A Race Through the Night
Chapter 8
Damaged
Hello, everybody! This isn't up as fast as I would have liked, but real life - well, school mainly - has not exactly been cooperative lately. Fortunately, it looks like I'm going to hopefully be able to get my chapters up somewhat on time from here on!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Transformers. And of course, our beloved Blurr - always a personal favorite of mine - will be talking crazy fast.
Review Responses: To tamersten - Thank you so much for your encouraging words! And yes, that last cliffhanger was... well, quite a cliffie. Leaving off with such suspense and feels though... I couldn't resist. Hope you enjoy this next chapter!
To Eyrmia - Well, I've got to say the inspiring of fellow authors is a two-way road, so thanks a ton for your amazing review. The tfwiki is pretty much one of the awesomest things ever in my opinion, and it has been a huge help to me in keeping my stories as near to canon as my muses allow... Anyhoo, enjoy this next chapter of fluffy-angsty fun!
I really appreciate every fav, follow, and review I get, so thank you all, and here's the next chapter!
The sunset truly was gorgeous to behold, as far as last things to see before permanently splattering into a million pieces of dead clone went. Much better than the view she'd had last time she nearly offlined by jumping out a skyscraper window. Still wasn't entirely sure how she'd gotten out of that one alive.
If she were blunt, she wasn't sure how she got out of this one alive, except that moments before impact her arm wielding the new gun twisted painfully towards the ground and fired. She lay there on the ground, blinking up at the multicolored circuit bridges shining bright in the rapidly blackening sky. Blurr, still completely unconscious, was sprawled on top of her, face to the sky.
Nightracer sat up with a groan and rolling the blue mech off of her, leaving him face down in the same weird, neon orange gel that they were both covered in.
Self-preservative actions taken. Calculating further risk of harm to this unit...
Direct risk: negligible. Indirect risk due to health of current host: very high.
Her optic ridges drew together in a confused fear, but she tried to ignore the smug, authoritative automated-mech-voice in her helm in favor of picking up the offline Autobot and dragging him and herself out of the extra shock absorbent gel that had saved their lives, and into a more secure place in the nearest alley.
Systems fully integrated with host.
Greetings, Nightracer: Mark II. This unit's designation is Primicerius. You are not a registered user for this unit.
Would you like to register for usership? Failure to register will result in self-preservative actions that may endanger, harm, or terminate the unregistered user.
She frowned again, instinctively thinking that registering sounded like a good idea, given the alternatives listed. Not yet decided, the femme's optics widened when the voice replied.
Registering for usership... Registration failed.
The unit Nightracer: Mark II is not recognized as a viable, sentient user. Clone unit Nightracer: Mark II will be terminated as soon as the unit Primicerius is charged to 100%. Estimated time to full charge: 0.94 orns.
Please feel free to enjoy the remainder of your existence, clone unit Nightracer: Mark II.
"Who are you?" The now-trembling femme whispered, reaching forward to gently set the newly-acquired weapon on the ground. It stuck to her hand, and she saw with a start that it had fused with the metal of her hand. Her spark pulse tripled and a wave of dread washed over her. She hoped Blurr would wake up soon so they could get out of Iacon before the blinded, infuriated Overlord stumbled across them.
This unit's project designation is Primicerius. Primicerius is an adaptive, multi-functional, artificial intelligence weapon, designed with cutting edge processor interface capabilities, and equipped with the galaxy's most highly advanced weapons' systems. Primicerius is programmed to preserve itself by any means necessary, excluding any means causing harm to the registered user. Restrictions do not apply to unregistered users.
It stated in response, its emptily toneless voice sounding only in her mind. Nightracer nudged Blurr gently, then more insistently when he didn't react in any way.
"Why do you want to kill me?"
Primicerius is an artificial intelligence, created and programmed to destroy. This unit does not possess emotions, nor does Primicerius desire any more than to adequately inform and serve the registered user. However, unregistered users are assumed to have malicious intent, and thus will be terminated for the safety of this device and the registered users.
She nodded minutely, her expression growing more concerned as she shook Blurr again, glancing around warily, her large ruby optics wide and wild like those of a hunted animal. "Why can't I disconnect from the weapon? Why can't I set you down?"
During the integration process, malicious intent was detected. Users with malicious intent cannot be allowed to continue.
"Wouldn't I be less likely to be malicious if I didn't have such a weapon of mass destruction fused to me?"
To ensure minimal endangering behavior, the termination of the offender is most efficient. Any damage caused prior to Primicerius' termination of the host is counted irrelevant in correlation to the amount that can be caused over one Cybertronian life-time.
"But I don't have malicious intents!" Nightracer practically screamed in exasperation.
This unit cannot verify the sincerity of this statement. Unregistered users who have been flagged for malicious intent are not to be trusted or heeded. Malicious intent is irreversible, and cannot be rectified over time. The clone unit Nightracer: Mark II will be terminated in approximately 0.94 orns.
Prodding the blue racer urgently one last time before giving up and sitting next to his unconscious frame, the teal and gray sniper looked over her wounds. Life-En oozed from countless cuts where glass had embedded itself in her protoform, but primarily the damage was superficial only. Everywhere that the neon orange gel had seeped into the scrapes felt like someone had taken a drill to her protoform.
The worst of the damage by far consisted of the large piece of shrapnel that had sliced into the back of her right thigh, severing a primary fuel line. She had hardly noticed it before, but she'd lost enough life-En from it that the protoform below the wound was tingly and numb, and she was beginning to feel somewhat off-balanced.
Now that her spark was calming down and her battle systems had released their hold on her, the day they'd just had left her exhausted, sore all over, and feeling like curling up in a ball and crying. She lifted her damaged pede up and twisted around to look at it at a better angle, hissing as the motion shot spikes of pain through the limb.
She saw the protruding shrapnel and gripped it firmly in her hand, putting her other hand in her mouth to bite down on rather than howling and giving away their position. Bracing herself as best as she could, the femme took a deep vent and ripped the shrapnel from her leg, biting down hard on her hand, which rather than helping, just made her want to scream more.
Perhaps with a klick's forethought, she might have used something that wasn't attached to her to bite. Yes, that would've been a whole lot smarter. Oh well. Nightracer vented raggedly and rummaged through her subspace for a mesh patch. She had gotten some from an abandoned medical facility a while ago. So with luck she would still have some.
Thinking she had what she wanted, the femme materialized a polishing cloth, a piece of glass, and a half-forged dagger. Any of those would have been great for biting down on instead of her hand, but none were the mesh patches she needed to keep herself from leaking out on the floor next to this unconscious Autobot who very likely had mesh patches in his subspace. She shook him again, not really expecting anything to come of the action.
He moaned and rolled over to face her, mumbling for Ironhide to leave him alone to sleep out his shift.
She nudged him insistently. "Blurr, get up. We need to get out of Iacon somehow, and we need to get this gun off of me before it terminates me in not quite an orn, and I still need Swindle's medic... even more now than before."
She watched her outstretched hand tremble from the fatigue, fear, and aches. Her t-cog felt as though the acid-coated dagger that had originally damaged it was still being wretched around in there.
Her voice grew weaker as she pleaded, "Please, Blurr... Please get up. I can't carry you, and I won't leave you here to be killed. I'm responsible for enough sparks. Please?"
The blue-toned mech's optics fluttered open reluctantly and he grunted, shoving himself up on one elbow and massaging his helm with his other hand. "Eeeurgh. I've got a killer helm-ache here. Seriously femme, I'm glad to be alive and all, but next time you hero-lunge me out of death's way, could'ya not brain me in the-" Disgusted horror flashed over his face and he flicked a globule of orange shock absorbent goo off his servos, "Bleck! What in the galaxy are you covered in? Scrap that, what in the galaxy am I covered in?"
Just as quickly, the disgust was replaced with concern, "Forget the gloop, what on Cybertron did you do while I was out? You've got glass sticking outta your protoform like an angry fritz-spine! And your pede is spewing life-En... I have mesh patches, why didn't you just ask me?"
Nightracer glanced down at her frame, chuckling at the imagery Blurr's first impression of her had placed in her mind. The need for medical attention overrode both amusement and exasperation though, so the femme dragged herself a few inches closer to the mech, reaching out for the patches.
Rather than giving her the patches, the mech pulled them out of his subspace and silently asked her permission before setting to work on stanching the flow of life-En from the back of her leg, just above her knee joint. She didn't argue, inwardly grateful for the help. It had been a while since anyone had offered to help her. A long while that extended far beyond her time on the run.
"H-how- ow! do we get back to your ship?" The sniper bit out, trying to distract herself from Blurr's work. Her vents were heaving unevenly. "T-transmat's out... what with... Huunnnggh... Overlord. Explosions... Would have attracted the DJD... too. Need to get... m-ow!-ving."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, you're not thinking about moving right now, we need to get you fixed up and we need to get rested and recovered before even thinking about going anywhere! Captain's orders!"
She pulled in a sharp intake of air and bit down on her lip, hunching over and groaning from her engine. Slumping against the wall in relief as that wave of hurt passed, Blurr nodded to let her know he was finished with the patch. When the static left her vision, she shook her helm. "That's not how they work. No time to rest, no time to recover, no time to stop moving. Blurr, when you're on the List, you don't stop till you're dead, because if you do, you might as well be. 'Sides, who made you captain?"
"I made me captain, cause captains make the rules, and my first rule of captainhood is that I'm captain." The mech replied matter of factly, slipping her arm over his shoulder and hoisting her up. "But if you're really worried about it, we can get you out of the open to spend the night."
"Where?" She asked tiredly, letting the Autobot hold her up almost entirely. She swiped aside an error telling her to consume Energon to replace what she'd lost.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, then he smiled almost grimly. "I know a place, you're not gonna like it, but it's a place to stay, and the Cons won't bug us there."
Pede in front of pede. Step after step. Just five more steps. Five more steps. She vented harshly, leaning heavily on Blurr. Stairs. Scrap, couldn't there be an elevator? Oh, she'd give just about anything for a good berth and some fuel.
She didn't look around, focusing on no more than each step in front of her. Blurr had said they were almost there. Her processors were getting foggy, and Primicerius, the AI gun that was going to kill her for being a clone, had almost cheerfully informed her that she needed to refuel because her wounds were taxing her frame too much, so it had to stop sapping her life force.
Primicerius is detecting dangerously low levels of Energon in the current host. If the clone unit Nightracer: Mark II wishes to live to the full extent of her remaining life before being terminated by Primicerius, refueling and obtaining medical attention would be advised.
"How nice. Thank you so much for that." Nightracer snarled sarcastically, drawing an odd glance from Blurr.
"Uh… Did I do something to hurt you or something, or do we need to stop and rest for a bit or what do you need?" She tell from his pitying expression that he'd decided that she was delirious.
She grunted in response, attempting for a moment to hold herself up, then instead stumbling and ending up leaning even more heavily on him. Whatever her t-cog had done in that battle with Overlord had really messed her up inside. The t-cog hurt even more than it had when the original damage was inflicted. "How much farther?"
"Let's see, I think it should just be around the corner… This guy owes me a favor, so he'll probably let us in, after all-"
The sniper cut him off, "Wait. Did you just say 'probably'?" Her voice raised in volume as her exasperation did, "You've been dragging me for a whole hic to somewhere we'll probably be let into?!"
Blurr gave her a sheepish shrug, inadvertently jostling her, eliciting a sharp gasp from her. He grimaced, "Look I'm sorry, but when a mech can run a hic in less than a klick, it really doesn't seem so far! You need to rest, and I don't think you can make it to where we're going, especially since every time I twitch it causes you agony. We have to stop here."
"WE CAN'T!" She roared at him, clutching her side with her free arm, her engine growling.
He was right, she couldn't do this. But they couldn't stop. If she stopped, she'd die. If she kept going, she wouldn't make it and she'd die. The worst part though was that even if she made it to wherever Blurr was taking them, she'd still die because of this stupid gun.
If it hadn't been her life that was the joke, the irony of the whole situation would have been hilarious. They went to get a gun to pay for a medic to heal her, and the same gun that was to be her savior was now to be her end. And here she'd thought she'd be sung into eternal rest by the DJD.
"We can't." Nightracer repeated brokenly, willing the tears in her optics not to fall.
The blue Autobot glanced around the empty alley, apparently to make sure no one had heard her outburst. His expression seemed to suggest that he was actually looking for someone to make her stop crying. Of course, he could also have been looking for an escape route so he could ditch the teary Decepticon clone that basically everyone wanted to kill.
She swatted away a stray tear with a rumble of her engine, scowling at the pink coolant on her hand. Another drop rolled down in its place and she brushed it away with the same roughness. Blurr took hold of her wrist gently before she could continue her mad dashing away of the tears that wouldn't stop coming.
"Um…" He mumbled awkwardly, clearly not having thought of anything to actually say. His optics darted around again, making her choke down another sob. His expression turned desperate and he started over, "Hey… Hey, shh… It's gonna be alright…"
The femme averted her teary gaze, wincing as a shudder wracked her frame. She pulled her wrist away and hugged herself forlornly, demanding, "How? How, Blurr? You should run away while you still can. Leave me here to die before you get dragged down to share my fate."
Her tone and her words rang harsh in her audials, and she heard the blue Autobot's engine hitch at the sting of them. Her scarlet optics however, shone with the despair that gripped her as she tried to think of some way out of this mess if he took her up on it.
"Don't'cha think it's kind of too late for that by now, I mean I already know they're after you, and people know I know, so even if I left you here, they'd still prob'ly come after me to find out where you are."
She regarded him with cold optics, her tone completely flat, "Was that supposed to be encouraging? Like, gee, she's crying and leaking out and feels like total slag already, why don't I tell her she's already signed my death warrant!"
The femme paused to set her mind down for a good angry rant - after all, making a bot mad at you was one of the best ways she knew of to part. Break any ties that may have accidentally formed, and voila, she had one more ache that would never go away, and they had their sparks intact.
Before she could begin the spiel she now had played out in her mind, she vaguely registered that Blurr had started moving and then she found herself scooped off her feet, his arms under her back and knees. "No offense, but I'm gonna declare you judgementally impaired from extensive loss of Energon, and I'm gonna ignore the fact that you want me to leave you here, because as an Autobot, its my duty to protect innocent people, and whether you believe it or not, I think you fit that category, and you're in no shape to argue, so if you want you can always scream at me later, when you're not leaking like a busted faucet."
Before she could object, the alleys around her were zipping by in a drab blur of shadows and rust. As much as she hated to admit it, the mech was right: she was in no shape to argue or resist. She was damaged… in more ways than she particularly cared to list.
Within moments she and Blurr were standing – or rather, Blurr was standing with her still in his arms – in front of a rusty old mech who was distinctly not pleased to meet them.
"No, ya can't come inta my house, and ya can't stay fer supper, and ya could's much as buy me the 'ole black moon an' ya still woun't be welcome. So scram, Speedy."
Blurr glanced down at the femme in his arms, noting with an uneasy frown that her scarlet optics were rapidly dimming and her frame was limp. "C'mon mech, she's hurt and leaking badly, and she's going to die if she doesn't get some rest and Energon and medical care, and you're the only bot I know in this sector, and I know I'm not welcome, 'cause of how I left, but please, this is a life or death matter, and I swear you won't even know that I'm here and we'll leave as soon as we can, just please don't let her die, I made a promise!"
"Ya shoun'ta made promises ya coun't keep then, boy." The red mech replied coldly, his arms crossed stubbornly, though he tossed a pitying look towards Nightracer.
The blue Autobot looked down, his expression hurt and desperate, but understanding. He bowed his helm to the red mech and started to leave right as the older mech's resolve apparently failed.
"Aww, slaggit, Blurr…" The mech grumbled, putting a restraining hand on Blurr's shoulder, "Pit, what was ah thinkin'? Ah gave up on the war, not havin' a spark. Bring 'er in an' set 'er down on the berth in the back, ah'll see what ah can't do ta help 'er out."
"Ironhide, you are the awesomest guardian I've ever had the honor of being hated by!" The blue speedster hollered over his shoulder as he flew through the door and into the back room, setting her down carefully on the berth.
Nightracer moaned quietly as she was set down, her spark fluttering weakly in its chamber. She forced her optics to reboot and stared at Blurr through them, fear shining in her expression. Her spark felt… strange. Frail and leaden in her chest, pulsing sporadically. Errors were running over her HUD too fast for her tired processors to understand.
Primicerius has detected an irregularity in the clone unit Nightra… The foreign voice in her helm seemed to trail off as her lethargic mind lost interest and ignored it along with the error messages. She just wanted to sleep. Sleep for a thousand vorns, at peace from reality.
"Blurr…?" She croaked, wondering why everything was suddenly so hard. She had no serious injuries, at least, none that would be life-threatening. But her spark chamber felt icy and her t-cog was burning up, enough so that she could feel the heat radiating from her abdomen. "Something's… something's wrong… with my spark… P-please, I… I don't want to die…"
She felt her systems involuntarily slipping into stasis lock, and her efforts to stay it off were futile. The sniper raised a hand up towards Blurr, as if should she manage to reach him, he would somehow be able to anchor her to life and reality. Too weak to reach, the femme let out a despondent little sigh, not even finding the will to be angry at her graying frame for failing her.
Far, far away, a gentle, worried voice – she almost didn't recognize it, slowed down to a normal speed – stuttered, "I-It's gonna be alright, Race… W-we can still… fix this. I-I… I promise…"
His voice wavered so much… She couldn't help but doubt him.
"Scrap!" He shouted, landing a rapid stream of punches into the wall, "Ironhide, call a medic, she's fading!"
The blue racer darted into the next room and returned astro-seconds later with a cube of Energon, which he felt like just shoving down her throat, but logic stopped him. She needed to take it in slowly enough for her tanks to process it. What she really needed was a medic and an Energon drip, but he didn't have either, so this was going to have to work, except he knew it wouldn't be fast enough.
Blurr tilted the unconscious femme's mouth open and dribbled a bit of the fuel into her mouth, sighing in relief as even in stasis, her systems were still functional enough to accept it. He poured in a little more, and continued to do so until the cube was gone, just giving her a sip at a time. His vibrating servos had made him spill at least a quarter of the cube on her face and neck, but her coloring was getting better, so he didn't particularly care. After all, he had told her that she could scream at him all she wanted once she was recovered.
If she recovered.
"Shut up shut up shut up, she's gonna live, of course she's gonna live, she can't die cause I promised her she wouldn't, and if she did, I'd be a liar." He scowled, refilling the Energon cube and bringing it back, setting it on the bed stand, along with a bowl of coolant and cloths. He soaked several of the cloths in coolant and laid them out over her t-cog, which was overheating far beyond what he figured was healthy.
"Besides," He continued rambling to himself, for no other reason than that his thoughts were too fast to process and needed to be expelled in some way, "Her coloring is getting better, even if she's still leaking and overheating and condensation is pooling on her armor cause she's overheating so bad, and oh scrap I need to get her cooling off, cause she's unnaturally feverish and is gonna fry her systems…"
Ironhide rushed in just then with a red and white bot whose paint job practically screamed medic. As soon as the newcomer caught sight of Nightracer, he shoved Blurr aside and ripped open his tool kit, running a rapid scan on the femme in the process.
"You're my assistant." The medic ordered Blurr gently, quickly unclasping Nightracer's abdominal armor and proto-plating, "Laser scalpel."
Blurr, without question or hesitation, snatched up the item requested and gave it to the medic, understandably surprising the mech with his speed. The medic skillfully and quickly sliced a tidy incision in the femme's protoform directly above the t-cog and pinning it back to give him room to work, simultaneously injecting a syringe full of something directly into her powerlines.
"Clamps, magnetic stylus." The medic took a moment to further examine Nightracer's internals and took a sharp vent. "Spark monitor."
One Joor Later.
Blurr and the medic came out of the berthroom and slumped into Ironhide's sitting lounge, both visibly exhausted. The speedster was abnormally quiet with the trillions of half-finished thoughts swirling through his processors. His cerulean optics were wide and minutely blank, glassed over like he'd never left the berthroom turned surgical bay.
After the two of them simply sitting there, staring forward in silence, Ironhide finally broke the stillness, "So… the femme gonna make it?"
The medic nodded wearily, his tone nonetheless optimistic and relatively cheerful, "Yes, our patient is stable for now, and it looks like she's going to pull through just fine." He went on to explain, "Her t-cog is completely out of commission now, and I don't have the resources to replace it, but I've disabled it so it won't cause any more problems. It looks like she tried to transform with a burnt out cog and when it tried to transform her, the cog pinched one of the primary fuel lines to the spark. The added strain from her other wounds and her extensive loss of life-En resulted in her spark's fuel supply dropping to almost nothing, which sent her into stasis as her spark went into shock."
The red and white medic tilted his masked helm at Blurr, holding out his hand, "I'm First Aid, by the way."
Blurr blinked at the extended hand before shaking it, taking care to do so at what other bots would consider a 'normal' pace. "I'm Blurr, apparently the least capable friend alive, since I basically spent the day being passed out while my prisoner-crewmate-fellow-outcast-ally got beat up and thrown out a window seven stories up by Overlord."
"She got thrown out a window? By Overlord?" First Aid repeated disbelievingly, his blue visor dimming as he processed that, "How are either of you still..."
He shrugged, tossing a stray glance to the door behind which Nightracer lay in medical stasis. "She sorta went psycho-sniper on him and shot out his optics, so he couldn't see so well, but he wasn't too happy about that, so he threw her through a window, and apparently she was carrying my unconscious frame for a good portion of that, so I really don't know what exactly happened, or how we didn't get splattered into a zillion pieces, except that we were covered in a weird orange goo when I came to, a block away from where we'd been when I passed out."
"She's lucky to be alive." The mech said quietly, watching the door to where she lay resting with a concerned frown, almost whispering as though speaking to himself, "Her spark can't take the amounts of strain she's putting it to."
"What do you mean her spark can't take it, what's wrong with her spark? She never said anything about having any spark disorders or anomalies, so why-"
First Aid's expression was hard to read behind both mask and visor, but the blue band over his optics seemed to show some sort of inner conflict. "I-I shouldn't tell you. It's a matter of medical confidentiality."
Blurr glared at the boxy bot's soft, apologetic tone. "What's the point of being a medic if she hurts herself or gets herself killed because no one knew how to help because her medical confidentiality was so cheerily intact that her life couldn't be?!"
The bot's optic ridges furrowed in distress as he was torn between his responsibility to the health and safety of his patient and not violating the non-optional trust placed in him. "Well, technically... Because of the nature of it, it would be beneficial for those closest to her to be aware of her... unique situation..."
The blue speedster glanced at Ironhide briefly and the red mech grumbled something about his charge always thinking he could just zip in and take over as he left to go do whatever it was the old mech did now that he'd given up on the war. Ironhide was one of the last mechs Blurr would've expected to quit, but when Cybertron went dark, a lot of bots changed. A lot of bots gave up on a lot of things, for better or for worse.
First Aid sighed, still plainly unsatisfied with his self-justifications. At the urging nod from Blurr, he started explaining, "Her spark is... not like most. Its small and badly traumatized, making it weaker and somewhat accident-prone. The injury that we just spent a joor fixing is a good example of that, because any other spark would have been sufficiently sustained by the other fuel lines."
He tugged at his servos for a klick before absently setting himself to dealing with Blurr's various damages as he spoke, "Truthfully? I have no idea how she exists. What's been done to her - to make her - shouldn't even be possible. Her spark is... is a shard. One piece to a greater whole. I don't know who would have done it or why, but her spark has been forcefully shattered into... Primus knows how many pieces."
The two Autobots sat in a stunned, thoughtful silence, both wearing equally sickened, curious, and pensive expressions. Blurr fidgeted as the red and white medic worked on the numerous unimportant injuries he'd sustained. First Aid knocked a medical spanner off the sofa and muttered an apology as he picked it up, giving it a little pat as he set back down on a safer perch.
Blurr let out an overwhelmed sigh, his processors spitting out a million thoughts a second, faster even than he could run. The only reason he wasn't talking as fast as he was currently thinking was because he was too shocked to do much more than sit and fidget.
The very thought that someone would go into someone else's spark - the core of who they were - and purposefully break it... was horrifying. No spark should have been able to withstand that, much less continue on as a sane being. Unless everything that that spark originally was had been shattered along with it, if the trauma had been so great that the spark chose to forget everything just to try to lessen the pain of being torn apart.
But what sort of a twisted, sparkless killer would have done such a thing? What did they hope to accomplish by it? Did Nightracer even realize what had been done to her, or had they somehow made her forget entirely that she had once been a whole?
He let out another shaky vent, still trying to wrap his helm around the concept. She was a shattered spark. A piece of a single person that was no more. Another broken reminder of just how far Cybertronians as a race had fallen.
Whether this Decepticon femme believed it or not, she needed help. She couldn't go on fighting like this on her own; one femme against the universe. Which was - probably far easier said than done - why he wasn't going to let her.
