We Used to Wait

The flight to Solace was long or maybe it just felt long because of the anticipation of a new life and the thrill of seeing her in person. He finally felt like there was some sort of light at the end of the tunnel that he had been stuck in for so long. Instead of going right and taking the easy way out he went left and left meant going towards her. She truly was his guardian angel whether she knew it or not.

As soon as he arrived in Solace he was overtaken by a bittersweet feeling. It had been the last time that he saw her face-to-face, aside from his gauntlet run incident. It was where they had left each other to pursue their own life choices. It was the first time they had not been together every single day. It was the first time that he couldn't just wake up and go see her or that she could wake up and go see him and spend countless hours together.

Solace was the beginning and the end. Now it felt like everything was coming around full circle again. He wanted this to be the beginning and never the end of them again, he would make sure of it this time. Octavio knew that he had to do this walk again and move through the pain. Their lives had changed so fast, but he had hope that something pure could last. It was the only thing keeping him moving, a promise he made to himself to fix things between the two of them or at least try.

He was greeted by a driver and taken straight away to the Apex headquarters for his interview. The building wasn't nearly what he was expecting, although he had been in the stuntman racing business for so long what did he know about buildings when every aspect of his life had been controlled via a stupid contract that he signed when he was too young to think for himself. The building itself was tall from the outside, which left him wondering why they needed such a tall building just to interview potential Legends.

Upon entering the building, he was 'greeted' by security. Needless to say it was not much of a greeting as much as it was a search for weapons or other contraband. The Syndicate did have complete authority over Solace. Octavio didn't know much about The Syndicate other than it was a Mercenary group that had authority over the fringes of the outlands and that they did have a headquarters right here in Solace. He really hoped that this wasn't the headquarters.

The greeting from security wasn't terrible and in fact it was more than he ever got from his own security detail. He knew that they had to do their job he just didn't want to hand over the stim that he had in his possession, it was something he needed. To his surprise the stim wasn't an issue as they waved him along, "You're all good Mr. Silva. Head down the hallway to the elevator and to the second floor."

Octavio wanted to correct the security detail and tell them "Mr. Silva is my father" but he didn't bother with the formalities at this point. He just wanted to get to his interview and maybe on the slight chance that if she was there and he saw her then he could smooth things over. He, of course, had wishful thinking as he headed down the boring ass hallway.

When he got to the end of the hallway there were two sets of elevator doors. There were no buttons to press. As soon as he questioned the button situation in his head, one of the sets of elevator doors opened. He entered the elevator, which actually did have a panel of touch sensitive buttons and a keycard reader. He hesitated as he looked at all of the buttons and then wondered if maybe this is where the players resided.

He quickly pressed the third and fourth floor buttons, but nothing happened. He realized that he probably needed a keycard or something to access the other floors. "Lame." He sighed and reluctantly pressed the button for the second floor then waited as the elevator took him to his preassigned destination.

The doors opened into a small waiting area with a small kiosk and some chairs. The elevator doors closed after he stepped into the waiting area, which was just as boring as the rest of the building. He eyed a hallway to the left of the kiosk but figured that he better check out the computer thingy before he went off exploring on his own.

The kiosk appeared to be a little computer screen to check in on. He tapped the screen and found his name with a few others underneath. The screen prompted him to confirm his identity and interview time. He did what the computer thingy asked and then the screen prompted him that he was done and to please wait in the waiting area.

Waiting was definitely not his thing, so instead he made his way to the hallway and impatiently leaned against the wall. He didn't have to wait long until he was greeted by a generic looking assistant, or maybe she was a receptionist. "Hi Mr. Silva my name is…" But before she could continue, he cut her off as politely as he could, "That's my pop's name. Octavio is fine." The woman was taken aback by his comment, which caused her to pause mid speech before she could think of anything to say. She nodded and forgot to mention her name, which he would not have remembered anyway. She then waved him down the hallway to follow her.

He followed her down the hallway past a few closed doors. Nothing in particular stood out to him until they stopped at a door with a nameplate on the wall next to it. The nameplate read BLISK in big bold letters. Octavio already knew what he was getting himself into based on a nameplate. The generic looking woman knocked on the door and spoke in a louder tone of voice than she had before, "I have Mr. Silva… uh Octavio here for his interview."

They both waited for an answer from behind the wooden door. A stern voice with an accent that Octavio couldn't quite place yet rung out from behind the door, "Well send him in." The generic looking woman opened the door and urged Octavio to go in, at least he thought she was urging him because she seemed pretty insistent. Maybe she didn't want to deal with this Blisk dude because as soon as Octavio entered the room, she closed the door behind him and left the room to the two of them.

There, Octavio stood in what appeared to be an office with an older, gruff looking man that he assumed went by the name of Blisk. The name sounded familiar, some dude with war stories but Octavio couldn't quite piece it all together. If she was here, then she would know. She always seemed to know everything, but not in a bad annoying way, just in an intelligent cute kind of way. He pushed his stray thoughts aside when Blisk finally spoke to him, "Well, what makes you so special?"

"Right to the point huh, amigo?" Octavio said jokingly. Blisk didn't bother to look up from his paperwork that was spread across his desk. "That didn't answer my question. If you're here to waste my time, then you can just show yourself out." Octavio wondered how she even dealt with this dude or how she even came across him in the first place. "I run fast. I hit fast. I win fast." Octavio replied.

There was an awkward silence that filled the room. Blisk flipped a paper over and apparently wrote something down on the paper, "So that's it?" Octavio wanted to roll his eyes to the back of his head, and this dude would never know because they were hidden behind his green tinted goggles, but he resisted the impulse and tried to be as professional as he could be, "I blew off my own legs to beat the gauntlet record time. I still hold the fastest time to-date."

Again with the silence and some writing on a paper in front of Blisk so Octavio continued, "I can heal pretty fast." He was almost grasping at straws just trying to sell himself to this white-haired dude. Blisk set his pen down, "We already have a combat medic in the games, we don't need another one." At this point Octavio felt like he was fighting a losing battle against this old dude, "My body can heal itself quickly. It runs in the family. I self-regenerate, I am harder to take down on top of being super-fast with my stim injections."

The part about 'it runs in the family' was one part truth and one part lie but hey he had to sell it hard to this guy. "That's more like it." Blisk said as he finally looked up at Octavio. "Finally this dude is getting it" Octavio thought to himself. "Can you shoot a gun, or can you only run fast?" Blisk asked. Octavio stood there for a moment because guns weren't really his thing, "Well duhhhhh." Blisk chuckled which caught Octavio off-guard. "Fine, take this and head down to the firing range in the basement. Go through the training simulation and we'll see if we have a new Legend or not." Blisk said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Octavio caught a keycard that Blisk tossed over to him. He nearly fumbled the card but luckily, for the sake of the interview, he didn't. Blisk went back to his paperwork and Octavio showed himself out, apparently the talking part of the interview was over and now it was time for the action part. He was always better at the action part anyway.

The title of this Chapter is inspired by a band that I like: Arcade Fire

There are also a lyrical quotes in the chapter:

"Walk again and move through the pain. Their lives had changed so fast, but he had hope that something pure could last.

-Arcade Fire – We Used to Wait