After Amune had been dismissed, the psychologist appeared in the doorway, looking out at the waiting room. She glanced down at her clipboard. “Riley? Is that right? I know you’re.... probably upset about this whole arrangement. But I promise that it’s very necessary and, most importantly, it won’t be as painful as you think.”
The woman was negotiating with the nuclear-powered hero like he was a toddler being forced to go to the dentist by his parents. Truth be told, though, the psychologist wasn’t really equipped to deal with
unwilling patients. Most of the time, she spoke with or investigated people who wanted to be picked apart. This go-around, she was dealing with people who not only were not volunteers but actively had tried to get out of this situation to the best of their ability. This particular hero frightened Dr. Reininger the most. His powers were terrifying, even more so than many of the terrifyingly superpowered people she had interacted with over the years.
Still, she had no choice but to cross her fingers and do this job. Hopefully, her job wouldn’t cost her the rest of her life.
For his part, Riley studied the doctor silently, his vision scattering from the norm as he did. He supposed it was his turn now to be dissected, as much as he wanted to avoid it. The doctor’s assurances didn’t ease him as much as she probably hoped they would. Not as painful as he’d think? As if it was pain he was worried about. Pain he could deal with. Sharing his thoughts, he could not. It was particularly rich coming from her, though, considering how afraid she was.
Not that she was wrong to be scared of him.
Riley blinked his vision back to normal and ignored the tightening in his chest, eyes rolling downwards. It was nothing. Heaving a soft sigh, he stood from his chair and stretched, hearing his joints crack with a crisp snap. He popped another chocolate truffle through his lips and enjoyed the satisfying crunch between his teeth.
His eyes flickered back to Dr. Reininger, but his response lacked his earlier bite.
“That’s what they kept telling me.”The doctor very tepidly entered her little office space, taking a seat in her chair and beckoning the one known as Fallout to do the same. She then analyzed her clipboard again, finding it to be disturbingly barren. This job only continued to get harder and harder, right?
“How about we skip all the silly direct questions on your psyche and instead talk about some more pleasant things,” the psychologist said with a weak smile. “You know, I come from Germany, and this is my first time visiting Castleburg, believe it or not. I understand that you’re also not from the States originally. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about how that came to be? Why come to America?”
Riley followed the doctor into her office with some measure of trepidation, though he didn’t show it. He never liked confined spaces. Too little room, too much that could go wrong with him in there. The memories certainly didn’t help. He rolled a truffle over his tongue, savouring its sweetness for a moment.
The chair he took looked noticeably less comfortable than the doctor’s. It didn’t bother him much; he was used to worse. He lounged in the chair without complaint, watching Dr. Reininger lazily as she checked her clipboard. And then came the questions. His origins, his
objectives. Was he being a bit paranoid? Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, she wasn’t inquiring into his mental state. However long that would last.
“The name I–”Riley stopped himself with a sigh, rolling his eyes at his misstep. He didn’t like the name—it made him seem like something he wasn’t—but it was there for a reason. That was something he should keep to himself. Lying came easily to him, but this was a situation where a little honesty might help a lot more in the long run.
“Why I came here, huh....” Riley paused to consider his next words before continuing,
“Well, to put it simply, it was the most convenient place for me. Less chances of incidents. Trusy.”“Oh, and H.E.R.O.'s here, too,” he added as an afterthought.
“I see,” the psychologist said, making some corresponding jots. “I do want to talk about ‘incidents’ and their associations with the United States. I see here on your file that you had, well, a bit of what you could call an ‘incident’ on your first trip to this city. Could you explain what happened there? HERO didn’t take very extensive notes on you, for whatever reason,” the psychologist asked.
Riley’s lips twitched slightly at the doctor’s question. He’d almost forgotten about that whole fiasco. It had been such an absurd coincidence too. Who would have ever predicted that a man’s “perfect murder” would be ruined simply because he ran into a moody teenager with more frustration than restraint at the time? Meeting Riley was probably the worst day of his life for that guy. But for him, it was just Tuesday.
Thinking back, it was quite funny. Getting arrested after the fact wasn’t.
“You could say I was just at the right place at the right time,” he said with a faint air of amusement. Then he mulled over the question again, his expression entirely placid. It was no wonder H.E.R.O. didn’t have much information about him, though he didn’t voice that particular thought.
“Depends on your perspective, though. Mr. Graham certainly didn’t think so,” Riley shifted in his chair and leaned forward slightly, an unnerving grin forming on his face,
“Did they ever get him a replacement for that hand?”Leaving the question to sit, he leaned back in his chair and let his bored expression fall into place yet again. That was as much as he was going to say on the subject.
“I... have no way of knowing the answer to that,” the psychologist said, a disturbed expression clear on her face. She flipped through a few pages on her clipboards, analyzing the information on there as she occasionally looked up and glanced at Riley’s face as if to make sure that this older adolescent boy was real and not the result of a nightmare she was suffering from.
“How about one more question related to your past? This group, LeNSec. Some type of mysterious vigilante hacking organization. What is your relationship with them, precisely? And why do you think HERO permits that relationship? Do you believe that HERO has accepted you into its fold because of, or despite, your affiliation with them? Or somewhere in the middle?”
Dr. Reininger adjusted her glasses. “Keep in mind, of course, that this is all completely confidential. I’m a professional, not a spy. You have my word that none of this leaves this office.”
That wasn’t quite the reaction Riley had wanted from the doctor, but he was satisfied with it nonetheless. He relished her look of disquiet for a moment before his expression flatlined and a frown settled on his lips from her next words. Ah, and here came the line of questioning he was somewhat dreading. He’d expected it of course, but if she thought he would trust her based on words alone, then she wasn’t nearly as smart as he’d originally credited her with being. Words were the cheapest form of currency in the world. They were empty and worthless, just like people.
His jaw clenched and unclenched in quick succession.
“That’s not one question, doctor,” Riley said lightly, lazily resting his chin on a palm,
“I don’t really care, though.”“My relationship with LeNSec is.... well, I guess you could call them a family of sorts?” The word felt foreign on his tongue, but he continued without pause,
“.... something along those lines, I guess. My experience is a bit limited in that regard.”Riley rolled another truffle between his teeth before answering the next question with a question of his own,
“Why would I need anyone else’s permission to maintain my personal connections?”A sigh escaped his lips as he mulled over the last questions,
“Maybe they did take me in because of LeNSec or in spite of them, or some combination of both, or whatever. Doesn’t really matter. More likely, though, they just wanted to keep an eye on the walking disaster. Wouldn’t be the first time.”Shifting in his seat again, Riley locked eyes with the doctor, the temperature in the room rising a few degrees,
“Are you afraid of me too, Dr. Reininger?”It was a rhetorical question, but there was a hint of vulnerability in his tone.
The good doctor tugged at her collar a little bit. Maybe the temperature control in this building was faulty. “Afraid is a.... well, it’s a strong word. I’ve worked with many heroes before, many of them who have very… volatile and potentially dangerous powers. I would say I take the appropriate amount of caution when working with such individuals.”
Of course, Reininger knew when she had an opening, and so she plunged right in. “Something you said there intrigued me greatly, though. You
don’t need HERO’s permission to operate and choose who you associate with. You have, as you’ve alluded to, a very dangerous set of powers. And reading your files and some past incident reports suggests that you seem to have.... well, issues taking orders. You dislike HERO because they tell you what to do, you dislike ICOSA because we tell HERO what to do, to some extent. And yet, here you are. You could’ve told HERO ‘no’ to come sit here and melted anybody that tried to force you to do otherwise, and you could’ve turned me into a pile of radioactive carbon by now.” Reininger shivered a little bit at the thought.
“Yet here you are. You don’t need to take orders from HERO, and you still put yourself in a position to receive their orders. Why? Would you say it’s out of convenience, or obligation, or....?” Dr. Reininger trailed off before she adjusted her glasses once more as she examined the walking nuclear reactor.
Riley’s expression shifted back into neutrality as he leaned back in his chair, crunching another truffle between his teeth. He was quiet for a long moment as he considered the psychologist’s words with a thoughtful furrow to his brows.
“Fear isn’t something to be ashamed of, doctor. It just means you aren’t a complete idiot. I.... don’t have that luxury.”The next line of questioning didn’t bother him as much as it would have just a few years ago. It was an obvious next step to get an idea of where his loyalties lay if it wasn’t with H.E.R.O. or even with I.C.O.S.A.
“You’re not wrong about that,” he admitted easily, shrugging nonchalantly,
“I don’t like HERO—or ICOSA for that matter. I might even go so far as to say I dislike them. And, yes, I could have done all of that to avoid sitting here and being questioned by you. Still could, actually, and it wouldn’t be particularly difficult either. There isn’t much here that could stop me if I decided to really get going. You certainly couldn’t.”After a brief pause to let his words sink in, Riley continued.
“But I didn’t, and I won’t,” his tone hadn’t changed much, and his words remained light, but as far as the good doctor could tell, he wasn’t being deceitful.
Her final questions made him breathe a sigh.
“If I cared about convenience, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. I’m not exactly doing this out of any particular sense of duty either.” Even as Riley said those words, the sound of screaming filled his ears; an echo of a memory. He could almost feel the heat, too.
Riley’s jaw clenched momentarily before untensing to let him speak,
“.... “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”. That’s a pretty famous quote, right? It kinda fits.”“To put it more simply; I may not like H.E.R.O., but I dislike bullies more. In fact, I abhor them. That’s my reason.”The psychologist gave a slow nod as she rapidly scribbled her pen on her clipboard, taking notes. “I see. Well, this has been very insightful, Riley. Thank you for your cooperation. You’re.... free to leave.”
The psychologist rested her clipboard down on the table. “I hope this type of conversation was fruitful.” She thought for a moment. “Well, I shouldn’t kid myself. I hope it wasn’t too painful, rather. But if you thought you gained something at all from that.... maybe speaking with a professional wouldn’t be the worst.” She shrugged to nobody in particular, knowing her efforts likely wouldn’t bear fruit.
“Can you tell Wiseman to come in on your way out? If I’m not mistaken, he’s the last person I need to see.”
Riley nodded at the doctor absentmindedly,
“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”Standing from his chair with a sigh, the teenager gave the doctor a final once over before turning to leave,
“Well, this conversation has been.... interesting, and not entirely unpleasant. Under different circumstances, maybe your advice–”He stopped himself mid-sentence, shaking his head with a sigh,
“.... Never mind.”Pausing briefly with one hand on the door, Riley raised his last truffle to eye level and considered it momentarily. His brows furrowed in contemplation as the one between his teeth dissolved in his mouth. Then, he closed his palm around it and squeezed gently, poking at its structure until it settled on the one he wanted. When next he opened his palm, a perfect sphere of pure white lay within it and he turned to face Dr. Reininger once more.
Gently, he placed the sphere on her desk, his eyes glinting with a measure of pride as he spoke,
“Platinum-190. It’s the purest you’ll ever see.”He inclined his head slightly,
“Beregi sebya, doctor.”With that said Riley finally exited the office space to re-enter the staff room where the others sat.
“You’re up,” he said laconically as he passed by Wiseman.
He dropped heavily into the seat the furthest away from everyone else and buried his face in his forearms. In times like this, Riley wished he could still feel something other than static.
He sighed.
What a drag....
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