@unnperson
People he didnāt know kept asking him things. Favors. Creeps kept coming up to him, acting like old friends. He had started to play along, sort of, only because it was easy enough to do when he didnāt do any talking anyway. He could pretend to listen. Nod sometimes. And sooner or later, the Creep in question would move off.
But it was happening more and more with all kinds of people. People he knew and strangers alike, making mentions of things he had done that he had no memory of. Was he losing time? Had he been hacked again? Without even realizing? Just the idea made 14 feel like crawling out of his own skin. But he hated having his head looked at, so he kept putting it off - even though he had the funds for it, now.
Which hadnāt always been the case. And the shadier jobs he had taken early on, when heād been desperate, kept biting him in the ass. At this rate, he would need his head looked at anyway.
His display flickered in red as he caught the crowbar swinging for him, only for another to strike him hard in the back. 14 staggered, but kept his grip on the crowbar and used the momentum of his own stumbling to swipe his attackerās legs out from under him, yanking the crowbar free, whipping around with it, delivering a sharp swing for the guy whoād been behind him, who gave a cry as his arm was struck and his weapon dropped.
A third got the back of his head.
14 dropped, barely catching himself on all fours, dazed. The world spun. He was in no state to get up yet - but his remaining opponent was raising their weapon.
