Page 17 of Smart Ass

Could someone be a spark without acknowledging it to themself?

Shit. This was fucking crazy. Gahhhh…

Okay, focus.

Ben actually should call Wally.

It was the last thing he wanted to do, of course. His brain was so overwhelmed with Evan and Quincy and now Max that he thought it was going to explode.

Then the car turned the corner, and started pulling into the circular drive for the hospital drop-off. Ben would need to send it off in a moment to either park in the underground lot, or find somewhere cheaper nearby. He couldn’t fucking deal with this right now.

On the other hand, it would give him a few more minutes before he had to go into the hospital.

He needed to get ready for that. Especially this hospital. It was the same one his grandmother had been in. With the same circular drive and annoying reception bots.

One of the little white bots was toddling up to his car now, welcoming instructions written on its torso in twelve languages.

Ben hated hospitals. They were horrible places, all sterile and cold, waking up patients all night to check their vitals when they should just be allowed to get what little peace they could find in sleep.

He didn’t want to remember his grandmother in her hospital bed, and the way she’d only take a couple of bites of food to make Ben happy. He didn’t want to remember how she could barely grip his hand.

He didn’t want to think about Evan being in the hospital either.

Or Quincy, all alone and injured in police custody.

Dammit.

There was a tap on Ben’s window. The reception bot was asking more urgently whether he needed any help coming inside, or if not, if he could move his car out of the way.

Ben ignored it.

He wasn’t ready to go inside yet.

But he kind of had to.

“I’m going in,” he told Max, as if that would make him do it.

“Okay,” Max answered.

Was Ben just talking to himself? Clinging to Max like a child would to a teddy bear?

Then Max added, “Put in your earpiece.”

And now, Ben was back on the other side. Since when did Max give him commands instead of the other way around?

Ben drew in a deep breath and got out of the car, holding his watch up for the reception bot to scan so it could send his car to the parking lot. He popped in his earpiece, though.

The hospital smelled just like he remembered. Air that was just a little too fresh and filtered, without any life.

The walls of the atrium were all white, broken only by the metallic sheen of an abstract sculpture. It was puffy and round, an innocuous sort of object that you knew was art, even if it didn’t mean anything.

He started walking toward the reception desk when Max’s voice rose in his ear, sure and calm. “Evan’s getting scans in the emergency room. They don’t allow visitors, so you won’t be able to see him yet.”

Ben wheeled in his tracks. That sucked.

He supposed he’d just pace around the pointless statue.

Maybe that was what it was supposed to symbolize: pointless waiting.