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Chapter 12
It was the best night's sleep that John had managed in ages. Sure, it had still been a little restless, every time he moved caused another pain to flare up, and the church hall, with all its occupants, snoring, coughing and moaning was hardly peaceful, but each time he woke he was greeted with the sight of Dorian sat beside him, eyes closed as he conserved energy, and it gave him comfort. As a result, he slept in, and when he woke again daylight streamed through the stain glassed window and Dorian was pottering about chatting with patients and changing IV bags and dressings like he was born to do it.
He watched him a while before summoning the strength to get up. Hauling himself to his feet with his crutches and making his way into the side room where Carrie and Sophie had set up a small kitchen. There was a huge pot simmering on the stove. An old table was tucked into the corner of the room and Sandra was sat at it with a bowl of soup. John slumped down into the nearest chair, Dorian followed him in, got John a bowl of soup and then joined them at the table.
"Where are the others?" John asked, glancing behind him as though he was excepting them to come through the door at any moment.
"Sophie is back on watch and Carrie is asleep. She worked all night." Sandra replied.
"And what about you?"
She shrugged. "I got a few hours this morning. I'm good. Last night, you said you had a plan?"
John nodded. "When the others were leaving I heard Will and Soph talking about a cache. You can see it from the bell tower, I was on watch when they left. There are guards posted on it and a sniper on the roof. There's too many of them to sneak in, but they're getting desperate here, there are gangs who keep raiding this place and they're running out of ammo. If I can get on the next trip to the cache then I can maybe get hold of some explosives. After that we need to get into the warehouse of DRN's, set it to blow and then run. We need to do some more recon too, I'm fairly sure there's more than one warehouse."
Dorian eyed him suspiciously, "How were you going to run anywhere?"
John shrugged, "Truthfully, the running is a new part of the plan." The real truth was that he hadn't ever expected the plan to be anything other than a suicide mission, it still likely was. The arrival of Dorian and Sandra would cause him as many problems as it did favours. He'd been resigned to sneaking in with as much explosive as he could carry and blowing it all to hell, now he had the other two to think about. The DRN army they had stored away would need to be eradicated, but at what cost? He didn't want his final act to mean the death of the only two people he cared about, and who cared about him. Dorian had once asked who would remember him when he was gone, and John had given him a cheesy line about the people you help being the ones to remember. Truth was though, the answer had always been friends and family, and now he was sat looking at the last two people on earth who might've shed a tear at his passing. There was something overwhelmingly final about that thought, it was for his own selfish sake almost as much it was for theirs, that however this plan worked out, it needed to end with them driving off into the sunset and the safety of home.
"We need to look for a new car." Sandra said, cutting off Dorian before he could say anything about the recklessness of John's plan. "We can do recon while we do that. We'll need supplies and the car ready to go for as soon as we blow this thing. They'll be coming after us. John," she looked him up and down carefully, "you sure you're up to this? Where's your leg, can it be fixed?"
John shook his head. "I had a look at it yesterday. Everything is fused and the contact plate is ruined. I'll have to manage on the crutches."
"Can you even do that in your condition?" Dorian asked, his voice choked with concern. "Maybe we need to wait…"
"How much charge do you have left Dorian?" John countered. "I'll manage if you can." The tone was challenging and John hated himself a little for it. He and Dorian had seemed to butt heads since the moment he turned up. He knew the android was just concerned, and the low charge always made him more emotional than usual, but he had carefully constructed walls to compartmentalise everything that had happened over the last eight days and Dorian's waves of empathy were threatening to bring them crumbling down.
"They have a generator at the hospital, could we rig something up to charge you from it?" Sandra asked Dorian.
He shook his head. "They won't have the compatible tech. We'll need to steal something from the warehouse where they're keeping the other DRNs."
"How long have you got left?" John asked.
"I'm at 64%. With all except my most basic operating systems running I have maybe three days."
"Can you shut anything else down?"
Dorian shook his head.
"Then we need to work fast." John said with a grim smile.
Sandra got to her feet. "We should go look for a vehicle now. There's no time to waste."
Dorian stood too and placed a hand gently on John's shoulder. "Are you okay here? We'll be back as soon as we can."
"Yeah, yeah. You're right. Don't worry about me, just be careful okay?" John implored. The two of them left and John watched them sadly before turning back to stare blankly at the table in front of him. There was an ache in his chest and for just a moment he felt like everything was going to engulf him. He choked down the lump in his throat and hastily wiped at his eyes. He jumped when a hand came down on his shoulder, looking up into the perpetually exhausted face of Carrie.
"Where have your friends gone?" She asked softly.
"They've gone to look for a new car. They'll be back." John explained.
"Then why do you look so sad?" She sat beside him, unwilling to release her touch.
He sighed, "It's just been a long few days that's all."
She nodded knowingly, "Come on, I need to change your dressings.
John grabbed his crutches started to follow her but she stopped in the doorway and he almost crashed into the back of her. She was staring across the room to the doorway on the other side that lead up to the bell tower. There was a heavy-set man in the doorway and he had Sophie gripped tightly to his chest, a large serrated hunting knife held under her chin. The edge of it was pressing into her throat, causing blood to well up and run in a thin trail down her neck. She had a cut to her eyebrow and the skin around it was starting to discolour and swell but she had her same defiant look on her face that she'd had when John had first met her.
"Hands in the air." The man growled at the room. "All of you." The sudden voice caused the patients to panic and gasp as they realised what was happening, but it was too regular an occurrence to cause any of them true shock. Instead, they all held up their hands dutifully. Carrie followed suit, her raised hands shaking ever so slightly.
"Hey," John snarled, "do you thugs not speak to each other? Your buddies cleaned this place out a few days ago. There's nothing left for you."
"I told you to put your hands up!" The man yelled, the knife digging deeper into Sophie's throat.
"Kinda tricky," John said, moving slightly to the side so that he could be fully seen from behind Carrie. He held his hands up awkwardly, the crutches wedged uncomfortably into his armpits. "You mind if I go back to my bed?" He asked, thinking of the knife he had hidden under his pillow.
The man actually laughed at him. "Ha, yeah okay. You know you got a lot of nerve for a fuckin' cripple. Jesus Sophie, this who you recruitin' to your cause these days? I'd tell ya to move slowly but I'm guessin' that's a given."
John did move slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the knife at Sophie's neck as he tried to judge his limited options. The front door opened and he saw three others, all armed with handguns, march in. They stood in the doorway, watching to see how things would play out. Suddenly there was a gunshot and a yelp from outside, causing the three men in the doorway to turn, guns raised. John leapt at the man holding Sophie, with two great swings on his crutches and then swept the left one round until it cracked into the side of the man's head. It made him stagger and Sophie used the distraction to kick backwards and drive her heel into his leg, scraping it down his shin as she pulled down on the arm that was holding the knife. John barrelled into them both then, body slamming the guy, although without the usual momentum that a run-up would have been able to afford him. He launched an elbow into the man's face and then grabbed his knife arm that he was trying desperately to get back into position at Sophie's throat.
The muscular man, flung his knife arm out, causing John, who still gripped it tightly, to lose balance. His foot slid across the floor and he fell to his knee. Sophie slipped away from the man's grasp and stepped out of his fighting arc. He ignored her and fell upon John instead. As the gangster tackled him, John hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing his fractured ribs to lance with pain. John ignored it and rolled over, kicking out and catching the man in the groin. The man grunted in pain but was not to be stopped, straddling the detective and pinning him to the ground with his thighs, he loomed over John with the knife, aiming it for John's eye. The detective grabbed the man's fist in both his hands and tried to wrestle the knife from his grip. John could hear more gunshots and shouting coming from outside but he blocked it out to focus on the life and death battle he had right in front of him. His arms shook with the effort of holding the stronger man at bay, the knife edging closer to its intended target, his still blackened eye watering at the sight of the silver point getting far too close.
Suddenly, the man let out a roar and pulled up, grasping frantically for something on his back. John could see Carrie behind him, her hands stained with blood. The man twisted as he backhanded Carrie with a brutish fist, sending her skidding to the floor and John saw the black plastic handle of a kitchen knife embedded to the hilt under the man's shoulder blade. John tried to scramble back out of the way but the enraged man lashed out, slashing his hunting knife wildly towards him. John scrabbled on the ground, his fingers closing round his discarded crutch before swinging it, clumsily parrying the man's blade, following it up by smashing the end of it into the man's face. The man grabbed the crutch and wrenched it from John's hands, tossing it away. He was about to descend on his prone victim again when a shot rang out, cutting through the chaos. Blood bloomed on his chest and then he fell, straight forward, John barely had time to roll out of the way before he crashed face first into the floor.
John looked up to the doorway to see Dorian stood there, smoking glock still held up in front of him. John grabbed the hunting knife from the man's now limp grasp and then wrenched the knife from his back, tossing them both away so that they skittered across the floor and out of reach. As he heaved the man over, he realised he needn't have bothered, he'd been killed instantly.
"Everyone okay?" John asked breathlessly. He scanned over the others, Carrie was sat on the floor where she'd landed, looking shaken but unharmed, Sophie was stood beside her, a hand clamped on her neck that trickled blood but looked angrier than she looked hurt. Sandra was just coming back in from outside, casually storing her firearm back in her shoulder holster beneath her coat like kit was just another day at the office. Dorian was his usual quiet concern but he'd obviously had a close call, a deep wound leaked purple fluid from his hairline. It took John a second to realise the full implication of such an injury.
"What the fuck are you?" Sophie snarled, in a mix of fear and fury. But instead of attacking Dorian, who also appeared to be just realising the problem his injury would cause, she rounded on John. "Your friend is a fucking synthetic?" The discarded hunting knife had landed near her feet and she snatched it up, brandishing it at the injured man. "You spying on us? I should've known you were from the other side, I should kill you right now!"
"Sophie don't!" Carrie pleaded.
Sophie looked at her sister, searching the expression on her face. "You knew?"
"They just want to get home Sophie, let them go."
She shook her head incredulously, "You have lived through the same shit I have, how did you get so naïve?"
"It's true." Dorian said, holstering his weapon and holding his hands up in a show of good will, "John was kidnapped and brought here. We came to get him back, that's all."
"You expect me to believe anything that comes out of that thing's mouth?" Sophie snapped.
"Believe this," Sandra said authoritatively, pointing her handgun at Sophie, "we are better armed than you are, you are in no position to be making threats. You really have no choice but to let us go, you're not going to follow us, you're not going to tell anyone else we were here, otherwise we'll tell every scumbag we meet that you have a basement full of drugs and no weapons to protect it. Dorian, get their rifle."
Dorian nodded and jogged upstairs to the bell tower.
"John, let's go." Sandra ordered.
John nodded and struggled to his foot, balanced on his crutches. Dorian came back down with the rifle slung across his back. Together they walked out of the church while Sandra stood in the doorway, her gun still trained on Sophie. He gave them one last look before he left, there was sadness and betrayal on the faces of the other patients he'd spent the last few days caring for. He'd expected Jason at least to show some sympathy, he had after all spent some considerable time getting to know their youngest resident, but despite his obvious weakness, the eight-year-old was just glaring daggers at him. 'I'm sorry', Carrie mouthed to him, but he just shrugged back and then made sure the door was shut behind them as they left.
He knew that Sophie would be racing up to the bell tower now to watch them leave, so he moved as fast as he could, hoping to be out of sight behind a building before she could get up there. The steps were strewn with dead gangsters and Sandra and Dorian stripped them of their weapons. John led the others away from the church and away from the cache and the DRN warehouse, hoping to be as far from InSyndicate as possible. They followed him in grim silence until they made it as far as the river, he took them down onto the footpath that ran alongside the water and under the shelter of a bridge before he stopped and sat down heavily on the bank.
"Well that's that plan out the window." He sighed, as Dorian and Sandra sat down on either side of him. Dorian shrugged out of his parka and wrapped it over John's shoulders, who smiled at him gratefully.
"We should just get out of here, go home." Sandra said. "We can regroup, get a team together and come back to strike at the warehouse."
"And what if we can't get a car? Most people fled west when the bombs hit, the cars that are left are ruined." John said, weary but determined. "Dorian has got three days left before we're dragging his heavy metal ass and it's going to take me longer than that to limp there. No, we should get into the warehouse, get Dorian the charge he needs, and finish this, once and for all."
