Day 80
Shego shivered in the cold, hugging her knees tighter to her chest as she pressed herself further behind the hedge in the alleyway. She had escaped the police and found the make-shift hiding place in the nearby suburbs less than a quarter-mile from where the pursuit had begun. Thankfully they hadn't sent dogs after her, or else her hiding place wouldn't have been very effective. But each time the officers had passed that way they had overlooked her entirely.
Probably because she was hiding behind an oleander bush.
Her face and hands had started itching almost immediately after she had made contact with the toxic leaves, and it wasn't long before her eyes started to burn too. She had closed her eyes against the pain and due to sitting so still and silent, it wasn't long before she had dozed off.
That was how she had spent the day, waking up on and off, her eyes and skin feeling worse each time and compounded by the pain of the morning sickness and the coughing from the disease, notably stronger due to her being out in the elements. The cough was one of the major reasons she had decided against fleeing further, since it was so violent it halted her pace every time. She had resolved to wait until darkness to move again, considering that she had no way to escape in a hurry and because news of a super-villain loose on the tiny island was probably being broadcast on every local network.
The hover-car was a loss, and she was trapped; every airline had been grounding its domestic flights one by one in attempt to stop the pandemic. Her only hope was to steal a plane, perhaps at a military base. But as she peered up at the starry sky she realized she didn't even know where a military base was. There may not even be one on an island that small.
She wasn't even sure which country she was in.
She coughed at length into her shoulder and shivered. One thing was for sure—the cold was no help against her recovery from the disease. The cough was her strongest remaining symptom, and she wondered how long it would last. Drakken's certainly hadn't gone away.
Her brow twisted in worry as she thought of Drakken. He surely must know something was wrong... Except she had promised not to call him incessantly, and he also knew her phone was almost dead. Maybe he wouldn't assume the worst...
But she hadn't been out all day or into the night even once since he had fallen ill. Surely he would realize...?
But then, Shego thought with worry, she didn't want him coming after her. His recovery was still on a definite roller-coaster.
And how would he find her anyway?
Shivering again in the night air, she started to push herself up...and then sat down again as a throbbing pain spread over her palms. She lifted her hands up and cringed in disgust. Large, smooth, white pustules were dotted over both the front and back of her hands.
Cautiously, she lifted her fingers to her face and felt over her cheek. The flat welts were there too.
She didn't dare touch her eyes, but they already stung and were puffy and weeping. It probably wouldn't matter if she did touch them.
She bounced up to her feet without using her hands and stood up behind the hedge, hugging herself tightly.
"Stupid plant."
She narrowed her eyes at the hedge and considered burning the whole thing down. But then that would restart the search and likely land her in jail.
'Might get me into a hospital...' she considered. But then she realized, they would test her and find out she carried the virus. And there was no telling when she could get back to Drakken after that.
She pushed through the hedge with a scowl until she was standing in the alleyway, and then raised her hands and looked at them thoughtfully. She ignited her left and bit down on a cry of pain as some of the pustules started bursting from contact with the glow.
"Okay, bad idea..."
She started down the alleyway away from the shopping outlets and deeper into the suburb. She had no destination in mind...but she couldn't just sit behind a toxic bush forever. Maybe she could find a plane at a municipal airport to steal...
After she found an airport.
Shego's ability to measure the passing of time wasn't great, but she was sure it had been at least a few hours. She sat huddled and shivering on a bench in the second park she had happened across as she had slunk through the suburbs, which proved a more challenging maze than anything she had faced in her life either as hero or villain. As the night wore on she had weighed the various possibilities of breaking into a house, stealing a car, or just walking into a pharmacy and threatening someone into first medicating her, and then taking her to an airport.
But she kept coming back to the fact that on an island so tiny—the closest to the lair—the fact that she hadn't been caught yet was something of a miracle.
Before resting on the bench she had chanced to glimpse her reflection in a duck pond and recoiled at the hideous sight. She looked like something out of a horror film with her clothing dirtied and her braided hair tangled beyond repair. The reaction she had had to the toxic plant left no doubt that she was definitely and decidedly ill. And she still felt guilty about possibly spreading the disease further.
She lay down on the bench, resigned to the probability of arrest and quarantine. She could always just escape later... And they would treat her oleander poisoning, and maybe...maybe be able to tell her if the baby was healthy.
For the first time in her life, arrest was tempting.
The biggest concern she faced with going through what she knew would be a several-day ordeal was being away from Drakken. She still didn't know what country she was in. The laws may not give her a phone call. And if...if he got worse while she was in jail, and she wasn't there...
She curled in on herself as her stomach turned and she shivered again. If she got sicker from exposure, she was no help to Drakken either. Or the baby.
"Nrargh!" she growled in frustration and then broke into a long coughing fit. She didn't know what to do.
Shego walked into the 24-hour pharmacy and convenience store with her hair pushed forward to cover her face. She kept her head turned down sharply and her stinging hands in her jacket pockets as she walked briskly past the check-out counter.
"Good evening!" the woman working the register called out.
"Good— evening," Shego answered, her words broken by a single cough. She strode quickly to the back and toward the pharmacy counter.
When she arrived she took in what she had to work with. The pharmacy wasn't nearly as secure as some she had seen. It did have a locked sliding glass barrier between the customers and the technician, but she could break it easily if necessary. Getting what she needed would be a piece of cake.
The pharmacy technician—a young woman—appeared to be sorting through the day's receipts and looked very tired. When Shego's shadow fell on her the woman looked up and then gasped in fright.
"Give me something for this," Shego said pointedly. Her vision was slightly blurred since she was looking through an enforced-squint, but she tried to open her eyes wider now she was actually talking to someone. "I fell in an oleander bush."
"Oh that looks terrible! Do you have a prescription?"
"Nope," Shego replied.
The woman's brow furrowed. "Then...I'm sorry...but I can't give you—"
Shego pulled her left hand from her pocket and flared it, gritting her teeth against the pain she was causing herself.
"It's...it's you!" the woman cried. "You're the one they're searching for!"
"Give me something for this," Shego repeated, pointing at her distorted face.
The woman had staggered back in shock, but now swallowed slowly and was stepping up to the counter.
"I know you have a silent alarm. Don't even think about it."
The woman's panic seemed to fade as she raised her chin and frowned.
"You're a criminal."
"And I have the virus."
The woman's eyes widened.
"So give me whatever will take care of this, or I'll start coughing on things."
The woman looked truly frightened for the first time.
"You...you wouldn't!"
"Criminal, remember?" Shego's point was proved as a cough suddenly rose out of her chest. She instinctively raised her elbow to her face, but she smirked at the technician all the while.
When the coughing subsided the technician began warily turning back toward her library of medications.
"And don't even think about trying something. This glass between us can be gone faster than you can blink."
The technician frowned and then looked hesitant.
"Are you allergic to any medications?"
"No," Shego replied. She kept her expression even and her eyes as mirthless as she could, considering the inflammation. But hope started rising in her.
The technician grabbed three bottles from various places on the shelf and put them into a bag.
"What are they?" Shego asked as the technician approached the glass again.
"Antihistamines...and eye drops..."
Shego took a step back as the woman appeared to be waiting for something. She kept her hand flared, alternating between biting the inside of each cheek against the pain she was causing her hand. She noticed that some of the pustules on her palm had started bleeding.
The woman unlocked the glass, slid it open just enough to push the bag through, and then slammed it closed.
Shego coughed into her elbow again, relief flooding her as she stepped back to the counter to grab the bag. And then something else occurred to her. She let the glow around her hand go out and stepped back again.
"Hey...do you have a respirator? I don't...actually want to spread the virus..." she said slowly, letting the steel fade from her eyes.
The technician looked skeptical, but she pointed to a shelf over Shego's shoulder. Shego turned to look...and then whirled around at the sound of sliding glass. The technician had grabbed the bag back and her other hand was beneath the counter, no doubt pressing the silent alarm.
Shego snarled and set both glowing hands against the glass. It melted in moments into a smoldering, blackened pile and Shego felt satisfaction rise in her chest at the terrified look on the young woman's face. She leapt over the counter as the woman tossed the bag and ran for the back room. Shego snatched the bag out of the air as she landed on her feet, and started looking around. While she was there, she figured she may as well grab some heavy-duty painkillers just in case.
Once she had stuffed a few more bottles into the bag, and checked that the woman had in fact given her antihistamines and eye drops, she jumped back over the counter and headed for the shelf with the respirators. She was amazed the store wasn't sold out, unlike Smarty Mart.
As she ripped the package open and put the respirator on, she caught sight of the technician peeking around the corner from inside her formerly-safe haven.
"Remember, I tried to be nice!" Shego growled at her as she ran along the back wall of the store and glanced at the signs hanging above each aisle. She spotted the one that said water and dashed down...only to find the shelves were bare.
She sighed angrily and stood on her toes, peering at the other signs until she found the aisle with new-age drinks. She ran around to that one and felt a longing as she saw those drinks were refrigerated. She grabbed two bottles of the closest thing inside the refrigerator door and then spun around and headed for the exit. She stopped short on seeing the cashier standing in her path with wide, shocked eyes.
"Easy way?" Shego said commandingly, and then shoved her newly-acquired drinks under her arm. "Or the hard way like your friend chose?" She flared her left hand.
The cashier swallowed nervously and backed away into the wall that contained all the technology products. A thought flickered through Shego's mind about stealing a phone charger, but vanished when she realized she had nowhere to plug it in.
She ran past the startled cashier and grabbed a bag of pistachios and some gum that were near the register on her way out. Her arms full, she looked around and then headed behind the store where there was a ten-foot wall built...and in front of it was an oleander hedge.
She clutched all of her acquisitions clumsily against her chest with her left hand as she ran forward, and with help from her right hand vaulted the wall. She didn't have to look to know she had left blood behind. And after she had landed on the ground and blurrily took in the panorama of the vast, empty parking lot of the shopping center...she began to run.
Shego woke up to a dark, violet canvas in front of her eyes. It was nearly sunrise.
She slowly sat upright in the tall, brown grass of the field she had collapsed in after escaping the city during the night. She blinked and realized that her eyes weren't nearly as swollen as they had been several hours before. The eye drops were working.
She touched her fingers to her cheeks and thought that the pustules there might be less pronounced as well.
She lay down on her side, concealed again by the height of the brown grasses, and squinted to read the label of the antihistamine in the dark. 'Six hours,' she was able to make out as the required time between doses. She frowned, and decided it was probably close enough.
She shook a pill out into her scabbing palm and then reached for her second drink. When she had collapsed in the field earlier, feeling fairly certain she wouldn't be discovered, she had first eaten all of the pistachios and then swallowed a pill and chased after it with the whole bottle of the oddly-flavored new-age drink.
Her stomach turned as she swallowed the second pill and only took one large swallow of the second drink before screwing the cap back on. She didn't know how long she would need to make it last, and she deeply regretted drinking the other so quickly.
She lay back in the grass again and stared up at the pre-dawn sky from which stars were beginning to disappear.
She thought about Drakken. She wondered if his fever had gotten worse...
She reached into the bag again and thought about the painkillers she had stolen. Her face, eyes, and especially hands still hurt, as did the rest of her body from the discomfort of the past day and night.
She tiredly squinted at the side of the bottle she had pulled out and searched for the dosage. Then she caught sight of a word, and with a gasp she brought the bottle closer to her face.
"Do not use if pregnant or trying to become pregnant."
In a panic she dropped the bottle in the grass and grabbed for the antihistamines and eye drops again. Her throat tightened as she found the relevant text on both bottles.
"Consult your physician before use if pregnant."
'Okay...that's not as bad...'
Her reassurances to herself weren't doing much to calm her racing heart, and she lay down in the grass again and stared at the vast sky, her brow furrowed in worry.
'Please let it all be a nightmare...'
As a wave of nausea hit her, she gripped her stomach with one hand and started to let her mind go blank as she stared up into space. She focused on the rhythm of her breathing, the rise and fall of her belly under her hand, and the warmth of her skin beneath her cold, stinging fingers. At least the coughing wasn't as bad for the moment.
Gradually the anxiety started to wane and she put all of her focus into staring at the few remaining twinkling stars. She adjusted her fist under her neck and despite her efforts to think of absolutely nothing, her mind fell to Drakken again as the color of the sky lightened into the same cool blue shade of his skin.
She had been gone for almost twenty-four hours now. Anything could have happened to him.
Just then, a distant and familiar hum cut through the silence and Shego sat up in disbelief, her eyes scanning the horizon. Sure enough, out of the darker skies in the West she made out the gray of a hover-car ambling through the air above the fields.
She stood up, hugging herself against the cold, and after a few seconds the hover-car increased its speed toward her. She bent down and picked up her pharmacy bag, respirator, and trash in anticipation, eager to jump in the car and just go home.
As the hover-car got closer she could make out a hazmat suit, and her heart sank briefly wondering if Drakken hadn't come after all and had sent a henchman instead, even though the rational side of her knew that would have been the best thing to do.
"Shego!"
Relief crept into her chest at the sound of the familiar voice. The hover-car lowered to the ground and through the visor of the hazmat suit she saw Drakken's disgusted recoil at the sight of her doubtless horror-movie-monster appearance.
"Trust me, I look better than I did yesterday. Let's get out of here," she said hoarsely as she jumped into the car next to him.
The car didn't move, and she turned to find Drakken still staring at her.
"It looks worse than it feels," she said. She held up the pharmacy bag. "See? I got meds."
After shaking his head slightly, he finally put the car back in gear and lifted it up into the warming skies. He drove with a reckless speed that she found calming as she sank down into the seat and closed her eyes.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
Shego took a deep breath and curled into a ball in the seat, keeping her eyes closed. "Well..." she sighed heavily. "It started with an earthquake that everyone felt at Smarty Mart..."
"I know all that. It-it was on the news."
Shego's eyes opened. "It was?" She couldn't see Drakken's face for the hazmat suit as he faced forward to drive.
"They showed the hover-car, and interviewed a man who said you attacked him."
"After he crashed his SUV into the hover-car," Shego growled.
"...They didn't mention that part."
Shego closed her eyes again. "Of course not." She sighed, and when he didn't say anything else she continued. "I hid behind an oleander hedge. You do know oleander is toxic, right?"
She peered at him, but he didn't give any indication one way or the other.
"Well, I didn't realize how toxic. So...after it got dark I raided a pharmacy."
"That was on the news too. They had security footage."
Shego yawned. Her sleep through the night and the previous day's hiding had been far from restful.
"Well...that's about it. I just hid and...tried to think of a way to get back. How did you find me?"
Drakken didn't answer immediately, and Shego frowned and leaned forward to see his face through the visor of his suit.
"Tracking device..." he said quietly.
Shego's brow rose. "You...you have me chipped!?"
He glanced at her and she saw the fear in his eyes, and the confirmation. He increased the speed of the hover-car.
'Yeah he'd better be scared...'
"Since when!?" she yelled, instantly regretting it for the pain in her throat.
"Ah...since...I don't know," he grumbled in frustration. "After you quit that one time."
Her eyes widened and she rose up on her knees over him. "You've had me chipped since...since the very beginning!?"
He tried to smile nervously, but what came across his face was a grimace of something between fear and regret.
"I...knew it would come in handy some day?" he said meekly.
Shego ignited her hands into massive flaming balls that reflected green light in the panels of the hover-car. It startled him and the hover-car swerved for a moment, sending her off-balance and back against the car's seat.
"Do you have any idea what an invasion of privacy that—"
She broke off as a painful cough racked her chest, and she curled in on herself as the rolling of her stomach intensified with the spasms of her chest and back.
"...Shego?" Drakken said worriedly.
She glared at him even though he couldn't see it. As soon as they were both healthy again...she would kill him. Or at least nearly. Or do something worse like put embarrassing pictures of him on the Internet...
"So, um..." he cleared his throat, "about this earthquake..."
"...What about it?" Shego asked from behind a frown.
"The epicenter was near the lair. It caused a bit of damage..." he said hesitantly.
"Oh?" Shego said, suddenly feeling suspicious again at his wary tone.
"Yes..." He paused to cough, and Shego's anger started to be replaced with worry. How long had he been up and around, she wondered? "It— damaged the ventilation system."
Shego's mind processed far too slowly for her taste as he coughed before she finally understood the implication.
"The lab?"
"But it's okay!" he said as soon as the coughing subsided, finally turning to look at her. She saw the reassurance in his eyes. "I had to go in anyway to...use the computer's tracker."
Shego frowned again.
"And I checked all of the samples while I was there. I didn't...mutate anything horrible."
Shego crossed her arms and sank low in the seat beneath the whipping of the wind. "How do you know?" she asked skeptically. "This entire disease is new."
"Oh it was simple. I just examined each sample for any mutation from the control sample."
Shego frowned at him again before closing her swollen, itching eyes. She was still hoping it would all turn out to be a nightmare. "You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. But...because of the ventilation damage, I sent the henchmen away. The exposure to the lab won't hurt us, but...none of them have gotten sick yet."
Shego shrugged. "Not like they were doing anything, anyway..."
She opened her eyes again and to look at him, and her gaze passed over the pharmacy bag. Her worry about the antihistamines suddenly returned in full.
"Actually Doc...since the lab is open, I need you to test something."