PART EIGHT: THE PLAN B*
John wakes with a start. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. All he knows right off the bat is that he's cold and stiff, that everything hurts, that he's busted something somewhere if the stab of pain that shoots through his right arm as he tries to upend himself is any indication.
"John! John!"
He manages to get hold of the safety line with his left hand and get himself mostly upright, biting back a cry when he realizes his right shoulder's dislocated. The arm hangs down, useless, the wind tossing it around until John's seeing stars and knows he's about to black out again.
"John, answer me!"
Dev. Dev needs him. He bites his lip, trying to keep himself conscious, but the bitch of it is he can't feel a thing. Could've bitten clean through it, for all he knows. He pulls his body so that he can see his watch peeking out from between the glove and coat sleeve on his left wrist.
"Dad," he grinds out through clenched teeth. "John calling…ahhhh, fuck…Jeff Tracy…come in…Father!"
He doesn't hear his dad's worried baritone respond. He doesn't see the watch flip from looking like a normal Rolex to the digital feed of his father's face.
"Jesus…" John squints through his cracked goggles and feels his heart sink to his toes. The watch face is smashed to the point where the innards that make the communicator work are soaked from snow hitting them and then melting with the warmth of his body.
That's when it really hits him. He's on his own here. It's just him and Dev, and the storm from hell and continuing earthquakes and a thoroughly unforgiving mountain.
He lets his head fall forward, forehead resting against his useless watch. He's got a cell phone stashed in an inside pocket of his coat, but with only one arm there's no way he can grab it without falling to the end of his safety line again.
"John!"
"Here," he whispers, trying to steady his breathing and keep from moving around too much. "I'm here."
"John! Help me! My line's not going to hold!"
John's head snaps up, the rescuer in him suddenly taking hold. "Dev!" he calls out. "Location!"
His throat is scratchy, and he coughs from the effort of yelling.
"Above you, I saw you fall!"
John looks up, but the weather's no better now than it was when he passed out. But, he reasons, Dev must be nearly a straight shot up from him if he's still secured to the safety line. Somehow John's got to climb up the line to his friend and see if he can't either get them back down to the narrow ledge he remembers them passing earlier, or up above the ice sheet to the chimney they were headed for to begin with.
If they can get inside that rock route, it'll offer them a lot more protection than they have out here, where they're completely exposed to Mother Nature. From there, they can ride out the storm and then see about getting themselves some help. That's it, then. The chimney it is.
"Shoulder's disclocated!" John yells up. "Gotta set it!"
He's not sure if Dev's heard him, but now that he's got a plan of action, he's determined to see it through to the end. He manages to wrap the safety line around his left arm three times, and grunts out the pain as he hikes his right side up and presses the area just behind his right shoulder against the craggy rock.
John hates having to do this. Because he knows, as he grabs hold of his own bicep, that he's going to be in a whole world of hurt in 3…2…1…
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, FUCK!" he spits as he shoves the humerus back into the glenoid where it belongs and oh, holy shit, his vision whites out for a second and he's so light-headed he just knows he's going to pass out again and fuck, fuck, fuck does it hurt!
"John! Talk to me!"
He tries to force his eyes open, feels the clothing under his coat and thermal pants and his socks getting damp, his hair under the hat soaked with sweat from the trauma of the shoulder. It makes him shiver and he knows that it's definitely not good that he's gotten wet in minus whatever-the-hell Celsius it is with a windchill adding insult to injury.
"Yeah!" he manages to yell up as he gets his breathing back under control and goes from shaking like a leaf to minor trembling. Get hold of yourself, he coaches mentally. You've done way worse than this, and with no oxygen.
Well, space is cold as hell anyway, for those without the proper suiting, and when your O2 tank decides to stop working during a rescue, things can get a bit dicey. At least you can't get – shit! – slammed into mountainsides in space, though...as he's just been again.
He goes to move his right arm and oh, yeah, that hurts, oh, man, but he's John, he can do this, right? Right.
"Coming up!" he hollers.
John steels himself, tosses his right arm up, swallows the unacceptably unmanly whimper that tries to escape and grabs hold of the rope with his right hand. There. Hard part's over.
Ha, he thinks as he starts pulling himself up the rope hand over hand, famous last words.
*Plan B: The consequences of a fall. A good Plan B generally involves being caught by a protected rope. A bad Plan B involves probable injury.