–Sara’s House, 9:28 AM–
Sara woke up, slowly, painfully, and with an extremely muzzy feeling rattling around inside her head. Using her left hand to feel her shoulder, Sara gasped in agony, curling up into a ball from the intense pain. Rolling onto her left side, Sara looked at the small clock sitting on the nightstand beside the vial of sustenance. Lying on her side made her feel better, at least for a little while, but the pain in her arm persisted and Sara began to feel ill just thinking about the wound. Staggering to her feet, and barely making it to the bathroom before falling to her knees, Sara leaned over the toilet and was violently sick.
Nearly falling unconscious from the pain still roaring down her shoulder, Sara managed to flush the toilet and somehow get to her feet. "It never fails. Twelve hours after I get shot, and I puke my guts out. It’s happened before, It’ll happen again, and it’s still messy as hell." muttering to herself as she looed at herself in the mirror, Sara managed to clean up to some degree, but still felt like she had been run over by several truck convoys.
Going back into her room, Sara looked at herself, examining the blood-stained tank top and boxers she was wearing, and grimaced as she tugged at the clothing. Moving slowly, Sara stripped off the blood-covered garments, changing into an extremely baggy sweater and a long skirt. Sara grimaced as she felt her leg pull at the stitches that Six had used to keep the wound closed, then sighed and went downstairs. Seeing that Six was in the kitchen, Sara leaned against the doorframe until her guest was finished slicing up an orange. "Boo. Because I’m looking at you, I can safely assume that I’m still alive. How’s your injuries? Healing well?"
Sara gently examined Six’s arm and leg, and when she noticed that Six was smiling at the careful motions Sara made in order to ensure Six’s mobility was unhampered, Sara also smiled, momentarily forgetting about her own injuries, as she gave Six a clean bill of health. Slowly standing up, Sara looked at her friend and grinned again. "Well, I hereby give you a free right of passage. You can go anywhere, do anything, and otherwise get yourself pounded into a bloody pulp within the next twenty-four hours. However, I would appreciate it if I could ask you for a favour."
Sara slowly walked over to the table where she usually ate, sat down, and grimaced in agony as her arm protested vehemently. Six nodded towards Sara’s arm, and seemed to think otherwise of speaking for a few moments. "I’d like it if you could keep an eye on my place here while I get stuck in the hospital. This wound in my arm is bothering me more than I expected, and I think that the artery might have been lacerated and is beginning to leak."
CyberSix grinned and shrugged. "What the hey. After all, It seems that you’ve gotten more vials of sustenance in four days than I got in a week of nightly fights, and with less injuries to boot. I’ll hang around until your arm has at least healed enough to allow you to move it around without bleeding."
Sara nodded, then pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, and examined the slowly darkening bandage covering her shoulder. "I think that we had better go over to the hospital so I can get this checked out, as it seems to be bleeding freely under this bandage. However, first I’d like to check the news."
Six nodded and quietly placed the first aid kit she had bought under the sink. Sara had already moved into the living room, and had turned on the TV by the time Six had straightened up, surprising the Cyber with her agility. Watching the news, Sara wasn’t shocked to see a feature story about the violent acts of last night, of which she had participated. The news anchor actually had left the studio and was standing at the centre of the battle scene, less than five feet from the crater that had been created when all the greenskins in the fight had fired at where she had been.
"Last night, about fifteen blocks north of the city’s guardian, a trail of destruction is visible for almost two hundred metres. The perpetrators of the attacks, which at this time are conjectured to be members of the ‘Giant Green Goon Gangs’, were all killed by one or two people who, from early reports, ambushed the group with superior firepower. One of the people who managed such a feat could be considered armed and dangerous, as several witnesses report that the person was using a pair of handguns during the entire battle.
"From eyewitness reports, we can ascertain how the battle commenced, as the damage is confined to a surprisingly small area for the amount of firepower that had been utilized. Apparently, the first thing the vigilante did was to shoot out the streetlights in a forty-metre arc, which, including the overcast skies last night, cut off most of the light in this area. The second thing several people saw was two flares of light as two members of the green goons died. One apparently was shot in the head with several high-caliber slugs, but the second one apparently died from an uncontrolled weapon malfunction."
Sara interjected by snorting and saying "I shot the little fucker’s own rocket! I would’ve been surprised if he had remained in one piece."
Sara then returned her attention to the news report, laughing to herself at every incorrect guess the anchor made. "After the deaths of the first two, the unknown assailant apparently utilized covering fire to prevent the destruction of a store where several people were sheltering. This act resulted in what one person called one of the most foolhardy stunts he had ever seen. Whatever happened, the results were splattered over part of the road in an arc almost ten feet long, in the form of what looked like drops of blood that had been sprayed out of a hose."
Sara rubbed her arm, choosing to remain silent instead of cutting loose with a pithy comment. "However, from the pattern of shell casings following the arc of blood, whomever had been shot was still firing at least one gun, and the result was another decapitated goon, also according to eyewitness reports. At a later instance, a grenade was fired into the alleyway where the vigilante had sheltered, but apparently the person survived and managed to kill at least one more of the goons, as well as seriously wounding the leader of the group. Police currently have the group’s leader in medical custody, and state that the person’s right leg will require extensive surgery in order to repair the damage dealt by the vigilante who managed to somehow defeat a group of heavily-armed terrors with minimal harm."
Sara snorted derisively, looking for all the world like she would happily break the reporter’s face, then turned off the TV. "So, any surprises about what I did last night?"
Six shook her head, but sat down beside Sara. "Nope, nothing surprising in this example of the city’s daily weirdness, despite your little killing spree. Odd that they didn’t mention your counterpart in the splatterfest."
Sara, justifiably, took affront from that remark, bluntly gesturing at her bandaged arm as a means of explaining herself. "You know how the media over-hypes everything. Just look at the Matrix movies. Actually, it wasn’t as glamourous, nor as bloody as the news is making it out to be. Unless, of course, you count my blood scattered all over the place there."
Six grimaced at the mental image, then shrugged and picked up the phone. Sara’s response was immediate, as she looked at her friend oddly. "I’m calling Lucas to take you to the hospital."
Sara looked like she was going to explode, and Six grinned at the obvious discomfort she was going through. "Well, don’t you know someone else with a car? No offense and all, considering that you love him, but he really has no self-preservation instincts at all. I didn’t tell you, but my first meeting of him in this city was of him about to be killed and eaten by the reticulated python he keeps in the biology classroom. Naturally, to keep the snake from suffering food poisoning, I had to save his life."
Six grinned and nodded, then proceeded to dial the number she wanted. Sara, being as nosy as ever, decided to listen in. "Hello, is Lucas there? Yes? Good, I’d like to speak with him." Sara turned away with a snort, deciding to flip the TV back on and watch some mindless drivel. A few minutes later, Sara heard Six turn off the phone, and she looked over at the Cyber.
"So, what’s the verdict?"
Six smiled and flopped down onto the couch next to Sara. "He’ll be here in twenty minutes. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you."
"Yeah, and with Lucas around, I fear for my safety more than when I’m surrounded by greenskins."
Six folded her arms, trying to keep from laughing, but failed in hiding her smile. "Okay, so he’s unsafe to be around. But you still need to get that wound checked, and I don’t know how to drive a motorcycle or a car. So, by elimination, and because the nearest doctor is about a third of the way across the city, you’re getting into Lucas’ car with him behind the wheel. I’ll be with you, but I’m not going into the hospital."
Sara smiled faintly and stood up, staggering slightly before finding her balance. "Well, before we do anything else, I need some food in my stomach. Oh yeah, why were you slicing up the orange? Making a fruit salad? With me around, the place is already pretty fruity, so I don’t see a need for more of ‘em."
Six laughed at that remark, and nodded. "Yeah, I decided to experiment with something that doesn’t require the use of that monster you call a stove. I think it’s pretty good."
Sara walked into the kitchen, ignoring her leg’s complaint, and sampled some of the concoction, revealing the fact that it was good with some surprise. "Yummy! I’ve had some good fruit salads before, but this one is near the top of the list. You may turn out to be actually good as a chef!"
Six tried to hide it due to her modesty, but was almost ecstatic at the praise heaped upon her. "Hold it Sara. I’m not finished yet, and you need some real food in you before you can have some." Sara scuffed at the floor with her slippers, looking, in every way, like a well-developed teen instead of the almost-thirty she actually was.
"Fine. Back to the cornflakes. Again." Sara heaved a sigh of total aggrieved suffering, causing Six to laugh fit to hyperventilate. Soon, Sara had glommed her way through a bowl of cornflakes, a glass of juice, and was comparatively happier when she managed to mooch a small bowl’s worth of the salad. Just as she finished putting everything in the dishwasher, the doorbell rang.
Sara limped over to the door, opened it, and nearly knocked Lucas’ head off because he was wearing a Halloween mask. "Never. Do. That. Again."
Sara fumed for about a minute, then let Lucas in. "Uh, Sara? Quick question: When the hell are you going to act your real age?"
Sara smiled sweetly and shook her head. "Never. I’m going to be sixteen and holding for the rest of my life."
Lucas just shook his head, chuckling. Six showed up, and after giving Lucas a hug, she turned to Sara and gestured for her to get her boots and coat on. Sara mentally muttered, but did as she was nagged, and within five minutes was waiting by the door. "C’mon you two. Quit making eyes at each other."
Sara managed to get their attention by sliding a piece of paper between them, breaking the eye contact between the two, and convinced Lucas that she needed to go and have her arm checked at the hospital. Lucas looked unsure about being near Sara, and she correctly guessed that he wondered if it was safe to be near her, proving the irony of her comments to Six earlier. After convincing him otherwise, the three people drove over to the hospital. During the drive, Lucas turned halfway around to look at Sara as he drove. "Um Sara, yesterday, after you got shot and was brought upstairs, I heard Six using language more suited to a punk than to her. Any ideas why?"
Sara prodded him to keep his eyes on the road, then answered. "Well, lemme see... I could tell you, or you could ask her because she’s sitting right beside you."
Lucas hemmed and hawed for a few seconds as both women glared at him, then rephrased the question to encompass both. Six answered first. "I’ll tell you something Lucas. When a friend that’s sacrificed something to help you is hurt, and you can’t do anything to help, do you think that you wouldn’t swear? After I went upstairs, I found out that Sara is definitely more frail than she looks, and usually gets through life by sheer willpower."
Sara chimed in faintly, sarcasm positively dripping from the back seat. "Lucas wouldn’t know anything about fragility. Still, what would he know about getting shot, having grenades launched at him, getting torn up by shrapnel, having a lump the size of a hen’s egg from a blast wave that knocked you silly, and otherwise getting torn up, all before supper?"
Lucas, responding to Sara’s tone of voice more than her words, tapped the brakes a few times, smiling when Sara howled in pain as her arm was jostled. That smile ended when Six slowly and deliberately cracked each and every knuckle on her left hand. A few moments later, Lucas pulled into the parking lot of Meridiana General, and Sara managed to get out of the car without moving her too much. Lucas however, when he stuck his head out the window to say something, earned a slap that turned his head ninety degrees to the left.
"What was that for?!?"
Sara smiled and gently blew air across her fingernails. "For tapping the brake after my sarcasm fuelled comments, which were right on the button. If you want, you can stick around, but I doubt anything new or interesting will happen." Sara then walked into the Hospital, looked at the reception desk, and grabbed a numbered tag from the spool. *Huh. They’re currently serving number thirty-four, I got lucky enough for thirty-seven, and hopefully, there wont be and TWAs in this place.*
–Meridiana General Hospital, 12:45 PM–
Sara looked at the two people still waiting patiently ahead of her, grimaced as she noticed that the shoulder wound had managed to seep through her sweater, and stood up. Walking over to the attending nurse’s station, Sara felt some blood beginning to drip from her fingertips, making her realize that the possible laceration to her arm’s major artery had just upgraded itself to a full-blown gouge.
Instead of speaking, Sara leaned over the low ledge between the nurse’s paperwork and herself, and firmly placed her blood-covered hand on the forms the nurse was filling out, ignoring the spasm of pain that ran down her arm. The nurse, understandably angry, opened her mouth to speak, then she noticed the pallor, unsteady motion, and the dark red stain that ran down the outside of Sara’s arm. This was all followed up by a closer glance at the blood, realizing that there seemed to be little swirls of silver inside the slowly spreading puddle, and a repeated thumbing of the trauma button.
Less than a minute later, two burly orderlies entered the room, saw Sara leaning against the desk, completely heedless about the fact that she was standing in a pool of her own blood, and instantly hauled her onto a stretcher. The pain was too much when Sara’s arm was firmly grabbed at the shoulder, and she finally fell into the abyss of unconsciousness.
–Meridiana General Hospital, Recovery Ward, 7:20 PM–
Sara woke up slowly, wanting to avoid the cold reality of the earth as she clung to a fading memory that was close to her heart. Finally giving up and opening her eyes, she found herself in the relative safety of a small room, with a decent-looking IV drip feeding into her left hand. Looking around at the rest of the room, Sara was pleased to notice that it was a single-occupancy room, and she had two guests. CyberSix and Lucas were sitting together next to the window that opened out to a view of the natural harbour that had made Meridiana the vacation and trade hotspot for hundreds of years.
Sara tried to speak, but her voice croaked dryly. She recognised the effects of having a tube shoved down her neck into her lungs, and tried to clear her throat before speaking again. "So, waiting for the vultures to pick over my bones? You’re not going to have much luck for a few years at least. And why are you here? I thought you wouldn’t come into here."
Sara tried to sit up, testing her limits, but was easily held down by Lucas. "Sorry Sara, but you get to stay put for at least two days. Which means, I won’t get kicked into the chemistry classes anytime soon."
Sara’s response was a vicious poke in the ribs, reminding Lucas that she wouldn’t stand being manhandled by him.. "Great. I hope Lori lets that monkey loose on you while you’re gloating. Can one of you get the doctor so I can browbeat him into discharging me early?"
Lucas laughed as he left the room to find the doctor, so he was caught by surprise by the thrown pillow that smacked him in the back of the head. When he looked at the two women, they were pointing at each other with innocent looks on their faces, acting completely like evil twins. Shaking his head, he tossed the pillow back to Six and left the room.
Sara chuckled at his back, collected the pillow, which she put behind her back to help her sit up, and turned to look at Six. "Well, he may be a walking hazard, but he is decent." *In a freak sorta way. I mean, come on! You could’ve done a lot better than that intelligent version of a greenskin.*
Six chewed on her lip for a few seconds, obviously thinking about something, then abruptly grabbed Sara’s good hand and squeezed it with both of hers. "I talked to Doctor Pearce, the person who operated on you, and she said that you were lucky to survive. From what I was told, when you were hit with that bullet, you were also exposed to enough cyanide to kill a human in two seconds flat. On the operating table, you literally had no heartbeat for almost seven minutes."
Sara raised her eyebrows, thinking about that statement, and used her good hand to feel the centre of her chest, where she found the small burn caused by an electrical arc. "Ow. Now I know why my chest hurt."
Six smiled as Sara grimaced at the tender spot, but soon turned serious again. "Sara, come on! You may have the mind-set of a teenager, and you may be able to hide your feelings most of the time, but I think you’re hiding something. Care to tell me?"
Sara smiled and wiggled her hand, letting Six hold on again. "I’ve gone through things you couldn’t imagine, both good and bad. I’ve been betrayed by the people I loved, I’ve seen my family die in front of me, and I’ve wandered the world as a photographer and biologist for three years. Out of all those things, one thing has remained constant."
"What?" Six was positively jumping in place from anticipation, but Sara’s voice had given itself up to a coughing fit. Soon, however, Sara stopped coughing, and looked pointedly at the bloody mess she had managed to cough into her left hand.
"I don’t think you want to hold my hand for a while now. Could you toss me a towel? There should be one behind the door into the mini-washroom." Sara deftly caught the thrown towel, which she used to thoroughly clean her hand of any traces of the bloody mess that had been there. Finally, Sara continued speaking. "The one thing that has remained constant is that I distance myself from people. This is the first time in two years that I’ve actually felt comfortable enough to open up to any degree, and I still feel that I have to keep some things hidden."
Six shook her head and was about to speak when someone knocked on the door. Nodding, Six opened the door and let an extremely tiny person walk in. Sara stared, incredulous, as the young girl expertly walked over to her, checked her pulse in her right hand, and made sure that she was comfortable before pulling the chart hanging off of the end of the bed. Examining the chart, the girl sighed, ticked off three marks, and then smiled. "Well, it seems that my surgical expertise hasn’t gotten too rusty, all things considered. Sorry about that. I’m Doctor Pearce."
Dr. Pearce offered her hand to be shaken, which Sara accepted with a wince of pain from her arm. "Well doc, not to be a bother or anything, but what the hell’s my prognosis? After all, I really don’t want to be stuck here for a month or two."
Dr. Pearce smiled as she sat down in the chair beside the bed, timing Sara’s pulse again just to make sure of something. "Well, considering that I had to repair all the damage done to you, I may as well tell you what I found. The bullet that had hit you didn’t fragment or anything nasty like that, but it had managed to dig deep enough to pretty much shred the outer muscle wall surrounding the artery that feeds into your arm. Less than three hours ago, the weakened arterial wall finally gave way, and you started to bleed to death, though at a much slower rate than normal, considering the extent of the damage dealt to the artery. Anyhow, we had to remove and replace that arterial section with some tubing, and your arm is going to feel cold for a week or two as the blood flow has been reduced to your arm."
Sara grimaced and rubbed her shoulder. "Sounds fun. Looks like I’ll have to be careful until it finishes the restoration. Anyhow, as you were saying?"
Dr. Pearce’s left eyebrow had hidden itself in her hairline, but she continued speaking. "Well, anyhow, that crack you took to your skull gave you a minor concussion, but there seemed to be no ill effects to having your brain rattled around like a pea in a tin can. Finally, during the re-stitching of that gouge in your leg, I noticed something that worried me, other than the knowledge that whomever decided to stitch your leg wound was a rank amateur and barely missed several nerve endings during that butchery. When I restitched the wound, I noticed that the smaller wounds caused by the old stitches sealed themselves completely long before I was finished restitching everything."
Sara grinned and shook her head. "All very informative and filled with close observation, but that still doesn’t answer my original question."
Dr. Pearce grinned and muttered something about not having pulled a fast one on this patient. "Well, if everything goes well, you’ll be discharged in a few days, but I’d love to put you through a battery of tests first. With your permission of course."
Sara nodded her agreement and managed to take a look at the clipboard Pearce was holding. "Hmm. Well, it seems that you’ve managed to take a look at my brain chemistry as well. Lemme guess; almost totally devoid of endorphins, followed up by a dead spot in the common sense department."
Dr. Pearce laughed, followed by Cybersix. "Well, you have one part right, but I’m not telling you what you’ve succeeded at." Dr. Pearce’s watch beeped at her, catching her attention. "Well shoot. I have to go. Look, I’ll show up again after my shift in the operations department is over, so maybe we can shoot the breeze if you’re still conscious."
Sara grinned and nodded. "I’d like that. After all, it pays to be on the good side of the doctor who patched me together."
Pearce nodded, and took her leave of Sara and Six letting the two women look at each other for a few seocnds. Sara finally spoke after chewing on her lower lip for a few seconds, looking thoughtful. "Well Six, I think I might just enjoy being stuck in this place. After all, it’s not often you meet a doctor who knows better than to ramble on in confusing terms. By the way, it seemed to me that you knew her. Is she a survivor of your extended family?"
Sara really wasn’t expecting an answer, so she was surprised when Six leaned in towards her and spoke. "Yes, she is. However, if you tell anyone, it’ll take a lot longer than a few days in the hospital to set you to rights. That’s a promise."
Sara grinned. "I’d enjoy pitting my skill against your strength, but I don’t think we’ll ever have to do anything like that." Sighing, she flopped back onto the bed, ignoring her arm as a nurse came in and increased the drip for the painkillers that were being fed into her system. Letting her thoughts wander, Sara finally dropped off into a drug-induced slumber, letting her body heal from the abuse she had suffered.
–Meridiana General Hospital, 10:30 PM–
"So, how are you feeling?"
Sara’s eyes opened at the question, focussing through the dark room before landing on the small form standing next to her right arm. Sara’s response was a groan that roughly translated to ‘Great. I feel like I was dragged through a knothole the size of my thumb before being fed into a wood chipper. Now, how the hell are you?’
Dr. Pearce smiled, chalking up the following muttered expletives to Sara being tired, sore and cranky. "Well, Miss D’Arnise, before you start swearing, please call me Reba. Anyhow, I managed to put you through an MRI scan while you were asleep, and I got some interesting results. Maybe you can help me out with it, okay?"
Sara grunted an approval, sounding more human each passing moment. Reba grinned and flipped through some pages on an extensive report, turning on the light next to Sara’s head for more light. "Well, the scan showed that you have no bone marrow in your arms, legs, or ribs, and you seem to have a bio-magnetic field that is several times stronger than what is normally found around a human."
Sara smiled, happy that she could at least screw with her doctor’s mind as Reba continued. "Also, when I took a blood sample, I noticed that there seems to be a metallic component to it. Do you have any clue why that exists?"
Sara looked at Reba, frowned slightly, and nodded. "Yes, I can tell you why my blood has a metal component, not to mention why I lack a massive amount of bone marrow. However, this information does not leave this room, so either turn off the tape recorder in your pocket, or scoot." Reba frowned, hiding her surprise at being caught, but pulled the small recorder out of the deep pocket and hit the stop button. Only then did Sara speak again. "Now, about my bones. They aren’t organic. Actually, they’re some sort of space-age non-magnetic alloy that’s five times stronger than titanium at half the weight. The person who developed it called it duraluminum, and it’s a pretty apt name. I saw a five inch thick block of it take seven shots from a tank cannon before being too deformed to be useful as a barrier."
Reba whistled at the description of the metal’s sheer resistance to damage, but let Sara continue when she noticed Sara beginning to glare. "The metallic component to my blood is a lot easier to explain. Look at it under an electron microscope, and you’ll see something that would turn your world on its ear." Sara looked at Reba, who was chewing on a pencil, then smiled. "Nanotechnology, and a lot of it. At last count I have about fifteen billion ‘fixer’ nanomachines floating about in my bloodstream, with another billion or so permanently affixed to my vital organs."
Sara paused, taking a deep breath, and feeling the stitches in her leg flex as she shifter around on the bed. "Naturally, the ‘fixers’ act just as their namesake in reality do. They repair damaged cellular structures, purge my body of toxins like alcohol or cigarette smoke, and otherwise make me a lot harder to kill than most people."
Reba smiled and patted Sara’s hand, mentally thanking herself for being a sneak and hiding a second recorder behind her back. "So, you’re what some people would call a cyborg. After all, you’re a living being integrated with machinery, and you are tougher than a normal person, so I think that would put you in the category."
Sara shook her head. "I don’t think so. Cybernetics, to my mind at least, are a fusion of flesh and metal, and I’m still easily differentiated. Part A is flesh, Part B is metal, so on and so forth. I think that the best, most current example of cybernetics would be someone who has an artificial limb, connected to their nervous system by grafting nerve endings to electrodes."
Reba thought about that, then shrugged. "It’s all person opinion anyhow. By the way, what’s the name of the doctor who did your surgeries? I’d like to talk to him if possible."
Sara smiled sadly, remembering fond memories in the midst of painful ones. "Dr. Charles Sorbie. He’s been retired from active surgeries at the hospital where he works, but he still teaches classes there. He’s also the person who designed and developed the elbow and shoulder joints that were used on me. I only hope he’s doing well. It’s been nine years since we last saw each other, and he is a nice person."
Reba nodded, standing up and getting ready to leave Sara in the room. "Well, thank you for the information. I hope you feel better tomorrow, as I’d like to put you through a few more tests, including a CAT scan."
Sara’s response was faint, but still clear. "Always hated cats. Shed fur everywhere. G’night Reba" And with that, Sara fell asleep. Outside the room, Reba chuckled and grabbed the tape recorder from her back pocket, then stared in disbelief when she realized she had forgotten to turn it on.
"Well, you at least managed to keep our conversation totally off the record. Maybe I can weasel more information out of you tomorrow, while you’re in the testing chambers." With that muttered statement, Reba decided to go home, as she was already running two hours overtime.