[Harry]

I eventually get pulled away from my research by Devon, who wanted to go out on a date with me. 

“It won’t be much,” he says.  

“That’s okay, Devon.” I reply, “I don’t need something big and expensive.” 

“Cool. I found an all you can eat buffet online. There's one nearby. They make all kinds of different foods. Pasta, pizza, fried chicken... I thought it’d be fun.”  Dev says. 

I get out of my chair and he puts his hands on my sides, “That sounds awesome, Devon.” 

Devon smiles, “I’ll treat you to something proper when all of this is over, okay?” 

“I would love that.” i say. 

He gives me a small kiss on the lips and then pulls me into a hug, “We can go whenever you are ready, Har.” 

“Alright. Let me put some shoes on and we can go.” 

I go and grab my shoes, and when I turn to Devon, I see him staring down at Rufus, who is fast asleep in his bed.  

“He’s so damn cute. I’m kind of glad he has no idea what’s going on right now. Your dad has no reason to take such an innocent life” 

“Yeah, well, my dad is crazy. He always has been,” I say, slipping my socks and shoes on. 

Devon seemed puzzled at what I said but shrugged it off and followed me to the living room.  

“Rhys is dropping us off at the buffet. He’s going to go grab the books he’s purchasing.” 

“Cool. I hope they give us something.” I say.                         

“I do to. I don’t like being on the run like this.” Devon replies.

“I don’t either. But this isn’t your fault, Devon. It’s mine. If I hadn’t used heath’s cure on that woman, none of this would have happened.” I explain, “This is all on me, you three just decided to come with me.” 

“Heath has a part in this, too, Harry. He's the one who made a cure in the first place.” Devon says, “Now let's go.” 

We follow Rhys to his car, and he drops us off at the buffet. We went inside, got settled at a table, and then went and grabbed some food. 

We sit back down when we’re done, eating in silence for a bit until Devon speaks, “I know this is a bad spot for a first date, but it's what we’ve got. I promise, I'll take you to a really nice place for our second date. I’ll even let the robots bring rufus so he can eat, as well.” 

“I doubt he’d be able to eat much. He’s a newborn.” I say. 

“He’ll be able to eat more when he’s older, Harry.” Devon says. 

“I know, but... I was...” 

“Hoping that we’d get out of this quickly. I get it. But research takes time, and making a cure will take even longer.” Devon says. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m no stranger to the process." I respond. 

We continue chatting while eating our food, and after a while, we pay and then leave. Rhys drives us back, I sit on the couch with Heath and Rhys, and Devon goes back to our room. 

Rhys puts the books down on the coffee table, “I’ll let you two go through these. I’m going to go look at some books in my office.” 

“Okay,” Heath says. 

Rhys leaves the room as Heath slides closer to me. 

“What are you doing?” I ask him. 

 He doesn’t respond. He just makes me to lay down and then crawls onto me, resting his head on my chest. 

“I like being close to you,” he murmurs. 

I guess I forgot how cuddly Heath is when we’re alone. He used to say he missed being attached to me. Sometimes, I'd wake up with him curled up against my chest.

I smile, “Okay... but we need to go through these journals .” 

He grumbles, takes a journal, and opens it. 

“I said ‘we’ heath,” I say, poking his head.

He groans and grabs the other one, handing it to me. 

“Thank you.” 

I open up the journal and start reading through it. Inside it, there’s a lot of old spells, potion recipes, and old ingredient locations. 

After a while, Heath speaks up, “This is just a bunch of magic crap. There’s nothing useful in here.”

“Well, this one says that the head mage kept things from the others,” I say. 

“So, find the head mage’s journal, find the answer. Great, more hunting.” Heath complains.

Heath throws his book down, and I laugh. I keep on reading my own journal until I find something useful. 

“There’s a tracking spell on the head mages journal. This mage drew the symbol in here.”

“Sweet. Lets go tell Rhys.” Heath says. 

Heath gets up and heads around the couch and dissapears into the hallway. I try to move my right leg, but it doesn’t repond. 

“Heath...” I shout. 

He comes back, “what?”

“My leg isn’t moving.” I speak. 

I unbutton my pants and reach down in them to try and turn my leg on using a button on my thigh, but it doesn’t work. 

“Heath, it’s not turning on…” I say, “Come over here and make sure it’s not broken.” 

He comes over to me and helps me stand up, “I won’t be surprised if it is. It’s an old model. And the manufacturers didn’t shut down this model because mine is still active.” 

Heath gets on his knees and double taps my ankle, making the synthetic skin disappear, revealing the white metal underneath. 

“That’s odd, the lighting is turned off.” 

Rhys comes out from the hallway and sees me standing up, “Is something wrong, Harry?” 

“Yeah, my leg isn’t working.” I answer. 

Heath stands back up, “My guess is that the leg is dead and working off the backup battery, which can’t power the whole leg on its own.”

“Okay, let’s take it off then. Its dead weight now.”  I say. 

“Alright. You know the drill.” 

I sigh and take my pants off. Heath grabs my dead leg and releases the small, tube-shaped nerve connections that allow me to control it. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but it passes quickly.

“We should get you to the hospital to get this fixed.” Heath says,

“Its too late right now,” Rhys points out, “We can go in the morning.”

“I agree. Harry found a spell to track down the head mage’s journal, so we can go look for it afterwards.” 

“Cool! We should pack up before we leave, then.” Rhys says, “We can just leave DC when we leave the hospital.”

“Alright. I’ll help Harry to bed. Goodnight.” Devon says. 

I put my arm over Devon’s shoulder, and he carries me back to our room. I lay down on our bed and Devon tosses me a shirt to sleep in. I changed into and we both lay down to sleep for the night. 

In the morning, we pack up our stuff and take it out to the car, pack it into the trailer, and then get into go to the hospital. Heath carries both me and the inside and up to the receptionist’s desk, “Hey, our names are Heathcliff Frost and Harrison Frost. Harrison’s bionic leg froze up late last night and we were wondering if we could get it looked at.” 

“Sure thing! We’ll page the doctor and get you into a room as soon as possible. Go ahead and sit down and I’ll call you when he’s ready!” they say. 

We sit down and after a short wait, I’m given a pair of crutches to walk around with and I get taken to a room, carrying the leg in my armpit. I sit down on the bed and the doctor asks for the leg. I hand it to him, and he examines it. 

“First thing I’m going to check is the renewal card that lets you get a new one free if this one is broken…” 

He pulls the pink card out of the calf and looks at it, “Well, we’ll do some diagnostics on this leg and if it turns out this one is broken, we’ll get you a new one and put this one in disposal.”

He smiles at me and gets up. I watch him walk over to the person at the desk outside the room and speak to her, setting down the card. She nods and the doctor walks away, and I’m left to sit in silence. 

The room assistant pops up a screen, and starts speaking, “Hello! Would you like to watch something while you wait?” 

“No thank you, room. I just want to get my leg replaced and get out of here.” 

“I get that. The diagnostic won’t take long and replacing the leg entirely won’t either. You just have to keep in mind that the new leg would act like a spare tire and isn’t meant to be used long term.”

“It’d have to be replaced…great. More interacting with people.” 

The assistant giggles, “You don’t like it?” 

“Not right now, no,” I say.

I sigh and close my eyes, not really wanting to do much else. A while later, the doctor comes in and tells me that my leg is broken due to age, and that I need to use a spare until I can get mine replaced. 

He gives me a smile that didn’t match the look in his eyes. He looked afraid. 

“Is something wrong, Doctor?” I ask. “You seem uneasy.” 

“It’s nothing, Mr. Frost. We’ll get your leg sorted out right away and get you out of here.”

He leaves the room quickly and hurries away anxiously. I didn’t wait long to get my leg replaced. The doctor attached it to my stub leg and asked me to get up. I did so and he makes me go through a couple quick tests. Stand on my good leg, stand on my bionic one, jump, etc. When he’s done, he tells me to sit and wait for paperwork to get done and then I can leave.

As I sit, I notice that it’s quieter than it was when I came in. Before the doctor can come back, Heath rushes into the room with the others, “We need to go, dude. Can you walk?” 

“Yeah. What’s going on?” 

“Your leg was deactivated. Long story short, the leg diagnostics told the doctor to call JZCF and tell them you’re here. They’re outside.” 

“I figured out the spell to track the book. I can feel it working.” Rhys says. 

“Wait, how does I work?” I ask. 

“It’s kind of like instinct. I can tell which direction it’s in. anytime I think about it, I just receive directions.” 

“So, you’re a human compass?” I ask. 

“Basically.” Rhys says.

A rumble sound from below. The ground starts to shake and the whole building collapses. Everyone flies in different directions, and I’m eventually left alone on the ground, concrete on every side.

“That asshole! He’d seriously level a hospital just to kill me?” I shout. 

Without even thinking, I summon a fireball and blow some of the rubble out of my way. 

“Heathcliff!” I shout. 

I move around for a while until I find Devon laying on the ground. 

“Devon, get up.” I say, “We need to go find the others.”

I kneel on the floor and roll him over. 

“No, Devon.” I cry.

Blood gushes of the back of his head. His eyes are completely lifeless, and all I can do is scream and cry. I lay down next to him, stare at him, and continue to cry, not wanting to leave his side. I can hear concrete breaking in the distance and footsteps running up to him. 

“Devon…” Heath says. 

One of them grabs my arm and tries to pull me up, but I yank it out of their grip. 

“Harrison, we need to leave.” Rhys says. 

I turn to look at them. Heath pulls a pen out of his pocket, checks his phone, and writes something on the inside of Devon’s arm.

Time Of Death: October 19, 2080, 1:49 PM

“We can’t just leave him here,” I cry. “I can’t just abandon him.”

Heath sits down next to me and hugs me. Rhys does the same.

“We need to go, Harrison. If we stay here any longer, we’ll get caught. Think about what will happen to Rufus. We can’t lose two people in one day.” 

“Yeah, let’s go…” I cry.

We all get up and look around. We make our way through and eventually get a look outside. We get inside the car and zip off, heading in a direction that is only known to Rhys.