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It's a pretty bad situation on all corners, but at least Sam was able to break out pretty much all of the equipment.
Janine's talking nonstop- into his ear, to someone outside, to herself. He would really love tell her to shut up, but there isn't any time. Maggie's gone, Jody sounds like she's gone mad, Simon's doing- whatever the hell Simon's doing, Runner Five and Sara are running around like hell's on their heels, and Evan's being all efficient and leader-y.
Abel runners come in all sorts, apparently.
Sam shushes Janine as he hears Sara. She and Runner Five have stopped. He can hear Five breathing heavily, swallowing and catching her breath, and Sara's evidently surveying the landscape.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God," Sara says. "They're- will you look at that, Five?"
He hears some rustling, and squeezes the mic so hard he's momentarily afraid he'll break it, but then he remembers he's not that strong.
"Oh my God," he hears Five whisper.
"You're not making me feel any better over here," he says, a little testily. Janine leans in close to hear, finally going silent.
"Runner Five agrees with me. The zoms are carrying a rocket launcher."
He probably would have died laughing if that weren't the most terrifying thing he'd ever heard.
Sara's saying something else, and he knows he should be listening but he's not- his mind is trying to wrap around her previous statement. At least Janine's listening, her eyes narrowed and careful, and then-
He hears the shot through the speakers before he hears it in real life.
It's steady, a rumble in the ground, a burst in the air, and at first he doesn't know what it is.
Janine does, though, because for all of Janine's unfriendliness and irritating ways, she's always been smart.
And what Janine does is grab him by both shoulders and shove him under the desk.
The last thing he hears is a woman scream. He's not sure if it's Sara or Five or someone outside, but then the second blast goes off, and he sees Janine fall and hit the floor, flat, on her back.
There is a third blast, but he never hears it. The desk collapses on top of him, and then everything goes black.
xxxx
When he wakes up, everything smells like a week-old chemistry lab, and his head is throbbing something awful. He might be concussed.
Someone's shaking him.
"Mr. Yao? Come on, Mr. Yao, we haven't much time."
"Janine?" he croaks, then starts coughing after he inhales a mouthful of what feels and tastes like sawdust. His voice sounds faraway and echoey to his own ears, and his head pulses more painfully.
"I'm afraid not," the woman says. "It's Major de Santa."
His eyes shoot open, and he sees a blurry Major for a moment before a shit ton of ash falls in his eyes and he squeezes them shut again.
"I think I'm concussed," he tells her.
"Be grateful if that's all you are," she says. "Come on, up. And hurry. Lives are at stake."
It takes a moment, but with the help of the Major and some balance shifting, he's on his feet. He rubs at his eyes with his good arm.
"You're a bit the worse for wear, but I think you'll live," the Major says thoughtfully. "Come with me. I need your help."
He keeps rubbing his eyes even after all the ash has gone, because it doesn't help his vision in the slightest.
He thinks he's outside, even though he's sure he was on in comms shack before- maybe not, because memory and thinking and anything in the general vicinity in the brain hurts, but he thinks he probably was. Now, the Major is leading him through a smoky, unfamiliar landscape, thin light filtering through the air. He can't see a thing.
"What's happened?" he says. "Why are we outside? Where is everyone?"
"I was really hoping you might tell me," the Major says, guiding him along. "Do you not remember?"
He makes a sound of protest, low in his throat. He can't see her face, but he's sure she rolls her eyes. "Well, do your best. Something hit this place, hard."
That sounds right.
"There have been casualties, Mr. Yao," the Major says. "That's why I'm relying on you. We need to make sure there aren't more."
"Where are we going?" he asks. He probably should have asked earlier, but it only seems significant right now.
"Top of the Quad," she says. "We're going to try to find the runners still out there. Those comms of yours are fried; I'm going to use my own."
Soon enough, they're there, or at least he assumes they're there- he can't see much, but it feels like he's taken enough stairs to get there. The smoke is thinner, and he can see the trees and a little of the beyond.
"I've near given up on their headsets," the Major says, squating down. "Maybe that new girl from Mullins and Runner Eight were far away enough from whatever happened to-"
Finally, finally all the pieces fall together in his head, and if anyone wants to mock him for taking so long, he's concussed until proven otherwise.
"The rocket launcher!" he says, and the Major gives him a look that's very Janine-esque in its blend of 'what' and 'make sense, inferior being.'
"Are we talking about the same rocket launcher that shot down that Mullins girl's helo?" she asks, and Sam winces, because he hadn't thought about that yet and ow, thinking.
"I think so- I don't know," he says. "But that's what they hit us with. I can't remember- I think they shot, like, maybe three rockets at us."
"And by they you mean…" the Major says. She's pulling a sleek black laptop out of her bag, which he goggles at for a moment before she stares him down. "New Canton?"
"The zombies," he says simply.
"The… zombies," she repeats. "Mr. Yao-"
"Listen," he says. "We couldn't see what Runners Five and Eight could, but they definitely saw something and they both agreed, that's what they saw."
"Both from Mullins," the Major muses. "And that new girl- I don't know about her, I'm not sure if we can-"
"We can trust Runner Five," Sam says, a little belligerently. "We can trust both of them. And Sara was the first one to see it, she wouldn't make up something like that. We heard the explosions directly from their headsets."
"Fantastic," the Major mutters, typing something very quickly into her laptop. "They're probably fried, then."
Sam isn't sure if she means Runners Five and Eight or their headsets, and sincerely hopes it's the latter.
"Anyway, if it was zombies, we have a huge crisis on our hands, much bigger than New Canton," the Major says. "For now, we should just assume it was an unidentified hostile attack until proven otherwise."
"But it wasn't unidentified-" he begins to protest.
She pauses in her rapid fire typing and sighs. "Samuel. We have five lost runners out in the field, and God knows how many dead or injured here. If I report in that zombies fired rockets at us, then we'll have to switch priorities to finding out how on earth that's possible. My priority is saving these people. I should hope yours is the same."
He nods shakily. "Right. Right. Sorry. Anyway, do you think you can reach the runners?"
"I don't know," the Major says slowly, through her teeth. "Six's lost, Three and Four- God knows where they are or what happened to them. With any luck, Seven'll turn up- he was far enough from the blast to be all right, I think. But I don't know if I can reach him with any airwaves we've got. And Five and Eight- if they were as close to the blast as you say, then their headsets are probably goners. Come on, Mr. Yao, this is your department. Can you think of any way to reach anyone?"
Sam thinks, which hurts a lot but it's worth it when it hits him. "Major, do you think maybe we could hack into a New Canton airwave?"
Her eyes light up. "Perhaps. Why?"
"Runner Five- Runner Five has a New Canton headset. She got it from a runner she met a while ago- well, he got bit and gave it to her. We've been listening in to their transmissions. I've got the number and everything. Do you think we could contact her through that?"
Concussed and he can still come up with that. Look at me now, Dad.
The Major's already typing into her laptop again. "I think- maybe. Pass me that, and that- and what's the headset number?"
It takes a minute to remember, but when he does the Major nods approvingly and hands him a radio and a connector cable. "Plug this in to the USB connecter, then-"
"What the hell?" he says. "Plug the radio in?"
She gives him the hairy eyebrow, and he just about gulps, then does as he's told, even though that doesn't make any sense.
"Good, adjust the antenna for me," she says, typing furiously, and he does. His eyes stray past the trees, through the smoke, and he tries to imagine Runner Five out there. He hopes Runner Eight's still out there with her, but in his mind's eye he sees her all alone, zigzagging back and forth with nowhere to go.
After a minute, he actually sees a tiny black dot doing just that.
"I think- is that her?" Sam says, squinting at the black shape, far off in the distance. "Can you see her, Major?"
"I can barely see the trees for the smoke, Mr. Yao," the Major says tersely. "And I have no familiarity with the new Runner Five. Remember, whatever you're seeing could easily be a zombie straggler. Or a New Canton runner. Keep an eye on it for me, would you? I'm going to test the airwaves. Let's cross our fingers on this New Canton broadcast of yours."
He tries to focus on the poor little black dot, but it's too far away to identify. He can barely see it moving, even though it must be- nothing stays still nowadays.
"Would it be possible a runner to have zombified by now?" he asks, a little nervously. Because there are worst case scenarios and then there are worst case scenarios, and the runners-out-in-the-wilderness-with-fried-comms scenario always more reassuring than the runners-were-safe-from-the-explosion-but-then-they-got-bit scenario.
"Shush, I think I've got something, maybe they can hear us," the Major says. "Oh, damn, lost it again. Reposition the antenna for me, would you?"
He does, carefully, forcefully telling his hands that if they shake he will cut them right off, it's not like they're that vital anymore.
Okay, maybe that's a lie. He probably still needs hands. But the thought keeps him steady.
"Gotcha," the Major breathes. She holds the microphone up to her lips.
"This is a test," she says, loudly and clearly and a bit like that lady from that video game once- he can't remember now.
And okay, if he were Runner Five, out there listening desperately for any signs of life, that would probably would have scared the shit out of him. But he's certainly not the one to interrupt the Major. He's just the guy who repositions the antenna.
He turns to observe the black figure thing. It looks like it's frozen in place.
"I really think that's her," he murmurs to the Major.
She holds her fingers to her lips and says, in the same probably-terrifying robot lady voice, "This is a test of the emergency broadcast system."
Is that what they're calling it now? He thought they were just hacking into New Canton's airwaves. Oh well.
The Major's smirking a little. "That poor New Canton operator, whoever he is, the one on with Runner Five-"
"She," Sam says automatically.
She raises an eyebrow.
"Oh, uh-" Still not really his place to correct the Major. "We've heard her before, that's all. She's called Nadia."
"Well then, poor Nadia's probably having the scare of her life right about now," she says. Then, a little more wistfully. "I hope it's worth it."
"Me too," Sam says, and gives the antenna a final tweak.
"Runner Five, this is Major de Santa. I'm back."
Sam suddenly remembers that Runner Five's never even heard Major de Santa's voice, and sincerely hopes she'll still come home regardless.
"You can stop running now. Come home."
The black dot is still frozen in place. He holds his breath.
Then it turns towards the township and begins its way there.
"That's her! She's alive!" He doesn't jump up and down and he doesn't hug the Major, but he does have to keep himself from doing both those things.
"Well, I think for now that's the best we can do," the Major says, setting the mic down. "I'm glad we were able to get her back, at least."
"You are brilliant," he tells her.
"And I would promote you if there were any way to do so," she replies. "Come on. With Runner Five on her way back, I'm going to need you to do some more tasks for me. And I hope that girl is up for some heavy lifting too. We have a very large mess to clean up."
He nods vigorously, then winces. This doesn't escape the Major's notice, and she sighs.
"You probably are concussed," she says. "Well, that's inconvenient. Come on, let's see if we can salvage anything from the hospital."
It takes a few minutes to find the ladder back into the quad, but when they do, Sam doesn't stumble or fall once.