ic Interceptors: Doktor-Patient Confidentiality

[Gizmo]

The Amber Lantern

Sunday, December 1, 2024

 

The repurposed beer mug-turned-light fixture that served as its primary signage was the bar’s only real distinguishing feature. Not old enough to be historical, no novel gimmick or theming, The Amber Lantern was nothing more nor less than a place to get an anonymous drink in Freedom City’s west side.

 

Being a few blocks out of the West End proper and into Lantern Hill was another point in its favour in this case, so far as Erik Espadas was concerned. A bit petty, perhaps but he felt justified as he stepped inside the dimly lit watering hole. He wore a weathered jacket with a wool lining over a plain white shirt, dusty  brown hair a little longer in the colder months, blending into a neat beard. He took in the other people in the room with a carefully casual glance before heading to a booth in the far corner and silently sat down across from the man waiting for him.

[Dr Archeville]

This is fine.  This is fine.  This is fine.  This is fine.

 

The man in the booth was unremarkably plain, a white man in his early 30s with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a slightly wrinkled plain white long-sleeved button down shirt.  He looked much like any other low-level office worker who might come here to obliterate the memories of their daily drudgery with cheap alcohol.  But to Erik's metamagi senses, he shone like nothing else in there, giving off low levels of infrared and radio waves, and with far more electricity coursing through his nervous system than would be recommended.

 

"Well," Viktor Archeville said after a long pause, with only a slight hint of a German accent, "I knew it would only be a matter of time before one of us reached out to the other.  So," he placed his hands on the table and laced his fingers together, "what do we do now?"

 

[Gizmo]

“If we’re honest, I put it off,” Erik replied, leaning back and lying one arm across the back of the booth. Without really meaning to he put a little emphasis on the words to give it a note of challenge, of question. *If* they were being honest. Not a given.

 

His mouth tightened in self reproach; he tried to put it down to the potpourri of frequencies rolling off of Archeville registering like too much cologne, if cologne was made of nervous bees.

 

”You adjusting to being back in the city?” It would have made more sense to ask how he was adjusting to being back on Earth but they both knew that wasn’t the part that mattered. Erik could have asked Lynn for updates since he and Archeville had last seen each other but he hadn’t. It had been a long time since he and Lynn had been close like that, much longer from her perspective. He thought about Bill, passing away in another world and leaving him family behind. Erik’s mouth tightened again.

[Dr Archeville]

Archeville shifted a bit uncomfortably in his side of the booth.  He knew the man before him was Jack of all Blades, renowned hero, member of the Interceptors.  He remembered working with the Interceptors, gathering them together, supporting them, guiding them.  And the horrific betrayals.  His still remembered all of that, but his memories of their secret identities, their civilian lives, those had all been wiped.  He could re-learn them, if a hero deemed him worthy, same as with anyone else.  But those gaps in his memories -- which he'd had agreed were necessary, and had fully consented to having erased -- still 'itched' a bit.

 

"As well as can be expected for someone who was off-world for four years," he replied, smiling in a way that wasn't too forced.  "The familiar sights and sounds and smells have been nice, but seeing how... earthbound so many people here are, how fearful and fractured and..."  He trailed off, shaking his head.  Keep it light, Viktor.

 

"Lynn's made me feel very welcome," he pivoted slightly, "and I think she's welcomed the company.  Though I feel I am stretching her hospitality too far, and should get my own place.  But is it worth it to establish my own home if I might get whisked back to where I was before, as abruptly as I was sent here?"  He shrugged, and let out an exasperated grunt.  "Then again, most people don't know what the future holds, and they go about their lives, so maybe I should just... get on with it."