I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a soft blue ceiling.

“I’m not dead or hell needs a better decorator” was my first thought. I didn’t move and contemplated the situation. I know that the guy was about to slit my throat before I died. I thought about moving but staring at a blue ceiling seems to be working fine for me at the moment. It would also give me some time to gather my thoughts.

"Greetings Mr. Mayon. It's nice to see you awake."

I must have been day dreaming because the smooth voice startled me. I moved my head and the rest of the room came into focus. I was definitely in a hospital. The room was a very sparse accommodation with a couple of comfortable looking chairs, a small coffee table, and the MediBed I was currently lying on. I could hear some very soft music playing but could not pinpoint where its coming from. It was very soothing and made me smile a little bit. Standing just beside my bed is an Inugorian patiently waiting for me to respond.

The Inugorians are a tall humanoid race from the Brenning Sector. They live in a heavily-forested tropical world rife with oversized fauna. The Inugorians themselves average two meters for the females and a little bit more the males. Their bodies are covered with short, brownish fur with some interesting genetic markings such as colored spots that are unique to every individual. Their facial structure has the same general shape of a specific primate endemic to historical Earth giving them the nickname 'Lemurs.' Their tails doesn't help with the labeling since its exactly the same as the bestowed nickname implies. Unlike their Earthling comparison, the Inugorians are considered as one of the most advanced people among the space faring races. Their particular preference in the advancement of medicine made them the premier doctors everywhere. If there is a chance that you can survive, an Inugorian will save you.

This particular Inugorian is getting on with the years. The beginnings of a silver mane became visible when he turned his head to check some readings on my MediBed.

I might have taken too much time because the doctor was starting to look concerned and called out my name again.

"Mr. Mayon? Are you able to hear me? I've just checked your status and your senses should be functioning properly." The doctor said. He was moving towards the bed's control screen so I hurriedly answered.

"I'm awake doctor. Where am I?" is what I thought I said but what came out was the fat sound of a croaking frog.

Understanding my plight, the doctor moved a small drinking hose to my mouth. I started sucking on it with a vengeance.

"Not too fast Mr. Mayon. Too much too fast will make you nauseous." The doctor advised. It was a struggle to stop drinking so fast but I was able to control myself. I wouldn't have been able to drink too quickly anyway, with the good doctor regulating the water flow.

When I felt that my throat was sufficiently lubricated and my thirst satiated for the moment, I asked again now in a comprehensible manner.

"You are currently recuperating in a private room in Asclepius General Hospital. I am Doctor Sahvi. I am your main doctor and the one responsible for your continued good health. You have been here for two days. I apologize that it took so long before we decided to wake you but your injuries were extensive." The doctor said. He was still reading something from the MediBed screen but he made sure to look at me at the end of his statement to emphasize the point.

"I kinda remember thinking that my leg was broken and I felt my jaw get smashed but I didn't know it was that bad." I replied. The distinct memory was I was busy being in pain to know how bad it was.

The doctor gave me a pitiying look and slow shake of his head. He exhaled slowly and explained to me my condition when I arrived at the front doors of the hospital.

"If that were the only cases Mr. Mayon. You had two broken ribs on your right side with one fractured, A broken tibia on your right leg. A shattered ramus, same result with your maxilla, bruising in your lungs, and the most immediate danger to your person, a punctured liver. There were varying degrees of laceration on your face and the upper torso, some general bruising concentrated on your back and thighs and finally, a concussion that caused you to fall unconscious. Quite frankly, if you have arrived a few minutes later, It would have been beyond our ability to save you to full functionality. Your punctured liver guaranteed your expiration in a few minutes if not treated. As it was, we had to use a lot of your body fat and muscle tissue as a base for instant cellular regrowth for your damaged internal organs. We had to quickly submerge you in a regeneration gel bed while simultaneously having the nanites work on the damage to your body. You are lucky Mr. Mayon. Only Asclepius General has a regeneration gel bed available for public use." Dotor Sahvi numerated.

I knew I was pretty banged up but I didn't think that I was almost turned into paste by the dude. Just thinking about it made me shudder.

"Well, thanks doctor. I didn't know it was that bad. I thought I was checking out when I started drifting off."

"Hardly. Your brain shut down as a failsafe when you passed your pain threshold. In most cases, unconsciousness is a good thing when dealing with non-brain injuries. It would keep you from aggravating your injuries while also from dealing with the trauma of pain both physical and emotional. The emotional scarring of intense pain could leave a psychic mark on you." The doctor said while he again started messing around with the bed's control screen. I felt a cooling wave go through my veins. I'm not sure what that was but it felt great. A thought flitted through my brain while I digested what he just said.

"Who brought me in doc? It was closing time and the area I was is in is generally deserted during late evening." I asked as I tried flexing my arms. It felt a little sore but there was no real pain.

"A couple of humans named Mr. Solomon and Ms. Akseldatter. They sent a sentient-in-need signal on general broadcast and was able to rush you here promptly. In fact, they are outside waiting for you to regain consciousness. They work for Ceres Policing Ministry. They have a few questions to ask. Other than checking for your general well being, I'm actually also here to make sure that you can communicate without any difficulties. May I allow them in?"

It was not really a question. When the CPM 'asks' you to do something, you do it. I was surprised that my incident has garnered their attention. They have bigger issues to deal with other than a street beat down. Maybe it's because it involves a child? Nobody wants to see a child hurt. Especially the Ceres government. Now I’m starting to get anxious. I’ve not heard of anything to do with CPM that had a positive outcome. Well, that’s according to all the vids that I have watched.

“Sure doctor. They probably have a lot of things to straighten out.”

“As you wish. I will be monitoring your vitals. You are essentially healed but until I sign for your release, we will be closely observing your health. I’ll be back soon Mr. Mayon. If you have any concerns, just call out and the hospital A.I. will inform us.” Doctor Sahvi concluded with a smile.

The Inugorian moved to the door and talked to the people outside. With a nod to me, he left as the two CPM officers entered.

The two officers leisurely approached my bed side by side. The man, an augmented man, is an average sized human wearing a clean black smart suit. He has a rounded, weathered face with his right eye replaced with a biocompatible tracker unit. A few lines visible under his dark brown skin indicates some sort of wiring flowing towards the other parts of his face. He has a well toned physique that moves with grace. His left hand is covered by a sleek looking glove. I suspect that his entire left arm is augmented too. The man gives an aura of command without getting the feeling of being overbearing. It’s the confident look you see in his face that kind of reminds you of a respected boss or supervisor.

The woman, on the other hand, is quite the specimen. She’s completely human but she was so much more. Standing about two meters, the tall, blonde, blue-eyed beauty with the body of a body builder draws the eye. Her soft looking face combined with the appealing smirk she was directing at me at the moment can make your heart stop. If that doesn’t, her heavily scarred fists probably can literally make your heart stop if you make her angry. Rather than a suit, the impressive woman was wearing a light blue low neck blouse. Just enough to tease you with her ample breasts. She was also wearing a pair of black pants that wouldn’t look out of place in a meeting room or in a city sidewalk. Her shoes are the practical type, flats with a rubberized biogel soles for maximum comfort when walking and running.

Both officers stood at the foot of my MediBed. Curious that. You would've thought they would get in your face. Might just be me though. The male officer made the introductions.

“Good afternoon Mr. Mayon. I am Ronald Solomon and this is my partner Ms. Nabila Akseldatter. We are happy to see you recovered. Would you consent to answering a few questions?” The augment asked. Direct to the point, I see. His clear, monotone voice doesn’t inspire confidence but they haven’t charged me with anything… yet.

“Uhm, sure. I don’t know how much I would be able to help you, though. I was getting my ass kicked most of the time.” I answered with a nervous smile. I was able to elicit another smile from Nabila but Ronald remained unaffected. I’m getting the impression that smiling is a foreign practice for him.

“Not to worry Mr. Mayon. We are more interested in your activities before the incident in the alley. Could you relate to us the sequence of events from the closing of your shop to the beginning of the incident?”

I gave a narration of what I did that night with as much accuracy as I can. Ronald asked a number of questions while using some street surveillance vids showing me during the time in question to corroborate with my story. He asked some questions that were essentially the same to I felt I told the same story over and over again. It all culminated to the reality of me just waiting for a car, taking a stroll, then getting jumped by the alley when I stopped to shout at the two thugs.

“Alright Mr. Mayon. You said that you activated the recorder of your ArmCom. We currently have it in evidence. Would you accede to allowing us access to it? It would give us a better idea of the whole situation.” Again, Mr. no smile face asked but didn’t really.

“No problem. Let me give- wait a minute, ‘a better idea of the whole situation?’ I thought the doctor said that you guys were the one to save me from being curb stomped into oblivion. What happen to the guy that was about to cut me up? There was also that woman who I clocked with a servidrone. I know she dropped unconscious. By the way, would I get my servidrone back? Those things are expensive.” I quickly asked. Now that I'm thinking about it, an avalanche of questions started forming in my head. What was the girl doing there? Was the guy beside here really dead? How come they got there so fast? all of these questions were running through my brain.

Ronald raised his hand to stop me from asking a barrage of questions. He then looked at Nabila to continue. She answered a few of my questions.

"The two criminals you fought with are members of a known slave gang that normally operates in a different system. The little girl you saved earlier was kidnapped and was about to be taken off world to be ransomed later to her father. Her minders were quick to notice she was gone when she did not exit her school with the other children. They searched the grounds but wasn't able to find her. They triggered her locator and simultaneously made a call to the police. The man on the ground you saw was a police officer closest to the location signal. He was tracking the girl when he was caught in an ambush by the two criminals. They were able to find her locator and destroyed it. They were about to leave when you intervened. We might have lost the signal from the girl's locator but the officer's ArmCom was still pulsing away." She paused and snorted. Her voice is a bit deeper than expected but still very feminine.

"Those two were not very smart. They didn't consider that officers have locators too. Anyway, when my partner and I reached the scene, he was about to finish you off. Now, I know you know that CPM officials are well trained in reacting quickly to any kind of situations. My partner here used to be military police. Suffice to say he was able to shoot the armed criminal before he could do the deed." She glanced at Ronald and gave him a wink. Great impression of a statue from Ronald.

"What we didn't expect is that the criminal was heavily augmented. Ronald's shot burned some hair off but did not hurt the criminal. He has some very expensive upgrades under his skin. We suspect that his torso is protected by a layer of thin duraplates. He probably has a dissipater also active to weaken the beam before it hit him. He then quickly let go of you then proceeded to charge us. His augments came into play again. He fired a blinder at us and was able to escape carrying his comrade." I could hear the frustration in her voice. She was also gripping the bed rail quite hard if the whitening of here knuckles was any indication.

"The officers responding gave chase but was unable to apprehend the augmented criminal. We are still searching the area but we suspect that they are long gone. Their gang have been doing this for a long time. They know how to disappear cleanly." Ronald added.

The whole situation seems insane to me. This is like what you see in the vids! The last thing that happened to me to even approach the seriousness of the situation was when I was just fresh out of college looking for a job. My ArmCom got cloned and was used in a robbery of nanochip shipment. The police brought me in for questioning but eventually released me later in the same day. They already knew I was not involved. They just needed to cover all the bases.

I wanted this to all be a figment of my imagination. A flight of fancy. Heck, I'll even take hallucination at this point. I'm in a damned thriller novel.

I didn't get the chance to think more about my troubles when a very important thought crossed my mind. I suddenly sat straight and looked at both of them.

"Hey, we've been talking about me and those two gangsters a lot but what happened to the little girl? Is she okay?" I anxiously ask. I didn't know her for squat but we shared such a traumatizing moment, I innately felt closer to her.

"She's fine. She's with her family now. She had a few bruises but nothing to compare to yours. They can't risk hurting her too much if they plan to ransom her off. By the way, her father would like to personally thank you and asked us to tell you that he will be dropping by your eatery soon to talk to her daughter's savior. You should be honored, you just saved the daughter of Shyam Chander. The Admiral was ready to tear illustratum apart to find his little rajkumari. We had to threaten his carrier with a battleship to convince him that dropping a company of heavy infantry in the city is a bad idea. I'm not sure we would have been able to keep him from it if it took any longer that it had." Nabila look troubled at that last part but she just shook her head as if to clear her thoughts and gave me a huge smile. Man, she's really pretty.

"Well, damn! I didn't even know that 'the tiger' himself is here. I thought he doesn't like 'soft' places? What the heck, his daughter gets kidnapped at the last place she should be." I said. Considering the places the man had dragged his family to, this was probably one of the few planets in the sector where he didn't have to worry about entering a war zone. This is going to hurt the Ceres government.

"Like everybody else, he's here for the GFRL finals. His wife is a huge fan. Anyway, we are done for today Mr. Mayon. We thank you for your cooperation. If you could just give us your ArmCom data code, we will be on our way." Ronald said. I gave him the codes and he promised me they'll drop it off at the eatery the next day or so. They made their goodbyes with Nabila giving another of her wonderful smiles and quietly left.

I eased myself back down on my bed and rested. I started thinking about how incredulous the situation was. It's great I was able to save, however unintentional it was, the girl. It's also fantastic did we didn't just start a firefight with one of the galaxy's premier mercenary groups and the Ceres government. I guess being used as a human punching bag is worth that. With that pleasant conclusion in mind, I drift back to sleep to the soothing music of bossa nova.