Jared didnt have to wonder how he was doing, his body clearly not in the mood to hide his condition. Where was that supposed morphine keeping the pain away? He could very clearly still feel more than a minor ache in his chest every time his lungs expanded to breathe.

He was about to call for Cassandra to get back inside so that she could readjust it, but the man noticed one very noticeable fact. His left hand was unblemished. It had a smaller scar on the side, one that very clearly hadn't been there the last time he looked over. In fact, there had been a wound the last time he looked. A small cut from a piece of glass having lodged itself inside. It had been extremely painful, the man having been forced to force it out while he was driving back to the station just to make sure that he kept himself awake. Yet… it should still have been there. Even with his impressive constitution, it would take more than just a couple of minutes to heal. It would take an hour. Heck, maybe even half a-

Day. Half a day had gone by. How had he been so blind? Jared slapped his forehead before cringing at that pain his chest sent to his brain because of it. There was not a single muscle in that area that liked to be flexed. He understood that and would do his best to keep it that way.

Reaching out with his mind, Jared connected to the medical bed that he was connected to. That was one feature that had been available to him since the moment that he entered the medical wing, yet the man had been wholly unable to do it before, his mind not getting itself together enough to form coherent thoughts. Even the greatest brain implant needed something to work with, in the end. Just because it reacted to this every whim and desire it still meant that he had to mentally articulate these desires.

And he could do that now somehow. Jared supposed that a half-day of rest and healing from a top-line machine did have some benefits to his physical health. He had just wished that it would have been a bit more efficient about it when it came to his ribs. Rolling up his shirt, Jared had to wince a bit at the large blue and black spot that could be seen. Even a car collision would have a hard time making such a mark on him, yet just a few repeated kicks by a metal-man had done the trick just as easily. Was he getting weak or were the criminals getting stronger? While Jared did like to think that it was the latter, there was a good chance it was a mix sided towards the first. How fun that was.

Through the machine, Jared inquired about when his ribs were estimated. The answer spat out at him was not something he enjoyed. According to the machine, it would require a full four days in bed without any movement whatsoever to make sure that no complications occurred. It would have been weeks for a normal civilian, yet augmentations once again showed their worth. Jared healed fast, after all.

But… he couldn't stay in bed for three days. Even during his worst time awake the previous day, he had still been more than able to hear the conversation through the door. Jared needed to be going to work the moment he awoke. Asking the machine for the estimate when he was moving about doing work, he got an angry smile in response.

Even the unliving things could be witty before they gave an actual answer. Jared did give the thing a small chuckle as he read the new estimate. According to the machine, it would take about two full weeks of smaller movements for him to move, with an action requiring a larger amount of force being able to prolong the healing time with weeks while also being able to cause the man permanent injury that wasn't possible to get healed.

How utterly humorous. Jared almost gave himself a grin, before he tried to stretch any sleepiness out of himself and suffered the well-deserved consequences from it. No larger movement, of course. That included stretching out the chest muscles to an extreme degree. The man thought about doing push-ups instead-but similarly thought that would be a bad idea. Squats, however, did not seem like that bad of an alternative. His back wasn't the thing at fault, the damage to that part of his body being almost entirely unhurt. The only thing wrong with that was his weaker knees, and those weren't new at all.

As he began the routine movements, however, Jared could feel his body being a bit weaker than normal. His legs took more time to respond to his request, and even then they were not as powerful as the day before. The man would have loved to attribute it to be due to the medicine in his system, but he knew that had been flushed out a while ago. If it still remained, he would have still been asleep.

No, it was entirely his own body with that problem. Could it be that he actually felt tired due to excessive use of his muscles? Jared had run a lot in the past days, and even if the bodies from yesterday had weighed nothing, he had still carried close to a hundred of them. It would make sense for his body to have some form of a reaction to that. If there hadn't been anything, he would have been in another class of strength entirely. And he certainly wouldn't have been put into the position he was now.

Jared didn't think too much of it, getting his body finished with the exercises. There was a bit of refreshment from that, his body feeling a lot leaner than it normally did. With that in mind, the man mentally noted to put back on the regiment as routine, the movement doing wonders for getting his head up and working. He could quite clearly feel the increased blood flow inside of him. If only he could have that effect every minute. So much could be done.

But, there were other ways to get it from, other than exercise, and Jared was quite happy about himself for having figured out a few of them. Getting his jacket from the chair that sat close to the bed, the man brought out a few small bags with pills inside of them. It was an entirely innocent thing, no matter how much of a stigma those bags had around the world. They were easy for safe-keeping smaller medical supplies, as there was no way that Jared would willingly walk around with a whole box of the things. Not that he could even fit them all in his jacket, the man ordering for them yearly. It was a bit too large for even his big pockets.

Jared put those into his trousers’ pockets. Before he put on the jacket, the man brought out the rib protector that he had been so focused on earlier. Cassandra had been so adamant about him wearing it, and there was little reason to refuse her advice. If the machine recommended it, Jared would follow it without question. Though… as he put the thing on, he found it to be a little tighter than he was comfortable with. He wasn't being stopped from breathing or anything, but he was decently sure that he would be able to see where it sat after only wearing it for a few minutes.

Nevertheless, there was little else he could do but silently complain. The thing could bend slightly, which helped him put his shoes on, and what more could he really ask of the thing? It was very thin as well, helping him to wear his uniform on the outside without there being any bulges that needed questioning. Jared was actually very happy about that.

With his pants and uniform on perfectly, the man left the medical wing, promising the external system to come back within a few days so he could get a check-up. His condition apparently needed to be monitored more than what his internal diagnostics could handle, making it necessary to have more advanced equipment give him the exact same reading but provided pictures while they were at it. Not that those pictures were pretty or anything. If there had been any abstractness to them, Jared might even have forgiven the system for the time he was wasting on it, yet there was nothing of the sort. It was always the same colour, and he never actually understood half of what was being shown.

The station was devoid of any noise. The moment he walked out, Jared had been half-expecting to hear the chatter from halfway down the hall, as stressed officers went about their short breaks, stressing about how much they weren't enjoying the short time they had to socialise without being looked down at. Yet… there were no mutterings to be heard, no muffled crying to be seen in the corner, and definitely no dirty feet to hit the floor in the last day. The two others were just too adamant about making sure those floors always were as clean as a peach, forcing Jared to actually brush off his booths before he went in.

Floors were meant to be stepped on, so just why was it necessary to remove any evidence that the flat thing had been used for its only purpose in life. Just why did they feel the need to hide it to an extreme degree? Jared just thought of it as them being clean-freaks, really.

Walking past the smaller break-room, the man looked in just to make sure that nobody was inside, that there hadn't just been a quiet day around the officer. But… no. There really weren't any people inside. They had all left many months ago now. And there was no real chance of them coming back again. The only thing keeping the idea alive was the man himself, and even he was beginning to think he just might forget the sight. The emptiness was beginning to invade his mind.

Jared moved away from the place quickly after that, his thoughts not needed to go down that route so early in the day. Or well, it was early for him. Around now was… lunch-time for the fine people he still worked with. Actually, now that he thought about it, he had been getting himself an appetite as well. It seemed that a half-day of doing nothing at all really did build up quite the appetite. That was good news, in his mind, Jared looking forward to the foreign delicacies of the kitchen stocked up with world-class condiments.

That was a joke, of course. The only world-class about it was the fact that they had ordered globally to make sure everything was the cheapest it could possibly be. Maybe that was why Jared had commented on some things in spite, proposing that they buy a month's worth of bagels so that they could get a bulk discount. He had actually gotten a message of commendation for that idea, the accountant finding the concept fascinating and ingenious. Jared had found it as a perfect example of him needing to use less sarcasm in his day-to-day life.

Even if his ideas about sarcasm brought him away from the idea of fine cuisine, the man did not stop his travels to the cafeteria. It was basically another kitchen, just with a few chairs attached.

And the sight within was something that certainly caused a smile on his face. Drinking a cup of tea and coffee inside was his two co-workers, Cassandra and his boss chatting happily. There was another chair at the table. Since the two others hadn't noticed him yet, Jared moved towards it gleefully.

His excitement did not need to be hidden then, the smile was anything but fake. He was truly happy at the sight, his heart feeling but old and invigorated. It was a sight his mind could rest peacefully at.

And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.