CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Transfer

PART FOUR…Power …

Waiting for him to calm down enough to listen, Vanessa frowned. "We could argue this forever, but let's leave it at that I couldn't be a wife to you or a mother to Tessla, so I gave you peace instead. I gave you money and peace. It's too bad you don't like the way I do it, but if it's any consolation, if I weren't doing it, someone else with far less patience and mercy would be."

Slowly, she attempted to sit up. Her arms shook with effort, but she was getting nowhere.

Vash bent over and lifted her by her armpits into a sitting position. He noticed that she winced as he did, because he had pressed several bandaged spots. Her face seemed awfully pale.

Vanessa grimaced but said nothing. "I gave you over 90 years of peace because I couldn't give you more than a year of love. You need lots of people to love and to love you – I should never be one of those people again. I was pretty fucked up when we loved each other, and I'm even more fucked up now, I can guarantee. And really, I am sorry about Meryl. I bet you loved her like no one has ever loved a person before."

His posture relaxed, and he slumped into the chair. It was really comfortable. "I don't want to talk about it. Especially not with you."

"Wow, I knew you would be bitter but I didn't imagine you'd be as irate as you are" she whispered, voice getting hoarse. She took a glass from the little tray on her bed and sipped dark purple juice slowly. "Fine, we won't talk about that. You're here because I messed up, and I'm not so full of myself that I won't admit that. They hadn't given me clearance yet, because they thought there were mines out there. And there were. I'm an idiot. I know. These are scars I'll actually be at fault about."

They sat in silence for a long time. He listened to her breathing and the hum of the lights. The chair was awfully soft. Vash glanced at the watch he wore on his left wrist. This was a waste of Tessla's time.

"I didn't know people used mines anymore," he muttered, trying to stay cross though his sense of compassion was overpowering his angst.

She nodded. "Last known serious injury by mine was over 40 years ago. But damn, the technology isn't lost." That didn't seem to be a joke.

Serious? All those cuts didn't look that serious. "Okay, I give, what happened to you?" he asked.

"Rita told you. It's something I don't want to talk about."

"She didn't tell me. She said there was an accident – that's all."

Vanessa looked down. "I told her to debrief you."

He didn't like being spoken to with such militaristic lingo. "So, what, Shrapnel shards? You have a lot of cuts to the face and body?" he assumed.

"Well, yeah, but I'm not normally this weak. I work out these days – it takes a lot to keep me in a bed for long." Hesitating, she pulled back her blankets. She carefully lifted a white, plastic sheet from her legs.

Vash's stomach churned. From the looks of it, her legs had been blown off. And by blown off, he meant violently so, since there were chunks of flesh missing from the wounds. The skin on either side of each wound was pulled and stretched far across to meet the other side's jagged skin, creating a very rough-looking ridge. The stitched ridge settled deep, within the flesh, such that there was an irregular valley approximately 8 inches wide on either leg. It reeked of disinfectant, meat, and blood.

"Severed and reattached," she mumbled, gingerly recovering her legs and setting the blankets into place again. She sweated now with the labor and gritted her teeth with the pain. "Didn't you have your thumb reattached, that one time?" she asked casually.

"Vanessa-"

"I don't want your sympathy. I don't deserve it and I don't want it." She blinked her eyes hard. "I need to go to sleep again, I'm going to faint. I'm missing a lot of blood.

"Let me cut to the chase. I'm not going to be able to do a whole lot for a while. I need you to substitute for me while I recover."

He tried to speak, but she held up a finger sternly, indicating that there wasn't time to argue. "In order to keep peace in my absence, we need a stand in, to display the weapon. That's all. You just show it and leave. You're just an inch taller than me, about the same size under the armor, so it will work. We have it planned out; we picked an area with no inhabitants, so no one can be hurt by it. Blow up this bit of mountain face. Then the killing will stop."

"That's ridiculous."

"Go speak with Tessla about it. No one will force you to do anything." She eased her way painfully back into a horizontal position. "Do what you think is right." She closed her eyes, pupils rolling up. She gagged a little; she felt like vomiting but knew nothing would come up. God, it hurt.

Vash watched her for a moment, mind blank. She passed out quickly, but whimpered softly as she lay unconscious. He checked her pulse. Finally, he stepped out of the room, where Rita led him to his daughter.