Still, Ryan wasn’t quite sure what to make of the place he’d somehow gotten stuck in, other than the fact that it was huge and stuffed with the kinds of people that he usually went out of his way to avoid. The business-suited types weren’t as much of a concern to him as the guys in the stupid-looking helmets; they were all uniformly buff, and they had the look of some of the dumber bruisers that he’d been subjected to back at school. Some of the guys in the business suits were pretty damn huge, though, and Ryan definitely didn’t want to get on the wrong side of one of them. Still, he wanted out of this weird place, and if that meant that he’d have to find a way to get past a bunch of Neanderthals, then so be it.

Stepping out into the hallway with the air of someone who knew what the hell he was doing and pushing a cart laden with supplies, Ryan set his mind to searching for a good place to make a break from. There weren’t so many people in this area, just a few of those lab-coated scientist-types that he’d been seeing more and more of since even before he’d ducked into the closet to escape the crazies that’d been tailing him. Those types Ryan felt he actually had a chance of taking on, if not for the fact that they could probably call up an entire goon squad to come done on him.

So no beating up the scientists for information, Crouger. We’re going to have to find another way to go about this. What that other way was, though, Ryan wasn’t quite sure yet. He’d find it, though; he’d find it, and then he’d be able to leave this place and everything in it behind.

There was still the niggling question of just why these guys wanted him, out of all the people in the hospital Mom had taken him to. Oh, shit! Mom! I didn’t even know how these guys managed to pick me out of a crowd; but if they went after me, then that means that she could be stuck in this hellhole too. Okay; calming down. Thinking back. Ryan took a series of deep breaths to try and do just that.

First up, Mom never went into the hospital with me. She apologized, but she said she had work to get done. That’s good; probably means she didn’t end up getting dragged out here. Wherever the hell ‘here’ turns out to be. Feeling a slight twinge in his back, up by his shoulders, Ryan paused for a moment to think. That, whatever it was, hadn’t felt like an itch of any kind.

In fact, if Ryan had been asked to put a name on what he was feeling at the moment… Oh, hell, don’t tell me—I’m developing some kind of Spider-sense. Didn’t know I could spontaneously jump into comic books. Or maybe I just passed a signpost while I was out and nobody bothered to tell me. Smirking, Ryan turned and started heading in the direction that the call seemed to be coming from.

Maybe there was something there that could help him. In any case, if he didn’t find out just what was giving him those weird vibes, he’d go crazy wondering about it.

The feeling seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead of him and off to his right, though Ryan wasn’t entirely sure how far away the source of his amorphous feeling was. The sense he was getting from… wherever the hell he was getting it wasn’t being too forthcoming about any kind of location. So that meant that he was going to have to hunt it down all by his lonesome.

Hunt down the source of a vaguely directional "sense" with the large amount of goons that whoever was in charge of this mondo-bizarro place had no doubt sicced on him once they’d gotten word that he’d escaped from whatever it was that they’d had planned for him. It should make things interesting, at least. Yeah, really interesting; trying to keep my ass from being made by guys more than twice my size who look like they eat nails for breakfast. And I don’t mean the finger kind. Well, here’s to not getting caught.

Pulling his denim cap down tighter over his mass of bright, extremely obvious red hair, Ryan set off again. The hallway he was in seemed to be empty for the moment, but that could change really fast, as Ryan was completely aware, so he kept his eyes forward and his head down as he pushed the service cart he’d appropriated from the janitor’s closet when he’d snagged the uniform. He also found himself wishing for a pair of sunglasses—not only were the fluorescent lights starting to give him a headache, but this place was strange enough that he wanted to get as close a look as he could at it. If his eyes had been hidden by a pair of dark, polarized shades, he could have looked around to his heart’s content and no one would have been the wiser as long as he didn’t turn his head too often. As things stood now, though, he couldn’t.

He was supposed to be acting the part of someone who worked here—someone who knew what was what—and gawking like an idiot at everything he saw would have really spoiled the illusion, so Ryan reined himself in. It wasn’t really all that hard: he just kept reminding himself that no matter how freakily interesting this place was, he wanted to get the hell out before someone caught him. That was enough to curb any curiosity on his part.

Once they had made it to the spare room—only one room for the three of them—there was the matter of deciding who was going to take the bed. Howard had been surprised that Aptom had even decided to stay with them in the first place, but their fellow Lost Unit had the air of someone who was doing something just to be annoying.

"Okay, so the giant cat can curl up on the floor," Aptom said, grinning and pointing at him. "’Freezer here can find some place to cool his heels, and I’ll take that nice, cozy bed there."

"Who died and made you Overlord?" Howard demanded. "And why are you even taking the bed, anyway? You said you didn’t sleep."

"Well, given the fact that I ate the last guy, I figured you wouldn’t want to get into a fight with me," Aptom stepped closer, grinning like the sadistic maniac he was. "Of course, if you really want to make an issue of where I lay down tonight, you’re welcome to it."

"All right, stop it, you two," Toshiaki said, firmly putting himself between Aptom and Howard before any fists – or assorted other body parts – could start flying. "That bed’s a King, so that means that all of us should be able to fit on it comfortably."

"You honestly expect me to share a bed with two guys?" Aptom ridiculed. "You’ve got to be kidding me."

"Why don’t you just think of us as fellow Lost Units," Howard mocked, smirking in the same manner that Aptom had when they’d first met.

"Fine," Aptom said, still grinning in that creepy way he’d been doing on and off throughout the day. "But if you guys snore, I’m eating your heads."

"What?!" Toshiaki exclaimed, obviously shocked.

"If either of you two snores, then I," Aptom pointed to himself, "will eat—" He made a lunging, chomping motion. "your heads."

"You don’t have to patronize us," Howard growled. "We’re not stupid."

"Oh? You sure about that?"

Before Howard could come up with a suitably crushing retort, Toshiaki stepped in and shoved them apart again. "Will you two just knock it off already? Go take a shower, Howard; it’ll make you feel better. And Aptom, go do… something else. All right?"

"Fine," Howard said, shrugging and leaving the room.

He really was grateful to Toshiaki for dealing with Aptom, since all he could seem to do was get angry at the guy. Then again, Aptom did seem to be going out of his way to provoke them. Maybe this was how he got those other Zoanoids to attack him, which would make sense, since most Zoanoids weren’t stupid enough to attack someone who was so obviously stronger and meaner than they.

And likewise, the Zoalords weren’t likely to send their troops after something that literally ate Zoanoids. Then again, maybe he was reading too much into the situation. Maybe Aptom was just a jerk, and that was all there was to it.

As he opened the door to the bathing area and closed it behind him, Howard took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Now wasn’t the time to think about Aptom anymore. Now it was time for him to have a nice, warm shower and forget about his troubles for the rest of the day. As he stripped, tossing his clothes into a convenient hamper, Howard put all the thoughts of Chronos, of Aptom, of the Guyvers, and of what their strategy was going to have to be out of his mind.

He was just going to enjoy himself now, let the hot water wash over him as he cleaned himself and forget for as long as he could what he was. Forget the fact that he was a refugee rebel; forget that if anyone outside the apartment saw him, he would be hunted down and dragged back to Chronos for interrogation and "orderly disposal". As he turned the water on and adjusted it to his preferred temperature, he shuddered.

That particular euphemism was far too kind to describe what Chronos did when they were finished interrogating someone. Being tossed – still alive and screaming – into the incinerator chute that all of the Chronos bases Howard had ever worked at came equipped with, was only orderly in the sense that it didn’t leave any remains behind. But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about things like that right now, Howard reminded himself.

He was just going to take a shower, and then he was going to go to bed. In the same bed with Aptom, the same guy who had tried to eat him when they first met. Sighing under the stream of hot water he was standing in, Howard reminded himself that things were going to be all right. Probably. Aptom knew that he didn’t work for Chronos anymore, so there would be no reason for him to try to eat him again. Probably.

That’s one too many probabilities for my taste, but I guess I’ll just have to soldier on through. The same way I always did… back then. As Howard lathered up his hair for the first time, he got the slightly uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. But that was stupid—no one would be watching him while he was in the shower. None of the people in this house were the type to peep in on someone when they were in the shower.

When Howard looked down, feeling something sliding over his abdominal muscles, he saw the right hand and arm of a well-built person wrapped around him. What the… who the hell would be walking in on my shower, and who’d be… licking the back of my neck?!? Grabbing the offender around the waist and throwing him out of the shower, Howard turned to yell at the pervert who’d been trying to molest him.

Said pervert turned out to be Aptom, which really had to be the worst kind of joke that fate had played on him in awhile.

"Get out, you sick, psychotic pervert! What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

Laughing hysterically as he left the room, Aptom didn’t say a word. Fuming, Howard went back to lathering his hair. He’d get Aptom for that later.