Criticism is welcomed. Address criticisms to [xazqrten@cox.net]

******************************

   That evening Lyta gave Bob another lesson. This one was about what she had 
learned from the people they had visited that day. Later that night she started 
on her program to help Bob deal with his recurring nightmare.
   
   Lyta's approach to helping Bob get over his depression and guilt was 
relatively simple. She entered his mind and made each dream about the deaths of 
his wife and child a bit fuzzier. At the same time, she reached into his 
fondest memories of his family and, slowly, but surely, accented them in his 
mind. She also found the memories he had of him and her agreeing to not stop 
living if the other died. The agreement to continue their life while 
remembering the dead spouse was brought sharply into focus. Within a week, he 
was sleeping soundly throughout the night without the nightmares. Bob wasn't 
even aware of what she had done. Since he slept soundly, he didn't remember if 
he dreamed or had nightmares. Lyta was very pleased at what she had 
accomplished, even if she didn't have his permission. She wished she could be 
in his office and see how his department personnel responded to the new and 
improved Robert Bryson that is if they even noticed. After all, Bob wasn't the 
kind of boss that most people even thought about, if they could avoid it. He 
wasn't exactly mister warm and fuzzy.

   They visited Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and at least a half 
dozen other cities on both coasts. Lyta's actions were the same in each 
instance. All she wanted to do was get close enough to verify she had a good 
scan on each of the people on their list. Their list had grown somewhat as she 
continued scanning those she had on her original 'hit' list. It was just as 
they were finishing their rounds in Los Angeles that Bryson reminded her of 
Garibaldi's surprise.

   They were finishing a late lunch at a nice restaurant.

   "This is good pasta, Bob, but not quite in the same class as Michael's," 
commented Lyta.

   "It'll do for the time being. I want to discuss Mike's surprise for you."

   "I was hoping you had forgotten about that."

   "Not a chance. Mike would make a lampshade out of my hide if I let this slip 
past."

   "What do you want me to do?"

   "I simply want you to meet some people, nothing more. It's an hour drive to 
the address."

   "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

   "I don't know."

******************************

Early evening a hundred kilometers somewhere outside downtown Los Angeles:

   "Admit it, Bob. You're lost," commented Lyta.

   Bob pulled over to the curb and once again referred to his map. "I see the 
problem, Lyta. This map doesn't have this area on it."

   "Ha! I'd never have guessed," she sneered in humor.

   Bob stuck his tongue out at her, and then proceeded to the nearest 
supermarket.

   "We don't need groceries, Bob," chided Lyta.

   After getting out of the vehicle, he turned, leaned into the driver's 
window, and replied, "For your information Miss Smarty Pants, they sell maps in 
stores like these." Then he headed for the store entrance.

   Lyta listened to the radio for about five minutes before closing her eyes. 
She had just relaxed when the driver's door opened.

   "I got the right map this time. From the looks of it, we've been within 
three kilometers of the house the whole time," explained Bob.

   Lyta waved her hand and said, "Onward, Jeeves."

   Less than ten minutes later, Bob parked at the curb across the street from 
the house they were seeking. "It's your show from here on, Lyta. Mike says the 
best records he could find indicate that the people who live in that house are 
your family, or at least one of them is your mother."

   "I was only three years old when the Psi Corps took me from my mother. The 
fact that she was a telepath wasn't even a consideration. I haven't seen my 
mother in more than forty years. I won't know her, much less any siblings I 
might have."

   "Just give it your best shot, Lyta. They won't bite you."

   Lyta crossed the street and walked up on the porch of the house. It was a 
single floor building with a Spanish trim. She knocked on the door and waited. 
She felt trepidation, and chastised herself for being nervous, after all she 
had faced down Shadow battle cruisers and a Drakh attack. The door opened and a 
young man appearing to be about twenty years of age opened the door.

   The young man who answered the door appeared to have a confused expression 
on his face. "What can I do for you, ma’am?"

   Lyta smiled at him, noticed his confused expression, and inquired, "Is this 
the Potter house? If so, I think I need to speak to your grandmother."

   "Yes Ma'am it is, but grandmother is dead," replied the young man.

   "Who is it, Carl?" asked a woman's voice from the back area of the house.

   "My name is Lyta Alexander," offered Lyta.

   "She says her name is Lyta Alexander, and I think she may be here to see 
you, mom," responded Carl.

   Lyta could see what looked like a real family resemblance in Carl. Her 
doubts were erased when two women came into the front room, one about thirty 
and the other obviously in her middle to late sixties. The younger woman looked 
like a reproduction of Lyta herself, and the other one was an older version of 
the younger one.

   The shock she saw on the older woman's face erased any doubt remaining in 
Lyta's mind about this being her mother, but she kept her expression neutral. 

   "What did she say her name is?" asked the older woman.

   "Lyta Alexander," replied Carl.

   Lyta lowered her mental barriers far enough to hear Bryson's thoughts and 
then consciously tuned him out. She could 'hear' the thoughts of Carl, his 
sister, his mother and one other, an old man somewhere in the back part of the 
house.

   "Who is it, honey?" inquired an old male voice from a back room. The way it 
increased as he talked it was evident he was coming toward the front of the 
house.

   The old man entered the front room as his wife answered, "She says her name 
is Lyta Alexander. I don't know anyone by that name. Do you?"

   Following his wife's lead he replied, "Not that I can recall." The shock on 
his face when he saw Lyta reinforced her belief that these were indeed her 
parents. In her mind, she was puzzled, they obviously recognized her, but they 
refused to acknowledge her. It occurred to her that they might simply know her 
from her picture being prominently displayed on the various networks and in the 
newspapers during the Telepath War. She wondered if what she saw on their faces 
was fear. Her lowered mental barriers allowed her to hear their unguarded 
thoughts, and what she got from them wasn't fear, but total confusion. They 
simply didn't know how to handle the situation. The young man and woman had 
apparently been unaware that they had an older sister.

   "A friend of mine has access to some old records, and he apparently thought 
he had found some reference to my parents in them. I'm sorry to have invaded 
your privacy," said Lyta in a neutral tone.

   "When did you last see your parents?" asked Carl.

   "I was taken from them when I was about three years old," replied Lyta. "It 
was more than forty years ago."

   "Carl, ask her to come in," said his sister.

   "I really can't," replied Lyta. "I have someone waiting in the car for me. I 
told my friend this was a wild goose chase, but I had to humor him."

   By this time the older woman had walked up behind her son and got a really 
close look at Lyta. [My God, it's her,] she thought, [it's her.] The woman 
managed to keep the emotion off her face, but Lyta had 'heard' the thought.

   Lyta handed Carl a business card saying, "I really am sorry to have bothered 
you. If you ever need to contact me for any reason, the address on the card 
will get a message to me." Lyta turned and walked down the walkway and across 
the street.

   "Well, Lyta. How did it go?" Asked Bryson.

   "It was a bust, Bob. I don't know them," replied Lyta.

   Bryson looked at her intensely, before realizing Lyta could lie with the 
straightest face of anyone he had ever met. The records had been intact and 
there couldn't have been any mistake. "So much for surprises, huh?" 

   "The surprise is that you and Michael were wrong."

   "Now I know why you don't like surprises. That must have been very 
embarrassing."

   "Yes it was. Now, let's forget it. We still have a lot of work to do."

******************************

In the Potter house just after Lyta and Bob pulled away from the curb:

  "Mom, was that woman my sister?" asked Carl.

  Looking in the mirror, His sister, Lynn said, "She almost looked enough like 
me to be my twin." Then she asked, "What gives, Mom?"

  "Nothing gives. It is only a coincidence that she resembles you, Lynn," 
replied Carl's mother.

  "Hon, that's not true. You owe them an explanation. I'd like to know why you 
denied her, too?" inquired her husband.

  "Like she said, it was more than forty years ago. She started to display 
telepathic abilities even before her second birthday. Your father and I were 
commercial telepaths at the time. The corps took children from their parents at 
the first sign of telepathic ability. We managed to keep her from being found 
out until just before her third birthday. When the corps took them that young 
they were immediately separated from their parents and never allowed contact 
with them again. Lyta was only a P-5, but since she manifested her abilities so 
early, she was extremely stable. The earlier a child manifests his or her 
abilities the more stable they seem to be. The corps never learned why, but it 
was a fact of life in almost all cases. Not having a family around to interfere 
with the child's development also made it easier for the corps to completely 
indoctrinate the child into ‘The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father’ mode of 
thinking. We never saw Lyta again. After they took her, we were immediately 
transferred off planet to the Rigel Mining Colony. Five years later we were 
transferred to Proxima III. By the time we got back to Earth, Lyta was a teen-
ager and off planet on training missions. Until the Telepath War we never even 
knew if she was alive or dead. Over the years, you and Lynn were born, and we 
simply forgot about Lyta. I suppose there isn't much doubt now," explained 
their mother.

   "Why didn't you ask her in?" Asked Lynn.

   "I couldn't. I don't know how to explain to her that we never had a choice 
about the corps taking her," replied her mother. "I'm afraid she wouldn't 
believe there wasn't anything your father and I could have done about it."

   "She was responsible for the Corps downfall. I think she would have believed 
you," said Lynn.

   "Why is her name Alexander instead of Potter?" asked Carl.

   "When they took a child that young they always used the mother's maiden 
name. It was a way of keeping the lineage straight, and at the same time 
erasing the child's family association," answered his mother. "As for as her 
believing me, it's a moot point. She's gone."
   
******************************

On a San Francisco street:

   They were standing at an intersection on Market Street watching the people 
go by. 

   "How long until we're finished here?" asked Bob.

   "Tomorrow will be all I need. This morning went so well, I think we can take 
the afternoon off."

   "Now we really become sightseers."

   "Only for this afternoon."

   Lyta and Bob were standing shoulder to shoulder on the curb. There was a man 
standing just off the curb in front of Lyta. Lyta felt someone jostle her right 
shoulder, and heard someone say, "Please excuse me." It was a woman of about 
thirty holding a girl of about five or six years of age in her left arm. 

   Lyta looked at the youngster and smiled. Then she felt an impact in right 
side of her back like a runaway truck. The impact threw her forward as the head 
of the man in front of her exploded showering those around him with blood, 
brains and gore. Bryson pitched forward and landed face down in the street, 
blood oozing from a hole in his back. At the same time the young girl was 
knocked from her mother's arms and landed heavily on the pavement beside the 
man whose head had been blown apart. Lyta realized what had happened as she saw 
blood and gore on the front of her blouse, her own blood. The pain she had felt 
was gone. Her Vorlon and Lorien alterations were already instinctively 
governing her perceptions and actions.

   Onlookers and other fellow citizens in the street were stunned at the 
situation, and afterward, none would be able to give a coherent accounting of 
events. In Lyta's mind, time stopped. It was as if everyone and everything 
around her was being held in stasis. She wouldn't learn this until much later 
watching events that were being captured and recorded by the many monitor 
cameras that were installed on most San Francisco streets, like they were in 
all the world's large cities.

   In an instant, Lyta reached out and seized the mind of the shooter. He was a 
petty criminal in the process of robbing a liquor store and he was armed with a 
stolen military assault rifle. The storeowner had tried to shoot it out with 
him, and had been seriously wounded for his efforts. Some of the criminal's 
return fire had hit Lyta, the man standing in front of her, Bob, the woman 
standing on her right side and the woman's child. In the next instant, Lyta 
taking control of the shooter's mind, froze his muscles to prevent him from 
firing anymore. At the same, time she reduced his brain to the consistency of 
ground beef. The autopsy that would performed on him later would puzzle the 
hell out of the medical examiner.

   Lyta realized that she could do nothing for the man who had been shot in the 
head. The girl's mother and the shop owner were not seriously hurt. Bob and the 
little girl on the other hand were mortally wounded. The jacketed slugs had 
damaged Bob's spine and just missed destroying his heart, he could not breathe 
on his own, so a part  of Lyta's non-human mind reached into his chest and kept 
his diaphragm moving to allow him to breathe. The little girl had taken the 
bullet that had wounded her mother's arm through her right side ribs. It had 
passed through her chest and exited through the ribs on her left side damaging 
her heart along the way. It would be a real mess, but she could still save Bob 
and the little girl. Explaining why they weren't dead would be a problem, but 
she would deal with it later.

***********************************************************************

   It was a beautiful spring day and the little girl was having the time of her 
life. Sitting on the grass beside her was a man, wearing large boxing gloves, 
who seemed preoccupied with watching her play. "It is a beautiful place, isn’t 
it?" asked a soothing female voice from somewhere behind the man.

   He turned and saw a beautiful redhead watching both him and the little 
girl. "Lyta. Where are we? I don't remember ever being here before," replied 
the man, "and what's with these boxing gloves?"

   "You haven't, Bob, I'll explain them in a minute. Do you know the little 
girl's name? replied Lyta.

   "I think she's called Nancy," answered Bob.

   The youngster turned and smiled at them. "My name is Nancy."

   "Do you know why you’re here, Nancy?"

   The girl looked confused and shook her head no.

   "Nancy, you and my friend Bob have been hurt very badly. I need your help to 
fix it back the way it was."

   As Lyta talked Nancy turned to face a door that had appeared nearby and was 
opening up. Nancy began to move toward the door. Bob could only watch, 
helplessly. When he had tried to move, he found that he couldn't. He recognized 
the door from the experience that Lyta had shared with him earlier in the 
course of their trip. 

   Lyta quickly walked between Nancy and the door. Squatting down in front of 
the youngster she looked her in the eyes and said, "I need for you to help me, 
Nancy. Please, it is very important."

   Nancy tried to pull loose from Lyta and go toward the door. Bob realized he 
was watching something that probably no other human had ever seen, a fight 
between life and death. 

   Lyta stood up, picking Nancy up as she did, and walked away from the door. 
Bryson watched amazed as the door began to get smaller until it vanished from 
sight. As he watched, Lyta sat down with Nancy on the grass a short distance 
away, beside a basket he hadn't noticed before. 

   Lyta put Nancy down and opened the basket. She took out what looked like a 
ragged and torn doll and what was on closer scrutiny sewing materials. 
Carefully, she helped Nancy thread one of the needles and showed her how to sew 
a few stitches. "I need for you to sew up these tears, Nancy. If you do it 
well, we can go to your mommy and get some ice cream. Would you like that?"

   Nancy started crying, "I not know how."

   Carefully, and with great patience, Lyta carefully guided the little girl's 
fingers and hands in sewing a couple of stitches. "Now you try it, Nancy." To 
her credit, Nancy tried her best, but her youthful fingers had trouble with 
close work the stitching required.

   It took at least an hour, but slowly but surely the little girl's stitching 
was improving. Lyta looked over to one side and saw the door beginning to 
reappear. "Nancy, we must work more quickly."

   The girl tried to get up, but Lyta restrained her. She was beginning to 
fight against Lyta's grip. However, she was no match for Lyta's adult 
strength. "You must finish repairing the doll, Nancy. If you finish the doll, I 
will let you go through the door. Will that be okay?" The girl nodded okay and 
began to work on the doll in earnest. 

   Bryson was trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but he no longer even 
had a clue. As he watched, the girl continue repairing the doll, he noticed 
that the door slowly became noticeably smaller and farther away. He felt an 
attraction for the door. When asked later, he would be unable to describe the 
feelings he was having. 

   Lyta looked over at him and said, "Fight the feelings, Bob. I will help as 
much as I can, but it must be your fight." He didn't understand, but kept 
quiet. Whatever Lyta was doing he didn't want to be a distraction.

   It was a couple of hours later and Nancy was finished with the doll. Lyta 
looked at the child's handiwork and commented, "It is very good work, Nancy."

   Nancy looked around, but the door was gone. She asked, "Where is door?"

   Lyta looked at her and smiled. "It's not time for you to go through the 
door, Sweetheart. It's time to go back to your mommy. It is going to hurt very 
much, but you will be okay." 

   Bryson watched the girl fade from view. "What in hell is going on, Lyta?"

   Lyta picked up the basket and approached Bob. "Now it's your turn. Here is 
where we learn just what you are made of." She pulled two long pieces of silk 
string out of the basket.

   "What are those for?" asked Bob.

   "You have to tie these together in a knot, Bob. It's how you are going to 
help me."

   "You want me to tie a knot in them while wearing these boxing gloves? Are 
you nuts?"

   "No, and you're the one who chose the boxing gloves. Now be a good boy and 
tie them in a knot. You don't have all day," she said and pointed to a door 
that was opening as it approached them.

   "Is that what I think it is?"

   "Yes. Now you know just how important tying this knot is. I suggest you get 
busy."

   Bob began by trying to pick up the pieces of string from where Lyta had 
dropped them. Hours later he was still fumbling with the string and the door 
was much closer and nearer to being wide open. He could feel the pull emanating 
from the door, but was confused by his total lack of fear. He worked more 
carefully and had a good loop in the string. With tears in his eyes he managed 
a second loop and pulled on the ends to see if it would hold. He noticed that 
the more he pulled the farther away the door became. It was even beginning to 
close. 

   He looked up to see Lyta smiling down at him. It was then he noticed that 
there was a very large bloodstain on her blouse, directly between her breasts, 
but before he could say anything, she said, "Not bad, Bob. It's time for you to 
leave here. It's going to be very painful. I will help as much as I can."

   As Lyta faded from his view, the surrounding park area grew darker until it 
was gone. 

******************************

   Lyta had done as much as she could under the circumstances without drawing 
undue attention to herself. Knowing that there were video monitor cameras 
located at numerous places over the streets gave her reason for concern. 
Someone was going to want to know how in hell she managed to survive a bullet 
passing through her chest and walk away as if nothing happened. She kept her 
head down to make it difficult for the monitors to get a good view of her face.

   Bryson was moaning into the pavement and coughing up blood. Lyta had coughed 
blood up through her nose all over the front of her clothes before her 
enhancements had taken control and stopped it. The little girl was making 
little mewling noises as the pain engulfed her. The bleeding from the bullet 
wounds in her sides had stopped. She could hear the scream of the emergency 
vehicle sirens and they were very near. She tried to comfort Bryson as she put 
torn tissues in his chest back together. She had repaired enough of the nerve 
damage to his spinal cord to permit him to breathe on his own. It was going to 
be a real task to repair the remainder of the damage. Fortunately the little 
girl's injuries were restricted to broken bones, torn muscles and tissue and 
internal bleeding. She had not suffered any nerve damage. The nerve damage to 
Bob's spinal cord was massive. She could fix it, but it would take some time. 
She had a plan.

   When the medics arrived, Lyta stood up, gave them information about Bob's 
identity and that he had no family. She listed herself as contact for him and 
moved away a few meters.

   "He's breathing and has a pulse. Get the board under him and secure it. It 
looks like the bullet might have hit his spine. Damn it! Be careful! If he 
lives, we don't want to make a cripple out of him." Bryson heard the voice and 
wondered where he was. He could taste dirt, grease and God knew what else. He 
realized he was face down in the street and it was that that he was tasting.

   The medics wasted no time getting Bryson and the little girl, her mother and 
the shop owner into ambulances and on their way to the nearest hospital. Lyta 
melted into the crowd using her abilities to make people around her ignore her 
presence, after all, under normal circumstances people would question someone 
with blood all over the front and back of her clothes.

******************************

   Lyta looked at her image in the mirror in the clothing store. She had bought 
replacements for her damaged clothing and was ready to pay for them. As she 
left the store, she erased any memory of the bloody clothing from the minds of 
the store personnel and customers.

   It took her twenty minutes to get to the hospital and find where they had 
taken Bryson. The staff had been unusually friendly and helpful, thanks to 
Lyta's mental efforts.

   Lyta went to admissions and took care of the necessary red tape including 
guaranteeing his treatment expenses. Slightly less than an hour after the 
shooting, she learned that Bryson was still in surgery. She spent the next two 
hours making calls as she waited for him to be put in a recovery room.

******************************

   In emergency room, six the nurses and paramedics had just put Nancy on an 
examining table. The attending physician cut off her shirt and quickly examined 
her wounds. He ordered complete three-dimensional scans of her body above her 
waist. The scanner was wheeled out and over Nancy's moaning form. The images 
appeared on a large monitor attached to room ceiling and suspended just over 
two meters above the floor. 

   "What in the name of Zeus do we have here?" asked the puzzled doctor.

   On the monitor, the entrance and exit wounds could be seen. Bone splinters 
were distributed throughout the chest cavity along the path the bullet had to 
have taken.

   "There should be massive damage to her internal organs. Her heart should be 
destroyed. What is she doing still alive?" demanded the totally confused doctor.

   The nurses and other emergency room personnel were looking at the display 
with mouths agape. No one offered any answer.

   One of the paramedics that hadn't left yet noted, "You seem to be pissed 
that she's not dead, Doc. What’s your problem?"

   "I'm not pissed. I’m confused. I don't understand how she even lived long 
enough for you to arrive on the scene, much less until you got her here.

   "Do another scan," ordered the doctor. "What the hell is going on here?" he 
demanded.

   The new scan showed even fewer bone fragments along the bullets most likely 
path and the larger fragments were now smaller in size. It looked like the bone 
fragments were being reabsorbed by the girl's body tissues. The scan showed 
that new bone was being regenerated to replace that destroyed by the bullet.

   "Nurse, keep these scan files. I don't know what’s going on here, but I 
intend to find out. From what I can see, she’s going to be just fine, even 
without our help," commented the doctor.

   "We have her mother in room five, Doctor. She was shot through the upper arm 
and the bone is broken," said a second nurse.

   "Keep doing scans on this one. I want one every two minutes. I want good 
documentation of this phenomenon, whatever it is," said the doctor as he headed 
for emergency room five.

   Entering room five the doctor observed a woman of about thirty or so lying 
on the examination table. She was in great pain. An examination of her left 
upper arm confirmed that the bone had been smashed by the bullet that had hit 
it. However, her arm looked like it should after such an injury. Whatever was 
at work on the daughter, it wasn't affecting the mother. After further 
examination of the woman's wound, the doctor became convinced that the bullet 
that passed through her upper arm and through her daughter's chest was probably 
deformed and tumbling when it hit the little girl. He was completely baffled 
how anyone could survive the injuries the girl had to have sustained for even 
one minute, much less the almost hour between the time of the injuries and the 
time he examined her. When he watched the evening news and saw tapes of the 
incident, he would be even more confused.

******************************

   Having slipped into a linen closet and changed by putting on hospital 
clothing over her civilian clothes, Lyta made her way to Bryson's recovery 
room. She convinced the nurse to let her into the room with Bob even though he 
was still anesthetized. 

   They had positioned Bob on his stomach in order to operate on his back. The 
chest wound had been quickly sutured to allow for this. Lyta pulled up a chair 
and took the sleeping man's hand in her own. "Now we get down to business on 
the hard part, Mister Bryson.

   When a person is completely anesthetized they are about as close to death as 
it is possible to get and still be alive. With this thought in mind, Lyta 
carefully reached out to Bob's mind. It took real effort, but she managed to 
reach the part she wanted. In Bryson's mind, he was sitting at a workbench with 
a plethora of tools for working on small cables and wires. "Hello, Bob," said a 
female voice from behind him. He recognized it immediately.

   "What are we doing here, Lyta. I thought we were visiting people on our list 
in San Francisco?"

   "We were, Bob. We've run into a little problem and you’re going to help me 
solve it." As she said this, a large truck backed up to one side of Bob's 
workbench. Four large men got out of the truck and began pulling the ends of 
two very large cables off the truck and laying them on the workbench.

   "What do you want me to do?" asked Bob.

   "I want you to splice all the wires and fibers of the two cable ends into 
one very long cable."

   Bob examined the cable. "Wouldn't it make more sense to terminate them in a 
junction box and use jumpers?"

   "Unfortunately, Bob, that's not an option. You must help me by splicing the 
cables together, and when you finish, it must not be evident to even a careful 
inspection. You have all the tools and materials you need right here with you. 
I can give advice and demonstrate the tools, but you must do all the work. Are 
you game?"

   "I feel silly, no make that stupid, but I'll do my best. I just want an 
explanation when I get finished. I hope you realize this is going to take some 
time. I mean weeks or months maybe."

   "We'll see, Bob. We'll see." Then she sat down to watch him.

******************************

   Lyta detected the arriving doctors and nurses while they were still ten 
meters down the hallway. She released Bob's hand and put the chair back where 
it had been the day before.

   The doctors and nurses entered the room and saw Lyta.

   "How long have you been here?" one of the male doctors questioned sharply.

   "I stopped in for a few minutes to see how he is doing. He was sleeping, so 
I just sat and watched him for a few minutes. He won't even know I was here," 
responded Lyta.

   "It's not visiting hours. You'll have to leave."

   As Lyta reached the doorway, she turned and said, "He must not be moved from 
his present position, doctor."

   "Is that an order?"
   
   "No, just a suggestion." However, the idea planted in his mind would have 
the effects of being an order he couldn't disobey.

******************************

   Lyta spent four more days and nights sitting beside Bob Bryson, leaving only 
when the doctor chased her out on his morning rounds. She heard about the 
miraculous recovery of the youngest of the shooting victims and smiled smugly 
inside. They would go crazy trying to find logical answers, never realizing 
that it was right in front of them.

   On the morning of the fifth day when the doctor came in and told Lyta to 
leave, she responded, "Not without Mister Bryson. It's time for him to check 
out, doctor."

   "Run another scan on him," ordered the doctor.

   "That won't be necessary, doctor," said Lyta. Then she stepped over to the 
mechanism that was supporting Bryson and began unfastening the restraints.

   "You can't do that! Stop this instant!" said the doctor, forcefully.

   Lyta turned and looked the doctor in the eyes. "I can do any damned thing I 
want, and neither you nor anyone else can do anything about it. You will sign 
his release." She then continued to remove the restraints. After she had 
unfastened the last one, she said, "Get out of that thing, Bob. This little 
distraction has delayed us for a week."

   Bryson wiggled his toes, lifted his leg in a curl and climbed off the 
special bed. "Lyta, how is it possible for me to stand up and walk?"

   "Your body healed itself. Now let's pay the bill, and get you checked out of 
here. Doctor, if you don't mind."

   Lyta and Bob walked out of the room. The doctor hesitated then followed them.

   "I don't suppose you care to explain his walking?" asked the doctor.

   "His body healed itself, doctor. I simply showed it how to do it. One day in 
the future your profession will learn just how good the human body is at doing 
that."

   They left the hospital with out any further incidents.

******************************

In an unidentified office in an unidentified government intelligence agency:

   "What's on your Mind Kyle?" asked Frank Dorsh.

   "Why haven't I heard anything about this newscast before today?" asked Kyle 
Ford the division head.

   "What newscast?"

   Ford said, "Play." 

   On the large monitor screen installed into the wall opposite Kyle's desk, 
there appeared an image. As the images played out in silence, Dorsh watched 
intently. The boss didn't ask questions like this one unless he was 
disturbed.After the recording finished playing, Dorsh looked at Kyle and 
said, "I don't usually watch the news. What is so special about this one?"

   "Are you blind?"

   "I see two men dropped by what must have been shots, a baby that may or may 
not have been hit. So what. They catch a lot of this kind of stuff on the 
monitor cameras that are installed all over the place."

   "Watch again, Frank. This is raw video and sound straight out of the 
recorder."

   Frank watched the chain of events and counted three shots. "Someone hit four 
people with three shots. So they are efficient. I still don't see what this has 
to do with us."

   Kyle restarted the playback once again, slowing down the playback speed just 
before the first man was hit. "Watch everything closely. Tell me where the 
shots come from." Having said this, he continued the slowed down playback. 
Frank watched the explosion of blood and tissue as the first man was hit and 
heard the associated shot. "Where did that shot originate?" asked Kyle stopping 
the playback.

   Frank studied the display for a few moments and then replied, "It came from 
behind and slightly to the right. I'd say from the liquor store. I saw glass 
being blown out of its window just before the shot that hit our first victim."

   "Right on the money. Now pay very close attention to the next hit," 
admonished Kyle, then he restarted the playback. 

   As the man's head exploded, Frank said, "Back it up a few frames. Then slow 
it down some more."

   Kyle did as requested.

   "I'll be damned, the woman behind him is being hit by the same slug that 
rearranged his brain case. What happened to her? That slug caused her to jerk 
forward. There is blood shooting out of her chest as the bullet exits, but she 
didn't go down."

   "So kind of you to finally notice that little item. Also, note that the 
camera pans off her to focus on the store being robbed. When it pans back a few 
minutes later, the paramedics are on the scene and the redhead is nowhere to be 
seen." I have studied the other videos available from cameras located around 
that area. She simply vanishes. I mean she is blocked from view by some of the 
people and never shows up on the camera again."

   "Let me guess. You want me on this day before yesterday, right?""

   "Actually, four days ago would have been better."

   "Is there any way in particular you want this done?"

   "Quickly and quietly. I want to know how someone takes a shot like that and 
walks away. That has some interesting ramifications about it."

******************************
   
   Bryson was wolfing down the food like a starving man. Lyta watched him, 
amused.

   "You surely are hungry, considering you were only in the hospital five days."

   "The only thing I had to eat was through the IV. I’m starved! Waiter! I want 
another order of number sixteen, please."

   They spent two hours getting Bryson's hunger sated and talking about the 
remainder of their trip. 

   "Have you seen the recordings that are being played on the news program, 
Bob?"

   "Yes. They put a small TV where I could watch it. None of the recordings was 
able to get a good look at your face. All that is certain is that the woman 
beside me was a redhead. The hospital people never let any news people get near 
me."

   "I'm sure that you have some questions."

   "The real question is, are you going to tell me anything?"

   "What do you want to know?"

   "Why are Nancy and I not dead?"

   "Who's Nancy?"

   Looking bewildered, Bryson replied, "The little girl that was shot. You told 
me her name when we were in the park."

   "We were never in any park, Bob. I think you may have some memory problems."

   "You really aren't going to tell me what happened. Are you?"

   "You got shot and, miraculously, you survived without any major 
repercussions. What else is there to know?"

   "I was hit in the spine and my nervous system from the chest down was gone. 
The bullet passed through my chest on a path that must have taken it through my 
heart and part of at least one lung. I shouldn't have lived long enough for the 
paramedics to arrive. Now you want me to believe that I am just incredibly 
lucky. I'm not buying it, Lyta."

   "What do you want to hear? If I tell you I saved your life, would you feel 
better? I can do that, whether it's true or not."

   "Just forget the whole matter, and tell me how a bullet from an assault 
rifle passed through you and killed the man in front of you, without harming 
you?"

   "It's all in your imagination, Bob."

   "I've seen the recordings!"

   "Recordings can be doctored and faked. If they were real you should be able 
to see my face as clearly as you can yours and the lady who was beside me. 
Besides, this isn't the place for this conversation."

He realized, as had Garibaldi, during the Telepath War, that if Lyta didn't 
want to tell you something, she wouldn't, regardless of the proof you might 
have available. [Probably what makes her such a good liar,] he thought to 
himself.

   "I resent that," she snipped.

   In the future, he resolved not to forget that she was a telepath.

******************************

   Bryson sat on the bed watching the news and listening to Lyta take her 
shower. He looked at his chest, and where the bullet exited there was no scar, 
only a patch of new skin. He didn't want to admit it even to himself, but Lyta 
scared the living hell out of him. He had seen and experienced enough in her 
presence to realize that whatever she was, human would not be the defining 
term. In the hospital, the doctor had been honest and had showed him the 
pictures of the damage he had suffered because he had wanted him to understand 
just what he faced. He also knew damned well that he should've been dead less 
than a minute after the bullet had hit him.

   Lyta exited the bathroom ready for bed. "A credit for your thoughts, Bob," 
she said looking him in the eyes. She realized that he was terrified of 
her. "Why are you afraid of me? I've never done anything to harm you."

   "No you haven't. I don't know what to think about you, Lyta."

   "Why not think of me as a friend, and let the rest of it go?"

   "I'm trying to understand just what you are, but I haven't a clue."

   "I never thought of myself as a 'what' before. I can see why people have 
trouble accepting me. A what conjures up the image of a thing not a person or 
rational being."

   "I can't think of a rational explanation for you.'

   "I was re-engineered at the basic DNA level by the Vorlons to be a super 
weapon. What else do you want to know? Am I a freak? That's a matter of 
opinion. What is a freak? Is it someone who is shot and heals without a scar? 
You tell me."

   "I would feel better if I understood you a little bit better."

   "I'm a female, Bob. Even if I were a normal human, you wouldn't understand 
me. Care to try for something else?"

   "Computer record this broadcast," said Bob, as the news item began to play. 
It was a composite of several surveillance camera recordings.

   "As you can see," said the newscaster, "The enhanced videos clearly show 
that five people were hit by the three shots from the robber's gun. One died 
instantly from a massive wound to the head. Doctors manning the Mercy General 
Hospital emergency rooms reported that the man and little girl suffered massive 
wounds to the heart area of the chest, and the man's spine was nearly severed 
by the bullet that hit him. The little girl's mother sustained only a broken 
arm bone and minor blood loss. She was treated and released as an outpatient. 
While the real news is the survival and recovery of the man and little girl,  
one question seems to defy answering. The woman standing behind the man who was 
killed was obviously hit by the bullet that killed him, but the only apparent 
injuries to her was a slight loss of blood that can be seen on her blouse. She 
disappeared and hasn't been identified yet. Authorities want to question her 
about the incident. If you have any relative information call the police 
hotline at 456-1234. There is a five thousand-credit reward for information 
that results in the arrest of this woman. As always, you won't have to give 
your name or testify."

   "Looks like they want to get their hands on you pretty badly."

   "Don't worry about it. No one got a clear look at me." 

   "What really irritates me though is that I get shot and don't die, and the 
police want to haul me in. Why do I smell military intelligence intervention 
with the police? Maybe it's time for you to return to Mars and leave me in the 
hands of your people in the remainder of the cities I need to visit."

   "Why should I return to Mars?"

   "If they want me that badly, it's only a matter of time before they try and 
zero in on you. Take my word for it, they will use telepathic scans to find out 
what you know."

   "That would be out and out illegal."

   Lyta looked at him and replied, "Do you seriously think they give a rat's 
ass about legalities?"

   "I suppose there aren't any alternatives."

   "I could put in blocks that would prevent them from learning anything, but 
the presence of the blocks would raise big red flags, especially since a P-12 
couldn't break them."

   "We fly out of here tomorrow morning. I'll leave you in Tokyo. I'm going to 
miss your company, Lyta."

   "You will get over it sooner than you think." 

******************************

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean:

   "We're going to be met by one of my people when we get to Tokyo. I know 
absolutely nothing about the cities of the orient," commented Bryson.

   "If it's any consolation, Bob, I know even less than you do," responded 
Lyta. "Your people in the various places we have visited have been most 
helpful, I expect the same from your people here."

   "I still don't understand why you're doing things the way you are."

   "I don't want anyone else to be accountable for my actions."

   Bryson gave her a confused look.

   "You’ll understand when the time comes. Trust me."

******************************

At a San Francisco hotel front desk:

   "I'm sorry sir, but they checked out at 0500 this morning. They left no 
information as to their destination," answered the desk clerk.

   The man who was questioning the desk clerk turned as his partner 
approached. "They took a taxi and the doorman can't remember which one or 
anything about it. Knowing who she is, I doubt anything he might tell us," 
reported the well-dressed female.

   Agent Johnson was a beautiful woman in her early thirties. Her looks 
disarmed most men she had to deal with, but those looks were deceptive. She was 
very smart and knew how to use every weapon in her arsenal. He had had several 
partners over the last five years and she was proving to best of the lot. "You 
don't like this Alexander woman do you?"

   "I'm not paid to like or dislike her. We've been assigned to arrest her, and 
as far as I know, the only thing she's done wrong is have the audacity to not 
fall down dead when she is shot. I don't like anything about this assignment." 
Waving her hand in a gesture of dismissal she added, "I know, we aren't paid to 
like our assignments."

   "Keep in mind, Justine, this woman destroyed the Psi Corps. She is very 
dangerous."

   "Pat, just whom is she a danger to?"

   "That's not the point."

   "No. I don't suppose it is." Justine Johnson hadn't liked anything about 
this particular assignment. When some nameless and faceless government agency 
was calling the shots, one was advised to watch one's back, because they never 
told you anything, and when they did, it was usually a well-crafted lie. "My 
bet is that they went to the airport. What say we try there?"

   "Lead on, Agent Johnson."

******************************

   Lyta's plans were falling into place of their own accord. The accidental 
shooting in San Francisco resulted in a train of events that mimicked what she 
had planned to instigate later in her trip. This series of events would simply 
make everything she did later more plausible. Lyta leaned back her the seat, 
took a sip of her drink and smiled. Bryson looked at her smile and felt the 
temperature of his blood drop a few more degrees.

   Aware of Bryson's uneasiness, Lyta said, "Relax, Bob. In a few hours I'll be 
out of your life forever." Then she took another sip of her drink.  

******************************
     
END PART 6

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