Mirror Sky. Part 1 - Blissful Nemesis

16 - Rescue

Dan, Artur, Sonya, and Tom, the four protectors of the child, arranged themselves in a defensive formation. Dan carried the boy in his arms, hiding behind Arthur's massive figure upfront and flanked by Sonya on the left and Tom on the right. It was Sonya's idea, and it was a good one - someone would have to pay close attention to spot a kid, let alone examine him.

Nevertheless, the feeling of impending disaster was not letting Dan go. His instincts were usually correct, and this time all the alarms rang loud in his head. He could not explain how all this mess got neatly arranged around them.

They went down deserted, narrow streets, untouched by war. It was one of the rare pockets where the frontline held firm. It would have looked normal had it not been without any light. Dead storefronts, dead signs, dark windows - it all took Dan back to Elpida Plaza, to the beginning of the invasion. He got hit with a sudden wave of panic and looked up, expecting dead bodies to fall. None did. Dan closed his eyes to recollect himself.

A few twists and turns later, they were back on the scorched battlefield. Ironically, that was when they came across the first sign of life. A team of four paramedics, covered in green portable medical devices, walked through the messy scene of death before them, turning people over, lifting facemasks, scanning armor, and tagging everyone with red holographic crosses. The ambulance hovered over, humming deeply and illuminating the scene from above. The paramedics noticed the approaching group, glanced at them briefly, and moved on with their duties.

"I got a code!"

The team of paramedics surrounded the body and fell to their knees. They unlocked the mid-sized armor with trained moves, exposing the cadet's chest and her t-shirt covered in blood. One of the medics waved her arm over the body, and a hologram appeared above it, showing the bullet that punctured the lung.

"She died thirty minutes ago," she said. "The armor pumped her full of Freezer, so the brain should be preserved. Code Lazarus confirmed. Let's do it."

The paramedic with two green armbraces moved closer and placed his metal hands around the wound. The bullet emerged from the chest, followed by the blood from the lung, then the hole turned into an old scar. The dead cadet started twitching gruesomely, shocked with electricity until she coughed blood and took the first raspy breath.

"Welcome back to the living!" said one of the paramedics, an elderly woman with a harsh voice. "How do you feel?"

"I see purple!" said the cadet coarsely. "Everything is purple!"

"What, you don't like it? Ok, fine, we'll clean your blood from Freezer."

"My units! Where... my unit..."

"Don't lift your head and close your eyes!"

Dan and the group passed by the cadet, feeling both relieved that she had come back to life and awful as she was yet to see her entire unit dead around her. The kid in Dan's arms tried to guess what had just happened as there were many conflicting emotions around. He produced a few signs, but Dan halted them, just in case.

"It's nice to see somebody return," said Sonya in a flat voice. "If they were to get to our position in time..."

"All of ours are buried under the arachnid, or worse," said Tom. "Don't keep your hopes up."

That conversation made Dan's heart race. In the day's chaos, getting scooped up to another mission, he never checked on people he knew, aside from his dad on the Wall. What about his mother? His wife? They both lived far from the frontline but were hotheaded enough to rush onto the street and join the fight.

Dan pinged both their statuses to the central. One second. Two. Three. Usually, pings don't take that long. Five. Ten. Fifteen.

Mother's status came back. Zeina Sage: located on Engineering Level under the city, weapon factory. Alive. Dan still held his breath, waiting for the response about his wife.