. The far end has another pair of sliding metal doors.

“An airlock?” I ask.

“Just a safety precaution. If something goes wrong in the blast chamber, it will be contained.” Allie puts the tray down on the bench and starts climbing into the suit. I’m suddenly feeling nervous.

“Uh, Doctor Allison, where’s my suit?”

“Why would you need one?”

“That’s a pretty good question, but it doesn’t answer mine. Why would YOU need a hazard suit? What’s behind the door?” I can hear my nervousness creeping into my voice.

“Calm down, Mister Brinks.” Apparently she could hear it too. “There’s no danger in there. I want you to get used to doing things right, and that means we’re going through the motions no matter how small the test is.” She pulls the zipper up the center of the silver suit and pulls the flap over it. “The fact of the matter is that I already know this particular formula works. Trust me.”

“Says the woman who brings a gun when she answers the door,” I mutter under my breath. She looks at me. I guess she heard that too.

“I am sorry about that. It was a necessary precaution. Not every visitor is a welcome one.” She takes a deep breath and pulls the helmet on. It’s got a large, clear faceplate. A crackle of static comes from her waist. I look down, and there’s a small speaker attached to her belt. “You aren’t the only one who gets nervous about things, Mr. Brinks.” She smacks the button on the wall with a gloved hand. The door we entered through slams closed. Air hisses. My ears pop. The interior door slides open. Doctor Allison picks up the tray full of stuff and lumbers inside. The suit looks awkward to walk in, but at least I won’t have to work as hard to keep my mind on whatever’s about to go down.

All In

Warehouse is a bit of a misnomer, but I can’t come up with anything more fitting. Everything is as white in here as it was grey on the outside. The only exceptions are a pair of eye-wash stations and the occasional fire extinguisher that add red accents to the area around them. Light seems to come from every surface, but somehow it isn’t uncomfortably bright. Near and to the right of us is a series of workstations. There are monitors and keyboards sprouting out of each one, as well as electrical outlets, but only the two stations at the far end seem to be in use at all. Past the duo of live stations is a large white refrigerator and a series of standing cabinets. Off to my left is a white cylinder large enough to be a carwash. At about four feet high is a clear stripe of window panel that lets me see into it. Past the cylinder is a wall with a double door that stands open. Above it is a sign with nothing but a red cross.

“Uh, where’s everyone else?” I ask. I don’t really know where to start, but we seem to be the only people here.

“There is no one else,” the doctor says.

“Then why the cattle-call from yesterday? What happened with all the other doctors, or nurses, or whatever?” She looks up at me. I give her a shrug and a sheepish grin. “I mean, that’s a pretty elaborate smokescreen for whatever we’re really doing here.”

“Perceptive.” She looks back down at her clipboard. She starts toward the active workstations. I follow, waiting for an answer. Instead, she says, “Tell me why you have two black eyes.”

“Night before last, someone broke into my apartment. I was lucky enough to get home while he was halfway through stealing whatever I had left.” She looks back at me. I take the hint and continue. “He flattened me as I walked in, then took off.”

“Did he take anything of value?”

“I don’t know if you caught on, Doc, but I don’t own much of value these days.”

“Fair point.”

“Your turn,” I tell her. She raises an eyebrow at me. “Look, I’m positive you’re much smarter than me, but let’s pretend for a minute that I know there’s far more going on here than you’ve told me.” She leans back against the counter and looks me over for a minute. A very long minute. I feel the back of my neck heat up.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I am working on a set of designer drugs that augment humans. Early tests have shown that some people are better suited to these augmentations than others. My cattle-call, as you put it, was to find suitable candidates for the next round of testing.”

“And I was the only one suitable?”

“That isn’t something you need to worry about.”

“Yeah, alright.” For now. “When you say ‘augmentation,’ are we talking about steroids and such?”

“Not exactly.” She’s scribbling something on her clipboard again. “The effects are a little more… dramatic.”

“Are these dramatic effects permanent?”

“No. Like many over-the-counter drugs, these compounds move through the body and the effects cease once the components break down.” She looks back up at me. I still can’t meet that gaze. I let my own eyes wander all over the lab. Dramatic augmentation, huh? I think for a minute.

“Alright,” I tell her. “So what’s the going wage for a laboratory rat these days?” She pulls a paper out of the stack on her clipboard and hands it to me. It’s an employment contract. I look it over, and my eyes bug out as I scan it. “Three grand a month?” I’ve never been paid so well in my life.

“You will be available to me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

“Still… ” I trail off. “Where do I sign?”

“Are you certain? This isn’t something that you can just quit.” I had all the time I needed last night to consider.

“I’m all in, Allie.” She holds a pen out to me. I reach for it, but she doesn’t let go.

“One thing. Don’t call me Allie.”

Commute

It’s 8:30 AM when I step off the bus. The diesel engine whistles as the machine takes off from the stop, washing me with a gust of air and a plume of black exhaust. It’s too early to be up, but I’m much better rested than I was yesterday. I spent a lot of time working on fixing my door frame last night. It still isn’t pretty, but I slept much easier after I was able to lock my door again. Hopefully, the property manager will replace my hack-job with a legitimate repair soon. I head off down a street off of the main thoroughfare. The east side of town is all industrial, and the air will not let me forget it. It reeks of burning fuel and garbage.

I fish the address out of my pocket. The card is rumpled already, and I haven’t had it for a full day. I remember why I can’t have nice things. I sigh. After a few minutes of walking, I come to a drab grey building with no exterior windows and no visible decorations. Even the building number is hardly visible. More grey on grey. After a moment, I spot a door. I wouldn’t have thought it’d be so difficult. I’m reasonably observant, but the all greys color scheme is pretty effective, I suppose.

No windows in the door. There’s a keypad beside it, but I wasn’t given a code. I pull on the brushed aluminum handle. Nothing. Hmmm. I check the worn business card. No instructions. That would have been too easy. I fish my phone out of my pocket. The clock shows 8:53 through the cracked display. My doctor didn’t really seem like the forgiving type. I don’t want to be late. Hell with it. Last time I needed to enter a number, it was my PIN at a teller machine. Do I go with all ones? Maybe one two three four. I chuckle to myself. “Press ’0′ for operator,” I mutter, and I press the 0 key. Immediately, I hear a loud click. I snatch the door handle and pull. The door is heavy, but my attempt at haste serves as a replacement for being ready for the weight. I pull the heavy grey door open and step inside.

I’m in a dimly lit room about the size of a walk-in closet. More grey. I’m starting to notice a theme. At least the air is cleaner. There is another door in the far wall, along with another keypad. I still don’t have any code for it. No matter. If a trick works once, maybe it’ll work twice. I walk toward the door. I don’t even bother with the handle. I never understood that impulse; I can’t recall how many times I’ve been standing by a locked door when someone comes up. I tell them it’s locked, and they try it anyway. Like, maybe it’s only locked to me and they can just waltz in. I reach out to press the ’0′ key, and the door swings open. I fail to conceal a startled jump. Doctor Allison is standing there, looking exactly the same as yesterday. And, exactly the same as yesterday, I can’t quite dismiss how attractive she is.

“Why ’0′, Mr. Brinks?”

“Huh? Oh. Right. Dial zero for operator, I guess.” I’m suddenly embarrassed by my train of thought. “Seemed as good a guess as any.”

“Interesting,” she says. Good-interesting or bad-interesting, I wonder. She’s holding the door with her right hand, standing so that I can’t see her left. “Come in. Thank you for being on time.” I’m startled that she would thank me. She really hadn’t struck me as the type to bother. I step through the open door. She follows, then passes me as we step into a brilliant white warehouse.

“I’m not going to lie. I kind of expected more grey,” I tell her. As she passes, I catch a glimpse of her left hand. She has a gun. She moves naturally, yet she conceals it in front of her so fast I could almost be convinced that I imagined it.

“The nature of the work here necessitates a low profile.” She walks over to a nearby desk and picks up a clipboard. I don’t see what happened to the gun. I hear Dad’s voice in my head, repeating that I need to ask a lot of questions. I’m hesitant to start an interrogation, so I take in the surroundings while I marshal my courage.

I will be completely honest – this portion of my New Year’s Resolutions is not off to a great start. I eventually tapped into an old technique I used back when I was not yet a college dropout. I’ll probably talk more about it here. It was an act of desperation, but it was effective.

Hellspark

Her? I would be careful about how I approached her, were I in your position.

It’s not that I don’t think she would help. No, she is ever a champion of the people. I would be sure to show her proper respect, though. She’s no mere sell-sword.

You don’t know? Really?

They call her many things. She’s the Archmage of Winterhold. She’s the Harbinger of the Companions. She’s the Dovahkiin. She’s Thane of every Hold. Sometimes, they just call her the Hellspark.

Everyone seems to think she’d be taller.

I travelled with her for a time. I have lived some of the stories.

Share? I suppose. I’m no bard, although I’m told that she is. To hear her sing – there could be little doubt. The first time I’d ever seen her, I was part of a mob. We were set to clear a cave teeming with vampires. Townspeople had gathered at the maw of the cave. All had torches, and most had gathered up the sharpest tools they could find. There wasn’t a blooded warrior in the bunch, but these monsters were preying on us and we would not have it. The Jarl had asked her to lead them against the bloodthirsty fiends.

She didn’t say a single word. The mob talked about what they would do. She just acted. Her armor glinted in the sun, fairly radiant with light and whatever power she had imbued in it. It shone so brightly that I still cannot believe no one noticed its absence when she disappeared into the cave. I stepped in behind her, quietly as could be.

I was once a sneak-thief. I’m not proud of it, but I could pass like a ghost through a fog. Still, my own footfalls seemed deafening compared to hers. She crept across the rocky earth, silent like your innermost thoughts. At the time, I thought I had gone unnoticed. We came upon an enlarged cavern, replete with stalactites and tangles of roots reaching down from the ceiling. The floor was flattened earth and rock. In the center was a fire pit with several figures crouched around it. I took a deep breath and scented smoke and earth and blood. Still, I had doubts that these figures were the bloodsucking monsters for whom we searched. If she had the same doubts, it never showed.

I had expected her to draw one of the massive swords she had strapped across her back. No, the ones she has now are different. She has crafted many a blade, and the ones she once used for herself still exist in the land. Regardless, she drew neither. She looked back at me, dispelling any notion that I had escaped her eyes. Those eyes. They blazed with an eldritch light. Her very gaze brought prickles of sweat to my skin. It might have been unsteady nerves. Like as not, it was the fire within her that earned her epithet. She raised a plated glove and put a finger to her pale lips. Flames played across that finger and crept down to engulf the hand.

She turned, still crouched, to face the figures around the fire pit. I watched as she clasped her hands together. The crevices between each finger began to leak light. The edges of her gauntlets smoked and glowed. I panicked at the thought that she would give us away, though I know now that was a foolish worry.

One never need worry about the certainties in life.

One of the hunched figures turned just as she opened her palms toward them. Flame streaked across the cavern faster than a diving falcon and burst on the chest of the alerted foe. Surely they noticed us then! Formerly black robes lit up the room as the fire enthusiastically spread itself over the figure. An angry hiss transformed into a scream. The cavern was bright enough now that I could see what the Hellspark must have already: each of the other four figures turned and shouted various curses of dismay, revealing fangs and gore-smeared mouths. We had interrupted a meal.

Another blast of fire roared across the room, impacting the head of the furthest vampire and tossing it head over heels to the far side of the cavern. Two of the remaining three drew swords while the third began to shimmer with its own mystic power. The Hellspark stood then, feet spread and palms outstretched. Three more balls of angry flame erupted from those outstretched hands. One slammed into each swordsman, hammering both across the room. The third snuffed as it neared the unarmed figure. She let loose another bolt of flame, but that too was extinguished.

My heart leapt into my throat. Even as the last flame failed to stop this vampire, five more boiled out of a crevice in the far wall. I fell to my knees and began my prayer to Arkay, but over the sound of my last rites I heard singing. Her stance hadn’t changed a bit, but she began to hum as she reached over her shoulder and unslung the over-large blackened blade. I remember now; as she grasped the handle, runes flared to life along the length of steel called Molten Rage. She continued to hum as she took two long steps forward. The vampire mage raised a palm, and an icy torrent slammed into the armored figure. Icicles formed on the armor instantly, but the Hellspark brought the sword down toward the right shoulder of the vampire. The ward that had protected the creature shattered like glass. The blade bit into flesh, burning white hot as it did so. Hair and clothing burned away. The blade did not stop. It travelled through the monster, finally emerging from the left hip.

The remaining five charged with weapons drawn. The hum intensified, and the Hellspark opened her mouth. I could not hear the words she spoke, for they cracked like thunder. The charging creatures were blasted backward, plastered to the far wall. As they struggled to rise again, she was on them. She hacked one apart with that irresistible blade. A second, she impaled. She drove Molten Rage through its chest and into the ground. By this time, the remaining three had risen. She drew a second monstrous sword, the one they called the North Star. It froze the third solid as it touched and the blade did not so much cut as shatter the beast. The last two surrounded the woman, attacking from opposite sides. Had I not seen what came next, I would not have believed. The Hellspark dropped the point of the North Star and drove it through the navel of one. At the same time, she stepped forward and dropped to her knees. The rapidly freezing corpse draped over her as the last remaining creature swung its sword down toward her back. The Hellspark stood, turning the slouched vampire into a frozen umbrella. Steel rang against frozen flesh. She dropped the frozen corpse and spun. She extended her palms once more as the vampire swung. A spearpoint of ice grew from her palms as fast as any sword thrust. It pierced the heart of the attacking monster, then carried it to the furthest wall of the cave as the Hellspark released it. The final monster hung nailed to the wall. The cave reeked of smoke and blood and seared flesh. The only sound was that of burning flesh.

I sat stunned as she pulled the North Star from its resting place in a dead monster’s chest. She returned it to its scabbard, then stepped over to reclaim Molten Rage as well. She held the blade as she walked back to me, and I could see the steel burn itself clean once more. She reached back and resheathed it, and held a hand out to me. Then, I was too dazed to do anything but accept the help to my feet. Now, I consider it the highest of honors. She smiled at me from inside her fearsome helm, and led me back out into the daylight.

Quite something, huh?

Of course there’s more, but you have more pressing matters on your hands.

I’m sure she would help you, but I would ask nicely.