Kite kōiwi
(See for oneself)
Tobias had been a bit of an arse really, he had taken his time in telling her how long she'd been out to it. At first he'd said it was only a week. Turned out it was over a month… several weeks over a month!
Regardless, given the situation, what she'd seen, what was going on, it didn't really matter much how long she'd been out. Chances were, she was probably better off having coma-ed through most of it.
She felt like a ghost drifting long the basement corridors of a building long since past. She wondered about the people who built this. Did they truly believe that the "commies" would nuke them? Did they think this place would withstand a 2 megaton nuke? Or whatever yield they had on hand in the 50s. It certainly had that golden day charm. Half expecting a woman with short curly hair and a boofy skirt and one of those pink frilly aprons carrying a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip biscuits. She could certainly go for some of them right now… but chances are she'd never lay eyes, or hands, on a warm, tasty smelling bikkie. Damn those fucking machines.
It was a rather unpleasant smell that met her as she entered into one of the communal rooms. A mob of at least eight children came running over, grabbing her, wrapping their skinny arms about her, patting her pockets.
"You got any chocolate, ma'am?"
One of them asked, his scruffy black hair covered his eyes.
"Yeah, what about chips? I want BBQ chicken flavour".
Another said, a small girl, maybe 6 years?
"HEY! You lot! Leave her alone, right?"
A man walked over fussing at their youthful excitement.
"Nah, don't worry about it, ay. They're just kids".
She said calmly.
"Yeah, okay, but you need to see Toby".
He seemed polite but his tone of voice indicated he probably wasn't making a suggestion.
"Right-oh".
She said and turned to the door, the man walking along side her. He gently pushed through the throng of immature humanity and they were back in those horrid green pastel halls.
The corridors were certainly lengthy, they walked in relative silence but he appeared to be in a hurry.
"You gotta name?"
She asked momentarily.
"Sure".
He replied.
"You gonna tell me?"
She looked at him noting a stain on the wall as they moved along.
"Why bother? I'll be dead soon enough that it won't have ever mattered".
"Oh… okay then".
She decided not to push the issue.
Thankfully they reached Toby's "office", and he banged on the door before wandering off in another direction. A voice from inside gave her instruction to enter.
"Hey, Marie! Come in. You're looking a heck of a lot better".
Shutting the door behind her she walked into the room.
Toby was standing at a table with two other men. One looked familiar the other she'd never seen before.
"This is Sparkplug".
He motioned to the man she thought she recognised. He looked at her with the same expression – that'd he'd seen her before.
"And this is Muhammad".
The obviously Middle Eastern man nodded.
"Marie here's a nurse, how lucky are we?"
Toby grinned.
"We could use a trained medic, after what those beasts have been doing".
Sparkplug noted.
"I heard a rumour they're killing doctors and cops, basically anyone in uniform".
She stated.
"Yeah, that's true. At first it looked like they were just taking out cops and army personnel, but its' obviously in their best interest to wipe out our medical professionals. You lot can patch us back together and send us back out there to take pot shots at those fucking things, medics are good for the resistance and they know it!"
Sparkplug continued
"So, why am I here? You want me to start setting up first aide workshops?"
She raised an eyebrow, a simple query not a suggestion of intent.
"Well, we would like you to try and train a few of our members; however we have more pressing matters. We've got a lot of injuries coming in. Our members are doing a lot of recon at the moment, and they have a habit of finding people who've been hurt".
Sparkplug stated.
"The other issue we have is our hygiene problems. You're a nurse; you might be able to give us a few suggestions as to what we can do to prevent some horrid outbreak. Not to mention, we want you to create a list of vital supplies, medicines and such that we can look for in the ruins".
Muhammad explained.
"Sparkplug and Muhammad are members of other resistance cells, they don't have any medics at the moment, but they're closer to the action so we wouldn't put you in their facilities for risk of loosing you".
"Ah… that's flattering, in a creepy possessive kind of way".
"Look, lady, you seem like a nice girl, facial tats and all, but we don't have proper medics, those robotic sadists are bringing a whole new world of death to humanity and we don't' have time for you to feel uncomfortable about what role we put you in. I mean hell, you think this time last year I was thinking of being in a resistance movement against invading alien robots?"
Sparkplug growled, resting his big hairy hands on the wobbly table in front of him.
"Sorry".
She didn't know what else to add to that statement.
"Okay, now I know we said we weren't going to dump you in it, but there's a small base near by and we need you go to there and check on some injured people. But we think they're too unstable to bring them here and their not that close to any action. You think you can do that? Muhammad will take you".
The problem with the English accent, no matter what he said, or how dangerous it would be, he still sounded like a gentlemen asking for another spoon of sugar in his tea.
"Ahhh… shit. Okay, let's get it over with".
She looked to her guide for the day.