At once the room was filled with a brilliant white light that sent the bony disgusting arms that pawed at me immediately back into the darkness from whence they had come. I breathed a hefty sign of relief as the terrible pain subsided, and my thoughts returned to normal. Thank you Ambrose, I whispered to nowhere in particular. But you know this doesn't mean we're friends right? I wouldn't get any kind of answer, but I knew he knew. We could never be friends again. That much, we both knew.

The room now registering regular lights levels again, I glanced quickly at Bryce. He was crouched down low beside the bed, as if afraid of whatever horror he assumed I had called forth to counteract his little clicky pain device. To the untrained and uninitiated eye, he would have looked scared. Cowering for all his life's worth. But he wasn't. Machines don't get scared. Oh, I don't mean he was some kind of evil android robot - at least not physically - but emotionally, he was devoid of any feelings of humanity or compassion. Those things simply just didn't enter his head. Ever. And neither did fear. Even in the face of certain death, I knew that Bryce, and the others like him, would fight to the last, and always always go down in whatever blaze of glory they could muster.

Anyway, he was already on his feet, and I wasn't going to wait around to hear what he had to say, or to see what other agency weapons he had strapped to his body beneath that rather nice tailored suit jacket. I rushed him. My fist made perfect and direct contact with the bridge of his nose. Bloody spurted everywhere. Ha! He really should have been ready for that. I whirled round to come at him from the other side. This time he was ready though, and neatly stepped aside, the effects of my first attack, already worn off. He quickly pushed me, and I went flying over the bed, crashing hard onto the floor on the other side. Shit! That hurt.

He was already standing over me. "Angela, Angela, Angela," he started, wiping the blood from his nose with an expensive looking handkerchief, "look what you did. I liked this nose ya know."

I looked straight up into his eyes, "Yeah? Well, how much do you like your legs?"

I kicked out as hard as I could at his shins. Either one. It didn't matter. I actually managed to get both though. He yelped a little, and staggered back. That was all I needed. I sprang to my feet, faster than the most jolted of cats, and rammed my elbow right into his nose again. That did the trick beautifully. He actually screamed this time. I'd hurt him.

"FUCKING BITCH!" he yelled, hands up to his face, fingers turning crimson red, white shirt front ruined, eyes filling with water.

This time I went straight for the things no sane and well adjusted man likes to be kicked in. As I retracted my foot, Bryce silently crumpled to the floor, and just lay there, kind of twitching every so often. His breath came in short fits and starts. His blood red hands now cradled his crushed jewels. What? I'm trying to write here, and not be too vulgar about it. Ok, so he was clutching his balls. And they were pretty well smashed beyond repair. Shame guys had that one vulnerable area. Shame for them. Good for me. He was well out of it at this point. Frankly, I had expected better from him. One little push was all he had managed to get over on me. Pathetic for such a decorated veteran.

I stepped over him, grabbed my clothes from the chair, and headed straight out into the corridor. I fully expected there to be a row of agents just waiting for me to appear. They'd known I was in a coma, but they weren't stupid. They would have sent at least ten. But there was nobody. Not even a nurse or janitor. The corridor was eerily silent. I couldn't even hear the general beeps and alarms of everyday hospital life. This made me ever so slightly nervous. It wasn't right. It wasn't what I expected. And when things didn't appear as I expected them to, it usually didn't mean anything good.