opnet [OpNet] Prayers are requested.

[Mithril]

Hi all,

Earlier today Nova "Flicker" Madigan was shot in the stomach while rescuing me from my mom. (long story)

Neil Preston's watching over her, and he says she should recover in a few days time, but if you're the kind of nova who hits their knees and talks to God every night before bed, could you add Flicker to your list?

Thanks much.

(I'll post updates when I can.)

[Hugin]

With Neil watching over her she needs no prayers. He is a kind and giving individual who's kind thoughts alone could bring one back from the brink. To say she is in good hands is the epitome of understatement.

I will still send out whatever I can to help her speed through her recovery. And my good wishes to you as well. From what little I know of you I've come to regard you as one of those well worth saving. Flicker made the right choice.

[Long]

If you, Neil, or Nova have need of anything at all, contact me. You will all be in my prayers.

[Wakinyan]

Wait. No offense but this shouldn't even be an issue. Flicker must not be letting him heal her which figures.. Either way Hugin is correct if Flicker takes a turn for the worse I have no doubt Neil will heal her. Better to get her angry than lose her forever.

It sounds like a bad situation. If you need to talk to someone about it I am around.

[Origami]

I'll be heading to the local shrine and leave a few prayers. Hopefully they will be answered.

[GDP_ST]

Hi GMoT,

Give Flicker my best wishes. If the patient wants anything flying in from overseas, drop me an Op-mail. Procyon Intercontinental Transport delivers free for wounded heroes.

As for you, I hope you're well. If you need any help or (im)moral support , let me know.

[Jager]

GMoT,

I am glad to hear that everyone is alive. With Neil watching over Flicker, everything should be good on her end. What about you? Are you still in danger? If any of you need shelter, don't hesitate to give the Knights a call. Please keep us updated with both your situation and Flickers.

[Singularity]

I hope things have settled down for you and, to reiterate what I said to you before, don't hesitate to ask for assistance.

[kestrel404]

She will be in my prayers tonight, then. I trust Neil to know how to deal with any other problem that arises - medical or otherwise. He's a good man, with many friends.

[Ptesan-Wi]

I would like to pass along to you the words of Joseph Eagle Elk; they may help with both Flicker's healing and Neil's medicine:

Quote:

People seem today to misunderstand how to be cured. They go in to see a doctor or a medicine man, and they never think of that doctor or medicine man much. They just take the medicine and don't think much about the medicine or their body. When a person takes a medicine, white medicine, herbs, Indian medicine, whatever, they need to understand that medicines are people. They are persons. You need to treat them like people who you invite into your body. You need to welcome them into your body by talking to them, telling them you are happy that they have come to help you. You also need to talk to your body. We are made up of both body, spirit, and our destiny, but our body is intelligent and has a spirit that understands. We should talk to our body and ask him to welcome the medicine. We need to explain to her (our body) that the medicine is there to help with the pain or the sickness. We should say, "I know you get real tired. I know that I have not treated you too good and I ask you to forgive me for this, but we have a friend who is coming to help us. Here is a medicine that I am going to take, so I ask you to give him a hand, help him, and you will feel better." Sometimes we try to keep our hurt and pain. Sometimes it doesn't want to leave us, but this medicine is our friend and she can help us, so help the medicine. Then tell the medicine you have talked to your body and asked her to help with her work.

Tell him you will follow the doctor's orders so that the body and medicine can get to know each other and work together to heal. We have to do this because they don't know us very well and they don't know each other very well. If they are not welcome in our bodies, then they are not free to do their work. Ask them to talk to each other. So the most important thing for the medicine to work is to build up that relationship so the medicine can talk to the body and the body can talk to the medicine. They need to become friends. Maybe even more, they need to know that they are relatives. You need to help with this if you take the medicine. Some of the plants and foods that are the medicines are the ones that are relatives to other plants and foods, so if you eat them together then they know each other and can build up your body. It is no good to have a fight going on inside of you by eating things or taking medicine where no relationship is possible.

Well, medicine and the doctors are the same way. People today don't put anything into their relationship with the doctor. The Western doctors are just like Indian doctors. They are doctors because they have a gift. They cannot do their work without the help of the people. The patients have to think real deeply about the doctor and think real deeply about the medicine and talk to the medicine so it will be filled with its power to do the work that it can do. They need to put all of their thoughts into this doctor so he can become strong. The physician or medicine man has the same responsibility to think deeply about his medicine and about the patient and to use his gift fully. But today it looks to me like the reason a lot of physicians are having a hard time and are troubled is because the relationships between them and the patients are not good. I see that people want more and more, they want to get and to get, and too often they do not want to return anything for the doctoring and to the medicine. There has to be equal responsibility and equal giving.

I see a lot of people, just like the white doctors. I remember a case of one woman who came to me with the pipe and asked for help. She was very sick with a heavy and difficult sickness. I told her I would doctor her, but about that time another person came with a very light and not so serious a sickness as compared to the first woman. But this second person kept following me around and would not let me go. She did not need my help. She could help herself, but she kept demanding more and more. To me, this made it hard for me to concentrate on the woman with the serious sickness. We know that in order for our ceremonies to work and people to get really better that we must have a single focus. We must have everyone of a single mind in the ceremony for the power to come. But this is hard if you have to doctor many people, all demanding equal treatment when they are not equal. Some need to take care of themselves. They don't need us. So people need to take time to think deeply about the medicine, their body, and the doctor and put all their energy into creating the relationship. More and more, people will find that there will be less medicine men for a while because maybe the people need to learn to do things on their own.

Doctors, white doctors, have come to me and asked for advice, but it seems they mostly want to know about my medicines and how they are prepared. I try to tell them that each medicine man is different. He has different powers, his own vision and gift. I want them to know that they have a gift and they have to find their own source of healing. I can't help them with medicines. I can tell them how to think deeply about the medicines, the body, the person, and the healing.

May the Great Spirit be with Flicker, a friend of the People.

[Tekk One]

I to wish flicker a speedy recovery. If there is any need for help, don't hesitate to drop me an Op-mail.

[Violette 'V' D'Aronique]

Get well soon, Ms. Madigan. Sorry to learn of this horrible, horrible mess that hurt you and yours.

[Mithril]

Thank all of you very much for your words of support. I had no idea that the community was this strong and cohesive. *hugs all around*

Neil says that Flicker is recovering about as he had expected, and that with her unusual stamina and his assistance in increasing her body's natural healing rate that she'll probably be though the worst of it by tomorrow afternoon. He's said that at that time the drain tube in her stomach (yuck) will need to come out so that she doesn't heal closed around it.

As far as safety goes, it seems very unlikely that we are in any further danger. The best way to explain is to tell the story:

Yesterday morning, a representative of the Canadian Consulate's Detroit mission dropped in here by surprise, with two US Marshals in tow. (One of whom was a nova.) He pointed out to Flicker that I was only 17 (true) and that I was not an orphan (also true) and that my mother in Calgary wanted me returned to her. We had no choice but to go along with this. Legally, he was right.

The problem is, my mom's been a wacko-crazy adherent of the Church of Michael Archangel since I was a little girl. It's because of her that Dad went into the foreign service and ended up a diplomat in Kyrgyzstan. I followed him, preferring to live overseas than with my crazy hate-filled mother. (CoMA mostly bashes novas, but oh my God, their other opinions are equally toxic to be around too.)

A month ago Dad was killed in the fighting in the coup in Kyrgyzstan. In that same attack I erupted. Neil Preston and Flicker were there, and they brought me home to Cleveland. I made up a name (Erin Lynch was my first girlfriend) and said I was 18 so that I could be an adult and not be seent home to mom in Calgary.

The Canadian government has been tracking down everyone who was killed or missing from the Consulate in Bishkek, and I was the last one missing. Since I started going outside two weeks ago, and got my face printed in the Cleveland newspapers, I kind of made it easy for them. (Crap.) So they found me. Because we have religious freedom in Canada, my mom's being a member of CoMA couldn't be considered when the time came to take me "home." (I hadn't been there in 5 years.)

Before I left Flicker's apartmnent, she secretly whispered to me to keep my cellphone handy, and to call her with the video mode on when I got home, so she could watch over me. (Love that woman. Always thinking, 24/7.)

The Canadian government flew me home (first class, too), and in time I was walking up the sidewalk to my mom's front door. I had my phone out and had called Flicker, so she could see, too. I'd come about halfway up the sidewalk when I noticed someone on her roof. Before I could react, that person blasted me with the biggest god-damned rifle I have ever seen in my life. (Neil still ha s the bullet. It's really big, like, the size of a flashlight battery. He said it was uranium armor piercing fin stable something something.)

Anyway, that bullet blew my head off, smearing droplets of titanium all over the lawn. The bullet continued behind me and killed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector who was with me. (He'd driven me from the airport.) While I was laying there re-growing my head (I can do that), Flicker had teleported in, invisibly. I did the trick where I flow over her like a second skin to protect her with my body (she's not very tough for a nova), and we were ready to get the hell out of Calgary, when the sniper shot again, this time catching me in the stomach. The bullet went through me and lodged in her adbomen, along with about a half-pound of jagged titanium fragments from my body. She did a short teleport to a nearby back yard to get us out of the line of fire, and from there she held it together long enough to teleport us all the way to her living room.

I called Neil, Neil came to doctor her up, and the rest is history.

Anyway, I've been following the news this morning, there's a nationwide manhunt on in Canada for my Mom and the unknown sniper, and most of the members of the Calgary CoMA have been rounded up for questioning, including their wacked-out leader, reverend Drummond.

Because of this, I don't think CoMA's coming for us in Cleveland any time soon. It looks more like they got a "lucky" break that one of their members' kids erupted and was delivered into their hands by a government that had to follow the law. I was a target of opportunity, that's all. It's not like CoMA was hunting me down.

Neil says that given the fact that my mom's now a federal fugitive and wanted as an accessory to the murder of an RCMP inspector and the attempted murder of myself and Flicker, it should be no problem for me to petition the provincial court in Calgary for status as an emancipated adult.

So, that's that. I'm really sorry I lied to everyone about my name and age. I was going to come clean when I turned 18 this July, but things just got away from me.

[GDP_ST]

I'm glad both of you managed to escape. If you need any help, any at all, let me know.

To think your own mother could do such a thing to her daughter. You have my deepest sympathies, Girl Made Of Titanium.

Oh, and on a lighter note: I love your signature. Very appropriate.

[Soames]

"Flicker" Madigan is the one that was trying to stomp on my balls the other night because I wasn't lining up to sing another chorus of "All Elites Are Baby Killing Psychos"? Right?

I'll light a candle. Hope she get better and back to her usual loud moued self righteous bitch self again real soon. I miss her already even if metal girl's mom didn't.

[Edward]

Girl, I'm very happy that Flicker is doing better and that you've come through the experience alive as well.

I am very disappointed in these Church people though. I worked long and hard with one of them awhile ago and I really hoped he'd seen the light.

[Mithril]

Procyon: I'm glad you like the sig, thanks.

Tattoo: Are you trying to be funny?

Edward: I don't think you can save them all. Sometimes people just get fucked in the head, and there's no way to unfuck them.

[Emily Williamson]

The things that happen when you don't have an OpNet connection (I do live in the civilized world and I'm not a luddite, but I'm not great with computers when they decide to break down). Please send Flicker my best wishes for recovery, although I could hardly wish her any better help than Dr. Preston.

[kestrel404]

Quote:

Originally posted by Girl Made of Titanium:
Edward: I don't think you can save them all. Sometimes people just get fucked in the head, and there's no way to unfuck them.

Unfortunate but true.

Insights like these make the forums worth reading.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

[edit: I forgot to sign in to my account. So I accidentally posted this on Flicker's account. (She really shouldn't write her password on a sticky note.) --Meghan (GMoT) ]

Update:

Flicker's condition seems about the same to me as it was this morning. Neil says that she is healing though, and that it's just not going to be apparent to untrained observers like me for a bit longer.

Apparently she has a far larger fan following than we'd suspected. Flower deliveries have been rolling in nonstop all day long, and she now has more teddy bears than a children's hospital.

Two officials from the Canadian Consulate in Detroit came down this afternoon to talk to me about what happened in Calgary, where I think my mom might hide (I have no idea) and so on. While they were here, I brought up Neil's idea of legal emancipation. They said that they couldn't make any promises, but that it didn't sound "out of the ordinary" for such a petition to be approved.

They also mentioned that they would prefer if Flicker stopped teleporting into Canada without visiting immigration first. I think they know that they can't stop her, but it was something they had to say anyway, because the law is way behind the times.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Oh, crap.

Nobody tell Flicker I'm using her account, okay?

--Meghan (GMoT)

[GDP_ST]

My lips are sealed.

Oh, and flowers are on their way to both of you.

[Soames]

Quote:

Originally posted by Girl Made of Titanium:
Tattoo: Are you trying to be funny?

Not really. Not even about the candle. If you want funny just think of how fucked up it is for somebody who's only there half the time to be seen long enough to throw a bullet at. Guess she picked the wrong time to flicker in.

[BlackStar]

I am sorry about what happened to Flicker and you, GMoT. Fanaticism is almost always rooted on hate and ignorance.

And Mr. Soames, I think your commentaries are very much out of place.

[Soames]

Quote:

Originally posted by BlackStar:
And Mr. Soames, I think your commentaries are very much out of place.

Good for you. Now add in a quarter and a trip to a store and you might get a cup of coffee out of the deal.

[BlackStar]

Are you this stupid, really?. Or did you have anything against Flicker?.

[Soames]

Skip the sweet talk and just drop down and blow me, boy. I was ripsawing back in the day when the better part of you was just an itty bitty stain on your mama's thigh.

[BlackStar]

I doubt it, punk. You don't know me. And that's all the best for you. I'm not going to dirt my hands with you.

And if you want a fight, go to Mars and wait for me on the Olimpus Mons. Your not going to see me there, but the view's fantastic.

More to the point, that's not the place for this. This is the last post from me on this topic. It's a waste of time and I'm busy.

[Soames]

Hey now. Maybe I do need to be man enough to hand over an apology, sonny. I only thought you were stupid. How was I suppose to know you were a retard? Let me send you a few buck for some ice cream to make that booboo all better. Mommy will run out and get it for you as soon as she finishes taking it up the tailpipe from the landlord for this months rent.

I know you. You and the other identical cocksuckers almost too stupid to live. Now just keep your nancy little narrow ass where ever the hell they put spend their days telling halfwits like you that your special. I got no time for no balled wonders that can't get their head out of their ass. Just sit your butt down on the moral highground before it gets handed to you by someone that doesn't sound like a piece of shit utopia comicbook. Mars. What a fucking moron.

It blows my gourd that a little bitch benny boy like you scored a node without having a brain to work it.

[Origami]

Could I... Get an update on Flicker's condition? I have still been quite concerned. And not to ignore GMoT either. I am just as concerned too.

[Soames]

Her boyfriend is only Jesus effing Christ. How bad can it be.

[Wakinyan]

Now now. We have already settled the debate that Neil in fact is not Jesus.. Let's not bring that up again.

But I really hope he doesn't grow a beard.

[Sakurako Hino]

Neil certainly is not the son of God. Only someone with an uncanny gift. Please, are we still comparing people with a scientific explaination for their powers as gods, or children thereof?

I believe Neil, in his heart, knows he is only a Nova, and is only a mortal. There is only so much he can do.

Something tells me though, some of our peers forget that one truth.

[Mithril]

Flicker's awesome. She healed up as good as new in just four days' time. Thanks for asking.

[Neil Preston]

Nope, not Christ. Not even close, thank God. Flicker's good and thanks for asking.

No beard in my future, no walking on water, and no letting anybody nail me to a cross. I'll deal with my own sins and let the rest of you deal with yours.