They were still ten minutes short of stopping for lunch when the door banged open. Before Sam could say a word, Kendra shouted across the room. "Centurion Wilcox, there's an emergency requiring your presence."

For a moment, Sam stood with a slack jaw before she managed to collect her thoughts. "Uh, Soldier Whittaker, finish up the morning session without me. I have to go . . . do stuff."

Before the door fully closed, Kendra was speaking. "Sergeant Spencer called from lunch pickup reporting that she had been shot. She didn't respond to any questions over the phone. Ski isn't back yet."

"Where is lunch coming from again?"

"The soup place."

"Where's Cassandane?"

"Disappeared again. She could be gone for five minutes or five days. Not to panic you, but Spencer could be dying at this moment."

Sam took a breath. "Right. I'm going." Within ten seconds, she was dropping from the rooftop and zipping further downtown, disordered thoughts churning in her head. Her knowledge of first aid came from the classes Sean McGreary had taught the group. She should have brought him with her. No time for that now. She would just have to hope that she could handle whatever needed to be done. On a different note, she had to assume the situation would be dangerous. Sam hardened her body to prevent bullets from being a problem as she flew.

The exterior of the restaurant could not be mistaken. Glassy shards glittered on the pavement like a sheet of diamond dust around a twisted, bloody mess that created a startling contrast bordering on artistic. Though no one came too close, there were bystanders forming a distant perimeter, filming the scene on their phones or speculating on the situation with their neighbors. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

Sam ignored the attention directed at her as she entered the building. Erica Spencer lay sprawled by herself in the center of the room, blinking lethargically at the ceiling while the civilians ringing the room moaned and groaned and hyperventilated. Squatting over her comrade, Sam used her corona to probe the internal injuries. A line of devastation ran from below Erica's right shoulder blade, through the lung, and out the front. The front wound gaped larger than the back one, with shards of rib bone and globs of clotting blood making the repair job even harder than it looked initially.

The task seemed beyond her meager knowledge. She should have turned back for McGreary. She hadn't, though, and now she could only do her best. Priorities? Blood loss was the number one problem. Sam felt about with her corona until she found the major bleeds and then used touches of teleotic talent to weld the arterial walls back together. Next, she found the minor seepages and gave them the same treatment. That took some time and ambulances began to arrive. They waited outside with their flashing lights until police officers rushed in to secure the room.

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"Hands in the air, ma'am!"

Sam didn't bother to look around at them. "I'm busy at the moment."

"We need to secure the scene, ma'am. Please cooperate by raising your hands."

"If I wanted to cause problems, I wouldn't need my hands. Do your job like I'm not even here." She returned her attention to sealing up blood vessels and reconstructing lung tissue. The officers conferred among themselves and eventually decided that they would ignore the EDA presence as she had suggested to them.

Not sure what else to do, Sam pushed the bits of bone to where Erica's front rib had shattered and fit the pieces together like she was assembling a puzzle, fusing them into place with the teleotic talent.

A strong corona surrounded the room and Sam turned expecting to find Mike. Instead, Cassandane stood like an impassive goddess, unaffected by the plight of mortals beneath her.

Sam almost broke into tears knowing that someone was there who could take over from her. "I stopped the bleeding, but I don't think that was enough. She's still unresponsive."

Cassandane did something and Erica spasmed awake. "Her blood volume is critically low."

"What can we do about that?"

"Until she can receive a blood infusion, I will hack her cellular energy system to bypass her need for oxygen and glucose. Do you remember my explanation of how to survive without oxygen?"

Sam stared at the Imperator, unable to process why a lesson on the talents seemed even remotely appropriate at that moment.

Rather than wait for a response, Cassandane continued her lecture. "I'm encouraging unbound phosphate groups in the cytoplasm to bind to creatine, temporarily forming creatine phosphate before donating the phosphate group to a molecule of ADP to 'recharge' it to ATP, which the cellular mechanisms use directly for energy. Because this involves more than a single end target, it requires more sophistication than simply altering probabilities with the teleotic talent. This is an example of the synergy known as process manipulation, where a small amount of nous modulates the functionality of gravitas."

"Where were you?" Once the words slipped out, Sam couldn't stop more from following. "Erica almost died and no one knew to find you! You can't just disappear like that!"

Cassandane's steady demeanor gave way to emotion then, a brief flash of rage quickly repressed. "Do not question my dedication to the EDA or its cause, Centurion."

Sam swallowed and nodded her head. Somehow, she had forgotten the lessons she learned about this woman on the Angelship. Cassandane was not and never had been the eternally placid, dispassionate robot that she appeared to others. A vast reservoir of emotion simmered in her heart, a force capable of overriding her prodigious intellect. The Imperator could be just as dangerous as their enemies.

After a few moments, Cassandane gestured to the door. "Return to headquaters. Arrange with the convention center's office for all food deliveries in the future."