A Witness and a Victim

[Eluna Thals]

She winced and grit her teeth, holding her hand tightly against her stomach. Deep-red blood trickled through the cracks in her fingers, and saturated her blue top. She'd been shot, and it hurt like hell!

She tried not to think about it all. Pain was a kind of system alarm, notifying the control mechanism of damage. Or at least that was how an android was supposed to think. Turn it off like a light switch. It was never that easy, and she was so easily distracted.

"Gahhhh...."

She rolled on the ground, trying to lie on her stomach so that she could press herself up and get to her feet. Whoever squeezed the trigger might have driven off in a hurry, but they sure as hell could swing around the block.

Tears left shiny trails at the corners of her eyes as she returned to the ridiculous sensation of it all. Why tears?

She suddenly twisted about, and sat up straight. The anguished expression on her face went blank. It was all just a system alarm. There was damage. No yelling or crying was going to fix that.

And then she looked at the blood again, and shrieked in spite of herself.

[Adia Issoris]

The old boat of a speeder was moseying by, following the current of the street next to the transfer station. Horrible noise thudded from the trunk. It gave Adia a headache on top of the mental exhaustion from working a 24 hour shift. In this kind of 'hood, the less they knew about you, the further down your head was, the better your chances. No alliances, no enemies, no entaglements.

Pedestrians from the stop that saw each other every day ritually ignored each other. If you don't know about it, it's not your problem.

The "music" ceased. The speeder stopped.

A pair of Duros that Adia had only acknowledged spacially stared. So did most of the stop. They knew something different, like the inevitablity of gravity. She glanced over her shoulder, as the windows dropped.

"Oh no."

Blaster fire spat everywhere as Adia dove beneath a bench, through a pair of legs. The trademark rapid fwzap of an illegally upgraded E11 echoed through the duracrete canyon as the hitmen indiscrimnately gunned down everyone.

The crowds ran, free from the waterballoon of routine. Adia rolled out from under the bench afther the speeder roared away. Most were dead when they hit the ground.

"Krasst." No sleep for the weary tonight.

[Eluna Thals]

She tried to stand, and the pain sounded through her like a screaming chorus. Her breath staggered, and then righted itself.

This was more than just a painful shot. Something important had been damaged with that blast, and it only took a blink of an eye for her to know about it completely.

It was her primary batteries and energy coil. Without that, she was on auxilliaries. That meant borrowed time. 48 hours of it to be precise.

After that, it was lights out.

"Help..." she breathed out, speaking as herself once again. A scared young woman who'd just received her first gunshot wound, and knew it was a serious one.

"HELP ME!" She lay back down, legs curling up as she rested on her side.

[Adia Issoris]

An older Faleen stared into the sky, looking for a sun that would never rise again. Another readhead, a survivor, tried to stand and fell. Blood oozed between the young woman's fingertips. Adia knelt beside the woman.

"Shhh. Don't curl up." She said, trying to get a better look at the blackend wound. Adia couldn't see clearly, but knew the wound was bad. If Adia didn't keep her together, she could go into shock.

"Talk to me. What's your name?"

[Eluna Thals]

Her blue eyes stared blankly at Adia for a moment, before regarding her fully.

"Eluna....Thals."

Her hand was shaking. She frowned, biting her lower lip, and the shaking went away.

"I...."

Where was she going to go? A hospital? No chance. The skin and blood looked real enough out here, but a few flicks of a scalpel would tell an entirely different story.

"I have to get out of here."

Her eyes looked from left to right, as her artificial intellect rapidly churned through the parameters. She could get up and walk away, but extra power would have to be applied to the servomechanisms in her legs, to augment the damage in the drive train. That equated to time, and the clock was already ticking against her.

She reached out, holding onto Adia's hand. She was scared again.

[Adia Issoris]

"Eluna." Adia said, holding the woman's hand.

"I don't think that you should move without an EMT." Eluna went from scared to terrified. Adia looked around, but there was no cruiser yet, nor an ambulance.

"Are you afraid of hospitals?" The former assassin sniffed. It smelled like bio-metal hydride battery was leaking.

[Eluna Thals]

Eluna's eyes pleaded wordlessly.

"I can't go to a hospital. Don't ask me to explain, it's just..."

Well, she couldn't explain. Cutting herself off mid-sentence, she rifled through her purse, until she reached her credit pouch.

"Do you have a place...? I mean, just for a little while. This is all I have on me, if it isn't enough, I can get more."

If this didn't work, she would have to kill her. She needed somewhere quiet to wait this one out.

Then again, she was going to need somebody's help. Right now, that somebody was...this person.

She seemed to be moving back and forth between calm and collected, and a hurricane of fear, desperation, and pain. It was almost bipolar.

"What's your name?" She asked, under control again.

[Adia Issoris]

"Adia." She replied. The woman's behavior was erratic, even for a gunshot victim. With a sad look, she took Eluna's credits.

"I live a few blocks from here." Eluna started to stand, but Adia scooped her up instead. Holding the larger woman was awkward, and she felt heavy for her height. Not that Adia could talk.

"You really should go to a hospital." She said after managing her way out of the bus station.

"No, I can't."

"I know, Eluna. Bet you never thought getting shot would hurt so much."

[Eluna Thals]

She shook her head in agreement with Adia's assessment.

"If we try it my way and we don't have any luck, you can take me in. I won't argue."

There was something strange and different about this alien woman. Something that brought reassurance to her, even though she still wasn't sure how she was going to get out of all this.

She smiled as she held onto her rescuer.

"Thank you, Adia."

[Adia Issoris]

"I hope I'm doing the right thing."

Adia rounded the corner for her building. In the distance, she could hear a police siren.

"Twenty minute response time. Not so good." Adia wondered what "regular" people talked about.

"Eluna, what do you do?" She asked, and felt dumb after saying it.

[Eluna Thals]

"I used to work at the Balmorran embassy, in Public Relations. Handed in my two weeks notice five days ago."

Adia picked up her pace. The ride got a little rougher, but Eluna didn't complain.

"Now, I write resumes for a living. At least for a little while."

She winced and sucked in breath as she turned a way her body didn't like. A second later, she was okay.

[Adia Issoris]

"It's going to be expensive to clean your suit." It was charred from the blast and bloodsoaked. Eluna didn't laugh.
"I was joking." Adia was dressed in a plain gray jumpsuit with a few reflective strips around the arms and legs. Cargo containers were filthy.

"It won't be bad. You can probably get a job at different firm. What's PR like?" Adia didn't watch holos or read much beyond news.

[Eluna Thals]

"Sort of like pretending you're somebody else."

Of course, that little zinger meant more than met the eye.

"I don't think you can be a completely honest person and do that kind of job at the same time."

She'd said too much, and regretted it. Shaking her head, she sighed.

"This the place?"

She glanced at the door they had come to a stop at.

"You can put me down. I can stand."

She spoke with half-assuredness. The less burdensome she could be, the less chance she'd have of wearing out the welcome.

[Adia Issoris]

Adia leaned Eluna gently against the wall, and picked her back up after getting the door open with a yank. The faint smell of grain alchohol and urine wafted out. Graffiti was randomly scrawled.

"The super hasn't fixed the lift." Adia said as she started up the stairs. Her appartment was on the fourth floor. She passed a gran who lived on the fifth floor. They ignored each other, like always.

Adia's cramped apartment was surprisingly clean. The walls and ceiling were stained in spots, and the plastoleum floor was worn, but clean. She set Eluna on her boring metal framed bed.

"Let me take a look at that."

[Zem Vymes]

"Frelling drive-by's..."

I paced through the carnage with a lit cigar, stepping through the aftermath like the Grim Reaper. Eight dead bodies lay contorted on the ground. The dead lie in ways the living could never bear. Something in the way they fell made them less real. Like mannequins.

Unfortunately the blood brought them back into grizzly perspective.

"Gangland hit."

I spoke into a voice recorder as I paced.

"Scorch marks on the bus stop dugout and building behind indicate high rate of fire. Depth of the burns - it's one or more blaster rifles."

The bodies had something to say. I was listening.

"Nobody's wearing colors. Who were they after?"

It was possible that the target got away and fled the scene. The only way to find out was to find any witnesses and question them.

I paced away from the bodies, heading to the edge of the thoroughfare, towards the level's railing and ledge, leading down the skyscraper canyons. From here, I had a vantage point to every scorch mark and body left behind by the blasters. Where was the shooter or shooters?

"From the perspective of the street ledge, and the second lamp post. Blast scorches to my right are skewed left. Symmetrical burns are located directly in front of me. To my left, the scorches skew to the right."

I paused the recorder, mulling it over in my mind.

"Shooter or shooters...stopped at the bus stop. They fired until they were satisfied their mark was dead."

So, that meant that the mark was either exceptionally good at being lucky, or one of the stiffs had the wrong kind of gang connection.

I made my way back to the sidewalk, and paused. A crimson stain caught my interest.

"Pool of blood at the far periphery of the shots fired. There's no body to answer for it."

Ashing my cigar, I stopped the recorder and put it away.

For the moment, there was a witness out there. Somewhere.

[Eluna Thals]

At first, Eluna hesitated. She would have to tend to it herself, and she knew it. That being said, a cursory glance-over probably was safe.

She reached down, and peeled her sticky, damp blouse bottom up, revealing her midriff. A neat hole punctuated her upper-right abdomen, the periphery of the skin was flushed a deep red with black flecks from the burn. Dark red ooze dripped through the wound, and ran towards her navel. The bolt was high velocity to have allowed this kind of bleeding. A slower shot would've properly cauterized the blood vessels. This was the sort of shot used to pierce armor. A quick flip-over confirmed this. The same kind of hole peforated through the small of her back.

[Adia Issoris]

Adia frowned as she looked Eluna over. She still smelled like bio-hydride.

"You've lost a lot of blood. I can sew the wound in your back, but I'm not sure about the front." Adia left the bed and started looking through her cabinets.

"I don't have any sedatives, unfortunately." She said as she produced a large first aid kit, which Adia set on the counter. She poured a cup of water from the chiller, but not before taking a moment to smell the residue on her fingers. Deffinately bio-hyride.

She sat next to Eluna, and handed her the water.

"You have a replacement organ?"

[Eluna Thals]

"Huh?"

As soon as the interrogative left her mouth, her memory banks scoured the inquiry, cross-referencing it with likely relationships. It took less than a second to link the two.

"Oh...yeah."

Eluna nodded. Now, how would Adia be able to detect the presence of the artificial polymers in her bloodstream without the use of any visible medical equipment? That one, her databanks had no reply to.

She glanced away from her custodian, toward a window with iron bars across it that looked across the highrises.

"Jaundiced liver when I was three. The scarring wasn't operable."

[Adia Issoris]

"I think it's leaking, but it's non-toxic." Adia looked tired.
"You want me to cut the shirt off?" Eluna sat up, pained, but managed to unbutton the blouse and remove it.

"On your side." Eluna could feel the disinfectant sting against the raw wound on her back as Adia dabbed it, and then the cold bacta. Sticky medical tape sealed the hole shut.

"You won't get any more blood on my sheets through that hole. Well, you've coagulated some. I can cover the front wound, but I think you're bleeding internally." Adia ran a hand through her hair.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I've been up for 24 hours now. I just don't know what more I can do."

[Eluna Thals]

"If there's internal bleeding, there would be an adema, and a lot of swelling, right?"

That sounded a little conspicuous. Eluna withdrew, and attacked the flank of the issue.

"I had a college roommate in medical school. I used to quiz her on her practicals. "

It wasn't entirely a lie. She had the memories of that happening well enough. That it was an Imperial fabrication didn't matter to Eluna. How could she abandon her life?

The flesh wounds weren't a problem. They only covered up the real one. Nanites could mend that sort of thing. The integrity loss in her energy coil was beyond their scope. Even her lower drive train could be mended. It would cost energy, though.

"Give it a night, at least." Eluna nodded to help persuade.

"In the morning, if there's swelling and subcutaneous blood, I'll try something else."

[Adia Issoris]

"If you start to feel out of sorts just make noise." Adia walked across the room and pulled out fresh clothes and a large shirt, and then into the tiny fresher to the side.

Adia re-appeared five minutes later. She pulled the clothset next to the fresher door open. There was a sleeping bag with a sheet and blanket on top of it. The redhead dropped down and was fast asleep.

[Eluna Thals]

As Eluna slept, her body went to work, righting the wrongs that it could, with the energy it could spare. The blood vessels and the skin were priority, mending to avoid the suspicion that would only serve to send her to a hospital.

The drive train was stabilized, but not fully restored. She could limp, but that was the best she'd manage. And she couldn't make a habit of it. She was still on borrowed time, and the repairs made it even less.

But, as the sun rose, Eluna opened her eyes, and stretched on the bed. Now, things would get interesting.

[Adia Issoris]

"Morning." Adia held two cups of tea. One she sipped while she held the other remarkably steady. Eluna's middle looked like it was healing nicely with the help of a dab of bacta gel. There was something else about the woman that Adia couldn't put a finger on, aside from strange reactions to trauma and an understandable aversion to hospitals, if her story held any water. Adia suspected it didn't, but there weren't any of the telltale hormonal changes that accompany lying.

It was possible that Eluna was simply strange.

"Tea?"

[Eluna Thals]

"Mmhmm."

Eluna eased herself into a sitting position on the bed, nodding in agreement. The bio-electric processor unit could break down food products into their basic hydrocarbons, which could be piped into her energy reservoir. It wasn't nearly as efficient as the real thing, but it was something to fall back on.

"Do you have anything to eat?" She tucked her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

[Adia Issoris]

"Eggs, shakk meat, some fruit and vegetables. I can make an omlette." Adia's strange "secret" was that she could cook. She grabbed a large pan and placed it on the tiny two burner stove.

"Do you like avisia cheese? It complements peppers nicely." She said, cracking an egg expertly.

[Eluna Thals]

"Never had it."

She watched from the bed as Adia moved some pans around.

"Whatever's good. I trust you."

She smiled as she watched the alien work.

[Adia Issoris]

"I cooked the shakk on the side. It tends to overwhelm the omlette otherwise." Eluna's plate had a generous portion of omlette and shakk, but Adia's was roughly half again.

"If it's too much I'll finish it off later." Aside from complimenting Adia's cooking, the pair ate in silence. Eluna watched Adia eat systematically, chewing each bite 35 times, steadily downing her water.

"Mmrh needed more salt on the shakk." Eluna nodded, although they were both nearly done with the meal.

Adia got up for the salt shaker, and someone knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Adia said, pulled open one of the kitchen drawers and palmed something.

[Zem Vymes]

"Coco District Watch. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

[Eluna Thals]

Eluna's head swiveled and locked onto the voice behind the door, her eyes widening a little.

She made herself scarce, limping into the refresher.

[Adia Issoris]

Adia closed the drawer and watched Eluna dissapear into the fresher, somewhat bewildered. Between police and hospitals, the girl was not going to do well long term.

"One moment." She pulled the top sheet of the bed off, folded it, and tossed it neatly into the hamper. Adia flicked the deadbolt open, but left the top chain, stood aside, and pulled open the door. A brief glimpse showed a worn man who smelled like a detective: foul coffee and old smoke. A green eye peered at him through the narrow gap, close enough to see well but distant enough to easily avoid the door if he were to rush it.

"Can I help you, officer?"

[Zem Vymes]

"There was a shooting last night on the block across the way. Multiple victims. I'd like to talk to all of the residents here, and see if we can paint a picture to work with."

[Adia Issoris]

The chain came off the door.

"There were three gunman and a driver. They hit a pair of related Duros. All used modified E11s, sounded like they just upped the firing cycle and did a dirty focus chamber enlargement. The front gunner went akimbo, I think. I heard one of the blasters smack sheet metal. That gun is about to quit. I can't tell you much about the speeder without a picture except that it was an older large body model. The repulsor setup sounded Sorrosuub."

[Zem Vymes]

It was a mouthful. It was also a hell of a lot more than I was expecting. She wasn't on layman's terms with the tools of the trade, and in my business, that piqued interest.

"Uh huh..."

I nodded, jotting my major thoughts on a datapad.

"Would you mind coming with me to the precinct station? I'd really like to get a full statement from you, since it sounds like you've got more than the last few sods I've talked to."

[Adia Issoris]

Adia's ears drooped slightly. She needed to get Eluna to somewhere else. While most of her valuables were in various secure storage vaults, she still had a few less-than legal tools floating around her appartment.

"I have a few errands I need to run. Today is my only day off. If you leave a card, I can be by in two hours." Which was true, except she needed only an hour if Eluna wasn't around.

[Zem Vymes]

I slipped a contact card between the crack in the door.

"Feel free. I'll be at the precinct station all day."

I moved to leave, and then stopped, turning back to the door and leaning forward slightly.

"Smells good. Hope you bring by leftovers."

[Adia Issoris]

She took the card, and glanced back at the small amount of food that Eluna hadn't eaten.

Commander Vymes followed by his district and precinct, and where the building was. Adia slipped the sliver of plastic into her pocket after commiting the contents to memory. She cleaned her plate with the sonic scrubber and a bit of vaporizing soap.

Adia knocked on the fresher door.

"Eluna, he's gone. What was that all about?"

[Eluna Thals]

"I was shot. I don't want the attention, from the hospital or the police."

She limped back to the table, and began eating hurriedly.

"What if they think I'm involved? I mean, more than just getting shot?"

Adia crossed her arms, her patience at breaking point.

"Look, I can respect that. I looked out for you for this long. But I gotta know if you're on the level with me, and I just don't trust you enough for that. Like you said, what if you're more involved?

I've got enough on my plate to worry about besides harboring a fugitive. I'm not gonna ask. Just go."

Eluna looked up to Adia's hand on the door, swallowing heavily and sighing. She wanted to fight it, but she knew she was on the end of her rope.

Dabbing her face demurely with a napkin, she nodded, and stood up.

"Do you have a bag for this?"

Ten minutes later, she was on the street again, sack lunch in hand.