Chapter 54: Refusal to Leap

After escaping Kanani with only three new dishes in their inventory for their Navigators, Hugh spent the rest of the afternoon with Frankie at the clinic. By the time their Navigators rejoined them, nearly an hour after they arrived themselves, Frankie had finally convinced himself it would be okay to upgrade the clinic space further to unlock the best possible auto-install equipment options.

Frankie grimaced the entire time he was confirming the upgrades. When he was done, they spent some time going room by room, dedicating spaces as offices by placing desks in them, bathrooms by placing toilets and sinks in them, and patient rooms by placing vital monitoring stations in them. The surgery rooms also received vital monitors, but they were given the extra bonuses of lighting on mechanical arms, surgery tables, and rolling utensil trays. When Frankie discovered he actually had more rooms than he thought they'd need, an entire hallway was dedicated as research labs and extra storerooms.

They found the warehouse entrance at the very back of the clinic and Hugh had to whistle in appreciation of the cavernous space inside. The instanced space was truly large enough to supply a department store. The only problem was the lack of shelving and the lack of equipment to move spawned items around. Frankie solved the issue with industrial shelves from the shop menu's auto-install feature, but Hugh earned his paycheck as he, Dex, and Justin formed a line to move items onto them from the warehouses' dedicated item spawn point.

As afternoon became evening, Justin disappeared long enough to fetch pizza from the food court and everyone took a much needed rest break. They sat on the warehouse floor with the box arranged between the four of them. Hugh ate in heartbroken silence, feeling unimpressed with how little they'd managed to do over the course of the afternoon. They could potentially stack supplies up to the ceiling, yet only a quarter of the shelves had been filled with a single or double layer of supplies.

When he pointed it out, the doctor brushed off Hugh's concern. "Once the rest of my Medical Group gets here, we'll have enough hands available to fill the shelves to the rafters without taking all day. I'm only trying to plan out where everything should go and put up enough supplies the doctors won't be tempted to waste time trying to reorganize. Some of them can be very vocal on how they think things should work. Honestly, Hugh, I'm very happy with the progress we've made today. We have thirty varieties of implants ready to be used, I've selected fifteen basic lab supplies to stock up on, and I still have over fifty selections I can make. At this rate, I might not need the entire fifty—especially if bundled scans works as well for me as it did for Kanani."

"You seem like you've gotten the hang of this," he replied as his disappointment grew instead of lessened. "I guess that means it's time for me to head back to my world and deal with my NPCs."

"You're leaving?" Frankie asked in surprise. "But I haven't even tried to use the room editing sub-menu. What if I mess up and delete a wall or something and can't figure out how to put it back?"

Hugh laughed at the panic in his tone. "I don't think you'll have any trouble. You might not have noticed, but you haven't actually asked me any questions on using the shop menu since I got here. At this point, you're more experienced in using it than I am. It's time I turned my attention to the other part of the job you hired me for—exploring. Those race change scrolls aren't going to find themselves."

"At least wait until after Thursday when you're supposed to meet the Director," he pleaded. "I feel a lot more confident having you here. Besides, don't you have a lot of scans in your Book already? Can't you, I don't know, explore those from here?"

"I can," Hugh cautiously admitted as he tossed a pizza crust back into the box. Dex immediately snatched it up and ate it. "The Genesis page can be accessed from anywhere, so I can research scan combinations without actually going to my world, but I still do need to go there to distribute things into my world for my NPCs to use."

"Surely it can wait a few days," Frankie urged with a bright gleam in his eyes. "I was hoping you'd go with me to search through the item malls for suppliers tomorrow. And your house! We haven't shopped around for the house I promised to buy you. You can't leave until I hold up my end of our bargain. It wouldn't be right."

"Okay, Doc," Hugh relented, realizing what really had to be going on. Frankie was scared of being left alone. "I won't leave until your Medical Group gets here, but I will have to go afterward. If I don't, I might get too comfortable and fall behind the other players gearing up to explore."

Frankie relaxed once Hugh's imminent departure was averted, but Hugh didn't. The question had been raised in his mind—did Frankie actually like him or was he merely clinging on to the first friendly face he'd encountered? Not knowing left a sour taste in Hugh's mouth and he knew there would be no point in asking outright. Frankie might not even realize what he was doing and the answer would make it apparent over time, once Hugh was no longer around to be used as a crutch.

With that in mind, Hugh stood and dusted himself off. "I think you have things under control here. Go ahead and finish what you're doing—I'm sure there's some things you want to play around with that don't need me standing over your shoulder. I'm going to head to the Communications Hub to check the Net and update my feeds. Same hotel as last night? If so, we might not be in the same hallway this time. What do you say to meeting in the hotel lobby around seven for that run you promised? Okay. Good. Great! I'll see you in the morning."

If Frankie was confused by Hugh's sudden departure, he didn't show it. Dex politely waited until they were outside and several buildings away to ask, "What was that?"

"What?" Hugh replied defensively. "We're both adults with shit to do. I'm going to go handle mine and I'm giving Doc space so he can handle his."

"You flew out of there like a man terrified of commitment," Dex replied. "At least, that's how it seemed from an outside perspective. You bailed the moment he tried to tie you down."

Hugh grimaced. "I'm not scared of commitment. If anything, I left for Doc's sake. I don't want him to regret it later if he realizes the only reason he's been flirting with me is because he's scared of being left alone. Really think about it, Dex. Right now, I'm the only safety net he has. I know you're hoping we make a love connection, but I'm thinking we shouldn't start anything until we know things are real."

"You're still afraid he likes you because of the suspension bridge effect?" Dex asked. "Alright, I can understand your concern, but you'll see for yourself his feelings won't change once he has a bigger support base."

"I hope you're right," he replied, his shoulders sagging with the weight of possibility. "But I think we should be prepared in case you're not. No offense, but you're only a day old. I have a lot more experience with people and my instincts are telling me to be careful."

Dex nodded and continued walking with his back straight and his chin held up with a confidence Hugh didn't share. "I'll follow your lead, as always."