Science and Sorcery by Christopher Nuttall Page B

discussed outside the building without my permission?”
     
    “I understand,” Caitlyn said.  “I’ll copy you into my report and you can edit it, if there’s anything classified inside the paper.”
     
    Matt had a different question.  “What made you so eager to invite Miss Patel here?”
     
    Watson studied him for a long moment.  “There was an... incident at a nearby military base,” he said, finally.  “We have four men who were wounded, one quite badly.  I heard about Miss Patel and thought that she might be able to help them.”
     
    He opened a second door and led them into a small ward.  The first patient was lying on his side, one leg covered in bandages.  A pair of attractive nurses were feeding him from a bowl of mush, something that he didn't seem to like at all.  Matt caught his flat stare and knew, instinctively, that this was a very dangerous man.  Kaleen seemed to recoil away from him before plucking up her courage and stumbling forward until she was standing by the side of his bed.
     
    “Training accident,” the soldier grumbled.  “Some REMF faggot managed to fuck up his gun and put four bullets through my leg.  I’ll kill him when I get out of here.”
     
    “Try to heal him,” Watson said.  “His grumblings are driving everyone else insane.”
     
    The soldier actually grinned.  “I try, sir,” he said, mischievously.  “But I guess I’ll never play football again.”
     
    Kaleen ignored him, her fingers touching the bare skin beside the cast.  “We’ll have to take it off,” she said, bluntly.  Matt watched in some amusement as the shy persona was pushed aside, replaced by someone who could remove a cast without difficult.  The soldier sucked in his breath as she exposed the flesh underneath, and then pressed down on it with her fingers.  A tingle ran down Matt’s spine as he sensed... something flowing around Kaleen, reaching down into the wound and slowly healing it.  The soldier let out a gasp as his leg twitched once, and then started coughing.  Kaleen stepped back and admired her handiwork.
     
    “Try to stand up,” she ordered, holding out a hand to help him to rise.  The soldier tottered slightly, but otherwise remained upright.  Doctor Watson was staring at Kaleen in absolute disbelief, as if he hadn't really believed the reports when he’d read them.  “And I...”
     
    Kaleen staggered, slightly.  Matt caught her before she could hit the ground, while Caitlyn produced a chocolate bar from her handbag and passed it to Kaleen.  The experiments had proven beyond all doubt that whatever Kaleen did – they’d started to call it healing, for want of a better word – cost her energy.  No one was quite sure how her talent worked, but no one could deny that it did work.  And who knew what else might be just waiting to be discovered?
     
    “The next patient was wounded in an IED explosion in Afghanistan,” Watson said, when Kaleen had finished the chocolate bar.  “We patched him back together, but there are wounds and scars that we cannot deal with quickly.  I thought that you might like to try.”
     
    The next healing went as simply as the first healing, although it was clear that it cost Kaleen plenty of energy to heal two people so quickly.  Watson insisted on running a few tests, including x-rays, only to discover that pieces of shrapnel that had lodged themselves inside the IED victim’s body had disappeared.  There was no clear sign of where they’d gone, but they certainly didn't seem to be life-threatening any longer.  The third soldier had lost an arm completely, thanks to a terrorist sniper in Afghanistan, and had been waiting for an artificial replacement.  Kaleen started to heal him, but then collapsed on top of his chest and had to be rushed to a bed herself.  Matt couldn't help wondering if they’d overstrained her before Doctor Watson pronounced that she’d simply depleted her body’s natural reserves of energy