Free Crossover by Joel Shepherd

whispered. Her vision was all a blur, and she closed her eyes. "... it's not my war. It was never my war ..."
    "Cassandra." A hand descended hard upon her arm, her reflexes jerked in fast override of the drugs and someone yelled, a rush of jostling commotion, people surrounding the bed, grabbing the Indian man. Attempted vainly to peel her fingers away from his arm, a steel-hard grip through a handful of bedcovers. She realised dimly that she was still holding on, and let go. The Indian man staggered backward, assisted by alarmed colleagues. The room was filled with much alarm.
    "... I'm sorry ..." she murmured, "... don't surprise me... too many drugs ... bad reflexes ..."
    "I'm okay," the Indian man said, shaking them away, "I'm fine. She didn't hurt me."
    "I think we'd better put her back to sleep," someone said warily, and there was movement to comply.
    "... no ..." It was as much of a protest as she could muster, dazed and half blind on her back. "... no ... please..."
----
    When she awoke again it was dark. Night light shone through the windows. City light. Tower tops gleaming in the surrounding dark, and the blinking passage of aircars. Time had passed. She wondered how much, before remembering that she hadn't known the time the last time she was awake either.
    She felt stiff from lying too long on her back and made to roll over. And found she could not. Her wrists were bound to the bed. Her ankles too, she discovered when she tried to move her legs. Her pulse rate rose and immediately sedative was flowing into her, she could feel it, a cold, creeping numbness from the tube in her arm, up the shoulder and into her chest. Her muscles were going limp. She breathed deep, calming breaths and tried to remain awake.
    Succeeded, though barely. Through her bandage-wrapped body, the cold feeling remained, eating at her nerves. It scared her, both the cold and the bandages. Her bedside machine read the fear and pumped more sedative. It left her dazed, numb and only barely conscious, struggling vainly for awareness, for some sense of where she was, and what had happened to her. She remembered, vaguely. Remembered horrible things. But she did not want to remember more now lest the machine put her entirely to sleep.
    The discomfort was acute, all through her body. Not pain. Tightness. Wrongness. Damage, slowly repairing itself and being repaired. She needed to move, to get blood flowing, to loosen the stiffness. But she could not. Not struggling was an effort. Staying awake was. She did not want to sleep — she had slept far too long already. But waking was agony. And life itself promised little better. She was scared, and trying to repress it because of the machine, not wanting to sleep, not even free to feel her fear lest it drag her back to an oblivion of delirious dreams and turbulent darkness. Tears rolled from her eyes, wetting her temples. She lay in the light-strewn darkness for a full five minutes, in soundless tears, before the effort grew too great and she surrendered to the machine, and the darkness it granted.
----
    "Lieutenant," said Naidu, rising to his feet as Vanessa passed the security door, restowing her badge in her jacket pocket. Behind her, one of the armed security guards saw the door securely shut and locked. Another man was present, she noted. He also stood. It looked like a waiting room, with comfortable chairs, a pot plant and paintings on the wall. An adjoining doorway was open, revealing a complex battery of monitors, multiple screens and displays, watched by several seated operators. "I hope we did not spoil your evening. Did you have something planned?"
    "Why me?" Vanessa asked him, fixing him with a very hard stare. Yes, she had had something planned, something intended to help fix her marriage, no less. Now her work had intervened yet again, and she was not impressed. Naidu perhaps read as much in her expression and got quickly to the point.
    "She has been unresponsive," he said. He looked troubled,