Utopia

Heidi looked around, glad for her sneakers as she got out of the car. "Tom's was pretty good, too...I didn't really need it too much because I could feel anyone's blood who was close enough to worry about," she shrugged. Her lack of a sixth sense hadn't ever really bothered her too much, and sometimes she thought she had a clearer head because of it. Less senses to block up.

---

Kira smiled a bit at her small victory, though having to choose where to eat was never too easy for her. "Do you mind if we just walk around a bit?" she asked after a moment of thought. "I...don't really know where we are," she admitted, laughing a bit awkwardly. Teleportation was weird and a bit unnerving.

"I imagine that's because he was blind. Careful, it's particularly bad in here," Russell replied brusquely, stepping inside and shaking his head as he began walking up the stairs to the fourth floor, where Tom was. He had been looking over the hospital details earlier, and with his Flow and memory it had stuck perfectly in his memory, so he was pretty sure of where he was going. "I wonder if he realised or cares that he killed innocents today..."

-------

"Sure, of course, although we may want to walk a bit more towards the city proper. This area really isn't all that nice, so I don't think there's much in the way of fine dining around here," Luke replied thoughtfully, going to look for some shoes. He didn't often eat at a restaurant, though he was regular at the many takeaways and pubs in the area. He was often too lazy, injured, or tired to cook.

Heidi carefully stepped over the debris, not finding it too hard to navigate. "I doubt it," she commented. "I mean, how much do you know about the tournament? He was a complete ass then, wouldn't surprise me if he didn't change that much." Nobody deserved to get off with trying to kill their teammate. It just wasn't right.

---

Kira nodded. "That's fine," she agreed, pulling on her own shoes and grabbing her coat. It was a bit heavy still for the current weather, though Kira was always cold when it came to living in Utopia, so it wasn't much if a surprise. "Oh, guess what!" she exclaimed after a few seconds of silence, a wide grin on her face. She paused for another second, not waiting for a response. "I rode in a car today!"

"Not a huge amount. I know what it was, I know a bunch of people ran away to a different adult, I know some of the finalists, and I know some of those who left the tournament for Shima, like you," Russell summarised as he ascended another floor, getting near to where Tom lay. He had heard many thing about Nathan during his time, and almost none of them had been good, so he didn't doubt the stuff he'd been up to during the tournament.

-----

Luke remained as he was, in a red shirt, as he didn't need to worry about the cold, and he figured that the shirt was mildly upmarket, so it was the right amount of dressing up for a meal. He waited for Kira to be done, before hearing her news and having a big smile break out onto her face.

"Awesome! Well done!" he exclaimed, going over and hugging her tightly, lifting her slightly off the ground for a split-second before putting her down and letting go. It was kind of intimidating to think of all the ways that she'd changed, with plants, with the panic attacks, and he was still more or less the exact same.

Heidi sighed, rubbing the back of her head. "Nathan and I had...I wouldn't call it a rivalry since he was always stronger, but we fought a lot. He hurt people I care about, he hurt me, and he even ended up hurting his teammates. That's just not something you do," she explained. Even if she didn't agree with what Ade was doing, she could never hurt her.

---

Kira giggled when her feet left the ground, hugging Luke tightly. It was a fairly big accomplishment for her, and while she was fairly sure it was only because she had drugged herself, still. It was a step forward. Once Luke let go of her, she readjusted her coat, before grabbing his hand. "Lead the way, then!" she encouraged, smiling.

"I understand it's something of a taboo. I read some notes in Nathan, but the guy who had written it obviously knew him and referred to things that he knew, but I didn't. He didn't seem all that savoury of a character, but I did see his team-mate run off with him willingly this morning. Must be water under the bridge," Russell mused, ascending the final flight of stairs.

-------

"Gladly," Luke replied, walking forward with a happy smile on his face. He grabbed a coat as he left the apartment on second thoughts, figuring that he would look odd in just a shirt when it was cold outside. If there was one thing he wanted to avoid, it was drawing attention to the two of them on their night out. Luke's apartment was only a few floors up, and he waved goodbye to the receptionist as they left, the colder air not fazing Luke in the slightest.

Heidi shrugged, shaking her head. "Which one, Luke or...eh...plant girl? If it was planty, then I wouldn't doubt that he intimidated her into it. And Luke, well, I can understand wanting to forgive," she explained. She knew that if Ade apologized, she'd forgive her in a heartbeat.

---

When they stepped outside, Kira shivered a bit, moving closer to Luke. "Winter's too cold," she complained, looking around as they walked. She figured that they were more towards the outer city, just judging by the street. That reminded Kira to ask what Luke had been doing the past three years, though considering the rumors about him being involved with a gang or something, she figured now wouldn't be a good time.

"I guess that's one boon of my Flow," Luke replied with a sheepish grin, not having noticed. Now that he had though, he emitted a low level of heat to warm her up, the amount not really causing any noticeable reaction from his Flow as it was more of a passive ability. He often had to be reminded what kind of temperature it was outside while on business so he didn't betray himself by his Flow. "That better?"

--------

"I think it was Luke, though Kira seemed pretty distraught that she couldn't follow them. Broke down pretty much, though Nathan whisked them away without a second though, though he did try to kill me," Russell recounted with a grimace, remembering the golem and how powerless he had been to stop Nathan. Even bullets didn't deter him.

"Yeah, thanks," Kira smiled, squeezing Luke's hand. It would be nice to be warm all the time. She preferred warmer temperatures over their colder counterparts, and as shallow as it was, one of the major physical aspects of Luke that she admired was his ability to be constantly warm.

After a few more minutes, Kira figured that they were far enough away from the outer edge of Utopia. She didn't particularly think it was a good idea to get too close to the inner city, especially after the hospital incident. She looked around, before pointing at a restaurant. She thought it seemed nice enough for the occasion. "How about there?"

---

"Nathan tends to do that to people, try to kill them," Heidi commented, nodding in acknowledgement. "But I couldn't really tell you that much about what was goin' on in Kira or Luke's heads, since I didn't really talk to them all that much after the tournament. Whole team is a bit nutty, though, if y'ask me."

"Yeah, I was talking to Kira afterwards and she seemed really on edge, like even at the smallest shit. I dunno, I guess it's because she's been through a lot of shit, but it kinda makes you worried just talking to her. Fear via osmosis or something," Russell mused, thinking back on their shoulder. He supposed it was her constantly being scared that made you worried for her, and thereby tense, but he was really just spitballing. "As for Luke, he's got a criminal record a mile wide, and that's all I really know about him."

--------

"Yeah, sure, that looks pretty good," Luke replied, strolling over nonchalantly, happy even for a walk about with Kira after spending so long apart and failing to get in contact. It almost made him rage even to think about what the government had done to their nice peaceful life together, so he pushed it out of his mind again.

"Ehh, I don't remember her being any different at all. Didn't talk to her that much though, can't say anything for sure. Luke was a good guy, though, we trained together a bit, dunno what the fuck happened to him," Heidi responded, thinking back on the tournament. It surprised her that Luke was now a criminal, though she wasn't exactly sure what he had done. He'd always seemed pretty sound whenever they had talked.

---

Kira followed after Luke, smiling uncontrollably. It had been awhile since she'd been this happy, and unfortunately, she knew it would probably be awhile until she was this happy again. Her stomach growled as they neared the restaurant, and Kira laughed a little embarrassedly, running ahead to grab the door for Luke.

"Well I think it's more that the state kinda screwed them over after Tom fell... They were living as a couple, and Luke's testimony didn't match the official one, so they... tried to make him disappear," Russell replied, a mixture of shame and anger in his voice. That had been the darkest chapter yet for the government, and the thought of what his officials had done during that time still shamed him and brought him to anger even three years later. It was also his hardest offence to excuse when explaining why he worked for the police.

-------

Luke was a bit surprised by her run, breaking into a light jog to catch up to his excited girlfriend, and graciously walking through the door held open for him. "I guess you're pretty hungry? If you're going that fast for the restaurant, I mean." 

Heidi paused for a moment, taking in this new information. "Looks like Tombo wasn't just my last hope for sanity, he was everyone's," she joked, though there was a slightly bitter tone in her voice. "That's terrible, though...if Tom would just wake up, this whole thing could get sorted out," she sighed, rubbing the back of her neck.

---

Kira followed after Luke again, nodding slightly. "Yeah, I haven't really eaten anything since breakfast, so...pretty hungry," she admitted, glancing around the building. There were a few televisions around, showing some previously recorded soccer games, probably played by high school students. There were a good number of wooden tables of different sizes scattered around the room, with a bar on the left side of the building.

"Yeah, and maybe certain people don't want him to wake up because of that," Russell replied wearily, rubbing his hands together as they arrived at the old blind man's ward, glad he had his jacket because of the cold wind blowing through the broken windows. "Don't mind me, just wearing my tinfoil hat. Who knows, maybe he's been waiting for you? I think he's just down this corridor, though my directions have been a bit thrown by the debris."

-------

"Seems like a nice enough place," Luke murmured to Kira as they walked in together, very happy to see a smile on her face. He found an empty table for two and walked over. "You happy with it? And if yes, should we order?"

Heidi smiled a bit, jogging down the corridor, and glancing in each room to look for Tom, dodging debris rather nimbly. She was a bit surprised that the patients hadn't all been evacuated. Finally, she poked her head into the right room, nearly tripping over herself in an odd combination between surprise, happiness, and sadness.

She moved into the room, grabbing the customary chair, and sitting herself down next to Tom. "Hi Tombo, look who's out of jail! I fared quite well on my own, thank you very much," she started talking, babbling on for a while, her topics ranging from how big Simon had gotten to how fucking cold it was. "See? My hands are like ice cubes!" she whined, sticking the back of her hand on Tom's cheek.

---

"Yeah, it's great," Kira agreed as she sat down with Luke, her eyes glancing up at the television. She never was very good at soccer. "Ordering sounds good, I'm starved," she laughed a little, her stomach growling again. She was lucky she'd actually eaten breakfast this morning, or it would've been even worse.

Russell waited in the doorway, not wanting to intrude but obviously having to keep an eye on Heidi in case she lost control. Besides, it was quite an interesting reflection on her to see how she reacted to seeing her old friend. He pulled out his phone, flicking idly through it, though he took care to remain silent and unobtrusive, knowing that it was a private moment for Heidi and that it would be rude to interrupt.

Tom, for his part, remained staunchly silent throughout the ordeal, his eyes shut and his face locked in the stoic expression it had always had when he was thinking. The man formerly thought of as one of the strongest in whole city didn't move at all now, his arms and legs wasted away due to atrophy and damage from the fall. His hair was kept at a short enough length, the hair on his face only going down to his eyebrows and therefore missing a large scar on his cheek from his incident so long ago.

---------

"Used to play soccer a lot, you know," Luke commented idly, as he signalled a waiter and waited for the man to finish taking a different order so that he could come over to the couple, though he could tell from Kira that if it wasn't in the next few moments, she could end up eating the table. "I still do, a but anyway. I play in a six-a-side league twice a week."

Heidi paused, sitting quietly for a moment. "You should wake up, soon, y'know. The world is going to hell again and you're the only one good enough at getting through to thick people. I don't know what to do, they already strapped a tracker to me, it's not like people are gonna listen to me. They'd listen to you, y'know." She was so useless when it came to situations like these, where you had to think your way through. Blunt force was all she was good at, and they'd taken away her main weapon.

"I guess you can't hear me, right? But you know I'm here, don't you? You were always good at figuring out who everybody was, even when you couldn't see. So, so you should wake up, and...and we can hang out and I'll let you make all the short jokes you want, and I won't hit you anymore, and...and..." she trailed off in a sort of whimper, her mind searching for an escape, but her Flow was no longer there to give into.

---

Kira smiled a bit at Luke's comment, glad to hear that he kept up some hobbies at least. "That sounds nice, though I was always rubbish at soccer," she laughed. "Never played it after the Storm, though." That was a bit of a sad thought, as she hadn't played that many sports at all after the Storm. Sure, there was the occasional shooting hoops, or having a kick around or something, but usually she just took runs for exercise.

Russell looked sidelong at Heidi carefully, sensing how close she was to the edge and thanking his stars that she didn't have her Flow, otherwise he'd probably have died. He didn't want to approach her, however, and so waited for her to do something. Tom for his part didn't react, though Russell found himself finding something tragic in the scene, and closed his eyes for a second.

---------

"I played it loads when I was a kid in Dublin, though I was pretty rusty when I started playing again a few years ago, considering how long it had been. I never really played much else, because it was the only thing really viable for my neighbourhood. We didn't have any hoops or real goals, or even much grass. So setting two bin as goals was our best bet," Luke reminisced fondly as the waiter came over.

Heidi stayed quiet for several minutes, watching Tom sleep. It was almost like at any moment he would wake up, and everything would be okay again, but she knew that probably wasn't going to happen anytime soon. However, the idea that Tom wouldn't ever wake up was a terrifying one, so she could only hope that he'd wake up soon.

She got to her feet, hugging him as best she could with the IV cords and whatnot around, and fixing where she had messed up his blanket. "I'll visit you again, soon, okay? Promise..." she sighed, turning back towards Russell, biting her lip. "I'm...I'm okay. You need me to do anything else?"

---

"We had old hoops in my neighborhood, but..." Kira trailed off, struggling to remember. "There was a lot of broken glass and bottles around, and I think Natalie cut her leg up pretty bad... After that we had to sweep the concrete before we played, and no one wants to do that," she laughed a bit as her memory fell into place, before turning to the waiter and ordering.

"You good? I need you to take a look through our records of the Acer tournament and help me both clear them up and fill them out. The murderer is tied somewhere to them, and they know who was in the tournament, even though there's no publically accessible records saying who was," Russell explained, not really waiting for an answer to his original question. He had no fear of discussing a top-secret murder openly there, the only people in sight were at the other end of the car park, four floors down.

"That probably seems like a bit much, but for starters all I need is help with our files and records. I'm hoping that some sort of investigable connection shows itself as we do, and I'm already pursuing the Nathan lead."

-------

Luke ordered quickly enough -quite hungry himself as he had gotten up late and Nathan had whisked him away before he could eat- but turned to Kira at the mention of drinks.

"You drinking alcoholic stuff or not? Cos' I'm not sure what to get myself," he asked before he confirmed anything. He was probably going to get a beer himself, but he wasn't sure if she wanted to get anything like wine, as he was dimly aware that most couples got things like that together.

Heidi shrugged, trying to come off as nonchalant while she pulled herself together. In a lot of ways, Tom had been more of a teammate than her own were, so seeing him hurt and not being able to do anything about it really hit home. "Just give me the file," she responded. "Though stuff from...I guess the first couple days'll be a bit fuzzier than most, Eithne kicked me into a wall and I hit my head pretty hard," she explained. What had the first couple challenges even been? She couldn't quite remember. Oh well, maybe seeing even half-completed records would jump her memory.

---

Kira paused in thought, a slight frown on her face. She hadn't really been one to turn down alcohol, though with Jason around she tried to keep away from it. A bit couldn't hurt though, especially if it wasn't anything to strong. "I guess I'll get a beer, or something," she said indecisively, staring down at the menu. "Yeah, I guess I'll get a beer, I should still be able to walk back after that," she joked, as she was fairly sure that Luke had noticed her lack of tolerance when it came to alcohol.

"It's more the people than the events, if that makes sense, even though they're obviously intrinsically linked," Russell tried to explain and failed to do a very good job of it. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and began descending the stairs again, wondering if he had heard correctly that Heidi and Eithne were friends back in their tournament days, talking mostly to himself as he did. "Says a lot about our state that they chose to set up camp outside this place instead of evacuating and relocating patients..."

-------

"With a bit of luck," Luke replied with a teasing grin, before confirming that he too would have a beer and letting the waiter return with the menus. He leaned back in his seat slightly, looking around the place before going back to what they had been talking about and looking thoughtful. "Broken glass is pretty nasty, I remember I kept cutting myself on it after the Storm. Before it I think the most problem we had was with harmful gases and assholes around where I lived."

Heidi nodded again, giving Russell a thumbs up. "Nah, I got'chu," she responded, though she pondered over his second statement a bit longer. "Bit of a shitty situation, y'know? I mean, it's fucking cold out, and with broken windows and shit, y'think they would've had the decency to move the patients to a building that isn't...y'know...full of debris," she sighed, pulling her hood up as she shivered in the cold. Winter was not her season...though she wasn't particularly fond of any of the others.

---

Kira opened her mouth to agree, before simply nodding, lost in thought for a second. She could relate to what Luke was saying, and her...experience after the Storm only strengthened that. "Yeah," she said softly after a second, before raising her voice back up again, snapping out of her daze. "Those stupid masks were so itchy all the time," she laughed a bit, rubbing her nose at the memory.

Russell pulled out his packet of cigarettes for a second to get one, before thinking better of it and sliding it back into his pocket. "You think it's still bad to smoke in a hospital when it's like this?" he asked thoughtfully before he responded to her other point. "But yeah, I think that would be too much like good administration for the government here. I don't think Asquith really gives a fuck about these people anyway. They'll probably relocate them tomorrow, which is why I thought tonight might be a good time to see your friend Tom."

---------

"Oh, the like... clean-air masks? I saw some of them around where I lived, but we suffered from pretty bad overcrowding and we were pretty poor, so I never got to use one. They always looked kinda stupid, but a little bit cool at the same time. I saw a load of adults wearing them outside the shelters, but I never talked to anyone with 'em," Luke reminisced, thinking back on his birthplace. He idly wondered if the Great Storm had been as a result of what was going on with the atmosphere, because ever since it, prolonged exposure to the outside air hadn't made him sick.

Heidi raised an eyebrow at the cigarette, before nodding in response. "Yeah, probably not the best idea. Outside would be better, but only if you're willin' t' share," she stated. She hasn't started smoking until she got to Utopia, but was pretty set on not letting herself get addicted. Getting cut off when she went to prison had helped a bit, but still. She needed a bit of a stress reliever right now.

---

Kira shook her head, the nice ones had looked kind of stupid. "No, my mom bought these little paper masks, the ones that cover your mouth and nose. We all looked like doctors," she explained. Even with the masks, the bad air still hurt her health a fair bit, but she imagined it would have been worse without. After the Storm, though, the air had seemed to get better, and she felt a lot healthier after twelve years.