Wherever I Am

Chapter 17 - Part 1

Awake.

I opened my eyes to a while ceiling that glowed slightly. What the—

"Look who's finally back with us," came a voice from my right, and I looked over.

No pain now, I could see, and a strange smell of ozone assaulted my nose. Healing chamber?

"Lauretti?" She moved into my vision, looking down on me.

"Uh-huh. You look a lot better now."

I looked around—light green walls.

No windows, but there were white countertops, metal backsplashes, a sink, and, yep, a healing chamber. "Did I just come out of there?"

"After about six hours. You were three-quarters dead. The armor did its best, but there was too much pressure from the explosion. One eardrum punctured, your brain was bleeding, and your legs were toast. Herbs were no match for being bruised to the bone from your toes to above your knees. On the other hand, nanotech took care of your bleeding brain and everything down to your toenails. Those mini-micro robot thingies handled all of the bloody bruising leaking through your skin and throughout your muscles and pretty much rebuilt most of your legs. Your sweetie tells me your squire protected the rest of you."

"Adrian? He's—"

"Dead. So's your Sir Filip, the Regent and his wife, two Burgraves, and at least a couple of dozen more, according to Sorina and Allie. Oh, and Sorina did her best to kill me. I shouldn't have snuck up on you two. Luckily, she doesn't have the skills, but it took a while to convince her I wasn't there to finish you off. She and Oana are in the next room, by the way. Oana convinced me I needed to heal Sorina as well as you and her."

"Heal them? Were they hurt?"

"Older injuries. Oana's sliced face and back, and where a Sobeck tried to rip Sorina's breast off, or something like that."

I rolled back to my back, staring at the glowing ceiling. I was breathing too hard. So many dead. Did I kill Adrian by pulling him, trying to get him away?

"What explosion?"

"Simultaneous explosions of multiple grenades...however many the guy you were questioning had on him. The same happened at the same time to the bad guys in the main hall—lots of dead and injured in there. Sorry, but I don't know how to ease this shit to you. It's bad."

"Do we have family in Australia?"

Lauretti looked at me a moment before answering. "No...why do you ask?"

"He...the guy I questioned—he was from Australia. Perth. I guess the other two were, also. He was surprised to find someone like me here. They had armor...white, not transparent, but it worked a lot like ours. I ended up kicking him in the face."

I recited as it came back to me. The fight...the questioning. "He knew he was dead. A drone, like a big horsefly. It was watching, probably listening. He was trying to question me while I questioned him...maybe keep him alive for reinforcements to come or something, or...yeah, he said that as long as he kept talking, he'd stay alive. I didn't understand. I think he tried to warn me to leave, but too much Aussie slang. I didn't get it."

"That's why they didn't pop the grenades sooner," Lauretti said. "I wondered. They were trying to figure out who you were and who you were with. What did you tell them?"

"Not much. I don't know much, and I didn't name any names, but he recognized my Texas accent, and I didn't deny it. He said he didn't know anyone from there."

I'd been moving my hands around some, and of course, I was naked. The chamber worked best that way, and Lauretti wouldn't have bothered. Maybe we were going to spar again. I hoped not.