In the Hall of the Mountain King – Grace's Tale
Author's note: This originally came from my #ClaytonLives story, a story that suffered from a failure to launch, so I decided to re-work the basic ideas and here it is. This is for the LJ 60 prompts in 60 days: Serendipity
Written before SDCC sizzle-reel was released so spoiler-free
Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this one-shot.
I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.
Grace stood up from The Tower's infirmary floor and held her head in her hands, her thin nimble fingers digging themselves into her wiry hair at her temples. She was not having the best of days. In fact, she wouldn't hesitate to classify today as – in the words of her youngest son's favorite bedtime story – a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." Yes, she had been able to meet the brilliant programmer Aaron Pittman; the one Ben had been telling her about for years. However, he wasn't quite the genius she was expecting – complaining about IP theft and being oblivious in general.
Then Rachel asked to talk to her, trying to use Danny to guilt her into letting her turn on the power. Grace tried to help Rachel find a better way of coping, even bringing up Xander and Jamie's deaths, but it was no use. The ruthless bitch in the body of her old friend chloroformed her. Chloroformed her!
How in the world did Rachel find the small bottle of chloroform in the well-stocked infirmary cabinets? Grace had lived in The Tower for a month and didn't know they had chloroform. Grace knew for certain Rachel had used chloroform as she could still smell the residual sickly sweet odor – she had used chloroform as a solvent in Organic Chemistry – and she still had a pounding headache.
Grace raced out of the infirmary, needing to let someone know what Rachel had done, and ran into a group of militiamen.
One of the militiamen smugly said, "Don't I know you?"
Grace searched her memories; this was the militia captain who had taken that poor asthmatic boy-prisoner she had found late last summer. Grace was still haunted some nights as she tried to fall asleep by the betrayed look that boy had given her as the captain took him into custody.
Grace eyed the half dozen militiamen and sighed. She slowly raised her hands into the universal surrender position and captain nodded to toffee-skinned young man on his left. The young man looked a bit battered – lacerations on his temple and cheek – but promptly he transferred his rifle to his right hand and grabbed her shoulder firmly with his left.
The captain asked her, "So, is there an elevator around here Miss?"
Grace reluctantly nodded and gave him directions. She remembered that he was a hard man, a fact she had gleaned in their brief meeting all those months ago. Hard, wily, with keen skills of observation – in short, not someone to try to bullshit.
They reached the elevator and the captain turned to her and said, "Now, I remember, you took in the Matheson boy."
Grace took a step back, running into the battered young militiaman. That boy had been Danny?!
The captain chuckled heartily, and Grace couldn't help but hear maniacal undertones to the laughter.
The captain said, "You didn't know? Here I thought you were part of some cabal. And instead it's a case of coincidence."
The captain must have seen some repressed grimace at the cabal comment, and said "Oh really, you are?"
Grace grimaced for real and said, "D.O.D. contractor. Former. Dr. Grace Beaumont."
The captain nodded and said, "I thought you was lying about being an Algebra teacher. I'm General Neville."
The elevator dinged, announcing its arrival. The militiamen packed into the elevator like a liquid crystal array at cold temperatures, leaving a full half for the new general, Grace, and the battered guard. The ride down to Level 12 was blessedly silent.
Grace enjoyed the silence and pondered her unwitting role in getting Rachel and Ben's son killed. She wondered if she would have fought harder for the boy had she known, and decided that no, she would have still let the militia take the boy. There wasn't anything she could do against a whole troop of militiamen, and she had had to protect the pendant. No one made it through The Dying Time right after The Blackout with untarnished consciences.
The elevator arrived at Level 12, and the doors opened. Grace hung back, allowing the militiamen to file out around her. She didn't know exactly where Dan Jenkins' men were, but they were bound to be around here somewhere, and she didn't want to be caught in the crossfire.
The militiamen lead by General Neville turned the corner and the general said, "Please, don't try to run, Ms. Matheson. I'd hate to have to shoot you. You see, I promised my boy I'd keep you alive. Don't make me a liar."
Aaron Pittman said, panting, provoked in a very un-genius like manner, "Yeah 'cause you're such an honest person." They say you should never meet your heroes, and Grace supposed in this case, it was true. Such a disappointment.
General Neville said firmly, "Now, you're coming with us. And you are going to forget about the power once and for all."
Grace watched General Neville motion some of the militiamen to take Rachel and Aaron, when she heard gunshots. The militiamen shouted, and Grace's adrenal glands shot into overdrive pumping her small frame full of epinephrine. She did the only wise thing she could do; she ducked back into the elevator, seeking cover, wondering who this third party was. They weren't armed with coil guns, so they were not likely to be Jenkins' men. Maybe more of Rachel's friends?
The firefight quickly moved away from the elevator and towards the Command and Control Center, the brain of The Tower. Grace heard the slamming of a heavy security door. Crap. Rachel must have gotten in. The general shouted some orders and Grace realized she needed to get some Tower personnel down here, now. Grace knew if she took the elevator the militiamen would figure out she had split, so she scurried swiftly through the halls to the east stairwell. It was a good thing The Tower was designed with each floor having the same basic hallway layout; otherwise she'd be pretty lost. Each floor was a four-leaf clover with each of the lobes of the clover bisected by other, smaller hallways. Two of the lobes were bisected along the North-South plane, and the others were bisected along the East-West plane – a real maze.
Grace reached the stairwell and logged up, breathing evenly and counting each half-floor of stairwell as she went. She was panting by the time she had scaled ten half-floors. She paused, hands on head, chest bellowing. Even after a month of acclimation, it was hard to catch your breath at 6,000 feet. She pushed open the door to Level 7. Seven had the infirmary, the main guard-post, and a large hydroponics garden. As she walked briskly towards the guard-post and turned down the central North-South corridor, she saw a woman lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the hallway.
Grace ran over and checked her pulse. Non-existent. She looked at the woman. She had sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes. Grace supposed she'd be stunning if she wasn't battered and, you know, dead. She'd never seen her before, so she wasn't Tower personnel, and her clothes announced she wasn't militia either. That left one of Rachel's friends. Sad.
Grace stood up and started walking towards the guard-post. She got maybe 10 yards away before turning around. She could try something. And she could try to make it up to Rachel for her unwitting role in Danny's capture and eventual death.
Grace ran to the guard-post and alerted the boys there of the intruders – most of them were only 14 or 15, born during the post-Blackout baby-boom – and requested one of them help her move a body to the infirmary. The woman wasn't as heavy as the asthmatic boy-prisoner – no, Danny – had been, but she didn't want to risk doing further damage to the wound by dragging her.
They carried the young woman over, and the boy swiped Grace in. They placed the woman down on a cot and turned heel to return to their post.
Grace grabbed the AED off of the wall and turned it on. She followed the system prompts, cutting off the woman's shirt and placing the pads on the woman's chest. She noticed a well-worn St. Michael's medallion around the woman's neck; she must be Catholic. The AED instructed her to begin CPR and luckily, several compressions in, she managed to restart the woman's heart. The AED reported that the heart rhythm was unstable and then shocked the woman. In less than two minutes, the young woman's heartbeat was stable, and Grace left her lying on the cot. She opened one of the deli-counter style refrigerators and pulled out a bag of plasma. She didn't know the woman's blood type, but this would help.
Just as she made it back to the prone woman's form, the lights went out and the constant drone of the ventilation system ceased. Crap, that was unexpected; I wonder what Rachel did. Grace spared a moment to curse before resting the bag of plasma on the woman's body and lighting several candles.
Grace was as close to an Omnidisciplinary Scientist as it got in real life. She was a certified EMT-B; she had worked as an EMT to put herself through community college, originally planning on becoming a nurse like her grandma, but had fallen in love with computers instead.
By candlelight, Grace swabbed the woman's arm and inserted an IV, rapidly attaching the bag of plasma. She moved the candles closer to the side of the cot and revealed the wound. She pulled out a box of gloves, sterilization solution, and a paramedic's suture-kit. She slid on a pair of gloves and she rubbed her gloved hands and the wound down with the sterilization solution.
She took a deep breath; this next step she was less comfortable with. She slid her hand into the wound and poked around trying to feel for a torn liver. She couldn't; whether this was from her own lack of experience or good luck on the part of the woman, Grace didn't know. Grace began suturing the abdominal wound closed, her stitches were less than beautiful, but should get the job done.
Maybe 30 tense minutes later, Grace pulled off her gloves, carefully rolling them off and inside out and then moped her brow with the back of her forearm. Grace murmured a soft prayer and then grabbed a candle. She rummaged around in the infirmary drawers looking for an EMT rapid blood type test. She found one and used a cotton-tipped swab to smear it with blood from the wound.
While waiting for the anti-bodies to react, Grace checked over the woman – checking heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and for any signs of internal damage. Her heartbeat was rapid, and the blood pressure was quite low, even with the added plasma. Her breaths were similarly low and rapid. Otherwise, she seemed fine.
Grace checked the blood type test; the woman was A-positive. Grace went back to the deli-style fridge and grabbed two units of A-positive blood. Who knew what Rachel had done to the nanites, and without electricity and refrigeration the blood would just go bad. Grace swapped out the almost empty bag of plasma for one of the units of blood. She gave it a squeeze starting the flow, and then injected a large dose of preventive antibiotics and morphine into the IV line.
Grace had done as much as she could for now and went looking for Kim, candle in hand. She knew Kim Brown from the D.O.D. days, and had reconnected with her in the month since Dan Jenkins rescued her. Kim was the unofficial den mother for all of The Tower personnel and could be counted on to know what's the what.
Grace found Kim and Billy Jenkins mourning on the eighth floor. Apparently one of Rachel's friends, or maybe Rachel herself, had blown Dan and his A-list team to bitty bits. Grace figured it wouldn't be the best time to bring up the fact that she had found one of Rachel's friends and she was recovering in the infirmary. Grace simply asked if they had figured out what was wrong with the power and if they had a game plan for evacuations. Grace was told shortly that she'd be kept in the loop and Kim turned back to comforting Dan Jenkins' son.
Grace stopped by the barracks and grabbed her pendant and a book. She really should keep an eye on the young woman, just in case her heart failed again or some such.
Grace had remembered to prop open the infirmary door and went over to the young woman and checked her vitals. Her blood pressure was certainly getting better. Grace pulled out her pendant and turned in on. It clicked and whirred but the lights stayed off and none of the infirmary equipment turned on. What had Rachel done?!
Grace sighed and lay down on a nearby cot. She opened up her book and began to reread Northanger Abbey by candlelight. It was her favorite Jane Austen book, such deliciously tongue-in-cheek commentary, and it really felt like Jane was talking directly to you. Also it was one of the few literary books in The Tower's collection. The kids must have a rather skewed view of mankind.
Grace had just gotten to the part where John Thorpe and his sister first reveal themselves to be such cads, when one of the Peters – three sets of The Tower personnel had had sons 13 or 14 years ago and had all named them Peter – opened the infirmary door.
"We're gonna have a meeting in 30 minutes in the main room," he said before running off to his next destination.
Grace checked on the woman's vitals and thought it would be nice to know her name so she could stop referring to her as "the young woman." Any who, the young woman's heart rate had slowed to a more normal speed and her pulse didn't feel weak anymore. Grace squeezed the almost empty blood bag and put on another pair of gloves. Grace checked the wound for seepage; it looked raw and her stitches were quite uneven, but it wasn't bleeding hardly at all. Grace wiped the wound down again with the sterilization solution and wrapped the wound with sterile gauze.
Before leaving for the meeting, she swapped out the empty bag of blood for the second unit. It was probably over-kill, but better than not-enough-kill, right? Grace thought about how she would bring up the woman at the meeting, and how she would convince The Tower personnel to keep her alive. Rachel was likely to be on everyone's shit list – killing Dan Jenkins and his men and turning off the power in The Tower – and her friend just as much so.
Grace glanced back at the woman and thought, I don't who know you are or what your story is, but I'll try to keep you alive just the same.
Grace entered the main living room, the same eating-sleeping-growing-meeting place she had introduced Rachel to The Tower personnel. There were more people in the room than when they greeted Rachel, but paradoxically it felt emptier. Perhaps it was because she knew that the missing people were gone gone, not just not here. Grace joined the crowd sitting at the tables and waited for Kim Brown to start. With Dan Jenkins and his A-list gone, she was the only one with enough charisma to pull everyone together.
Clots of Tower survivors sat around the room in candlelight, on the stairs, on the beds, talking quietly, waiting. Eventually, Kim Brown stood up in front of the forty-odd survivors and cleared her throat.
Kim Brown said, "We can't stay here, not with the air re-circulators down and crazed surface-dwellers running about with weapons and explosives. We can't guard Level 12, if there is anything left to guard, if we suffocate to death. We have to get out of here, and fast. I suggest we go out the supercollider service tunnel, but after that, I don't know. Grace, you've lived on the surface, what would you suggest?"
Grace blinked a few times and stood up, feeling nervous to be so on the spot, "Well, I lived quite a ways from here, in a different nation, but everyone is more insular and clannish these days. Strangers are mistrusted, and survival is more difficult. Does anyone have family nearby? I'd suggest we try to make it to them, if they are still around, they could speak for us, help us get supplies or settled."
Grace promptly sat down and listened to the wave of murmurs. She could tell The Tower personnel thought it was insensitive to talk about family members being dead, but Dan Jenkins really had protected them from the true scale of the damage done in the early years and at the same time terrified them into remaining in The Tower, protecting Level 12 from all others.
A minute or so later, one woman spoke up, "My husband should be in Boulder. He worked at NIST." The woman paused a moment or two and continued softer, "Jenkins forbade me from bringing him in, or leaving to join him."
Kim Brown nodded, "Okay so let's head to Boulder and figure things out from there. We'll need to gather what supplies we can, while avoiding the Monroe Militia. Paulson you and your family are in charge of foodstuffs, Billy you're in charge of defense, Eric barterables, Grace medical supplies."
Phil Paulson and Eric Sanders nodded, and Billy Jenkins raised his hand. After Kim nodded at him, he said, "Our coil-guns no longer work, I suggest we scavenge conventional firearms from the militia if we can."
Kim nodded her assent, and Grace piped up, "I found an injured member of Rachel's group, I stitched her up, but I'll need help carrying her out of here."
There were a few murmurs, but less than Grace had expected, she was pleased; The Tower personnel weren't as vindictive as she had feared they would be. Kim waited for the murmurs to die down, and asked, "Peter Grey will you help Grace?" The boy nodded and Kim continued, "Let's meet at the North central stairwell in 30 minutes, everyone gather only the necessities. Let's go people." Kim ended with a soft clap, and the forty-three survivors split like children released from the last day of school.
Grace didn't really have anything of her own to worry about, she had one borrowed spare set of clothes back in one of the barracks, and asked Suzanne to grab them for her. Grace gestured to Peter Grey and they walked quickly and quietly back to the infirmary, Grace thinking about the supplies that would be needed to see the young woman to recovery, and the supplies that would be the best for barter.
Twenty-five minutes later Grace had loaded her and Peter Grey's backpacks with as much temperature-stable medical supplies as she could. She knew the antibiotics and sterile suture kits would be in high demand, and packed analgesics as well; she didn't know if poppies or willows grew around here, and at the minimum the young woman would need them.
Grace had checked on the woman's vitals and the wound. It wouldn't do her any good to be dragged about, but she was in as good of a position as Grace could get her, and it wouldn't do her any good to remain here and die alone.
Grace turned to young Peter and said, "Are you ready?"
He nodded and they lifted the woman's prone form up, and started walking towards the North central stairwell. Grace whispered a quiet prayer as they walked through the warzone the previously impervious Tower had become.
Grace, Peter, and the young woman they carried met up with rest of The Tower personnel. Kim waited a few more minutes and then did a quick head count. Once all her ducklings were accounted for, she led them up the staircase to Level 1 and through the miles long supercollider service tunnel.
Grace still thought that the linear accelerator/supercollider was an expensive waste, purchased by DOD generals who felt a need to keep up with the EU, despite the fact that it could serve no defensive purpose, and all the matter-anti-matter collision data couldn't actually be accessed by the physicists who could analyze it, but hey, at least it made a great escape path!
Kim Brown halted the motley troop by the exit of the secret service tunnel. She sent Billy Jenkins and his boys to scout as she and Phil Paulson looked at the map. Boulder was 110 miles away as the crow flies, so three or four days with good luck, and people unused to walking vast distances. When the scouts returned and proclaimed the area clear of militiamen, Kim suggested that they stay inside the tunnel and spend the night. The group assented, and Grace took the opportunity to check on the woman. Her heart rate was a bit high, and the wound showed some evidence of seepage, but her blood pressure was good, and the wound hadn't bled profusely, so things certainly could have been worse. Grace settled down on the cold cement floor beside the woman's stretcher and tried to get some sleep.
- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)