On The Run

Two girls flee from the ruling regime of their planet and try to start a new life in Germany. But hunters from the regime are never far behind them.

            The girls walked lightly down the dimly lit hallway, heading toward the hangar.  Disabling the surveillance system would buy them only a few minutes.  Squeezing through the double doors, Ryn glanced up at her father’s spare spacecraft.  “Hartwig assured me she’s ready to go,” she whispered to her friend, Britta.

            “I hope so.”

            Ryn opened the hatch.  It creaked a little, then glided open for the young women.  After hopping up the steps, Ryn spun around and closed the door.  “Quick!  Let’s do the pre-check.”

            They tossed their backpacks aside and climbed into the cockpit.  “Power up,” Ryn started.

            “All systems appear to be functioning,” Britta responded after turning the key and flicking on the five different power systems.

            “Main beams?”

            “Number three is a little wobbly, but we should be fine on the other three.”

            “Runners?”

            “Check"oh look!  There’s a text waiting from Hartwig.  It was sent 30 minutes ago.  ‘Ryn!  Bernd and soldiers from Die Starken were just here.  They searched the house.  Now, they’re on their way to the hangar.’”

            “Hurry, Britta!  Warmers?”

            “Check.”

            The overhead lights flickered to life in the hangar around them.  “Bay door!” Ryn yelled.

            “We didn’t finish our check.”

            “No time!  Full power to the beams!”

            The bay door was half open when the double doors in the rear of the hangar slammed open.  "Let’s go!” Ryn pushed the throttle forward.

            “We won’t fit!” Britta screamed.

            “Yes, we will.  This ship’s smaller than the others,” Ryn said, gritting her teeth and urging the craft through the still opening bay door.  In the monitor from the rear facing camera mounted on the ship, the girls could see 5 soldiers and Bernd, the new regime leader’s son, running towards them.  Lurching forward, barely squeezing through the door, the old craft left the men in a cloud of fumes.

            “Aufwiedersehen, Bernd,” Ryn said as the ship sped across the field and shot into the sky.

            Bernd and the soldiers watched the spacecraft take off and disappear from sight.  “Why must she make this difficult?” he said under his breath.  “You are all dismissed for the night,” he said dejectedly to the men surrounding him.

            Once the ship dove into the thick blackness of outer space, the girls jumped up and danced around the cockpit.  “Free!  We’re free!  Free from the bonds of Die Starken regime!  Free from marrying Bernd!” Ryn yelled.

            “But wouldn’t it bring the two regimes together?” Britta asked for what seemed like the thousandth time.

            “Maybe, but I have no interest in getting married!  I’m too busy enjoying life!  Let’s check out the earth and see if we can makes a new life for ourselves.  I have our route to Germany programmed into the computer.”

            “Germany?  Which city?”

            “Berlin.  I have a contact there.  And there are a lot of dance clubs!”

            “And stores?”

            “Of course!”

            “You know they’re going to come looking for us.  Wouldn’t it be better to visit a different country?  Germany is the first place they’ll look!”

            “Maybe eventually, but I know more about Germany than any other country.  I’ve gotten to go there a few times with my family.  We’ll start there for now.”

            “You know, Ryn…Bernd is kind of nice…and"”

            “Too nice.  And there is no way I’m going to be a part of the regime which defeated my father.  Once the Nazis developed the technology and discovered that our planet, Neuern, was similar to Earth’s, Hitler sent my grandfather and close to 1,000 others there to live.  My grandfather led Die Bestellung until his death, when my father took his place.  He ruled for 30 years before he was overthrown last year.  Die Starken are our enemies!  And marrying Uwe Gössler’s son isn’t going to make them any less our enemy.  And besides…can he rock it on synth?”

            “Well, no, but I was going to say he’s cute.  I like how his blond hair parts on the side and falls over his right eye when it gets too long"”

            “Britta, I need a tough guy, who won’t let me push him around.  Bernd has always been the peaceful, nature loving, boring guy no one wants to be with.”

            “You used to like him…in school…”

            “For a little while, I guess.  I beat up a couple of bullies who were giving him a hard time.  I wouldn’t say I liked him…he was just vulnerable, and I hate bullying.”

            “Do you settle everything with a fight?”

            “I try to.  Makes life more interesting,” Ryn smiled.

            In his father’s office at Die Starken’s headquarters, Bernd sat at a table across from a man in his thirties.  His hair was blond, but receding.  He was wearing a black t-shirt, black pants, and a black leather jacket with Diesel Industry printed on the left front pocket.  His black shoes with thick soles added 2 inches onto his 6 foot 4 inch frame.  Bernd started, “I need your help in retrieving a couple of girls; one of whom is Peter Hirsch’s daughter, Ryn.  She’s 4’10” "”

            “I’m familiar with Ryn,” Karl interrupted.  “She goes to the same gym as I do,” the man in black replied.  “She’s not at all reserved--fairly wild.”

            “Money’s no object.  How can we go about this mission?”

            Karl simply stared at Bernd for a few seconds.  “Where do you think they might have gone?”

            “They left in one of the original ships, The Flame.  When my father took over the regime, he had tracking devices installed in all of the spacecrafts.  Here is the number for the one they are in.”

            Bernd slid a sheet of paper across the table to Karl, who entered the number into his tablet.  “It will be a costly trip.  According to the tracking device, they’re headed for Earth.”

            “How much longer until they land?”

            “Two…maybe two and a half hours.  They’re in a fairly slow ship.  I’ll keep an eye out to see where they land.  Also, I’ll be bringing Doktor Baldrik Nelson in on this mission.”

            “I agree,” Bernd said, “Doktor Nelson is one of the best out there, and I want those girls brought back safely.  We’ll use The Cruiser.  It has a complete medical bay.”

            “Doktor Nelson has also been to earth a number of times and is familiar with the planet.  We’ll need a few weapons…though our stunners should be sufficient for carrying around with us.”

            Bernd slowly nodded, “No problem.  The Cruiser is fully equipped with food and other necessities, and it has been serviced recently.”

            Ryn went over to her neon purple backpack to grab a snack.  While kneeling down, she noticed the tiny black dot on the wall.  “Britta!  They’re tracking us!” she yelled.

            “WHAT?!”

            “After we land, we’ll have to get as far away from the ship as quickly as possible.”

            “Can you remove it?”

            “No, it’s coded.”

            Ryn took her seat back at the control panel.  She ran her right hand through her long copper colored hair.  It was usually dark brown, but she had decided to color it red.  At first she was disappointed that her dark hair subdued the red, but the new color had grown on her.  “We’ll be landing in an hour.”

            Britta, who had decided not to color her blond hair that day at the spa, joined Ryn in the cockpit.  “Where do we hide the ship?”

            “There’s a conservation area to the east of the city, in Neuenhagen.  Time to go stealth.”

            Britta flipped a switch and the craft disappeared.  Now, they wouldn’t show up on radar or to the naked eye.  They then broke into the atmosphere smoothly.

            Onboard Die Starken’s largest and best spacecraft, Dr. Nelson checked the medical supplies.

            “Ist alles in Ordnung, Doktor?” Bernd asked.

            “Ja, everything appears to be in order.”

            Karl watched his screen as Bernd ran through the pre check.  “Power up,” Karl said, “We’re going to Deutschland.”

            Surrounded by thick grass of a conservation area, the girls exited their vehicle and headed off  in the dark.  “Are you sure it will remain invisible?” Britta asked, locking the door with the remote.

            “Absolutely!  Someone may bump into it, but they won’t see it.”

            “We’re just south of Hoppegarten, so if we can make it there, we can catch a train to Berlin.  We’ll need to find a place to lay low for the night because it will take Bernd and his men only a couple of hours to find our current location.”

            “They’ll probably be in The Cruiser.”

            “Then cut that time in half.  Lass uns gehen!  Let’s go!”

            Bags in hand, Britta and Ryn quickly made their way out of the grassy area, across a stream, and onto the main road.  A car driving by slowed to a stop.  The driver, an elderly man, asked the girls, in German, what they were doing out there in the middle of the night.

            “We were hiking, but got a little lost,” Ryn answered, also in German, “Could you please take us to Hoppegarten so we can catch the train back to Berlin?”

            “There are no more trains this late,” the man responded.  “I am going into Berlin now.  I would be glad to take you there.”

            “Vielen Dank!” Ryn said as they climbed into the man’s black Volkswagen.

            On the way to Berlin, the girls chatted lightly with the man.  He was a widower and glad for the conversation.  He lived in Neuenhagen bei Berlin, but needed to pick up his grandson from a club in Berlin.  The trip to the big city took only a half hour, and the man let them out on Oranienstrasse, as they had asked him.  “Thank you very much for the ride,” they both said as they got out of the Volkswagen.

            “Bitte,” the man said, smiling.

            Ryn and Britta walked down Oranienstrasse to the large stone building, which housed Europe’s largest music store, Just Music.  “This way,” Ryn said, leading Britta under the Eusnerhaus sign and into the courtyard behind the store front.  “I recognize it from the photo Joachim sent me.”

            “Who’s Joachim?”

            “Our contact.  I have been writing to him for a while.  He thinks we are from Duisburg.”

            Ryn knocked on a door.  After about a minute, she tapped on a window.  “He’s probably asleep.”

            Eventually, a guy who looked to be in his 20s answered the door.  He was skinny and had what Britta thought was a nasty haircut.  “Ryn!  You  made it!  Come in!”

            The girls went into the small apartment and looked around.  The white walls were sparsely decorated with a couple of posters.  The kitchen was small, but looked efficient and clean except for some bottles on the counter.  And there was a drunk guy passed out on the floor.  “Please excuse my friend here.  He had a bit too much tonight.  He’s leaving tomorrow for Leipzig.  I’ll show you where you will be sleeping.”

            When Joachim turned to go into another room, Britta whispered to Ryn, “Don’t write, ‘Kilroy was here’ on his stomach.”

            Ryn giggled under her breath, thinking about how she had done that to a guy back on Neuern.  They followed Joachim into the bedroom.  He had a large bed which housed 2 smaller mattresses.  On top of each of the mattresses was a duvet and pillow.  She gave Joachim a hug and thanked him.  She introduced him to Britta, who was looking for the bathroom.  “Freut mich,” he smiled.

            While the girls were chatting with Joachim, the hunters were landing their behemoth in the same field the girls had used.  Using the scanner beam on The Cruiser, the guys could disarm the invisible force field on Ryn and Britta’s craft.  “There you are,” Bernd smiled as Karl used a blue beam to latch onto the small craft and pull it into The Cruiser.

            “Now they can no longer use it to get away.  Gotcha, girls.”

            They inspected the craft for any clues of the girls’ whereabouts.  Once their black van was ready to go, they drove out of their large craft.  As the van pulled onto Bollensdorfer Weg, their ship disappeared.

            “Let’s drive around this area.  They couldn’t have made it very far in the middle of the night.”

            Karl drove the van around slowly while Bernd scanned the tall grassy area with an infrared camera.  “The only heat sources I am picking up are some small animals,” he said.

            After driving around Hoppegarten for 3 hours, the men stopped at a bakery for breakfast.  “Do we have any idea where they may have gone?” Dr. Nelson asked.

            “Ryn likes dance clubs and playing keyboard.  Berlin is a hot spot for clubs, so I think we should start there,” Bernd said.

            “This will be a challenge,” Karl uttered, checking for night clubs on his computer.

            “Then they will likely be laying low during the day.”

            “It will be a long night.  We should go back to the ship and get some rest,” Bernd said.

            No one disagreed with him.

            The sun was disappearing over the horizon when the black van reached Köpenicker Strasse in Berlin.  Not much was happening at the clubs yet, so the guys parked the van and checked out the cafes along the street.  They turned to go down a side street and came upon a group of guys harassing a young woman.  “Leave her alone!” Karl yelled, in German.

            “Verpiss dich!” one of the men yelled back to Karl.

            Not one to take kindly to insults, Karl whipped out his stunner and shot each of the guys with it.  As soon as they were hit with the blue laser beam, they all fell to the ground, groaning, unable to move.  The girl ran off towards the main road and the hunters continued on their way to the first nightclub, Sage.  “Communications on?” Bernd asked.

            “Check,” Karl said.

            “Affirmative,” said Dr. Nelson.  “This looks like a good place to start.  I’ll stay out here and keep an eye on the exit.  If the girls see you, they’re going to bolt.”

            “Good idea.”

            Bernd and Karl walked past groups of people mingling by the front entrance.  Inside, they split up.  While Bernd climbed the stairs to the second floor, Karl made his way up to the DJ’s booth.  He pulled out a photo of Ryn and Britta.  “Have you seen these girls?” he asked the DJ, in German.

            “Nein,” he said quickly, then turned back to his sound board.

            Karl scanned the crowd in front of him.  Being still early in the night, it was a scant group of young adults, working very hard to become drunk as quickly as possible.

            Not far from the hunters, Ryn and Britta were hanging out with Joachim and his friends.  “We would love to have you on keys tonight, Ryn.”

            “What have you got for me?”

            “A King Korg, Jupiter 80, and Yamaha Motif XF8.”

            “Sweet,” Ryn smiled.

            “Hans will back you up on the soundboard.  He will be here soon and you two can discuss tonight’s line-up.  We’ll be at Ritter Butzke dance club.  It’s a great place for techno lovers.”

            “Sounds good.”

            Having no luck, the guys moved onto the next club.  This time, Bernd guarded the door while Dr. Nelson and Karl went in.  Karl headed towards the back of the club.  When he stopped to look around, someone pinched him on the rear.  Turning around, he was greeted by a guy wearing all pink.  The man winked at Karl, who continued on his way.

            At the bar, Nelson showed one of the bartenders a photo.  “I’m looking for these girls.”

            “I haven’t seen them,” he said, shaking his head.

            In the men’s room, Karl was using the urinal when Mr. Pink sauntered up to him.  “Hey there, good looking.  My name is Pinky Doodle.  What’s yours?”

            Karl ignored him.

            “I said"” the man put his hand on Karl’s shoulder.  Without missing a beat, Karl grabbed the man’s hand and crushed it.  When the man began to double over, screaming, Karl grabbed the front of his pink jacket, then slammed him against the mirror, shattering it.  The man moaned, clutching his hand as he slumped to the floor.  Karl walked calmly out.

            After a complete search of the building, the men moved onto the next club.

“Okay, Ryn, the keyboards are ready for you.  Just jump in whenever.”

            Hans was mixing sounds on the soundboard.  He lifted the right side of his headphones so Ryn could yell something into his ear.  He nodded.  Ryn took her place behind the rack of synthesizers.  Hans slowed down the tempo and Ryn started with an arpeggio on the King Korg.  Her right hand moved up to the Jupiter 80 to play the melody of the familiar dance song.  A cheer went up from the crowd and more people moved to the dance floor.

            “There are too many dance clubs in this city,” Bernd complained as they pulled into a nearly full parking lot.

            It was close to 2:00 in the morning and the men were beginning to weary of loud music and scanning hundreds of faces in differing clubs.  In this particular club, there was an unmistakable 80s theme.  Bernd, with his feather hair, fit right in.  Dr. Nelson, however, who was in his late forties, did not mesh with the younger crowd.  “Try not to hospitalize anyone here,” he said to Karl, who shot back a menacing glare.

            This time, instead of just looking around, they mingled with the crowd.  Bernd pulled out a photo.  “Have you seen these girls?” he asked a group of ladies.

            “Oh yeah!  I saw her!” a purple haired girl said, pointing to Ryn.  “She was playing the keyboard at the last club we went to!”

            “Which one was that?” Bernd asked her.

            “Oh…where were we?” the girl asked her friends.

            “Was that Ritter Butzke or Tresor?” her friend wondered aloud.

            “The one with the cute guy we all liked.”

            “The guy who bought me a drink?”

            “No, the guy who danced goofy.”

            In another part of the building, Dr. Nelson came upon a girl who was limping.  “Is everything in order?” he asked in typical German fashion.

            “No, I think I twisted my ankle.”

            “I’m a doctor.  Let me take a look at it.  Just have a seat here.”

            The girl did as she was told and lifted her foot up for Dr. Nelson.  He took her shoe off and felt her ankle.  “It isn’t broken or dislocated,” he said.

The girl cringed as the doctor palpated her foot.

            “Was it the American guy?”

            “No, he was German.”

            “Must…control…fist…of…death,” Bernd thought as the girls chattered back and forth.

            “Was it the place with a pool?  I can’t believe you shoved that girl in!”

            “She was totally stuck-up and needed to cool off!”

            Finally, a somber girl in the group spoke up, “It was Ritter Butzke.”

            “Danke,” Bernd said, then texted the others.  “Have a lead.  Meet at the van.”

            Dr. Nelson was bandaging up the injured girl’s ankle when he got his text.  “Keep it elevated.  Alternate ice on and off for 15 minutes several times a day for the next couple of days.”

            The hunters ran out to the van.  “Ritter Butzke,” Bernd said to Karl.

            It was around 4:00 a.m. and Britta was chatting with a guy by the front door.  Ryn had been on and off the keyboards throughout the night, and was just getting back on when Bernd and his crew stormed in.  Britta nearly choked on some chips she was snacking on.  “Entschuldigung!” she yelled to the man she had been conversing with, then spun around and began to shove her way up to the stage.

            “Ryn!” Britta tried yelling above the music.  The place was packed.  Britta was pushing people just so they would budge a little, enough for her to squeeze by.  She expected that at any moment, one of the guys would grab her, but when she turned around, she didn’t see them.

            Finally making it up to the stage, one of the bouncers told her she couldn’t go up there.  “But that’s my friend!” she pointed to Ryn.

            “Nein,” he scowled.

            Britta grabbed him in the crotch and squeezed as hard as she could while twisting her wrist.  Groaning, he bent down to try to release her grip, and that’s when she poked him in the eyes.  That was enough to distract him so that she could jump past the bouncer and onto the stage.  Grabbing ahold of Ryn, Britta screamed, “They’re here!”

            Ryn ended on a C chord, then motioned to Hans that she had to leave.  He then sped up the tempo a bit and added a few patches to fill in for the now missing synth.  From where they were making their way through the crowd, the men could see Ryn and Britta dash off the rear of the stage.  Being quite a bit larger than Britta, they had an easier time shoving sweaty, writhing bodies out of their way.

            Ryn found Joachim in the back of the club  in a room which doubled as an office and storage room.  “Those guys I told you about"they’re here!”

            “Hide in this cabinet.  When it’s closed, it’s locked, but you can open it from inside.  Just push the latch on the bottom.”

            While going up the stairs to the stage, Karl grabbed the bouncer, who was still sore from his encounter with Britta, and threw him into the crowd.  Once on the stage, Bernd went up to the DJ.  “The girl playing keyboard"where did she go?”

            “I don’t know,” he said, “She just ran off!”

            While Bernd talked to the DJ, Karl put his hand on the underside of the King Korg.  “Fan out!” he yelled to the other two.

            While Bernd and Karl frantically searched the building, Dr. Nelson jogged around the outside perimeter.  The girls sat quietly in the cabinet.  At one point in his search, Bernd actually entered the room in which they were hiding.  They could see him through the crack in the doors.  He checked under a desk that was in the room, then behind the couch.  After he walked out, the girls quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

            At 6:00 a.m., the club closed and the guys met up at the van.  “Looks like defeat,” the doctor said.

            “Not exactly,” Karl stated.

            “What do you mean?” Bernd wondered.

            “I stuck a tracking device to the underside of one of those keyboards.  I think whoever owns those knows where the girls are.  It’s only a matter of time, now.  Let’s get something to eat while we wait.”

            Shortly after the club closed, Joachim came in and got the girls.  “I saw those guys who are after you!  Those are some serious-looking dudes!”

”Let’s go back to your place and crash,” Britta said to Joachim.

            “Good idea,” Joachim said, “The keyboards will be safe here.  I’ll get them later.”

            The men found a bakery open that early in the morning.  After some pastries, they also decided to take a nap in the van.  So they found a quiet place to rest, just outside of Berlin, near a park.

            It was a little after noon when the girls and Joachim woke up.  Joachim didn’t have much to eat in his refrigerator, so they decided to go out to get something.  Amazingly enough, they ate at the same bakery the men had used earlier in the day.  Afterwards, they wanted to do some shopping, and Joachim said he needed to get the keyboards since they would be playing in a different club that night.

            The alert on his tablet woke Karl up.  “The keyboard is moving,” he said, waking the others.

            Joachim was indeed moving his keyboards from his car into his apartment when the three men from Neuern approached him.  “Where are they?” Karl asked.

            “Whom?” Joachim feigned ignorance.

            With his right hand, Karl grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him into the air, pressing him against the brick wall of the apartment building.  Joachim gasped for air.  “You know who I am talking about"the girl who played those keyboards last night, and her friend.”

            Joachim couldn’t say anything except, “Help,” so Karl let him down. “Okay, okay, I know who you are want, but they took off.  I don’t know where they went.”

            While Karl dealt with Joachim, Bernd and Dr. Nelson searched his apartment.

            “If you’re lying to me, I will find out.  And you’d better tell me where they will be tonight, or I will kill you in the most excruciatingly painful way possible.  We’ll find them, with or without your help, so I suggest you make it easy on yourself.”

            Realizing he had lost the battle, Joachim admitted they would be at Tresor that night.

            “And you’d be smart not to warn them.”

            With that, the three men left.  Joachim rubbed his throat and coughed.

            That afternoon, the girls had an enjoyable time shopping.  After a late lunch, their first stop was Just Music.  “I want to get some new sheet music,” Ryn said as they walked in.

            “OK, as long as we can do some clothes shopping, too,” Britta responded.

            Inside, Ryn was overwhelmed by the huge selection.  “I could live here!  Check out all of these synths!” she exclaimed, going up to the latest version of the Nord Lead.  “Love this bright red color!”

            Britta had a seat on one of the piano benches while Ryn got everyone’s attention on the Nord.

            Karl, Bernd, and Baldrik also cruised around Berlin.  They spent most of their time in a coffee shop, however.  “So, Karl, how did you become a bounty hunter?” Bernd asked.

            “Bounty hunting is a challenging hobby.  I also work at the hospital with Doktor Nelson.  I am an anesthesiologist.  I am able to put people into an unconscious state without drugs.”

            “How do you do that?”

            “With only his hands,” Dr. Nelson finished.

            “Then you are a gifted one?”

            “I guess you could say that.”

            “I’ve never had surgery.  Does it hurt to be put to sleep that way?”

            “No.  It’s like a tingling sensation.  Patients report a feeling of bliss.  And there are no side effects, such as headaches or nausea.”

            “I see…” Bernd said, turning to Baldrik, “And why did you become a doctor, Doktor?”

            “My adrenaline rush comes from helping people.  There is nothing like operating on someone and knocking out the angel of death, who already has one hand on their soul.”

            “Well, I can’t beat that,” Karl started, “I only knock people out.”

It was late in the evening and already dark.  Trying to stay off of the main roads as much as possible, Ryn and Britta were walking down a back alley.  Their backpacks were full from their shopping spree and slung over their shoulders.  “We got some nice outfits,” Britta said to Ryn.

“And sheet music.”

At that moment, a blue Mercedes turned into the alley and sped towards them.  Ryn had just enough time to push Britta out of the way.  The car cleared her friend, but Ryn was hit.  She was thrown onto the hood.  It didn’t even slow down as Ryn’s head hit the windshield and cracked it.  She rolled off the hood and landed on the ground.  The driver sped out of the alley and onto the main road, barely missing a truck.

Ryn moaned.  “I can’t move.”

Britta knelt down by her friend.  “Because you can’t feel your legs?”

“No…because I can feel them.  The pain is unbearable.”

“I don’t know what to do!” Britta wailed.  “I’m going to call Bernd!”

“No!  I’d rather die!  Go back to Joachim’s and let him know what happened,” Ryn coughed up some blood.

Britta, struggling to keep from panicking, grabbed Ryn’s phone from her backpack.  “I’m NOT going to let you die!”

“No, Britta!  Please!”

The three men were sitting in the van, in a parking lot where they could see the rear of Tresor, an old heating plant turned nightclub, when a call came in on Bernd’s phone.  Karl pushed the button on the van’s console to answer it.  “Karl here,” he stated.

Dr. Nelson’s eyes widened as the voice on the other end came through.  “This is Britta,” her voice was shaky, “Ryn was hit by a car and she’s hurt really bad!  She’s coughing up blood!  I don’t know what to do!”

“Where are you?” Karl asked coolly.

“I…I’m not sure…we’re near Ritter Butzke in an alley.”

“Never mind…I just got a fix on your location.  We’ll be right there.”

Britta hung up with Karl and tried to comfort Ryn, who was lying on her left side.  Her head was bleeding profusely and she was drifting in and out of consciousness.  “It will be okay, Ryn.”

Ryn quietly groaned.  Her breathing was quick and shallow.  She saw a pair of headlights turn into the alley and head towards them.  “It’s them, Ryn…don’t worry--they’re going to help you.”

The van stopped in front of them.  The girls were now exposed in its headlights.  From where she lay, Ryn could only see the shoes of the men who stepped out.  “Get in the van!” Karl demanded of Britta, who scrambled up from her kneeling position.  She grabbed their backpacks and did as Karl said.

The three men gathered around Ryn.  “Before you move her, let me check for spinal injuries.”

Dr. Nelson lifted Ryn’s t-shirt and ran an orthoscanner along her back.  “Alles klar, Karl.”

Not wasting any more time, Karl reached down and scooped Ryn into his arms.  She lost consciousness again as Karl carried her to the van.  Bernd followed quietly.  He had to let Karl lead"it was his operation.

Karl stepped into the van and set Ryn carefully down onto the small bed in the rear of the van.  Bernd closed the side door and had a seat next to her.  He gently took her hand. 

“Doktor,” Karl nodded to Baldrik as he passed him inside the van before taking to the driver’s seat again.  Britta sat in one of the seats, watching as Dr. Nelson got to work on Ryn; wrapping a bandage tightly around her head to decrease the blood loss.

Ryn regained consciousness as Dr. Nelson was listening to her heart with a stethoscope.  Seeing her friend was awake, Britta said, “Don’t worry, Ryn, I’m watching them to make sure they don’t perv-out on you.”

Dr. Nelson turned to glance at Britta, raising his eyebrows in surprise.  No one had ever even remotely accused him of possibly transforming into a pervert.  He was a professional in the strictest sense of the word.  Ryn spoke just barely above a whisper, “Doktor Nelson, I trust you.  Please help me.”

The doctor looked at Ryn for a few seconds, then turned to Bernd and in hushed, but concerned tones, said, “She has a tear in her aorta.  If you don’t help her right now, she is going to die before we even make it back to The Cruiser.”

Ryn heard what the doctor said, but she didn’t understand what he meant.  How could Bernd help her?  He wasn’t a doctor!  She looked at Bernd, who nodded in agreement to what Dr. Nelson had ordered him to do, then he stood up and bent over Ryn’s broken body.  She watched as he reached down and his right hand passed through her chest wall.

Britta’s mouth dropped open.  Ryn gasped.  She could feel his hand inside of her chest, and it was the strangest feeling she had ever experienced.  It felt cold, yet it didn’t hurt.  She could tell he had ahold of something in her chest"her aorta?  Then it felt as though her heart was being gently squeezed.  “Her aorta was beginning to detach from her heart,” Bernd said softly to the doctor.

When Bernd pulled his hand out of Ryn’s chest, it was covered in blood.  Britta wished she had gotten a video of it on Ryn’s cell phone.  “That would go mega viral!” she thought.

Ryn just watched Bernd as he wiped the blood off of his hand.  She couldn’t process what had just taken place.  He had just saved her life, but in the most bizarre way.  He was…one of the gifted ones…

Dr. Nelson listened to Ryn’s heart again, then nodded to Bernd.  “Good job.  It worked.  Knock out.”

“I would do anything for you,” Bernd whispered in Ryn’s ear, “even rearrange the laws of physics.”

Karl pulled off of Bollensdorfer Weg into a field.  With the press of a button, The Cruiser appeared.  The door opened and Karl drove into it.  Bernd opened the side door of the van and Dr. Nelson carried Ryn over to the medical bay, where he placed her onto the stretcher.  “Karl, I need you in here.”

When Karl entered the room, Dr. Nelson said, “She’s in a lot of pain.  I won’t be able to operate until we get to Neuern.  Would you please put her to sleep so she will be comfortable.”

Karl walked over to where Ryn lay.  He reached down and placed his hands on the back of her neck, just below the base of the skull.  Ryn could feel something like a gentle, electrical charge flow from Karl’s hands into her neck.  As the tingling sensation reached her head, she felt like a soft, warm blanket was wrapping itself around her, and she drifted into a peaceful sleep.  After checking her pulse through her carotid artery, Karl went up to the cockpit to help Bernd run through pre-check.

As The Cruiser darted into outer space, the doctor carefully stabilized and wrapped Ryn’s legs, which were considerably fractured.  Britta had a seat at one of the computers, listening to news from Neuern.  She couldn’t wait for Ryn to wake up so she could tell her best friend about the sale at Stylant, their favorite hair salon.

When Ryn woke up, she was in a recovery bed in the hospital.  Dr. Nelson was sitting next to her.  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Still a little groggy.”

“I had to pin several plates to the bones in your legs in surgery.  They were crushed pretty badly.  Karl assisted me in keeping you sedated.”

“Thank you, Doktor.  And please thank Karl for me.”

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you guys.  I just wanted some space,” Ryn lamented.

“I want to let you in on a little secret I learned about Bernd while we were in Germany.  He stares at your pictures for hours.  He has an accordion folder with hundreds of photos of you.  He told me that he has been crazy for you for years.  He is totally devoted to you.  He seemed rather dejected, however, when he told me of how he has given you gifts and left sweet little notes for you in your mailbox, but you just ignore him.  He also donated blood for you…you had lost quite a bit.”

Ryn looked down.  “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Why not start with, ‘I’m sorry.’?”

“Where is he now?” Ryn asked the doctor.

“He can’t come into the recovery area, so he’s waiting until you are moved to a regular room.”

Later that night, Ryn was dozing off and on.  When she awoke, she found Bernd sitting next to her, holding her hand.  He had placed a vase of roses on the stand next to her.  “Bernd,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling?”

“Bernd, I am so sorry.  I was so obsessed with the regime and politics, that I treated you horribly all this time.  I thought of you as the enemy.  Then I ran away from the best thing to come my way.  Can you ever forgive me?”

Instead of answering her, Bernd had a seat next to her on the bed.  He leaned over and placed his hands on her face.  Then he kissed Ryn gently on the lips.  “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he smiled.

Ryn noticed how tender his blue eyes were.  “Is that a yes?” she asked.

“It’s a yes.  Do you suppose we could discuss your adventure over dinner when you get out?”

“That would be nice.  And I won’t make you catch me this time.”

A few days later, Ryn was reading a magazine in her hospital room when Britta entered.  “Hey, stranger than strange!  Where have you been?”

“Sorry, Ryn…I wanted to come by sooner, but they said you have been just sleeping a lot.  But hey, I have a boyfriend now!”

“Really?!  Who?!”

“Karl.”

“NO WAY!!!”

“Way!” Britta laughed, “He’s a really good kisser.  He’s a tough guy on the outside, but really a sweetheart deep down in there.  And when he looks at me, I just melt,” Britta blushed.

“Just watch where he puts his hands!” Ryn joked.

“Really!  When are you able to get out of this place?”

“Doktor Nelson said I could leave tomorrow.”

“That’s just perfect because Stylant’s sale ends tomorrow.”

“Prima!  Let’s get our nails done.”

“Gotta look good for our men,” Britta purred, “See you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow, bestie!”

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!