We met up with Carmilla again, and this time she was dressed normally and was ready to plan getting our hands on breathing apparatus. She knew about an Asterion AV that had what we wanted on board, so we just had to find a way to intercept it. Billy looked at the flight path and said we could do it on top of the building where he lived, and Balae said she could make a device that would attract their attention to get them to come down. My role was going to make sure we didn't all get killed by Peacekeepers. Carmilla made some comment about that which might have been supposed to be mean, but I didn't care.
We all went home to prepare, which for me just meant picking up my costume. What I really wanted was to see if my dress had arrived yet. It had, and the parcel was next door with Tiffany. She insisted that I opened it while she was there, and I promised I'd let her see me wearing it before I left for the disco. She asked if I was going with someone because that was what you did, and I asked how she knew that when she's only four years old. I think she's watching TV that's not really suitable for little children.
Anyway, I got my stuff and went to the Gull in case Balae needed help carrying stuff. It was pretty crowded for a week day. That guy in the fancy clothes that everyone calls Twat was there, so I gave him the finger and he told me he liked my hair. I was going to say hello to Splinters, but she was playing two games of draughts at once with Barry, with Pastel Betty interrupting to talk about the rules. So I just waved and walked past.
Balae's idea for distracting the Peacekeepers was a drone she'd added some extra features to. She also made it look like a bee and it was incredibly cute. I'm glad Billy wasn't there as I don't think I'd like him to see me go all gushy over a cute robot. I can't help it though. I love bees. Bees are so amazing.
Balae did need help, but not with carrying stuff. She didn't like the quiet in the flat. It was a bit weird, without Castor and Pollux arguing. She said they still hadn't come out of their room, and I thought it must feel very lonely being on your own when you're not used to it. I said I'd come round to pick her up before the disco so we could go together, but I could see that wasn't enough, and she needed my help right now.
I suggested that she could write a letter to Castor and Pollux, or give them a little gift, and it would probably make them cry but not in a bad way. She listed off all the situations she's noticed when humans cry and how she knows how to tell the difference now, and really it's amazing she understands us at all, let alone that well.
Anyway, her dads hadn't eaten anything since they went to hide in their room, so we made them some food. I know how to cook, but only the things Abeni taught me and some easy stuff from my online learning courses, and there wasn't the right things in the fridge for any of those. There was loads of some cheese called Chevre though, and we found some noodles and some soy sauce and stuff, so we put them together.
Balae figured out a way to get the bee drone to carry a tray, and we opened the door a bit and had it carry the tray in. I couldn't hear anything from inside, but after a bit the drone came back and one of its legs was pointing upwards and had nail varnish on, so I think we did alright.
Balae put the bee drone in a cat carrier, picked up her own costume, and off we went.
We met Billy and Carmilla on the roof of the tower block. Balae set up the bee drone, and we all hid at the base of the mass damper and waited for the AV. It landed just where we wanted it, and we started climbing up the damper. That's where things started going wrong.
One of the Peacekeepers spotted Billy climbing up, and was about to shoot him with his arm cannon. I got in the way just in time to knock the arm out of the way, but then the Peacekeeper kicked me in the legs. After that it was all a bit of a blur, because I was getting hit so much, although I think I saw Carmilla biting one of them, until something happened with Billy that I'd never seen before, with psychic energy lashing out all over the place so we all had to hit the deck to not get torn up by it.
That took out the last of the Peacekeepers, but there was no way we were going to be able to use our original plan to fly away in the AV. Carmilla got the box we needed out of there. Balae said she'd get rid of the AV. I picked up the remains of the bee drone which were back in the cat carrier, and me, Billy and Carmilla started climbing down the outside of the tower.
I don't know if it was the cat carrier getting in the way, or just that I was in so much pain, but I just couldn't keep a grip on the wall. Suddenly I realised just how tall that tower block was, and what a long way it was to the ground, but I barely had time to think about fast I was falling when something grabbed me and then I was crashing through a window.
I think that knocked me out for a moment, and when I woke up I was in even more pain and Carmilla was lying there unconscious with her mask broken. She was still alive, but I didn't know how long that was going to last. I looked for a first aid kit in the flat we'd just landed in, but I couldn't see one and I was too dizzy to look properly. I had no idea how to do first aid on her anyway, after everything the compound did to her. She needed a hospital, but I couldn't take someone like her to a hospital. Then I remembered to look for my phone. The screen was cracked, but it's not like I haven't cracked screens before. I phoned Faustus.
I'll say this much for Faustus. He doesn't do all that enigmatic silence on the phone like Ariadne used to do. I told him Carmilla was hurt and needed help, and where we were. He gave me an address to take her to. So now I just had to get her there.
The flat door wasn't a problem. I smashed right through it. Carmilla wasn't very heavy. I thought about the number of stairs though, and decided I could get down a lot faster by sliding down the cables in the lift shaft. I guess I did get down a lot faster, since I lost my grip again, and I could have stopped myself but that would have meant letting go of Carmilla. So I let myself fall, and used myself to cushion her landing.
I was past all sensible thinking by then. I'm not even sure what happened while I was running through the streets, although I think I attracted a lot of attention and broke a lot of stuff. The important thing is I got Carmilla to the doctor and I could finally stop and lie down.
I woke up because of even more pain. I was in a kind of dentist's chair and the doctor was fixing my dislocated shoulder. I screamed a bit, but once it was done I felt a lot better. She told me she'd treated everything she could find, and that seemed to be everything. She also said I had concussion and shouldn't do anything strenuous for the next 48 hours, which seemed like an awfully long times just then. I asked if Carmilla was OK and she got one of those serious looks adults get when they don't want to tell you the answer, but Carmilla was kind of OK. She just wasn't waking up.
There was something familiar about the doctor. She was giving me the same look Abeni gives me sometimes when we eat together, but it wasn't just that. I asked her if I'd seen her before. That's when she told me. She was the one who created me and Carmilla. She hadn't wanted to but they'd made her do it. I thought I'd feel angry if I ever found the person who did this to me, but instead I just felt really sad because it wasn't her fault.
I asked her how she got out, and she said she escaped with Carmilla after I escaped. Maybe knowing that I'd got out inspired them to escape too? I hope it did. She was worried about Faustus being bad for her, which I thought he probably was. I asked if she knew why Carmilla hated me, and she said something really confusing about hating the things you hate in yourself in others.
I was late for the meeting up with Billy and Balae, and I still had my phone, so I called Balae to ask if she could come and get us. I was in no shape to be running anywhere, and neither was Carmilla. The doctor had somewhere else she needed to be, so she asked me to talk to Carmilla to see if I could get her to wake up. I think she wanted to hug me, but I wasn't ready for that, and she left.
I thought maybe I could annoy her into waking up, since if she didn't she was going to have to keep on listening to me talk and I knew she hated me. That didn't work. Telling her she had to wake up because she had to go to the disco with Billy and there was no way I was going to have my friend miss out on that didn't work either.
So I thought about what the doctor had told me, and I talked to her about how I understood about what happened at the compound, and that when she woke up she should talk to me about it, because I would understand. Then I saw she'd started crying so I held her hand while she woke up.
When she opened her eyes they were black shiny spider eyes, and I told her she'd have to tell me where she got her contact lenses from, and then she laughed. She blinked, and her pretend blue eyes appeared again. They didn't give me that feature. We talked a bit about how they'd made her to be an assassin, which was why she had to look human and all the changes were on the inside. While they didn't care what I ended up looking like.
Then Balae came in shouting that she'd stolen another car, and it was time to go.
So now I'm home, and getting ready to go out. I didn't have time to shop for shoes properly, so I just went to the place that does shoes for drag queens because they have my size and asked for some shoes to go with a shiny black dress. They gave me these silvery glittery shoes with big platforms and I think I'm nearly seven feet tall with them on but they look really nice. And I've done my makeup, which covered up all the cuts and bruises I got while I was fighting and falling off things.
I showed Tiffany my outfit like I said I would, and she said I looked really pretty, and normally when people say that to me they're making fun of me, but I don't think she was. I think tonight I might actually look pretty.
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