What have I become? I look at my love, laying motionless on the floor of my bubble. In stasis, with two bullet holes in her chest and some unknown poison spread throughout her body after being ambushed in her home, she cannot see my exhaustion. Fortunately, she does not have to witness the nausea which now wracks my body, and had since my control has worn off; every time I think about my attacks on the guards, the pain and the terror I caused them, the act of psychological terrorism and bullying, I feel physically ill.
How many rules and directives have I violated today? Attacking the guards. Terrorizing the guards. Use of advanced technology in view of the guards. Use of medical techniques to incapacitate the guards. And, if they were in fact the queen's guards and carrying out her orders, resisting arrest, four instances of medical assault, two counts of interference with public officials in the performance of their duties, aiding a fugitive to escape, harboring a fugitive, and unlawful use of entry codes. And probably practicing medicine without a license, performing an unauthorized medical procedures, use of advanced medical techiques on local population, misuse of advanced medical techniques on local population, and destroying evidence.
At this point it's probably safe to say that whether or not they know my name, I am an outlaw. Well, okay I've been an illegal alien since Eli made me the false chip. My beloved is wanted as well, and not just by me. And while the queen, or whatever unknown entity might be acting in the name of the queen and her secret police may believe Elicaryn to be dead, I can be certain that two of the queen's men harbor no such illusions about me.
What I don't know is how quick those two guards will be to talk about what happened. Will they talk about it at all? They did mention reporting back to the queen before our encounter. I don't know how our encounter would have changed the timetable for that report. I'm certain that given the chance, they'll talk about it to each other, compare notes, and try to make sense of it all. I know I would not want to have to explain it.
Still, I am curious about what they might have to say. What do they imagine they're dealing with? Do they talk about what happened in the barracks? Is the whole country now at the highest level of military alert? Did my attempt spare their lives, or send them to death at the hand of their queen?
I wish I had even a single stealth-suit with which to slip into the castle and the barracks. In the absence of any way to slip past the guards to confront the queen, I fear I may have to storm the castle. Given their tendency to shoot first, a direct frontal approach is liable to get someone hurt, and I doubt that I'll have the luxury of being able to tend to their wounded, even if they casualties are the result of friendly fire.
I fear this situation may have escalated into a war when they shot Elicaryn. I will need to rest before I can make another attempt to neutralize the poison, and I'll probably need to neutralize the poison before I start to accelerate her healing processes. But before I can do that, I need to be able to stop vomiting.