Times of Tribulation
Chapter 57
5/15/99 Old Soldiers, New Lessons

"What are they?" Dr. Meralynn Harperr asked the man known as Cyclops.

"Samples," was his only offer, in that quiet voice that no one had ever heard grow loud. He took a lean against the wall opposite her. His hand rubbed first at this three-day growth of beard and then at the back of his neck.

"Samples ... oh ... OK," she replied with a tone of confusion.

"What you got there," he explained, "is more valuable than what you offer in medical supplies. You give one sample to Ash. And one to Jansenn." He looked at her with his one good eye.

Meralynn's eyes widened, impressed by the value of the vials. Anything more valuable than medical supplies was something to be respected indeed. "Really? And what about the other one?"

His head dipped lower and his hand rubbed harder as he spoke, but did not again look up. "It's water ... from the planet. None of this ... " he trailed off as his knees buckled. A hand shot out to the side of the desk for support. He waved off her show of concern and rose, shaking his head. "Shower's all I need." The backpack that was like another appendage to him was picked up before he walked to the stairs.

"Some men are too stubborn," the doctor responded quietly and shook her head. "Well, I better go hand these out." She held the vials carefully, lest anything happen to their precious contents. Her shoes squeaked slightly as she padded down the hallway to the stairs, just as Dr. Terra Lowinn emerged from a hallway to check on the day's reports. She noted the treatments provided, and took particular interest in similar symptoms among the patients. It couldn't be anything less than the oppressive heat that made buildings waver and shimmer like a Wastes mirage. The lack of activity didn't go unobserved, but that never lasted. Venexx was stingy with his periods of rest.

The patter hiss of water droplets stopped and the water drained from the stall as Zac stood there in the slowly dissipating mists of heat. A hand ran backwards through the muss of wet hair, pasting splayed bangs back to the top of his head. With less ginger attention than before, but still not with great rapidity of movement, he edged towards a mirror and wiped steam from it. He was a patchwork quilt of scars, that would have made any seamstress proud. The ran from his face to his naked torso and beyond, and those visible, he perused at length. Scarred hands rested on the edge of the wash basin as he leaned forward, the blue orb that remained narrowing.

"I have seen what you have done," he intoned, amidst the quiet echo, "I know what you will do. It would seem we travel our separate ways ... Yet it seems you watch me and I watch you. You can't run from my one-eyed stare." He tapped the mirror and decided against a shave.

Terra turned from her infant conversation with Bliss in time to see a man collapse from heat stroke at the lobby doors. Two medics appeared from the Emergency Room area with a gurney, loaded up their new patient, and returned from whence they came. Already Venexx was restless.

Faded jeans were found and slithered into, boots were to follow and then a shirt was shrugged into. A last comb of his fingers through his hair to refine his look, and Zac Dillengerr was again presentable to the world. He didn't bother to lace his boots as he picked up the ruck and trotted back downstairs. A brow arched at something mentioned in the ladies' conversation, but he kept to his own, and said nothing. He tilted his head back and with his eyes closed, listened.

"Hey Doc ... whaddya want us to do about that animal in Containment Room 7? It's awake," announced a guard who had just entered the lobby. A tazer gun was in his hand and he looked all business in his distaste for whatever was being held in Containment 7.

The only eye that could pop open, did, and Zac looked to the guard and shook his head with a grin. He scanned the area between the stairs and the guard, finally contenting himself to watch the guard for now, with his intolerant ways.

"Is she OK?" inquired Terra. "Has she been fed at all?"

"I ain't her keeper, Doc. I don't know if she been fed or not. Don't really mean much to me since I ain't going anywhere near her to feed her."

Zac smacked the bottom of a crumpled pack of cigarettes he had been fishing for and flipped a cigarette between his lips as Terra spoke. "She will need her meds and to be fed ... that much is obvious."

"Well, I hope you find someone willin' ta do it." Witty repartee certainly couldn't be included on the guard's resume.

"I will see to it shortly." Shortly it would be done, and shortly it was said, though she did offer a smile to go with it.

The cigarette remained unlit and the pack was slid away as Zac shifted in his seat. "I'll do it."

"Well," explained the guard, "she's trying ta get out. You want us to zap her a few times?" He said this with a bit too much enthusiasm. Zapping whoever was in that room would give him far too much pleasure.

"No ... don't you dare!" exclaimed Terra, horrified and protective at the same time.

The one eye narrowed at the guard. "I'll be the first to plug him with a bullet." This was stated with a calm nonchalance as he rose. The cigarette twitched from one corner of his mouth to the other as he neared the guard.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" the guard cried out, oblivious to Terra ordering food and medication for Penny. "The thing is a cold-blooded killer!"

"And I ain't?" came the whispered voice near the guard. Such a simple phrase. Such an undeniable air of menace.

"No," defended Terra, "she's frightened." The medic she had been speaking to hurried off to prepare a tray and medicine for Penny, the girl locked up in Containment Room 7.

"She didn't look too frightened when she tore that guy's throat out." The guard was adamant in his fear and hatred of the irradiated girl with the red skin and the clawed hands.

Zac grumbled something as he snatched the tray away from the returning medic and made for the containment room. Had he had his cold steel with him, there would have been a physical threat rather than an implied one. As it was, he kept his trap shut save for that grumble. Terra assembled the medications and a syringe was slipped into her pocket as she followed the man, ignoring the guard's further espousing of contempt.

The door to Containment Room 7 wobbled and made a zinging type noise as another solid slam jarred it from the inside. Zac did not even favor an acknowledging glance to the two guards who trailed, and asked, incredulously, if he was actually going in there. "Beat it," was his only reply.

They shook their heads and gave their permission and grace to enter. Zac, with his shirt hanging open, exposing his most vulnerable parts, looked in through the window and saw the characteristic lope of the one named Penny as she crossed the room to make another run at the door. Zac scratched at the growth on his chin and blinked.

The door wobbled again as she slammed against it with her shoulder. She fell back from the impact, and her shoulder was bent at a strange angle. A breath that he didn't realize he was holding was let out, when Zac realized that the door held. He out his hand to Terra and snapped his fingers. "Got that syringe?"

"Yes," she nodded and handed it over to him. "Want me to take the cap off?"

Zac pulled on it with his teeth and spat the cap to the floor. "Nope." He stepped to the side and nodded for her to do the same. There was a hint of a smile to Zac, and the way he handled things, as she complied.

The door began to open and Penny blinked, skidding away from it. There were people out there. People from the outside and they were coming in. She huddled back into the far corner, obviously terrified. Zac curled his toes and took a deep breath as he slipped into his 'zone', waiting for a red streak to come bolting from the room. But there was nothing. He blinked. His tongue ran across his lips. The was new for him.

Straightjackets were less effective when worn by those with dislocated shoulders. Penny was a long time veteran of straightjackets and knew all their tricks. She had already wriggled one arm free from it and was silently snarling at the intruders.

"Keep it handy," he said quietly to Terra, handing her the syringe. It was possible that he wouldn't need it, but it was the wise man that never took any chances around Penance. At least a wise man who retained all of his appendages. She slipped it from him with a nod and watched as he stepped inside and took a squat in the corner opposite Penny.

A clawed hand raised in warning, her other arm hanging limp at her side, still confined in the jacket. Zac tilted his head and took a relaxed pose, the cigarette shifting from side to side again.

"Hello there ... hungry?" Terra asked from the hallway, assuming a soft, non-threatening tone. She made a gesture from her hand to her mouth, mimicking the motions of eating, hoping that Penny would comprehend.

Penny's cheeks puffed out in question as she watched Terra. It wasn't clear whether or not she understood, but the advantage was that she wasn't attacking anyone or anything; yet. Zac watched this interplay with curious fascination. Penny did nothing as Terra began to step into the room. It wasn't until the doctor was in the room that fingers began to tear through the canvas of the jacket with frightening ease. It took mere seconds before it former restraint device was now nothing more than a shred of cloth on the floor.

"Oh frag ... " Zac uttered quietly, not daring to make a move. He stayed there, frozen in place as the girl now turned her attention on him. At that moment, the only thing moving in the room was the cigarette that traveled over his lips, spanning his mouth. Her eyes followed with a raptor's intensity, the food forgotten. He smiled a crooked smile, noting her stare, and shifted it again on purpose. She jumped forward a foot closer, puffing out her cheeks again.

"Easy, girl ... it's OK," Terra tried to soothe her with her voice, never ceasing her advance into the room.

One blue eye looked over to Terra and a finger rose for her to stop. "She needs to explore to be more comfortable with me." So far, everything was fine, and there was no sense in spooking the girl without cause.

An unwavering stare was kept on Zac as a clawed appendage reached out for the cigarette. He smiled, and let her do so. This was probably the first one she had seen, and he had more. He could spare this one for her investigation. He wouldn't even dream of stopping her ... this was too rare a moment.

The rolled stick of paper and leaves was snatched from between his lips. Penny hobbled backwards a step and ran it under her nose. It crinkled in distaste as she sniffed it, her pert nose turning upwards. She looked at Zac quizzically.

Zac and Terra both chuckled. "Cigarette," he said, sounding it out slowly for her.

Penny jumped back to him and held it back out to him. She had no use for such a thing, and Terra remarked that Penny wasn't a smoker. A collective breath was again held as Penny reached out for Zac a second time, but this time, she aimed for his shoulder. She wiped her hand on it, as if ridding itself from the taint that was the cigarette, and then dropped to her usual crouch, looking up to the woman doctor. Her cheeks puffed out again in question.

Outside the Hospital of New Rydynn, feet achingly picked themselves up and placed themselves back down, knowing only that they had to go forward. He will be there, she kept telling herself. He had to be. If he wasn't, she knew not what to do. The girl squinted her eyes almost completely shut and peered through the darkness. There was a light in the distance and the one eye that wasn't rendered useless by swelling and bruising focused on it. Blood dripped from her fingers and ran in rivulets down her legs and clung to her hair, the dirty brown locks now a rusty red of clumped masses. Just a few more ... That one thought was repeated as she struggled to reach the Hospital. Each step took her closer, but each step was an agonizing journey in numbed pain and biting rocks.

Zac motioned for the food to be brought closer to the girl and his knees made a snapping noise as he rose from his squat. Terra lifted the cover from the food and allowed Penny to see the food, repeating her earlier gesture of 'eating'. "Hungry? Food?"

Penny was puzzled by the sounds that they made and the motions that they did with their arms. She watched them and thought them strange. Her ... thinking them strange. It was probably a concept that no one else would have even considered. Everyone always thought Penny strange. No one would ever think that Penny would think someone else strange. Zac moved with painstaking slowness away from her, careful not to disturb or spook her. He leaned against the door frame to watch and learn.

A barely heard whimper of joy pierced the night's air, parting cracked lips. The door was almost in reach and salvation could be hers. He was there. He would release the pain. How many times had he threatened? Fail and die. She wanted to die ... to make the pain go away. He would be there. He would save her. Useless arms hung at her sides, one normal, one bent at an odd angle, but both noncompliant. A renewed stab of pain that she'd forgotten she could feel was felt as she pressed her shoulder to the door and shoved it open.

Zac chuckled to himself, watching Terra and Penny together. Penny with her limited skills of understanding, and Terra with her quiet, motherly encouragements and demonstrations. Finally, success was had. Penny understood what was to be done with the food and snatched up some of it in her hand, shoveling it into her mouth. The usual mess was made, and there were no table manners, but what needed to be done was being done. In the end, that was all that really mattered.

Parched lips were refreshed with a new trickle of blood as they pressed into a smile. She had made it. Finally. After all that time, her goal had been reached and her poor body could take no more. Thin legs gave out from under her and she slumped to the floor. Unconscious she wasn't, and from her new, foot-level vantage point, she scanned the lobby and fear raged in Kait's eyes. Empty ... it was empty. "No ... no ... he promised ... " Energy ripped through her, energy like she never dreamed she had. "NOOOOO!!"

Zac's head shot up and he blinked at the sudden scream that came from the other room. Penny and her antics were forgotten about as he looked to Terra with a slightly widened eye. "What the hell was that?"

"I'm ... I'm not sure," she stammered, "It's coming from the lobby."

A nurse moved towards Kait, unseen by her and Kait wouldn't have cared anyway. Her sole focus, her sole purpose for coming here was nowhere in sight. She shook her head, panic obscuring her gaze. "He promised ... I failed ... he promised ... "

Zac shuddered, taking in the memory of the scream. Something about it was compelling. Something was too familiar. He pushed off of the doorway to head towards it's source. The nurse and an orderly help the fallen girl up onto a gurney for immediate transportation to the Emergency Room. She was certainly not the best looking patient -- at least not in her current state -- that they had ever seen, and they knew that time was critical.

With each step, Zac moved faster. There was an urgency there. Something had sparked a memory. All thoughts of Terra and Penny were abandoned. His shirt billowed behind him as he took off at a dead run, his instincts running on full alert. He turned the corner just in time to see the gurney being pushed into an ER room.

Kait sniffed on the wheeling bed. Her eyes saw the one that was not there. Would she had any tears left to cry, they would have surely been shed then. A pathetic whimper passed her lips. He lied ...

He stared through the crisscrossed security window of the ER door and his heart stopped. His lips moved, but no sound came. "Kid ... " He stood there, immobile, drowned in a sea of memories.

Another medic had joined the nurse and the three moved quickly about the girl, taking her vitals and assessing the extent of her injuries, which were considerable. They were a blur of motion around an island of a child -- so much as anyone was a child on Sabatt. Kait felt nothing of their pokes and prods. Her unseeing eye looked and found only muddled input, blurred faces. "Hurts ... " she managed to croak out.

Zac's eye closed. He was no longer at the ER door. He was no longer at the Hospital. His memory had catapulted him to seven years prior. Tracer rounds zipped this way and that, whizzing past his ears and the only thing heard above them was the rumbling growl of tank treads. There were men fallen. His men. Their screams piercing as they lay on the littered streets, filling the alleyways and choking his brain. A young kid -- they were all young to him -- young and fresh out of boot camp slithered to his side. Tobretta was his name. He had been ducking rounds the whole way, but on the last one, he didn't duck fast enough. Tobretta screamed out as searing pain ripped through his lower torso. It was a plasma round, with it's flesh burning jelly, that had struck, and yet on her crawled.

In the ER, and unbeknownst to Zac, Kait winced as cloth brushed against her face. It was one of the staff's jumpsuits. But that wasn't what hurt. It reminded her of the hits she had suffered, but she winced more from the realization that he wasn't there. "He promised ... " It was a stifled sob at best.

Do it, Lieutenant. Acute agony registered in Tobretta's eyes, the Tobretta in Zac's memory. A good soldier always carried a sidearm. For Zac, it was a 9 mm. He was a good soldier. An old soldier always did what was right, no matter the cost. The 9 mm was pulled from it's holster and the hammer was brought back with a click. The barrel leveled downward towards the kid, who now had a smile on his face. Zac was an old soldier. The resounding echo that shattered the memory broke him from his trance. He blinked and shook his head. Once more he looked through the glass as they worked on Kait.

Terra had entered the ER from the opposite door, having finished her tasks with Penny and was speaking with the nurse. She was unhappy with the briefing. The girl wasn't in good shape, but the quick work from the nurse and the medic went a long way. Kait would be fine, but her recovery would take some time.

Zac was a good soldier, and he was an old soldier. Being what he was, he carried a sidearm and always did what was right, no matter the cost. A 9 mm pistol was pulled from his coat; the very same one that had been used seven years ago. A shoulder was leaned against the door and he forced his way into the Emergency Room. He moved in slow motion, the gun's slide being pulled back, a round chambering. He wasn't at the Hospital anymore. He was back on that field of war, that killing place that he just couldn't seem to shake. His bootfalls echoed solemnly across the tiled floor. A nurse's arm was gripped between icy fingers and she was jerked away. The click of the gun was ominous as he neared the bedside.

Kait rolled roughly to one side and used her one good shoulder to prop herself up into a sitting position. She wanted to shout for joy at the sight of him. He was here. He hadn't lied. She hadn't come here for nothing, to live with her failure. Relief filled her eyes.

Relief was hardly what was filling Terra's as she watched him, walking on eggshells now, more than she ever had around Penny. "Easy ... " she said very softly, "we are ... patching her up ... she will be fine."

He stood, ramrod straight at Kait's side, unheeding of Terra's positive words. His eye narrowed down at Kait, the one he called 'Kid'.

"You promised ... " came the soft whispered words, gruff and bone dry.

Zac nodded and raised the gun, holding it out towards her. Seven years was washed away, not so long a time to travel back in time and his thumb again pulled back on the hammer. There was a difference, though, between then and now. Then he had no tears. But this time ... this time he did. Then his hand had been steady as the ground upon which that kid had died. But now, his hand shook.

Terra's heart thudded painfully in her chest as she watched. "There is no danger now. Holster the weapon, please?"

He never heard her. All he heard was Kait, and her plea through quivered lips. "I hurt ... "

The gun bobbed with the tremors his traitorous hand produced and his eyes welled with the pain he saw reflected in hers. His tongue flicked out over suddenly dried lips. He wanted to do what a good soldier did. He had always been a good soldier.

"I don't wanna hurt ... " she swallowed the blood that had welled from her cracked lips once more. Her gaze never left his. He would help. He was her friend.

Only inches away from her face, his hand stopped shaking. The hammer of the 9 mm was clicked back to it's safety position. "No," he said, barely audible. The gun dropped to his side. "Yer not in the field, soldier. You got help right here." He turned to Terra, breaking eye contact with Kait for the first time, and for the first time recognizing that Terra was in the room. He motioned to the cabinets.

Terra breathed for the first time in long moments. "It won't take long. Let us help her."

He stood there, nodding, with his gun at his side. Kait lifted up her arm, ignoring the shriek of pain that it gave and grasped at Zac's hand. She didn't let go. He looked down at it and clasped his hand around hers, holding on tightly. He leaned down to her face as the doctor prepared painkillers and started an IV of antibiotics. "You hang in there, Kid. 'Cause if you don't, I will come looking for you and kill ya again."

The staff of New Rydynn Memorial Hospital was known for it's efficiency, and it couldn't be faulted this night. They made quick work of tending to the cuts and scrapes, bruises and road rash marks. Kait frowned at the pinch of the needle as the painkillers were injected. "Ouch ... " It worked quickly, and she blinked, nearly falling back onto the gurney. With the drugs already taking effect, she sounded like a lost child, her voice taking on a sweet, airy tone.

Zac stood there, holding onto her hand. He could feel by the slackening of her muscles that the painkillers were beginning to do their job. But he never let go.

Terra offered a faint smile to him after wounds had been fully dressed, and ribs had been taped. "She will be fine. We will let her stay a few days and keep her comfortable. You are welcome to come along."

Zac would have, whether or not he had been invited. He had no intention of releasing Kait's hand as the memory of Tobretta faded almost completely.

Her head swung toward him drunkenly and she still frowned, her face puckering with the emotion. "I lost the mirror."

He looked down at her, but didn't smile. He just couldn't. "I'll get another."