–Jose’s Ruins, 8:20 PM–
Helmut was scared out of his wits. Not only had he been buried for the last three days, but he was out of food and water. The food had been in the form of a few cans of peaches, which Helmut had spent much of his energy opening with his pocketknife, while the water had dripped steadily from a broken pipe that had saved him from being crushed when the mansion imploded.
Above him, less than seven feet separated him from freedom, but those seven feet were an interlocked mass of girders, beams, and walls that had collapsed inwards. All Helmut could do was to scream for help. After one such bout of screams, he heard something moving above him. "Percy? Where are you? I’m lost without you."
Helmut knew where the damn dead cat was. In fact, he had been using it as a footrest until some flies found the poor creature, turning it into a mass of maggoty meat and slime-covered fur. The smell alone would have made him quite ready to kill himself, but he had entertained the thought that maybe someone had escaped and was searching for him. It sounded like he was partly right.
"Hey! Percy’s here! If you can get us out, we’ll be grateful!" Helmut started yelling, his voice hoarse and almost unrecognisable in the gloom. Above him, he saw the fading light be obscured for a few seconds as something knelt next to the holes, then more light flooded in as a massive chunk of metal-reinforced wood was ripped free from the surrounding materials.
The person above Helmut yelled at something else up there, and both soon shredded the intervening materials between Helmut and freedom. Coughing and gasping, he clambered out of the hole, and looked at his two rescuers. One was the biggest Fixed Idea he had seen, with the exception of Tiny, who had been killed when the observatory had blown up. The other was a young girl, who he instantly recognised as Cyber X-1.
X-1, instead of looking at him, decided to turn to the hole she had created, climb down, and retrieve the rotting remains of Percy, which she hugged to her stained and dirt-covered shirt as she climbed back to ground level. "There Percy. I have you, and I’ll never let go. Not until you’re dead and gone."
Helmut forced away his instant reflex to gag, and looked at the Idea standing there, picking its nose. "Well, I think he’s pretty far gone. Shouldn’t we go somewhere else? If a jeep survived, we can get to the castle before anything else happens."
X-1 ignored him, still rubbing the slime off of Percy’s body, and occasionally shaking a maggot off of the cat’s limbs. The Idea looked down at Helmut, shrugged, and turned to try and find a jeep that was still working.
–Meridiana General Hospital, 9:35 PM–
Sel screwed her eyes shut at the piercing glare from the orderly’s light, which was just beginning to piss her off. "Look, I’ve been unconscious for the last three days, give or take an hour, and I really don’t want to have to go through the same check-up for the sixth time. Now, will you just give up, answer my questions, and let me see my daughter?"
The orderly, an older man who was literally built like an ox, smiled, shook his head, and gently tilted Sel’s head so he could look into her ear with the light. Sel put up with it for a few more seconds, then angrily slapped the orderly’s hand away. "Now, care to say anything?"
The orderly grinned. "Sure. If you continue to be a bad girl, we’ll go for a seventh check-up. Also, your daughter is currently interacting with Dr. Pearce, so there shouldn’t be any problems with those two. Finally, your bills are being paid, so as soon as this check-up is done, you can walk to wherever you want. Hopefully, you might even stick around in the city for a while."
Sel shrugged, rolling her eyes at the same time. "Fine, you win. Now, let’s get this over with."
Ten minutes later, she was in the elevator, heading towards the ground floor, and hopefully, a rendevous with her daughter. The thick doors opened with the usual annoying ‘ping’, followed up by several muted conversations instantly stopping as most people wanted to see the strange person who had apparently blown up the stronghold that had terrorized the city for the last four years.
Most of the people in the waiting room were reporters of some stripe or another, with about six different TV cameras recording everything as the reporters instantly swamped Sel. A barrage of questions was ignored, until one reporter literally shoved his microphone he was holding almost directly under Sel’s nose. She didn’t even bother to pause, but reached up, grabbed the poor man’s hand, and squeezed, cracking several bones and dislocating three of his fingers.
Sel guessed that most news shows would get some good ratings from the staccato series of pops followed up by the anguished scream of the reporter, but she just shrugged her way through the rest of the crowd until she finally managed to get to the registration/information desk. She looked at the nurse attending the desk, gestured to the man who was sobbing like he was eight years old and cradling his hand, and frowned.
"I really don’t like the press that much. Now, could you please tell me where Dr. Pearce’s office is? I’ve had a long week, and want to spend the rest of the time in this charming city with my daughter." The nurse smiled slightly, mentally echoing Sel’s sentiment about the reporters, who had the ability to get into just about any area, no matter how well secured, and screw over every safeguard to prevent opportunistic infections in the country.
"Dr. Pearce’s office? Just down the hall, take a right at child pediatrics, and her office is easily marked." Leaning closer, the nurse smiled again. "It’s the one decorated by all the drawings. You can’t miss it." Sel grinned, slid a bill across the top of the desk for the nurse to pick up, and went down towards the area the nurse had directed her to. Ten minutes later, she heard the laughter of children, with a perfectly identifiable voice in the midst of it.
Sel paused only long enough to pull her favourite sunglasses out of a pocket, which she put on before letting the children see her. There were almost fifteen children in the room, varying in age from three to ten, and all were playing with different toys or talking to one person sitting on a chair. The conversations paused for a second or two when the children saw Sel, but two people instantly stood up.
Sebena, seeing her mom standing up and looking fairly healthy, instantly tore over there, leaving a mini-vortex of flying crayons and papers behind her as she literally attached herself to Sel’s legs, effectively immobilizing her mother. The second person took a bit more time walking over to Sel, who was busy trying to disentangle Sebena from her legs so she could smother the child with hugs.
"So, didja like your stay in our fine hospital?" Dr. Pearce stopped about three feet away from Sel, and smiled.
"I was unconscious until about an hour ago. Then again, I guess it wasn’t too bad. So, mind If I swipe the bean from ya? After all, I think I’ll be sticking around in this city for a longer time than I anticipated." Sel smiled again as Sebena hugged her tightly, then stood up, holding her daughter’s hand. As the two turned to leave, Reba smiled to herself and pulled a cell-phone from one of her pockets. After hitting the speed-dial and waiting for a response, Reba smiled and said "She’s going to stick around. I guess I owe you fifty Tony." The response was a muffled cheer.
–Near Dr. Zack’s House, 10:22 PM–
Sel looked up at the neat house in front of her and smiled. She then looked at Jenny, who was carrying the now-sleeping Sebena. "So, what do you think? Should I buy it?"
Jenny shrugged, letting Sebena settle down before replying. "Yeah. It’s about big enough for three adults to live in comfortably, and you have a massive supply of cash from all the bounties you’ve raked in over the last six years. Besides, how many countries owe you favours? Fifty? One hundred?"
"Almost one-fifty. Besides, most of those countries really needed their acts straightened out. Now, where in hell’s the Real estate agent? I told him we’d be here at Ten-Twenty."
Jenny smiled, letting the moonlight reflect off her teeth for a second. "You sure? Every once in a while, you confuse twenty with thirty. Ahh... Here he is."
A car had pulled up as the two talked, and a small, skinny man climbed out. Sebena had just awakened and transferred herself to Sel’s arms without too much assistance from Jenny as the man walked towards the three.
He smiled when he got to the two women, and opened his briefcase for a moment. "Well, you’re the young lady who wants to buy this place, correct?"
Sel nodded, and he smiled again, a singularly ugly effect when she thought about it. "Good. All we need is your name on this deed, and the house is yours." He produced a pen from a pocket, and the deed he laid out on the hood of his car so Sel could easily scribble something if she wanted to. She just leaned forwards, placing herself between Jenny and the man.
Jenny responded by sliding to the right a few feet, but the man had already pulled out a small, two-shot derringer from his sleeve and fired both bullets right after each other. Sel was knocked flat onto her back by the impact from at least one bullet, and Jenny simply rushed over, grabbed the man, and snapped his neck.
The dead body flashed into a cloud of vapour, as Sel slowly sat up, gingerly prodding at the steaming hole in her shirt. The small .22 bullet fell out, flattened into a dull mass by its solid impact to one of her ribs. A small trickle of blood followed the bullet, but she didn’t care. Instead, Sel was staring at the tiny ragged hole in Sebena’s temple, just above her left eye.
"No. Please god, not her. She still has her life. I’m the one who should have taken that bullet. She never did anything bad to anyone. Jenny! Call an ambulance! Now!" Sel sat on the ground, gently cradling the still form of her daughter, with tears streaming down her face, trying to get a response from her sweet little munchkin.