A FEW DROPS HIT HER CHEEK
1563 4D
Grendel leaped to his feet, his back against the wall. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted, “Don’t shoot! He’s dead! There’s nobody shooting from here!” His raw, deep voice drowned in the shouts and screams from the crossing, but no more shots came down the slope. He stared for a moment up the way, where people, crawling, milled about, calling for family members and help. Ezzar‘s scream registered; she had never made a sound like this. He dived for her, trying to smother her burning in his coverall, clasping her smoking hair to her head to crush the embers, hoping the hit had only scorched her, letting the heat sizzle his own clothing and singe his skin.
She shook, trembling more and more violently until he had to hold her tight in his arms to keep her from thrashing. Craters stared where her eyes had been, her delicate nose half eaten away, her head burned bare in front where the glancing beam had caught it, the cicatrix on her cheek limned in gray. His mind began a beat, driving itself forward through the shock. Hospital. Down in the Complex. Best route back to Ellichik‘s post. Safest with helm.
He whipped the helm from his carapiece, snapped it on, passworded, and said to Angie, “Emergency. Let’s get her to a hospital. Her eyes are gone and I don’t know what else.”
“Get her helm on her head, fast,” Angie said. Grendel fumbled it out and fitted it tenderly over Ezzar‘s head, clicking it in place.
“Better tell her Angie what to do,” he said, gathering Ezzar in his arms.
“He knows,” his Angie said. To Grendel, her voice sounded tired. He checked around. No red indications in his heads-up. He stood, cradling Ezzar in front of him, and picked his way up the slope with rapid high steps to the crossing, where three rebel soldiers watched him come. He lifted his eye shield.
“She’s lost her eyes and part of her face,” he said, trying to let the words pass without deciphering them for himself yet. “Is the hospital open down in the Complex?”
“Take her there,” one of the three said, a woman, not turning her eyes to him. “It may be a while. Shit, oh shit, just look at this. They ran these people through here knowing this was all going down.” The crowd seethed around them, feeling through the piles of belongings, now partly transformed into burned debris, scattered everywhere. A woman hoisted a chair with a missing leg over her head, calling again and again in a harsh descending wail, Taree, Taree, it’s Mama, Tareeee.
Two children dug through a shattered box, retrieving clothes, a doll, a play datacard. A thin man gagged and clutched his face with a ragged sleeve against the reek of burned tissue. Grendel‘s shock caught up to him. He stared at the man.
“Maybe this is just a part of the program. Staged Random Destruction,” another of the rebels said, a young woman staring out from under a raised eyeshield, a long beamer in her hand. She turned away, her eyes creased with horror and fatigue. “And we did this to them, we shot in here from out the radial, if I had just known.” Seeing Grendel and Ezzar, her eyes widened. “Morons! What are you waiting for? Get her down there, now!”
Shaken free from his numbness, Grendel turned to the inner radial exit and began to run. He’d save Ezzar, bring her back once more, even if he had to walk a lava field in bare feet. Best not to let her head dangle, especially with the helm on. He adjusted his grip. Ezzar lay limp.
“Angie, how’s she doing?”
“Her helm says she’s stable, and she’s full of soothers. She should hold until you get her down there. But you’re near the edge, big man. I don’t want to dump another lifter into you right now. You get down there and then flop out while you wait.”
“Gren-do.” A little voice came bouncing up at him as he ran on. “Gren-do, Gren-do gotta talkin head,” Dodi grinned up at him, scuttling along beside him.
“Dodi! Dodi, Ezzar‘s hurt. I’m taking her to get her fixed.”
“Ezzar, yeah, see?” Grendel‘s breath came a little shorter now.
The little ratty-haired girl skipped as she brandished a huge, shining kitchen knife. “Dodi gotta cutter now, go show Mama,” and she disappeared. The street kids must have smelled the place burning.
Grendel passed Ellichik, who waved him on without a word, pointing to a liftway door standing open. It plummeted, then waited, then plummeted, and he swallowed, equalizing air pressure. He strode from the lift and stopped.
In the understreet before him, on stretchers and pallets on the floor, on stained chairs and couches, sprawled a collection of wounded in much the same shape as Ezzar, some with missing limbs, some with roasted skin, some shaking uncontrollably, some crying out a name over and over. The light glowed soft but clean, stronger in the blue than in the red end of the spectrum. Leading off the street with its improvised anteroom appearance, doors opposite him opened and closed on the flow of wounded and the medical staff, some of them andros and some human. One of them, a young woman, greeted him with a deep familiar look into his eyes. Allashani.
“Bring her here and sit down. You look very tired.” She motioned to a long soft couch just vacated, and vanished. He sat down gently, leaning back, still cradling Ezzar in his arms.
Ezzar‘s face, pitted and blackened, glistened with fresh moisture here and there in isolated spots between dried scorched areas. Her blistered lips hung open. Moisture? As he looked down, a few drops hit her cheek. His tears.
