Blood Soaked and Invaded - 02 (40 page)

“I see you are feeling well enough to move.” He looked at my face, and his sleepy eyes shot wide open. “Oh. Crikey.”

I lifted my new hand so he could see it and tapped him on the end of his nose.

“Yes. They match. Now let me in so I can see Charlie. Please.”

He moved aside and I lit up the stairs like a gaggle of aliens wanted my ass.

Standing before the bedroom door, I gave my sensors a feather-light touch. Shawn was right beside her, and they were both asleep. Her sleep was fitful; the emotions pouring off her were enough to choke me. Charlie’s feelings weren’t the only thing I could read. Her body told me the rest of the story.

My new eye can cry, and my capacity for instantaneous rage works just fine.

I forced myself to breathe normally, and shut my anger away. There would be time for rage later–I planned to make sure there would be–but I couldn’t open the door and have it be the part of me running the show.

Uneasily, I turned the knob and stepped into the room. Two weapons were pointed at me, one in Charlie’s hand and the other in Shawn’s. I raised my hands to show they were empty.

“Frank? Is that you?” Charlie’s voice was strained and hoarse.

There were lines on her face I’d never seen before. They weren’t wrinkles: they were fresh scars.

“Yes.” I didn’t take a single step forward. They were both far too tense for me to get closer without an invitation. The guns in their hands were the “standard issue” sidearm for our neighborhood. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Bro,” Shawn said, “your vital signs are fucked up, and the last time I saw you, you didn’t have a right arm. Are you really you?”

“Yes. The new nanotech had some interesting things to say about my injuries, so I went to the garage and ate a side of UFO hull. All I got was indigestion and this freaky black arm.” I smiled at him.

“He sounds like himself, Knocker,” Charlie whispered.

Chunhua opened a channel to the three of us, and confirmed my identity. She also requested Shawn let Charlie and me have a little time alone before signing off.

“Is that okay with you, sis?”

“Yes,” her voice cracked, “I want my Frank!”

She wasn’t the only one crying.

I went to her and took her in my arms. Dear God, she cried. I let her get it out, at least as much as she could right then, and kept my mouth shut. I had no idea what to say anyway.

Shawn touched my shoulder and left the two of us alone.

“...so sorry,” I heard her say between the sobs.

“I love you.” I just told her the one thing in the universe I knew to be true.

“We thought you were gonna die. I was scared you’d leave me all by myself,” she rasped. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better. I’m so sorry.”

“I love you, Charlotte Marie Cooper. You did everything you could have.”

“I’m not pregnant anymore. You don’t have to stay with me,” she said before the dam truly broke.

I could run my memories backward and know for certain how long I held her, rocking her, while she let it out. I don’t want to do that. It was hard enough to go through that once without reliving it over minutiae.

“I love you, honey. You’re mine, Charlie. Do you hear me,” I asked her, lifting her chin so she could see it in my... eye.

“You’ve got a black eye,” she said through the tears.

“The right eye is my formal eye. I wear it to all the important events... same as the arm.”

She nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t tracking the conversation.

“I love you. You still love me, too?”

“Yes. I’m yours,” I told her, wiping a tear off the tip of her nose.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him,” she whispered, ducking her head down against my chest.

I’d wiped her tears with my right hand. Just like when I stuck my finger in my eye socket, I got a breakdown of the chemical components of her tears, and a little “hand shake” from familiar tech. Somehow she had Biggie’s special formula critters running around in her system. Strange.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I knew it was risky to ask, but I did it anyway.

“Buttons broke my neck and laughed while I healed up. Then the EMP went off. He cut me up. He cut my,” a shudder went through her whole body, “womb out.”

I kept holding her, and my tears leaked down on the crown of her head. I swallowed every emotion I could and held it all down. There would be time later.

“Frank?”

“Yes, my love,” I whispered.

“I’m not pregnant no more. You don’t gotta stay.” Her voice was tiny and strange–unlike anything I’d ever heard from her–and I understood that the damage was more than physical.

Must. Keep. Calm.

“I’m staying with you Charlie. I love you.”

“I can’t move real good neither. Dr. Jaya says I’m still healin’ up and its gonna take a while `fore I’m right.” She looked up at me, and my heart dropped.

I’d seen the look in her eyes before, just on other people. Specifically, on people who didn’t have a really tight toehold on reality. She wasn’t looking at me: she was looking through me.

It made complete sense that no one told me what had happened to her. They were right. I would have lurched out of bed, and probably killed myself between trying to help her and needing to hunt the sick fucker down.

Still, I had a whole set of feelings about these circumstances I couldn’t reasonably address. I packed them away with the rage. Just like horny little rodents, I suspected they’d breed in captivity.

“Charlotte, do you know who set off the bomb?”

“Yes,” she said in a stronger voice. “Buttons did it. He cut a deal with the Progeny. He
hates
us all.”

“Thank you for telling me, my love.”

“You’re welcome, Frank. What happened to your arm and your eye?”

“I was hurt in the explosion, and lost them. They just grew back an hour ago.”

“Oh. That’s good. You were hurt really bad, then.” Her voice started to break again, and she started to rock back and forth slowly. “You were hurt real bad and that’s why you didn’t come save me. I was worried ’cause you didn’t come when I called you. Maybe you didn’t love me no more. Maybe you only stayed with me ’cause of the baby.”

As soon as I heard those words come out of her mouth, my heart lurched in my chest. I couldn’t speak with a 24-mule team of gigantic emotions clogging my gullet. My brain still worked, but it was stuck on the following mantra: “Must. Keep. Calm. Kill. Buttons. Soon. Just not right now.”

Charlie shifted in my embrace and brought me right into the moment.

The love of my life was rocking to and fro in my arms, and her mental state was moving the same way her body was. I couldn’t begin to imagine living through something that horrible, and I worried that she might decide to do something… I won’t lie to myself… I hoped she wouldn’t make the sort of choice I nearly did a time or two. I wanted her to live.

“I will always love you. I promise. When we’re all healed up, I want to ask you a big question. Will you heal up for me?”

“Shawn, Chu-baby, Dr. J, and Dr. B want me to get well real soon, too. What are you gonna ask me?”

“I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

She brightened up a little, and stopped rocking. Her tone of voice didn’t change, but I was grateful for what I got.

“Oh! D’you think I can wear a white dress? I really wanna wear a white dress and have a big white cake.” Her voice and manner shifted. “You will make a dashing groom, Frank. We should go tuxedo shopping when things calm down. Will you let your hair grow just a little, so we can do something nice with it?”

“Sure. I’d be happy to.” I was following her stream of consciousness, hoping for an island. “Would it bother you if I wore a kilt and Scottish formals instead of a tux?”

“Oh. I didn’t even think about that!” She giggled a little, and ducked her head down again. “Are you gonna wear it like they say Scottish men do? Nothin’ under it? What happens if you go bendin’ over? Don’t flash my Mama!”

“I’ll be really careful not to show off. I promise.”

“Good. I’m thinkin’ Mama would have a fit.” I felt her giggling against my chest more clearly than I heard it. “Would you mind if I went back to sleep now? I’m very tired.”

I told her it sounded like a great idea to me, and I moved to lift the gun off the blanket. Mistake. Her hand shot out and swatted mine away.

“Don’t you fuckin’ try to take Mr. Gun away: I’ll kick your ass, Frankie Bug Eye!”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll be downstairs, so you can call for me and I’ll come right up. Sleep tight, love.”

“Uh-huh.”

She turned over, pulled up the covers and shut her eyes. I got up carefully and left the room. I wasn’t completely surprised to find the upstairs hallway wallpapered in people.

I pointed at the stairs, and led a somber conga line of people into the Sharmas’ kitchen. Without saying a word, Shawn and Chunhua took seats on one side of the kitchen table. Bajali and Jayashri sat down on the opposite side. Matt “Flower” Wilson leaned his gangly frame against the kitchen counters.

I leaned on the fridge and massaged my temples before speaking.

“Jayashri, I’d like a prognosis for her recovery.”

“The new infusion of nanobots is propagating and healing the gross physical injuries. At the present rate of tissue repair, her visible scars will be gone in approximately 36 hours. I cannot say what will occur in regards to her reproductive organs. My instincts tell me not to expect her uterus to regenerate.”

“You didn’t put it back after Buttons cut it out?” I couldn’t keep all of the anger out of my voice.

“Frank,” Chunhua spoke up. “Jayashri didn’t have anything to reattach. Buttons took it with him. Shawn and I saw it in his hand as he was being lifted into the ship.”

I could count the number of times I’ve “seen red” on one hand. That moment, right after hearing that that traitorous bastard not only cut my Charlie’s womb out but took it with him when he left, was one of those occasions. I was blind with rage, and couldn’t do much more than shake in place.

“Fuck!” Shawn shouted.

“What?” I snarled at him.

“Your arm is changing shape. It’s got spikes and claws now.”

I looked down at it just in time to see the spikes and claws sink back into the surface of my skin. Note to self: the new arm reacts to my emotions and does scarier things than cracking knuckles.

“Frank, they put me in charge,” Matt said. “I’m the Government Liaison Officer now. Major Kenney is now in charge of all our military operations. All of the soldiers on his detail who hadn’t been given the nanotech have requested it. We granted that request. We have 10 guests who were flown in to help, too.”

“Thank you for the update. Are you about to follow that with some kind of statement about how wonderful it would be if I didn’t go rogue and hunt Buttons down?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head emphatically. “I am not about to tell you I don’t want you to hunt down the slimy son of a bitch. I will also not suggest that you treat him with anything resembling mercy. What I have to do is ask you to wait a little while.”

“Why wait?”

“Frank, Bravo Euro is the first priority. They made off with Bajali’s original formula, world-altering, love-thy-neighbor nanobots. We need to find them, eliminate them if at all possible, and secure the nanotech. Once we accomplish that mission, I will PERSONALLY make sure you go Buttons hunting.”

“Besides, bro,” Shawn added, “you’re sniffin’ glue if you think you’re gonna go hunting him alone. I got a long list of people who’re gonna come along,” he shook a finger in my direction, adding, “and you don’t get a say, neither.”

“Fine. We’ll sort it out later. Jayashri, what about Charlie’s mental state?”

“Frank, I am not a psychiatrist, but I do know massive emotional trauma when I see it. She seems to be manifesting dissociative regression, grief, self-blame, and some signs of PTSD. She will need immense amounts of support and patience from everyone, to say nothing of the attention of a trained mental health professional.”

“She’s been talking like a little kid lately. That part worries me,” Shawn added.

Jayashri nodded, I guessed she’d heard it, too.

“We all heard you promise to ask for her hand in marriage,” Bajali said. “It was touching. I do not want to be the bearer of bad news, but the Charlie you knew might not return. Assaults of this kind change people forever.”

“If you didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, Dr. Sharma, you should have kept your mouth shut,” Flower growled.

“I’ll take the chance she’ll recover. I love her.”

“Frank, I’m so happy she’s got you. I knew you weren’t a complete turd, but I had my doubts.” Shawn actually rubbed wetness away from his eyes.

“Future brother-in-law?”

“Yes, bro?”

“I’ll tell your future children their daddy fucked aliens if you don’t drop the sentimentality.” I held up my right hand and observed how it morphed into a particularly phallic shape. “Woot! Makes me yearn for the return of the porn industry!”