Title: Act 1 Rebuilding the World
Summary: Live Free or Die Hard might have ended for Gabriel, but it was just the beginning for everyone else.
Warnings: Mentions child abuse, rape, violence and cussing
Rating: R
AN: This is about as graphic as it gets. There will be no graphic sex scenes, Matt will not be getting together with Lucy. Holly and John will not be getting together but neither am I going to ignore 20+ years of relationship that lies between them. Matt/John UST will be reached at some point in the future. It will not be graphic or over done. Their relationship is not the point of the story.
Everything felt closed, finished done. The country was saved, the bad guy was dead, the good guys were working on their sexy scars. Everything looked to be getting back to normal, that was until they reached the edge of the city. The roads were a mess. The pace of the ambulances slowed to a crawl as they sedately weaved through the abandoned cars that littered the road like something out of those Apocalypse movies. Neither of the arriving heroes were aware of this though.
Matt ended up somewhere between drugged unconsciousness and passed out asleep; John resisted the drugs at first but relented under the stare of the paramedic when Lucy wasn't looking. He wasn't quite passed out but he was comfortably numb and couldn't be bothered to do more than stare at the ceiling of the ambulance even when he felt the deceleration once they reached the edge of the city. Lucy however was in full control of her faculties and was willing to use them. She didn't see any need to hover over her Dad, who judging from his dazed expression had finally stopped being a 'manly' man and taken some painkillers. He was such alpha male, frankly she was just thankful that he hadn't started pissing around her to mark his territory and shit. Lucy stared out the back window at the waste land that was there. It looked like something out of a movie, one of those end of the world socio-economic collapse kinda movies that wasn't suppose to be how the world really was. The kinda movie that was just a fantasy, an idea of what could happen, but it was never suppose to occur. It was never suppose to be real.
The ambulance slowed to a stop. "Hey!? What gives? We aren't at the hospital yet!"
"Close as it gets, 'bout a half a mile from here, we can be there in no time if we really hoof it."
"Oh."
The other paramedic started to pack things up and John stirred at the noise and change in motion. The rocking momentum of the ambulance had lulled him mostly to sleep but with the motion ceased and noise of the doors opening he roused, "Lucy?" It had a slurred sort of broken apart sound as if John could only concentrate on pronouncing one syllable at a time
"It's okay Daddy, there's just a bit a walk to the hospital. But your getting a ride there, lazy bones." There was fond affection in the words and John couldn't remember the last time one of the women in his life used it with him. He just hoped that the morphine wouldn't erase it, after all it might take another almost Armageddon for it to happen again.
"Ye-ah that's all I get, lip. Save the country, save you, shoot myself, still I get no respect."
"Daaa-ad, don't go all Rodney Dangerfield on me. And thought you didn't want anyone to know about you shooting yourself?"
John looked around the ambulance but deemed it too much trouble and fell back with a groan. "Dad! Jeeze! We all know your a big macho man, and if these paramedics hadn't forced those drugs on you that you would have walked the whole way to the hospital and carried me there as well. Now lay back and let these nice men take care of everything." Lucy glanced outside of the open ambulance and spotted the second ambulance with police escort. Having seen all the destruction that had been wrought Lucy could tell that they had really gotten the royal treatment. With the power out gas was limited and there was chaos all over the Eastern sea board. Power was already up all over the West coast and in the Central US but that was because the power hub was shut down so it was just a matter of flipping a switch but the Eastern hub was non-existent and with all the other chaos that had been occurring several of the major cities had suffered from looting.
With everything that had happened, the fact was that they got two ambulances and a police escort, it might as well been a limo with a motorcade. "Dad, I'm going to see how Matt's doing. Be nice. Don't shoot anyone." Lucy paused in her descent as a thought struck her. "Don't shoot yourself either."
Lucy heard his weakly muttered ha-ha but she didn't bother to respond. After all she was the one that could walk away. The back of the other ambulance was just as chaotic as the theirs was. Matt was being unloaded and he hadn't even budged. Lucy winced at the thug of the gurny's back wheels hit the pavement. Lucy watched worriedly as Matt didn't even wince. "Is he okay? He didn't even twitch."
The paramedic glanced back, "yeah he's okay, lost a little too much blood, he's a bit of a light weight, that morphine we gave him seemed to really knock him out, at least for a while. He had some kind of fit or nightmare, we had to sedate him on top of it. A bomb could go off next to his head now and he wouldn't even blink."
"Okay. So we're heading out soon?" Lucy looked around at the lifeless streets, filled with abandoned cars some of which were on fire. "This is just way too creepy and I can't wait to get out of here."
"Yeah." The two paramedics lined up next to Matt's gurney. Lucy glanced back at the bag's lined up next to ambulance and shouldered two of them.
She walked over to where John was laying and glanced back at the paramedics, "well what are you waiting for? Let's go!"
The walk there just made everything seem more depressing. She just couldn't wait to get to the damn hospital. Unfortunately they heard the hospital before they actually saw it. There was a mob of people flooded into the ER and flooded out into the streets around it. The paramedic in the front (Lucy thought his name was Chuck but it was so uninspired that she had been thinking of him as Indian Elvis because he resembled that guy from Scrubs) was having no luck in clearing the way. It seemed that the fact that they had even a ounce of medical experience made them doctors. Lucy watched as more and more of the mob turned to face them. They looked like they were eyeing up a piece of meat. Indian Elvis was going down and it looked like the red-headed woman was fixing to go down too. For a second Lucy thought she saw pitchforks and torches and for the first time felt for the Monster. Well they were going to get in there. Lucy looked back at their police escort who looked like he was all of 12. They must have tapped him while he was still in training. Once again it looked like the stronger sex was going to have to step forward.
Lucy raised her arm in the air and waved it around. "If you people don't get the fuck out of our away then I will shoot!" Even at her loudest she still couldn't talk over the canopy. She screamed and fired the gun in the air. Everyone finally stopped and looked. "We have two people here that have been shot and if you people don't get out of the way then I think I will be forced to increase the number." Everyone was staring blankly. "If you don't get out of the way I'm going to shoot you." The anger and exasperation seemed to convince them and a small corridor formed where they could walk through. The paramedics were staring in shock and the Dougy Houser of the police looked on in awe as was only right. She did kick ass after all.
The inside of the hospital was only slightly less chaotic than the outside. The paramedics seemed to collect themselves and started to lead them somewhere, Lucy supposed that it was all about the chaos you know. As bad as the streets had looked, barren and lifeless, seeing the people was that much worse. The halls were filled with them, over flowing out of beds and chairs and some were even laying about in the halls. Lucy supposed that no one really cared about fire hazards at this point. The hospital was one of the few places that had electricity, but Lucy wasn't sure how long that was going to last. The generator was only going to last so long and none of the gas pumps were working without electricity. She just couldn't understand the purpose of this, what would make someone want to hurt so many people. There just didn't seem to be a good reason for any of it.
They ended up in outside a room that seemed too crowded and Lucy wasn't sure how they were suppose to fit in there but they didn't seem to be going any further. A harried woman that didn't look like she had slept in the last week came out and Indian Elvis pulled her aside and spoke for a few minutes. From the continued glances in their direction Lucy knew the conversation was about them, the startled look that crossed Harried Woman's face told Lucy that she had either just been informed that the patients were genuine heroes or that John had shot himself. Lucy was hoping that it was the former rather than the latter. Normally she wasn't one to push position but anything that would help out her father was worth a shot. Matt was just a bonus, she really didn't know him but he had saved her life, so she could spare a little hope for him as well.
Finally something seemed to be happening but she wasn't sure where they were going next. Dad and Matt both seemed too stable to warrant much attention, even if they were heroes. They ended up in a room that didn't look like a regular room at all, there were beds with people sacked out in scrubs but they didn't seem to be injured, just exhausted. That was when Lucy realized that it was the "on-call" room. It might not be the best equipped room in hospital (at least it wasn't the janitor's closet) but she didn't think they would lack from assistants if there was a sudden problem. She watched a bit in shock as a cart was wheeled in and they seemed to prep for minor surgery right there. Lucy knew that she wasn't going to able to stay, she might be a tough sonofabitch when it came to certain things, but seeing needles in flesh just freaked her out. She took the high road and slipped out to find a bathroom.
She took her time and even managed to rinse her hair free from the blood. It wasn't a shower but it felt damn good anyway. She didn't want to walk in on someone getting stitches so she wandered around a bit to see if there was a working phone. If her mom was at her house then she might be able to use a land line to reach her. She knew there was no chance that the cell phones were working yet, but the hard lines might be okay. Lucy would never mock her mother for being so analog if it came up again.
She waited in line for an hour until she finally forced some ditzie woman to stop calling the same number. Didn't that woman know that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? Lucy decided that she would take one chance and that was it. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and while she didn't pray to a specific person she sent good vibes out into the cosmos. Her friend, Heaven, was always talking about how visualization leads to actualization. She dropped in the coins and dialed quickly without hesitation. She felt like she would explode when the phone started ringing. Two, three, four, five, oh God, seven, "Hello? Lucy is that you?"
"Oh thank God! Mom I was so scared."
"Oh Sweetie are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah Mom I'm okay. I'm here in New Jersey with Dad, he got shot."
"Again?"
"Yeah well it's a long story."
Lucy heard a beep to indicate she was nearing the end of her time. She frantically searched for another coin but to no avail. "Mom it's really bad out here. Stay at the house and when Dad gets released we'll come to you."
"Okay. Okay Lucy. I love you."
"I love you too." Beep beep. Shit. She had to hurry, "Oh and Mom Matt may come with--"
"Lucy? Lucy? Damn. Who's Matt? And why is he coming?" Molly looked at the dead phone and sighed, "Shit, I hope Lucy isn't planning on bringing the guy she's dating here because one of them is going to end up dead with John around."
When Lucy got back to the room John and Matt had both been cleaned up and stitched up. John looked so much worse with the stark white bandages and criss-crossed stitches. Without the dirt to cover up the bruises he looked fragile and delicate. Lucy never thought the word delicate would ever applies to her father. When she thought of him getting old, she thought crotchety or persnickety, not this, never had she imagined this.
Matt didn't look much better, he was more pale but less bruised. Both were wearing scrub bottoms and a hospital gown. Neither stirred as she took up a chair beside them. She wasn't sure how long she sat there before before one of those creepy agent people showed up. He kinda looked like that Middle Eastern correspondent from the Daily Show. She had started to think of him as Asoef. "What do you want?"
He didn't seem bother by her words or her tone as he flopped bonelessly in an empty chair beside her, which was minor miracle in and of itself. "There is not much I can do now. They're trying to rig a few smaller hubs to get the electricity up and going, but before that happens I'm at loose ends." He paused and looked thoughtfully at John. "They really don't make people like that anymore."
The harried woman that Lucy had left her Dad with came back and looked just as harried as before. "Oh good. Here's the deal. Normally I'd like to keep them both here for at least overnight but we don't have the room or personnel." She handed them two paper bags with the words 'old dude' inscribed on one and 'young guy' written on the other. "I've included directions for drug use. What to do if something happens, fever, torn stitches, and so on. Once their IV is finished they are going to have to go."
"Are you serious? You're going to kick them out?"
"I'm sorry but they have someone to take care of them. The hospital is full of people that can't take care of themselves or they don't have someone to take care of them. They have you, so you all have to go. You have about a half hour."
Lucy watched as Harried Doctor rushed back out, standing there numbly holding the paper bags, she felt like the world was spinning around her, her head was over flowing with information, she was so damn tired. First stuck in the damn elevator then held hostage, almost shot and covered in all kinda of crap. She didn't know how much more she could take. Honestly would anyone blame her if she took just a few moments to have a minor breakdown? But then she looked down at her Dad, who never broke down and always ran all out and then ran some more until the bad guy was down and she pulled that McClane strength buried inside, steeled herself and turned to Asoef. "So how much pull have you got?"
Turned out Asoef had enough because two hours later she was pulling into her Mom's driveway with Matt passed out in the back seat and her father drowsing in the front. Honking the horn quickly she turned around to rouse Matt. "C'mon! You've been asleep for like ever!"
Lucy shook Matt's shoulder more viciously and he finally started to rouse. "Huh? What? We'erd we go?"
"We're at my Mom's."
"Mom's?" Matt blinked slowly, is head turning a bit as if to confirm that statement. "'oesn't make any sense. Mom's dead."
"No, my Mom you dork. God you are so out of it."
"Oh, wellll that's okay then."
Lucy leaned forward and honked the horn quickly again. "So Dad you think you can make it under your own power or do you think you need some help."
John who had been happily resting in the front seat and quietly dreading moving sighed and finally started to heave himself up just as Holly exited the house. "Oh God, John, Jesus look at you! and Lucy what in the world happened to you?" Holly eyed her disheveled daughter up and down.
"Mom it's a long story, but could you help me with Matt? He's really out of it."
"Oh, okay, honey." between the two of them they were able to get Matt out of the back seat and upright in about the time it took John to shuffle half way to the house.
"So is this the guy you've been dating?"
"Mo-om."
"Well I have a right to know."
Lucy rolled her eyes, "no Mom I just met him."
"You're bringing home a guy you just met?"
"Technically Dad is bringing home a guy he just met. Matt was with Dad and he doesn't have any family in the area we had to help him."
Matt seemed to rouse a bit with his name, "help who?"
Lucy replied, "oh don't you worry about that you just hang on."
"Mmmhmm. Yeah, okay." Lucy and Holly practically carried Matt up the steps and as the were walking him toward the couch he seemed to lose whatever strength he had because he just became limp as a noodle, all of his weight was resting on their shoulders.
"Ooooofh." They managed to heft Matt onto the couch and lay his limbs in a somewhat normal angle.
John followed behind them and eased himself into a reclining chair. "Boy Holly and I ever glad that you got this chair in the divorce. I don't think I have it in me to climb the stairs to the guest bedroom."
"Yeah well somehow I got the feeling that you would in up in it again some how. You always do manage to find the trouble."
"Yeah I always do."
All the traveling from the cars and the hospital really worn them all out and Lucy hadn't slept at all so even thought Holly was dying for some answers she waited and let everyone sleep. They weren't going anywhere so she would know eventually.
It was several hours before John roused but Holly managed to have food waiting. It wasn't easy with the power out the refrigerator and freezer were down and for some reason the gas stove wasn't working but it didn't run off electricity so she wasn't sure what was going on there, but she managed to cook some hot dogs over a fire she had made in the fire place. When John did finally wake up he was starving so while he ate half a pack of hot dogs he told Holly all about what happened. Picking up Matt, the Firesale, the bad guys, Lucy, shooting himself and oh the fighter plane he took out. He knew he was in for it from the look on Holly's face, endangering their daughter like that.
He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable, but when nothing happened he opened them again to see Holly standing there next to him. "God John, you could've died." Biting her lip and looking pensive Holly leans down hugs him and and whispers in John's ear, "if you ever get our daughter hurt I will hunt you down and make you wish the bad guys won." Holly sat back up, "but I'm glad that you're okay." She looks at the shoulder in a sling, "well as okay as these things ever turn out for you."
John looked up at Holly's face, a face with new lines that he didn't recognize, gray hair that wasn't there before and it just drove it all home, this wasn't his Holly. But then she smiled, and her eyes crinkled in the corners and the age fell away from her face and suddenly she was someone he recognized again, someone that he had loved. He felt so over-whelmed, God he hated this part of saving the day. He never knew what to do with himself afterward. He always ended up too strung out emotionally, in pain, and usually getting at least a few minutes reprieve from whatever woman he was fighting with. Even John being one of the most Neanderthal men around could tell by looking at Holly's face that he was supposed to say something here, but hell if he knew what. "Holly I-"
Matt had the most stupendous timing ever because he groaned and rolled over half falling off the couch to the floor with a screech of pain. Holly rushed over trying to prevent Matt from falling even further as Matt attempted to pull himself back up. "Careful there sweetie."
Holly reached out to steady him but Matt flinched back, "Jesus, where the hell am I?" Matt winced and reached for his leg, eyes wide and frightened. "Where's Gabriel? Who are you?"
"Hey chill out kid. It's cool Gabriel is toast."
"What? McClane is that you?"
"Yeah. Yeah kid it's me. And you can trust me on that Gabriel thing."
"Yeah." Matt relaxed and let Holly help him back up onto the couch. "Yeah, okay." Holly fussed over Matt, spreading a blanket out and smoothing his hair down.
"You rest and I'll get you something to eat."
Matt watched her leave and fingered the blanket. "She does know that it's July doesn't she?"
John looked over at Matt who was bundled up and looking a little flush. "Yeah, Kid she knows."
"Okay so long as we're clear."
Holly came bustling back in, carrying a tray of food. "Here you go dear." She set the tray down and felt his forehead. "Hmm you're a little warm. Poor dear." John and Matt exchanged bemused looks over the top of her head.
The next three days passed in a drugged blur for both John and Matt. Life didn't seem anymore difficult or unusual except for their injuries. That was a different matter for Holly and Lucy. John Jr. had joined the service right out of high school and Holly worried about him endlessly. The power wasn't back on and everything else seemed to be run on it. The water was still out, the gas was gone still and the only reason they were still functioning as well as they were was because Holly had her share of emergency experiences and once things started to really go south she had managed to stop up all the sinks and bathtubs and filled them with water. She had no idea that it would be this long without water and hadn't been as sparing with in the beginning as she should have been.
As undignified as it was they were left with digging a latrine outside. It was difficult getting Matt out there, but he wasn't eating much so once a day was about all that was necessary. Holly had hated those camping trips that John had always managed to drag them on every few years but now she felt thankful for some of the skills it had provided.
She was trying to figure out what exactly they were going to do when the last sink full of water was gone when she heard a weird gurgling in the bathroom. Rushing in she realized that the toilet tank was refilling. Holly's heart fluttered with relief. The water was coming on! She rushed into the kitchen and turned on the tap. The piped groaned and the water came in spurts as the air was cleared, but honest to God flowing water! First thing she did was shower. The water was cold but by God! Clean, fresh, it was amazing! She pulled a fresh towel out of the closet and inhaled enjoying a luxury that she hadn't even realize she had until this Firesale had happened. She woke Lucy and had her jump in the shower while she re-stoppered the sinks, flushed the toilets and prepared just in case. Half the day was gone before she realized it. It was no easy thing getting Matt and John cleaned up while keeping the important parts dry. They all sat around afterward in the living room awake and wallowing in being clean and dry for the first time in over a week. Holly knew that she should be more worried about food, especially since Matt and John were staying awake longer and eating more, but with the worry of water relieved for now she felt like she could take on anything.
Now that Matt was no longer sleeping the sleep of the well drugged nightmares had surfaced. John wasn't that surprised he'd had nightmares for a long time after Nakatomi. John wasn't comfortable with that emotional bullshit, but Matt was a good kid and as much as the father in John squirmed at the sight of his daughter comforting Matt, he swallowed it down. It was this younger generation, they were so much more in touch with their feelings. John couldn't imagine ever crying on Holly's shoulder like Matt did so freely with Lucy. John didn't really sense anything between them but friendship. But he still watched just in case. Most of the time they followed a pretty regular pattern. Matt started to flail and cry Lucy came in and woke him. Matt would wake up disoriented and crying harder, distressed in a way that John hadn't witnessed the entire time they were together and on the run. Matt would calm and orient himself, pulling away, looking shameful. Lucy never pushed him. Until now. "Matt is this about what Gabriel said in the van?"
flashback
Lucy watched in fear as her father fell further and further away from the truck as he was distracted by the Jet.
she turned back and watched Gabriel with wary eyes. But he was not in truth interested in her. No, all of his attention was focused on Matt. His eyes were so cold and calculating. Lucy wouldn't admit it, but she was really scared and while she knew Matt was terrified but he was holding up better than she had expected. She was prepared to kick up a fuss if it looked like they were going to kill him, all she would need to do is stall because she knew her father and he was one of the toughest sons of bitches around and something as little as an attack jet wouldn't be able to take him down.
As long as Gabriel was content to talk Lucy was content to let him.
"Now Mattie, I can call you Mattie right?"
"Well actually I prefer Matth-" Gabriel pressed a gun to Matt's leg, "well, yeah, okay, Mattie's fine."
"Good. Now Mattie, I've read up on you and I know that you'll give me what I want."
"Why do you sa-say that?"
"Oh come now, Mattie," Gabriel waved a hand around the van, "we're all friends here Mattie." Gabriel smiled but his eyes were cold. Lucy watched as Matt flinched with every repetition of 'Mattie' something was going on, something kind of second conversation going on underneath the words spoken and she wasn't part of it. "Why don't you tell us a story Mattie? Maybe that little incident when you were nine."
"Well I umm, sprained my ankle after a bad fall off my bike. And there was this time where I blew-"
"Now, now Mattie," Gabriel pressed the gun into Matt's side hard. "Let's be honest here. You know what incident I'm talking about and I think we'd all be interested in knowing how you survived." Gabriel didn't even bother with a mask of civility anymore, he whole face was a deadly sort of calm and Lucy knew that he would not hesitate to hurt either of them.
"Okay, okay. I umm I lost my Dad when I six and my my mom took it kinda hard, started taking up with all sorts of guys and-" Gabriel growled and leaned forward as if to say get to the point. Something in Matt must have reached a breaking point because when he spoke Lucy heard the more anger in his voice than fear. "Hey! You want the story I'm giving you the damn story and it starts here." Gabriel sat back seemingly satisfied and Matt continued, "so I was introduced to what sex was when I was young and caught my mom going at with her new boyfriend on the kitchen table. When I saw Frankie for the first time I was in the basement of some house. I couldn't remember how I got there and was still disoriented from the drugs. I managed to stumble to the door and eased it open. There was Frankie and he, he had a little kid with him, I knew, I um knew what was going on because of my mom, and that kid was just screaming and thrashing all over, Frankie just looked so mad and I watched as he ra-raped and strangled that kid." Lucy listened with growing horror to Matt's story. She'd always heard about and been warned about pedophiles and rapists but it was one of those things that was never real for her, they were just something on the evening news, it wasn't something that happened to people she knew.
"Later Frankie came in and explained the rules. The first day was Rules day where Frankie told what was expected of me, there was no touching on Rules Day. Second day was clothes day. There was touching on clothes day, but the clothes were left on. The third day was Everything day. By the time Everything day came around I had a plan." Lucy leaned closer to Matt, his voice had gotten so whispery and Lucy was sure that this was the part where Matt managed to escape. "I had checked everything there was no way out of that basement so I knew what I had to do."
"What?" Gabriel whispered, "what did you do?"
Matt looked up eyes, red rimmed, cheeks pale with a weak stubble, "I gave him what he wanted. I didn't struggle, I didn't scream I just lay there and took it. And when he finished I looked him in the eye and said," Matt stumbled a bit over the word and seemed to fade into himself even as he kept his eyes on Gabriel's gun. "I looked him in the eyes and told him I loved him." Matt rushed after that, everything before was slowly said, as if to try and avoid this moment, but now that it had been reached Matt seemed to feel the need to defend himself, defend his actions. "After all isn't everyone, deep down just looking for someone to love them?"
"See, Mattie I knew that you could give me what I want, I knew how far you would go to survive."
Matt laughed, it was dry and brittle like it could break apart even in his throat. But there was steel in his eyes when he looked up, "Your mistake Gabriel is assuming the situations are the same. I gave up whole pieces of myself to stay alive, but here and now? You're demanding whole pieces of a country and that isn't mine to give away. I can't give it away."
Gabriel's eyes turned cold and jovial smile disappeared, "you will give me what I want, make no mistake about that."
end flashback
John didn't know what they were talking about but from the look on Matt's face Lucy had pushed a button. Lucy cradled Matt's hands in hers. "What he said, what you said, was it, was it true? I mean how did he know that stuff?"
Matt was looking away from Lucy but John could see his red-rimmed eyes and watched as Matt worried his lip.
"I don't know, there was a trial. I'm sure that they looked up everything they could find on me before they hired me. Gabriel doesn't strike me as the kind of person who doesn't research every detail to an anal retentive degree. I guess that when I didn't die as planned he pulled out those files. Gabriel was going to get what he wanted and didn't care who he was going to step on to get there."
"Yeah." John didn't know what had happened in that van while he was taking down a jet, but since it didn't seem to involve Lucy directly John managed to contain his curiosity As upset as Lucy looked, Matt definitely looked worse and John couldn't be mad at him. The bastard that did all this was dead so he could take comfort in that. Lucy pulled Matt into a hug and Matt didn't even put up a token protest, "You're a lot stronger than I gave you credit for when we first met," she whispered in Matt's ear.
It had been over two weeks since the beginning of the fire sale. The water continued to flow, but the state of everything else was about the same. Matt had been spending his waking hours taking apart a couple radios and something else. Holly really didn't know what he was hoping to accomplish but it kept him busy and with his bum leg it wasn't much use in any of the outdoor work. At least the toilets were working and there was no more latrine duty needed. Holly was about to consider a way into town and find out if there were any food banks or if money was working again when she heard a crackling sort of sound in the living room.
She wandered in carrying her dish towel and a wet dish to dry when she heard the crackling of a radio and staticy voice responding. There was Matt, his leg propped on the coffee table and the guts of several machines around them and jury-rigged machine in front of him. "Who is that?"
Matt looked up his eyes shining with excitement, "It's the Warlock! He's okay!"
"You contacted your friend?" Holly's excitement faded into a confused disappointment.
Matt flushed a bit and looked away, "sorry, I um, it's just he really helped us out and I wanted to make sure he was okay. And well he was fixin' to give me the details about what is going on out in the city."
"Okay well we really need to know about food. We're really low."
"Uh yeah, no problem." Matt pressed a comm that looked like it was originally been a head set and static crackled to life. "Hey, Warlock what's going on in the city with food? We're running out up here."
"Yeah, there's some kind of food bank, but there's still a lot rubble. The looting was really bad at first but the National Guard is out here now and it's not so bad."
"Yeah? What's the location closest to umm?" Matt glanced at Holly who mouthed their location to Matt who relayed it to Freddie.
"Well the closest one is about 15 miles. But you should try and reach someone on the radio. You guys are bona fided heroes and I suspect that you will be able to get some food from some where. There's some chatter on the emergency channel they're getting the power back up in pieces, major things like water processing and pumping was first and the natural gas is the next priority so that people can cook."
"How long is the clean up estimate?"
"Months! Dude they think another six weeks until they have enough temporary sub stations to power the Northeast adequately. They've managed to get power to certain areas, the water pumping plants, hospitals, that kinda thing but residents have been right out. It's incredible, I'm even off line! No gas for the generators, only thing we got right now is the solar panels so I've been using sunlight. But shit, that's barely enough to heat the water and run the microwave."
"Yeah well right now we're cooking over a fire so I feel no pity. I don't know how charged these batteries are do you have any channels for the government stuff? I should talk to something about food, I don't know how'd we would get 15 miles, the tank is about dry on the cars we have."
"Yeah. Okay Dude, this is what I got."
It took Matt longer than he thought to find someone who knew who he was and more importantly who John was. Finally Matt was able to reach someone who could help and a convoy that was taking food to Red Cross center they would be passing less than a mile away and while they wouldn't divert but were willing to stop and give them supplies.
John and Lucy went, John for credibility and Lucy to help carry everything. They had enough supplies now to last the next few weeks and Matt managed to hook up a hand crank and could run the radio without batteries. He had almost finished his latest project which was building a connection to charge a large battery. He had gotten the idea from Soylent Green. Not the whole people eating thing ewww but the bicycle that the people used to help produce power was not bad at all. Matt had scavenged a car battery and managed to hook it up to the microwave so that they could do some basic cooking or to the radio if necessary. Soon the bicycle hook up will be ready and they will have a way to recharge the battery and also hook it up to the microwave itself.
It was well into August and Matt didn't know with the advent of global climate change was going to affect the weather this year as warmer or colder. Last year was unseasonably warm but they were predicting unusually cold for the coming season from a shift El Nino. They had also managed to contact someone about John Jr who was apparently fine and deployed out west helping with some of the chaos generated there.
Matt could tell that John was getting antsy. John was well on the way to being healed and the cop in him wanted to be out there helping to clean up the mess. So far the chaos that prevented John from contacting the precinct had helped keep him home but now that things felt calmer John wanted out there. Matt stayed in contact with the Warlock and was worried about raiders but they had remained unscathed so far. Matt was hoping that John's baser instincts would keep him in the area until the power was at least restored. Matt had to admit that of all of them John had transitioned into the life of wood chopping and cold showers better than any of them, even with his bum shoulder.
Matt was putting the finishing touches on his recharging system when the doorbell rang. Neighbors of Hollie's had come by occasionally to request help or ask if they wanted to come with on a convoy to the city. Matt could tell that most of them didn't have the first clue about how to survive and were lost on a lot of things. Most didn't even know how to start a fire or cook the dried beans that FEMA had been handing out.
Matt just figured it was something like that so he was surprised when he opened the door and was looking at Agent Bowman "Oh, uh, Hi?" Matt wasn't sure how to respond to the agent's presence. Surely they hadn't tracked him down to arrest him at this point, right?
"Hello Matt. Can I come in?"
"Oh, yeah, sure come on in." Matt held the door for him and then limped in slowly after him.
"How's the leg?"
"What? Oh, yeah the leg, it's you know fine really. Well it hurts sometimes, but I was lucky you know. Pretty clean hit, no bone or tendon damage, it was like a one in a thousand shot."
"Where's McClane?"
"Oh they went out, gather wood, set some snares in the back woods half a mile from here. They all went, but with my limp I woulda just slowed them down." Matt decided that he wasn't about to be arrested so he was relatively safe at this point and he settled back next to the bicycle and started to tinker again. He had hoped to have it finished before they got back and having Agent Bowman show up wasn't going to change things if he could help it. Matt picked up a screw driver, "so what are you here for?"
"Well, I actually came to talk to John, and I thought he would know where you were didn't think you would actually be here."
"Yeah well, after the hospital kicked us out Lucy pretty much hijacked both of us and we woke up here. With my apartment blown up and the gas tanks dry I was pretty much stranded. No one's complained, I've managed to pull my own weight."
"Yeah, what is that you're building?"
"Oh well when it's finished we'll be able to attach it to the car battery and re-charge it. We've been using that battery to power the microwave, the washer, that kinda thing. So after John told you where I was what were you going to ask me?"
"Well, the President wants to put a public face on the re-building effort, your face, McClane's face. We're offering you jobs."
It was a sweet deal really. They were starting to return electricity to regular service in parts of the Northeast and the chaos was finally starting to get under control. There was work of course but the money was good. There was going to be a lot of public appearances, which involved shaving and looking decent but honestly considering the fact that they were going to provided him a room to stay in and he was going to help pick up the electronic pieces of what happened it was great for his karma. Matt could honestly say that John was not as pleased with the job. Unfortunately John was the one that really didn't have a choice. "Damn monkey suits! Do they honestly think this is a good use of our time? What is wearing a damn tux gonna do to help America?"
Matt honestly didn't feel obligated to respond but rather busy getting the tv up and running. Satisfied he sat back on his heels and turned the tv onto a station from Oregon. John's ranting was stopped as he was distracted by the news crew that was reporting from New York. "How in the world are you picking up a station from Oregon?"
Matt just tossed a 'who do you think I am?' look over his shoulder and John seemed to pick up on it but focused on the news as they started to survey the area. with a chopper. "Jesus." The screen was filled with images that looked like something that John had seen from Bosnia or some other war torn country. "Jesus." John said mostly because it beared repeating.
"Woah. Wait. Quiet, did you hear that?"
"What?"
"Shhh!" Matt turned up the sound and John listened as the news reporter did a voice over. "The power is suppose to be up for residents in the next two or three days. One of the problems faced in the re-building effort is the fact that most of the prisons in the area failed and now to complicate the re-building was the looting and they are now faced with having to round up all those escaped convicts again once the prisons are back up and running. Right now with the break down in the whole Northeast anyone caught committing a crime or a suspected escaped prisoner are shipped to the South where they are processed and temporarily jailed until they can be tried. They estimate that some 10,000 convicts are still on the loose-" Matt turned off the tv.
"Hey! What was that for?"
Matt's voice was flat and emotionless. "It was draining the battery." John watched Matt's eyes go blank and watched Matt as he limped out. John didn't say anything he suspected that it had something to do with the conversation that he had overheard the other night.
Lucy walked in and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "What's with Matt?"
"I dunno we got the TV on and the news was talking about escaped convicts and he just went all quiet and upset." John didn't feel bad about his little innocent act, he'd interrogated enough suspects to know some of the more subtle ways to get information. That little lead in would probably yield information of some kind.
Sure enough Lucy's eyes widened and she whispered in a shocked sort of gasp, "Frankie."