Zandra was far from being okay. But she could not wait to get better. She looked up and selected the building two doors down that had a lot of small balconies decorating its front side.

Like a super cat, she jumped up on the nearby trash container and used it to bounce off and go higher to grab the rails of the lowest balcony.

But then, as she dangled in the air, the pain of her bruised body hit her so hard she almost fainted, and she let go of the rail, dropping down, falling almost on her back if not for her Cat's Jump Ability of Level 5 that made her instinctively straighten her body and meet the ground with her feet, ducking down and absorbing the impact.

She realized how out of shape she was, how complacent she became. Even pain could paralyze her. And her system was busy neutralizing the sedative to help her with it.

"Maybe I should not neutralize the sedative, maybe just enough to stay awake," she thought concentrating on controlling the pain, ready to repeat the jump and accept the torture that it was to entail.

So, on the second attempt, as she held on the rail and the anticipated pain hit her, she was ready for it, holding on, pulling herself up. She realized she could not depend on her left shoulder and arm.

But there was no time to wait and stabilize it. She had to trust her system, trust that it would go to heal her as soon as the sedatives were put under control.

Reaching the second balcony was a lot easier as she used her legs for support. And so she went up to the fifth floor where she ran out of balconies to climb on and had to jump to grab a water drainage pipe, not bordering it with the pressure of her whole body as her legs found support on the windows decorative framing. She used the wobbly pipe just to steady herself enough as her right hand reached for the support on top of the roof, pushing herself up with her legs.

For a second, she dangled in the air, her good right arm holding on to a metallic pole that held electric and communication cables above.

Pushing herself up was an exercise full of pain, but she was not ready to let go no matter how bad it hurt, not sure if even her cat's ability could absorb a five-story drop. But after dangling on the roof's edge for a few seconds, she put her pain under control and finally climbed up.

Too long, this is taking too long, she thought as she cursed herself for being so out of shape.

An hour ago, it would have taken her less than a minute to climb up, not even raising her heartbeat. Now, every move hurt and she wondered if her pain-suppressing ability had been activated at all.

On the top of the building, she took a moment to compose herself, almost stopping to admire the sight of Paris at night.

But then a sobering thought brought her around. “If they were that good, they must have droids… Maybe they even positioned some shooters and snipers this high up.”

And sure enough. As she studied the sky, she spotted two droids, flying up and down her street, just above the rooftops.

Luckily there were not snipers lying anywhere she could see. Unluckily, she stopped carrying handguns a few years back as she preferred the cold presence of the steel.

It's not like she thought she needed any weapons. She was the lethal weapon in herself. Still, her boots each had a pair of throwing blades inside, but it had been such a long time since she used them.

"Still sharp after all these years," she said as she picked a pair and felt their blades against her finger.

Not sure if two throwing blades would do the trick, she picked another two from the other boot and then waited for a few seconds till the droids flew closer to her.

Her left shoulder shot pain through her body as she threw blades at the droid’s propeller, but it was expected and it did not obstruct her from nailing it and sending it down to crash against the ground.

With the second one that appeared a few seconds later, she did not get so lucky and had to throw another blade to bring the sucker down.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She sighed and muttered to herself, unhappy with her performance “Have to go back to training - this shit should not happen.”

Still, even without the droids, caution was her best defense so she stayed carefully out of the street lights, walking over the back sides of the roof.

Then it was just a matter of jumping a few rooftops until she got to the point from which she could see her old apartment.

“Damn,” she cursed as she watched what was happening there.

She watched as a big crane truck was positioning itself in front of her building. The street was now blocked and utility guys put a roadblock with some guys in security uniforms waving their arms, preventing anyone from going down the street.

A moment later she watched in horror as a six-foot-big safe was being lifted out and taken out of her apartment so easily as if she did not build it inside the wall, hid it the best she could, as if it did not weigh more than two tons.

“That’s why. That’s what they are after. They want what is inside my safe. I rushed them. They could not open it inside. They went to Plan B, that's why the crane was not there and had just arrived. But… what do I have inside the safe that is so important? Money?? Gold bars? Some currency? A few million dollars in commercial papers? No… This is not just a regular robbery.”

Then she remembered. Cursed herself for taking her that long to figure it out. She had the package of Trono's plasma in there, the package he sent her a year ago and the one she did not find use to open yet. Frozen solid in its enclosed case, it was ready to be made into a healing or longevity drug if needed. It had no price.

"That’s what they are after. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Trono’s alien plasma. How did they know? Is he in danger?” The alarming thought rang inside her head.

But then she took a deep breath and a calming thought made her doubt it. “Well, if they had him, they would not be trying to get to my safe, would they? But then… how do they know all of this? Somebody must have talked. If it's not me and not Trono, then it has to be one of the five. It has to be one of them. Nobody else knows about its healing power, right?”

She remembered that Trono stopped sending them plasma years ago. He said so himself. “Only you, Zandra. From now on, I trust only you, and only you will get it.” She doubted he would have changed his mind.

So, which one of the five is it?

Betrix?

Always smart, cunning, calculating, trying to move us around as if we were his chess pieces. Or Evron? His anger… he could do anything when he got angry. I doubt he ever put it under control.

But, then she remembered the last part of the conversation where Trono said that she told everyone nobody was getting any, and when they asked him about Zandra, he gave them an answer with a question, asking them, “Why should she be getting it? Isn’t she just like you?”

He never lied, but he could mislead you, and Zandra thought it was most rational to think they did not suspect her having any of his plasma.

She closed her eyes, pressing herself against the old roof tiles, trying to think. “But them… They did try to capture me… It does not make sense. The remaining five would know how hard that would be. So, then why try to capture me, and what would they want to achieve by doing that? What would they want to get out of me…? Many are superior in Class. Don’t need me. So… is it not them?”

A century ago, there were ten of them around. Their leader Clara was killed first, in an unexplained ship-sinking accident. And then, a few years later, just before and during WW2, Danon and Korman were killed. And then, there were only seven of them.

She needed to think. What did all of this mean? Did they blow her place up just to get to the safe or was it intended to erase any of her presence there? Or something else?

Could it be that the five had leaked its knowledge to some Earth humans?

It would not make sense that an Earth human would go after her.

Still, if they knew about Trono’s plasma and its rejuvenation ability, why not? But… how the hell did they think about using it? You needed a system, a guide to use it. You just could not shoot it up your blood vessels and think you’d be young again. Maybe they do not know about that. Maybe they do not even know I’m 99 percent human and that my plasma could not help them.

Whatever it was, one thing was clear. She needed to talk to Trono and warn him. But… her finger felt her phone that was in her back pocket, all smashed and unresponsive.

Even worse, she felt so dizzy she had to close her eyes.

That was not supposed to happen. Here I’m lying down, not doing anything, should be healing already.

She went to the inside of her jacket and a small hard purse that had a tiny cigar holder inside. Instead of cigars, there were two injections. She picked the one with the blue dot on it.

A quarter of an ounce of Tron’s plasma .A bit more than a teaspoon. Her emergency Health booster. Enough to lift her up and give her health much needed boost.

She shot it straight into her neck.

The plasma was so powerful that it should have spread through her system faster than the oxygen in her blood.

But instead of the instantaneous relief she expected, she got a warning from her system,

[Warning:

Your health is deteriorating at 1 percent every 30 seconds.

Your body will stop functioning in less than 10 minutes.]

“Shit!” she cursed, knowing the things have gone awfully wrong and wondering how it could have ever come to that.