“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Trying to modify the healing spell that I know so it’ll work on my ACL.”

Simpson shook her head, but the medic perked up.

“You really think you can fix an ACL rupture with one of these spells?”

Andrew shrugged. “Maybe. I’m going to give it a go in a minute if you want to hang around.”

“This I’ve got to see.” The medic said. “Growing up, magic was just something they did in the old days. Uncanny people tended to be ostracised in recent times. Not that I’ve ever met anybody quite like you.”

Andrew nodded. It sounded as if Nuzeeland was worse than here and more like what his father had complained about. He still hadn’t seen much of that sort of discrimination so far himself. The few bits and pieces of discrimination that he’d experienced were mostly verbal quips that he hadn’t paid much attention to. He grinned at the medic and focused on his modifications to the spell. He reasoned that he could use the bit for pulling the skin back together to repair a cut, as it should work just as well for repairing the ligament if he got the spell right. He studied what he had come up with, memorized it, and then cast the spell on his knee.

It hurt briefly, then it ached for a bit, but the swelling started going down, which was another section of the spell, and the rapidly forming bruise from where his knee contacted the ground started fading as well. The medic watched with his mouth hanging open. The ache started to die away, and Andrew flexed his knee. There was no shooting pain, so he reached over for his trousers, which had been deposited to his left. He fed his legs and decided that lying down was too awkward, so he stood up gingerly. He eased up on his good leg when he put weight on his bad knee. It was fine, perhaps a little sore, but nothing to write home about.

“How is it?” The medic asked, unable to keep the amazed tones out of his voice.

“It feels a bit tender, but it’s fine.” To emphasize the point, he walked a couple of paces before returning to pull up his trousers on finally.

“Damn.” The medic said.

Before they could do anything, there was a hissing sound as a shot from the AGC down the street went swooshing past to explode against the building across the road. Looking around, they spotted the APC that had been easing around the corner further up the street and signaled it to back up out of view.

“Time to earn our pay, Simpson.”

She grinned at him and moved over to where she put down her rifle. “Ready whenever you are.”

“Okay. We’ll keep to the right and see what we can achieve.” They grinned at each other, and the medic just shook his head as Andrew eased around the corner with his shields up, angled from right to left, and started down the street. They must’ve been seen at first, but then the AGC fired a shell, which he felt more than he saw. It impacted his shield but didn’t explode due to the angle he was holding it, and the shell rocketed across the street and exploded against a building on the far side of the street, three buildings further up the street. The impact still staggered him, but he was pleased that it didn’t explode on contact with his shield.