Just Cause

  Chapter Eleven

  There are three things to remember when parahumans engage in combat. I refer to them as AKA, which is a familiar acronym for anyone with a secret identity. Over the rest of this book, we will address these three areas.

  One: Analyze your opponents. Be aware of powers catalogued, implied, and possible.

  Two: Know your own powers. What are your limits? What are your capabilities?

  Three: No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Adapt to changing circumstances, because nothing is ever ‘by the book’.

  -Estella Echevarria aka Sunstorm, On Parahuman Combat, 2000

  January, 2004

  Denver, Colorado

  Just Cause Headquarters

  Sally squinted at her alarm clock as it chirped at her. It couldn’t be seven o’clock already, could it? She and Jason stayed out late the night before; way too late for Saturday morning training. The date had been a lot of fun, though. After their minor skirmish with the would-be muggers, they had some delicious pie at Lazzarino’s. Then, they’d both been so wired they decided to go see a late movie. The previews had started at midnight and the credits rolled after two. It was three by the time they got back onto base.

  Jason had been a perfect gentleman the entire night. It was really the first time she’d ever gone on a date, and it felt like something out of a storybook. She’d had such a grand time that she let him kiss her goodnight. Still drowsy, she rolled over and kicked off the blankets—even though headquarters was climate-controlled, it was cold outside and she couldn’t sleep without being buried in her covers. She smiled as she remembered Jason’s kiss, the tickle of his stubble on her nose, the musky scent of his shampoo and sweat.

  He had tasted like peach pie.

  By seven-fifteen, she was in the cafeteria and couldn’t decide whether she wanted the strawberry- -banana smoothie or the cherry-lime. Since it would be a full day of combat simulation, Sally wasn’t about to eat anything substantial. She learned long ago that light, frequent meals were best for her in situations where she made extensive use of her powers. She selected the cherry-lime and added a small bowl of granola and a slice of cantaloupe with a yawn.

  It seemed like she had been nothing but exhausted since beginning her internship. She wondered if it was part of the training. On the other hand, the night before had been her own fault. Well, mostly hers. She smiled to herself because the rest of it had been Jason’s.

  Jack sauntered into the cafeteria and made a beeline for the coffee bar. In a minute, Sondra joined him. They strolled over to sit with Sally.

  “Morning, sugar,” said Jack.

  “God, Sally, you look like you have two black eyes,” Sondra said. “What time did you get in?”

  Sally tried not to think of how little sleep she’d really gotten. She yawned. “It was like three.”

  “Ah, the folly of youth.” Jack sipped a drink that wafted a pleasant cinnamon-vanilla scent across the table. “I remember staying out all night once or twice.”

  “Jack, you’re away more than you’re here anymore.” Sondra laughed. “Honestly, you’ve never grown up. So . . . Did Jason kiss you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jack grumbled something under his breath and dug a ten-dollar bill from a pocket. He held it up between two fingers like a cigarette. Sondra snapped it away from him and tucked it into her vest.

  “I’d be angry if I wasn’t so tired,” said Sally. “Is that all you guys do? Make bets about me and my love life?”

  “Before you, it was Jay,” said Jack. “After you, it’ll be someone else. It’s just our thing.”

  “Why don’t you get a cup of coffee?” Sondra pointed out. “It’s free and chock full of caffeine.”

  “Why does everybody keep pushing coffee on me here? Is it part of the super-secret Just Cause clubhouse rules that you have to drink the stuff?” Sally glared at them over her granola.

  “Well . . .” said Jack. “Most times we don’t get enough sleep. It kind of comes with the territory.”

  Sondra set down her cup. “You’re exhausted, dear, and in no shape to train today. If it wasn’t your first time, I’d say you should try to take a sick day instead. Let me get you a small cup—it’ll get you through the morning, at any rate.”

  “Please, Sondra, you’ll kill her with that mud you drink. Come on, kiddo—I’ll introduce you to the joy of cinnamon hazelnut.” Jack stood up and escorted Sally to the coffee bar.

  “I stay away from caffeine, Jack. It messes up my metabolism.” Sally felt her protests grow flimsy and weak against his charm and male-model good looks.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to start you out with a triple espresso or anything. Sondra was absolutely right—you’re in no shape to train today. Jason won’t be either, but you’re going to be the one on the hot seat today because it’s your first time. We just want you to survive it . . . metaphorically speaking.” He handed her a cup he’d mixed up. He’d topped it with a dollop of whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg.

  She took it from him and wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic mug. “Thanks, Jack. It does smell good.”

  He winked. “Trust me.”

  She took a sip. It tasted like impossibly warm ice cream. “Yum.”

  He laughed, and then looked past her. “Oh, oh, oh . . . better clear the way. Here comes someone else who needs his extra-large ration of go-juice.”

  Jason staggered up to the coffee bar. His hair was in disarray and longer-than-usual stubble dotted his chin and cheeks. “Morn’n.” He selected a decanter that was half full and dumped sugar and cream directly into it.

  “Watch out, that’s Sondra’s blend,” said Jack.

  “Doan care.” Jason stirred the sludge with a long-handled spoon. He raised the pot to his lips and drained it.

  “Urgh. Tar,” he said after lowering the pot. Sally thought it was cute.

  They kidded around for a few more minutes before all headed for the Bunker. Sondra guided Sally to the women’s locker room and showed her how to put on the training suit. Training suits resembled the costumes that the team-members wore, but were loaded with kinetic and energy sensors and made out of high-tech nylon armor composite.

  “A helmet?” Sally looked askance at the headgear that looked more suitable for a grade-Z science fiction movie shown on an grade-Z cable network.

  Sondra shrugged as she strapped on her own helmet. “Head shots are efficient, whether you’re going for a knockout or . . . something else. Jason or Juice takes a swipe at you, you’ll be glad for the helmet. It’ll still ring your bell like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Jason better not,” Sally said. “I kissed him.” Nevertheless, she put it on. They walked out onto the training floor as she adjusted the straps so it wouldn’t slip down over her face. The rest of the team assembled in the middle of the facsimile city street. All wore training suits and helmets.

  “Good morning,” said Juice as the two women walked up to the group. “I trust everyone is well-rested?” There were good-natured grumblings from the rest of the team and face-splitting yawns from Jason and Sally. “Hey, Jase, you look like shit.” Juice winked at him.

  “Thanks, boss. I wasn’t sure until you said,” said Jason with another yawn.

  “We’re going to break in Sally today and start getting her up to speed. We’ll start with a Round Robin drill, followed by a Three-Minute. Analysis will follow both drills, and then we’ll break for lunch. We’ll run a couple of Tacticals this afternoon and wrap up with more Analysis. Any questions?” Juice winced as he realized he’d handed Jack a straight line.

  Jack raised his hand. “Yeah, I got a question. How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?”

  “Shut up, Jack,” said Juice.

  “Aliens,” said Sally. “Bill Paxton, wasn’t it?”

  “Good catch.” Jack grinned.

  “Does anyone have any legitimate questions?” Juice asked, enunciating a little more clearly.
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  Sally raised her hand. “Can you define a Round Robin and a Three-Minute drill?”

  “Of course. My apologies, Sally. We’ve been without anyone new for so long that I forgot you aren’t familiar with the terminology.” Juice smiled. “A Round Robin is where you try to take down everyone on the team in turn, and everyone has a turn as the Robin. A Three-Minute drill is blatantly unfair. You just have to survive three minutes of everyone on the team trying to take you down together in a coordinated manner. The Tacticals are specific goal-oriented scenarios. Analysis is when we look at what we all did, what we did right, and what needs improvement. You want to go first?”

  Sally nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Good,” said Juice. “Everyone fan out. Take us on however you want in whatever order. The rules are no killing shots. The suits will extrapolate damage and the computer will report on specific injuries, but try not to actually hurt anyone. Take as long as you need. Ready?” The others split up and headed down the street and into the air.

  Sally flexed her fingers and sped up her perceptions to maximum. Sounds dropped into the bass register and Juice seemed to move in slow motion as he pointed at her. “Bbbbb-eeeee-ggggg-iiiii-nnnnn.”

  Sally sped to the edge of the Bunker. She’d already worked out her strategy: go simplest to hardest. She’d aced all her combat courses at the Hero Academy, but then she had sixty years of speedster experience to draw upon between her mother and grandmother.

  Jack would be the easiest. A quick circuit of the Bunker found him crouched in an alley, his paint-pellet rifle held at the ready. She disarmed him in a blur and had a pair of handcuffs on him immediately thereafter. Since his wide range of skills likely included lockpicking, she knocked him down and hog-tied him. Jack barely had time to swear before he was stuck on his belly with his wrists tied to his ankles. She took a moment to giggle at his helplessness before she checked her watch: eight seconds since the beginning of the exercise. That would serve Jack right for making bets on her, she thought as she ran on.

  She moved on to find Glimmer. He should also be fairly easy to deal with, in spite of his psionic abilities. His brain didn’t work any faster than a normal human’s, so once again her speed would give her an advantage. She knew she had to be quick and careful. His precog could have warned of her approach and let him avoid her despite her speed. With his telepathy, he could take control of her mind and force her to stop or induce her to sleep. With his psychokinesis, he could create a wall of tangible mental force off which she would bounce like a bug hitting a windshield. Both her mother and grandmother had warned her about the dangers of psionic opponents. A low-power psi is potentially much more dangerous than any top-tier brick or blaster, her mom had said. Never assume otherwise.

  Glimmer was already spinning around to face her as she rounded a corner and approached him. She knew many of his psionic abilities required both eye contact and concentration, and those were easy to disrupt. She grabbed an aluminum trashcan facsimile, upended it over his head, and pulled it down over his shoulders and upper torso. She then proceeded to beat upon it for several seconds with a piece of broom handle. He reeled from the sudden noise and loss of vision.

  “Unconscious,” said a voice in her ear as the combat control computer registered a potential knockout blow on Glimmer. The same voice echoed hollowly inside the can and Glimmer stopped struggling.

  “Geez,” she heard him mumble. Seventeen seconds.

  Her instinct was to lift the can and ask if he was all right, but she knew that she needed to finish the exercise first. The two easy marks were down, which left her with the bricks—Jason and Juice—and the fliers: Doublecharge, Sondra, and Forcestar. None of them would be easy opponents, but she would nevertheless try to give a good account of herself. She decided to save the bricks for last, as they were traditionally the toughest opponents.

  Fliers were difficult to fight when one couldn’t enter their element. Most parahumans who flew could think in three dimensions when most people only thought in two. This gave them a strong tactical advantage in combat situations. Sally had spent a lot of time working on using her speed powers effectively against opponents who could stay out of her reach. She saw a sporting goods store and ducked inside it. One of the beneficial parts of training in the Bunker was that the technicians prided themselves on making the settings as real as possible, all the way down to the merchandise on the shelves of stores. Sally grabbed a pair of tennis ball canisters, and noted that she could have as easily taken golf balls, baseballs, or darts. Armed with fuzzy green missiles, she found her way to the top of a building.

  Doublecharge circled overhead and cut loose with a crackling burst of electricity as soon as she saw Sally step onto the roof. Sally dodged to one side. Another blast of lightning scored the roof where she’d been a moment before. Some blasters’ powers took time to travel intervening distances, but Doublecharge’s moved at the speed of light, and were only limited by her aim. If Sally kept moving, she’d be a tougher target to hit.

  She popped open a tube of tennis balls and stood still for a dangerous fraction of a second, hurling them as fast as she could. In her perceptions, they traveled straight and fast as any thrown object might. To Doublecharge, however, the fuzzy green missiles might as well have been bullets. Two impacted on her side while the third glanced off her helmet. She grunted in surprise from the hits.

  “Unconscious,” said the monitoring system.

  “Nice,” Sally complimented herself as Doublecharge dropped gently toward the street below.

  A series of sharp reports reached her ears. Each one sounded like a bass drum being struck with a mallet. She glanced in the direction of the sound to see Sondra overhead, paint-pellet guns lowered.

  A cloud of paint pellets sped toward Sally. She had to bend and twist her body in midair to avoid them. A pellet brushed by her hair but didn’t break. She grabbed another tennis ball tube and sprinted to the edge of the building. Although she couldn’t jump any further than a normal person from a standstill, she could cover lengthy distances with a running start. She leaped across the street to another rooftop to buy herself some time.

  As Sondra swung around and brought her guns to bear, Sally had already thrown another set of tennis balls. She didn’t time her throws right, and missed with two of them. The third smacked into Sondra’s left wing, and she winced in pain.

  “Sorry, Sondra,” called Sally.

  “Wing damaged, flight must cease,” announced the monitor. Sondra spiraled down to the street. Sally unwound the cord from a flagpole on the roof of the building and dashed down the fire escape. Sondra couldn’t fly anymore, but she was still armed and able to fight.

  Sally hit the street at full speed and as she sped past Sondra, she flipped the disconnect switches from the paint-pellet guns, causing the compressed-air tanks to drop away. Sally immediately reversed direction, looped one end of her cord around a wingtip, and spun it around the winged woman in tight circles. Sondra’s wings wrapped around herself in a feathery cocoon.

  “Incapacitated,” confirmed the monitor.

  Sondra wavered and tipped over. Sally slipped her hands under the woman’s head to keep it from bouncing off the pavement. “How am I doing?” she whispered.

  Sondra winked at her. “Great.”

  Taking down Sondra had eaten up almost twenty seconds; Sally had nearly completed her first minute of the training exercise and had only three opponents left. Not bad for a rookie, she thought. The last three were going to take some real time, though. Forcestar’s force-field powers were going to be difficult to overcome and she had no idea how she’d take down Juice and Jason. In her Parahuman Combat classes at the Academy, the instructors said that the best way to defeat a brick was to let him beat himself. Obviously, only another brick could stand toe-to-toe and trade punches. Other parahumans needed to either put the brick in a position where his strength would be no help or use his own strength against him. At the time, Sally had thought it
sounded very trite and esoteric; something right out of reruns of Kung Fu.

  Now she was desperate for a plan.

  Suddenly her time to come up with one ran out as Juice came around a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. He glanced around quickly to locate a likely source of electrical power. Sally knew she couldn’t let him draw a full charge if he wasn’t already carrying one.

  She sought inspiration in her surroundings, hoping to find something that would help, and spotted a hardware store. An idea struck her like a thunderbolt and she ran in and out of the store in a second. In one arm she had as many bungee cords as she’d been able to hold; in the other she carried a can of red spray paint.

  As Juice reached toward a street lamp, she ducked inside his guard and let him have a face full of spray paint. He coughed, choked, and reached for his wraparound glasses to yank them off his face. As he raised his hand, Sally moved faster than she ever had before. She wrapped the bungee cords around his arm and looped them once around his arm to draw them behind his head. In a blur of motion, his arm was tightly strapped to his head. The bulge of his bicep strained across his nose and the back of his hand pressed against the back of his neck.

  He glared at her from behind his paint-spattered glasses. When he reflexively raised his other hand to try and free himself, she wrapped another batch of cords around it. Soon Juice’s head was completely covered by his arms and a mass of bungee cords.

  “Can you still breathe?” asked Sally, concerned. This was something she’d never done before and had no idea if she might have hurt him somehow.

  “Grmph,” Juice said in a muffled voice. He sounded surprised but not particularly upset or panicky. For good measure, Sally wrapped a few dozen more bungee cords around his legs. Then, since she still had most of a can of spray paint left, she took a couple seconds to write Mustang Sally was here with a flourish on the ground around Juice. She accented it with a smiley face inside of a heart.

  “Incapacitated,” said the monitor system.

  She’d completely depleted the store’s stock of bungee cords, and would have to figure out something else for Jason.

  Just her luck, he was running up the street towards them in a plodding, slow-motion gait. She hesitated and slipped out of her accelerated perceptions to watch him approach. His muscles moved enticingly under his training suit and she shook her head so as not to become distracted. She sped up her perceptions again so she could take in every detail of him while telling herself it was strictly for the exercise and nothing more. As he passed a small bistro, an idea came to her and she charged up to one of the outdoor tables.

  Jason skidded to a halt as she caught back up to him. She waited until she saw his chest begin to expand with a heaving breath and then tossed a handful of ground black pepper into his mouth and nose. His eyes bulged out and filled with tears. He coughed, spluttered, and issued a braying sneeze forceful enough to knock himself over.

  “Incapacitated,” said the monitor.

  Sally’s own eyes blurred for a moment as she realized what she’d done, miserable at the thought of the discomfort she’d caused him. “Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry,” she cried.

  A glowing blue cylinder appeared around her. She yelped in surprise as it formed a floor underneath her as well as a ceiling. In a moment, she found herself lifted off the ground and suspended in mid-air.

  Several yards away, Forcestar grinned at her, his arm extended as he controlled the field in which she was enclosed. “I think that we can consider this exercise complete. Sixty-eight seconds and you took out most of the team.”

  “Is . . . is that good?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the only one right now who can take down everyone and it takes me a good ten to fifteen minutes of hard work. I bet if I hadn’t sneaked up on you, you’d have figured out a way to stop me as well. You can color me impressed.” He lowered her back to the ground. He looked at Jason, who sneezed so hard that he cracked the side of the building against which he had fallen. “Medical,” he said aloud. “I think we’ll need your assistance with Mastiff.”

  Released from the force field, Sally ran up to Jason’s side and seized one of his hands. “Jason . . . I’m sorry. It was the first thing I thought of. Please don’t hate me!” Although he couldn’t speak, Jason managed to give her a weak thumbs-up in spite of his streaming eyes and nose.

  Two technicians in white lab coats ran up; one toted a device, which resembled an unholy mating of a vacuum cleaner and a metal detector. One of them adjusted some controls on the machine while the other swept it back and forth across each member of the team. Jack said to Sally that it was a nanobot cleaner, designed to remove material and residue from the team without requiring cleaning, chemical solutions, or hacksaws and cutting torches. The tank on the back of the device filled with sludgy liquid as the nanobots removed the paint from Juice’s face and the pepper from Jason’s sinuses, particle by particle. The flagpole cord around Sondra dissolved into nothing.

  Juice dry-scrubbed his face, as if he still had paint caked on it. “Well . . .” He looked across the rest of the team. “I suppose we all needed that. It’s been far too long since we had any real challenges as a team. Thank you, Sally, for reminding us that we’re not totally infallible.”

  “Uh, you’re welcome,” she said. “Did I do all right?”

  “Are you kidding? I can’t remember the last time anyone took us all down as quickly as you did,” Jack said. “You’re tops in my book.”

  “All right, Jack, don’t go and give her a complex or anything.” Sondra rubbed her wing where the tennis ball had hit it.

  “Very impressive debut, Sally,” said Doublecharge. “Does anyone besides Jason require medical attention?”

  Jason shook his head, a grin spread across his blotchy face. “I’m good to go, boss. Just feel like I stepped into a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Nice move with the pepper, Sally. Don’t let that one get around or everyone will be trying it on me.”

  Sally shrugged. “It’s not easy to take on a brick when you’re as fragile as everyone else.”

  “Much less two of them,” said Juice. “If everyone’s all right, we’ll move on to the next Round Robin. Jack, you’re up.”

  Jack was fearless in his turn as the Robin. Of course, mused Sally, it helped that he was completely invulnerable. He took on the fliers first with surprise, grappling hook, and rope. Like Sally, he was halted by Forcestar, but not before he’d laid out Glimmer, Sondra, and Doublecharge.

  Glimmer took his turn as the Robin and brought down both bricks with his telekinetics. He put Sally to sleep with a sneaky telepathic attack. When the drill was over, she discovered he’d managed to also nab Forcestar before exhausting himself. The curse of his psionic abilities was too much use fatigued him.

  Forcestar rounded up virtually the entire team in short order, clearly determined to improve on his time after Sally did it so quickly. His tactics were simple—he surrounded his victims in bubbles of force and kept them held aloft in the glowing blue spheres of energy. He saved Doublecharge for last, as her electrical powers could disrupt his force fields, and closed with her to fight hand-to-hand over the street. She fought him off and caught him inside his guard with a point-blank electrical blast. He spun away and cursed aloud as the monitor declared him incapacitated. He grumbled as he released the others from his force bubbles, left with a zero for a score.

  Jason seemed to delight in going toe to toe with Juice and Jack. The former was physically stronger but not as quick. Juice’s strength drained rapidly when he fought and the younger, faster man eventually overpowered him. Jack cheerfully taunted Jason and soaked up everything the young man had. Eventually Jason picked him up bodily and wrapped a light pole around the man. He didn’t get any further than that as Glimmer zapped him to sleep. He grumbled when they woke him and asked if maybe Glimmer could do that little trick again so he could catch up on the missed sleep from the night before.

  Sondra used straightforward tactics—telesco
pic vision in conjunction with her highly polished pistol skills took out Doublecharge, Glimmer, and Forcestar. She incapacitated Juice and Mastiff by well-placed shots that struck eyes; even bricks could be temporarily blinded by impacts to the face. She fired a few experimental shots in Sally’s direction but to no avail. Her talents were likewise wasted against Jack, but she used another, sneakier tactic against him that had him crying foul for hours afterward. As she glided toward him, she holstered her pistols and yanked the front of her vest down to spill out a breast with a star-shaped pastie over the nipple. Jack dropped his rifle in surprise just before Sondra landed in front of him and wrapped him up in a feathery kiss. When she pulled away, she left one of his own tangler grenades stuffed down his pants. It went off and wrapped him in sticky tendrils that required multiple passes of the nanobot cleaner to remove.

  “She cheated!” Jack said, pouting.

  “Wardrobe malfunction,” said Sondra.

  Juice laughed so hard he had to call a ten-minute break to compose himself.

  Doublecharge took down most of the team in a cool, professional manner. She started with Forcestar and worked her way through the others until only Juice and Sally remained. Eventually they called a stalemate because she couldn’t hit Sally, and all her blasts did was feed Juice’s strength. In the field, that was actually a planned tactic.

  Finally, Juice took his turn. He used the environment to great advantage. Well-flung awnings caught Doublecharge and Sondra in mid-flight. He hung Jack from a flagpole by his belt. The monitor system declared Glimmer unconscious after a stop sign clipped him in the head. To her own surprise, Sally bit on a skillful feint on Juice’s part and she dodged at high speed right into a fist the size of an Easter ham. Unlike when Glimmer knocked her out, there was nothing gentle about it.

  She awoke on a bed in the medical wing with her ears ringing and persistent blurriness of vision. The rest of the team waited in the room with her while the medical techs checked her over. They diagnosed her with a mild concussion.

  “I’m very sorry, Sally,” said Juice. “Honestly, I didn’t expect that feint to work so well. You’re excused for the rest of the day.”

  “No,” she said through lips that didn’t seem to work quite right. “Wanna c’ntinue.”

  “Sweetheart . . .” Jack sat down at the foot of her bed. “I’ve seen people take hits like that and never get back up again. We’d rather you not die in your first week on the team. Or at all, of course.” He raised a remote control toward a monitor screen overhead. “You’ve got to see this, though. This is better than any highlight reel on ESPN.”

  “Right now?” Jason asked, and Sally realized her hand was in his, which felt kind of nice.

  Doublecharge nodded. “She’ll never fall for that trick again if she sees how it happened.”

  Jack pushed the button and Sally saw a slow-motion replay of her contact with Juice. He had just hurled a stop sign at her, which she had dodged easily. She then ducked under his spinning kick and rammed her forehead right into his left hand, which clearly had been his intention. She winced as she watched the replay. Her feet continued forward and her entire body flipped up into the air to pivot around her head. She smashed into the ground like a rag doll but bounced up a heartbeat later.

  “Pause it,” said Doublecharge. Jack complied. “Look at her. Look at her eyes. She’s not conscious at all, but she’s still preparing to run. If Juice hadn’t caught her right after, who knows how far she’d have run in reflex, and how hard it would have been to catch her.”

  “I’ve never seen that happen in anyone,” said Juice. “It’s like your super-speed is controlled at a fundamental level of your brain, like respiration and heartbeat.”

  “Like sleepwalking,” said Glimmer. “You ever do that?”

  Unpleasant memories surfaced in Sally’s mind. “Uh, once or twice, I guess.”

  “How far did you get out of the house?” Jack asked.

  “Tucson,” Sally said.

  “All right,” said the medical technician. “Enough. She needs some peace and quiet. You can question her tonight if we’ve cleared her to leave by then.”

  Juice motioned to the others. “All right, guys, you heard the doc. Out. Jason, you can stick around until afternoon training if you want to and Sally says it’s okay.”

  Sally smiled, causing her whole face to hurt, and closed her eyes. “It’s okay.” She felt Jason’s hand around hers and hoped it would still be there when she awoke.