–Six Days Later, 10:28 AM–
The medical centre was rarely used for any length of time, and, though
the care was top-notch, there always seemed to be an air of trying to get
the patient conscious, moving and healthy in as short a time as possible.
However, there was always something that would prevent such a speedy recovery.
In the case of the lone occupant of the medical centre, it was a medically-sponsored
decision to repair and replace some parts of the patient’s skeletal structure.
The surgeries had taken just over three hours, and, when it was over,
the incisions had been closed, sealed with stitches and medical tape, and
left to heal. It took just under seventy-two hours for the surgical incisions
to seal completely, and scans taken of the joints revealed that the ligaments
had bonded perfectly to the artificial bones. Currently, she was unconscious,
but breathing without the assistance of a ventilator. Outside, in the hallway,
a single form seemed to lurk.
Tall, thickly muscled, and looking like a non-glowing Incredible Hulk,
the man was slowly sipping coffee, and looking at the much smaller woman
inside the med centre. Silently, he finished his coffee, then turned and
looked at the lanky doctor that was just walking down the short hallway
towards him. The doctor stopped and looked at his patient, then looked
at the big man. "Wilson. You’re here to check in on my patient, or did
the entire team send you?"
Wilson smiled and nodded, chuckling ruefully to himself. "Yeah. Everyone
else told me to get my ass down here and find out how the boss is doing.
So, as that’s the question of the day, care to fill me in, Sorbie?"
Dr. Sorbie nodded, then gestured at one of the leather seats that lined the opposite wall of the hallway. Wilson smiled again, then settled his impressive bulk into one of the seats, which protested angrily by creaking ominously. Sorbie, having plonked himself into a second seat, removed his glasses and started to polish the lenses with his tie.
Finally, after a few moments, he finished with his glasses, which were quickly returned to their customary location. "Well, her physical injuries were fairly extensive, so I may as well start with that. We had to replace all of her artificial bones due to severe damage, which looked like it had happened due to someone taking a shovel to just about every square inch of her body. There were a couple of lacerations, which we cleaned and stitched up, and she lost her left eye. The cybernetic replacement has bonded perfectly, but we won’t activate it until she’s up and about again."
Wilson grimaced, as he had seen what the cybernetic eyes looked like, and none seemed to be especially appealing towards personal or professional aesthetics. "Great. ‘We are the Borg. We will save your ass from whatever deserves to be kicked in the junk.’ Jeez. I never liked those things."
Sorbie chuckled, then shook his head. "Don’t worry too much about what it looks like. Knowing her, she’ll just wear shades everywhere so she doesn’t freak out anyone. The problem is that her mind might have been twisted a bit out of line. I’m no psychologist, much less a neurologist, but it looks like her entire brainwave pattern was skewed. She’s probably going to suffer intermittent psychotic episodes, and I’d want to be far away when that happens."
Wilson smiled, nodded and stood up. "Thanks doc. I’d better let you go; the rest of the teams will want to hear how she’s doing, considering that she trained all of us." He then walked off, looking slightly relieved. Sorbie watched Wilson go, then turned and looked at the sleeping form of his patient. Silently, Sorbie also walked away, knowing that he’d be back soon.
–Meridiana, Mayor’s Office. 3:27 PM–
"Look, I don’t care what wheels need greasing to get this done, but we need those people in this city in less than a month! Our city can’t take this much abuse, and the police forces have been decimated, not including the lost profits due to damages and thefts." The mayor was livid, and his voice easily carried through the office, and was extremely clear to the two people who had just tried to dissuade the mayor’s current plan.
One of the men, the city’s minister of finance, looked around half-heartedly, as if searching for anything to argue about, but failed. The entire tack of his argument had been on how expensive it was to ferry in and pay for a group of elite ‘troubleshooters’, but his entire argument had been slashed to pieces when he talked to the mayor.
The other person who had tried to talk the mayor out of his position was a bit more dear to his heart, but he knew, quite firmly, that his wife was in the wrong. She persisted, however, using the tack of ‘my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.’ "Dear, I don’t think that it’s a good idea to entrust the civil defence of this city to people who know nothing about us. For all we know, they could be Yanquis who want to try and annex us."
The mayor snorted, then pointed at one of the folders on his desk. "That folder details every commanding officer in the organization I’ve made preliminary contact with, and I’ve made my decision based upon the personal merits of each person. Now, I sincerely doubt that a squad of twenty people with two commanders could take over an entire city, and, just so you know, roughly ninety-five percent of the people in the organization are from countries that have no bearing upon either of the Americas. Hell, the liaison I talked to is a Russian named Ivonava."
The mayor’s wife, still unconvinced, but realizing that she’d have better chances of head-butting her way through a brick wall, didn’t speak for a few moments, then threw her hands upwards in frustration. "Fine! May the Blessed Virgin watch over us while you go haring off onto another ill-advised jaunt through our budget. This city is in enough of a debt as it is, and you want to drive it up with these ill-advised schemes to try and save your chances of a third term! I’m staying out of this one."
The mayor nodded, then gestured towards the door. The two people turned and left, leaving the mayor alone, if only for a moment. His secretary, a young lady who seemed to change her hair colour drastically every other week, entered his office, holding a sheet of paper for his perusal. Three minutes later, the mayor nodded and picked up his phone. Dialling a number known to very few people in the city, he smiled when an accented voice came over the line. "This is the mayor of Meridiana. I believe we have spoken in the last few days about possible assistance with several... extremely large problems we have down here?"