"You shot her in the head."
Eidolon nodded.
"From behind."
He nodded again, somehow managing to express embarrassment without his face being visible. Emily examined him, thinking it was all in the posture.
"Without any action on her part to provoke it, and while she was walking away."
The hero nodded for the third time, definitely looking embarrassed now.
She sighed. "With all respect due a man of your abilities and experience, that was a fucking bone-headed thing to do, don't you think?"
"It was… a mistake," he admitted reluctantly.
Staring at him for a moment, she replied, "Accidentally ordering ten pizzas instead of one is a mistake. Deliberately shooting the largest and possibly strongest cape on the planet in the back of the head on her own turf while she's walking away because she doesn't want a fight is a bit more serious than 'A Mistake.' In my opinion, of course." Despite herself, her voice had gone somewhat sarcastic. "May I say that I am more glad than I can easily express that the Family appears to value the heroic virtues and are less easy to provoke than a concrete block? If they reacted the way that so many people do, Parahuman or otherwise, we might well be in the middle of a war. One I have no great desire to ever see, and not one I'm certain we would be on the winning side of."
She shook her head in amazed disgust while he sort of sat there looking embarrassed and worried. Alexandria was watching her, her mouth in a thin line, but did nothing to either defend her colleague or stop her. Legend looked weirdly amused, as well as more than a little irritated.
"Thank every deity you can think of that you didn't somehow manage to hurt anyone there, Eidolon, or you'd have gotten the fight you seemed to want to arrange, trust me. I think, based on meeting Raptaur, and talking to people who have met the other two, that their passivity would go away faster than you'd believe if someone they decided they wanted to protect got hurt, no matter who did the hurting. I would much prefer that never happen, if you don't mind. I have no idea which would be more damaging, the Triumvirate wounding or killing Kaiju with no good reason, or her defending herself and wiping out the Triumvirate. On balance, I'd prefer neither happened, at least on my watch."
He shrugged a little. "All I can say is that I'm sorry, and it won't happen again."
"It better not," she said in a growl. "You may be one of the powerful capes around, if not the most powerful, and one of the Triumvirate, but I'm the one who has to keep a lid on this damned madhouse and until or unless I get relieved of duty, that's what I'm going to do. You get to fly away back home, I have to deal with the consequences of your actions, as do all the people under my command. I have no wish to either have to go and apologize to the Family or the DWU, or end up having either one become hostile to us."
"I don't think either of those are necessary or likely to happen, Director," Legend finally said, in a calm and rational voice, clearly trying to keep her from becoming more irate. "You raised some good points and are right, of course. We're guests here and this isn't a situation where we would normally get involved officially. I have already apologized on behalf of the Protectorate and Eidolon to Kaiju, who accepted the apology with good grace. She doesn't seem to be holding a grudge, if anything she was more confused and slightly worried about the whole affair. I doubt very much that it will affect the good working relationship you appear to have with them."
"I sure hope it doesn't," she sighed, her irritation still very much present but no longer making her want to throw things. "While in many ways I'd sleep better if I'd never heard of the Family, they're here, we're basically stuck with them, a lot of the population actively likes them, and I have to live with the end results." She glared at Eidolon again. "All of them."
He looked at the floor, radiating uncomfortable shame.
"We'll be working on why it all snowballed so far out of control, Director Piggot," Alexandria put in, moving to stand next to her compatriot. "Believe me, it worries us as much as it does you. That wasn't supposed to happen. All we wanted to do was talk to them and try to get some answers to a few of the more confusing questions."
"Did you manage that, at least?" Emily asked.
"Not… quite," the other woman said. "We made some interesting observations, gained some more insight into Kaiju's personality, discovered that she was remarkably calm under pressure, luckily..." Here she gave the seated man a disapproving look. "But not as much information as I'd have liked came to light."
"I would respectfully advise that you leave it a while before you try again," Emily said dryly.
"I would have to agree," Legend muttered, shaking his head. "No sense in pushing our luck too far."
"Out of interest, how did you find out about it so fast?" Alexandria asked, appearing somewhat curious. "We only landed on the roof ten minutes ago and you obviously knew before we walked in the door."
"I had a call from someone at the DWU who was obviously passing on information from them at Mr Hebert's request," she replied, leaning back in her chair. "He didn't go into details for most of it but he told me how it ended. Just to keep me up to date, he said." She frowned a little. "There was also mention of reporters being on site. Which is unfortunate."
The woman on the other side of the desk visibly twitched. "I hope that Kaiju was successful in persuading them not to broadcast that part," she sighed.
"I expect she will manage it," Legend chuckled. "She's quite persuasive." Sitting down, he relaxed a little. "We're truly sorry, Emily, we didn't mean to bring any trouble to your city. I know it's already got more of that than ideal."
"To put it remarkably mildly," she agreed with a scowl.
"Eidolon is going back now, since I don't think we want to risk anything else happening," Alexandria commented, "but I'll be staying probably until tomorrow night. I still need to catch up on a few other people in the general area as long as I'm here. But I'll be out of your hair soon. Where is the Chief Director, do you know?"
"She was in the secure conference room the last I saw her," Emily replied. "She had some business with the main office she was using the video meeting system to conduct."
"All right. I'd better go and talk to her about this." The other woman sighed a little. "She may be more sarcastic than you were."
"I'll have to try harder," Emily noted with a tiny evil smirk of her own. "Good luck."
"We may need it." Alexandria glanced at her companions. "Let's go."
Eidolon stood and followed her out the door, giving off an air of puzzled melancholy, while Legend stopped in the process of going after them and turned to Emily. "I really am genuinely sorry about all the problems we might have caused, Emily," he said quietly. "It didn't help anyone, but we'll make sure it won't happen again. I'll be in town until we resolve that other problem as well."
"All right," she said in reply, nodding to him. He nodded back and left, closing the door behind him with a soft click. She stared at it for a moment, then shook her head.
"Parahumans. Even the good ones don't know when enough is enough most of the time," she sighed, turning to her work, which the recent visitors had thrown into turmoil.
The only good thing about it all was that the Chief Director now had three more people to get annoyed at, which might keep her off Emily's neck for a while.
Reaching into the last opening she'd made in the deck of the tanker, Taylor felt around for a moment. "Good, it's all the way to the bottom," she announced. Creating a couple of hundred feet of flexible hose six inches across, with the connector on the end she'd memorized the design for, she carefully tossed the free end towards the dock, where it clattered to a halt and was set on by a team of workers. They dragged the heavy tubing to the fourth pump unit and connected it, the crew foreman waving to her when it was done. With a nod of acknowledgment she lowered the other end, suitably weighted and screened to stop anything the pumps couldn't handle from being ingested, into the bilges of the ship.
Shortly that pump was running as were the other three and the process of emptying out a couple of hundred thousand tons of water was fully working. There was a stream of clean water coming out of the filter array exhaust into the bay. Moving over to check, she tasted it, then smiled. "Hardly any traces of anything other than seawater," she said to Charlie and his team, who all looked pleased. "It's actually cleaner than the bay is."
"Great. Thanks very much for all the help, Kaiju, you've saved us a couple of weeks just with the resurfacing and god knows how much time and money with the filters," the man replied, standing on the edge of the refurbished dock yard. He looked back over his shoulder for a moment, then returned to her. "Still got a lot to do before we can get this place up and running properly, but it's getting there."
"Glad to help," she smiled. "I'll be around, Danny can get word to me via my sisters if you need anything else, but I'll come back on Wednesday to start the cutting."
"Fantastic. Thanks again. Have a good..." He paused, then looked around, before shrugging with a grin. "...Whatever it is you do out there."
"I will," she laughed. "See you." Turning, she moved into deeper water, the nearly full tide quickly covering her. Dissipating the hat and vest, she swam rapidly towards the bay entrance, following the bottom, until she entered the shipping channel, where she cloaked, shrank into the aquatic combat form, and turned around to head back to the BBFO offices. Reaching the rear of the place quickly she climbed out, shook herself off, switched to Saurial, then unlocked the back door and went inside. She found her father and Lisa sitting talking at the table, both of them looking up as she entered.
"That's that part done," she said, pleased. "Now I have an interview. Again."
Her father smiled, although she could tell he was also somewhat concerned. Draping herself across one of the chairs with her tail lying on the floor, she leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment, scratching the top of her head. The sensation of her claw tips in the feathers there was nice, and completely familiar these days. She sighed happily in relief, more from the lack of having to watch where she stepped than anything else. Being Kaiju was fun, but a little nerve wracking considering how small everyone else was and how easy to squash they were.
Opening her eyes again she saw that Lisa was giving her an amused look, clearly picking up on the general mood she was in even if she couldn't get anything else.
"Long day at the office?"
"Sort of like that, yes," she grinned. "Weird one as well."
"What on earth was all that about?" her father asked, smelling and sounding curious and worried. "Why the hell did Eidolon of all people fire on you, and from the back? That's not like the man I've read about."
"It somewhat fits the profile I'm working out for him," Lisa replied, glancing at Taylor, who shrugged helplessly. "According to both my power and things I've read, the guy has some sort of need to be the most powerful one around the place. Bit like me and knowing things." She snickered when both of the others nodded agreement, blank-faced. "Thanks, by the way."
"Hey, you're the one who said it," Taylor smiled.
"True. Anyway, from what I could work out, he was really trying to get Taylor to have a go at him. He was practically desperate for you to attack him, and when you wouldn't, he tried a more direct approach." The blonde girl propped her chin on her hands and regarded her friend with a quizzical expression. "I'm not sure why, though. My power got confused, or blocked, or something, whenever I tried pushing hard to work out the reason behind it."
Somewhat shocked, Taylor asked, "You mean, like with me and the Varga?"
"No. With you guys I get basically nothing, except for tiny little hints around the edges. I think that to my power you're a totally out of context problem. If the Varga really does come from a completely different universe, not just a different parallel world like Aleph, but something utterly alien, I suspect that powers can't make heads or tails of him. And by extension, you. There's a good chance that you may be immune to precog abilities, clairvoyance, anything like that, as well. It's weird, but it sort of fits the paradigm." Lisa lifted her shoulders in a shrug without removing her head from her hands. "Could be useful, but it's annoying to me personally because I can't get the sort of information I'm used to."
"Poor girl," Taylor giggled.
"Quite." Lisa looked amused. "But with Eidolon, it was different. My power was working fine, right up until it read something from him that… well, it was like I was reading a file and hit a word or sentence that was blacked out. Like someone or something didn't want to let me in on the secret." She sat back in her chair, sighing, and lifted her hands in a gesture of confusion. "I can't explain it any better than that."
They were silent for a moment, wondering what it meant. After a few seconds, Taylor's father asked, "What did you actually do to Eidolon, by the way? All we saw was him dropping like he'd just passed out."
She chuckled. "Basically that's exactly what happened. I gassed him with nitrogen."
His eyes widened. "Shit. That's… very clever. But somewhat brutal. I hope you kept the exposure down to the minimum level. Inert gas inhalation can be extremely dangerous and fast acting."
"I was careful, but that's what I was counting on, I thought there was a good chance he wouldn't be expecting it and it would take him by surprise. It did."
Lisa was staring at her in slightly shocked admiration. "Very clever indeed. Did the Varga come up with that, or did you?"
"Me. I'm studying chemistry a lot and I read an article a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of asphyxiant gasses. We discussed it and tried a couple of experiments, then filed it away as a useful trick under the right circumstances. Turned out it was a good anti-Eidolon technique, although I assume he'd be ready for it next time."
"Hopefully there won't be a next time," her father muttered.
She nodded with a sigh. "Hopefully. I still don't know why this time happened."
"You could really be lethal with that same technique if you changed the gas," Lisa mused. "Assuming you needed to, and the target wasn't wearing a respirator."
"That wouldn't help," Taylor smiled. "I'd just make it inside them instead."
The blonde stared at her. "Oh, crap, you're not Manton limited..."
Taylor grinned. "Nope. I looked it up when I was researching powers, it seems like a weird sort of limitation. But it doesn't affect Varga magic at all."
"Manton limited?" her father asked curiously. "What does that mean?"
"Powers are weird in all sorts of ways, but one of the bigger limitations that most of them have is that they sort of divide into powers that can affect living creatures and ones that can't, directly at least," Lisa explained. "Almost all powers can't affect the inside of a living thing, although there are ones that only affect the inside of a living thing."
"Like Amy," Taylor added, making her nod.
"Exactly. It's pretty rare to find a power that works both ways, or doesn't care. A power as scary as Taylor's matter creation ability that is Manton unlimited is terrifying." Lisa looked at her in awe. "God, the things you could do if you were evil, it makes me feel ill."
"Me too. Luckily I'm not evil, I'm just a slightly over-enthusiastic infinitely variable dinosaur demon slash massive troll who enjoys making people go 'Um, what the hell?' while taking down muggers and other such idiots," Taylor snickered. Both her father and Lisa broke out in laughter at her comment.
She looked at her father. "What time is it?"
Pulling his sleeve back he looked at his watch for a moment. "Nearly twenty past five."
"OK, I need to go, I promised Kate that Saurial would come and talk to her at half past five, but both the Varga and I need to talk to you two some more about what happened today." Hopping to her feet she stretched, then headed for the door. "I'll see you guys later."
Stopping inside the door she inspected the new piece of equipment on the wall in the area she'd left clear of EDM. "Oh, great, the phone and internet connection is in."
"Yes, he came over and fitted it while you were making those filters, before the Triumvirate turned up," Lisa told her, coming over to also look at it. "He spent about ten minutes gaping at you, did the work, and left pretty quickly looking confused."
Taylor nodded, smiling. "All we need is some computers now."
"I got everything ordered. The stuff on Armsmaster's list will be here Monday, but everything else that's needed is coming sometime tomorrow. I'll set it all up if you want to make the benches and things. We can cable it all in easily, I ordered a good ethernet switch and lots of cables."
"Wonderful."
"And a small phone exchange, with half a dozen extensions and a digital answering machine."
"Even better. Thanks, Lisa."
"You're welcome," the girl smiled.
Feeling very pleased about at least that part of the day, even if other parts had been somewhat peculiar, Taylor smiled back, then left the building, heading at a jog for the cafeteria where she'd arranged as Kaiju to have her alter-ego meet the news team in return for them deleting the recording of Eidolon's not-actually-finest moment.
"There's more video online now of whatever was going on at the DWU," Dragon commented, assembling files into a video editor on one of Colin's systems. "Enough to establish a time line, certainly. Although there's a gap in it, we have no records of what happened for about a minute while Kaiju was talking to Eidolon and Legend near the end."
"Slightly odd, but perhaps that hasn't been posted yet," Colin replied, engrossed in going slowly through the recorded Leviathan movements data. "All right, I've got this in a format we can compare with the video data."
"Let's see, then." They slowly scrolled through the video collection looking at the timestamps extracted from the metadata. Luckily a lot of people had been recording the activity in the docks from a number of viewpoints, so there was a continuous record of it right from the beginning. "The Triumvirate arrive at 15:07:39, Kaiju turns and waves at them five seconds later. She doesn't look surprised, so I suspect she knew they were there, or detected them coming. She goes back to work for another twenty seconds. At 15:08:01 they start heading towards her, she looks back, then talks to the DWU people in the pickup, who reply, then drive off. Must have told them she was going to be busy."
Colin nodded, going making notes on a pad at the same time. "They approached very slowly and in a non-confrontational manner. Kaiju doesn't appear worried, or hostile."
"No, she looks amused more than anything else," Dragon replied, feeling a similar sensation. The three humans were wildly disproportionate to the enormous reptile, the contrast was almost ridiculous. "At 15:08:23 they stop about fifty feet or so away. She opens the conversation, says something to them, Legend replies. Eidolon and Alexandria look a little confused based on their reactions. If she's making jokes like she did with Legend, that could explain it."
"It's an interesting tactic, but an efficient one," Colin remarked. "Keeping the opposition off balance. Unusual humor could well manage that."
She looked at him for a second. "Or perhaps she's just being friendly?"
"That is also possible," he admitted thoughtfully, making her smile inside.
Returning to the video, she scrolled forward a little. "Whatever it was she said, Legend nearly falls over laughing. Eidolon looks very confused now, and Alexandria is pretty much gaping at her. I wonder what she said? Anyway, they talk for a while, then she lowers herself to the ground and indicates that they can do the same. They all land at 15:09:07. It all looks friendly, right up to here, at 15:09:25, where Eidolon says something. He's giving off an appearance of confrontation, look at the way he's standing."
They kept looking through the videos frame by frame for a while.
"Kaiju seems to think about what he said for a few seconds, then suddenly puts her head only a few feet from them and her hands either side of them, blocking the view from most of the cameras. I can't believe how fast she moved," Dragon said. She scrolled back and forth through the three frames that had caught the motion. "Her hands traveled at only barely subsonic velocity to where they ended up, and her head wasn't a lot slower. The level of strength and toughness that shows is appalling, especially for something that size."
Moving to another video stream, she added, "This person was some distance away from the water and was the only one in position to show anything that happened between her hands, but the angle isn't good and the resolution is poor. I've processed it as much as I could to extract any useful data. As far as I can make out, Legend and Alexandria seems to be saying something to Kaiju. Their body posture and motions suggest an apology. Trying to defuse the situation, perhaps? Kaiju went from looking mildly annoyed to smiling, then to amused. It must have worked. But then Eidolon says something again and she stops smiling, at 15:10:47."
"Leviathan started moving towards us at 15:10:46," Colin said slowly, checking his own data, then peering at the video. "Immediately before Eidolon's comment. But much too close to it to be a coincidence, I'd have thought."
"If it was Kaiju who was somehow involved, I'd have thought it would happen after his comment," Dragon replied, thinking hard.
"I agree. But it could still be something to do with her, in some way." He shrugged. "We've all thought several times that she bears far more in common with the Endbringers than any normal Parahuman. Perhaps she's linked to them and they detected a threat, Leviathan coming to help?"
"Why so slowly, though? I'd practically swear that trace was of something that was only coming this way under protest, not rushing to join in." Dragon was very confused and very worried. The change in behavior of the Endbringers was… potentially devastating.
"I have no idea," he sighed. Checking his movement data, he said, "Leviathan stopped moving at 15:16:01 and went into a holding pattern."
"That's eleven seconds after the point she moved her hands away. She said something, probably about the news crew, because they all looked that way. Then she stood up and began walking away from them towards the shoreline, Legend accompanying her. It looks like they were just talking like friends, there's no tension in either of them. Unlike Alexandria and Eidolon, who were clearly having an argument. Quite a serious one, by the looks of it." Dragon let the video play at normal speed. "Kaiju ends up over here, next to these large constructions. Some sort of water filtration equipment I'd say."
"Alexandria and Eidolon are still arguing all this time," Colin noted, peering at the monitor, then at his data. "Leviathan starts moving again at 15:22:08."
"Which is two seconds before Eidolon leaves Alexandria and heads towards Kaiju again. I'd say he was furious, to be honest. Alexandria doesn't look happy either. Kaiju and Legend look resigned if anything. Not hostile, though." Dragon shook her head in puzzlement. "What on earth happened between them all?"
Not having an answer, she resumed the video yet again. "Eidolon approaches Kaiju, stops perhaps sixty-five feet away, then has a conversation with her. Or at her, based on the way she looks puzzled. Legend just looks bemused and worried. Then there's a gap in the coverage from 15:23:37 to 15:25:21. No video that covers that time has been posted anywhere that I can find."
"I can't locate anything either. Considering the number of sources that were putting their recordings online, that to me is somewhat suspicious." Colin checked his data. "Leviathan stopped moving again at 15:24:49, and reversed course twelve seconds after that."
"The next segment we have has all three of them standing on her hand." Dragon looked at the monitor with a sense of wonder. "I have no idea how that could have come about. Alexandria and Eidolon fly away at 15:26:04, Legend stays and talks with her for another twenty-three seconds, then also leaves. She watched them all go, then turned around and went to talk to some people near the buildings there. That group includes the TV crew, Danny Hebert, and Mayor Christner. The recordings all end shortly afterwards. There's more video from about half an hour later of her at work again, but that's all that covers the period of interest."
Leaning back in his chair, Colin tapped his pen idly on the pad he'd been jotting down notes on for a few seconds. "Rewind to the point where all three were standing on her hand."
Dragon did as requested. "What did you see?"
"I'm not sure," he muttered, watching it play. "There. Stop it, go back five seconds." After she'd done so, she watched carefully as well.
"Is it my imagination or was Eidolon looking somewhat unstable there for a moment, like he was recovering from something?" he asked.
"No, you're right. He's definitely a little wobbly. Look, he stumbled when he turned around to talk to Alexandria." She slowly shook her head. "Something happened in that missing section, obviously. I wonder what, and why?"
"We'll have to ask Legend when he comes back," Colin replied. "Speculating is pointless. But the key data is all here. On the face of it, contact between Kaiju and the Triumvirate, most likely specifically Eidolon, somehow produced anomalous behavior in two of the three Endbringers. The fact that it happened more than once combined with the vector aimed directly at us, and the Simurgh apparently watching an area of the planet that has us right in the center, very strongly implies that it was no coincidence." He looked at the data display on the other monitor, adding, "The Simurgh went dormant again at 15:26:10. Just after Eidolon and Alexandria left the scene."
They considered the problem in silence for a couple of minutes. "Was it Kaiju that caused the reaction, Eidolon, or the combination, though?" Dragon finally asked. "I think we can rule out Legend, since he's met her before and nothing of this nature occurred. Alexandria is a possibility, of course, but the timings match up far too well with Eidolon to make me think it's very likely."
"I don't have any answer to any of that," her friend said after some more thought. "I agree with your conclusions, but other than that I can't see what the connection is between any of it. We've never seen this sort of behavior from them before. There just isn't enough to go on yet."
"Even so, there is enough to suggest that there may be a connection of some sort there, even if we don't know what it is or what triggers it," she replied. He nodded.
"I can't disagree. We need to talk to Legend, show him this data, and fill in the blank spot. Whatever happened in that missing one minute and forty-four seconds could hold the key to understanding this situation."
"He said he'd be coming back here later tonight to talk about the weapon again," Dragon remarked. "We can wait until then. There's no immediate threat now, and this is far too sensitive to allow outside this room for the moment."
Colin nodded again, heavily. "All too true." He sighed slightly. "Things just keep getting less and less easy to understand recently." After a moment, he closed the file he'd been looking at and turned back to the main CAD system. "I'd prefer not to think about it for a while if you don't mind. There's plenty of work to do that I do understand. Shall we get back to it?"
Smiling internally at the hopeful note that suddenly came into his voice, she chuckled.
"Sure, I'd like that. Where did we get to?"
Soon they were running simulations again, Colin looking much happier now that he was doing something he enjoyed. She watched him, wondering yet again how he'd react when he inevitably found out the truth, and dreading it.
Standing up, Amy smiled at the old woman in the hospital bed, who was flexing her hand in wonder. "It doesn't hurt," she marveled. "For the first time in twenty years."
"I've fixed your rheumatoid arthritis, reset your immune system to what it should be, and repaired all the damage to your joints, Mrs Robinson," Amy told her. "I also gave you a bit of a tuneup to deal with the other minor issues you had. You'll need to stick to a healthy diet, and for a week or so eat about fifty percent more than normal. Drink plenty of fluids. Other than that, you're in very good health for a woman in her eighties."
"Thank you, my dear, more than I can say," Mrs Robinson smiled. "You're a miracle worker."
"I'm just using the abilities I have to help people," she replied, pleased with how cheerful the old woman was. "I'm glad you're happy."
"Happier than I've been for a long time. My grandchildren want a grandmother who can play with them, not one who can barely move and yelps in pain if they hold hands." The elderly woman grinned as Amy giggled. "It wasn't much fun for any of us. You've given me back something I thought was gone forever."
"Enjoy it, in that case." Smiling again at the woman, Amy glanced at the doctor beside her who was writing on his clipboard, looking pleased. "I think I'm done here."
"Thanks, Amy," he said, making some final notes then handing the paperwork to one of the two nurses attending to the patient. She followed him out into the corridor. When they were alone, he turned to her. "You're looking much happier these days," he commented with an approving expression. "The new hours obviously agree with you."
"They do, actually." She stretched, then smiled back. "I've felt far less stressed and depressed since I cut back."
"I told you. You were working yourself into an early grave. It's a problem in the medical profession among the really dedicated workers. People need time for themselves, no one can fix all the worlds ills single-handedly, and if you try you'll end up killing yourself. I've seen it happen myself and it's not pleasant. You're far too young and full of life to let that happen." The doctor shrugged. "Even a Parahuman healer needs time off and a life outside the hospital or the aftermath of a fight."
"I'm glad I listened to you and my friends," she said honestly.
"So am I."
"Who's next?" she asked after a short reflective pause. He looked at his clipboard, flipping through several pages.
"Mr Henderson up on seven has leukemia, there's two trauma patients on one, a gunshot wound to the abdomen and a severely broken hip from a fall, but other than that there's nothing that really requires your abilities. I'm not going to waste you on colds, sniffles, and minor allergies." He grinned as she looked surprised. "Come on, Amy, leave something for the pill pushers to do. They look all sad when they can't sell antihistamines because you've come through and snaked all their customers out from under them."
Laughing, she shrugged. "If you say so. But there really aren't any more serious cases?"
"Not right now, no. You've cleared up all the long term or terminal issues, and there's been an enormous fall in the number of trauma patients coming in over the last few weeks. Since that horrendously large lizard was wading around in the bay on Tuesday, it dropped even more. Hardly anything as a result of gang activity."
"I guess everyone is keeping their heads down until they work out what's going on?"
He looked amused. "Most likely, and who can blame them? But at the moment we seem to be having a well-earned respite from the normal levels of violent crime, which causes at least eighty percent of the trauma patients we get. I doubt it will last, it never does, but it gives us a chance to get on top of the situation for once. Why don't you do these three cases, then head home? We can always call if we have an emergency and we can deal with the run of the mill stuff perfectly well."
She nodded slowly. "You're sure?"
"I am. We're actually pretty good at our jobs, you know." He smiled to show there was nothing more than humor in his words. "Anything long term that comes in will keep until you come back, and like I said, if we get something serious enough to need you quickly, we can call you. Your sister can get you here in a few minutes from anywhere in the city. Or your huge friend with all the scales."
"Or even my nice new truck," she laughed.
"Exactly." He turned and headed towards the elevators. "Let's see about this gunshot, it's not critical but the poor guy isn't very happy about it. Clean through shot, left side, just above the kidney. Small caliber, probably a .22 or .25, no bullet fragmentation in the wound..."
Amy walked along beside him, listening as he read the paperwork, nodding occasionally. Checking the time she decided she'd swing by the DWU on the way back and see if Taylor was there, or her house if she wasn't. It was still early enough that she thought it would be fun to spend some time with her friend.