No Place Like Home

The electromagnets’ hum was something she felt more than heard, a deep thrumming quiver in the vanadium microfilament network threaded through her musculature. She supposed if she didn’t feel the tingling pinpricks that she should be worried.

She thought she could still feel the tingling in the soles of her feet, in her toes. Random misfires actually reaching Guenevere from the magnetically-scrambled nanos?

How much longer? she thought, knowing it would be useless to voice the question. The microphones inside Bertha only worked half the time during routine system checks.

3 minutes. Stop worrying. Autonomics will be back online in 5. The Wizard’s response scrolled along the bottom of her optic screens, green lettering against the dark of her eyelids.

Kailey sighed.

Stop fidgeting, you’ll throw off the calibration.

* * * * *

Jordan swept Kailey off Bertha’s ‘tongue,’ settling her in the wheelchair, holding each leg up as he tugged wrinkles from her scrubs. As routine and seemingly endlessly-repeated — and at times maddeningly irritating — as the motions were, Kailey felt comforted by them this time around.

Jordan glanced again at her smile. “What? That thing scramble your brains like it did the rest of you?” he asked, his brown eyes narrowing in suspicion.

She shook her head, dismissing his question with a wave of her hand.

“Well, aside from the usual burn from forced-motion control, your wiring looks to be all right,” the Wizard said, from the doorway of the glass control booth. “Guenevere’s diagnostics checked out, BODY-ROM autonomics are intact. You should start feeling some tingling right about… now,” he continued, glancing from the clipboard over to his watch.

Kailey’s legs twitched, and she sat up straight as the nano machines began transmitting again, waves of pins-and-needles through her lower body. She gripped the arms of the chair, closing her eyes, gritting her teeth.

“I hate this part.”

“Two more minutes,” the Wizard said, his eyes still on his watch.

Kailey gasped, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. The pins and needles seemed to’ve ignited, white-hot. She bit down on the scream, but it still came out a slow whimper.

“Jordan, you might want to stand clear,” the Wizard cautioned.

“It’s okay, Doc, I’m sure—”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by his own sharp cry as Kailey’s right foot jerked up, connecting with the big orderly’s knee. He stumbled back with a curse.

Kailey’s knuckles had gone white, and she curled forward in the wheelchair, shivering, gasping for breath.

“Thirty seconds.” The Wizard watched the second hand sweep by on his watch.

The door to the Motion Control lab opened, and Dr. Singh slipped inside.

“Oh, dear, I had hoped—” he began.

Kailey pushed herself back in the chair, panting, wiping sweat from her brow with a shaking hand.

“Kailey, it could not be helped. A total purge of the nanos… it has never been done before. I did not think it would be this bad,” Dr. Singh said, as he knelt by one side of the chair.

She gave him a weary smile. “Been through worse,” she said, her voice ragged. She craned her neck, looking up at the transceiver. “Can I…?”

“It’s against protocols. No padding on the floor. Lots of sharp corners,” the Wizard said.

Kailey sat for a long moment, her breathing, still labored, but she wasn’t gasping for breath any more. Her breath caught, and she looked back up at the transceiver. Two green lights.

She stood, slowly, her balance wobbling. Her whole body seemed to fall limp, and the two doctors and Jordan all sprang forward at the same instant.

But Kailey swept herself in a half circle, poised, her back straight, facing the wheelchair, heels together, legs flexed, one arm stretched out behind her, the other held out in before her, as if she were reaching for the transceiver. Two green lights blinked furiously.

She slowly lowered her arms, smiled at Dr. Singh.

“It was worth it,” she said.

Jordan caught her as her legs gave out.

Kailey paced the rooftop, circling the XG at the perimeter of its static defense field. The warning tingle of the field was constant against her left side, and provided just enough of a buzz to stir the gel-suit’s nanos into random discharges, which functioned as a makeshift massage for her shoulder.

Deliberately calling the suit to perform such a task would bring down the wrath of Dr. Carter, who already worried too much when Kailey was on assignment. The training missions had been bad enough when it was simple flight maneuvers. Dr. Carter’s unease increased when mention of combat simulation was brought up, and Kailey could just imagine how furious her doctor was at how the day’s training had turned out. It had to rank slightly below the aftermath of Red Thursday.

** Neuro-processor lag at .355 nms. Current motion halted and locked to upright gyro-stabilization. **

Kailey blinked at the network error message. She hadn’t even realized that she’d stopped walking.

Guenevere, unlock motion control, prep for sleep mode in 3 minutes.

** Sleep Mode in 2:59:57….**

Kailey retreated inside the rooftop trauma center, climbing onto the gurney by the door. She closed her eyes, and sank into sleep even before Guenevere induced the delta-wavepattern.

* * * * *

Kailey sat bolt upright with a strangled gasp. She sucked in several deep breaths, hand at her throat. It was a dream. Only a dream.

Guenevere, sitrep.

** REM cycle interrupted due to adrenal spike and respiratory distress. Brainwave force from delta-1 to beta-active state at 23:33.45.55.**

So that was what motion control thought of dreaming of being choked again.

Still clad in the gel-suit, the sweat along the rest of her body had been quickly absorbed, but her forehead was still beaded, and a drop of trickled down around her right eye. She shivered.

In the dream, she’d felt his wrist snap, felt herself kick him, over and over again, just like she had the Master Sergeant in the dojo on what came to be called Red Thursday.

Tears joined the beads of sweat creeping down her cheeks. She clenched her fists. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She tried to slow her breathing, tried to ease into the meditative state she’d used so often as part of her therapy. But she kept hearing the hard ‘snap’ of bones, the choking gurgle as the Master Sergeant bit down on the scream, the snarl of the man at the department store, his struggling causing Sensei to tighten her grip on his arm.

It was Sensei, she told herself. Personal contact safeguards tied to her adrenal levels and the fight or flight response. The Wizard had Seinsei keyed to act if she froze, to use as lethal force as necessary to subdue anything perceived as a threat while Panic mode was engaged.

She didn’t want to hurt the man at the store. Not like she had the Master Sergeant.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Everything all right, Dorothy?”

Kailey leaned back, the wall cool against the back of her sweat-damp hair.

First session will need to be extended when I get back to the Institute, she thought back to the Wizard, through the cellular link.

“Auntie Em is already coordinating with Psych-eval on that. The neural team want you in Bertha first thing. Full dialysis, total nano replenishment. Then a full scan. Motion control therapy is last priority.”

I’m going to tingle for days.

“I can ask them to pause the magnets along certain spots if you like.”

Now you’re starting to sound like Jordan, she thought.

“Whatever it takes for a smile, Dorothy.”

Tails and Tales

“Well, we dodged that bullet,” Danz said, reaching out to take the duffel bag.

Kailey glanced up at him with a dark look. “Dodge, hell. I can’t believe you shot me.”

“Still with the ‘you shot me!’?”

“Well, it hurts!”

“It should have taken your whole arm off! You’ll have some bruises and be good as new in a few days. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my hand. It feels like I hit a brick house.” He flexed his fingers, wincing. The knuckles were purpling over and looked swollen.

“Serves you right, for insinuating that I’m fat,” she muttered.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“I’ve got it immobilized. The suit is cooling the tissue to keep the swelling down. There are some pain killers in the pill caddy if it gets too bad.”

Danz stopped, resting the bag on a bench and rummaging until he dug out the container.

She sat heavily next to the bag, grimacing slightly.

“Which number?”

“I don’t—”

“I’ve seen your definition of ‘too bad.’ That’s ‘beyond hope’ for the rest of us. Which bin?”

“Fourteen. Naproxen, 550 mg.”

“Is that the best you’ve got in here?”

“Do you really want me loopy on codeine?”

“Might be good for you to loosen up a bit,” the lieutenant muttered, shaking out two big light blue pills. He handed them to her, and popped one himself.

Kailey managed to choke them down dry.

“C’mon,” Danz said, hoisting the bag again. He held out a hand to Kailey, and she glared at it, then got slowly to her feet on her own.

After they’d walked a bit, she asked where they were supposed to be going.

“Back to the parking garage. I think it’s time we called it a day.”

Kailey grabbed his arm, and turned him around.

“Hey,” he said, “if you don’t like the idea—”

“It’s 900 steps back this way.”

* * * * *

“When were you going to mention the two men that have been following us since we left ground zero?”

Danz kept staring straight ahead, as they went up the escalator.

“Well?”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he said.

“Says the man who hit me at close range with a plasma round.”

“The suit stopped it!”

“I’ll run into you with the SUV so you can feel what it’s like.”

The rode to the top of the escalator in silence, and Kailey glanced back over her shoulder. The two men were at the bottom, stepping on.

“So what do we do?” Kailey asked the lieutenant.

“Nothing. They’re not professionals. Very sloppy.”

“They’re not in the MIRROR database,” Kailey said. She’d had Guenevere query the global law enforcement records to try to face-match the two men.

“Think they’re—”

“No. They came up within normal parameters on thermals. They’re not hosting.”

Danz picked up the pace, and Kailey had to hop every few steps to keep up.

“Why are you hurrying? They’re probably harmless.”

“I want to get us within running distance of some Agents,” the lieutenant said.

Guenevere, ping all Agents within 500 meters.

A chime in her ear went off, and within seconds, a schematic of the shopping mall sprang up in her short term memory, speckled with glowing red dots.

“Holy cow. How many did they send?”

“All of them,” Danz said. “Asset in danger and shots fired will get that sort of response from the brass,” he said with a shrug.

“‘Asset,’” Kailey repeated, somewhat dully.

“Kailey, it’s just a word. A shorthand. It doesn’t mean—”

“I know just what it means,” Kailey said. She walked in silence the rest of the way to the SUV.

* * * * *

The two men came up to them as they were buckling up. Danz rolled down the window.

“What?” he asked.

The man on the right, medium height, dark haired, dark eyed, smiled. His teeth were very white. “I wonder if I might ask you some questions about—”

“Are you local? Or federal?”

The man blinked. “Oh,” he said, the smile still in place. “Neither, I’m—”

“We don’t need to talk to you, then,” Danz said, and started the SUV.

“We saw what you did back there. We have pictures. Video. It’s going up on the network in just a couple hours, with or without quotes from you two.”

“We have no comment.”

“Were you also involved in the fireworks outside of town this morning? We have some footage of that fancy plane you were flying. You look an awful lot like the pilot type.”

“I said we have no comment.”

“Look, I’m just trying to get to the truth here. The people—”

“The truth is,” Kailey said, leaning forward, “I’m a cybernetically enhanced test subject flying the most advanced AI fightercraft in the North American arsenal, which will be used to defend mankind against the growing threat of alien incursion.”

“Look, I write for a respectable newssheet. If you don’t have anything to say, just say so and stop wasting my time!”

Kailey smiled at the man as Danz rolled up the window and backed out. He intentionally swung the front bumper as close as he could get to the two men.

“And what would you have done if he’d believed you?” Danz asked.

Kailey smiled. “Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.”

“How long you think that story will last online?”

“An hour, two tops. If they even write it. Two Agents were closing in on them when you started backing out.”

“They don’t call it the ‘Silent War’ for nothing,” he said, and pulled into traffic.

Blanks

The muzzle flashed, and there was a hard, high-pitched ‘crack’ accompanied by a thrumming buzz from the oddly-shaped handgun. Many in the crowd screamed, and they pressed back and away from the lieutenant.

The shot took Kailey in the shoulder, hitting with a hissing, fizzing shower of blue-white sparks, and spinning the girl halfway around.

She let the man go as she staggered a half-step back. Murmurs ran through the crowd, along with several disbelieving gasps.

“Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned,” the man with the gun said, almost to himself. Then he glanced at the cowering security man on the floor. “Now that I’ve got her attention, that’s your cue to get out of the way.”

Kailey’s red eyes stayed fixed on the gunman as she grabbed her left arm with her right hand, and gave a sharp tug, pulling her shoulder back into place.

The lieutenant took a step to the side, keeping the girl’s attention focused on him as the security man scrambled towards his compatriots at the edge of the crowd. The lieutenant’s eyes flicked once to the side, making sure the other man was clear.

Kailey took that opening, spinning, the bag dropping from her shoulder. She swung it hard, bringing it up and around, into the lieutenant’s arms.

His sidearm skittered away across the floor, as he staggered sideways, off balance from the blow.

Kailey let the bag go, turning again, her arms up, using the power of the spin to bring one elbow and then a stiff-fingered chop down on the man’s arms and shoulder.

He staggered again, but turned the hits aside, rolling with them, and brought his fist up, hard, slamming it into the girl’s stomach.

It was like hitting a brick wall.

It wasn’t like the girl’s abs were rock hard — although they were lean and solid and muscled from her years as a dancer and the subsequent years’ conditioning.

The gel-suit reacted to the impact as it had for the bullet, microbeads of glass aligning themselves as impulses from the embedded nanos reacted to the strike, momentarily turning the supple skin of the gel-suit into armor stronger than kevlar, then radiating the force of the blow away like ripples in a pond, carrying most of the energy away across the entire surface of the suit.

The girl gasped. An impact was still and impact, and the suit was somewhat less effective against blunt hits than pinpoint impacts from bullets or shrapnel.

It still hurt like hell.

The fraction of a second as she reeled from the hit was enough to let him move closer, inside her guard, wrapping his arms around her upper and lower back.

Then he pressed his lips to hers.

Her whole body jerked, the tension running out of her muscles, her arms dropping from where they’d been poised to strike, as though the puppet’s strings had been cut.

Her body gave another shudder, and her feet planted themselves again. With a twist and heave, she somehow managed to send the lieutenant sprawling across the floor, while she wiped at her mouth with the back of her sleeve, spitting.

The optic screens had gone clear, and Kailey regarded the man with a mix of disgust and gratitude.

Danz already had his cellphone to his ear.

“Yeah, it worked,” he said, and snapped the phone shut, looking up at the panting girl. “Well, aren’t you going to help me up?”

“You shot me,” she gasped.

“Well, I had to get your attention somehow, figured that would be the best way.”

“And… ugh, worse than that, you kissed me!” She spat again.

“And that stopped you colder than the bullet did. What does that say about me?” he said with a grin.

“That you’re a pig! Ugh!”

She turned on her heel to stalk away, but two men in police blues were cutting through the crowd, hands on the butts of their pistols.

“What’s going on here?” the older looking of the two asked.

“That girl attacked me!” the security man spat, from where he was sitting against one of the makeup counters.

“Oh, Christ,” the officer said. “You again?” Then he looked over at Kailey. “Miss, is this true?”

“Well, he grabbed me first and—”

Danz made to make a ‘shushing’ motion, but the security man beat him to it.

“She attacked me, threw me on the ground, eyes as red as blood!”

The officer stooped, glancing at Kailey’s eyes.

“They look brown to me,” he said, giving the man a sidelong glance. “Miss, I have to ask. Are you currently using drugs?”

“You don’t have enough pages in that little notebook to list all the drugs I’ve got prescriptions for,” Kailey said, holding her arm, and trying to make the move look casual.

“I mean … recreational use,” the officer said, clearing his throat.

Kailey’s eyes widened. “Why, no officer. Those kinds of drugs are bad. They could impair your judgement. Or perception. Make you do or say or see strange things.”

“Like… little girls with glowing red eyes,” Danz said, looking over his shoulder from where he was talking things over with the other officer.

The older officer narrowed his eyes. “What do you weigh? 105? 110?”

Kailey shifted her feet. Guenevere, deduct metallic enhancements from current body mass. Recalculate.

** 50.80235 kg **

She leaned forward and whispered her weight into the cop’s ear.

He glanced over at the security man, who leaned exaggeratedly on his ‘good’ arm.

“You let a girl half your weight put you on the ground?”

“She used some jujitsu crap!”

“Aikido,” Kailey said, then snapped her mouth shut.

The officer made a few more notes in his little notebook.

“And she didn’t even flinch when that guy shot her. Point blank, right in the arm!”

“Blank is right,” the lieutenant said. “Do you see any blood? Casings? Large, gaping exit wounds from the girl’s back? It was loaded with blanks, you nimrod,” he said, glaring at the security man.

“Miss, are you going to press charges against this gentleman?”

Kailey blinked.

“Um, charges? Me? I thought he—”

“If he grabbed you first — which I’m sure the store’s video surveillance will show — then you were merely defending yourself. Would you like to press charges?”

Kailey shook her head. “No, I don’t want any trouble. I was just trying to find the juniors section and he—”

The officer nodded. “And would you like to press charges against this gentleman?” He pointed his pen at the lieutenant.

Kailey bit back a snicker. “No, I uh… work… with that gentleman. No charges for him. Today.”

He snapped the notebook closed. “I think we’re through here,” he said, motioning his partner.

“Hey, what about me?” the security man yelled, rising to his feet, pushing himself up with his ‘bad’ arm.

“You want me to write a report that a teenage girl, weighing half what you weigh, mopped the floor with you—”

“Don’t forget the glowing red eyes!” the partner supplied. “And bullets not even phasing her!”

“But that’s—” the man began, then stopped.

“I get one more complaint about you ‘apprehending’ a ‘suspect,’ and I’ll be dragging you in. Do you understand me?”

The security man paled, fists shaking.

“And you, miss?” he said, turning to Kailey. He lowered his voice. “If he ever does that to you again, when you take him down, give him a kick for me.”

Kailey picked up the duffel bag. “No, I don’t think I’ll be shopping here. Ever.”

Shopping Trip

Kailey didn’t realize that she was being followed until she’d rounded the third makeup counter at the upscale department store. She went to another counter, caught sight of him in one of the mirrors.

He wore tan slacks, and a dark blue sport coat, with the store’s logo over the breast pocket. As Kailey made her way to the escalator, he increased his pace behind her.

“Miss,” he said, voice brusque.

She turned, and he kept walking until he’d interposed himself between her and the escalator.

“Miss, I’m going to have to take a look in that bag,” he said, nodding to the duffel she wore over her shoulder.

Kailey took a half step back as he uncrossed his arms.

“It hasn’t been opened since before I got here,” she said.

He frowned. “Miss, the bag. Could you open it, please?”

She could open it. And show him the drab grey Joint Projects flight suit. The carbon-filament gel-suit gloves, and matching ovaloid collar rig that, paired with the helmet aboard the XG, made the gel-suit spaceworthy. None of which civilians were supposed to see.

She took another half-step back, placing her foot to pivot and turn. “I’ll just leave,” she said, and turned to go.

The man grabbed for the bag, but she turned too quickly, and his hand closed around Kailey’s upper arm.

She was intensely aware of her heartbeat, it thudded too loudly in her ears.

Thump!

Her whole body shivered, ice lancing through her nerves, white-hot static racing nanoseconds behind it. Her optic screens flared red. She suddenly had the eerie sensation of being thrust away from herself, as Sensei overrode her motion control centers, impulses firing entirely through the synthetic nervous system.

Thump!

Her free hand crossed, closing over the man’s hand upon her arm. She let the momentum of his grab spin her around, and she kept going, her turn fluid, dance-like as she sidestepped around him, holding his fingers fast against her arm, bending them back as she flowed around him. His hold dissolved in a gasp of shock and pain.

Thump!

Kailey planted a foot behind his, driving her knee into the back of his, sending him awkwardly to the floor. She followed him down, her knee moving to his lower back. She kept her hand on his fingers, keeping his arm straight out behind him as he fell, the other hand moving to his shoulderblade, keeping that shoulder to the floor.

Thump!

Behind the surging rush of her heartbeat and the hissing static in her ears, she heard shouts, several cries of alarm. She couldn’t look around. Sensei kept her eyes locked on the man on the floor before her.

He tried to rise, and Sensei twitched Kailey’s hands, the man gasping as his body jerked with the pain of her hold.

“Stay still,” Kailey hissed, fighting her way through to her speech center.

Motion in her peripheral vision prompted a quick glance around and behind her. More men in dark coats were coming, two down the escalator, another from each side around the corners.

“The trouble you’re in just got a lot deeper, kid,” the man snarled beneath her. Again, he tried to rise, to push her off him, and again, Kailey’s hands moved, this time a bit further as they bent the man’s hand in ways it wasn’t quite meant to go.

“Tell them to back off,” Kailey said. “I can’t let you go while I’m being threatened. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Hell of a way to show it,” the security man gasped. “Just let go, kid.”

She wanted to. She wanted to close her eyes, take some deep breaths. Relax.

But Sensei kept her eyes open, watching the men advancing from the corners of her vision.

Static surged in her ears.

“-ley, we’re registering a Panic mode activation. What is going on?”

Wizard, help me! I don’t want to hurt him, but there are more coming. He won’t stop struggling, and—

“Kailey, you’ve got to calm down. Tin Man is on his way.”

Great but that won’t help this guy. Or the four others that are closing in. It’s going to turn into another Red Thursday if I don’t—

“Stop thinking, Kailey. You’re only feeding the adrenaline spike. I’ve closed your link to the motion control mainframes, but Sensei has already buffered up quite a bit of material.”

Wizard, this is going to be bad, I know it! I don’t want to hurt—

The communication link closed with a squeal of static in her head, and Kailey felt her right leg lift and snap sharply behind her.

The man beneath her grunted, as she shifted all her weight to the knee in his back, and her right heel connected solidly with the knee of the security man who thought he was sneaking up behind her. She felt him stagger back with a choked off curse.

There was a commotion towards the front of the store, someone shouting. Kailey’s eyes darted that direction and she saw a tallish man with short blonde hair pushing his way through the crowd.

The man beneath her thought to try to take advantage of the distraction, and he cried out anew as Kailey flexed his wrist back even further.

“Bitch!” he spat.

“Nobody but me calls her that,” came a voice from the crowd, and Kailey again looked up to see the tall man drawing bead on her with a sleek, oddly rounded handgun of some sort.

“I hope this doesn’t hurt too much, Hot Cakes,” he said with a wink, and then pulled the trigger.

Lunch Hour

“So, I see you managed to paint that thing on,” Danz said, gesturing towards her collar. “You should have let me know if you needed help with it, ‘cause—”

The girl glowered, then stalked past him, hitching the duffel bag higher on her shoulder. She slapped at the “down” button along the bank of elevators.

“So now where?” she asked, after a stretch of silence.

The lieutenant shrugged. “Well, we’re pretty much on shore leave until Command shows up.”

“We’re in Arizona. There is no shore.”

“R&R, then. You do know how to do that, don’t you? They give you time to just… do your own thing at the Institute?”

Kailey chewed at her bottom lip. When was the last time she’d had time to herself? Besides sleeping, she couldn’t remember very much time of her own. Breakfast, she supposed, though most days Jordan took her to the Institute’s cafeteria, and she mingled with patients from the hospital and recovery wards. There weren’t any patients her age, though, and between not being able to relate to their experiences and the various government gag orders, it didn’t leave her with much to talk about.

The one thing she wanted to do, they never seemed to have time for: motion control libraries needed indexing; they needed another round of trials in the dojo to gather more data; her systems showed abnormal stressor signals, and she needed the day to cool down….

She sighed.

Danz’s hand on her shoulder snapped her out of her reverie.

“First order of business,” he said, guiding her into the elevator, “is to grab something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Kailey’s stomach let out a low grumble, as if on cue.

* * * * *

They cruised part of the way across town, in a hunt for restaurants that met at least some of Kailey’s dietary needs. Two restaurant strips and several shopping districts later, Danz pulled the black SUV into a mall parking lot, shaking his head as he killed the ignition.

“Why didn’t you think to use the satellite link to the GPS before?”

Kailey shrugged. “I just now thought of it. So sue me. Let’s go. Guenevere is griping that I’m past my lunch time.” She held up a hand. It shook noticeably.

Danz frowned at it. “You… shouldn’t do that, should you?”

“I’m always a little bit shaky after dialysis. But,” she sighed, leaning back in the seat, “it hasn’t been this bad since they first activated the nano network. I’m really having to think to get things moving.” She popped open the door, sliding out, and her legs buckled as they hit the pavement.

Guenevere, diagnostics, she thought as she pushed her way upright.

** Increased lactic acids impeding fine control threads. Potassium deficiency degrading neuronano interface. Effective clock speeds reduced 45 percent due to excess Nanoattenuation calls. **

Report findings to Guild.

** Action already completed. **

ETA on reroute compensation?

** Ticket is known and in development. No ETA at this time **

Kailey sighed. Activate suit embedded compensation network.

** Biologicals prohibit gel-suit self-activation. Override required. **

She gritted her teeth.

“Hey, you don’t look so good, Hot Cakes.”

“I’m lagging big time,” Kailey said. “I need your override.”

Danz stood up straighter, staring down at her, frowning.

“I know, it’s classified. I’ll turn off direct audio and you can whisper it in my ear, straight to Guenevere. Just say ‘full encrypt’ and give your override, and then say ‘done’ when you’re finished.”

The lieutenant blinked. “That has to be the darnedest thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said, shaking his head.

“The Wizard does it a lot during tuning sessions. Bypasses my brain completely, and goes right to the chips. Just.. Tap my shoulder when you’re done so I can turn my ears back on.”

“So that’s how you survive the briefing sessions,” Danz said with a grin.

Kailey smiled back, thought a few commands, and the world around her went silent.

She saw Danz’ lips moving, felt his breath against her ear when he moved out of her line of sight. She suppressed a shiver as her hair tickled her neck. She felt his words, in her ear, pressing against her eardrum, but there was no sound, not even the quiet murmur of her blood circulating.

A tingling shock washed over her, and her heartbeat jumped for a couple beats.

Danz’s hand touched her shoulder.

“— Saw you give a little jump there. I guess the suit is up and running.” His voice sounded somehow louder after the silence, the echoes of it in the parking garage standing out.

Kailey held up her hand. It gave the slightest of tremors. She pushed herself away from the side of the SUV, and her steps weren’t as sluggish.

“A lot better. Not perfect, but it’ll do. Thank you,” she said.

Danz shrugged. “The faster you walk, the faster I get to eat.”

They made their way across the elevated breezeway, into the mall.

Kailey got a steak fajita salad, and then ordered a protein shake from another establishment. A couple weight-lifter types in line behind her stared open-mouthed as she left with her order. She ignored them, making her way over to the table where Danz sat. It was on the far side of the court, facing the stairs and escalators.

“No, this doesn’t look the least bit suspicious, sitting over here away from all the other people,” Kailey said.

“Clear lines of sight to exit routes. Clear lines of fire in case of trouble. Or do you want me and the bad guys trading fire in the middle of all these people?”

Kailey stabbed at the salad. “What happened to R&R? Aren’t we off the clock?”

“Eternal vigilance,” Danz said. He peeled at the grease-soaked paper-wrapped bundle before him. Once he’d crinkled aside some of the wrapping, Kailey saw several oozing layers of meat and cheeses. And bacon.

Guenevere cross-referenced the Burger Barn to Kailey’s caloric and nutritional scheme. Everything on that menu lit up bright red. Even so, Kailey felt her mouth water.

The lieutenant looked down at the burger, then at her salad.

“Burger Barn,” he said, nodding in the general direction.

“I know,” Kailey said. “Diet,” she said at his lingering look at her salad. “Gotta watch the girlish figure.”

Danz snorted a laugh as he bit into the burger. The top of the bun shone with grease or butter in the fluorescent lighting.

“Should’ve got one. Surely one won’t kill you?”

“That thing has nearly two days’ worth of fats and would be 90 percent of my calories for the day. Not enough protein in that equation.” She sounded almost wistful.

The man blinked. “Don’t tell me you actually read all those nutrition facts.”

Kailey nodded, sucking down more of the shake.

“That’s not vanilla, is it?”

She shook her head, cheeks puckered. She swallowed, and opened her mouth to explain, but Danz put a hand up.

“No, it’s probably something all vitamin-and-supplement-laced that I want nothing to do with.”

They finished lunch in relative silence, and then Kailey dug into the duffel that she’d taken with her when they left the hospital.

In addition a spare flight suit, and the gloves and helmet mounting-rig for the gel-suit, it held a large, snap-topped pill organizer. She fished it from the bag, popping open various cubbies, and extracting one or two pills of various sizes. She didn’t stop until she had enough to cover the surface of her cupped hand.

She began taking them in twos and threes, sucking them down with her shake.

“Couldn’t you just take a multivatamin?” Danz asked.

Kailey gave him a long, level look, then popped the last two pills.

The lieutenant stood up, taking her tray. “Well, since we don’t have anything better to do, we might as well take in the sights.”

He stashed the trays on top of one of the spots atop the trash bins, then fished his wallet from his back pocket. He slipped a black card from one of the slots, and held it out to Kailey.

“R&R,” he said. “Don’t worry about the limit, the government’s picking up the tab on it. Just don’t buy out any of the stores.”

Kailey stared, openmouthed.

“Go on,” he said. “It won’t bite.”

Kailey took it, digging out her ID wallet out of the duffel. She slipped the card in behind her UNJPTF ID card.

“Why are you…”

Danz shrugged. “You’re a girl. If you’re even still remotely like the rest of your kind, I know how much they like to shop. And I get the feeling they don’t let you do much of that at the Institute. You’ve got my cell number if you need anything. Now go have some fun. That’s an order.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

Danz started walking away. “Definitely not. Then I’d have to carry the bags.”

Wardrobe

“Kailey! Kailey! You’re all right! Kailey, you were dreaming, now wake up!”

The Black shattered, flying to pieces as a hand cracked hard against her cheek.

She blinked, staring at her right arm, a needle embedded in it, a tube trailing down and away.

Her left hand went up to her cheek. It was hot, slightly tender.

“You hit me!” She still hadn’t processed just who’d done it, but whoever it was…

“You were bringing half the hospital down on us!” a fuzzy, buzzy voice was saying.

“I can’t—” Her voice was all fuzzy-buzzy, too. “It sounds like I’m chewing on bees.”

“Did you hear that, Wizard? Bees? What the heck is in that IV besides nanos, and where can I get some?”

** Remotehost override /tuneaud/pitch-4— var-3-44-/ **

The bumble-buzzing stopped abruptly.

“How’s that, Kailey?” came the Wizard’s voice in her head. “Pardon the temporary relaxation of Assignment naming protocols, but your brainwaves are all over the place, and I don’t want to confuse you any more.”

Kailey blinked. Had she imagined those words, glowing in her vision?

“It’s fine, thanks.”

“You don’t have to talk out loud. Just thinking the words will cross them through your speech centers, and—”

Okay, okay, I’m starting to wake up now, Wizard, she thought. God, I hate when Sleep mode gives me nightmares.

“That’s not something we can tune on this end, Kailey, those are all your demons.”

She sighed.

How long was I out?

“Coming up on three hours. You’re almost done with the nano drip. About ten percent left. Can you run calibration tests on your own?”

Yeah. The dreams were bad this time. Starting to fade, though.

“Take your time. There’s no rush.”

I’ve been sitting still too long.

“Diagnostics first, then running around.”

* * * * *

“You’re not even old enough to drink, what are you doing with the whole field sobriety test?” Lieutenant Danz asked.

Kailey was walking heel-toe, her balance improving with each step.

“Not that I’d know anything about field sobriety tests,” Danz muttered.

“Every batch of nanos has to learn its place, and attune itself to the network. That would be me,” she said, as she bent down and touched her toes.

Danz looked up, at the wall, anywhere to avoid making a comment that would get him slapped.

A small fist hit his arm, and he scooted along the counter a bit with the impact.

“Hey! I didn’t even say anything! What was that for?” he said. He rubbed his arm. “You’ve got a hell of a right.”

“You should see what I can do with my left,” she said, blowing on her other fist and dropping into a perfect boxer’s stance.

“Uh uh. No way. I don’t hit girls.”

“You smacked me in the mouth!”

“That was different. You were yelling, thrashing around. Scared the poor nurse half to death.”

“I told you, it was the dream.”

“I know, nothing personal. Look, I smack you, you smacked me, so now we’re even, right?”

Kailey stood, feet together, arms straight out at shoulder level. She touched one shoulder, then the other.

“You do the hokey pokey, and you turn it all—”

“Don’t make me use the left, Danz,” Kailey said as she glowered at him.

“Well, when you get done with all that,” he leaned down, picked up something he’d been standing in front of. He set the shopping bag on the counter.

“I was supposed to give you these earlier, but there was that whole nasties-in-the-blood thing and you going ten shades of white. Anyway, something a bit less conspicuous than the Grays and combat boots.”

Kailey went over to the bag, stood on tiptoe to peek into it. She saw cotton, and denim. A box with a familiar sports shoe logo on it. Not a ruffle or frill in sight.

“Oh,” Danz said, picking up a duffel that was lying by the door. “This, too. Wizard says you’d best wear this as backup. Said some of the nanos in the soup might have been fried by the flash.”

Kailey frowned.

Guenevere, flashmail to Wizard. Start: Wiz, the suit? I hate the suit. End. Send.

A minute later, there was a chime in her ear, and a message began rolling across the bottom of her optic screens:

**Incoming text: Forgot to mention that. Wear it. For your own good, and in case you need to go up again. Permission granted to hit Tin Man if he ogles. **

She picked up the bags, and the nurse, who’d been watching the diagnostics tests and banter with some amusement, showed Kailey to the nurse’s lounge, where she could change in comfort.

* * * * *

With the gel-suit, “comfort” was a relative thing. It looked like a wetsuit, and fit even tighter. Kailey had to have one of the nurses who’d walked in help her roll the suit on. She held her hair up and away and sucked in as deep a breath as she could as the nurse tugged at the zipper up the back.

“Goodness,” the nurse said. “It certainly doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does it?”

Kailey grimaced. “Unfortunately, for this thing to work, it has to stay against my skin. All of it.”

The nurse nodded. “It almost reminds me of the burn suits I’ve seen in the medical journals. That lining looked a lot like it.”

Kailey nodded. “It’s similar. Microchannels for coolant circulation, using excess moisture. Never let them see you sweat,” she added with a smile.

The nurse ran her fingers over the arm.

“I’ve never felt a fabric like this. And it’s… it feels almost… squishy.”

“Carbonfilament weave,” Kailey explained. “Think… Kevlar on steroids.”

The nurse’s eyes went wide.

“Between that and the squishy layer of inertial gel, I’m just about bulletproof.”

The nurse looked in the duffel bag. “I see gloves and what looks like a hood. No cape?”

Kailey laughed. “It’s still at the cleaners.”

“Well,” the nurse said, laying her hand on the girl’s arm again. “My shift is about to start. Did you need help with anything else, Supergirl?”

Kailey laughed again. “No, thank you. I think I can manage the rest.”

* * * * *

She emerged from the lounge in a pair of relaxed-fit jeans, mid-top cross-trainers, and a nondescript tee under a gray-and-red-on-white flannel button-down. The gel-suit’s collar stuck up from the neckline, but the flannel shirt covered the sleeves.

Danz was at the nurse’s station, and he looked up with a grin as Kailey approached him, holding out the shopping bag. The boots clunked against the counter as he took the bag. He looked down, saw her rolled-up flight suit. His grin fell as he poked a bit deeper in the bag.

“Aw, you mean you’re not wearing them?” he asked.

Danz stood a good foot and and some change taller than Kailey. Two of her didn’t even weigh as much as he did. But she managed to grab his hand, twisting it and a few fingers in such a way that had the rest of him twisting in all sorts of different ways, down on one knee, his back hunched, bringing his face even with Kailey’s.

“I’ve got something to wear under my flight suit, so I don’t need any spares, thanks.”

She gave his pinky finger a jerk, and he flinched.

“And when I say ‘no ruffles’? That goes for whether it gets worn on the outside or the inside.”

“C’mon, Hot Cakes, can’t you take a little joke..?”

“You try to pull five or six gees wearing those, and tell me how it feels,” she whispered.

She let him go, and he rose slowly to his feet, cradling his arm.

“Did you see what she did to me?”

“Yes,” said one of the nurses. “I wonder if she can teach me that trick, too.”