Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Veracide

Vera looked at me and calmly set the second auto-injector down. That one is marked 'M'. She just hit herself with extract of Morgan.

"Siren field test." Vera said.

It was too late to say or do anything, and in retrospect, we were just offering this to Danny and Lori, so what could I say? That she is being a bogart for using two of them? It's a renewable resource. Sure: Mom and Jessica have to work to create it, but not the end of the world.

This is the end of Vera as I knew her. Even that is not fair. This happened to me too. She intentionally and defiantly did this. She has been here from the beginning and she knows what that injection means.

I crossed to Vera, looked at the other auto-injector that she used. 'A'. She loaded up herself on the two mutants.

I gently touched her chin with a finger, tipped her head, and looked at Vera's neck. Saw she hit both sides.

"Carotid and Jugular. In and out." I said mildly. Trying to sound calm.

"Never let it be said I do shit halfway." Vera told me.

"Never accused you of that, for sure." I said. "I was the halfway one. You were always the one all in. Party harder was your motto, I think."

"What you do when you are a Siren Succubus." Vera agreed.

"Now, more than likely, you will be a half power Vampire Succubus with a side of full on Vera bad ass." I told her. "Lets get you in the exam chair."

I took her over to an exam chair, set her down, and said "Wait here." 

"OK. Not going anywhere. You are stuck with me." Vera said. She leaned back. "Angel too. God, I hope I get fangs out of this deal. I want to fang the living shit out of that woman. Teach her to sneak up on me while I'm sleeping and own my ass."

I collected the two emptied auto-injectors and went back into the patient room where the interior decorators are discussing things.

"Jessica? Mom? I am curious." I held up the empties. "Does it matter if you put 'A" in the carotid and 'M' in the jugular, or should it be the other way? Or did you get that far with your testing? Did it even need to be IV? Also: Is it called IV if it goes into an artery, or is that IA?" I looked at the autoinjector that was created from me. "Hah! I wonder if she thought 'A' meant 'Artery'." 

Unlike me and my calm approach, that caused a serious reaction in Jessica.

"What the entire fuck!?!" She said, her voice rising.

Mom was calmer. She came over, took the injectors. Looked at them. Saw the rubber plunger at the bottom of the empty ampule in both. "A and M. Hmmm." She said thoughtfully as she considered what that meant. I assume she understood that meant both mutants were just field tested for efficacy.

"Vera?" Helen asked, being the first to snap to who is missing from the patient room decoration committee.

"Waiting in the chair. for her medical exam. I would have given it to her, but I am not yet trained up on medical stuff so she would have thought I was making a pass at her." I agreed. 

I addressed Mom and Jessica directly. "One female Siren patient, double injected, and ready for your Siren in situ test. No Petri dishs required."

Everyone piled back into the exam room and surrounded the chair. Helen stood at her feet and asked her, arms spread and confusion written across her face: "Why?"

Vera shrugged. "I'm a Siren. Maybe was a Siren. You all need a field test to know if this works in an actual real live body. You have one. If it works: Win. If it doesn't, you have a person to look at and figure out what went wrong. Everything the Sirens did wrong, you can check now, with me."