"Captain," Wei said quickly. "We need to work out some details before tomorrow."
"Excuse me, Lieutenant Wei," Stradivari said with a careful tone of pleasantness in his voice, "could you please confirm for Captain Dogwood that I am, in fact, the replacement pilot for Lieutenant Vultee?"
"It's actually Lieutenant Commander Wei now," Wei said, and I was surprised to see that he was so relaxed around Stradivari. "Just about everybody at the Battle of Loum received a promotion. Yoshida has been made an ensign, and Ramos has been made a sub-lieutenant. Anyway, it has been decided that Petty Officer Stradivari will serve as Oracle-2 until Vultee is declared healthy enough to return to piloting duties."
"You okay with this, Ramos?" I asked.
"Vultee's in a coma," Ramos said quietly. "Somebody needs to replace him. Welcome to the team. Your name is Stradivari, right?"
"Erik Stradivari, yes," he said with a friendly smile.
It suddenly hit me that none of them knew that Stradivari was a clinical psychopath. Even Wei was acting like Stradivari was just another soldier, and he heard about the new assignment before me. This was just more evidence that the higher-ups never told field officers like me anything. If Stradivari hadn't told me, I would have no idea he was a psychopath. That was pertinent information I had to know, Gihren.
"Come on, let's get to the parking lot as soon as possible," Wei said quickly. "There's a lot we need to talk about, and we can't do that here."
"Sure," I said, though my eyes lingered on the medical wing just past the four soldiers in front of me. "You guys check out. I want to say goodbye to Vultee."
Everyone was silent for a few seconds before Stradivari said, "He's in a coma. He can't hear you."
Ramos lightly smacked Stradivari on the shoulder before saying, "Read the room, idiot."
"Uh, sorry," Stradivari said automatically, but I could tell he had no idea what he had just done wrong.
"No, he's right," I said. "I know it's stupid, but I want to talk to him anyway."
The others moved toward the hospital's main entrance while I entered the wing that held Heinrich Vultee. Even though it was the middle of the day, the room was completely silent. Dr. Nabokov wasn't in the room, and all of the patients were either sleeping or silently watching television.
I walked over to the side of Vultee's bed and sat down next to him. Most of his body was covered in bandages, and more than half of his face was covered. His hair had been shaved off, and the EKG informed me that he was in a deep sleep.
"Vultee, you were the first person to care about me in this world, and I repaid you with this. If I had really taken my own advice and kept my damn head down, you would be perfectly fine. We would just be normal pilots, and we'd have no trouble fleeing to Axis in a few months. But no, I wanted to win," I said at a volume which only I could hear.
"You know, I'm supposed to be a psychic. Other Newtypes could just reach into your mind and pull you back into consciousness. Me, well," I paused, "I might as well try."
I put my hand on top of Vultee's hand and made an effort to project my thoughts toward him. Of course, I had no idea how to even start using my Newtype abilities, so I just focused really hard on Vultee's head and imagined my thoughts being beamed into his mind.
"Wake up, Vultee," I said. "This is Dogwood. I command you to wake up."
There was no response. I sat there in silence for a few more minutes before standing up and walking to the hospital's front entrance. Once the rest of the team and I were outside of the hospital's main structure, Aiko stood up from her wheelchair, and a nurse brought it back into the building.
"So, what's the plan?" I asked, looking at Wei out of the corner of my eye. "Where do you want to talk?"
"We can talk in your car when you drive Warrant Officer Yoshida to her family home," Wei said. "I'll have one of my men follow behind us. Ramos and Stradivari can follow in their own vehicles."
"Uh, I don't have a car," Stradivari said. "Should I go with you or Ramos?"
"It will be a good team-building experience between Oracle-2 and Oracle-3," Wei said, gesturing for Stradivari to go with Ramos.
As we walked, Wei gestured toward a man standing out in the distance, and I recognized the man as Renault from the day before. Kycilia's henchmen were just one big happy family, evidently.
Once we arrived at my car, Wei reached for my gas cap (it was an electric car, so "charging cap" might be more accurate) with no hesitation and yanked a hidden electronic device out before throwing it far away from us. A moment later, he knelt down next to a wheel well and pulled out another hidden device before discarding it as well. Wei knew exactly where those devices were before he even saw the car.
"We really don't want this conversation to be recorded, even if the recording will remain internal," Wei said. "Let's get going."
We got into my car. Aiko sat in the passenger seat, and Wei sat in the backseat with his large accordion folder filled with stacks of documents.
"How are you doing, Aiko?" I asked as we left the hospital's parking lot.
"I'm fine," she said. "The doctors said I should be fully healed within a month."
Wei cleared his throat before saying, "Sorry, but we need to get down to business right now. Captain, there have been some reports that Gihren might have you killed at the meeting tomorrow. We need to make sure that you survive the meeting."
"What?" Aiko gasped.
"Yeah," Wei said quietly. "Gihren is in a dangerous position right now, and he knows it. If he thinks you're a threat, Dogwood, he'll have you killed without a thought."