Half Hero ⚡️ {Superhero Adventure Scifi}

Chapter 35: Awesome-Sauce

For the record, I was fully planning on telling Mac about the (tiny) blip in our plan, but he'd already fallen asleep when I got back to the hostel. Which gave me enough time to worry about how he would react if he found out.

"What's with you?" Mac glanced down as we power-walked along the empty morning sidewalks.

"Nothing," I shrugged rigidly. "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, it was too hot and that guy in the bunk next to us was farting louder than the car horns outside."

"You should have used the earplugs I gave you."

"For the last time," I grumbled. "I don't want your barely used foam cones. They looked like shriveled circus peanuts covered in yeast."

"I had no idea you were so fancy," Mac snorted. "Next time I'll get you diamond earplugs with ruby rhinestones."

A slender man joined us on the walkway, offering a friendly smile and a humble dip of his chin. The handful of people we'd seen moving this early were determined to avoid eye contact or completely involved in their tasks. The unusual gesture struck me as off and I scurried to catch up to Mac.

"Any of this looking familiar?" He huffed, shielding his eyes from the sun's glint off the storefront windows lining the street.

"Not really."

"Great," Mac kept up his massive strides.

The sunrise had already burned off, collecting overnight dew molecules to choke the air with steam. It was going to be another pit-stained day.

"Hey!" I squeaked, skidding to avoid running into Mac's wide back. "What gives?"

"We want to go that way," Mac pointed a burly arm down a juncture in the street.

"Moses in the morning!" My heart leapt into my throat, choking my gasp. "I know that sign!"

Up ahead was a set of rusty red block letters stacked against a gray cube of concreted enmeshed in scaffolding. Flashing back to the fated day I spent with Liam nursing a barely-there monkey nibble, my jaw unhinged. I remembered worrying that the insubstantial lattice of platforms slotted between exposed piping, and the sordid entryway, were not great signs of the medical experience to come.

We'd found it.

Mac and I dashed across the street to follow the cracked sidewalk, hopping over the uneven slabs jutting up over gnarled tree roots. I dodged a flower vendor right before he slammed into me with his huge green cart teeming with exotic fragrances. Mac hooted at my near accident while I tried to recover my footing.

My body was humming with pent up emotions, which were tumbling around like an atom smasher in my brain. The electrons were pumping heat into my extremities with every step. My guts twisted into a molten knot of anxiety.

Mac led me through the automatic glass doors into the familiar filth of a beige and coral waiting room. Along the back wall stood a row of low gray desks, occupied by a single haggard employee. Milling about the room was an assortment of individuals ranging from the mildly wounded to quite possibly contagious. A small collective had staked out spots near reception, while the rest sat aimlessly in chairs or wandered like lost children.

The sluggish woman behind the counter went slightly pale at the sight of the colossal man approaching her lone station. She rattled off something to Mac in a harsh tone, flashing me a suspicious look. I didn't recognize her, but I averted my eyes to hide behind my mass of kinky hair.

Mac replied with a perfectly crafted accent that (again) floored me, and stunned the grumpy woman into silence. She squinted up at his bouffant of unkempt curls and nodded once.

It sounded like Mac asked her a question, and the woman stooped her head to pound on an ancient keyboard one finger at a time. Painstakingly, she studied the florescent green screen on her boxy computer, then rattled off more words I couldn't possibly catch.

They exchanged a few more phrases while I tried not to stare at the young woman engrossed in a video on her phone. She was watching the incriminating footage from last night with very animated facial expressions and noises.

I could barely keep the energy throbbing inside my bones at bay.

"Does doctor Chaz Malay ring any bells?" He asked, turning away from the desks.

"That's it!" I cried, trying to conceal my questionable nerves. "Holy shit we found him!"

"Well, sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?"

"I mean," Mac sighed, pulling me away from the people watching us. "He's not here today. On Wednesdays and Fridays, Chaz works at KPJ Tawakkai, and today is Friday, in case you were wondering."

"Well that's just awesome-sauce," I gnashed my teeth to stave the bitter disappointment washing through me.

The thrum of electricity sputtered, a literal buzz-kill. Mac smirked at my comment, but let me pout for a second.

"That hospital also happens to be across town," he told me, leveling the next blow. "So we've got some walking to do."

We trekked through main streets and back alleys alike, snaking through the grid of the city as it came alive. Thousands of people were clogging the walkways by midday, pounding the pavement like lemmings looking for a cliff. The buildings of Kuala Lumpur didn't seem to follow any sort of symmetry. Some were tall and angular with panels of beaming glass, while others were squat, sprawling structures full of temporary stalls of small businesses.

The temperature was a balmy billion degrees with one hundred and fifty percent humidity, regardless of where we wandered. Every block had its own distinct aroma and I kept my lips slightly parted to tasted the hot pot of cultural cuisine and aromatic spices. Sun-baked trash and bins of fresh fish added to the smell-scape converging in my nostrils.

I did my best to fend off any visible evidence of the footage, which was playing on every other smartphone or tablet we passed. It helped that whatever terrible camera had shot the video didn't get a clear picture, and those contributing to its viral status weren't aware that we were walking among them.

Mac was clearly getting annoyed with my incessant babbling and my refusal to stop for lunch, but I was too close to the answers I needed, to care. That mad scientist was going to sing like a fat lady or spill his guts.

Of course, I'd eventually have to tell Mac the truth, but I figured we both had secrets we wanted to protect. Admittedly, mine was a teensy bit more time-sensitive than his ambiguous past.