Out of the Frying Pan - Michael

"So," Dat began, crossing his arms in front of him and somehow managing to loom while sitting down. "Why are you back?"

I was really glad I'd managed to get a clean set of clothes off Sora. There's no way you can deal with a serious problem from bed. Admittedly I had just moved to sitting on top of the bed and was wearing my blooded flack jacket to block out the draught caused by the missing shirt back, but there was nothing I could particularly do about that.

"Me personally, or humanity in general?" I asked with a slight grin, trying in vain to lighten the atmosphere. He just looked at me.

"Fine," I said grimly, mimicking the crossed arms. "We're back partly for hope for the future, but mostly because we only have about a year's food left. If humanity doesn't start coming out of its bunkers now it's going to die out. That's why we're back."

"That's reasonable I suppose," Dat admitted at length. "Why now though?"

"Why not?" I asked with a shrug. "Ten years is a long time for even a nuclear winter to last, and I have no idea how many half lives it's been, enough that Earth is survivable again. Though apparently it was more survivable than we thought." I gestured around the room at this point. I was slightly bitter about being shut up in a bunker for so long when the world had already gotten back to normal but hopefully it didn't show.

"Don't bet on it," Dat muttered and then addressed me again. "Why after ten years?"

"I don't know," I said with another shrug. "Symbolism maybe?"

"You know that means that Zap was right," Dee cut in, appearing at the window and making me jump.

"Dee!" Dat snapped, whirling. "If you're going to eavesdrop don't join the bloody conversation. And especially don't bring up the last time you were eavesdropping."

"Am I getting tips or being chewed out?" she asked in a gratingly bright tone.

"Just get in here," he growled. "You've completely ruined the impression."

"You can't play the evil interrogator thing anyway," she told him, scrambling through the window. Personally I thought he could quite well but wasn't going to mention that. "Besides terrifying some kid is not very leaderly."

"How old are you?" Dat asked me suddenly.

"Fourteen," I replied without thinking. "Why?"

"Oh, shut up," Dee fumed as Dat raised his eyebrows smugly and I felt that I'd been left out of the loop somewhat.

"Anyway," Dat said, suddenly addressing me. "How many more people do you have in this bunker?"

"About forty or so."

"And how many bunkers?"

"I don't know" I admitted shrugging. "In all honesty you guys probably know better than me, you haven't been underground for a decade. We might have some military maps somewhere but I've never seen them."

"And your heavily armed hunting squads?" he asked poignantly.

"Well I think you've meet those wolf monsters," I countered.

"If you wanted to defend yourself you wouldn't be wandering through unfamiliar territory," he pointed out.

"If we were smart we wouldn't be wandering through unfamiliar territory. And we were kind of on a rescue mission. One of people was kidnapped. Incidentally you wouldn't happen to know where the wolf monster camp is?"

"Do we?" Dee asked Dat suddenly and he once again glowered at her.

"No," he admitted darkly then turned back to me. "And your leader didn't particularly look like he was on a rescue."

"Leader?" I asked confused.

"Yeah, the guy with the eyes of a Feral. He and a half dozen others were skulking around the fields."

"Really?" Dee asked.

"Later," he growled at her.

"You mean Mitch?" I enquired, still a bit confused. "Sure he's has been ordering everyone around and had an odd look in his eyes since Stace died, but I wouldn't call him our leader."

I paused at that and thought about it for a moment.

"Okay, good call," I admitted. It was a bit scary but I could see where Dat was coming from with the whole Feral eyed thing. Neither looked like they cared for anything but destruction anymore.

"And finally, how well armed are you in this bunker?"

"Not well," I said hesitantly. "Two thirds of us were civilians with passes, and the others were more or less reserves. Plus I think Mitch cleared out most of the guns. Basically we're not any particular threat."

"I'll be the judge of that," Dat asserted. "Now give me a minute to think." He rose and walked silently to the other side of the room.

I don't care what Dee says, he freaks me out and I still haven't gotten used to the fact everyone has these huge bundles of feathers on their backs. It would feel good when I finally got back to humanity.

"Don't worry, okay?" Dee said comfortingly, sitting down next to me and putting her arm around my shoulder. "Dat acts tough but he's fine underneath."

"And in ear shot!" he called across the room and Dee winced.

"It'll be fine," she said, dropping her voice.

"With any luck," I sighed. "I really just want to go home now."

We dropped into silence. I was feeling really tired for some reason, maybe it was the major gunshot wound, or maybe it was just my brain's response to the unreality of the situation.

"Okay I've decided," Dat announced, returning. "Michael you're free to go, just try and convince your people that we aren't a threat and warn them about the Erasers. With any luck they'll have moved on in a few days but don't take any chances, okay?"

"Sure."

"Dee," he said, rounding on her. "Escort Michael back to the bunker."

"Seriously?" she asked in disbelief.

"I'd like to keep this quiet," he explained. "At least until this Eraser business has quieted down. I'm not sure how people are going to react while they're all riled up like this. And that does imply that you shouldn't go blabbering to everyone about this."

"Why Dat, I'm insulted," Dee said theatrically, and Dat rolled his eyes.

"Humans aren't that popular then?" I hazarded.

"Nope" Dat said grimly. "And for more reasons that just the obvious. That's why I'd like you out of here before someone manages to injure themselves, which should be within about two minutes."

"Being prophetic now?" Dee asked.

"No, pattern recognition. Now if you wouldn't mind." He gestured towards the door.

"Pillar of patience you are," Dee said rolling her eyes and helped me too my feet.

I staggered a bit but stayed more or less upright. My side was still throbbing but that was more disturbing than painful; every ounce of common sense was telling me that it should hurt like nothing on earth and I should quite possibly be dead. I was rather glad I wasn't dead but I was still looking forward to getting back to a semblance of normalcy, and possibly sleeping until the next judgement day.

"I got you," she assured me, looping her arm beneath mine and supporting me far more than should be necessary. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I be fine," I said, shaking my head to clear the spots hovering in front of my eyes.

Dee shot Dat a dirty look but he just shrugged and we began to hobble towards the door. Actually I was beginning to feel a little better by the time we reached the door so I'll put it down to circulation or simply give up of rationalising things; I'd just been healed by a six year old after all.

The vertigo came back in a rush as we stepped out onto the balcony and I suddenly realised that we really were quite high.

"Maybe I should stay for a bit," I suggested hurriedly, disentangling myself from Dee and backing back through the door. "I'm still kind of dizzy."

"You said you were fine," she pointed out, sounding a little exasperated.

"Bullet wound," I snapped back, backing away from the windows too. I'd know academically that we were in a tree house, however I hadn't quite realised just how far the ground was from us. How they can live in tree houses is beyond me. What if the floor collapsed? You'd fall to your death.

"Hope," she countered. "What's wrong with you anyway?"

"It's a long way down, okay!"

That made her pause for a moment.

"You're afraid of heights?" she asked incredulously.

"I don't know," I half yelled. "Probably! I've lived underground all my life. When was I supposed to get used to it? And you guys have got wings anyway, why would you be afraid of heights?"

There was another pause where Dee tried to follow that and I caught my breath. "Well I think you've covered all the responses," she admitted.

Dat put his hand comfortingly on my shoulder and I only tensed more. "Don't worry," he said, the calm radiating from his voice and very slowly he began to walk me back towards to balcony. "It's really very simple. Just stop. Take a deep breath and think. Suddenly you won't be afraid."

We paused at the lip of the balcony. The ground was still very far away but after a deep steadying breath I could more or less rationalise it. I wasn't going to fall. There was no chance it was going to come rushing up to meet me in a very fatal fashion.

"Better now?" he asked.

"A little," I admitted.

"Good. Don't yell by the way."

"Wh…" I began just as his grip shifted and I found myself hurled out into empty space.

For a brief moment I was too shocked to thing anything beyond "he pushed me!" but then the ground was rushing to great me and panic began to set in. The only reason I didn't yell was because he'd told me not to and my brain was too busy just then to realise how stupid that rational was.

I closed my eyes before I hit. If I imaged really hard maybe I wouldn't go splat on the forest floor but instead drift wherever my brain decided to take me to get away from that place. After imagining nothing but falling for a couple of seconds I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the sky. Definitely not falling. Actually it felt more like I was resting on a plain of glass.

Dee landed next to me, hoisted me off the whatever it was and set me gently on my feet.

"Okay," I said slowly, looking around for a reason why I wasn't a me shaped pancake and totally failing to find one, or even what it was I was resting on. "What the hell just happened?"

"We've been over the telekinesis," Dee said as if that explained everything. "And we were planning to use a rope ladder. I thing Dat's just a little overworked, there's been something like a dozen Eraser sightings today."

"I could have used a ladder," I protested indignantly, then the first part of her statement sunk in. "Wait, you mean he can lift a person?"

"Sure, I'm pretty bad at that kind of stuff to tell the truth."

"And Dat?"

"Average."

"Oh good," I sighed, mentally chalking up another one up against humanity. "Well that explains how you guys survived anyway."

"Actually we didn't have those sorts of powers back then," she explained. "But that's not too relevant just now. Anyway, how are you really feeling?"

"Surprisingly better," I admitted. "Adrenalin's funny like that."

"Ready to go then?"

"Definitely." I more than ever wanted to be back in my own bed.

We set off at a slow walk, mostly because I wasn't sure I could keep up at a faster pace and in under a minute of silence I asked. "So how did you guys survive the end of the world then?"

"That's quite a long story," she said, chewing her lip.

"How far's the bunker from here?"

"Three miles."

"Plenty of time then."

"Oh yeah, walking," she said with a touch of resignation. "Okay then, we might as well begin at the beginning…"