–The Next Day–
Waking up at almost ten, Sara barely remembered what had happened last night, only that her arm felt like someone had walloped it with a ten-pound sledgehammer. Soon, her brain woke up enough to remember the events of last night, and Sara headed downstairs to pull the vial out of her coat pocket. Looking at it, she smiled at the vibrant green glow which reminded her of an evergreen tree in the middle of winter, and decided to place it on her nightstand the next time she went upstairs.
*Heh, because I have no use for this goo, I might as well use it for a night light.* After a quick shower which made her feel a hell of a lot better, mainly because her arm stopped throbbing in pain, and after a smallish breakfast, Sara flipped on the news channel to see what was going on for the day. Ten minutes later, just after the morning news began, Sara had to keep from breaking out into hysterical laughter as a reporter tried to interview the clerk she had saved from a very unpleasant fate last night..
She watched with amusement, barely avoiding hysterics, as the reporter listened to the man’s story. "At about 1 AM, I thought I was gonna die a horrible, messy death. One of those monstrous greenskinned freaks that had been roaming the city walked in and threatened to turn me into a blood squishiee unless I opened the cash register. The one thing I really noticed about the thing was that it was pretty nastily scarred, like it had eaten a grenade for breakfast or something like that. I was just about to open the register when someone walked into the store. That freak looked at the woman, howled something about killing her and smashed its way straight to her. That’s what caused most of the damage to this place.
"The thing had dropped me when it saw the woman, and I was getting the shotgun used for theft control, so I missed the first part of the fight, but I saw blood splatter everywhere very quickly. When I got the gun, I saw the freak tackle the woman through the window. In the street, she punched the thing in the head at least six times, which stunned it, and then she literally jumped over its shoulder, like in one of those Bruce Lee kung-fu movies, broke its back as she landed, and then snapped its neck like a dry twig. She then gave me some cash to help in the repairs, bought a bottle of pills, and left.
"I think I gave you copies of the security camera tapes, and that shows everything I just told you and in better detail to boot." Sara cracked then, and nearly bust her gut laughing as the reporter described in total play-by-play detail the entire fight shown on the silent tape, which was of such low quality that the entire fight was a blurry mess. Turning the TV off, Sara walked into the garage and collected her bike’s bags. After bringing them into the living room, she opened one bag and pulled out a laptop. Turning on the small computer, which looked like a piece of crap but was actually about two years ahead of the current market, she accessed a job search program through the ‘net by hooking up a broadband connection through her phone lines. In less than ten minutes, she had one good prospect: Biology teacher at Meridiana High School.
E-mailing her résumé to the school, Sara leaned back, cracked her knuckles before turning off her computer, and then went to check on her bike. Several greasy, slimy, and oily hours later, Sara walked out of her garage, wiping her hands on a spare rag that seemed to crop up in any area where vehicles seemed to reside for more than 12 hours, and looked back at her bike, which was in several pieces on the floor, most of which were in sore need of a thorough cleaning. Closing the door to the garage, Sara sat down at her computer after getting most of the grease and grit off of her arms, and finally checked her own E-mails. Responding to Meridiana HS’s message with a request to meet the principal on Thursday, she then deleted all the junk mail in the inbox, frustrated at the immense amount of crap messages her inbox seemed to accumulate. By the time she was finished cleaning out her junk messages, Sara noticed that it was almost four in the afternoon, and decided to go out for a walk in the park.
An hour’s walk let Sara familiarize herself with the massive park, and she finally decided to take a break at the open-air café near the huge statue of the angel for a coffee and donut. It was almost six before Sara returned home and took the time to put her bike back together, still working carefully to make sure every part was working perfectly. After she finished cleaning and replacing everything, Sara proceeded to think about what she was going to do next while a shower got rid of her accumulated grit and grime. *Hmm. Dammed oil filter. Poor thing was so heavily clogged with debris I’m surprised my bike didn’t die on me yesterday Maybe I’ll be able to get some higher-quality oils for my bike’s internals, but that last fill was kinda pathetic. Ah well, can’t win with everything.
*Speaking of such, maybe I should get my hunting gear out of the basement where I had it stashed. I put that part of my life behind me after that debacle 6 months ago, I can’t just pick it up again and go out into the world as the Knife again. I saw just how powerful that one greenskin was, and I heard that they usually operate in groups of four or more. And that one remembered me enough to attack without provocation. If the others in this city have high-caliber weapons, then I’m definitely gonna have to bring that part of me back into the spotlight. Dammit! Why can’t all decisions be easy? I would rather be deciding what prank to play on somebody than this.*
"Fucking hell. I guess I should resurrect The Knife. Even though I really don’t want to, I think my self-preservation instinct is still strong enough to let me get out of the way of a rocket launcher. Still, I’m actually feeling glad that I had most of my belongings shipped here a few weeks ago." Sara dried off, headed into her room to change into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then headed down into the living room. Looking around so she was certain that nobody could see what she was up to, Sara walked over to an ornamental recess in the wall near the back door, and using two fingers, pushed it in further by an inch or so. The hidden switch opened up a small doorway in the floor beside the couch, which Sara climbed down into with no effort.
Inside the small room underneath the living room, Sara looked around the room, her eyes sweeping over a sword rack holding a long, slim blade with a bat-wing crossguard which was emitting a feeling of hunger and evil, a steel table with three stacks of playing card-sized objects, and a dull purple-black leotard hanging on the far wall with a twenty-five foot long cape connected to the shoulders of the leotard with spiked pauldrons that looked like they had been once been part of a suit of field plate mail, only charred black. Also, on the table next to the stacks of cards were several newspaper and magazine clippings going back for almost four years. The clipping on top of the stack literally screamed the headline ‘Daughter of the Knife and Needle: Who is She? Exclusive Interview Inside!’.
Sara grinned as she remembered the incident that the ‘interview’ revolved around. The reporters had buzzed around her in a helicopter while she was on a mission to get someone back home in Kinshasa, so she had to wait for the idiots to land before she could do much of anything that wasn’t too destructive. Because she was on a deadline, Sara had just used an EMP to disable the chopper, and quickly said that she’d be back. After getting to her objective and preventing a rather ugly scene, she returned to the chopper in order to talk, and avoid having to pay for a new wiring harness for the virtually-useless vehicle. Several days afterwards, she was leaving the city in her ‘harmless’ persona and snagged a copy of the newspaper on her way out. When she took the time to read it, Sara had the best laugh she had ever had in almost 2 years.
Pulling herself out of memory lane, Sara walked over to the sword and placed her hand on the hilt. She ignored the stiff, feel of tanned human skin, even though her hands always felt greasy after holding the sword for any amount of time. Listening and feeling for anything unusual, Sara felt the usual urge to go out and shred someone with the blade, but shook it off as she pulled her hand away from the hilt of the sheathed weapon. Nodding to herself, she headed over to the card-laden table, she slowly counted through each type of ‘cards’ on the table and then smiled to herself when she was finished. *Perfect. I have 360 each of the EMP and ChemEx cards, so I won’t run out of those for a while. I also have about 30 smokers which should still be useful for getting away from anything nasty.*
Turning away from the cards, Sara then walked over to her personal pride and joy; the leotard and cape. Checking the cape for rips, tears, or holes took the better part of an hour, but Sara felt better afterwards, if only for the knowledge that her stuff was still in very good condition. Turning to the leotard, she also checked it for damage, which took about five minutes, but after finding none, she removed a small microphone from the neckline of the leotard. Gently pressing the mike to the groove between her collarbones, Sara muttered under her breath "Activate armour, peacetime mode."
As soon as she finished speaking, the leotard literally grew arms and legs as the outside produced purplish-black scales over the entire body, leaving only the joints minimally armoured for ease of motion. Sara nodded and relaxed slightly before telling the armour to shut down. While the armour converted itself back to its dormant form, Sara went back to her sword. Ignoring the feelings of murder, mayhem and carnage the blade constantly produced and seemed to feed into her mind, she lifted the sheathed sword from the weapon rack. Even though she had wielded the blade for almost two years, she was still surprised and unnerved by how light the sword was, even though it was almost as long as she was tall.
Removing the long blade from its scabbard, Sara slowly ran a finger along the twin edges, examining the dull black surface for any nicks, scratches or flaws, despite the utter impossibility of it happening. After almost two years of controlling the sword, the chances of her being blessed enough for the sword to shatter into millions of pieces were still a few billion to one. Sighing to herself, Sara focussed on the sword, letting it’s own abilities fixate on her and the fact that she had accidentally nicked her finger on an uneven section of the blade, and let some blood drip onto the sword. As a result, the sword flared up into a coruscating array of energies, utterly consuming the drop of blood that had touched its surface, and for all intents and purposes acted more like a living being than an inanimate object.
Sara paused as the sword calmed down, then re-sheathed the blade and placed it back on the weapon rack, next to a dozen four-inch long throwing knives. Sighing to herself as she climbed the steps up to the living room, Sara glanced at the thin cut in her finger, which had already sealed and only had a pink line to prove that she had been cut in the first place. She closed the floor panel by pressing the same recess as before, then headed over to the front closet in order to grab her coat when she saw that it was almost 11 PM. Taking the time to look around at the well-lit area around her as she walked back to the store where she had killed the greenskin the night before allowed her to become more familiar with her new home, and, smiling she decided to see if the same cashier was working this night.
Putting on her ever-present baseball cap, which she had pulled out of one of her many coat pockets, Sara noticed that the shattered window had already been covered by a large piece of plywood and that the same clerk was still there. As she entered the store, ignoring the faint dinging of the bell connected to the doorframe, Sara felt a faint shiver down her spine, which made her pause. Keeping the door open for a few seconds, she swept the rooftops on the opposite side of the street with her eyes, but failed to see anything that really stood out in her mind. Swearing under her breath at being watched, Sara let the door close and walked over to the clerk.
"So, how’s the redecorating going?" At the sound of her voice, the clerk looked up from the ledger he was studying and replied
"Eh. It’s not that bad. Because of that windfall you gave me yesterday, I’ve already offset the costs for repairs, and because of the publicity of you splattering that freak all over the sidewalk being caught on video, my revenues have jumped by about 50%. I still need to thank you for saving my life though." Sara looked at him like he had grown a second head.
"Are you sure that you didn’t hit your head last night? You already thanked me. Anyhow, I have to go soon, so can I buy something?" Sara left the store after buying a couple of bags of potato chips and some soda pop, which she easily toted one-handed as she walked back to her house. However, as she walked along the slowly darkening street, she kept all her senses tuned for any possible danger, and was rewarded when she heard some low-pitched voices mutter some curses when she crossed the street to keep away from the mouth of a fairly small alleyway where muggers seemed to have made a permanent habitation\tollbooth.
Just before she passed another alley, Sara heard a rattling blast of gunfire, and after pausing to make sure that she wasn’t the intended recipient of any bullets, she sprinted into the alleyway, forgetting completely about her snacks, which she had dropped at the first rattling burst of bullets. As she turned the corner into the alleyway, Sara saw about 10 excessively large greenskins trying to get their hands on somebody huddled in a corner of the alley. Looking for anything to help the poor person, Sara noticed the largest greenskin standing away from the brawl, and then noticed the massive machine gun cradled in the creature’s massive arms.
Running behind the greenskin, Sara stunned the creature by hauling off and planting her left boot into the creature’s crotch, causing the poor being to drop like a sack of bricks and clutch itself, moaning in pain. Sara winced herself as she grabbed the machine gun from where the greenskin had dropped it, wondering why everything she had kicked in the ‘area’ seemed to have nuts of solid granite. Putting the thought aside for a few moments, Sara turned the big gun’s muzzle towards the still-moaning greeenskin and put the poor creature out of its misery by firing a second-long burst through the side of its neck, decapitating the large being.
Everything else in the alley paused when they heard the gun fire, and all of the greenskins turned towards Sara, who was by then pointing the gun at them Sara smiled as she spoke, looking more like a psychopath than a normal person. "Now that I have your attention, LEAVE!!! If you don’t get out of here in the next ten seconds, I’ll make every one of you sound like harmonicas on a windy day." Naturally, as soon as she finished speaking, five of the dumber ones rushed her.
The machine gun had a very satisfying muzzle flare when she squeezed the trigger, sending bullets out in a long spray through metre-long gouts of cone-shaped flames, accompanied by a noise reminiscent of a Judge’s gavel hammering away seven times a second. Sara emptied half of the remaining magazine into the five creatures before they could get within ten steps of her, and watched as the beings all tottered and fell like bowling pins that had been whacked by a grenade. As the bodies vaporized into thin air, Sara looked at the four remaining greenskins and smiled wickedly.
"Anyone else want some? I have enough to splatter all of you." The remaining greenskins let their neurons fire quickly enough to leave, chased by a magazine-emptying blast of bullets at their retreating forms, knocking two over, but not killing any.
"Heh. Suckers. Well, at least the gun’s empty." Sara quickly stripped the action out of the gun, rendering the machine gun useless unless one was planning on using it as a club, before turning to the person who was still huddled in the corner of the alley.
"Oh my... this is not good." The victim was seriously bruised, and the bleeding from her mouth and leg pegged internal injuries as well. Sara glanced at the black bodysuit the woman was wearing and the almost-crushed hat lying close by, and pegged the poor person’s identity almost instantly, filing it away as she took stock of CyberSix’s injuries. "Hmm, hairline fracture of the skull, possible concussion Feels like that egg on her head will last for two or three days as well. Left collarbone is broken in two places, need to set the bone and keep the arm immobilized for minimum of one week. That’s going to be messy. Compound fracture of the left leg, just above the knee. Possibility of gangrene, unless the wound is cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged within two hours, possibly more.
"Lemme see, what else do we have? Ah. I’m guessing at 4 broken ribs on the left side, possibly 2 more cracked, and one may have punctured a lung. Well, you are hereby going to be nicknamed Humpty Dumpty, at least until I can put you back together again." Sara winced in pain as she moved her right arm forwards to check to see how strong CyberSix’s pulse was, but ignored the thick patch of bruises that were already forming along her right side from where the stock of the gun she had swiped had hammered into her side while she had killed the greenskins that had attacked her. Pausing to catch her breath, she carefully hoisted CyberSix into a sitting position, trying to get the wounds as far away from the filth-covered ground as fast as possible.
As Sara finished moving CyberSix, she noticed a flurry of azure sparks that crawled up and down CyberSix’s arm, preceding an eerie green glow from the exposed skin on her left arm. *What the hell was that? Think, she isn’t human, so it might be a warning or something. Wait a minute, her breathing is becoming weaker. Dammit, she’s gonna die if I don’t do something!*
At that moment, CyberSix opened her eyes and managed to gasp out, "Sustenance... in... vials... left behind... by Fixed... Ideas." Sara didn’t so much move as dive to the nearest heap of shredded clothing and grabbed the vial hidden in what remained of the large striped shirt. When she dashed back to CyberSix, Sara saw that the injured Cyber was unconscious, but verging on death. Sara popped the top off the vial, not caring that it was actually a screw-on top and that she had shattered the top of the vial as well, and waved it in front of CyberSix’s nose to revive her.
"Hey, wake up. It seems this is it, so do what you have to in order to keep alive." CyberSix woke up enough to nod weakly, and, grabbing the vial with her good hand, proceeded to drink every drop of it, accidentally cracking the back of her head against the stone wall, right where she already had a sizeable lump.
"OW! Dammit! That actually hurt! Okay, how badly hurt am I? I feel like a steamroller hit me." Sara looked at CyberSix, glancing at each injury and abrasion and responded with a smile
"Well, you look like something a coyote ate and shit off a cliff. You’re about as banged up too. Your left collarbone is broken in two places, and it’s probably some nasty fractures ‘cause it looks like they tried to twist your arm off. At least four of your ribs are broken, and another two are at the very least cracked. It’s possible that a rib has punctured a lung, though you’d be the better judge of that. Just tell me when you’re going to cough up blood, as it’s a bitch to get out of jeans.
"Oh yeah, your left leg has a compound fracture just above the knee, and considering the gunk in this place, that wound might be gangrenous, so it needs cleaning, and soon. Finally, you have a hairline fracture along the right side of your skull, and a lump on the head the size of a hen’s egg. Oh yeah, considering that crack you gave your head, I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a concussion. How many fingers am I holding up?" Sara raised her right hand and flashed through a few quick signs, alternating between different finger positions and amounts up in the air, listening as CyberSix dryly recited the requisite numbers.
"Okay, so you don’t have a concussion. Anyhow, no matter what you say, I’m still dragging you off to my place so you can heal in peace and quiet. Come on, it’s only about 2 blocks down from here, and you probably won’t be able to get home normally, considering your condition." Sara paused when CyberSix weakly asked for the rest of the vials, and seeing nothing better to hold them in, Sara placed the five metal and glass tubes in CyberSix’s hat, which was easily held in Sara’s left hand as Sara carefully hoisted CyberSix into a standing position, keeping herself on the Cyber’s left side to allow them to walk at a slow pace towards Sara’s house, Sara completely forgetting her chips and drinks as she helped CyberSix.
When Sara unlocked and opened her door, she grimaced in pain when the bruises on her side complained readily at the abuse of having to near-drag CyberSix up the three steps to the porch. Sara ignored the complaints of agony from her side as well as from CyberSix, and virtually dragged the poor woman into the living room. After making CyberSix lie down on the couch, Sara looked at the worst damage and did a quick mental tabulation. "Okay, first on the list is to re-set your collarbone and your femur, but when I do that you’ll feel like somebody is trying to put a pneumatic drill through the area. I’ll tape your ribs first just so you can relax a bit more, not to mention I have enough codeine to put a horse under."
CyberSix hated the idea of having to deal with even more pain, but knew that if she didn’t she’d probably be a cripple. As Sara rooted around in some drawers, CyberSix decided to try to speak without gasping in agony. "Thanks for the warning. I’ll take it to heart before you knock me out. Oh yeah, what did you do to those Ideas? I’ve never seen holes in their clothes before, and I’m wondering what you did."
Sara, chuckling at CyberSix’s idea of knocking her out, responded as she dug a roll of duct tape out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink. "I appropriated one of their machine guns and perforated those who were too stupid to understand how to leave. After all, it makes sense to turn their own weapons against them, and if you’re really good you probably know how to twist their own momentum around on them as well.
"Oh, yeah. You’re going to hate me later because the only tape I found for your ribs is a roll of duct tape. I’ll have to tape your ribs directly, which means you can’t keep your bodysuit on anymore. Right now, I’m looking for something to disinfect your abrasions with, and I think a bottle of high-proof alcohol will work. Also, I’m getting some bandages and a blanket to cover you with." Sara walked out of the kitchen with the duct tape, and a bottle of Jack Daniels, then headed into the small back room near the back door of the house, returning in a minute with several gauze bandages on top of a large wool blanket.
Once back in the living room, Sara gently helped CyberSix remove her gloves and boots, wincing as she looked at the darkening patch of leather where CyberSix’s blood was beginning to eat a hole through the sturdy material. In a minute, CyberSix’s bodysuit was open to the waist, revealing the horribly bruised and discoloured patch of skin where most of her ribs had been smashed. Sara had prevented CyberSix from getting her legs free from the suit, as the tight leather acted as a makeshift tourniquet to keep the bleeding from her leg wound down to a minimum. "Ouch. Those ribs will give you problems for a few weeks. Whatever you do, don’t breathe deeply while I’m taping them, otherwise you’ll have permanent damage to your ribs, and I don’t think you want that."
–1:00 AM–
"Whew. Well, your bones are set to where they’re supposed to be, your leg’s been splinted, bandaged, and disinfected, thanks to our friend Jack Daniels here, and your ribs and collarbone should also be in good condition, all things considered." Sara was exhausted, and not only from the physical strain of pulling CyberSix’s bones back into their normal alignment. She hadn’t expected it to be easy, but re-setting CyberSix’s leg had been like prying a pair of welded steel bars apart with only a set of vise grips. Thankfully, CyberSix was unconscious, most likely from the pain, and hopefully she’d remain that way for another hour or so.
"Hmm. I’m not much of a drinker, but I don’t think that anyone will mind if I take a swig of this bug juice to relax." Sara took off her trenchcoat, ignoring the fact that the bottom three inches of her coat were coated in blood and gore, then nearly knocked herself out by taking a swig of whiskey that dropped the remaining amount in the bottle by almost one third. Recapping the bottle and placing it on the glass table that was beside her, Sara stood up slowly, then looked at the mess called her living room. Noticing the bloody bandages she had used to stanch CyberSix’s leg wound, Sara decided to grab everything bloody and toss them into the wash before she had to get the stains out of the floor.
Extra bandages, trenchcoat, and CyberSix’s bodysuit all went into the wash, Allowing Sara to relax for a little while as she looked at CyberSix, sleeping peacefully on the couch. *Well, shit. I’ll never get that bloodstain out of those two cushions for at least a month. Well, at least she’s alive and looking better that when she first came in. I may as well check my messages while I wait for her to wake up, and I think she’d be more comfortable in the guest room than on my couch.* Checking her E-mails produced some laughs, mainly due to BestofHumour.com, and a request from Meridiana HS to push the prospective interview back to Friday. Sara replied affirmatively to the school’s request, and once again had to remove about a ton of junk messages from her inbox.
Turning off her laptop, Sara looked at the reflection in the window of her curled up in one of the two super-plush chairs in the living room, laptop perched on her knees and smiled wanly, noticing how the light reflecting on the scars on her face turned them into a silvery tracery of curved lines. Standing up after putting the laptop on the table in front of her, Sara walked over to the window, examining how the change in light make her eyes seem to sink into her face, leaving only a pair of glimmering points of darkness. She removed her baseball cap, letting more light reflect off of her eyes, and letting their clear depths reveal themselves.
Leaving her hat on the table, Sara walked into the kitchen and poured herself a class of water. Placing the glass beside the sink after she had drained it, she rolled up her shirtsleeves and looked at the long, pale scars running down her arms from shoulder to wrist, barely visible in the dim light. *Next time I go outside, I should get some sunglasses and gloves. Especially as the summer season will be coming around down here in a few months, I’ll definitely need a set of shades* Sara glanced over the countertop that separated the living room from the kitchen, and saw that CyberSix had rolled onto her right side in her sleep, allowing Sara the opportunity to change the bandages on CyberSix’s leg.
Sara quickly and gently changed the bandages, expertly throwing the bloody ones into the kitchen sink, but when she finished, Sara noticed that she had awakened CyberSix, who was watching as she finished replacing the dressing.
"So, feeling better?" After CyberSix nodded, Sara continued. "Y’know, if you hadn’t decided to wake up in the alley when you had, you would be taking a dirt nap instead of getting my couch all bloody. So, now that I’ve made you think about good luck, karma and other forms of good fortune, do you want to say anything?" Sara looked directly into CyberSix’s onyx eyes, noticing for herself that she seemed to have no pupils due to her irises being almost the same shade, and raised her left eyebrow in a subtle query.
Instead of talking though, CyberSix struggled into a sitting position, wincing as she pulled at the tape covering her ribs, and then muttered something about being stupid enough to try and deal with an ambush when she was out for a snack. However, what she said afterwards was along the lines of the dumbest thing Sara had ever heard from anyone. "Well, Miss D’Arnise, I believe that I have overstayed my welcome. I can let myself out, so you don’t have to trouble yourself."
Sara was instantly on her feet, exhaustion forgotten, and yelling loudly enough to cause CyberSix’s ears to ring. "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE? Look at yourself! Your entire left side is utterly disabled! If you try to throw a punch with either arm, you’ll probably re-break your left collarbone, and then you’ll have to go to the hospital. Don’t forget that even I could flatten you by shoving you lightly, and you can barely hobble, much less walk or run. How the hell are you planning on getting home? Use a bus? I doubt it. You had no money in that suit of yours, and the thing is still in the wash. Wipe that look off of your face. I know leather shrinks when wet, but I have some stuff that’ll keep you from having to squeeze yourself into a suit that’s two sizes too small instead of one. Now, accept the fact that you are definitely staying put for at least five days, or until your leg is healed. Do you give up now, or do I have to take one of my hardcover books and dent your skull?"
After the outburst, Sara sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a major headache building behind her eyes, and sat down beside CyberSix. "Look. I’m not going to let any patient, male or female, out of my care until they are almost totally healed. Besides, I think it’d be nice to have someone to talk to rather than stay in here until my job interview in two days. Also, if you’re worried about being a greenskin magnet, don’t forget that you’re talking to the person who took one on singlehandedly and won. Also, I bet I know more fighting styles than you have teeth." Sara saw that CyberSix had surrendered to her logic, or the threat of having a book bounced off her skull for a while, so she smiled slightly and looked at her. "So, do you have any questions? If they’re stupid though, I’ll refer you to the heavier books in my collection." Sara saw CyberSix grin, and felt the mood in the room lighten up to something resembling summer camp.
CyberSix, feeling like she was back in school, raised her good hand and asked "Well, teacher, I’m just wondering, but what’s with the scars? Ritual from where you come from? Something else?"
Sara looked at CyberSix, grinned outright, and responded quietly "I always thought that I’d make a good teacher. Anyhow, to answer your questions, no, the scars are not ritual, at least not in Canada. Actually, it’s a long story, but I’ll give you the short version: While I was in university, on a biological study in Africa, I was infected with an osteo-necrotic virus. As a result of the infection turning most of my bones into cartilage, and me being sick of being stuck in a hospital bed with two layers of chicken wire stapled to my chest, I had the long bones in my limbs as well as my entire ribcage replaced with a non-magnetic alloy, and my bloodstream has more metallic isotopes floating about in it than I do actual blood cells. I won’t tell you why though. Now, any questions, statements, or comments?"
"Only one. EEEEWWWW! That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard, short of finding out that I dated a Fixed Idea." Both women shared a chuckle over that one, but when Sara looked at her watch, she frowned and tapped it.
"Well, shit. It’s almost 2:30 in the morning. I’ll help you upstairs, so you get something more comfortable than my couch. How does silk sound to you? The spare bed has a nice spread." CyberSix shook her head and looked at Sara as if she had just grown a third arm.
"Wait a minute. Sara, how in the name of all that is religiously unholy can you afford silk? I can barely afford cotton, and I thought I was being paid well for my job."
Sara laughed, long and hard. " Whee, that was funny. I know what the average person makes in this city, and if I’m right you don’t even have an ID so you’d be stuck streetwalking and being a ‘lady of the night’ to make enough cash to even rent a place." Seeing CyberSix’s amused glare, Sara broke away from that tangent and continued speaking. "Well, my guess is that if you spent less on bandages and leather patch kits, you’d probably be able to get something made out of silk, be it bedsheets or a dress. But, to answer your question about how I can afford it, I’m sticking with trade secret. Needless to say though, my old job paid me very well."
Frowning, CyberSix tried to question Sara a bit more, but in response, Sara said "Later, like tomorrow morning. We’re both exhausted, you’re still hurt badly enough to warrant me wrapping you like a mummy in gauze bandages, and I probably need some sleep before I start looking like a creature from one of my old video games. C’mon. I’ll help you up to the guest room, and I’ll get a cane so you won’t be so reliant on me tomorrow."
Sara and CyberSix managed to get up the stairs in around ten minutes, involving lots of cursing and a bruised finger or two, and Sara had to go back downstairs for a cane and the vials of sustenance that were still resting in CyberSix’s oversized fedora. Soon enough though, CyberSix was peacefully asleep with the five vials on the nightstand and the cane propped up beside them. Sara stood in the doorway, looking like she had just found someone she could trust to keep her word. *Poor kid. I bet she’s three years younger than me. Well, at least she won’t suffer from loss of mobility from her injuries, but she’ll limp for a while. Right now I’m worried about what that goo will do to her healing rate, but at the same time I think she needs it to survive. I sure as hell hope that the wound caused by the fracture won’t produce any marrow infections. The last thing she needs is her leg amputated because some bone marrow got into the bloodstream and turned gangrenous. Well, I think I’ll at least be able to open up to someone once again. She seems like the person who you want to trust for all the right reasons, and she probably won’t tell, considering that she has her own secrets lurking about.*
Sara sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, letting her ribs gripe as she probed the yellowing bruise. Sighing, she decided to have a shower to relax and clean the stink of blood and gunpowder off of herself, then got the clean clothes and bandages out of the washing machine, pleased to notice that the leather bodysuit and her trenchcoat hadn’t shrunk. Later, at about 3:30 in the morning, Sara sat on the side of her bed, combing her hair and trying to figure out what had happened on the rather eventful day. Sighing as she felt her headache restart, Sara put the comb down on her nightstand, crawled under the covers of her bed, and fell asleep.