A Slight Indisposition

By Curlly

"Blahahhhhaaaahhhhhhh!" was the rather inelegant noise Curlly made into her porcelain throne. Oh, her stomach muscle hurt. "Well," said Curlly to her cat, "at least I made it to the toilet this time." She’d heard this happened; she didn’t think it would be like this. Well, it had been going on for past few weeks. Hopefully it wouldn’t last for too much longer.

She gargled with mouthwash to get the taste of bile out of her mouth and headed back to her room. Sinjn was standing by the bed. "You were sick again." It was a statement, not a question.

"It’s just a bug that is going around. I’ll be fine," refuted Curlly. Picking up a bottle of pills she waved them at him. "See I even have pills from med lab to counteract the effects." She popped a pill. "I’ll be fine for the rest of the day now. Really. I was declared fit for duty, so stop worrying."

His eyes darkened as he watched her climb into bed and burrow in. She closed her eyes and her hands went unconsciously to her stomach protectively. She sighed and reopened her eyes smiling at him. "Now my hair needs its beauty sleep. So I’ll see you at the briefing."

"Curlly…" warned Sinjn. She had been acting very strangely sense Seymour’s death. Which was to be expected, but not in the way she normal did when a friend in Section died. She was taken off missions or reassigned to a nonphysical roll with no negative effects to her file. But she was already asleep, or at least she was pretending to be. Quietly he turned and left avoiding the orange and black paw

(claws out) that swiped at his leather shoes.

Curlly sighed as she heard her outer door shut. Her stomach was still rolling, but settling. She eyed the bottle of pills with loathing. She didn’t know why Operations insisted she take folic acid. It was just a too late for them to help much. Besides they tasted just awful! And it was all Seymour’s fault. Him and his big-

*Knock Knock* "Hey Curlly, how are you feeling? Can I come in?" came Northy’s voice. "Sure." North came in and proceeded to check bio signs.

"How is the nausea this morning?"

"Urgh! It’s awful! I can’t imagine any getting threw this condition with any amount of grace."

North just chuckled softly as she ran the results on her panel. "Well, every reading looks within acceptable parameters. You might want to stay off your feet today or your feet could swell."

"K. Northy I can’t keep saying this is just some bug. He knows I’m lying threw my teeth. It couldn’t be that bad if I told him."

"Curlly Sinjn is just the tiniest bit protective of you and yours. Can you honestly see him reacting in a, shall we say, in a calm and rational manner? Section doesn’t need another paragraph in the ‘Sinjn’ file. Besides, he’ll know before to long."

Curlly nodded her head unhappily and turned her head away as North administered a shot in her arm.

Part Two

Curlly blew into Section 5 minutes before the briefing looking less than her usual self. Much less. Her hair was disheveled, clothes less than elegant, and her expression sour. She had thrown up again about 10 minutes before she planned on leaving headquarters and the clothes she had been wearing paid the price. Her current look was less than stellar and she wasn’t happy about it. And, AND, the cause of her upset stomach was cheesecake! How could life deal her such a cruel blow?

As Curlly entered Section through the airlock Jason was passing by on his way to systems. He paused as he took in her appearance. "What happened to you buttercup? Fall out of bed into a tornado?"

Curlly just shoved him (and not too gently) into the nearby wall and kept walking. The team was all assembled at the table when she got there. Curlly flopped into her seat. Operations arched an eyebrow at Curlly. She just grinned at him.

No one grinned at him. Well Madeline smiled at him. He launched into the briefing. Curlly only listened with half an ear. She was the one that wrote the report Operations was debriefing the team from.

Operations sat in the chair opposite Madeline with the look of a man whose world was seemingly to his liking. "You finished going over the Cameris profile?" asked the second in command of Section One.

"Yes. I think it will suffice. The Tackett mission should go off better than originally profiled. And it should be quite entertaining to watch."

The "Madonna" smile made its appearance. "Curlly’s results are back for the first month. Her genetic makeup is even more compatible than we first tested both her and Birkoff’s DNA. This could prove useful in the future. We might want to keep her on maintenance indefinitely."

"It’s a shame Birkoff didn’t live to see the results."

Curlly hadn’t changed before going out because her rumpled state suited her profile. She was about to do the finial interview with a well-known mercenary. He had one weakness, a fear of being poisoned. Because he would work for anyone against anyone (meaning terrorists against terrorist, and those types see that as betrayal for some odd reason) he always had a food taster. Section had placed detrimental facts in all the other applicant’s backgrounds clearing the way for Curlly to be hired.

Jerome Tackett showed signs of branching into his own organization and was therefore to be eliminated. Most poisons and toxins that introduced threw food have standard antidotes that are consumed on a regular basis of which both Tackett and Curlly would avail themselves. Then any poison not covered by the antidotes would affect her first being of less body weight. This would give Jerome time to find a cure for himself.

So now all Curlly had to do was convince Jerome to hire her. She didn’t foresee any difficulty. She had already interviewed with several of his subordinates and would at any moment meet Mr. Tackett. At least if she threw up in his employ, the toxins would give her an excuse.