Hey guys! I'm sorry for starting a new story, but the plot bunnies were after me! Plus, i have REALLY GREAT IDEAS for this story! (Especially for a Danny phantom crossover...)
Hope you enjoy this one!
Disclaimer:
The ground rumbled and shook, and Alex jerked his head up and glanced at Jack. She looked back at him warily, tense. She had felt the shock too.
The floor was shaking more violently now, debris falling from the ceiling and chair and tables clattering away. The unwashed plates piled on counter were smashed to bits on the hard linoleum tile below. Books were falling out of their cases, and they could hear loud creaking sounds from above and below. The house would collapse soon.
Jack mouthed a word to Alex, and they both dove under tables for cover.
Earthquake.
Jack made it safely under a heavy metal desk, but Alex was not as lucky. Just as he was about to fling himself to another table, the building shook with such a tremendous force that he lost his balance and crashed to the floor as the building's supports fell.
From where Jack was, she could see nothing. She felt herself plummeting through the floor, clouds of dust welling up around them, coating everything in chalky white dust. She could not tell if Alex was okay.
She felt the impact, and her vision flickered, and then died out just as the ground stopped shaking.
Alex, meanwhile, was on the verge into falling into the black pit of unconsciousness. His right leg was trapped under some large, heavy sections of drywall and broken pieces of fallen debris. He could feel the pain from the fall and the weight, and he was absolutely positive that the bones in his leg had snapped and punctured through the skin.
He clenched his teeth as the pain flared up, died down, only to return mere moments later, lancing up his leg and jolting through his whole body. It felt like a white-hot knife cutting through his skin and down to the bone.
"Jack…Jack…" he called hoarsely, after the pain lessened a bit. He received no answer.
Nearby, he spied a small heap of ripped books and made a grab for one. The pain flared up again, and he decided against it. So he lay back, falling into a deep and troubled sleep, wondering if Jack was okay and when the paramedics would come.
Alex jolted awake in complete agony. His leg felt like it was on fire.
He clenched his teeth, careful not to bite his tongue, and bit back a hoarse scream. He distantly saw what had woken him up from his painful slumber. His vision was clouded and blurry, but he figured out what he was staring at.
A helicopter. Help had finally arrived.
He saw some figures dropping to the ground with a stretcher and some were speaking loudly into walkie-talkies. Some ambulances were scattered around the rubble, paramedics swarming around, trying to find survivors.
"Help…help…somebody please…help…" he called, but all that came out was a weak croak.
He shut his eyes. Delirious, he had no clue how much time had passed when someone finally came looking his way. The agony caused by his leg and other parts of his body was a major barrier between talking in complete, understandable sentences, and muttering incoherently.
"Hey guys! I found someone over here! Get some medics! Hurry! He's trapped and he's lost a lot of blood."
Alex blearily opened his eyes to find himself face to face with a man in a beige vest labeled "Andrew" with camouflage pants holding a water bottle and carrying a small backpack.
"Hey son, can you talk? Can you say something?"
Alex closed his eyes once more and his head lolled to one side. He was too tired…too tired…
He mumbled and groaned.
The man leaned closer as some of his team members came scurrying over, one carrying a laptop.
He was still squatting by Alex when they arrived, and he had a perplexed expression on his face.
"Jeremy, come listen to this…" he called to a man with a shovel.
The said man hurried over, careful not to tread over Alex or on smaller pieces of rubble, and squatting next to Andrew. He leaned in, turning his head to press his ear closer to the young boy's mouth, and strained to catch sounds. Other team members were hooking up IV bags and putting pressure to large wounds to Alex's prone body.
Andrew meanwhile, called the man with the laptop over.
"Jonathan, come here. We might need to record this."
Suddenly the man – Jeremy – jerked his head back and whipped it around so quickly that Andrew feared he might've had a whiplash injury.
"Did you find out what he said?"
The man furrowed his brow and frowned, saying, "Yeah, but he keeps mumbling the words 'key,' 'pocket' and 'terminate' over and over again. And he repeats the same number too. '9503279.'"
Suddenly the man with the IV bag piped up, "Hey, aren't the numbers '950' the heading for MISO? You can do a run on him and see what comes up."
Andrew glared as Jonathan's fingers flew across the keyboard. Light reflected off his glasses. "How can a kid be working for MISO? I doubt that he's even 16 yet."
"Maybe his father was in the secret service…" he shrugged and gave up.
Jonathan yelped in surprise. Everyone turned to him. He said, "There's a whole file and everything! It's all about the kid. Missions, attributes, age, name…it's all here!"
"Give me that…" Andrew grumbled, and spat at Jonathan to help nurse the boy back to health.
Andrew's sharp eyes scanned the page. He read aloud:
"Name: Rider, Alexander J.
Eye colour: brown
Hair colour: fair
Age: 14
Family: --
DoB: --
Current status: --
Current location: --
Missions/Accomplishments: --
Past injuries: --
--: Information not valid without key AND password(s)."
Everyone stared and gaped in shock. He had a file, and a very high file. So guarded that it needed more than a key! That was new.
Alex kept mumbling, but was a bit louder this time.
"9503279…key…pocket…terminate…terminate…key…950…3279…pocket…"
Jeremy snapped his fingers and said, "He must be keeping his key in his pocket!" He searched Alex's clothes until he felt a small, rectangular plastic material in his sweatshirt. "Aha!" he cried, and dug it out. It was simple: a barcode on the side with some fine-print numbers. No other text except for the words "JAPANESE MISO SOUP" printed on the front.
Jeremy wordlessly handed the card to Andrew, who in turn stuck the card into a flap on the side of the laptop. A few tedious seconds later, a small light flickered on and a window popped on the screen.
"Access granted. Please type the security code on the card into the box below," it read.
Andrew squinted at the plastic card, and typed in the numbers. Soon, another window popped up.
"Terminate status? Yes – No"
He looked warily around at his team members. He didn't want to get binned, of course, but the boy looked so beat and tired…He was dying, dammit! Why couldn't he think straight? He made eye contact with each of his members, and they all game him dignified nods.
So be it.
He clicked on the button that read "yes," and waited for something to happen, something to indicate that it worked.
Nothing.
As he was just about to cry out in total and utter frustration, Jeremy and Jonathan were hollering at Andrew to get help from someone with a saw.
"Why? Is it too heavy to lift?"
The team nodded in unison, and Andrew scurried off to find someone with a chainsaw.
A few precious minutes later, Andrew came back, only to find the crew and some other men and women to be hard at work to get the boy conscious again. They had hooked up a small portable heart monitor, and the beats were fast and erratic. The teen was pale and shaking visibly, muttering incoherently under his breath, though still unconscious.
He leaped over and was just about to start cutting through the pile of rubble, when a fairly young woman stopped him. She called, "Andrew, is it? We need help over here! I also need to talk to you about something." Her words were rushed and jumbled up. She wiped a grimy hand over her forehead.
As Andrew made his way over to her, she started to talk quickly and quietly, as not to distract the team members, but also too get her words out quickly.
"He's gone into shock, and he's losing blood fast. His leg is trapped under segments of walls that are too heavy for us to get it out in time. Even with a larger crew, I don't think that we'd be able to clear the rubble off of him in time If we don't get him to a hospital fast, he's might go into cardiac arrest. We can't risk that happening – "
"Cut the crap. What do we do to get him safely back home?"
The woman flicked a glance at the young boy lying, almost dead, on piles of terror and destruction. Emotions flickered on her face, full of sympathy, sorrow, and fear. She really cared for lives of those lost beneath the carnage. She looked back at Andrew and cleared her throat before speaking again.
"We'll have to amputate his leg."
Review?