While it for this week, what I thought yesterday was correct: there are about two more segments before we’re back to Aurie’s POV and she’s on her way back to her army and the situation in the Northern Federation. As she does seem truly fond of Jimmy, I’m pretty sure she gives him a present before saying goodbye.

Might take a few days off after that. My wife got me a model kit for my birthday and I should put it together. Used to make hundreds as a boy; that was over 40 years ago.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

There was still a small crowd around the trauma room.  Colour stood at the back.  Seeing him, she walked over, telling him to set them down in the waiting area.  They returned to the hallway.  He could not believe his ears.

“Is that…?” he sputtered out.

“She’s working with the doc and nurses to get the bullet out of her shoulder,” Jansen explained.

“Shouldn’t she be under sedation right now…?” he trailed off with the look from her.  “I know.  I’ll ask later.”

“Got it, Miss,” he now heard Doc Crittenden’s voice, immediately followed by a metallic clank.  “Looks like a thirty-eight pistol round.  Seems intact.  Will it bother you if a probe for any fragments, just in case?”

“Not at all,” she cheerful but very quiet.  “My control is very good.”

“I see that,” Jimmy barely heard.  “Looks clear.  I’ll still want to do an x-ray in ten minutes to verify that.  Betty?  Do a partial close then get her over to Imaging.  I’ll meet you there to read it live.”

“Who is she?” “What happened?” “No anesthesia?” “Is she in shock?” was the continual whispering of the nurses and aides between them and the room.  Crittenden pushed through them, pausing right in front of the two non-employees.

“Burns, how are you?” He didn’t offer his hand even after taking his gloves off.  “Can you tell me what’s going on here?”

“It’s complicated, Doc,” he began.  The other waved him off.

“Dictation room is right around the corner,” he said, already walking.  “You’ve five minutes before I need to look at her images.”

There was only space for one chair in the tiny room and Crittenden left it for Colour who fell more than sat.

“Very short version,” Jimmy began, “is I was giving these two women the five-cent tour of the base when we, well, Hardt, spotted a ship just north.  Alvis sounded an alarm and thirty pirates came ashore.”

“And she was shot while you were trying to get out of there?” the doctor asked into his pause.  “Seems odd the entry point is in the front.”

“We… we didn’t run, Doc.  I was told to take cover while, while…” he could not meet the other man’s eyes.  “Miss Hardt injected something into herself.  She then killed all thirty pirates.  Some by hand.”

“Dear God, you are serious,” the older man muttered.  “That explains why she looked like that.  Scared me to death when I walked in that it was all her blood.  Do you know what was in that injection?”

“No clue.  Oh, sorry, this is Mrs. Colour Jansen, from Maine.  She might know.”

“I don’t,” she said quickly.  “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“And your relationship with the patient?”

“She’s her cous – ”

“I’m her friend.  We met about a month ago,” she cut him off.

Another damn lie.

The doctor glanced at his watch.

“Let’s go.”

“Us, too?” Colour asked, standing.

“I’ve still too many questions and want answers now,” he said over his shoulder, expecting them to follow.

The x-ray was clear.  When Crittenden began his interrogation, she stopped him.

“It’s something my dad developed,” she said.  Jimmy saw the flicker of gold in her eyes.  “You have signal here.  He’ll be out of a meeting at the Knoxville Hospital in thirty minutes and you can message him on your tablet.”

“I wouldn’t even know who or where to look up…”

“I already sent a link to you and ‘heads-up’ to him.” This time, her smile seemed genuine.  “When I broached the subject some years back, he adamantly refused to allow it.  After I said I’d do it myself, anyway, he was too concerned about me to let it go.  I love my dad!”

Crittenden ignored that. 

“I’m keeping you here for overnight observation,” he announced.  “And I have more questions after I speak with your father.  Behave yourself, Miss Hardt.”

Down another hall in the one-story facility, she was installed into an otherwise empty room, out of the stretcher, and into a hospital bed.  A liter bag of NS and a small bag of cefepime into her left arm, in case of infection, Aurelia Hartmann seemed to be dozing.  Jansen sat in a chair to the bed’s right, her rifle leaning in the corner within easy reach.  Also dozing.  Every twenty minutes a nurse or aide would come in and record her vitals.

“What are you?” Jimmy asked from the chair under the window.  If he stood he could see the ocean.

Her eyes opened.  Not glowing.

“I’m not a demon.  And I chose to do this to myself.”

“Why?  Why kill thirty men in the brush back there?”

“Love.”

“What!”

“Civilization.  Colour.” Aurelia smiled.  “You.”

“You can’t fall in love in two days, Miss Hardt,” he countered.

“I can.  Will you kiss me, Jimmy?  Or am I too much a demon?”

He stood, walked to the bedside, paused.

“Did they wash the blood out of your mouth?” he asked.

She lifted her right hand to caress his face.

“We’ve so much to talk about but I need to rest before the doc here bothers me again, so, I’ll sum up:  my body is that of a twenty-five-year-old girl.  Didn’t you feel that when you were on and inside me?” Another grin.

“There’s a ‘but,’ coming, I fear.”

“You want to do what in my butt?” She blinked in astonishment.  “Pervy!  The exception is my neurosystem, from my brain to my toes, is modified.  I think faster than you people, perceive things you cannot, and can look into the Void.  What your kind calls the internet.”

“Us people.  Your kind.” Now Jimmy frowned.  “What has the word Colour used?”

“Demi-human.” She closed her eyes and stilled her breathing.  Thinking her asleep, he sat back down.

“You didn’t kiss me.”

“Damn you!” he stood and walked around to her right to avoid the IV lines and did.  And did some more.  Aurie tilted her head a fraction to break their contact.

“What I did at the spaceport?  Be older.  Demis or humans, the Empress raised us well:  if you can’t do good, better do bad well.”