Read bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered for Free Online

last problem until I tried to slow for a traffic merge. I had to blow through without stopping, narrowly missing a couple of air vehicles. I cleared the merge to the accompaniment of a cacophony of horns and extended middle digits.
    Finally I discovered that I could get the gage to release by pounding on it with my left fist. My right fist didn’t seem to have much effect and stomping on it with my foot just made it whir pitifully.
    I eventually dropped into hover in the air space that was designated for air vehicle parking at the unplanned care unit and waited for the floating corridor to come my way. Suspended on a tangled architecture of metal arms, the corridor was a giant, hollow tube that travelled from vehicle to vehicle, providing an airlock and walkway into the building. When it arrived at my door and latched on, I climbed out and started walking toward the building, which was super-terra, meaning it hung above the ground on a complex foundation of devices that were powered by the sun.
    The waiting area was full so I did what I usually do. Walking to the window behind which the triage meds sat, I asked for my sister. Darma always pulled me in ahead of the rest of the poor schmoes who didn’t know anybody at the unit.
    The woman behind the counter stared at me for a long moment, chewing edible tar that smelled like evergreens and then smirked. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”
    I frowned, “There must be some mistake. ‘
    The woman shook her frizzy, blonde head, “No mistake, honey. She was fired.” Despite the bad news, the woman made her pronouncement almost gleefully.
    “Let me talk to your supervisor.”
    The woman shrugged and said, “You’ll have to take a seat, she’s with a stage four med case right now.”
    I sighed, nodded and reluctantly returned to the waiting area. A stage four was almost certainly fatal. I’d probably be waiting for a while. A couple of the people in the waiting area frowned at me as I walked past. Apparently they didn’t cotton to my use-your-sister-to-budge-ahead-in-line tactic.
    Ignoring their sour pusses, I sat down in one of the impossibly uncomfortable chairs. My mind roiled with the possibility that what the woman behind the counter had said was true. I rejected the possibility immediately. My sister was the ideal employee. Conscientious to a fault. Inhumanly dependable. And unreasonably fond of her job. It just wasn’t feasible that she could have been fired.
    About a half hour later a woman approached me. She was tall and thin and had brutally short white hair. Her eyes were triangular shaped and a strange, golden yellow color. As I stood up she offered me a long, narrow hand. “You must be Astra, I’m Doctor Clovis Lee.”
    I nodded, surprised she knew who I was.
    She smiled and said, “Darma talked about you a lot.”
    She did? Talked? Past tense? Oh-oh.
    Doctor Lee gave me a sad smile and squeezed the hand she still held. She looked as if she’d read my thoughts.
    “I did,” she said and I gave a little jerk of surprise.
    “Please come with me. I believe we’ll be more comfortable in my office.”
    I fell into step beside her, trying to mask my thoughts, unsuccessfully it seemed. At one point I couldn’t help thinking that it must be a bitch to have a boss who could read your every thought and she nodded. “I’m sure it is.”
    We reached her office and she stopped, motioning for me to precede her into the room.
    When she’d closed the door behind us I asked, “Venusian?”
    It was her turn to look surprised. “How did you know?”
    “In my line of work I need to know all of the paranormal species.” My smile widened. “And I used to date a Venusian. We were really hot and heavy until he pulled from my mind that I thought he was a bit too full of himself. The relationship was like a Venusian sunset from that point on, short and very colorful.”
    She laughed. “Our men do tend to be a bit arrogant. We’ve grown used to it on Venus but