LibriumArcana.Games

Somehow, for two whole days, time in the mall passed without crisis. Of course there were the usual scrabbles, cuts, bruises, and whining from some... But overall, life was as close to peaceful as it had gotten since the outbreak.

After Petro's first day back on duty, he and Melanie had slept like corpses back in the old days: dead to the world. And that was how they remained, all snuggled up with the dog at the foot of the bed, as hard as Petro had tried to keep the gigantic husky the fuck off of things.

And of course, it was the dog that first woke to the steps of someone running down the hall. His ears perked, Bjorn jumped from the bed and shook his head, trotting over to where Petro's hand dangled from the bed. He licked the man's palm a few times, then barked as someone swung the door open.

Riley, Ace and Dorian's intern of the moment, stooped over to catch his breath for a moment, having been running since he left the infirmary.

"Sir--" he panted, "--one of the patrols--there was an accident--" he coughed a bit, turning away as he noticed both the General and Melanie's state of undress.

"Dorian needs you right the fuck away!" Riley finished.

Petro was already lurching to his feet, grabbing his jeans and tugging them on. "What happened?" he demanded.

"I don't know!" the boy said as he shoved the dog away. Bjorn hopped excitedly, barking and putting his paws on Riley's chest. Finally, Levin managed to subdue the dog and took a deep breath.

"One of the parapets on some outpost or another collapsed... Few people are filtering in with wounded but some are still stuck out there..."

He shoved the dog away once again.

"Meet us down at the infirmary--dress warm!"

He was pulling on his shirt, and reached over to smack Melanie's foot. "Up and at 'em," he said, flopping on the bed to pull on a pair of socks and tug his boots on.

She groaned. "It's just the damned dog--" she started to say, but then Melanie noticed their visitor, and snagged a sweater from the floor, pulling it over her head.

Riley nodded at her, then jogged off.

"What's going on?" she asked, stumbling out of the bed and yanking on the warmest things she could find.

"Parapet collapse, we've got wounded, no idea how many. Word is to get down to the infirmary and dress warm."

He grabbed his jacket, pulling it on, hooked the hatchet onto his belt, pulled the pistol from the nightstand, checked the round the chamber before holstering it, and strode for the door.

"Fuck," she said, pulling on a random pants/socks/boots combination from the floor and grabbing her pack as well as her favourite recent possession: a shiny new rifle from the Necrotech drop. She slung it over her shoulder and pulled a jacket on, tying her hair with a rubber band in what seemed to be the same movement.

She jogged down after him.

A crowd hadn't formed due to the early morning hour, but two stretchers were being carried in by militiamen at the moment, met by Riley, Dorian, and Mike.

The couple approached; Dorian waved them over.

"There are still four unaccounted for," he said, obviously stunned and worried. After taking a moment to compose himself and readjust his spectacles, he added: "Three brought in so far. Only one seems critical."

"Mel, you got this end," he said. He grabbed one of the obvious inbounds. "Take me out there."

Pulling people out of wreckage was a big part of his old job, after all.

Melanie nodded, moving forward to help with the incoming stretchers. She'd seen a lot of mechanical trauma while interning at Trinity: nasty shit. Dirt and glass shoved deep into wounds, punctures and stabs... She shook her head.

At least it would be better and easier to deal with than another mauling.

Dorian reached Petro's side, nodded to the patrollmen.

"We're ready to go," he said, pulling the hood of his coat up to cover his hair.

Petro was already sprinting for the exit. Reaching the side wall exit, he eschewed the pulley elevator and the ladder for the drop line, sliding down the wall and hitting the ground, then waiting impatiently for the slow fucks to catch up.

And while Dorian had never used the drop lines in his life, the urgency of the moment caused that fact to completely slip from his mind. He followed Petro and landed a bit heavier, but adequately, and gestured toward a few individuals approaching the perimeter.

When they met the incoming men, there was a moment of relief: one of those who'd been unaccounted for was present with nothing more than a sprained ankle. Dorian granted him the okay to go back to Melanie for help, then looked to the two others. Guard personnel, he knew them both.

"All right," he said, "take us there."

He confiscated a full-on axe from one of the inbound patrol members and cursed himself for forgetting gloves. Well, it was only a bit below freezing, he'd endure. He jogged along, holding the axe out to his side so if he slipped he wouldn't take the damn thing in the belly.

Wendigo has hauling a back pack full of stuff from his former lair back to Caiger Mall. It was his third such trip. In certain ways it was pointless, Caiger had most of it already, but he felt more comfortable around it. Gwen was . . . . pleasant to be around, she made him feel less alien, but they were different beings. He could only pretend not to be for so long around her. He needed to be alone some times and it was better around his old stuff.

He trudged forward. They had been right. Life was better now, among them. There was something besides the emptiness, the echo of his own thoughts. He pulled out the item he had scavenged. A hand held tape recorder. Perhaps he could record his thoughts on this, if he felt the need.

Fortunately, the accident site wasn't too far out from their initial perimeter, and the two guides did a well enough job with securing the area while one medic who was waiting waved over Petro and Dorian.

"Looks like one of the supports on the post just collapsed. Three guys are still down there and damned if I can't contact any of them..."

Dorian racked the slide of his shotgun and glanced over the edge.

The wreckage had slid down to the bottom of the steep hill it had been built on, and no movement--human or otherwise--was visible. He looked to Petro and the other medic, then began the tentative journey down, sliding the last five metres or so but remaining on his feet.

He managed to retain his footing with some fancy stepwork that looked like a comical dance routine, reaching the bottom and studying the situation.

Dorian was staring at the mess--mostly plywood and aluminum with some hastily constructed pylons--with vacant eyes, obviously thinking about something else entirely. He snagged the radio from his belt loop and looked to those on the hill above them. On the short band, he transmitted:

"We'll move what we can, but we might need you boys."

He looked to Petro, rubbed his gloved hands together, and grabbed a corner of the nearest piece of corrugated rooftop.

"WHOA!" he shouted, then winced. Noise could attract attention. He rapped Dorian's elbow and pointed. "Move that over, you'll bring down the brace there."

He studied it for a moment, then jerked his head toward one of the support beams. "We pull this straight up. Then we pull the brace."

It was a heavy fucker. He tossed the axe aside for a moment, took a deep breath and got a grip on it.

Dorian nodded and got his footing, then slowly lifted as Petro did, holding his breath in anticipation of whatever gory display they might find.

"Okay," he grunted, voice heavy with exertion. "When I say move, you step left and get the fuck out of my way, 'cause I'm tossing this thing."

They got the support up and over. "Okay... MOVE."

When Dorian stepped aside, he gave a growl of extertion and tossed it away, staggering and falling to the ground as it bounced in front of him. He pushed off, not deigning to notice how badly he'd just torn up his palms, and helped with the next section.

He could already tell this wasn't going to be pretty. They were very likely to find squashed spaghetti under this mess.

But they found nothing. At least for the first few minutes of looking.

Finally, there was a light groan from beneath a section of plywood. A woman's voice mumbled something, but they couldn't make it out. Dorian was able to move the piece himself, and his breath rushed out in a relieved sigh at what he saw.

The woman--one of the Guard's medics that had been the field medic for this particular team--was alive, relatively safe and sound. He helped her wriggle from underneath one of the pylons, then helped her to her feet. Save for a nasty-looking but superficial gash to her forehead, she was fine.

Fine enough to help them dig, at any rate.

Not the first time he'd been wrong, and he was happy for it in this case. He pulled out his hatched and used it a half-assed spade to chip away at the frozen ground, getting them room to pull out more wreckage.

"Sheila," Dorian asked, "did you hear anyone else down there with you?" He rattled off the names of those that had made it out. "Who else is still unaccounted for?"

The woman thought for a moment, then said: "Priscilla Salazar and Gil Sheehan."

Dorian looked as though he'd been punched in the gut, his breath whooshing from his lungs. He looked down to the mess before them.

So, that was the real reason why he'd come.

Petro absorbed the news without visible reaction. He was in full-on detached mode. It could be anybody down there, didn't matter who.

Well, almost anybody. Regardless, two of his under a ton of junk. He went back to work.

Sheila and Dorian lifted a few more sheets of roofing as Petro chipped at the ground. They were making progress. They had to... After all, it was cold out... Dorian closed off his mind to that train of thought.

Finally, he heard something when moving a piece of flooring.

A cough, followed by a ragged-sounding, "Hey, down here!"

Gil waved his hand through a tiny crack in a demolished wall. When they'd cleared the wall out of the way, Dorian fell to his knees to examine the two figures revealed.

Gil was sitting with his back up against a pile of debris, holding Priscilla's body against his chest and trying to staunch the bleeding from a nasty cut on her shoulder. The woman opened her eyes as though amazed to see daylight, and Sheila took her hand, helping her out.

"That's it," Gil said, "you're gonna be all right, honey..." He coughed into his sleeve, which came away dark with blood.

"Aint shit you can do for me, Dor," he said.

One of the pylons that had held up the shanty had slid straight through Sheehan's torso, in through a spot around his left armpit and out toward the lower half of his right abdomen. And with a four-inch circumference of pipe to be dealing with, that was more than enough to be fatal in a dozen ways.

He carried pulled the woman away from Gil, passing her on to Dorian. He grimly assessed the damage to the man and looked him in the eye. "We'll take care of her," he promised. And: "I'll take care of her." he concluded, the shift of emphasis making it obvious about who he was referring to.