Chapter 35
After the battle, the Guardians stayed to help clean up the bridge. Mike focused his efforts on tending minor injuries, while Sonica popped those with more severe wounds and breaks to the hospital. Their work done, they left the Players to celebrate their victory against Pruitt, and made their way back to the firehouse.
As soon as they walked in, Caleb took one look at Mike’s cracked visor and hunched over as if he was in pain. “How?” he croaked.
“An intense will to live,” Mike answered as he passed the damaged tech over to him.
Caleb stared forlornly at the shattered glass. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I’ll rebuild it stronger.”
Mike clapped him on the shoulder in thanks and sympathy. Then he moved to start checking over the team. Remembering that Amina didn’t have super powers or healing, he went to her first.
“Did you take any head blows?” he asked while giving her a quick examination.
“No, but I saw from a distance that you did. Commander 5 really rocked you.”
Mike winced both in memory and pain—his skull was still throbbing. “Yeah, that wasn’t fun.” Amina’s skill and suit protected her well. She was fine, other than a few abrasions and bruises so Mike moved on. He grasped Aiden’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze as he passed him. “I’ll take care of you at home,” he said softly. Aiden nodded and squeezed his hand in return.
Blaze waved him off when he approached.
“Fastest super healing in the group,” he said.
Mike nodded and kept going until he’d checked everyone on the team. No one was seriously hurt thankfully. And their advanced healing would take care of any needed recovery.
Aiden sat in one of the club chairs in front of Caleb’s command center. He crooked a finger at Mike.
“Come here.”
Mike went over and sat on the floor, tucked between Aiden’s thighs. His shoulders relaxed with a sigh of relief as Aiden began rubbing gentle circles on his temples, chasing away the stubborn tendrils of pain that refused to be defeated by the painkillers he’d taken. He listened as Aiden started speaking to Caleb and Strong.
“We gave the Purity Alliance and Pruitt’s bots a righteous beatdown. How do we stop them from coming back?”
“I already have,” Caleb answered from his usual seat behind his desk. “I anonymously uploaded the bridge defense video to all the major social media sites. I also included narration and captions detailing that the Pruitt artificial intelligence bots had no jurisdiction to come into the Playground and spliced in clips from street cameras showing the white shirts harassing and assaulting Players and visitors. People are outraged on your behalf and have taken the side of the common citizen over big business. There are even multiple threads on Reddit about corporate greed and overreach. Pruitt’s plan to try and takeover the Playground is out there now. He failed, and he won’t want the negative publicity that goes with a second attempt. Especially since it hurts his bottom line.”
Caleb clicked a button and one of the screens flipped to show a stock market ticker. Pruitt Incorporated stock showed a small drop for the day.
“You’re a genius, Caleb,” Aiden tiredly praised.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know if either of you caught it on the drone footage, but Alice Iverson was an A.I.—.” Aiden paused. “I just caught that. Ugh. It’s like Pruitt was daring us to notice she was a robot.”
Strong nodded. “I did catch it. I’m aware that A.I. have made huge strides in advancement. But I didn’t realize civilian companies had reached that high a level. The ones I’ve seen could be clocked as an A.I. without much difficulty on close inspection. I guess that’s something we’ll need to be on the lookout for in the near future. But there’s nothing to be done about it right now. We won today. Now go home and get some rest.”
Everyone started preparing to do as Strong suggested.
“I need three to five business days to recover after that fight,” Amina said as she stretched and cracked her back.
“I’ve never used my sonic scream that many times in one day. I need some hot tea.”
Mike rose and stepped to the side so Aiden could get up from his seat. Aiden called out to the group before they could leave.
“Everyone, thank you so much for helping me protect the Playground. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Sonica smiled and came over to give him a hug. “You’re welcome.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Strong said.
Frost simply nodded, as did Blaze. After the team acknowledged Aiden’s gratitude, he turned to Mike.
