Chapter 243: A Very Expensive Bad Influence

Bridget’s private doctor asked whether I had insurance while I lay on a heated pad trying to look less damaged than his first question suggested. I told him my protection plan had recently failed an argument with a door, so Bridget asked him to put the visit on her bill before he could request a policy number.

The clinic sat above a shopping arcade, and Lukas was in the next room arguing that webbing should count as a medical support. My doctor cleaned the scrape along my side, checked the electrical burn and told me to rest between activities that involved making other people angry.

[System: Tell him we’ll rest between crimes, mate, because that’s the most honest answer he’s getting from a bloke who used a fan as a personality test. I’m a koala and even I reckon you need a nap before your next fucking disaster.]

Ask whether he does a loyalty card, because apparently I’m collecting medical professionals now and the tenth bastard should be free. Bridget asked whether I could travel to the auction without making the injuries worse, and the doctor said a car was acceptable if I stopped treating every building as something to enter through its machinery.

Outside the clinic, a screen above the shops played Renn’s edited video before switching to an advert for skin care. I watched myself drift through the loading bay, followed by the missing section where an old man was hurt, and wondered whether the advert company charged extra for that kind of support.

Bridget bought two iced coffees and sat beside me on a planter ledge while Lukas finished his examination. She asked whether I was disappointed by the coverage, and I explained that the camera had made me look like a red floor stain with a criminal record.

"I don’t mind being called dangerous, but I would like them to use a photograph where people can appreciate the effort," I said. Coffee caught on her lower lip, and I spent a completely unreasonable moment wishing I was responsible for removing it.

"You’ve started watching the wrong part of the conversation again, although I should probably be pleased that your eyesight survived the fan," she told me. Her wing brushed my fin as she made room for a passing shopper, and neither of us hurried to move it away.

[System: Ask her out, ya stunned mullet; she’s nursing one coffee while you mentally book the honeymoon, and neither of you has checked who pays the minibar.]

I’m choosing my moment, and your drunken travel advice is making it considerably harder to look mysterious. A man beside the planter looked from the screen to me, then showed us a message about his brother’s missing work van.

He wanted to know who would listen when the contractor said the vehicle had already been collected. Bridget gave him Rook’s complaint contact and explained which details to bring, while I discovered that looking like a problem also encouraged people to hand me theirs.

I asked whether the man had seen my better photographs, but he’d already left to help his brother. Bridget said being useful suited me, so I stole the biscuit beside her coffee before that rumour could become difficult to deny.

Her solicitor called with the private auction catalogue before I could defend myself. Renn intended to move the remaining cabinets and vehicles that night, with no serial plates shown in the pictures and enough warnings about final sales to make a normal buyer suspicious.

"He’s trying to finish the sale before the complaints reach the right desk, so we need to be in that room before he clears it," I said. Bridget agreed, then showed me the new rule requiring buyers to surrender phones at reception.

I asked Bridget to call Lyra on video while we checked the catalogue, giving us both a view of the casino office on her phone. I explained the fan, the clinic and the coming sale while Bridget introduced herself without pretending she hadn’t been sitting close enough to warm my scales.

"You found somebody who encourages you, which means I should probably increase the repair budget before we meet properly," Lyra said. Bridget offered to send a defects report, while Cherry joined the casino camera and volunteered the lime-shaped soap incident as evidence that I required adult supervision.

"Nobody needs that story while I’m trying to look useful, especially when both of you live in the bathroom responsible," I said. Bridget laughed hard enough to spill a little coffee, giving Cherry the pleased look of someone who’d just won a private bet.

Cherry had also found a courier named Pella through the customer messages she’d started the previous night. A saved dispatch photograph showed Renn checking a loaded van before his company later claimed it had arrived empty, and Pella had already sent the image to Rook.

Lyra had matched the dates against the owners’ receipts from the casino office in Twawi, giving us something useful to show the police. I told them to keep the casino running, and she asked me to call before the auction so she could check that I’d actually listened to the doctor.

Lukas emerged with supported ribs and orders against jumping, fighting or showing off, a medical ban on roughly ninety percent of his personality. He immediately offered to drive, then produced an actual licence when I asked whether that was a skill or another part of his advertising.

[System: You should take the win here, mate, because if the spider’s driving, he can’t climb a wall without explaining it to the hire company.]

That still leaves me getting through a door where everybody has seen my face. I don’t think a different hat will solve it. Bridget studied a photograph of the auction’s dessert table, then asked whether we still had the charity lunch’s cake trolley.

[System: Check the catering entrance, mate, because nobody questions a free cake until it starts swearing, so we’ve got a good ten seconds if you behave yourself.]

I want a proper cake with filling, because I’m not risking my life inside decorative cardboard like some discount birthday stripper. Bridget was already calling the bakery from the lunch receipt.

Her buyer page refreshed with a message from Renn: Miss Sylphid would receive personal attention, and her red friend was welcome to watch. Beneath it was a picture of the fan that had nearly shredded me, already installed beside tonight’s auction entrance.