Her height made everything a pain in the ass for him to manipulate. As he used his foot to leverage against the space where her underwear should have been, he was forced to lean back and maintain the tension on her ankle with his single fingered grip.
Jack pushed his hand into the wound and slathered some of the Lab Medjel on the bone before grabbing the bottom stalk of the broken bone. He pulled and then grinding… and finally a click of bone on bone and a sense of stability.
He looked at the now-connected bone. He didn’t dare release too much tension, he felt like it would break anew and in a worse way. He slathered Medjel on his hand and rolled each shard of bone between his fingers before placing it back in its spot. It was like a puzzle. There were more than a few shards that looked like they could fit in several places at once.
Thankfully his newly upgraded IQ seemed comfortable processing the situation. Once he had a relatively solid looking section of shinbone he noticed the blood covering his legs and arms. Jack sighed again. He just got this suit. Anything good turns to crap and then the crap multiplies.
Jack shook off the strange emotions he was feeling. They were uncomfortable. He found them and isolated them away into a nice compartment.
He paused for a moment then took a packet of the Military grade stuff and slathered it over the surface of the bone and the surrounding skin. He wasn’t sure which was would be better so, he would use both.
The military one hardened quickly and so Jack scrambled to close and pinch and replace what he had cut away. Eventually he slapped back the section of semi-disconnected skin and slathered a nice layer of military grade over the top of it. It hardened quickly and Jack gave it a few more seconds.
He finally released his grip with a slightly held breath. The bone settled nicely, or at least he thought so. He turned on his Electro Affinity and compared her legs. The right leg was kind of a mess, rogue electrical signals bouncing around. He looked at her foot again and saw her missing toes. Probably those signals. Regardless it made comparing the two useless unless he wanted to spend a significant amount of time figuring it out. He did not.
Now, onto the ribs. He got distracted by her breasts, delicate but not as large as Yuma’s, not as nice either… well, maybe pre-heart surgery Yuma. He shook his head. What was going on with him?
Focus.
Her ribs were a mess. A massive bruise spanned the left side of her torso. He reassured himself that he would not nick her heart. He also couldn’t waste anymore time. It had been already been too long since Julia had told him the news. With his IQ he was tracking how long it had been somewhat well. He wasn't entirely sure though.
He pushed against each of the ribs, they were definitely moving. Jack pushed against the ribs on her other side to get a baseline for how much ribs were supposed to move.
He started flaying a strip along her left side, going towards the middle from the back of her ribs. As her ribs came into view he felt a pang of hunger twist his stomach. He blanched and compartmentalized that entire chain of thought.
His hands were shaking a bit as he continued to perform a deep flaying on each of her different feeling ribs.
The ones that had cracks were easy to apply Medjel on. He depressed her sternum to further reveal the crack and pushed Medjel into the gap and… Dammit.
The shattered rib was… shattered. Jack debated reconstructing it or… something flared over his Affinity. Bursts of energy, the electrical signals of life, they were moving. He was picking up more though, more through a sense he didn’t recognize. Hostility, concern… unity. Jack recoiled his attention away from it. Nope.
He knew he was running out of time to get moving, Jonah and Tule must have stirred up the… colony, or whatever it was called.
Jack continued to carve. The rib was in pieces, thankfully the muscle around it had kept it somewhat in place which made rapidly Medjelling the pieces somewhat easy. He slathered a layer of the military stuff over the top of the wound before sliding and slapping the flaps of flesh and muscle back on top of her ribcage.
Jack breathed out a deep breath. Ok. Now that was handled.
He held back another sigh as he held up her ship-suit. He hated when others sighed at him. He didn’t want it to become a habit for himself.
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Korl was in a bad mood and he knew it. Still he couldn’t help but sink into the feeling. This was dumb, traveling this slow, with a huge group of people this large through… this, as he kicked an ancient sheet of paper with the toe of his boot. It crumbled into nothing.
He picked up his head and looked around. Boring desks that barely stayed upright, boring chairs in disrepair, boring… his eyes landed on Yuma, not an unfamiliar object of his attention as of late.
*CLANG*
Rifles, repeaters, and assorted weaponry swung in his direction. They turned away nearly as quick, some with chuckles, others with curses.
Korl was straining himself holding his blade against the one a scant few hairbreadths from his eye. He pulled on the magnetic tether attached to his other sword.
It whipped around his back in a violent, spinning arc, the offending, eye-carving, blade released before a fourth blade slipped around his throat.
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“Better. But you insist on distraction. I wonder what direction Tule would give, I do not believe you would let yourself get so distracted in his pre…”
Korl tuned out Cura’s reprimands and Telane’s intermittent ‘improvements’ regarding his technique. He had to pay attention to her blade, he knew she would have considered his eye a fair price for a permanent lesson, but he didn’t have to listen to her words.
He looked over at Yuma again, she met his eyes and smiled. Well, at least he thought she did. The bloody bandages hid the bottom of her face.
Telane and Cura had stopped lecturing him and so he could finally look around. He guessed this was the office or administrative portion of the ship. Useless. They were wasting time here. Who knows where Tule was but, he was definitely not here. Soon they started to find piles of calcium, then a skeleton holding a sheet of paper that wisped to dust alongside the bones at a particularly heavy footstep. There were more spread around.
Yuma raised a hand that paused everyone in a ripple flowing outwards from her position. She pointed to a harsh blue light that showed from beneath a large double door directly at the end of the primary corridor they were travelling down.
They crept towards it, Yuma in the lead. Korl took a moment to calm his breathing and check jos positioning. He was next to Yuma, to his left, Cura then Telane, the Clan Head was on the other side of Yuma and flanked by the clumsy Clan member he had heard called, “Head Monitor Yosef.” Their titles were meaningless, not like his… He shook his head. That was done with. Gone.
Korl looked behind him, the Clan had spread out in multiple overlapping lanes of fire. Of course, he didn’t have experience in this so all he saw was their positions.
Yuma slowly reached out and wrapped her fingers around the handle.
“Who’s out there? Come in already!”
The temperature outside the door might as well have been measured in Kelvin as everyone froze.
Yuma turned the handle and pushed.
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Jack repositioned Leanne on his back again. She was lighter than she looked, although, being taller than him it was a gaggle of oversized limbs to position her on his back and not slice her open with his clawblades. The full mini-duffel bags on his belts didn’t help either. The battery on his back made it at all possible since he seated her butt right on top of it. He moved one of his belts to wrap around their chests and a second to wrap about his stomach and her lower back. He was forced to sling his rifle across his chest.
He stood in front of the small room, prepared to exit. The door didn’t open. He looked down to the HandPad and took in a deep calming breath, he slowly and carefully moved his hand to press it down and sliced it on his clawblade. He felt electricity drain to heal it. He was at full charge but still. It was a waste.
He was ready as the door quietly slide open. Nothing happened. He peeked to either side. Nothing there. Well, nothing overtly hostile. Now that he was taking the time to study his surroundings it did seem like there should have been more mushrooms. The lack was unsettling. He looked down each of the hallways. They looked exactly the same. He peered further and saw that even the mushrooms were the same on either side. Was he hallucinating again?
Jack did what had become habit when he didn’t know what to do, he peered into his Affinity. The signals were muted. He could see biological electricity flowing somewhere, he traced it until he saw what it was. It looked like a beacon in the distance he walked towards it until he hit his face on the wall.
“Ok. So that direction. But…how to get there.”
Left. He started off slow and built up pace to a slow and low jog, repositioning Leanne as he adjusted his speed. Door Terminals were easy to access now that she wasn’t in danger of slipping off. He kept flipping through his Affinity. The web of mushrooms was thickening slightly in each section.
“Wha? What’s happ… oh, it’s you.”
Jack rolled his eyes, “Yeah, did you get enough sleep? You can pass out again if you want a couple more hours.”
“Hours??”
Jack chuckled, “I have no idea how long it was.” He really didn’t, he thought of what ‘an hour’ meant to him. He knew it was 60 minutes and that 60 seconds made up each minute but he was utterly incapable of understanding it on a personal level. Each of those units of measurement meant absolutely nothing to him.
“I have no idea how long you were out for…” He inwardly took a deep breath, “I uh… well… I just want to say thanks for getting me out of, whatever was happening to me.”
He grit his teeth as he felt Leanne stiffen behind him.
“Are you… Jack?”
He sighed audibly this time, “Yeah it’s me, I fixed you up as well. You should have let me work on your leg before it got that bad... How were you even walking? Jonah and Tule stumbled into something bad.”
Leanne paused, “Yes, well thank you too. Wait, how do you know that?”
“I talked to the Bridge when you were passed out. That was a Security Terminal that was linked to the Bridge, I’m impressed you found it.”
She harrumphed, it lost some of its efficacy as she rode on his back, “Well you were out of your mind trying to attack me. I’m glad it worked. Are you sure you are going the right direction?”
“Yes, absolutely. Probably. Well I know the direction but I can’t predict where there are going to be doors or not so it won’t be a straight shot but yes, I do.”
She seemed to process it, “I’ve never broken through my pain limiter before.”
Jack, heightened EQ or not, was not a fan of small talk. “Not surprised. Can you fix it?”
“Yes but it will take a little while.”
“Well, seems like a good time as any.” He hoped this would end the small talk.
“So who did you talk to on the Bridge?”
Jack closed his eyes for a long second. “Her name is Julia, apparently there’s something keeping her trapped in the Bridge Core.”
“What is doing that?”
“Them.”
“Them?”
“Yeah, she’s said ‘Them’ twice now but nothing else about 'Them'.”
“That’s… abnormal.”
“To say the least, don’t you need to focus on rebuilding your limiter?”
“It doesn’t take all my attention and since you’re walking for me…”
He felt her shrug. Great. Packmule and trapped conversationalist. Where was a crab attack when you needed it? Useless shelled abominations.
She rubbed his shoulder, where she had shot him, “How does you healing work? There’s no sign of it at all.”
“Electricity causes my cells to replicate, healing essentially. Muscle and blood doesn’t take much.”
“Wait, your suit is different. Wait. My suit is different!”
He felt her freeze behind him.
“Did you…”
“Yes. Obviously I couldn’t operate on you through a suit.”
He didn’t see it but Leanne covered her face with her hands. He desperately wished to go back to the small talk. Suddenly his brain provided something useful.
“Oh yeah, here you go.” He handed back the pistol he had found in the locker. Leanne took it after a pause, “Thank you.”
“Yeah. No problem. I'd imagine your water gun is pretty useless around here.”
They went through another door. The mycelial net was thick here.
A familiar barking laughter echoed from down a hall through the mushrooms. The smiles on the caps turned toward the two.
“Wow. That’s creepy.”
“You really don’t remember earlier? Don’t step on the teeth, that’s how I lost my toes.”
“No, not this.” Jack took off towards the source he had picked up through his Affinity sense, it was the same direction the laughter had come from.