It's not Gabe, It's Gabriel!

“An unfamiliar ceiling…”

“-I need to stop saying that.”

Shaking away his grogginess and realizing where he was, Merrit took a look around at his surroundings. The first thing he felt was an overwhelming sense of loneliness. The day after his village had burned, a massive armed caravan had arrived at the ruins, and he had met Alice.

Ever since then, his life had been a whirlwind, but there had always been someone familiar by his side, an anchor- whether it be Alice’s reassuring eccentricity or Ren’s… well, Ren had been there.

But now, there was nobody left around him that he knew, only the cold, sterile floors and the banal chatter of machines. He had seen Mannequins in medical uniforms walking around, but not a single human doctor. In fact, he hadn’t seen any human patients, either.

He got the feeling the city wasn’t exactly the safest place, but there had to be at least someone injured recently, right? Or was it that being here was just that expensive?

Regardless, the second sensation he felt was his legs. No pain, no numbness, just… feeling. Making a decidedly poor choice, he excitedly leaped out of his bed onto the ground, but instead of being punished for his hubris, he found his legs to be fine.

The third feeling… confusion? Ren had told him that it would take a few weeks to heal, and yet here he was, good as new. In fact, he was feeling the best that he had felt in a long time. There was a sparkling feeling, all throughout his body, that he was completely unable to describe. But this meant… maybe he could still catch up, and join them? He quickly reached for his phone, and-

And, he hesitated. What could he do, if he joined them? They left him a task… maybe that was why they left him behind. Or maybe, it was just an excuse-He smacked himself. Thoughts like this had to stop.

But regardless, now that he was healed, he didn’t have to be here. His main task was to figure out info- he flipped open his laptop and booted it up, but was surprised to see a notification.

“Congratulations, Jeremy! You are the lucky winner of the Super Duper Special Idol Lottery! Please confirm your receipt of this message!”

It looks like the researcher’s account he was using had won the competition-Forgetting everything else from his mind, Merrit responded instantly with an affirmation. You couldn’t be late with these things.

Almost instantly, there was a response from her account. “Great! Please send us a location near you so we can vet you first.”

That was a little strange… but she was famous, so he supposed this was normal… or was it? He wouldn’t know.

He sent them the location of the hospital, figuring that was as neutral a place as any. Besides, he would be gone from here soon enough. But where would he go…? Well, that would be an issue he could figure out later. He could call them and let them know, but they wouldn’t begrudge him a little time making his dreams come true, right?

Suddenly, he was surprised to see another response-

“Great! We’re here.”

“WHAT?!”- He exclaimed audibly, causing several Mannequins dressed in scrubs to look at him in surprise.

One of them came over to him.

“Hey, dude. What can I do for you? Do you need any special care? Just let me know any time, I’m all ears. The stage is yours. Let’s get cracking.”

It made a strange gesture, folding its ring and middle finger down and extending the index and pinky out.

“Uh…. I actually think I’m fine now. Can I check out?”

Its tone suddenly hardened, if one could call it that. Perhaps it became more robotic.

“Sorry, but I don’t understand. You were contracted to be here for at least two weeks, leaving early will incur an early cancellation fee of 150% of your contract.”

“I… uh… let me call my friend.”

He hastily rang Alice on the phone, but there was a busy signal.

“Sorry, the person you are trying to reach is not available.”

Merrit grinned sheepishly at the Mannequin facing him-

“Look, can I just go downstairs? I really need to see a visitor.”

“I also notice that you’re standing upright, while the database says that you were in here for recovery for loss of motor function in your lower half.”

“Yup! So that means I can go, right? I’m doing great now.”

“You can-Unfortunately, this means the original reason for your stay would be voided, and your insurance claim would be invalid. This would mean you would have to cover the full cost, as well as the early cancellation fee.”

It handed him a tablet, with a number on it that made him take a step back.

“$114,786,093?! Are you serious?!”

“Yes. If you’d like to leave a tip, suggested amounts are 50%, 100%, 150%, 500%”.

“I… don’t have that amount of money…”

“Then we can arrange to have the original reason for your claim reinstated.”

It then grabbed a large metal rod from a nearby operating table, and advanced on Merrit, threateningly.

“Wait! I-”

A voice he recognized came over his shoulder.

“It looks like you’re in some trouble there…”

A girl dressed in a long purple coat over black leggings, sauntered up behind him and tapped the payment device with her phone, and a dinging sound rang out. The Mannequin suddenly halted and regained its pleasant expression.

As Merrit looked closer, he saw she was wearing a mask, and sunglasses that covered her face. But the voice, without a doubt, was the voice of famous virtual streamer Rosemary Everbloom.

“You should be good now.”

“You… you’re her? And how did you-”

“Let’s go outside. We can discuss more out there.”

Merrit hastily gathered his belongings, and as they took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked out the front door, Merrit noticed that many of the Mannequins were standing in a powered-down state, their heads leaning down to the ground, arms limp at their side. It was a very strange sight.

As his giddiness faded away, he realized that he had no idea what was going on. All he knew was that something was off. How had they reached him so quickly? And it seemed like their response time was very fast as well… He found it also very strange that Rosemary, known to be a very clumsy person on stream at least, could manage to somehow find her way in here and disable those Mannequins… if this even was her.

They hurried outside into the early morning street, and Rosemary began to run.

“They’ll be on our tail soon… I hope you didn’t mind, but I faked the payment. It seems like you were in some hot water there anyway.”

As Merrit ran to catch up with her, laptop in his arms, he breathed-

“Yeah… thanks for that, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten out of it without you!”

“It’s Jeremy, right? That was the name on the account, but for some reason you were registered as Merrit on the hospital records-”

It seems like she thought she was speaking to the original owner of the account… but whether it would be good to tell her the truth or not was up in the air. Maybe this was his chance to find out more… Unfortunately, he was never very good at being discreet..

After some silence, he awkwardly responded-

“Uh… yeah… that’s me- I…”

He could see a pair of bushy eyebrows raising above the sunglasses, but it seemed she was still somewhat convinced. She paused for a moment, and looked down at his laptop.

“That’s yours, right?”

“Y-yup!”

They had been walking very fast, and before he knew it Merrit found that he was in a very remote region of town. He was surrounded by abandoned factory buildings and high rise skyscrapers overrun by rust and mold, windows broken and vandalized, the myriad colors of graffiti covering everywhere that could be reached.

Rosemary stopped and looked at him.

“You’re not Jeremy, are you?”

Well, there probably wasn’t any point keeping this up, then.

“No… I uhh… happened to find this laptop.”

“Well, I believe at least one of those things. But it doesn’t seem like you’re the person we’re looking for… I guess I’ll call it off for now. But we can’t really afford to let you go… What to do?”

“I- what?”

Ignoring him, she began to dig around in the pockets of her coat.

“Oh… oh no.”

“What now?”

Now Merrit was sure that it was her, as she put her hands on her head and started pacing around, in her usual panicked voice. She often made clumsy mistakes on stream, and while he was unsure if she was hamming it up for the camera, it seems she was at least the real deal.

Unfortunately, it seemed whatever she had done this time had more gravitas than a silly mistake in a game.

“Are you ok?”

“I forgot my phone…”

“You managed to hack every single machine in there but forgot your phone?!”

Looking around at the surrounding buildings in a panicked manner, she didn’t respond.

Following her gaze, Merrit gazed at the buildings, at the shattered windows, at the abandoned beds, until he saw a sudden glint from a window high above, one that he knew the exact meaning of.

He had done training games like this with his mercenary friends, and from many welts and bruises from rubber bullets , his experiences told him that the glint of a sniper’s scope was now aimed clearly at them.

“GET DOWN!”

Perhaps it was instinct, but without a second thought or regard for himself, Merrit jumped and tackled Rosemary to the ground.

A bullet, likely from some sort of anti tank rifle, judging from the way it tore a massive hole in the brickwork behind them, whistled past his head.

Instinct, and something else, a completely new, burgeoning feeling within him, led him to his next actions. He rolled over onto the ground, and drew out the pistol Ren had given him from inside his jacket, aiming iit at the window. There was no way he normally would have tried this, knowing he would not have been able to make the shot.

But today, somehow, the sparkling feeling he had felt this morning guided him. He squeezed the trigger, and somehow the bullet flew magically on course, guided as if by the wind itself, towards the window. He heard a cracking noise, and the glint was gone.

He pulled up Rosemary, who was understandably winded-

“Come on! We need to go!”

“No-wait- GABE, WAIT! He’s not-”

A massive figure dressed in a trench coat, face darkened and obscured by a hood, through which only a single red dot was visible, slammed down onto the ground near them.

How he managed to survive the jump from at least 20 floors above was the first thought running through Merrit’s mind, before the figure instantly closed the distance and sent Merrit flying into the brickwork with a kick that took all the air out of his lungs.

Gasping for air, he looked up to see the barrel of a pistol aimed squarely at his forehead-

In a low growl, words escaped from beneath the hood.

“Any last words, High Court scum?”

“Sorry… Ren… Alice…”

“Ren? You-”

There was a loud noise, and the figure recoiled as Rosemary smacked them in the head from behind.

“Gabe! We got the wrong person.”

“Don’t call me that…”

The gun barrel lowered, if only slightly.

“You mentioned someone named Ren. Explain.”

Merrit was dumbfounded, still gasping for air. It seems luckily none of his bones were broken, but he was still unable to move or escape.

Just what had he gotten himself into?