22 Walk-Through Part 2

2035

The female Savage's body crumples to the ground and the other two Savages don't have time to run before a loud machine gun fires at them. Sid turns to the frightened helicopter passengers. Among the hazmat wearing foreigners, two figures are crouched and holding weapons.

"Whoooop! I almost couldn't hold backa, boss. Iko told me to waaaait." Pheno exclaims while hopping out of the helicopter.

His short legs take jolly steps toward his leader. He is around 150 cm. His short frame is muscled and holds the machine gun steady. Three of the relief workers rush out to their fallen and injured comrade. He winces at their touches and shoos a woman's hands away from his bruised face.

"Exceptional work, Sub—," Sid says.

"That's what we do! That's what we do!" Pheno exclaims.

Pheno keeps happily marching past Sid.

"What is your destination?" Sid asks.

"Gonna go tell the others we're all set and safe," Pheno replies.

"I concur."

Pheno gives a wave with his weapon and springs over scattered pieces of equipment and tent material. Chairs, folding tables, and cooking supplies are splayed around in disorder. The civilians had dropped everything before running for their lives.

Ika remains in the helicopter with the other two relief workers. He is taking a suppressor off his weapon. It isn't his sniper rifle. He must have had to discard it earlier during the firefight. Ika sets the suppressor down beside himself and looks at one of the relief workers. They are thanking him.

Sid turns back to the rest of the crew that remained in the camp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What the heck?! Was he hiding in the 'copter the entire time? Is that why you couldn't find him?"

AFFIRMATIVE

MASSIVE HEAT SIGNATURES COMBINE

INTRICATE PROCESSES RUNNING SIMULTANEOUSLY SLOWS DOWN THE PROCESSING OF CALCULATIONS

WITHOUT FURTHER DATA BEING PROVIDED

"Sooooo, you're blaming me?"

NEGATIVE

"You just blamed me for complicating everything before you could run the calculations for how many people were in that 'copter!"

NEGATIVE

"…"

THE AIRCRAFT THAT SUBJECT 002 CONCEALED HIMSELF WITHIN APPEARS TO HAVE OVERHEAD ROTOR BLADES THAT LIFT AND PROPULSE IT VERTICALLY AND HORIZONTALLY

MOST COMMONLY KNOWN AS A HELICOPTER

"Don't blame me for Ika's sneaky ways. We can switch now before you start antagonizing our Subjects."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sid's body is walking toward Carla when it misses a step and stumbles into the hood of a car.

"Oooh. Watch it, big guy! Adrenaline messing you up?"

"Something like that." Sid mutters.

Sid leans against the hood for a moment before snorting and wiping a bit of blood off the side of his mouth.

"You okay, boss? What did you spray at that guy? Poison? Do you carry radiation pills full of bile? Was it vomit?!" Carla circles him as he walks over to Robert and the kid he has under his arm.

"Dan get back?" Sid questions while ignoring Carla.

Robert shakes his head and grabs the young woman's head as she comes around his side.

"Did you make him bite his own tongue and he choked on his blood?" Carla exclaims.

"Were we watching the same thing? How the hell would he blind someone with their own mouth blood as they choked?" Robert asks.

"Telecommunications!" Carla yells while gripping Robert's hand on her head.

"I don't think that means what you think it means," Robert responds with a calm voice.

Robert releases her head and adjusts the child under his arm. The kid is starting to squirm and make growling noises. Which isn't unusual for the curly headed brat. It seems violence still doesn't affect the child adversely. They're such a wild one.

Sid walks toward the other end of the camp to the small burning fire. Dan should have rounded the camp and gotten to Nard by now.

"Telekinesthetics!" Carla yells after some thought.

"Stop talking to me!" Robert yells back.

Sid grabs a shovel that is lying tangled in a destroyed tent. The flames have traveled uphill and spread a bit wider. When he gets to the small flames, he digs up the dirt farther out around it, so it no longer has grass to feed on. Then he walks into the woods with the shovel in hand. Hopefully, it burns out on its' own. It's a miracle it didn't continue to the trees already.

"Come on. Right over this hill and you'll be able to sit, " Dan encourages.

"You keep saying that,…but…I don't…," the injured man complains.

"Cuz we keep stopping to let you catch your breath. If we stop again you won't have to worry about breathing." Dan's voice grumbles.

"Why'd he send you?... You're… always…har…sh," the injured man breathlessly mutters.

"Who else can lug you around?" Dan replies while dragging the other man along.

Sid sees Dan slowly walking with Nard's dark arm strung over his shoulders. Dan's face is red with exertion. Both men are sweating, but Nard is panting at the other male's side. His shirt is plastered to him with sweat and blood. A red stain at his side seems to be the issue. He is looking down at the ground and gripping his side while grimacing.

"Hey."

Nard looks up in surprise. The braids obstruct his vision for a moment, but with a jerk of his head, he can clearly see his leader.

Sid walks up to the two and places a hand at Nard's neck. Nard tries to stand taller as Sid examines him.

"Where were you hit?" Sid asks.

"On my side, by a bullet. Some scrapes and stuff from getting away from those cocktails. Thank god for their awful aim," Nard reports.

Sid takes Nard's other arm and helps them get back to camp.

When they get back to camp, the fire upon the hill seems to be slowly dying down. The civilians are back. Some are fixing their tents and gathering their fallen equipment. Others are speaking to the relief workers. The injured relief worker is on a walkie-talkie.

Sid and Dan put Nard in the back of an open van. Dan stays behind to steady the injured man, and Sid walks over to their trigger-happy medic. Pheno is patching up Priya's injured shoulder.

"Are you alright?" Sid asks.

"I'm fine. One of those douches stabbed me in the shoulder from behind," Priya reports.

Priya blows out her breath as Pheno finishes stitching up the gash. Turner is hovering at her side.

"I'm gonna need you to go and see if their leader is still knocked out in the woods. Take Robert with you," Sid orders.

"Whaaa—!" Turner protests.

Turner points over at Priya and gapes at his boss.

"She needs me," Turner insists.

Priya tsked at the womanizer, "Get away from me. You've been no help. Just bugging me while I bled out. Go be useful."

"Aaaaah. Priyaaa. You don't mean that."

"Get!" Pheno shoos Turner.

The reluctant male walks off, but checks over his shoulder a few times, before speaking with Robert by the van. Robert returns the child to Dan before joining Turner.

A helicopter can be heard coming in their direction. The injured relief worker waves his hands as they come overhead.

"Heyyy!!" He yells at the helicopter.

The large military helicopter doesn't land, but a door slides open and two people lower a large basket that is holding two crates. Three of the relief workers break away from the civilians to take down the crates. The basket is raised, and two more crates are lowered. The military helicopter retreats the way it came.

The injured relief worker limps over to Sid.

"Thanks, buddy. I don't know what would have happened without your quick thinking," The young man says.

"Hmm. No problem. We deal with these guys all the time," Sid reponds.

"What? Is that why—"

"You actually caught us in the middle of something. Why'd you land so suddenly?"

"We thought people were running to get out of the way of the helicopter and cheering." The man blushes as he goes over their entrance within his mind.

"Not screaming and yelling for you to leave?" Sid laughs to himself imagining the frantic waving the civilians probably did to warn the helicopter passengers.

"Hey, we're all first timers here." The man rubs the back of his head and checks for blood.

Sid looks over at the hazmat wearing relief team. They are struggling to open the crate with their crowbars.

"Clearly," Sid says before walking over to the confused group.

The man follows beside Sid.

"I'm Faco, from America. We're apart of a program called Purple Diamond. They send supplies to third world countries and warzones. We registered with them after getting funding for this project."

"Hey, hand that over here."

A round woman looks over at Sid. Her peripheral vision is blocked by the hazmat helmet she is wearing. She doesn't protest as Sid takes the crowbar from her hands. It only takes a few seconds for him to open the crate for them. One of the men says he understands what he needs to do, and Sid passes the crowbar over to him. The women surround the worker as he struggles. Finally, he opens the crate and they split up to open the remaining two.

Civilians start surrounding the crates and the workers.

"Ah, Ah! Line up, people!" Priya yells from the back of a truck.

Pheno has bandaged her shoulder up and is working on Nard in the open trunk of a van.

The civilians follow Priya's orders without much squalling. Several lines wait to receive whatever is within those crates.

Finally, jugs of water, preserved food, fruits, blankets, and toiletries are being passed out. A weight is lifted off everyone's shoulders.

"Everything is back on the right track." Faco says while smiling at the proceedings.

Robert and Turner are lifting a body by the arm and legs into camp.

"Yup, looks like everything is going as planned." Sid says to himself before jogging over to the pair.

"I'm glad he's still unconscious."

"How hard did you hit this guy?" Robert wonders.

"I only hit him a few times, and then gave him a breather," Sid says with a shrug.

Robert looks at the bleeding and bruised face of the Savage leader. His clothing is torn.

"I'm pretty sure this arm is broken." Turner says before dropping the Savage's body without care.

"Let's let him sleep it off at one of these trees. Tie him up to one, around the neck too, and secure his limbs to each other."

"Isn't that overkill?" Robert argues.

Turner rolls his eyes, "Do you wanna be worried he broke free in the night, or worse, while you're crapping?"

"Good point."

The pair picks up the Savage and hefts him over to a large tree.

Finally, Sid finds the time to sit down and rub the back of his neck. He uses two hands to press at the base of his neck and breath deeply. All the excitement and enhancements have tired him out. His body might not feel weak, but his mind feels wired and stressed out by the constant danger and bustling around. He puts his forehead to his knees and breathes slowly.

An empty rusty rifle is tossed at Sid and hits the curled-up man in the spine.

"Aaaaah," Sid straightens up and rubs his back, "That hurts!"

Ika walks by with a bloody arm hanging at his side and drops that by Sid's side as well.

"Present."

Sid jerks and rises from his seat.

'And I was worried about you!' he thinks to himself.

He looks down at the arm and shivers before kicking it farther away from his seat.

"Not a good thing! Insubordination!" Sid yells.

Ika flips Sid off and continues patrolling the camp and calculating their losses. Sid chuckles and follows the man. After circling the camp, Ika squats by a burnt-out campfire and moves some coals around. He pulls out a baggy from his side pocket and starts adding pieces of coal into it.

"Whatcha doing there?" Sid questions from behind.

Ika disregards Sid. After collecting the pieces of coal, Ika puts the ziplocked bag back into his side pocket.

"You know, they are giving out jugs of purified water, right?" Sid reminds Ika.

Ika starts walking toward his flattened tent.

Eli interrupts their one-sided conversation, "Is that for the mighty water scientist?"

Ika narrows his eyes and gives the area in front of him a dirty look. He doesn't look at either of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Ika gets to his tent, he moves around the material to get to his backpack and rifle. Eyeing the condition of his weapon, he contemplates the odds of taking both men out before anyone notices.

'Why do I tolerate these fools?'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A steady soft glow plays across the sky as the sun sinks lower in the horizon. Some Purple Diamond volunteers are reading survivor names off a list. Others are gathered together near the helicopter with their backpacks and sleeping bags.

"Evans, Leon!"

Faco sits at a campfire with Sid and his crew.

"Is there a reason your people are staying over there?" Robert says while biting into an apple.

"Scared someone will steal their wings?" Turner says while peeling an orange for Priya.

Priya sips at a cup of tea and breathes in the scented vapors. Dan is sitting with his back to the group tucking his charge into his sleeping bag and slipping a water bottle into the side. In case the child wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night.

"Ferren, Brian!"

Faco grins sheepishly and shrugs.

"I think I'd be over with them if it wasn't for the …. excitement from earlier."

"Are they quaranteening ya?" Pheno wonders while putting another piece of wood into the fire.

Carla gets a little too close to the fire. Eli puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her back a safe distance. Sid smiles at this and settles down beside Eli.

"So, they watching to see if the air or anything mutates you?" Sid asks.

Faco shrugs.

"What made you all decide to come over here?" Eli asks.

Faco raises his brows and blushes.

"Well, it's a long story."

"We aint got nothing else going on." Carla says throwing a pebble into the campfire.

Eli hands her a stick to doodle in the dirt with. Confused, she looks at the stick in her hand and tosses it into the fire. Eli sighs and looks back at the relief worker.

Dan gets up to go switch watch with Ika. He glances at the conversing group and jogs away.

"Reacher, Morrice!"

"Well, there are transmissions that come through from here and some websites record them. They go over them and if any…important information has been recorded they update their site with it. Mostly it's conspiracy sites, but some press sites as well. The really important stuff is spread through internet traffic." Faco sips at his water for a moment.

"I came across a message a couple months ago. It was a few months old. It was a girl. She was broadcasting a few hundred miles away from here in Coldstone. Her message really touched me. It took a while for me to join a group that was into this sort of thing. Helping foreign lands. Then a few months to gain enough funds and supporters to make this trip viable. We just wish we could have let the girl and her people in Coldstone know we'd heard her. We heard her call and we want to help you all."

Faco's eyes the water in his bottle as he continues talking, "But Coldstone is a no-fly zone."

He gulps down more water and cradles the bottle between his legs.

"It was the first plea that really touched me, and I can't even give them aid. She's probably gone…dead. We're too late."

Everyone is silent for a moment.

"Amor, Rachel!"

Turner looks up from his peeled orange and hands it over to Priya. She makes a face at him but accepts the orange. Turner smirks and waves a hand in Faco's direction.

"Hey, better late than never."

Faco sniffles at that.

"We sure appreciate the aid." Carla says with good cheer.

"People didn't even know the areas hit south of Washington are still inhabited. It'll start slow, but I really believe that more aid will come. It'll keep coming."

Sid smiles and shakes his head.

Sid gets up to check on the Savage leader and is walking towards the dark tree line when Robert comes over and catches the edge of his shirt.

"Hmm?" Sid slows down and looks over the young man.

"Who'd have known that a little transmission would be such a help," Robert remarks.

Sid shakes his head, "Yeah, it's almost unbelievable, but that's our usual luck."

"Didn't you meet Dan in Coldstone?"

"Hmmm, yea." Sid continues walking again.

"You think he knows anyone who used the radios or something. What if we know her?" Robert wonders.

"The odds of that are….."

TITANIC

Sid snorts and smiles, "I don't think that's likely, but you can ask."

Ika deposits his backpack into his tent. He begins walking over to the campfire the rest of his companions are situated around it.

"Chen, Sia!"

He pauses in his walking and changes course to meet the relief worker reading from a clipboard.

"Cheng, Francis!"

"Sia Chen." Ika says to the woman.

"Ch--, Oh. Oh…Sia. Okay. Come with me please." The woman walks over to a crate with small parcels in brown wrapping paper.

She steps onto a little stool and digs into the crate. "One minute. I remember that one. It has a ---"

It takes a few moments, and a few tossed packages before she straightens up with a small package wrapped in red and black wrapping paper. It's deformed and has some water damage on the corners but overall it is intact. She hands over the package with a triumphant grin.

"Found it...I'm glad we were able to find you. Sorry, you were in the female list. I think it wasn't updated correctly. We have a lot of scrambled records about survivors here. Most of the lists are missing persons, so I don't think most of the people's loved ones will receive the materials that has been sent. We tell them we'll keep on looking anyway, but it seems so hopeless. But not right now! Is it alright if we publish this success? It'll really uplift--"

Ika is barely listening to the rambling woman. He gives a thumbs up and walks off. He jogs over to his tent and places the package into his bag. Then goes back toward the campfire. He checks around him to see if anyone is paying attention to him. Everyone is focused on Faco.

Turner has shared some Cinalian homebrewed alcohol with him.

"It just seemed like she was speaking straight to my heart!" Faco exclaims holding his cup to his chest.

Eli and Turner laugh at the intoxicated male.

"Aaah, you thought you were her knight in shining armor, didn't you?"

"No! I just…. she talked about having the same dreams as me. Wanting to help people, and how she missed her sister. I thought, damn, I have a brother, and I've been to those places." Faco's dark hair falls into his face, "I strive for the same things. It could have been me out there. Trapped while on vacation or something...It could have been me."