I'm just going to step over to where she is. I'm pretty sure me being near her will help diffuse this
situation a little."
"Lieutenant?" The soldier closest to the door called without lowering his gun.
"I'll allow it, but standby," he said. Then to Ulysses, "son, make sure you don't block line
of sight on that girl. We're past the point of taking chances here."
Ulysses nodded and took slow, metered steps toward Nera. He stopped less than a foot
away from her, standing beside her.
"I wasn't sure I'd get to see you again."
"I know. I'm sorry," she said, fighting back tears.
"Really wasn't sure what to think when I woke up. I definitely feel hurt. I can understand
the logic of what you did, but I think it's going to take me awhile to sort through my feelings
about it."
She nodded to him and brushed the corners of her eyes with her fingertips.
"I'm hoping I'll get the chance to work through it with you around. But we've got more
pressing things to talk about right now."
"I'd like that," she said, followed by, "You're right, we do."
He reached out, lightly touching the swollen side of her face. "What happened?"
"There were five humans who came with guns. Each was inhabited. I could sense them
coming because of these," she gestured to the weird fabric that were the alien corpses. "Their
bodies still resonate with one another, even after they've died. It saved my life. Though I wasn't
spared injury."
"You were too fast for them, but they got a shot or two in, huh?"
She smiled a crooked smile at him.
"What happened to the parasites that were inhabiting the grunts? Did you get them all?"
Nera pulled up her weird dress and pointed to her legs. They were wrapped neatly in the
fabric that Ulysses knew were the corpses of the hyssopshebolith.
"I killed two more. The other three escaped."
"That isn't good," said O'Flannery. "They could be anywhere."
It should have been obvious to Ulysses that the agent was listening in, yet he was still
surprised. Nera didn't seem concerned.
"Can you tell us how to find them?" O'Flannery said.
"They're not anywhere within this facility. In fact, I can't sense any of them within a
mile."
"You're sure?" Even after all of his experiences with Nera up to this point, Ulysses was
taken aback by how certain she sounded.
"As I told you and Jonathon before: it seems that the more of their corpses I collect, the
stronger my ability to detect the hyssopshebolith becomes." She paused, suddenly lost in
thought. Nera inhaled a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. "I think I understand why they
were so quick to retreat."