War Dance

THREE: Z9 - 1

Z9 had taken a beating, and she knew it. C.A.T reconstructive surgery was comparable to wizardry even by modern standards, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. They were trying to rebuild her from the edge of death in hours where it should be days, if not weeks. Her bones hurt like hell, her skin prickled as if she was sweating under a hot sun, and there was a strange, tinny ringing in her ears that wouldn't go away. She tried blasting music on the loudest setting she could get (which, for the sake of an ancient tradition the origins of which were now lost to the mists of time, was up to 11), and still it plagued her waking life. When she tried to sleep, it kept her awake in increasing levels of irritation. She asked the doctors what could be done, and they looked at each other with blank expressions and shrugged. Hopefully it will go away on its own, they said. Probably something psychosomatic. It's your recovery now, they said. We didn't do it.

Assholes, the lot of them.

Still, she considered that she'd gotten off lightly. Hiding in the footwell during the impact had cushioned the blow, taking a lot of the energy out of the hit. If she was honest with herself, she didn't know how it worked out that she was still alive, but she was glad that she was.

When she was able to think straight for more than two minutes without needing to be dosed to high heaven on drugs (all those drugs and none of them take away the ringing in my ears, she thought), GinaOne came to see her. The C.A.T official gave her some sad, puppy-dog eyes in mock sympathy. Z9 was having none of it.

'I'm trying,' GinaOne said. 'As much as we might be at odds most of the time, I don't want you dead.'

'That makes two of us.'

Z9 gestured to a cup of juice on a small table at her bedside. GinaOne raised an eyebrow. Then she sighed and held the juice for Z9 to drink through the straw. 'How does it taste?'

'Like filtered piss,' Z9 said. She grimaced. Swallowed. 'On second thoughts, filtered piss might taste better.'

'I've heard stories of people coming out of comas with extraordinary new abilities. Some of them can speak a new language, play musical instruments. Some can paint, when we had actual painting. You, it seems, have learned to curse even worse than before.'

'This is my normal level. I was just slightly more polite before.'

'What a horrifying thought.' GinaOne put the juice back down. Z9 tried to sit up in a more comfortable position for her boss. Nothing doing. The pillows were in the wrong place, the creases in the cloth digging into her back, and she would be damned before she asked her boss for help. Juice maybe, but that was just playing. Adjusting her bedsheets would be a humiliation for her, not for GinaOne.

'We got him, you know,' GinaOne said. 'The mark you were after. And the other Red Rose guy. Serious burns on civilians caught up in the highway crashes, but we got our guys. So there's something.'

'Public relations all happy then?'

GinaOne scoffed. 'PR is never happy. We could be farting rainbows and they'd still complain we're making ourselves out to be the bad guys. If we're doing a perfect job, they're out of one.'

'You're getting to be so cynical in your old age.'

'I'll have to stop spending time around you.'

Z9 allowed a slight smile to dance across her lips. 'So have we learned anything new? Of actual importance?'

'The original mark's name was Ki-Bi Thri. Nobody of very much importance, paid all his taxes, small apartment in 44, just your average joe.'