Shadier and shadier characters entered Sigmarus’ sight the further he and Torin walked along Red Street. Of course, many of them were members of the five local gangs mostly minding their own business, but they passed by plenty of lone beggars, scavengers, thieves, or bandit-like folk as well.

After walking deep into the recesses of Red Street, Torin turned and led him down a notably vacant and poorly illuminated side street. He only stopped after walking another few blocks.

An old two-story building built from brick and metal stood before them. Broken pavement, dusty rubble, and withered weeds covered the ground in a sizable radius around the front and sides of the building. Most of the windows were cracked or broken. Near the roadside, a lone sign rested on the ground, battered and eroded by wind and time. Only a few letters were barely legible, but it was enough to know that this building once served as a local clinic many years ago.

When the two reached the front door, Sigmarus raised his brows upon seeing a heavy security door. There was a polished sheen to the metal surface as though the door had only been installed recently. He couldn’t help wondering why such a heavy door requiring passcodes for entry or exit was here when someone could just enter through the broken windows nearby.

In contrast to Sigmarus’ confusion, Torin calmly approached a voice box attached to the wall nearby. He pressed a button and asked, “Doctor Oslac, are you there?”

Silence followed for a few seconds, but Torin simply stood in place with his hands in his pockets.

More than a minute later, the speaker buzzed, and muffled groans whined in the background as a boorish and snide voice spoke from the other side.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Torin. Can I come in?”

“Torin? What do you want? I’m busy.”

“I brought a guy with me to see if he has a PMS.”

“Oh? Why didn’t you say so sooner?! Hurry on in!”

While the man on the other side continued telling them to enter in an excited tone, the metal door in front of them unlatched and slid open. Torin led Sigmarus inside without waiting for the so-called doctor to finish speaking. Once inside, the sight of misshapen and broken tiling which shone from being polished recently made him blink with surprise. Who would bother to clean this old dilapidated floor? The walls were still dusty and grungy, too. It didn’t make any sense.

One other thing grabbed Sigmarus’ attention in this short hallway. All of the doorways leading to other sections of the first floor had been filled in with a similar material to the foundation struts.

When the two of them reached the end of the short hallway and arrived at a lobby area which also had most of its doorways, windows, or hallways closed off with a similar material, Sigmarus once again raised a brow. Aside from some old medical equipment and a collapsed desk, the only other notable thing in the lobby area was a stairway leading to the second floor.

Once inside the lobby, Torin stopped and gestured for Sigmarus to do the same.

“Wait. He needs to come down to invite us first.”

“Uh… alright?”

“You’ll understand after meeting the guy.”

The two of them only waited a few seconds before a middle-aged man appeared at the top of the stairway. He looked down at them with curiosity shining in his dark brown eyes. Several missguided black hairs sprouted off in random directions from his otherwise straight combover. His narrow chin, bony cheeks, and beak-like nose gave the impression of a crazed man with unhealthy obsessions. He wore a grungy off-white lab coat covered in all shades of red stains over a wrinkled brown and gray plaid collared shirt and well-worn khaki pants with frayed ends. Of course, the bloodstained lab coat was startling enough, but the thing that monopolized Sigmarus’ widened eyes was a severed arm impaled on rebar held up in the man’s right hand. Small sparks generated from a small device taped to the rebar handle shot into the still bleeding arm.

It’s waving… A severed arm is fucking waving at me… Sigmarus thought as his jaw dropped open. Even Torin couldn’t help widening his eyes at the sight, let alone Sigmarus who had never interacted with the man before.

“Welcome! Welcome, my friends! Come up! Come upstairs!” Doctor Oslac proclaimed like some sort of town leader from the top of the stairway as the severed arm continued waving at his guests.

“Thanks for seeing us, Doctor Oslac,” Torin said as he recovered from his shock and stepped toward the stairs. Sigmarus only remembered to follow after Torin subtly waved at him.

Doctor Oslac didn’t bother waiting for the two to ascend and turned on his toes to traipse back into the second floor. When they reached the top step, they saw Oslac enter a room about mid-way down the long hallway.

Wasting no time, Torin led the way toward that room. Along the way, Sigmarus heard quiet groans from one of the rooms they passed by, and glanced inside the doorless room on instinct. He immediately regretted it.

A man was strapped down on a makeshift operating table with blood dripping from poorly cauterized stumps remaining of his right arm and left leg. A large box sat by the table and a wire stretched from it directly to the man’s heart. Every few seconds, the man’s body convulsed wildly as though suffering from high voltage electrical pulses. His eyes rolled back into his head as bloody tears stained his cheeks.

Sigmarus stared at the scene long enough to watch the man convulse twice before pulling his eyes away since his stomach started churning. He quickly speed-walked down the hall in order to catch up with Torin, but the image of the dismembered man stayed at the forefront of his mind. It had been a long time since he had encountered something gruesome enough to disturb his psyche. The last time was when he saw a woman toss a deformed baby into the sewers. His face paled as he thought about both situations at the same time, but that was it. Compared to wretching out his guts while watching a man get mutilated for iodide pills back when he lived in Shingle Alley during his newbie muskrat days, the dismembered man getting electrocuted looked rather tame. At least, he stomached his unease by convincing himself of such a thought.

When he looked over at Torin, he realized the guy had fully ignored the dismembered man as though it was a common sight. Sigmarus didn’t know whether to pity his attitude or feel wary of it.

Eventually, the two arrived at the room Doctor Oslac had previously entered. Within, Doctor Oslac was tinkering with a strange helmet. Other than that, there were a few other devices on a nearby table and a basic medical chair which had probably been used for simple examinations in the past. The chair’s cushioned surface was in surprisingly good condition.

Upon seeing them enter, the doctor looked at Sigmarus and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Sigmarus.”

The doctor raised his thin eyebrows a bit and then smiled enough to display his straight but yellowed teeth.

“Interesting name,” Doctor Oslac muttered as he resumed fiddling with the helmet. A moment later, he handed it over to Sigmarus and said, “Hold onto this for now. Put it on after I check your rad count.”

Nodding, Sigmarus took the helmet. Then, he watched with wary eyes as the strange doctor grabbed a device that looked similar to a gun sporting a wide but short barrel with an end that looked like miniature solar panels. A small display protruded above the handle. The doctor pointed the rad-gun at Sigmarus with a bored expression on his face as though he was waiting in the line to a crowded amusement park ride. However, when he saw the numbers on the display, his eyes shot open, and he stepped backward. He looked back and forth between the display and Sigmarus as though he couldn’t believe his eyes, causing Sigmarus to raise a brow.

Still flustered, Doctor Oslac pointed the rad-gun at Torin, who also looked at the man with a curious gaze. The moment numbers appeared on the screen, the doctor nodded and pointed the gun back at Sigmarus. His pale forehead wrinkled as he rubbed his scraggly chin and mumbled to himself, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Is something wrong?” Torin asked.

The doctor hummed to himself for a bit and observed Sigmarus like he was on some sort of store display. Then, he asked, “Are you also from upstairs? No, nevermind that. I’m sure you are. How long have you been a muskrat?”

“Uh… Eight years.”

Doctor Oslac immediately started pacing while rubbing his chin and saying to himself, “Weird. Strange. That’s more than enough time for your count to reach the same levels as other muskrats who use iodide properly.”

“His numbers are low?” Torin asked with a hint of interest.

“Yes. Too low. In fact, I’ve seen people upstairs with higher counts,” Oslac quickly answered. Then, he stared at Sigmarus and said, “Put on the helmet.”

“Alright,” Sigmarus replied while wondering if the doctor was also someone banished from the Upper Sectors.

The helmet slid over his short white hair without any issue, but it felt a bit tight around his ears.

“Now,” Oslac said, “do whatever it is that made Torin bring you here.”

Confused, Sigmarus glanced at Torin with questioning eyes.

“You did something the second time you went at Shad earlier, so whatever that was,” Torin said, answering the unspoken question.

Oh. Is he talking about the perception thing?

Assuming his newfound sixth sense was the answer, he closed his eyes and focused outward again just as he did when confronting Shad in the boxing ring. Although his senses weren’t as sharp compared to last time, he could feel the air trembling around his skin. He couldn’t tell exactly how far out he could feel with his perception, but he knew it wasn’t enough to touch the other two men who were both standing more than a meter away.

While Sigmarus focused on his perception, Doctor Oslac and Torin looked at a holo-tablet sitting on the table. They watched closely for any changes on the graphs and tables on the translucent screen. Very little changed, but there was a slight increase in one of the real-time graphs. Although Torin didn’t know what it meant and was even feeling a bit disappointed at the lack of change, Doctor Oslac’s eyes brightened.

The doctor walked toward Sigmarus with the rad-gun and another similar device in his hands. However, the moment he stepped within arm’s reach of Sigmarus, he felt a strange tingling sensation on his skin and retreated with wide eyes. Although barely noticeable, he felt like some sort of apparition had lightly brushed against him, making his hair stand on end.

Torin noticed the doctor’s strange action and immediately recalled Shad’s description of feeling a thousand pairs of eyes. Out of curiosity, he also approached Sigmarus and felt a similar intangible force brush against his skin which startled him into retreating as well.

“It’s different from what Shad described, but I think I know what he meant now,” Torin muttered, drawing a curious glance from Doctor Oslac.

Sigmarus also opened his eyes. He had felt both of the men approach and realized that his perception basically doubled when he focused on it like that. One thing bothered him, though. Others could apparently feel something when he used it like that, but nobody reacted when it was in its normal passive state of sensing his surroundings.

Interesting. Seems like I can feel more around me, though others can notice something strange when I do it. Doesn’t really seem worth the tradeoff right now, though.

While he was thinking, Doctor Oslac asked, “Could you tell me what you just did?”

“Not exactly.”

“Please. I’m very intrigued.”

“I meant that I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Is this even a mutation? Or is it a mutation that also resists radiation? Need more tests…” Oslac mumbled to himself while rubbing his chin. Then, he focused on Sigmarus again and said, “I need some blood and piss samples.”

“I guess that’s fine,” Sigmarus replied, though he inwardly decided to run away if the guy didn’t properly sanitize his equipment.