Stat Crusher - Corridor Bullies and One-Handed Demolition

Cold damp air smelled like burnt oil and wet trash as five-o’clock municipal buses rumbled through the lower District 4 transit arch. Garrett stepped off the rusty boarding platform, his hands shoved deep into his canvas coat. In his right pocket, his fingers smoothed over the sharp plastic edges of the keycard to Villa #14.

Five hundred thousand credits in the bank. A three-story place in West Gate with working radiant heat and an automated gate lock. He hadn’t slept, but he felt absurdly light on his feet, almost eager to see his dad’s face when he threw the heavy keycard onto the kitchen table. He cut down the narrow access lane behind the concrete towers, stepping over grey slush and flattened cardboard boxes.

This was the hour Arthur Cole usually wheeled the soy-cart out to the corner of 4th and Main, the dented aluminum boiler whistling as the first batch of steamed pork buns hit the rack. Garrett turned the corner onto the main alley mouth. He stopped. The cart was on its side. The heavy cast-iron axle was snapped clean off, one wooden wheel lying twenty feet away in the gutter.

White soy-milk pooled across the cracked asphalt, turning into thick curd as it mixed with diesel sludge and dirty snow. Steamed buns were trampled into wet dough beneath heavy tread-marks. Right beside the crushed steam-boiler, a smear of dark, sticky red trailed four feet across the concrete into the curb. Garrett’s mind went completely blank.

For a second, the hundred years of cosmic memories, the Star-Core explosions, the cold telekinetic calculations—all of it just evaporated. His throat closed up.

“Garrett? Oh, god, Garrett, you’re back!” Auntie Wong came shuffling out from behind the trash dumpsters, her thick winter coat wrapped tight around her waist, holding an empty plastic bucket.

Her face was pale, her hands shaking so hard the bucket handle rattled against the rim.

“Auntie Wong,” Garrett said.

His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Thin. Rattling.

“Where’s my dad?”

“They took him up to Saint Jude’s,” she babbled, her eyes wide with leftover panic.

“The charity clinic on North 8th. Oh, Garrett, it was awful. Four of them came right around five o’clock—those heavy-set bastards from Liu’s breakfast diner down by the tram station. You know Liu’s been trying to drive your father off this corner for six months!”

“What did they do?”

“They had iron pipes, Garrett! They said your dad’s pork was spoiled, said he was poisoning the neighborhood. Your dad tried to hold onto the boiler—you know how much that old machine meant to him—and one of them… one of them swung a pipe right into his head. Hit him twice. Kicked him in the ribs when he went down!” Garrett didn’t hear the rest.

The world narrowed down to a tiny, suffocating point. The air in his lungs turned to broken glass. He’d spent a century regretting how he’d let his parents suffer, promising himself he’d fix it, promising himself he was strong enough now—and his dad was lying in a gutter three blocks away while Garrett was out drinking beer in a neon lounge.

He turned on his heel.

“Garrett, wait! Don’t go looking for Liu, those guys are armed—” Garrett didn’t answer.

He ran. His boots hit the pavement like iron hammers, tearing through the slush. His pre-optimization Rank-3 Warrior muscles exploded into motion. Hundred-meter dash pace in under eight seconds flat—a blur of canvas and flying snow. People on the sidewalk jolted back as he blasted past them, the cold air ripping through his open jacket, tearing at his throat.

He didn’t care about the icy patches. He didn’t care about the ache in his knees or the siren wailing two streets over. Not again, his mind screamed through the red haze. Not this time.

Screaming rubber soles echoed against wet linoleum as Garrett cleared the final flight of stairs three at a time. The third floor smelled of stale bleach, cheap antiseptic, and dried blood. Row after row of iron cots overflowed from the overcrowded wards directly into the hallway, leaving barely a foot of walking space between IV poles and groaning patients.

He spotted them near a rusted radiator pipe. Mary was sitting on a squeaky metal folding chair, holding an IV bag overhead with both hands because the rolling stand was missing a wheel. Arthur lay below her on a grimy, moth-eaten blanket spread over the concrete floor, a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his head and his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches.

Two broken ribs. Garrett dropped to his knees beside them, the cold floor soaking right through his trousers. He grabbed the IV bottle out of his mother’s shaking hands and hooked it onto an exposed pipe overhead.

“Dad,” Garrett rasped, his chest heaving from the three-block dash.

Arthur opened one eye, his face pale as lard.

“Garrett… you back? What about… what about the evaluation? Did you get a draft letter?” Even with blood drying behind his ear and two cracked ribs grating against his lungs, the old man cared about the test score.

Garrett swallowed hard, forcing the burning rage down into his stomach.

“I passed, Dad,” Garrett said softly, adjusting the dirty blanket around Arthur’s shoulders.

“Signed a Tier-2 contract with Tempest Lodge. Five hundred grand advance, full medical coverage, and a gated villa in West Gate. Nobody’s drafting me.” Mary choked back a sob, slapping her hand over her mouth.

Arthur’s chest heaved, a wet, rattling cough shaking his frame before he managed a weak, gore-stained grin.

“Good boy… that’s my boy…”

“Why are you out here in the draft?” Garrett asked, his eyes darkening as he looked down the crowded hallway.

“There are private recovery rooms at the end of the block.”

“The head nurse said they were reserved,” Mary whispered, her eyes red.

“We offered to pay double the daily fee once your father’s morning bean-milk money came in, but she wouldn’t even look at us. Then that fat merchant from the corner—Liu—walked in ten minutes ago with a scalded thumb from his grease-fryer, and they gave him Private Suite 1.” Garrett stood up.

“Garrett, don’t,” Arthur wheezed, reaching for his hem.

“We can’t afford trouble with the ward chief. They’ll throw us out on the street.”

“Nobody’s throwing you out,” Garrett said quietly.

He walked down the corridor toward the central nursing station. A young woman in a stained pink apron was typing lazily on an old plastic terminal, ignoring three different call buttons buzzing on her board.

“I need a private room for Arthur Cole,” Garrett said, resting both palms on the counter.

“Room 1.” The nurse didn’t look up from her screen.

“Room 1 is occupied. All private suites are reserved for municipal merchants and civic staff. Put him in the hall like everyone else or take him to the charity shelter in District 5.” Garrett didn’t yell.

He didn’t slam his fist on the counter. Instead, he let his Silver-tinged Bronze mind-core pulse once. A cold, invisible wave of telekinetic pressure radiated from his forehead, heavy as an iron plate dropping onto the nurse’s chest. The air temperature around the desk seemed to plunge five degrees in a second. The nurse froze, her breath catching in her throat as her skin went pale.

She looked up, her hands trembling so violently she dropped her stylus.

“Where is the Ward Director?” Garrett asked, his voice flat as a slate tile.

“I-in his office,” she stammered, pointing a shaky finger down the hall.

“Door 304.” Garrett pushed open the frosted-glass door of Office 304 without knocking.

Behind a heavy oak desk sat a plump, middle-aged man in a wrinkled white coat, sipping hot tea while reading a regional sports page. He jumped out of his chair at the intrusion.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing entering without—” Garrett pulled his black Tempest Lodge ID tablet from his coat and laid it flat on the desk, the silver lightning-bolt emblem glowing bright blue against the polished wood.

“Tempest Lodge. Tier-2 Operator Garrett Cole,” he said softly.

The Ward Director’s mouth stayed open. His eyes darted from the blue glowing emblem to Garrett’s cold, unblinking face, then back to the tablet. In Fort Sterling, a registered Operator—especially one backed by Tempest Lodge—had the legal authority to seize municipal resources during emergency deployments, and a clinic director who offended one usually found himself reassigned to Outland sanitation duty by nightfall.

“A-An Operator?” the Director stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead with a crumpled napkin.

“My apologies, Officer Cole! We weren’t informed… the intake registry didn’t list…”

“My father is lying on a dirty blanket in your hallway with two broken ribs,” Garrett said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the sharp, razor-like edge of his mind-pressure.

“Merchant Liu is sitting in Private Suite 1 with a burned thumb. Fix it. Now.”

“Right away! Right this second!” The Director practically vaulted over his desk, grabbing his intercom receiver.

“Nurse Gable! Discharge Liu immediately! Move Arthur Cole into Suite 1! Get two orthopedic specialists up here with a trauma cart, now!” Five minutes later, two frantic orderlies were rolling a high-tier gurney down the hall, carefully lifting Arthur off the concrete and wheeling him into the carpeted private suite.

Merchant Liu was shoved out into the corridor in his hospital gown, shouting about his grease burn until he caught sight of the Tempest Lodge badge pinned to Garrett’s collar, at which point he promptly shut his mouth and shuffled toward the stairs. Garrett stood by his father’s new bedside, watching the automated monitoring screen pulse with steady green vitals as the pain-killers kicked in.

Mary sat in a soft armchair beside the window, staring around the clean, warm room like she was afraid she’d wake up in the tenements. Garrett adjusted his jacket, his mind already shifting to the street outside. Liu Jr. and his thugs were still out there, probably waiting near the tenement alleyway to see if Arthur would bite his tongue.

“I’m going out for a bit, Mom,” Garrett said, his hand lingering on the brass door handle.

“Get some rest.”