"Less pressure," Aaron said, completely absorbed on the task at hand. "More water right there."
"Like this? Is this good?" Jack asked.
"Yeah. Claire, more water!' Aaron shouted.
"Hmm!" I said, concentrating on irrigating the wound. Aaron had cut into Cole's shoulder and we had extracted Robert's arm. Now we were up to the task of sewing Cole back up, which was no easier than cutting him up.
"Less friction on the needle, Jason!" Aaron demanded. Jason's face scrunched up in concentration. "Good, now hold it, everyone."
"You don’t have to say that every time," I grunted. "This is hard enough!" I angrily dumped graphite dust onto Aaron's face and he faltered, almost letting the suspended Cole fall at ten meters per second per second.
"Focus!" Jack screamed. "If we're going to get out of this alive, we're going to have to work at our best."
"You're right," I said. "You can do this, Aaron."
Aaron scoffed, frowning. "Yeah, right." He looked down at Cole's shoulder and carefully connected the muscle. "It's just like a robot. Parts of a machine," he whispered.
"He okay?" Robert asked. He was cleaning the blood off his re-emerged arm, and thankfully, none of it seemed to be his. That meant we would need fewer drugs, which were in short supply without Robert's expertise.
"Did you get them back, yet?" Jason asked.
Robert flexed his hands. He sighed, shaking his head.
"Soon," Jason encouraged. "We're almost there." Robert shook his head.
Are you there? I asked my writer. Are you watching us? We're there. We're really there.
Silence greeted me. Apparently, we weren't really there, yet.
"He's waking! His eyes are opening!" Aaron shouted.
"What? Yes! Yes!" I shouted. I jumped over to Cole's chair and stared at his fluttering eyes. "Cole, can you hear me? Are you okay?"
"Water? Water," Cole muttered.
"Holy crap! He's speaking!" Jason said.
I quickly filled a clean beaker with pure water and handed it to Cole. He grasped the cup with his right hand, the side that wasn't affected by the surgery, his fingers were hot to the touch.
"My shoulder hurts," Cole murmured.
"Aaron, was he this warm during the procedure?" I asked.
"Kind of, but I figured it was nothing," Aaron admitted.
"What's going on?" Cole asked.
"I stuck my arm in your shoulder," Robert said bluntly. "They took it out."
"What?" Cole sputtered. "What do you mean… wait."
I picked up a pencil and threw it at Cole. His eyes widened and the pencil bounced off his leg, nearly shattering. "Good," I said. "You still have yours."
Robert waved his hands, but nothing happened. He sighed. "We solved the problem, didn't we? Why hasn't it worked?"
"How do we know we solved the problem?" Aaron pointed out. "All we did was remove Robert's arm."
"Um, Cole's really warm," Jack said. "And he's sleeping now."
Shoot! More problems? "Why can't you just let us go?" I screamed. "You, who can do whatever! Can't you just heal him?"
"Um, Claire, are you praying?" Jack asked.
"You're talking to her, right?" Aaron asked.
"Aaron, is God a woman, now?" Jason teased.
"No, we're not really talking about God," I whispered. I sighed, slipping into a mode. "I'm talking about a writer. My writer. You see, I didn't just do this whole 'defy the laws of physics' thing just for kicks. Well, maybe I did. But I promised, well, my writer promised somebody that there'd be a boss fight between Aaron and Cole."
"Writer?" Jason asked. "What do you mean?"
"Well, they made up everything that happens to us," I said. "They write stuff and it happens to us." I could tell none of them believed me. Or maybe I shocked them speechless.
"Then why can't Aaron just kill Cole and be done with it?" Robert finally asked.
"I told you, that's not how it works," I said. "There has to be a boss fight!"
"It specifically has to be boss?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, obviously. Why else would it need to happen?" I said, smiling for the first time since the team vs. team fight. Maybe there was a way.
"What?" Jack asked, noticing my grin.
I walked up to Cole and shook his uninsured shoulder briskly. He wasn't as feverish as before. "Cole, wake up, now!"
His eyes flashed open. "What? Why? Oh, hi Claire."
"How are you feeling?" I asked. In a whisper, I added, "Whatever you feel, say 'pretty good.'"
"Pretty good?" he said. I punched him in the shoulder, and though my hand bounced back with equal and opposite force, he got the memo. "Oh, what? Yeah, I feel amazing!"
"Good," Robert said. "You up for your big duel?"
"Big what?" Cole asked. "With who?"
"With me," Aaron said, smiling.
Cold stood up and backed away. "No way! You've got muscles and stuff!"
I scoffed. "If you could call that putty muscle. Besides, he's a nerd. Nerds don't have muscles." Notice I said "a nerd," which is different from "Nerd."
"I'm not up for any duel! I just had Robert's arm in my shoulder!" Cole screamed.
"Yeah, stupid Robert… Wait, where's Robert?" Jack asked.
We all turned, looking for the purple-haired spacetime mage. He wasn't in the base. It was just like him to leave the first chance he fit. I was barely surprised. My plan had worked.
"Robert got his powers back," I announced. "Finally, we're back on track."
"Yeah, yeah, Claire," Jason said. "But first things first, I would like to speak to that writer of yours."
ns 18.68.41.141da2
