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It started just like any other mission. There had been reports of a few people going missing, which were usually treated with regretful indifference - the kind where you knew if someone’s not come back by nightfall, they weren’t coming back at all. Abel had gotten involved when one of our runners was bringing a little girl back, and on a bathroom break she had just… vanished. Problem was, she was now back. A few settlements had pulled together a sort-of-task-force that was organising the information available on these missing people and Janine had decided this would be a good project to distract me with. She was very quiet on comms, compared to, well, never mind. Distraction.
I’ve seen a fair few things in my time. Immortal villains, zombie cults, mind control, even a zombie that looked exactly like me. This was unlike any of that. This was people being tortured and mutilated and then fed to the zoms. This was a serial killer.
Even after all of the experience I’ve had, I was nowhere near qualified to take someone like this out. No, I was just running a routine recon mission, checking an old crime scene to see if we had missed anything. It was the only one that didn’t fit the rest of the pattern, and it was now clear to me why - this was where he lived. This moment of epiphany was brought about rather abruptly by the sudden entrance of said killer into my field of view, and no amount of running helped against his intimate knowledge of the terrain.
I woke up chained to, of all things, a radiator. Did those still work at individual houses, I idly wondered. Someone was kicking me, so I tried to shrink away and not pay attention.
“Wake up. Wake up! You piece of. FILTH. How dare you walk into MY LANDS like you own them and think I wouldn’t notice?”
I grudgingly opened my eyes like they were glued together with rust and fixed I him a polite but disinterested stare. I couldn’t be absolutely sure it was him but the best thing I could do right now was shut up and wait for him to talk. And hope that someone would be listening, on the other end.
The stare might have been too brash, in hindsight. That’s the “You stole my sports bra” look, which usually earns quick scampering and quicker results at Abel, and a fond smile and arm touch from Sam. It only convinced this guy that I was meant to be his next target and that he would wreak “vengeance and furious anger” upon me (or something to that effect) to prove his point.
The following day is a bit blurry owing to the pain, the panic, the relief, and the crying. I remember being strapped to a gurney and flogged, like meat being tenderised. I vaguely remember being unstrapped to flip me around. I also vaguely remember some fighting instincts kicking in and helping me out of this building. Shock kept me going, helped me make a quick report to Janine, who had the task force strike team over quicker than yesterday ended, and I recall being ushered to a van and eventually the hospital building at Abel.
I knew this was the hospital building, because I know all these Abel buildings like my home. Besides, I did mention I tended to get up to a lot of trouble. More than my fair share, I think, sometimes. But I’d established a positive routine - coming home to Abel, making a report to Janine, and seeing Sam. That was guaranteed to warm my aching bones no matter what.
I woke up in a standard issue bed and immediately winced at the amount of skin that had been medicated. My second thought was that it was all not worth it and I should just pack it in and go back to sleep. My third thought was the smell of Sam’s hair and I was wide awake.
Unfortunately, I ended up waking Sam too, who now had an almost irresistible cowlick I was oddly fixated on. He groggily stared at me, and I knew those moments where his brain was just kicking in and piecing things together. He lazily grazed my cheek with one hand before he closed his eyes in relief and just hugged me gently.
“Five! Five… you’re real, and you’re here. I’m here. You’re back home, at Abel. You’re safe.”
He remembered to keep his voice down this time. I merely raised an eyebrow, with a lot more effort than I was willing to admit. The effect was lost on an emotional Sam that had gone back to staring at me with a strange look on his face.
“I thought I was a goner, then I came back, and then for a bit there we thought you were a goner, and now you’re back, and the Suffolk Savager is dead. It’s getting to the point where Janine seems to be the only one that always understands what is going on!”
I could only weakly nod in agreement. I had still not recovered from thinking Sam dead. This was partly why Janine had thought it was a good idea to have me helping out with the joint task force.
“Oh, no, there I go again, making you do exactly the things I was told not to make you do! Maxine’s still not fully back here after the birth and has one of her assistants shadowing me whenever I set foot in here, constantly nagging after all the things I’m supposed to and not supposed to be doing.”
I weakly smiled. “And what is it you’re not supposed to be doing, Mr. Yao?”
Sam’s cheeks went the palest shade of pink as I said that. I braced myself for the effusion of awkward British blustering that was sure to follow, but was completely thrown off by Sam leaning in close to me.
“Many, many things, Five. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to know?”
Before my jaw could hurt from being injured yet dropped open, substitute-Maxine walked by.
“Sam, Maxine said Sara just refuses to go to sleep and you should consider it officially part of your fatherly duties to just run to her whenever she calls on you from now. Also, hey, Runner Five. Glad to see you’re up again. Don’t worry, you’re not injured terribly badly, you’ll just chafe a pretty big amount if you try to run before you’re recovered.”
Maxine was rubbing off on substitute-Maxine. This did not bode well for either Sam, me, or the little Demons & Darkness sessions that covertly happened in the hospital wing after a big raid or scouting mission brought a lot of us into the Hospital. Before I could mentally switch gears from the Extreme Yao Induced Brain Fog, Sam had straightened up and substitute-Maxine had presumably started taking copious notes to inform Maxine of the scandalous things her wards had been getting up to.
“I’m glad you’re all right, Five. It’s been hard on me not being Operator much since I got back and with the baby and everything… It’s certainly set my priorities in life straight for me, for once. Rest up, we’ll have a nice long chat in the comms shack after you’re all straightened up and I’m settled back in, alright.”
I could only nod weakly. Substitute-Maxine gave me the “you’re both oblivious idiots” patented Maxine glare (I was as taken aback as Sam was) and left with him.
Helicopter crashes can land you in some really strange places.