Unicorn Riders - Pinch (English)

Chapter 16: It's not over yet

Inside the family speeder on its way to the academy it took but five minutes until Igor switched to autopilot and turned around to Vera sitting on the back bench. "All right, Vera. What was that all about?"

"I'm gonny explain when we have arrived" Vera replied shortly. "Otherwise I would have to tell it all over again."

"No, you're going to explain it to me now" Igor insisted, and he seemed to get really angry about this. "What's all that nonsense about a rescue mission and captured children? And that you know who shot you down?"

"What do you mean by nonsense?" Vera, too, felt her patience growing awfully thin. This couldn't be truly happening here! "If we don't act now, those kids will be killed. Why doesn't anyone get that?"

"Calm down, both of you!" Helen also turned around on the copilot's seat, soothing both squabblers with according hand gestures. Then she spoke to Vera: "Honey, we are not so sure about you really having been through all the things you have told us about. You were found near the shuttle..."

"After I escaped from the criminals and ran back, yes." Vera looked sullenly at her mother. "What are you implying here?"

Helen sighed deeply. It strained her to say what she wanted to say. "You were admitted to the hospital suffering from a head concussion. The doctor treating you said that you couldn't have made it very far with that."

"You climbed out of the shuttle" Igor continued with a buzzing voice. "Then you headed for the woods. That's were they found you. Without any hint that anything else has happened."

Vera's sullen facial expression changed into terror when she understood what her parents were saying. "You mean... I've only been dreaming about all of this? Are you serious?"

"Such a head injury can have serious repercussions if it is not treated, Vera" Helen explained in a very calming tone. "You lose orientation, you imagine things... All of it might seem perfectly real to you, but just because your concussion wasn't treated properly."

When Igor confirmed this statement with a nod Vera didn't know what to say anymore. It just couldn't be true! Her encounter with Johnson, Whitmore and Sykes, the time spent as their captive, being saved by Taylor and welcomed by the other children and their dog... "Hold on!" she exclaimed as a thought crossed her mind. "If it's true that I just dreamt all of this up... then where does the anti allergy medicine in my blood come from? And how would Chris the nurse know that it's supposed to treat my dog allergy?" She turned her gaze towards her parents, and now she was really getting upset. "And why have you told me for years that there was no cure for dog allergy at all?"

Her parents exchanged a meaningful look. "But there isn't" Igor then explained. "There are some meds that can treat the effects of allergies, but they are no long-term solution. At least that's what the doctor said that we visited back then."

"That doesn't answer my question. And it is a lame excuse." Vera stomped angrily with her foot. "You know what? I think I am dreaming this right here. Because if you were my real parents, then you would believe me. The least would be that you listened to me, since I can proof that it's true."

"Then spit it out!" Igor barked. "We would listen to you if you piped up already."

"Fine!" Vera almost yelled this, she was that furious right now. But then she calmed down a little. "Under one condition: When I'm done telling you what happened, then you will contact Hank at once and have him assemble a squad of fully armed men for the rescue mission."

Igor glanced at her sceptically. "That depends greatly on what I'm about to hear. So tell me!"

So she told him. She kept it short, saving the details for later. But she described Johnson and his two companions in all the detail she could still remember, and she also told about Thor, Vanna and the twins. Foremost though about Butter, the dog. She closed the tale with: "If the guys at the medical centre have been thorough enough, then they have all the proof that I'm telling the truth. Those criminals had tied up my hands and feet, and they had given me food. And this anti allergy pill I got from the twins. Chris had found it on the scans and even reprogrammed the decontamination system so it would still be in effect."