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“Hey Cap,” Johnny said, holding out his plate, “can I get some more of the chili?”
Captain Stanley nodded, took the plate, looked into the large pot in the middle of the table… and grimaced.
“Sorry, pal, it’s all gone.”
“Aw man,” Johnny began to complain, but in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
The klaxon was loud and obnoxious as always as it tore through the amicable, quiet lunch conversation among the crew.
“Station 51, tunnel collapse at 1795 Elm Street. Tunnel collapse at 1795 Elm Street. Time out: 13:27.”
“Elm Street?” Johnny repeated as he slid into the squad. “But that’s a residential area, suburbs and all. There’s no tunnel at Elm Street, so what on earth…”
Roy just shrugged, turned on the siren and pulled out of the engine bay and out into the scorching summer sun.
-
They all arrived a couple minutes later, to a completely torn-up back yard, dead grass surrounding an astonishingly large, dusty depression in the middle of the lawn. In front of all that mess stood a dirt-covered middle-aged guy, scraped knees poking out under faded jean shorts.
Whatever Johnny’d expected, this hadn’t been it — and a quick glance over at Roy confirmed that his partner was just as taken aback.
“What on earth happened here?” Cap asked, walking up to the man and motioning towards the obvious. “Did you call us? Are you hurt?”
“Oh no, I’m fine. You’re not gonna believe this,” the man said, “but my neighbor, Jerry Gordon — this is his place, you see — has been digging a bunker in his own back yard. To avoid all of us ‘nosy bastards’, is how I believe he put it. And, uh… it seems like he overestimated his architectural prowess somewhat. He appears to be down there. Somewhere.”
He pointed at the mess.
“Couldn’t find him,” he continued, “so I called you folks.”
Cap nodded.
“Is there… some sort of an entrance to that bunker?”
“Yeah,” the man replied, “back here…”
He walked a couple feet over towards the house and kicked what appeared to be a section of an old, slatted wooden fence laying on the floor, revealing a hole; roughly people-sized, and braced with something that looked suspiciously like old pipes and broom handles.
“Alright,” Cap said. “Everyone, keep to this side of the lawn so we don’t collapse whatever tunnel there might be as well. Johnny, Roy… do you think you can go down that way first, see if you find the man? It’ll be faster than digging and give us a better idea of what we’re looking for.”
Johnny stifled a sigh.
There really was no winning with underground rescues — they were invariably filthy, risky, and incomprehensibly dusty, not to mention that the thought of getting trapped under hundreds of pounds of dirt wasn’t exactly what he considered a good time. Especially not after he’d come dangerously close to never seeing the light of day one time too many.
“We can try,” Roy replied, and Johnny nodded. Didn’t matter how much he hated it, a job was a job, and a victim was a victim, and just because that victim had gotten himself into trouble didn’t mean that Johnny got to slack off on this.
In the end, he was the first down the hole, as per usual. It was a double-sided sword, being lithe and flexible and able to fit just about anywhere. It had saved lives before, more than once, and that felt pretty damn good. It also meant, however, crawling around under someone’s godforsaken backyard, just after noon, in the middle of summer, after a drought long enough that the earth above them was dry and heated through and through, adding to the stifling atmosphere instead of providing some gentle cooling.
At a glance, the tunnel seemed surprisingly well-built — he had to walk bent almost double, and he could hear Roy quietly curse about his back just behind him, but at least they didn’t have to crawl, and the walls and ceiling were painstakingly carved out and supported by metal piping and wooden beams that didn’t look nearly as haphazard up close as they had from up top.
Of course, this didn’t change the fact that most of the structure had been turned into a sinkhole in the lawn.
Thankfully, the tunnel wasn’t terribly long; maybe ten, fifteen feet or so until the beam of his flashlight illuminated nothing but splintered wood and fallen dirt.
“Mister Gordon?” Johnny called out, the dirt walls dulling the sound and reminding him of just how constricted this space was.
“Help,” someone called back, their voice coarse from dust and overuse. Johnny looked around, but saw nothing at first.
“We hear ya,” Johnny replied, “keep talking, we’re coming to find you.”
Finding him, it turned out, wasn’t terribly difficult — their hobbyist bunker architect was lying directly behind an old wooden pallet that had apparently served as part of the ceiling. He appeared to be awake and alert.
“Mister Gordon?” Johnny asked.
“Y… yes…” the man groaned back and shifted carefully. Most of him seemed to be able to move freely, except his legs, which were pinned down by what looked like a decently-sized wooden board — probably one of the main supports, at a guess.
“Are you injured?” Johnny continued.
“Not sure, but I don’t think so — just… really hot… and thirsty… and stuck…”
“How’s it look?” Roy asked quietly behind him.
“Not too bad I don’t think,” Johnny replied. “I’d like to try ‘n get him out through the tunnel though; I’m kinda worried that the rest of this is gonna come down once we start digging.”
He tried to peer past the man, getting a better sense of the structure as a whole.
“Thing is, it’s not fully collapsed. Looks like the center bit was held up by a support column and some beams, and something must’ve slipped there — could’ve been anything, maybe that small earthquake a couple days ago shook something out of alignment. So if we dig, we’d have to break through that wood pallet ceiling, and I don’t think that’s gonna work out too well.”
“You think we’ll manage to get him unstuck?” Roy asked.
“Probably, yeah. If I can get behind him and into the structure, I should be able to get his leg free, and that should do it.”
“Do you think that’s safe?” Roy asked.
“Still safer than going in from the top and probably having to go back down here in the end anyway,” he replied.
“Alright,” Roy said. “Want me to go back up and tell Cap what we’re gonna do?”
“Sure, but I’ll need you back down here to help afterward.”
Roy nodded.
“Stand by.”
Johnny turned around to their victim and smiled.
“You hear that? We’ll have you out of there in just a bit.”
“Wonderful,” the man replied, and almost managed to not make it sound sarcastic.
—
Roy reappeared about two minutes later; he didn’t seem any happier about Johnny’s plan now than he had going up.
“Cap says we’re good to go,” he said, “but I don’t think he likes your idea very much.”
“It’s gotta be done, though,” Johnny replied. Privately, he had to admit that he didn’t like his idea very much either, but it genuinely was the best plan he had to offer.
Making his way deeper into the structure felt like a game of infernal Twister — under the pallets, over a beam, trying not to catch any splinters or knock into something that’d bring the entire ceiling down for good. Thankfully he’d always had a knack for contortionism.
The beam across the victim’s legs was, itself, pinned down by a pallet on one end, and embedded into the wall at the other end, which explained how the guy had gotten so thoroughly pinned. It also meant that freeing him was simple enough — all Johnny had to do was remove the pallet and move the beam to the side.
“Alright,” he said, “got it. Let me see your legs real quick.”
The small hollow they were in smelled like sweat, fear and dust and the air was hot and stale, and he wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, but he also wanted to know if they were dealing with any obvious fractures. Sure, the victim had claimed to be uninjured, but he knew better than anyone just how good adrenaline could be at masking pain, and he didn’t want to chance it.
Thankfully, they appeared to be in the clear. The victim was more dirt than man, and his legs were scraped and bruised and would probably net him a nice tetanus shot once they got him to Rampart, but there were no obvious breaks, and the victim seemed to be more in discomfort than actual, acute pain.
“Looks like we’re all clear, Roy,” he finally called out, “let’s get him out of here.”
Everything had gone so smoothly until now, Johnny probably shouldn’t have been surprised when disaster finally struck.
It was harmless enough at first, just Cap’s voice barely audible from above, dulled by the dirt and the dead grass above them.
“Ma’am? Excuse me ma’am, this is— STOP!”
A sharp, high-pitched yelp, a subtle shifting — and then Johnny’s entire field of view started to move and all he could do was to throw himself forward, towards the tunnel leading to the exit.
He hadn’t quite made it far enough when he felt something hard and heavy slam across his back at the shoulders, knocking him down. A weight settled across him, from the shoulders all the way to his feet, like being stuck underneath a water bed, shapeless and crushing all at once.
He tried to call out for Roy, but the sound he made was probably more akin to a slowly deflating air balloon as his lungs got uncomfortably squished.
His partner had yet to notice what had happened, he and the victim had clearly focused on getting the hell outta dodge. Johnny didn’t blame them at all.
For a moment or two, all was still. Then, a tentative “Johnny?”
Silence.
A much louder, more definitive “Johnny?”
Calling it frantic would’ve been a wild exaggeration — Roy didn’t usually do “frantic” while on the job — but it was definitely edging into that kinda sharp, urgent tone of voice. Didn’t take long after that until he could see Roy’s feet coming back down the hole, followed by the rest of him.
Johnny tried to say something reassuring, but all he got for his troubles was a mouthful of dust. He coughed, spluttered.
“’M stuck,” he finally ground out as Roy got closer.
He suddenly noticed how hard it really was to get a good breath, and had to tamp down on the sudden flare of panic that overcame him.
“Are you hurt?” Roy asked.
“Dunno,” Johnny replied. “Don’t think so. ‘S hard to breathe though. Heavy.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, “yeah, I know, the ceiling’s fully collapsed now. We’ll get you out, but this time we’re gonna have to dig.”
Johnny groaned.
“How’d it happen?” he asked.
“His wife came home,” Roy said, “and wanted to see what was going on.”
“Wife?”
Somehow Johnny hadn’t expected the guy to have one.
“Yeah, that’s apparently what started this whole thing a couple weeks ago — he ‘n his wife had a fight about what hobbies were acceptable to practice when in the house, and he couldn’t get a permit for a garden shed, so he, uh… moved things underground.”
“Remind me why I’m doing this job again,” Johnny muttered, which left him so winded that he quietly resolved to keep the longer sentences to a minimum.
His struggle didn’t escape Roy’s notice either, of course it didn’t. Roy had a bad habit of just leaving Johnny to his own devices, trusting that he’d be okay, but when Roy’s focus was fully on him, the man was uncomfortably perceptive.
His partner got up, and Johnny suddenly realized that he absolutely, definitely did not want Roy to leave him alone right now. It wasn’t logical — there was way too little air down here as it was, and the ventilation was nonexistent, so Roy’s presence was definitely doing more harm than good right now, and yet.
It was dark down in the tunnel, dark and dusty and narrow and he felt trapped. He needed someone else here right now, to convince himself that he wouldn’t be forgotten. Which he knew, of course he did, but the thought of it kept creeping into his mind anyway. Fear wasn’t rational sometimes, as paramedics they knew that better than anyone.
“Where’re you going, Roy?” he asked.
“Up. Gotta talk to Cap, and I’m gonna call Rampart and bring the oxygen down. I don’t like the way you’re wheezing.”
Ugh.
The oxygen he could get behind; it’d make it easier to breathe, and as much as he would’ve liked to believe that it wouldn’t be necessary, he knew that being proactive about that kinda stuff was a good idea. And besides, maybe it’d help keep that lousy, creeping sense of terror at bay. He knew better than to panic, but it took a sustained effort to stay calm, and who knew how long he’d have to keep it up.
Rampart, though? Rampart sounded like overly concerned doctors and preemptive hospital stays, and he knew that everyone just wanted what was best for him, but sometimes it seemed like the more they liked him, the more eager they were to keep him for observation. Like their affection somehow made him more fragile. He adored his hospital crew, yes, but his opinion on the institution itself, the noisy rooms and the lack of privacy and the constant poking and prodding hadn’t changed over the last few years.
“I’ll be right back,” Roy said, and Johnny wasn’t exactly in a position to protest.
It only took Roy a few minutes to return, hopping back down into the tunnel before being handed the oxygen tank and mask from above, but Chet’s voice sounded strangely far away when he stuck his head down into the tunnel and hollered “hang in there, Gage, we’re digging with all we’ve got”, and breathing was really starting to hurt.
He must’ve zoned out for a bit, because the next thing he saw was Roy not at the other end of the tunnel anymore but right next to him, oxygen mask in hand, and looking concerningly worried.
“Roy?”
“Yeah? I think you just spaced out on me.”
“Breathing’s… really starting to get… real difficult…”
“Yeah. Here, let me put this on, it’ll help.”
“Aight…”
The oxygen began to flow and the world shifted back into focus, at least slightly. He wondered if the weight pressing him down was actually starting to get lighter, or if that was just the oxygen making him feel a little less lousy for the time being.
“Better?” Roy asked.
“Hmm. Still hard to breathe. Better though.”
Hard to think, too, and and kinda hard not to panic. On one hand, he wasn’t too worried — he had the best people he knew hard at work digging him our again, and the oxygen was buying them some time before things got really dicey — but on the other hand there were strange, colorful spots periodically dancing across his field of view and his ribcage felt like some sadistic giant woodworker had firmly clamped into a vise, and no matter how hard Johnny tried to get a good breath, he just… couldn’t. Not to mention that the tunnel was still full of stale, dusty air and boiling heat still filtered through the sun-scorched lawn above. Panic, in a situation like that, was a perfectly natural response.
Panicking, however, was also the single least useful thing he could do.
And so he simply lay there, tried to ignore the cramp in his uncomfortably twisted shoulder, and did his best to ignore the impulse to struggle against the heaps of dirt and debris pinning him to the floor like a fucked-up, wheezing butterfly. This was looking to be a painfully long wait.
—
-Roy-
In the end, it took them about twenty, thirty minutes to free Johnny from the sad remains of Jerry Gordon’s lawn. Almost half a terrifying, long hour that he’d spent next to his partner, watching his breathing get more and more labored despite the oxygen, despite the steadily diminishing weight crushing him into the dirt floor. They weren’t talking much; Roy didn’t know what to say, and Johnny was too winded to keep up more than the occasional comment, more to show Roy he was still awake than any actual attempt at talking.
And then, finally, the dirt shifted and Roy could see the first hints of sunlight beaming through the splintered pallets that had once formed the ceiling, and Roy spent the next couple minutes carefully making sure that Johnny wouldn’t be crushed by a slipping piece of wood, or buried under falling dirt.
“About time,” his partner muttered when they finally pulled him out of the dirt, looking like he’d tried to take a dust bath.
Everything seemed more or less okay for a moment — Johnny stood there, swaying slightly as he blinked into the sun, still holding the oxygen mask.
Then, he looked over at Roy, asked “why’s the ground spinning?”… and passed out without another word.
Roy figured he must’ve expected something to go wrong, subconsciously, because he reacted quicker than even he himself would have thought possible, taking a quick step to the side and catching Johnny with both arms around his friend’s skinny ribcage, before lowering him to the ground, staggering and gracelessly but also gently enough that he didn’t have to feel bad about it.
“Cap! Biophone!” Roy shouted. “And get me the ambulance attendants!”
They’d requested an ambulance about halfway through their digging. Of course they had, after a couple years of working with Johnny and his truly rotten luck.
At least Johnny’s breathing and pulse seemed more or less okay — both were a little faster than Roy would’ve liked, but not concerningly so. Only his BP was much too low, which, Roy figured, probably accounted for the loss of consciousness. He didn’t like this one bit though; sure, maybe it was just a reaction to the sudden change of environment, but he also wasn’t gonna rule out some kind of internal injury sustained when Johnny’d gotten hit by the ceiling — and clearly, Brackett at the other end of the biophone had similar fears when he ordered an IV of d5w TKO and an immediate trip to Rampart.
“How’s he doing?” Cap asked as they were loading Johnny into the ambulance about a minute and a half later.
“Can’t say yet,” Roy replied as he climbed in after his partner, “nothing’s obviously wrong that I can see, but that doesn’t mean that nothing’s wrong. I’ll keep you updated once I know anything.”
“Good,” Cap replied and closed the doors behind them, and off they were, speeding towards better equipment and an entire ER full of excellent doctors.
They’d barely pulled out of the driveway when Johnny opened his eyes and blinked owlishly.
“Why am I lying down?” he asked.
“You passed out,” Roy said, his flat affect masking the mixture of concern and relief he was feeling, and started taking Johnny’s BP again.
“Oof, tough luck,” Johnny replied. Sighed. “Man, I’m starving. Think you can get me a hamburger soon or something?”
Johnny’s BP was starting to come up to more normal levels again, which was a good sign.
“Rampart, patient is now awake and alert, and his BP is now 95 over 60 and seems to be returning to normal levels.”
“10-4, 51; we’ll check him out anyway.”
“10-4, Rampart.”
“So, no hamburger,” Johnny mused. “Think you can sneak me a donut from the cafeteria if they keep me for too long?”
Roy couldn’t quite stifle a relieved chuckle.
“Sure, I’ll do my best.”
“You really are a good friend,” Johnny replied sagely and grinned through the layer of grime, before his expression returned to serious. “How’s the victim?”
“You mean the other victim?” Roy said, a little sharply. It wasn’t really directed at Johnny, the shock of his partner passing out on him was just clinging to him, and going by Johnny’s slightly concerned expression, he got it.
“Sure, the other victim,” Johnny conceded.
“He’s fine. We still took him to Rampart to make sure he was doing okay, but you ended up being worse off.”
“I’m not gonna lie, this wasn’t exactly how I’d want to spend an afternoon,” Johnny replied, “but I’m pretty much fine. A little bruised and feeling like I joined a tribe of mole people, but I’ll be okay.”
“Alright,” Roy said, “alright.”
In the end, Johnny walked into Rampart on his own, even if Roy couldn’t help but hover next to him, ready to step in if anything went wrong, and Roy could literally see the tension draining out of Kel and Dix’ posture as they looked him over.
“How are you feeling, Johnny?” Kel asked, with that concerned, compassionate expression reserved for patients he cared about a little too much.
“I’m fine, doc,” Johnny replied sheepishly, his fingers fiddling with the pen in his shirt pocket, knocking loose a veritable rain of dirt flakes.
Kel visible cringed at that.
“Alright,” he said, “let’s get you looked at, and I’d like to get an x-ray of your ribcage at least, make sure everything’s as alright as it seems. And then we should get you dusted off a little. Assuming the x-rays come back clear, you can use the hospital showers, and I’m sure Dix will find you something to wear.”
“Thanks,” Johnny said. “I think there’s dirt in my ears, and my mouth, and probably places I don’t even wanna think about.”
“Spare us the specifics,” Dix sighed, while Kel carefully directed Johnny towards a treatment room.
“Don’t forget the donut!” was the last thing Roy heard before the door closed behind his partner.
“Donut?” Dix asked.
“We got interrupted during lunch, so the first thing Johnny did when he woke up in the ambulance was bargaining for something to eat, and I guess he ended up talking me into getting him a donut.”
Dix laughed. “Sounds about right,” she said. “Well, better go fulfill your solemn duty then before your poor partner starves; I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re gone.”
“Think he’s gonna be okay?” Roy asked. He knew the answer, but he needed to hear it out loud anyway. For his own sake.”
“I know it,” Dix said.
And as per usual, she ended up being right; about an hour later, he ‘n Johnny were sitting in the doctor’s lounge with coffee and donuts, waiting for Chet to pick them up with the Squad, Johnny’s mismatched spares-bin outfit and still-wet hair from his shower the only unpleasant reminders of the lousy afternoon they’d just had. Roy knew that, one day, their luck would finally run out — but right here, right now, they were okay, and that was all that really counted.