After paying extra for his transport driver to put some oomph into the ride, Rory was knocking on Elphina’s side door fifty-two minutes later. He called out that it was him and the door clanked and clattered as Penny released its various mechanisms. Rory saw her brown eye peek through the sliver of an opening and then open wider.

“How is she?” Rory asked immediately after he entered.

Penny grabbed his arm and dragged him away. “The same. I laid her down. I have no idea what’s wrong with her or what she was making.” The poor girl’s voice still hadn’t lost its terrified tone.

They went into what looked like what he imagined an alchemist’s shop would look like. Bottles, jars, tools, burners, pots, pans, weird tubes – some straight, some curling – and a bunch of other thingamajigs Rory couldn’t hope to identify. The only thing that was obviously off about the place were the scattered and broken clear tubes on the floor.

I’ve never heard of translumin breaking just from it being dropped… What happened here?

Translumin was what most people used to make clear objects and it was harder than flexcrete, if many times more expensive. One couldn’t just break it by dropping it on the floor.

But more important than the tubes themselves was that something was spilled out of them. Rory kneeled down and looked at the mess. “You can’t piece together what she was making from this?” he asked Penny?

“No," she responded. “It doesn’t work that way. At least, I don’t know how if it can be done.”

Rory nodded and looked around to find the old lady. On the side of the room lying on a little cot was Elphina. She was on her back, her hands were on her stomach, and her skin was an unhealthy shade of grey.

Rory turned to Penny. “Have you called the medibots?” he asked her.

Penny shook her head. “Gramma said absolutely not to under any circumstances. She didn’t trust them.”

Rory was surprised at that. That was one of the things the folks in the slums were envious of. The rich city people could call for medical help any time they needed. Then again, she was a paranoid old lady.

Looking around, he pointed at the stuff on the table. “Have you tried to figure out what any of that is?”

“There weren’t any notes and I can’t do what she does. I don’t know what to do, Rory!” She was starting to panic, grabbing his arm and shaking it a little.

“Okay, okay. Calm down. Umm. Do you have her books or anything on her recipes or whatever?”

Penny’s face lit up and she ran off without saying anything else. Nodding, Rory walked over to the cot and kneeled next to it. He placed his hand on hers and patted them, finding her skin far too cold.

“Damnit, you old bat,” he whispered. “You can’t get sick. We had plans. And you still owe me.” He sighed. “Do you know how many people I trust?” She didn’t answer. “Yeah. I’m looking at her.” He sighed again. “Don’t you dare leave me too.”

He gently squeezed her cold hand, but still felt no response.

Penny came running back in and Rory turned to see she was carrying a book. An actual book made with paper and ink. “She didn’t trust the tablets,” Penny said between pants. “Thought someone would steal it or the stuff on it.”

He nodded, figuring that sounded just like her. “And who would look for a physical book with paper pages? She probably made her own ink too. I bet she didn’t even write it all down or she mixed things up, just in case. The paranoid curmudgeon.”

Rory smiled as he said those things, thinking them all excellent ideas. Penny laughed and sniffled. “Probably.”

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He sat down on his butt on the floor by her bed, looking at Elphina. He just watched her, pondering options. He laid his hand back on hers and was silent.

“What do we do?” Penny asked in a near silent whisper.

Rory mulled over that very thing. Then he sighed. “We have to call the medibots. If you can’t make a cure or whatever, we don’t have a choice. So, you should be ready for that. And you’ll need to go with her and stay in her presence the entire time. Don’t leave her for even a second. While you’re doing that, I’ll stay at the shop and protect it from whoever they send. If I can.”

“You think they’d know?” she asked.

He nodded. “Pretty sure they’re watching now. Where I’m from, getting someone sick or having them go missing is one way to take over their business. You wouldn’t believe how many times some of the businesses changed hands in the… umm… there.”

Thankfully Penny did not question him on his slip-up. He turned back to her. “Can you give me and your grandmother a moment? I don’t know if you know how, but you may want to make up some things you can use to protect yourself or disable others for when the medibots come and take you both away. I’m pretty sure you’ll need it.”

She looked nervous at first, but then after glancing at her grandmother her face firmed and she nodded once. She then turned around and went to her own work area, closing the door behind her. Rory knew they each had one as Penny had shown hers to him. She was the one who made the snake sleeping powder, under her grandmother’s supervision of course.

Rory turned back to Elphina and looked at her. He placed his hand not holding hers onto her chest and breathed out. A small tree appeared over it. “Ok, Crann,” he whispered. “See if you can help her.”

Crann means tree in the original tongue of his homeland and was pronounced like ‘cron’ with a rolling R.

His summon understood his intent and its roots began crawling on their own to Elphina’s mouth. Once there, they started leaking an occasional drop of clear liquid down her throat. The ones on her face and chest seemed to drip occasionally too. Rory looked at his commo and saw the Soul Power bar draining quickly. On top of that, his tree started to wilt.

Together, the two of them drained themselves in hopes of helping the old woman.

He laid his head down on the mattress next to Elphina and he closed his eyes, thinking it might help him recover some. When his Soul Power fell to ten percent and poor Crann was a wilted mess, Rory mumbled, “Thanks, buddy,” and dismissed him.

He’d never done anything like that before. It was only the third time he’d called Crann and none of them had been to use his sap. The first had been to help him see in the facility and the second to show it to Elphina as proof.

He had no idea if what he had just done would help, hurt, or just plain be ineffective; it was simply the best he could come up with. He decided then that he was going to try to rest until the medibots arrived so he could be ready for what he believed would come next.

***

Rory jerked awake to a hand on his head, shaking it gently. He looked up to see Elphina looking at him from her own resting place on the bed. She wore a smile and didn’t look nearly as gray.

“Elphina!” he called as he moved to a kneeling position and scooted closer to her.

Her watery eyes were weak but full of anger. “I noticed too late, those bastards,” she grumbled in a voice barely strong enough to be heard.

“Poison?” Rory asked.

She nodded weakly. “I tried to make something to offset it but was too late. I shouldn’t be awake here at home. I thought I’d be in a hospital or never wake up.”

“I can’t say for sure it was the cause, but I asked Crann for help. He gave you some sap,” Rory whispered.

Elphina’s eyes widened. “You fed me from your Living Spring Treant?”

“It was all I could think of,” he told her, hoping she wouldn’t be mad. “I’m sorry I couldn’t ask your permission first, but you were out and I couldn’t come up with anything else. If it matters, I didn’t think it would actually work this well. And certainly not this fast. I figured I would be lucky if you woke. Worse case I hoped it might help you last until you got to the medibots. Speaking of which, I told Penny to call them. Sorry.”

She patted the top of his head again. “It’s okay, son. We’ll cancel the call. Now that I’m awake, I can guide Penny on what to make and I’ll be good as new before you know it.”

Rory nodded, stood up, went to the door, opened it, and called out, “Penny. Your grandma’s awake.”

He then went back to the bed, wincing at the sound of a crash. Elphina coughed out a laugh.

Penny stormed in a few moments later, and Rory winced as she banged her knees on the floor when she went to her grandmother’s side and took her hand. After a good amount of crying and head patting, Elphina said, “Why don’t you call off the medics, dear? I’ll be fine now. I’ll tell you the ingredients to make something up and we can all move forward.”

“I hadn’t called them yet,” Penny got out between sniffles. “I was making some things Rory recommended for self-defense.”

Elphina looked at him. “I admire your paranoia.” Rory smiled but was distracted, thinking. She added, “Well, in that case, we don’t have to worry about those damn automated doctors. Get something to write down the ingredients and I’ll help you make an antidote.”

“Actually,” Rory said with a raised hand, “I was thinking, we might want to consider calling the medibots after all.”

“I’ll be fine dear,” Elphina insisted. “There’s no need.”

“Actually,” I say with a predator’s grin, “I wasn’t thinking we should call them for that.”