Rudy emerged from the back of the vehicle, urging "Come on, come on, let me have a look at 'er" in his worried British accent. Kennex eased her down on to the back gate and Rudy came over to stand beside her. "Now how did you manage that?" he mused as he marveled at the bullet hole in her shirt with no wound behind it.

"She's still suffering from bruising, internal bleeding, and two fractured or broken ribs" Dorian commented.

"Look, I'm going t' need t' take your shirt off so I can get a bettah look at…" Rudy tittered nervously, trailing off at the end of the sentence.

"Of course," she breathed out through her nose quickly and the edges of her lips lifted up the slightest bit from a contained laugh. Her eyes found Kennex's and he quickly looked away; her eyes then quickly found the ground. She nodded and started lifting her shirt off over her injured arm. This revealed a shimmering black shirt exactly the same shape as the V-neck she had been wearing above it.

Dorian, who hadn't looked away, studied it closely with his blue eyes. "That is your body armor?" he questioned.

Rudy let out a whistle as he brushed his fingers against the material. "I've nevah seen one of these beauties befor'," he stated, and paused. "A bentiform auline polymer?"

"Something like that" she murmured, wincing as pain flashed down her back and up the back of her neck. "Do you have any pain meds on you?"

Rudy looked surprised and then sprang into action, "Of course, of course, how rude of me. Let me see here…" he shuffled through his briefcase, and emerged with a syringe. "Alright, just relax now" he said as he placed the flat metal tube against the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and he pressed the button at the top of the syringe, which pushed forward 4 small needles that administered a relatively strong pain killer. As soon as the needles retracted, she could feel the cool numbness spread up the back of her skull to ease the aching of her head, and down and around her shoulder and back, wiping away the intense pain.

With a happy exhale, she turned to face Rudy, who had resumed his position at her right side. "It's unique," she said, "That's why you haven't seen it before." She tapped her left bicep twice lightly with her middle finger, and the armor melted away, leaving a small but intricate shield marking on her arm that resembled a tattoo.

"That's a pretty neat trick" Kennex remarked, walking around to look at her arm. "Is this new tech?"

Dorian answered for her "This technology has never been sold legally, nor in the records we have, on the black market."

Valerie considered lying, saying that the creator was dead and that this was the only one, but something in Dorian's face told her he would be able to tell. "That's because I made it" she said. Kennex raised an eyebrow, while Rudy didn't manage to contain his look of surprise or awe. "Look, I don't want to get into this now," she sighed.

Rudy nodded and returned to examining her back. "How bad is it?" she asked. It tingled as he ran his fingers over the ugly blue and purple bruised area.

"You're going to need to go to the hospital" Rudy said. "Besides pain management, there isn't much I can do fo' you. That armor saved you a lot of pain and probably a few blood transfusions though." Not for the first time, she thought.

"Alright then, let's get moving." She said, and watched Rudy's eyes flicker up to her head wound. "You can patch me up on the way to the hospital."

Kennex's phone beeped angrily, and as he turned away to take the call, she reached over to put her shirt back on. She recoiled at the touch of the warm, wet fabric, remembering suddenly that she was covered in Ethan's blood. Looking down, she puzzled at her unspotted abdomen and white bra, next to her blood streaked arms and hands. She recalled the sensation of the warm liquid dripping onto her shirt. "The body armor must have protected you from the blood as well," Dorian remarked, as though he had read her mind.

She hopped to a standing position, nodding slowly. "Does anyone have some water?" Grabbing the bottle Rudy extended to her, she walked around the side of the truck and tried to scrub the blood off. She ran out of water but kept scrubbing, though the red tinge refused to leave her skin. Suddenly, she couldn't see what she was doing, and she realized that tears had filled her eyes.

They were just clones, she told herself angrily as she blinked the tears away. "Hey." She jumped at the voice and the soft touch on her shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Dorian said and moved his hand from her shoulder. She turned around and shook her hands, trying to get the rest of the water off. His blue eyes studied her as she shivered, and then in one smooth motion he removed his grey long-sleeved shirt and extended it to her. "You are cold, please put this on," he said. With a sad, but grateful smile she wiped her hands on her jeans and then took the shirt. After she had shrugged it over her head, she used the sleeves to wipe her eyes, and looked up at the android. Sometimes, she found herself forgetting that he wasn't in fact human.

"Thank you," she said and reached out to squeeze his hand, then walked past him to climb into the rear of the vehicle.

"Okay, Captain, you got it" Kennex said and shoved his rusty, 3-model-old phone into his pocket. "Nice shirt" he remarked to Valerie, as he glanced up at Dorian climbing into the passenger seat in his white under shirt. "Let's get you home." He slammed the back doors closed and walked to the driver's seat.

Rudy took great care when cleaning the gash near her temple, though she knew she would be complaining if she wasn't on painkillers. They rode in silence, but every once in a while Rudy would pause to meet her brown eyes with his blue ones and half open his mouth as if to ask a question. He would quickly press his lips together again and resume his work. "You want to ask me about the armor" she stated. She knew he was curious from the second he had seen it.

"Well, erm, I would, er… yes," he muttered and looked at her nervously. He pulled the last stitch through the wound and tied it off.

"Well go ahead."

"So how did you—"His question was cut off as the back door screeched open.

Valerie hadn't even realized they stopped moving, so she squinted at Kennex's backlit figure in drug muddled confusion. "C'mon," Kennex said, "Let's get you to a doctor."

Valerie turned to Rudy and said "I'll stop by the lab sometime and we can talk about it," before rising and hopping down from the back, ignoring Kennex's extended hand.

"What was that about?" Kennex asked with a smirk on his face and raised eyebrows.

She didn't answer; instead she lifted her eyes to admire the glass and steel form of the hospital that twisted up 70 floors above them. He walked her to the front door and turned to her, lightly placing a hand on her uninjured arm. "Give me a call when you need a ride home," he said.

"Thanks, John" she said with a faint smile. She watched him walk away, and then strode through the door that opened automatically in front of her.

She almost wished that Kennex had stayed with her; she didn't like hospitals and didn't want to be here alone. Valerie shook the thought away from her head, feeling silly. I'm a big girl, and I don't need anyone to take care of me, she thought, laughing internally for needing to talk herself into this. Taking a deep breath, she went to the front counter and placed her hand on the scanner.

"Detective Stahl, how can we be of service to you today?" the hologram behind the counter asked.

"I need a full diagnostic and treatment, no questions asked" she stated. Before she knew it, she was in a white hospital gown lying in a diagnosis tube. The whirring that surrounded her when the process started made her head spin. She closed her eyes and drifted off.


Thanks for reading everyone! Please leave comments and suggestions! -B

Last chapter has now been posted!