"Caboose, what are you doing?" I asked in an exasperated voice. He had crawled up the rock to point his sniper rifle at something, which I assumed was Church possessing Sarge's body.
"One of the Red's has Tex," he said in a super concentrated voice, which I assume must have hurt his brain. "I'm going to shoot him and kill him, and free Tex! Then Church will forgive me for killing him, and we will be friends."
"Caboose, that is Church possessing the Red's body," I pointed out factually. "if you shoot him, you're just gonna make Church mad."
"How do you know that?" Caboose turned to me.
"That's what Church said to us, that he was gonna possess someone," I replied factually.
"I think I would remember if Church said that," Caboose replied dubiously. "I think you just want to kill the Red yourself to get on Church's good side."
He turned back to point his gun back at Church. Wait, were they still standing there?
"Now look what you've done, they're gone!" Caboose yelled at me in frustration. "How am I going to get Church to forgive me now!"
"Hey, you guys can leave now," Church said after he appeared besides us a moment later. "I got Tex though the teleporter, she's heading back to base."
I turned to him. "Did you have any problems possessing the Red guy?"
"No, not really," Church replied causally. "Those Red guys have some really roomy armor! See you back at base."
And he disappeared.
I turned to find that Caboose was staring at me. "Well, Caboose, we should get going."
"I don't think I like you," he said in a dark voice as we turned and began to walk back to base. A few moments later we were joined by Tucker, and when we got back to base, we quickly made our way down to the machine shop to take off our armor and clean it. Or more like Caboose and I cleaned up while Tucker lazed around.
"Man, you know… this stuff does not come off easy," Caboose commented while panting, furiously scrubbing the breast plate on his armor.
"Yeah, it was a lot easier when we were just doing my armor," Tucker replied from where he was standing, inspecting his armor in front of a mirror.
"Yeah, I know, that's… I think its' because- you didn't do anything!" Caboose almost shouted.
"Yeah, Tucker, could you get off your fat ass and lend a hand!?" I asked with frustration.
Tucker pretended not to hear us while carefully inspecting one of his gloves. "Anyway, when you're done, Church and Tex want to talk to us."
"You and Caboose can go do that. When I'm done here, I'm going to bed," I replied. "After all of the excitement of today, I just want to go lay down."
"Ok, see you tomorrow then, I guess," Tucker replied, turning to leave.
A few minutes later, Caboose followed him.
When I got to my room, I hung my armor on a rack that I had put there earlier. I was too tired to even think much as I made my way though the base, and I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
The next morning I made my way up to the top of Blue Base, only to find that the rest of Blue Team was already there. They were all examining their gear and looking as if they were getting ready for something.
"Oh, there you are," said Church when I arrived. "White, I want you to stay here and keep an eye on the base."
"Um, ok," I replied minutely. "You all going somewhere?"
"Yeah, Tex said she could fix the tank, so that's what we are doing," Tucker replied as he inspected his sniper rifle.
"Oh," I looked over at Tex, who was holding what looked like a toolbox. That was right, today was the day that she died. "Have fun, I guess."
"Yeah, just tell us over the Radio if you see the Reds are coming our way," Church ordered as they all made to run down the ramp.
I walked over to the edge of the roof. "Alright, see you later."
I watched as they made their way over to the tank. If things happened the way I thought they would, there was no way I was going to touch the Radio.
With a sigh, I turned my attention to Red Base, and lifted up my sniper rifle to see what was going on.
Apparently, Lopez was now talking, if his Spanish was anything to go by:
"¡So I told him, 'You do not weigh more, I weigh more.' Then we put our bodies on the scale and determined that I had the greatest weight. After that they called me 'Lopez, the Heavy.'!"
"Man, first he doesn't talk at all, and now we can't get him to shut up!" Grif groaned angrily, turning to Simmons. "What's he saying?!"
"What are you asking me for?" asked Simmons in confusion.
"Well, you know, because you're of the, uh, Latino persuasion," Grif pointed out.
"Simmons isn't a Spanish name, you dumbass," Simmons remarked with annoyance. "I'm Dutch Irish."
"But I thought-"
"What?"
"Oh, never-mind"
Beat.
"I'm from Iowa," Donut proclaimed.
"NOBODY CARES!" Grif and Simmons snapped back at him.
The next half hour passed rather sedately, with me keeping an eye on the Reds, while glancing over at the other Blues fixing the tank every now and then.
Everything started to go to shit when I tuned back into Red Base and notice that Church had started to possess Lopez there.
"Hey," said Simmons
"Yeah?" asked Grif.
"You ever wonder why we're here?"
"No, I never ever wonder why we are here," Grif replied shortly. "Semper fi, bitch."
Beat.
"Keegakergerk!" Lopez choked as Church possessed him.
Simmons turned around. "What's wrong with Lopez?"
"I don't care," Grif muttered as he turned around.
"Hey, Lopez, you ok man?" Simmons asked him.
Then Church started speaking in Spanish.
"¡Guys. I need to give... you a... warning…!" he started before slowly trailing off. "¡What? Why am I speaking Spanish? I don't know Spanish!!"
"Um, sure..." Simmons replied slowly.
"¡No, listen to me! The mean woman is going to kill you!!" Church continued in a panic. "¡She is fixing the tank!!"
For several minutes, he continued to talk rapidly, to the confusion of the Reds. It seemed that Church was trying to warn the Reds that Tex was fixing the tank. A few minutes later, he tried resorting to enunciating each word slowly, and kept repeating himself.
"¡The… mean… lady… is… fixing… a big... tank…!" Church said slowly and carefully, in a vain attempt to speak English.
"Hey, I think if you're gonna live in this country, you should speak the language," Grif commented, getting annoyed at Church's antics.
"What country?" asked Simmons. "We're on an alien planet!"
"What are you, a communist?" asked Grif.
Then the tank shot at them.
They all cursed and ran for cover. I chose at that moment to zoom out and turn off my sound sense, as the booming sounds were rather loud, and I was pretty sure I knew how it would end.
Scanning around the canyon to make sure I knew where everyone was, I spotted something that I didn't expect to spot: there was a man in cobalt armor standing close to the south side of red base, behind a rock and hidden from everyone's view but mine. He had a sniper rifle and had it trained on Red Base.
I stared at him. If I remembered correctly, the RvB team at Rooster Teeth had said that during Church's time travel in season three, he had actually been in a simulation created by Gamma, but there he was, standing there in the sunlight.
I'm sure that many rational, scientifically minded folk would have had a mental aneurysm at this point, but I was just confused. The only solution that I could think of was that either I was part of the simulation, or Church actually had time traveled.
Which raised all sorts of questions that I didn't want to think about, such as 'if I'm part of a simulation, am I real?' or 'did we really time travel a thousand years to the future?' or 'did reconstruction really happen?'
I was brought out of my mental fugue by the arrival of Donut on the top of Red Base, whom Future Church then tried and failed to kill with his sniper rifle. As Donut threw the sticky grenade, I had a sudden horrible thought. What if Canon was wrong? What if Tex actually died here, and was not an AI?
It was too late for me to do anything about it, though, as the grenade landed on her, and exploded.
The blues arrived back at Blue Base about 10 minutes later, with Present-Church still in Lopez's body, carrying Tex bridal style.
Tex looked awful. Apparently, the grenade had landed on her neck, and had ripped out part of it. Her neck was gushing blood at a shocking rate, splattering over her black suit, and she was slurring words that I couldn't make out. I didn't even wait for anyone to say anything.
"There's a room we can use in the base, follow me," I ordered sharply. I turned around and led them down to the second level of the base, to a room that had one of those padded tables you might find at a doctors office.
I ran to the sink, taking off my suit's gloves and quickly washed down my hands with water and antiseptic, the hospital way, where you wash from the tip of your fingers down to your wrist, and once Tex was on the table, I placed my hand on her neck and compressed it, slowing the blood flow. I turned to my blue teammates.
"Church, in the storage room you should find medical supplies," I began. "I need gauze, tape, rubbing alcohol, shots, plastic gloves, a blood bag, and morphine, go get them."
He didn't hesitate, turning to leave and get what I needed.
"Tucker," I turned to him. "Go call Blue Command for an airlift, we need to get her to a hospital."
"Roger that," he turned and left.
"Caboose, go clean your hands the way I did," I commanded him.
He turned and did as I asked, although when he started to clean his hands the normal way, I had to remark: "No, do it from the tips of your fingers to your wrists, idiot!"
"Why?"
"Just do what I say," I replied without answering the question.
When he finished, I told him how to compress his hand against Tex neck, and he did so. I went back to the sink and washed the blood off.
A minute later, Church returned with the things I needed, and I started getting the gauze and tape ready to compress Tex neck. Once the compress was on, it started to stain red, but it didn't spread out of the gauze, so the compress was working. I then gave her a shot of morphine.
"¡Do you think you can save her?!" Church asked.
"No," I replied. "I'm just a medic, hopefully the doctors at the hospital can help, but I can't. This is the limit of what I can do."
"¡Then what good are you!?!" he snapped.
I didn't respond, too busy hooking up a blood bag to Tex's arm, and when I was finished I kept a close eye on her while we waited for Tucker to come back.
"So, the guy at Blue Command said that they cant get an airlift here," he said when he arrived. "Instead they're going to send a doctor."
"What? What the hell do you mean, 'they're going to send a doctor?'," I asked in confusion. "Tex needs surgery, and they can't do it here. Unless they send a team of surgeons and set up a field hospital, a doctor isn't gonna be of any help!"
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you what they said," Tucker replied defensively.
I stared at him for a long moment. "I'm gonna go call them, hopefully I can make them see reason."
I left the room, heading up to the roof to make the call. "Come in, Blue Command, this is Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha!"
"Yo, you calling me back for some reason," said the guy on the other end. "I just got off a call with you."
"Yes, tell me why you wont send an airlift," I demanded. "The patient under my care is in desperate need of medical attention, attention she can only get at a hospital!"
"Sorry, no can do, sir," said Vic. "We can't send an airlift, all we can do is send a doctor."
"BUT SHE NEEDS SURGERY!" I yelled angrily. "SHE'S GOING TO DIE IF SHE DOESN'T GET WHAT SHE NEEDS!"
"Whoa, keep it down dude, I hear ya, but we can't send an airlift,"
"But why? She will die if you don't!"
I didn't get a reply, as the radio cut out at that time.
"Hello? Come in Blue Command!" I said into the radio, but there was no response.
Why? Why wouldn't they send what we needed? Why wouldn't they help their soldiers in need?
I didn't know, but if I didn't think of something quick, Tex was going to die.