Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

What Must Be Done

Chaos.

It flowed around them in great swirling eddies and currents, bodies passing around them on the right and on the left. Turns out one of the best places to get stabbed is in an operating room two feet from the universe's leading surgeon, but still the assassin was only just clinging to life.

Katie sat shellshocked, another pillar of stillness in the preop room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her mask had been remove, but her glasses, and gown were still flecked with little spots of blood. Her gloves were removed, but the wrists of her gown were stained red.

She might have killed someone, but it was to save her friend's life.

No one was angry with her.

In fact, it took Krill and the other surgeons several seconds before anyone moved to grudgingly help the attempted killer.

Conn had been called, and as director of the Arcadia intelligence community, he was wildly embarrassed for their failure to detect such a blatant insider threat. Information was still incoming, but what they did uncover wasn't great. The attempted Killer was Jules Smithson, a long time veterine of surgical nursing, though digging through the HR records hadn't exactly been encouraging.

Disciplinary actions, and questionable evaluations.

By all rights they were talented, yes, at least in a surgical suite, but they were known to have an attitude problem, as well as difficulty getting along with their peers. The other nurses admitted, with some embarrassment, that Jules had admitted to hating Arcadia on multiple occasions, and complained constantly about never receiving more responsibility.

All in all the picture painted, was of a disgruntled employee whose poor attitude and grandiose views of themselves, all culminating in a perfect target for radicalization by the True Darkness terrorist organization.

Celex felt horrible of course, said he should have noticed something was wrong earlier, but he was so focused on keeping Sunny alive that he had missed all the earlier signs.

No one blamed him of course.

But there were other things to deal with in the moment.

Adam and Sunny stood, mirroring their earlier confrontation just a few feet apart from each other. Adam held Nyx in his arms, while Astra lay asleep in the baby carrier at his side. Looking into Sunny's face, he was looking for any evidence that the person he fell in love with was still there.

They were at least off to a better start than Ramirez and maverick had been.

Neither of them said anything at first. Adam didn't know what to say, while Sunny seemed to be examining him with a critical eye.

Who would she be when her two sides came together?

Maverick had flipped on a dime, but Celex had remained mostly unchanged.

Adam didn't know why he and Impetus were still separated, but that thought was secondary to his fear that Sunny had changed.

Sitting on their silent island of quiet, separated from the chaos around them, Sunny or Apotheosis took a step forward reaching a hand slowly upward until the very tips of her fingers stroked the length of his jaw. He shivered, feeling every movement of her fingertips as they were slowly drawn over his skin. By the end she was standing close, towering over him by a good foot, her golden eyes regarding him with quiet interest as she cupped one side of his face with a hand.

She tilted her head, "So worried. Keep making that face and its going to stick permanently."

Her voice was the same, and her humor was still in tact.