Angie woke in the same cot where Willie had recently lain, being treated for much the same things as he had been: dehydration and shock.
"Angie, it is okay. You are safe."
"Willie, you got out…" She reached for his hand, still disoriented. "How did you..."
"I ran, and found the new camp." He left out the details of falling, crawling, being picked up by humans who believed him to be a spy, who beat him and threw him in the back of their truck to bring to the rebels as a trophy. He left out the fact that he hadn't revealed the lies of the men who'd delivered him, because he believed they knew no better than to do what they did.
"Todd?" Angie struggled to sit up as she pulled on Willie's hand.
"We brought him back with us. He will be honored, not forgotten."
"Welcome back." Julie appeared, smiling, leaning down to adjust the i.v. Angie had barely noticed. "Just something to get you hydrated," she explained, "you were down about a quart and we don't want you to run dry."
"Uh-huh. I don't remember eating or drinking anything…" she recalled, hesitated, then finished, "down there."
"Even before, while Angie and Todd worked," Willie began, paused on the name, then continued with a cautious glance at Angie, "they must be fed and watered, like the lab animals." This drew a weak smile from Angie.
"Yeah, Willie," she told him, "you're a great keeper." Suddenly she grabbed his hand. "I'm so glad you got out, I'm so glad one of us got out!"
"Two of you got out," Julie corrected. Angie's face lapsed into blankness.
"Yeah," she commented vaguely, "I guess."
In the seconds of silence that followed, Willie rose to leave. "You must rest, and I must help to find out if anything has happened yet." Angie hadn't let go of his hand. "It is all right, Angie. I got out, and you got out. We could not help Todd." He squeezed her hand in what he understood to be a human gesture of support; in honesty such things didn't seem very alien to him anymore. "I am sorry I could not bring help sooner."
Angie shook her head and released his hand. "It wouldn't have mattered."
As Willie left, Julie took his place in the camp chair next to the cot and filled a glass with water from a pitcher on the small table nearby. "Here. Now that you're awake we can take out the i.v., but you're still pretty dehydrated. Keep drinking as much as you can until you're feeling back to normal."
"Normal," Angie mumbled, "yeah sure."
Julie noticed her glancing out the window on the other side of the small room. "Tyler's gone with Maggie and Elias to pick up supplies. We're stretched pretty thin, still setting up, trying to get communications set, and could only spare Mike to go Willie and Martin and his people to the old camp…"
"It's okay, Julie," Angie interrupted. "I know why he wasn't there. You know how he is, he'd have had to run point." Julie looked puzzled, so she explained, "He'd have been the first one to find me. Either way. Understand?"
That Tyler might be the first to discover Angie's body was something Julie hadn't considered. In fact there were a number of thoughts about Angie and Tyler's relationship that even their closest comrades backed away from, as if doing anything else would be an invasion of privacy.
"Yeah," she nodded at last, "I do. Now drink, or he'll find you alive but shriveled to the bone, and I'd rather not be left holding that bag, thanks. Here, let's get rid of the extra plumbing." She reached for the instrument tray next to the water pitcher, and set about removing the i.v. after her patient sat up and took the glass from her.
Angie drank carefully, remembering how she'd gulped that first water Tyler had offered her a lifetime ago. And how it had come right back up again.
"There," she offered the empty glass with exaggerated pride. "All gone."
Julie grinned and took it from her. "Good start." She set the glass down on the table and turned back to face Angie. "I told Mike and Robert it's too soon for an 'official' debriefing. But do you feel up to telling me what happened after the attack started?" She misread Angie's hesitation as exhaustion and shock. "If you'd like to wait until later that's fine."
"No," Angie told her after a moment. "It's okay, there's not much to tell. But I can give tell you all about it right now, no need to wait for one of those official meetings."
Then, she did tell Julie all about it… almost.
The converted pickup truck rattled and bounced over the dirt road. Tyler wrestled two-handed with the wheel, inwardly cursing the US Forestry department whose "management" had long ago left the access tracks in the kind of shape the Visitors would have been proud to claim credit for. Maggie's hands were clamped firmly on the door handle and whatever part of the dashboard she could grip; in back, Elias held on to the sides of the truck bed for dear life and prayed not to be crushed by the shifting cargo. When the radio, an old-school police model, crackled to life, Maggie was reluctant to give up even one handhold to grab the handset.
"Well you don't expect me to get it, do you?" Tyler barked as he managed (not) to avoid yet another knot of roots that jutted up from nowhere. "Christ if we get back with all four wheels it'll be a fucking miracle."
Maggie dug her right hand harder into the door handle and snatched the mic up with her left. As she depressed the "talk" button another jolt almost smacked the handset into her face. "Shit Tyler, where'd you learn to drive, demo derby?" Into the mic she shouted "What? I mean, Gopher 2, what? Over."
"Hey, Badger 3, relay from the burrow, over." a voice struggled through the static. Maggie rolled her eyes. Gophers, badgers, burrows... these codes names were just embarrassing. Bunch of frustrated Boy Scouts, probably. Then she corrected herself internally as she considered the raging mercenary at the wheel. Nah, probably frustrated crazy hunters fantasizing about mowing down Bambi with an Uzi.
"Copy Badger, go ahead, over."
Another explosion of static followed, then the response, "Big Bear says 'the angel has landed', repeat, 'the angel has landed'." The crackling voice added, most un-commando-like, "whoever the fuck they are… over."
Maggie shot a wide grin at Tyler, who had managed to stop cursing just long enough to hear. Even a camera couldn't have done justice to the look that replaced the scowl.
"You bet your backwoods ass we copy!" Maggie shouted into the mic. "And none of your damn business who the fuck they are! Gopher 2, over and out." She missed the handset mount and let the mike drop and dangle at the end of it's coiled cord. "Hey Elias!" she screamed out the window over the noise of the engine and bouncing suspension, "they're back and breathing!"
"Great," Elias shouted back, bracing stacked cases of canned goods with one foot, "hope I'm the same by the time we get back!"
Maggie fell back in her seat, not caring any more how she was thrown around. She looked over at the no-longer cursing or scowling Tyler.
"Still breathing," he announced, "both of us. Works for me."
The truck pulled into camp after midnight. Maggie helped Elias – slightly battered, but mostly viable – out of the truck bed as Tyler gave the makeshift "manifest" to several rebels who'd unload, inventory, store the supplies away. With a weary wave of his hand he parted company with the others and headed for the infirmary.
One low light was burning inside as Tyler entered. The three cots were empty, nobody else to be seen.
Julie's drowsy voice came from a dark corner. "She's been assigned quarters."
For the first time in memory he was too tired to react according to training. "Hey doc. You protecting the band-aids, or don't you rate your own quarters?"
Julie stepped slowly into the circle of lamplight, wiping sleep from her eyes. "I was reviewing some medical journals and I guess I fell asleep."
"They still publish them?"
She laughed blearily. "Still catching up from med school. I can't shake the idea that I gotta keep up for exams." She looked Tyler up and down. "You look like you got dragged behind the truck."
"Yeah well I feel like I got dragged under it."
"You got the message? We figured you and Maggie and Elias would want to know." She motioned to one of the nearby camp chairs as she sat down.
Tyler declined, "Nah, if I sit down I won't get up til tomorrow. Yeah, it made it up the relay. I thought she'd be here."
"She was, but only a few hours. She was mostly dehydrated, a few bumps and bruises she got when she passed out before they got her on the transport. She's fine, physically." The last word held more than average weight.
Over time, Tyler and Julie had developed an understanding born of mutual respect, and the knowledge that each had a little insight into the other that didn't bear open discussion. It just was what it was, accepted by both.
"But," he replied. No question mark.
Julie shook her head, perplexed. "I'm not sure. I put off any sort of 'debriefing' with Mike and Robert, but she did give me the basics of what she said happened after the attack started."
"'What she said happened'… you saying you think she left something out?"
"Nothing in terms of intelligence, no, but when she told me about Todd…" Julie trailed off, realizing that Tyler had no idea that Todd had been killed. "Sorry… you don't know. Todd was killed in the Visitor attack, just as he and Angie were getting to the shelter."
Tyler's fog of exhaustion was burnt off by an explosion of frustration. "Ah, shit! Goddammit, the kid was just a computer jockey!" Just like Angel.
Julie waited until Tyler had calmed down before she went on. "Well that's what I think Angie is leaving out… something about Todd. She told me they were running into the shelter, and he got hit by one of the aerial blasts as they got to the door. It knocked him past her all the way down the steps. From the looks of the wound it was some high-level type of Visitor weapon, it…" Julie frowned, remembering the black glassy, hollow left in the teenager's back, "let's just say it was different than what we've seen before. Anyway, she told me he was dead by the time she got to him."
"And you don't believe her." He took a step forward, not liking what he was hearing. "You think she's lying about how the kid died?"
"No of course not. Not the way you mean, anyway. It's how and when he died I think she left out. Like I said, it's not intelligence related, and it's not really any of my business, but whatever it is I know it's bad, and I know it has to be affecting her. Okay, I don't know how I'd be after sitting for a day and a half in a dark hole next to a dead kid I'd worked side by side with for the past two days, but I know wouldn't be so… okay." She rose from her chair when she saw Tyler's questioning expression replaced with something else. "I'm making sense, aren't I?"
"Perfect. Can't say I know what to do about it, but yeah, you're making sense." He disguised a sigh with a wide yawn. "So… where's home now?" He'd been bunking in the barracks-like men's dorm, though there were half a dozen cabins that housed two bunks each. It wasn't that he'd craved the company of his fellow rebels, exactly, but it was preferable to an otherwise-empty room. Makeshift or no, he'd become used to rooms that were less than empty.
"Cabin 3, other side of the dorms. And look, I haven't told anyone else about, well, about my 'suspicions'. She probably wouldn't even want me to tell you, but…"
He smiled grimly. "Yeah, 'but'. Like I said... as well as I know her, I don't know what I can do about it. Or maybe it's knowing her so well that gets in the way."
"Hate to be the one to break it to you, Tyler, but in this case you're the only game in town."
"Just her luck, huh?" he commented, leaving without saying goodnight.
Julie shook her head, smiling, as he left. "We should all be so lucky," she whispered after him, then killed the lamp and went to collapse in her own bed.
Tyler grabbed a quick, hot shower in the communal wash building and dumped the most offensive of his filthy clothes in the trash. He'd have burned his socks then and there, but figured the smoke would've killed every living thing within ten miles. He shook the loose dust out of his jeans and, donning just them and his boots, he trudged off to find Cabin 3. He slipped in quietly, closing the door softly behind him.
There was a dim lamp burning like the one he'd seen in the infirmary, except this one sat not on the table but on the floor to one side of the room. Two empty bunk frames were pushed against the wall, and it took a minute for him to locate where the mattresses had been laid in the corner, not far from the lamp. He took off his boots, and knelt down to look more closely at the bundle of bedclothes. Instead of just the top of her head this time the pale, narrow oval of Angie's face was visible. Her eyes were wide.
"You're back," she whispered.
He smiled and reminded her, "I'm still breathing, aren't I?"
"Me too." She wasn't smiling. She shut her eyes as he stroked a hand along her forehead and spread it against the side of her face.
"Angel," he began, then leaned down to kiss her temple. As he reached back to kill the lamp, Angie's eyes snapped wide again.
"Leave it on!" she gasped.
A day and a half in a dark hole next to a dead kid...
"Sure." Still kneeling over her, he told her, "I'm sorry about that new kid."
"Todd."
"Yeah, him." Tyler had found it hard to refer to this kid by the same name as… that other one. He was about to ask something more when he saw the sad, bruised expression on her face, the one he'd seen before that told him that nothing anyone said or did could change the way things were. The one that it killed him to see because he couldn't fix what put it there. Not bothering to take off his jeans, he slid under the covers beside her and she reached for him as she'd done so many other times when he'd come back after a long hard day. This time, though, she wasn't purring or smiling in her sleep. Her eyes were still wide, and she was trembling. He gathered her tightly against him and pressed his mouth against her ear.
"It's okay, Angie... you can stop now."
Whatever had been inside her that had kept her separate from everything she'd seen, and done, and lost in this New World gave way.
"Are we there yet?" she cried quietly into his skin, "the other side?"
"Close enough," he promised, "I'll take us the rest of the way."
She cried, wordless and nearly soundless, for hours, lost to everything but the sensation of Tyler surrounding her, holding her safe and separate from the New World.
He knew what she finally, finally was mourning. It wasn't just what she'd lost, or realized, or had to do. It wasn't even everyone who didn't make it. Tyler knew as well as he knew Angie that what ruptured that last barrier was who almost made it.
Almost. It was the dirtiest word in the human language, and the most brutal casualty of war.
