Cure for a Nation

Chapter Twelve

"Ohhh.." Claire groaned. Her side ached as though a Walker stepped on it and she could taste blood. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking the black spots from her vision. She felt cool concrete beneath her out stretched hands and a tiny trickle of water splashed against her face as it splattered against the floor next to her head. With a grunt, she raised herself to her hands and knees but when she tried to stand, a fresh wave of pain rolled through her side and she fell back onto the floor. "Where am I," she wondered aloud, "what happened?" She looked up and saw nothing but darkness until a flash of lightning illuminated a hole in the roof high above her. "How far did I fall?" She asked herself as she struggled to her feet. Claire held her side as she stood and looked around. Another flash of lightning offered her a brief glimpse of her surroundings. She saw chains hanging from the ceilings and rusted catwalks crisscrossed above her except for two that were split in half. "Strange.." Claire muttered to herself, "now where's Daniel?" She turned slowly, wincing with every movement. There was a flicker of light behind her and Claire took a painful step towards it, limping as she did so. "Danny?" Claire called uncertainly. She tripped over something solid and her groping hands told her it was Daniels folded carbine and his pack. The splintered remains of a crate obscured her view of what was creating the flickering light but Claire had a pretty good idea. She slid the crate away and found Daniel. He was in bad shape. He was laying on his back on a conveyor belt, the steel bars almost bending around him. His arms were spread and his head hung limp over the edge of the belt. The flickering light came from the damaged flashlight in his helmet and a faint red light blinked on its side. "Daniel?" Claire called to him as she approached him. He wasn't responding and Claire began to fear for the worst. She felt for his gauntlet that his power gauges were in and felt blood drip onto her hand from his wounded arm. She swallowed hard as she slid the cover of his gauntlet open with shaking hands. "Please be okay, please be okay," she pleaded quietly as she read his gauges. They read that they were empty and the word "BREACH" flashed in red beneath the power gauge. I won't know until I get this armor off of him, she thought, but I'll have to move him somewhere safer first. Since she knew she wouldn't be able to lift him from the belt, she settled with looping her arms beneath his and dragging him from the destroyed assembly line. Another flash of lightning showed her an office on on the opposite side of the factory and she made her way towards it. Daniels armor made a horrible grinding sound as she dragged him and his flickering flashlight cast ominous shadows of the chains hanging above. "You so owe me that dinner," Claire grunted as she dragged him. She pulled him into the office and laid him down on the floor in the center of the room. Before she did anything else, she went back out onto the factory floor and retrieved the gear Daniel had dropped and set them next to him. There was a metal desk against the wall and Claire used it to barricade the door in case the bandits came back. The room was pitch black except for when Daniel's helmet light would flicker and Claire felt around in Daniels pack for the yellow kit he had demanded she pack. Upon finding it, she tore it open and felt its contents in the dark until she could feel a set of fat, metallic tubes. She pulled one out and shook it before pulling the handle at the end of it. As she pulled, the metal around the tube lifted and revealed a bright but soft blue light from within. The room was quickly illuminated and Claire squinted at the light while her eyes adjusted. When she could see again, she looked down at Daniel and gasped. His armor had been all but destroyed by the explosion and fighting. A piece of a metal bar was stuck in the plate over his shin and a smaller one had impaled his already wounded hand. His helmet was badly damaged and his light flickered once more before darkening one final time, along with the blinking light on the side. The visor was cracked and smashed and Claire could see his right eye through a hole in the glass. "I'll start there," Claire muttered as she fidgeted with the release lever on the side of the helmet until it popped out and the helmet opened with a high pitched hiss. She removed it slowly, careful not to drop Daniels head onto the concrete and inspected the damage on his face. There was a cut across his brow and Claire held a bandage taken from the emergency kit to the wound while she searched for something to hold it in place. Her hand hit something solid in the bottom of the case and it rolled onto the concrete with a clink. She paused and looked at it in the blue light of the glow stick, trying to make sense of it. It was a small stainless steel cylinder the size of her middle finger with black and yellow stripes wrapping around both ends. "That's strange," Claire mumbled as she wrapped Daniels head. She eyed the panel on his gauntlet flashing "BREACH" and wondered what it meant. She decided she would worry about it once his wounds were tended to and moved to fix his hand. She held his wrist down with her knee and grabbed the metal rod with both hands and prepared to pull. "I really hope you can't feel this," she told the unconscious soldier as she readied herself. She pulled finally, grunting and straining but the rod only shifted, spilling blood onto the floor. "I'm so sorry, Danny," Claire said as she put her foot down on his wrist and pulled again. The rod finally came free with a sickening pop and Claire fell back, out of breath and fighting the urge to gag. She tended the wound as best she could before her attention came back to his face. "Why aren't you awake?" Claire wondered aloud, "I thought you soldier types were tough." The flashing word on his gauntlet came to her attention again and Claire looked at his suit. She pulled the other rod out of the plate in his shin and taped over it, hoping that would satisfy the gauges but to no avail. "What do you mean?" She asked the gauntlet, exasperated, "I checked everywhere!" And then she paused. Not everywhere, she realized. She lifted him by his shoulders to get a look at his back and gasped. The back of his armor was covered in bolts, screws, nails, and everything else he landed on but what shocked Claire the most was the space between his shoulders. The armor was blackened, almost like it was charred. A panel was bent open and a glowing red fluid oozed slowly from the armor. Claire touched the blackened armor but it burned her. "It's almost like it's about to melt," she observed as she drew his combat knife from its compartment and wedged it under the panel. Upon contact, the blade buzzed and Claire's fingers tickled. Shocking developments, she thought subconsciously. She popped the panel off and it swiveled downward and hung from its hinges while she inspected the damage. She saw that a metal cylinder like the one that fell from the emergency kit was split in half and smoking, leaking the red ooze out of the armor. "The battery," Claire breathed as she wedged it out with the knife. It popped out in pieces and Claire was careful not to touch any of them. She picked up the spare battery and inspected it. It was smaller than the other one but with the click of a button, it twisted apart and lengthened to fit the space where the other battery was. "The Imperium sure likes its space," Claire mumbled as she tried to set the battery as gingerly as possible in its slot. It clicked into place and a green light flashed on its side. Claire closed the panel as best she could again and laid Daniel away from the pool of fluids from the other battery and watched him. The gauges on his wrist slowly moved upwards and no words were flashing red anymore. That's good..I think, Claire thought. Suddenly, the armor beeped and Daniels limbs stiffened as though he was electrocuted and he shot up, gasping and coughing. "Claire!" He shouted between splutters, making Claire jump back. He looked around, patting his armor and his face. He flinched as he touched the bandage on his head and noticed a bloody cloth wrapped around his hand. Finally, he noticed Claire watching him and he moved to kneel by her side. "Claire," he said, out of breath, "are you okay? Did you get hit?" He looked her over and touched her arms and inspected her head with his good hand, making Claire laugh. "You get into a firefight," Claire chastised, "and fall through a building but you still ask me if I'm okay?"
"But you are okay, right?" Daniel asked.
Claire rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm okay."
Daniel picked up his helmet and inspected it in his lap, trying to use only one hand as much as possible. "What happened to it," Claire asked, trying to fill the silence.
"Shotgun," Daniel answered as he picked a pellet from the side of the helmet, "point blank." He dusted it off and his hand left a print in the scorch mark. He pulled on the glass of his visor until it came free and he tossed it to the side, along with his damaged flashlight. Claire watched him in silence as he took stock of his equipment and look around the room anxiously. He started to stand but he swore and held a hand to his side where Claire remembered he was shot. "Whoa there," she said as she stood next to him, "you're not going anywhere until I know you're not going to keel over."
"We don't have time to waste," Daniel said, shrugging her hand off of his shoulder, "we need to keep moving."
"Danny," Claire said sternly, "take your armor off and sit down or I'll shoot you myself."
Daniel rolled his eyes and obeyed, removing his armor as best he could with one hand. "If you say so," he muttered as Claire readied the medical supplies.