Looking up at that gentle face…it was weird to think it, but it kind of got to him. The contrast between Declan and the Steelport Deckers was about as vast as it could be. Sure, some of them hadn’t been all mean to him, but he’d still amounted to a hostage among an immature bunch of cyber-punks. Declan had done all of, what, knock out a drunk that had been harassing Aoba? He could only imagine that everyone in the bar that had been muttering about him had been punched themselves at one point, or was friends with someone who had been…and Aoba could still only think it must have been deserved. Declan was being too kind, too considerate for him to imagine otherwise.

Oh, but here came more questions. Speaker. Another thing that had been mentioned a couple times previously, now much more strongly emphasized.

“Um, okay. Who’s this Speaker guy, again?”