Chapter 118: Ada: I Suspect You Did Something to Me During the Time-Stop But I Have No Evidence
Umbrella Corporation. Outside the surgical suite.
Logan was sitting on a bench in the cold white corridor. Matthew had given him a premium cigar shortly before, which was currently between his teeth, and he had a bottle open in one hand.
The medical floor had a no-smoking policy. Matthew had specifically said it was fine. The security staff on this level had accordingly found things to look at in other directions.
Logan exhaled a slow breath of smoke and held the cigar at arm's length, studying it.
"Got to say, you know how to live. This cigar alone is several tiers above mine." He looked at the bottle in his other hand. "The wine is slightly less impressive by comparison, though."
He said this with the complete authority of someone who had been drinking bottom-shelf whiskey for several decades and had then, in the span of two encounters, received two bottles of wine that together cost more than most people's houses.
Matthew didn't argue the point. He spread his hands openly. "Can't help it. Not everything in my cellar runs to two million. This one, compared to what I sent you last time, is a bit lower in grade."
Logan found this interesting. "Lower in grade. What kind of lower are we talking about? A few thousand? A few tens of thousands?"
"Not that much. Just over a million."
Difference of more than double compared to last time.
Logan went quiet.
He had assumed "lower in grade" would mean something in the range of tens of thousands. In Matthew's framework, apparently, a million dollars was the lower-grade tier.
Working from that logic, bottles in the mere tens of thousands probably didn't make it through the cellar door.
Logan looked at the bottle in his hand, then tipped it back and took several long pulls. Then he drew hard on the cigar.
Making up for everything at once.
In the middle of this, the light above the surgical suite door went off.
Logan straightened up and looked at Matthew. "Done already?"
"This kind of procedure is quick by nature. The installation itself is nearly instantaneous. The calibration after is what takes the time." Matthew glanced at the time. "Half an hour from when he went in. That's about right."
As he said it, the OR door was pushed open from inside.
Charles walked out.
The word that came to mind was younger. Not literally, but in the way he carried himself and the brightness around his eyes. The exhaustion from an hour ago hadn't disappeared, but it had been overtaken completely by something else.
"How does it feel to stand again, Professor Charles?" Matthew asked with a smile.
"How does it feel." Charles paused for a moment, as if the vocabulary he needed wasn't quite at hand.
"Since that happened, I don't think I've ever felt like this."
"I have to say, your company's medical technology is genuinely world-class. Even the muscle atrophy from years of disuse in my legs has started recovering in this short a time. Something I would never have imagined being possible, and here it is."
He said it with real feeling, and as he spoke he lifted one leg slightly, testing it, feeling the return of something that had been absent for a long time.
Matthew received the praise with appropriate modesty. "Umbrella exists for the benefit of people. That's what we do." He said it with the same straight-faced corporate sincerity with which he always delivered that particular line. "These technologies will continue to expand. Eventually everything we develop will be accessible to everyone."
Another person hearing this might have taken it for polished promotional language. But Charles had experienced the specific thing Matthew was describing. The sincerity in Matthew's voice landed differently on someone standing on their own feet for the first time in years.
[System: +3,000 points. Professor X has been moved by your dedication to benefiting the people, and is profoundly grateful for returning his ability to walk.]
[Accumulated System points: 22,000. Pass reward: Megamycete x1 deposited into System storage.]
[Next stage reward at 25,000 accumulated points. Keep using your System rewards to benefit the people!]
Well. There it was.
Matthew's eyes brightened.
Target something that actually answers a need, and System points moved at a very satisfying pace.
Logan looked Charles up and down, and a rare relaxed smile appeared on his face. "Charles. Looks like that wheelchair in the trunk isn't going to be needed tonight."
"Allow me to correct that."
"Not tonight, and not after tonight either," Matthew said, with considerable satisfaction.
With Nikki's psychological block resolved and Charles standing again, the general mood had lifted substantially. Logan, riding the wave, suggested drinks.
Matthew saw no reason to decline. He drove them both to an all-night restaurant, on the basis that this was an opportunity to develop the relationship further and the night was young.
They drank until morning.
Then said their goodbyes.
Matthew pushed open his office door to find Ada already there. She was at the fish tank, dropping in feed one piece at a time.
She heard the door, glanced at him briefly, then returned to the fish.
Matthew, reading no indication that she had noticed anything unusual about the previous night, settled onto the sofa without visible concern and picked up the red tea she had prepared in advance.
He took a sip. The same familiar taste.
"I heard Nikki's ability went out of control again last night," Ada said, releasing another piece of shrimp into the tank. She watched it disappear.
"It did." Matthew didn't obscure any of it. "Picked up early, though. Things were back to normal before long. Someone with the right capabilities was on hand and helped resolve the psychological block that was driving the loss of control. It'll happen less and less going forward."
Ada's expression visibly softened at the last part. "Good. That really is good news."
Then, without any change of tone:
"By the way. After you arrived last night, during the time-stop, did you happen to go into my room?"
The office went quiet.
Three seconds.
Matthew set his cup down and picked it back up, his expression steady and his posture entirely unchanged. "Of course not. I should actually reprimand you for the question. How exactly would your boss have done something like that?"
"I see." Ada made a small sound of apparently genuine regret and shook her head. "That is a shame."
"If you had done something to me during the time-stop, I probably wouldn't have noticed at all."
She said this while watching Matthew's face from the edge of her field of vision for any reaction.
What she received was no reaction. Matthew drank his tea with the complete equanimity of someone who had nothing on their conscience and had not heard anything interesting.
Ada looked at her thigh.
There was a bruise there she hadn't noticed before.
She thought about this.
She suspected Matthew had done something to her during the time-stop.
She had no evidence.
She thought a bit further.
Even if he actually had done something, she probably wouldn't have said anything.
That settled it. She let the matter go completely and went back to feeding the fish.
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