Recovering As you can probably tell, I'm not dead. The morphine dispenser only allows a maximum dosage, so I guess I'll never know if Carrie tried to kill me or just shut me up. I guess if she really wanted to kill me she could have smothered me with a pillow after knocking me out. Still, I must have been out for a couple of hours. Shortly after I came to, Misty poked her head through the curtains, then came in, followed by Julia. The both wore huge smiles on their faces. She strode over and gently kissed me, and I squeezed Julia's hand. They pulled over some stools. "How are you," Misty asked. "You've been out a long time." "Yeah," I replied, trying to get my eyes focused and my head to not spin. "I'm good. Don't feel much of anything." "Good," she replied. "I was so worried. Carrie actually raided a hospital supply ship to get you all this stuff. She even abducted doctors and nurses. God, it's been such a mess these last couple days. We've lost so many people, and guess who had to help remove the bloody bodies? Ugh." I patted her hand, then looked at Julia. "How are you holding up, kid? Cookie giving you trouble?" Julia frowned. "I can handle Cookie. Like Miss Misty says, it's not been good. All these dead people. We put them all on the lift, then we had to drag them out and over the rail. People crying and screaming. I couldn't eat after that. This place is so stupid. I hate it here. But I'm gonna cook you something special once you get out. Hey, you know that kid Bo? He keeps bugging me. He's like following me around and stuff, and keeps asking me stuff. I was like talking to Joy and she said he liked me but I said 'eww' and 'why' cause he's a little weird and--" I held up my hand. "Okay, okay. Slow down, I can barely keep up. I need to talk to Misty for a minute, then you can tell me everything about Bo." The curtains moved and Rod poked his bandaged head through. "Is he alive," he asked. Misty waved him in, giving him a quick one-arm hug. His right arm lay in a sling, and bandages wrapped his wrists and head. His face looked covered with bruises including some dark shiners. He walked with a pronounced limp. "What the hell happened? Are you all right," I asked, staring at the man who looked like he just went 12 rounds with the heavyweight champ. "Yes, indeed. It was a helluva thing." He found a folding chair and sat opposite Misty and Julia. "I kept running the defensive grid, trying to keep those blokes off the deck. Then I heard the Klaxon. In a flash I jumped into the supply room, found some quick ties, and bound my hands and feet together. When I came to, it felt like someone had hit me with a hammer." "Wow. Do you remember anything?" Rod breathed for a moment. "I remember incredible pain, like a migraine only ten times worse. I saw stars in my vision, heard a screech in my ears. Then came this overwhelming rage. I don't remember much after that. I felt myself struggling, then I stopped and the feeling vanished. I guess I had thrashed around and around. My shoulder was partially dislocated, my head had banged on the floor, but the ties saved me I suspect. Every muscle in my body feels sore and strained. I'm probably lucky I didn't do more damage. It took the better part of the day before they found me, but I think I blacked out from the pain and utter exhaustion." I shook my head. Apparently it is possible to survive being zapped. I wonder if that's how Ellie has escaped detection, if she's still on the boat. By now she would have been zapped dozens of times, so if she is still hiding out, she must be in terrible shape. "Hey, Rod, can you grab Julia for a minute? Maybe you can help her with this Bo situation. I need some time with Misty." "No problems, mate," he beckoned to Julia. "Hey, maybe you can beat up Bo for me," Julia added, following him out. Misty smiled at me. "I'm so glad you made it. The doctor says you should be up in day or so. You'll still need treatment, but the swelling and blistering is going down. You should make a full recovery without much scarring if any. You got really lucky." "We all got lucky. Any word on who did this?" Misty shook her head. "No ideas. Carrie has locked up those rooms tight and assigned guards. She's not going to let this happen again. After we dumped all the bodies, we got the Drive back online, and spent the rest of the day zapping and sinking every pirate ship we could find. We then went by Somalia and zapped the pirate city. We could see them killing each other on the beach. It was quite horrible." "God. And now where are we headed?" Misty grimaced. "That's the rub. We sort of blasted our way through the Suez Canal, pretty much threatening Egypt with annihilation, and now we're ripping up the Mediterranean. I had this scary chat with Carrie yesterday morning, I think maybe that's what set her off." "Oh yeah? What did she say?" "Well, Julia and I had just grabbed some tea and biscuits, and Carrie walks up to me: "You're British, right?" asked Carrie out of the blue. She knows full well who I am and where I come from. "Uh, yes. Born and raised. My folks are from Korea though." "Huh. So, England's pretty rich. You have those...crown jewels, right?" She munched on a bagel, dropping crumbs everywhere. "Yes. Those are for the King or Queen's coronation ceremony." I eyed her warily. "I knew I always liked England. Once of the few places in the world that's had Queens. So if I were to take those jewels, I could be crowned Queen. As Queen of England, I could dissolve Parliament, and then go on to conquer the rest of the world." I stared at the loony woman for a moment. "I don't think England would stand for such an affront. We repelled many an invader before. I don't think we'd just hand you the crown. Without our Monarch, we have nothing. The Queen is the soul of our nation. We could never abide by having a Yankee commoner as our Queen." "Hmm. I think England is about to learn a thing or two about real power. They seem to have forgotten over the years. Get up in the control room, and start plotting a course." "Wow," was all I could say. "We're heading for England?" "Yes, and I'm highly unpleased," she replied in her British twang. "That monster will not step a foot on British soil, so help me God. Now Alex, you need your rest, and I need to get back before someone accidentally destroys the ship. I can't fight this evil alone. We've got to stop this madwoman somehow." I laid my head back down and Misty kissed me. She tried a small smile but I could see the weight of this constant stress weighing on her face. Ever since the day we met back in Kastle Klingon, I have seen her grow stronger and more capable of dealing with things, but now that her home was in peril, I wondered how much more she could take. I said a quick prayer for her, typed up my blog entry on the laptop she left me, and then hit the morphine switch so I could rest without so much pain. Posted: Saturday, November 22, 2008 @ 2:13 PM