Loose ends

He finished up the bandaging and smiled at the little boy who eyed him with deep suspicion. He supposed he couldn't really blame the boy. For so long people had insisted on living out here on the fringes. He wasn't entirely sure why. There were no amenities and few opportunities. What he remembered of life in the city centers was clean and comfortable, if not always as pleasant or uneventful as he might have wished. Life out here was anything but easy. If he hadn't been here, the simple infection that had set into a scratch on the boy's arm might have claimed his life. The wound had been heading towards blood poisoning, but luckily, there had been a good supply of antibiotics among the medical supplies that had been found in the prison he had been in. He had caught it in time.

He nodded to the boy's mother.

"Keep it clean for the next couple of days and he should be fine." The doctor said with a nod as the woman scooped up her kid. "Then again, he is a kid, so that is easier said than done anywhere, let alone here."

The woman smiled at him and then left the room. He wasn't sure where he was. He had been blindfolded for the trip and it had taken some time. He had smelled things that he dearly wished he could forget, heard things that would haunt him, but when the blindfold had come off, he had found himself in this underground complex. It was dark, wet and more than a bit on the cold side. But it was also filled with humans. Men, woman, children, at least a hundred humans packed into this place, whatever it had been. He had seen signs that said Track 6 and Track 8. So, some kind of old train station? He wasn't sure. History wasn't really his thing.

"Doc?" A familiar voice sounded and he smiled as Kerry came in. The girl was perhaps thirteen, although it was hard to tell. She was so small and thin. His heart liked to break when he saw her, but her smile could light the room. She wasn't sick, just starved. She had taken over as his secretary when Valere had gone back out.

"Kos will be fine." The doctor said with a low moan as he stretched. "Although I have no idea what we will do when we run out of antibiotics." He stiffened as Kerry's face closed a little.

"We will do what we did before you came." She said quietly. "We will go on."

"Kerry..." He trailed off. The people who ran this place did not like it when he spoke out about the conditions here. "I worry. Not just for myself and Ana. But you are good people."

"All we can do is go on, Doc." Kerry said with a shrug. Her face was far too old for her years. "None of us are giving up." She shook her head. "I got Ana to eat."

"You did?" The doc perked up. "Thank god. I was so worried. When she didn't wake and then when she refused to eat, I worried a lot. I fear what they did to her. They messed me up badly and she was so hurt before. There was no way she could resist it. She was never a fighter."

"Are you sure?" Kerry asked. The doctor stared at her and she shook her head. "Doc, I have seen such scars before."

The wounds on Ana's chest were distinctive. Nothing her knew of that was human made caused wounds like that. There was little chance Advent hadn't done it to her. The wounds should have killed her, nearly did kill her. But he had helped her.

"I don't know who she was before she came into my care." The doctor admitted. "But I put her back together and she is a good person. A good friend. She didn't deserve this."

"Yeah-" Kerry started to say more and then both stiffened as a shout came from nearby.

"Doc!" A strong male voice sounded and both hurried out to horror. Two men held a limp bloody mass in their hands.

"Oh no." Kerry gasped as they laid their burden on the floor and it resolved into Valere.

"Not there!" The doctor snapped. He spun and growled. Every surface in the area was filthy.

"Here." Kerry said and swept a tattered blanket over the floor. The men moved Valere onto it. It was still nasty, but it was cleaner than the floor.

"What happened?" The doctor snapped as he started his examination. Valere was bleeding from three places. Arm, leg and head. The arm and leg wounds were bad, but the head wound worried him. They always bled a lot, but it looked deeper than the others. If whatever had hit her had hit her brain

"We were scouting, scavenging." The man said with a nod. "We found an old military truck with stuff inside. She told us to pack up what we could and she went to keep watch. We were clearing the area when she screamed. They caught her out in the open. She tried to run and they shot her. We couldn't get to her until they left!"

"Advent." The doctor had seen wounds like this many times since arriving. But it didn't make any sense. The girl knew better than to carry a weapon, didn't she? "Why? Was she armed?"

"They don't care." The man snapped. Kerry glared at him and he shook his head. "She wasn't. Out here? You obey them instantly or you die. Simple as that. She didn't. She tried to run, to lead them away from us. They shot her and left her to bleed out." That wasn't right. That couldn't be right. The doctor snarled at himself and focused on the sorely hurt girl.

"Out." The doctor snapped as he started reaching for the basin in which he kept his small supply of boiled water.

"What can I do?" Kerry asked as the doctor started cleaning his hands. He wished for gloves, but he might as well wish for a fully equipped trauma center. He knew. He knew as soon as he saw her head injury that he couldn't save her. But he had to try.

"If you are religious? Pray."


An hour later

He hated this. He hated it when he failed. He slumped as he stared at the slack features and then slowly, with a trembling hand, pulled the sheet over Valere's face. She had been kind to him, even though it was clear from the very beginning that she did not trust him entirely. Even with that, she had been kind to both him and Ana.

And now she was gone.

He didn't know how old she had been. She hadn't been over twenty, that was perfectly clear. She had never seen the world before Unification. But she had seen so much, survived so much. To be gunned down and left to die… Something was very wrong here. Advent didn't do that. They would have taken her, rehabilitated her, tried to anyway. She would have resisted, but… she would have been alive!

"Doctor?" A familiar voice sounded from nearby. "You did everything you could."

"It wasn't enough, Imam Robinson." The doctor stared at the shrouded form in front of him, not looking at what passed for the spiritual leader here. "I could have saved her. With proper gear and proper help, I could have saved her. If I… If only… Any clinic in any city center would have been able to save her!"

"She would not have thanked you for such. She treasured her freedom." The other said quietly. He wasn't a nice man on most occasions, but the doctor had realized quickly that he was a good man, if strict. He was scrupulously fair and he did not demand that others believe what he did. That put him ahead of many religious persons that the doctor remembered both from reading and from meeting them. "She is free now." He laid a hand on the still form and muttered something in what was probably doc didn't know Arabic from Swahili, so it might have been rude words for all he knew.

"That doesn't help. She can't hear you." The doctor said wearily. The Imam looked at him and the doctor flushed. "I am sorry. I just..."

"You fought hard and well. You were over matched. Death is the most relentless of humanity's foes." The sort of cleric said quietly. The doctor wasn't entirely clear on what an Imam was. A cleric? A wise man? Some kind of guide? It didn't make a lot of sense to the doctor who had spent most of his life ignoring religion. "The words are not for her. Either there is a life after this one or there is not. Either way, she is no longer bound here. She is not in pain now, Doctor. We are."

"I know." The doctor said quietly. "We are lessened by her loss. She was a good person. What… What will you do with her...?" He stumbled over the words and then continued. "Her body?" He froze as the Imam looked at him. "You wouldn't!"

"No. We are not cannibals." The Imam said severely. "And I would thank you not to put such ideas into the heads of the children." The doctor winced. That wouldn't be good, no. They were scared enough most of the time as it was.

"Such has happened." The doctor said slowly. The Imam looked away. "Here?"

"Not here." The cleric said heavily. "But yes, it has happened. Many times, many places. Hunger is hard to ignore, especially for the desperate and the dead feel nothing. The thing is, it is not always violent or non-consensual. There have been tales for millennia from any cultures about parents or grandparents who sacrificed all for their well being of their children. Even their own flesh."

"I… cannot believe that." The doctor said wearily.

"Humans have done strange things for those we love throughout our history." The Imam said with a shrug. "You need rest."

"I should..." The doctor winced as he looked at his gore smeared tools. "I need to clean up." Cleaning his tools would be hard enough if he did it now. If he waited and the blood dried? Ouch.

"Do you want some help?" The Imam asked and the doctor froze. "I too detest failing my flock."

"I…" The doctor nodded, smiled a little sadly and started gathering up his things. "I would be honored."

There was a stream that ran through one of the tunnels nearby and while it was cold, it would serve to clean the tools until he could do a more thorough cleaning with boiled water and what soap was available. The Imam gathered the rest, bundling it into a blanket. Both left the room in silence. Outside, the area was quiet, hushed. Several men stood nearby, their heads bowed.

"He did everything he could." The Imam said sadly. "It wasn't enough. Our sister Valere has gone. Her body must be laid to rest far from here. In'Shallah."

A murmur from several religions followed the Imam's words. One made a gesture that it took a moment for the doctor to recognize as the sign of a cross.

"She had a favorite place." One of the men said quietly. "A little grove of trees. We will take her there and leave her to the elements."

"You won't bury her?" The doctor asked and then he made a face. "I am a fool. Of course you can't."

If Advent were in the area and simply gunning people down, then half a dozen men in one place at one time was a ripe target. They had already lost one, they didn't need to lose any more people who could scavenge. Not everyone in the underground facility could.

"There are natural hollows there, Doc." The man who had spoke said quietly. "We can put her in one, drop a tree on it. Not a proper grave, but she always liked trees."

"Yeah. She did." The doctor said quietly as he started off for the tunnel that he knew led to the stream. He and the Imam walked in silence and he was glad for that. He needed time to come to grips with this. Advent didn't just shoot people in his experience. They didn't. So something else was going on.

"You know them." The Imam said quietly as they walked. The doctor thought about that for a moment and then sighed.

"I thought I did. But this? No." He shook his head. "I always worked to save lives. To help people. That is what I did. Yes, I worked for them." He said quietly as they entered the tunnel. "Will you kill me now?"

"Pragmatism says we probably should. Or at least kick you out." The Imam said with a frown as he laid the bundle he carried down by the water. The doctor nodded and found the soap. He started scrubbing his tool. "But you have helped here a great deal." He held out a hand and the doctor handed the soap to the man. "And anyone who might think you evil hasn't seen you with your friend Ana." His grim visage cracked for a moment with a small smile. The doctor had his hands full with Ana. Keeping her clean, keeping her fed, keeping fluids in her, it was all a never ending challenge. But if Kerry had managed to coax Ana to eat, then there was hope.

"My memory is a chaotic jumble." The doctor said with a sigh as he finished up with the scalpels and started on the probes. "I thought I was doing good. I remember that. But was I? I don't know. I don't remember what I did. I remember helping Ana, but other than that? I have no idea why I was imprisoned, why they hurt me, hurt Ana."

"One man's good is another man's evil." The Imam said with a nod as he started rinsing the towels. "If I know nothing else, I know that." The doctor looked at him and the Imam shook his head. "Before the aliens came, I was not a good man. I was not a man of the Book no matter what I said. At best I was a soldier, at worst? A thug."

"You don't need to tell me." The doctor said quickly.

"I am old." The cleric said with growl. "Few today have ever heard of Hamas or Hezbullah and that is a very good thing. History can be good or it can be a horror. Some of the things I did as a youth stained my very soul, but they also taught me how to survive when things got worst. I too sought to help, but my vocation was always more violent than yours. Until the end times and I found a better way." He chortled a little. "Allah has a very strange sense of humor though. Half of my initial flock was Israeli. If my cell leader could see me now..." The doctor didn't really know what that meant. Israel had been a country, pre- Unification, right? But the sentiment he did understand.

"My instructors despaired of me learning. I so sure I knew it all that I was too busy to learn what I didn't know." The doctor said with a smile. It faded. "They… They called me 'Cooper'? Was that a family name or a first name? I don't know." He focused, but the memory faded again. He sighed and worked to wash his gear.

"It will come when it comes or it will not" The old cleric replied. "In'shallah."

"I do not believe what you believe." The doctor replied, working hard to keep his temper in check. "I won't."

"No one is demanding you do that." The other replied as he finished up with the towels and laid them out to dry. "One of many things we have learned since the fall." The doctor finished his cleaning and packed his tools into a small bag that rarely left his side. The Imam nodded to him. "Get some rest." The elderly man said with a nod. "We will have a meeting later. You need to know, there are those who have spoken out about Ana."

"She is a drain." The doctor said quietly. "She does not contribute. I know."

"Neither do children." The Imam replied. "But they are the future. Ana is a harder one to judge. If she recovers, all well and good. But even then..." He trailed off as the doctor groaned.

"She is blind." The doctor finished. "She won't be able to do as much as the others."

"You might be surprised." The Imam replied. "One of my first group was blind and he was incredibly useful. His ears were better than anyone else's and he could hear enemies walking through the tunnels long before we could see their light or her them ourselves. She is only as 'disabled' as she decides to be." He made the word 'disabled' a curse.

"Kerry got her to eat, so that is something." The doctor said with a nod. "I will go check on her and like you say. I will get some rest."

"We will have a memorial for Valere in a few hours." The Imam nodded as the doctor headed out. "Be there. There are many who will want to talk to you."

"I have no idea what to say." The doctor admitted. "I barely knew her."

"You fought for her." The cleric replied. "Just be honest. That will be enough."

The doctor made his way back into the main corridors. People nodded as he passed, some offered smiles, but everyone was sad. He knew why. No one spoke as he made his way tot he small chamber that served as his home. At the door, he froze as sounds came from inside. Sobbing?

He pushed aside the curtain that closed off the old railway car and stepped into the room, Broken sunlight pushed down through mostly intact windows up far above to slant the room in odd shadows most of the time. He was sure that some kind of mirrors were used to angle it, but he had never seen them. He had never been out of these main rooms. What met his eyes was not all that surprising. Kerry knelt, her head bowed and her face streaming tears. Ana held her gently. What was surprising was the bluish purple energy that was coruscating from Ana's empty eye sockets and covering Kerry's skull.

"What?" The doctor gasped and Ana's face came up. Her face was utterly blank as the energy reached out to him.

You have done well. These will serve well. The voice wasn't Ana! It was… Suddenly, he couldn't move or cry out! You are sad. Sleep now.

He barely felt Kerry and Ana ease him to the floor. He felt the energy seeping through his mind and he screamed silently as he was submerged in it.