As an earthquake rocked the ville of Struggle, Doc lay in the path of a toppling tower. If the structure came down on top of him, it would likely crush him in an instant.
There were times in his life when he might have frozen in such a situation, times when he might have panicked or had a flashback and required a rescue. But this wasn’t one of them.
Adrenaline blazed in his bloodstream, impelling him to action. Throwing himself to the side, he rolled fast across the ground, hurtling out of the path of the tower.
The quick action saved his life, though he wasn’t completely unscathed. The rickety structure crashed down beside him, the heavy metal car doors that formed its walls slamming down with such force that all their windows shattered at once. As for the framework of rusty plumbing that had been holding it all together, the impact blew it apart. Broken lengths of copper and iron pipe sprang from the wreckage, flying outward—and one pipe collided with the middle of Doc’s back. He cried out when it hit, though at least his spine was spared; the hunk of metal struck to one side of the spinal cord, mostly catching the flesh around his ribs.
The injury stung, but it could have been worse. Gingerly, Doc rubbed the impact site, glad the projectile hadn’t smashed into his skull instead.
Then he heard someone else crying out, and he sat up. Listening and looking around, he quickly identified the source: the plaintive shouts were coming from another collapsed building, one that had fallen across the street from the jury-rigged tower.
Getting to his feet, Doc realized that most of the shifters were focused on other buildings in the center of town. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the crumbled brick-and-timber blockhouse from which the nearest cries for help came.
The thought of turning away never entered his mind. Setting his jaw, Doc hurried across the street and started picking his way through the blockhouse rubble.
“Help!” The voice from within was high-pitched, a child’s. “Please, somebody help me! I’m trapped!”
“Help is on the way, my friend,” Doc shouted in reply. “I hope to have you out of there in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“Please hurry!” The voice sounded close, as if the child were a short distance inside the crumbled walls. “My mama isn’t breathing!”
“Hold tight, friend.” Doc’s movements took on added urgency as he pushed aside broken timbers that were blocking the front entrance of the building. Grunting, he picked up bricks that were piled in the doorway and dropped them to one side. His back injury pinged repeatedly, and he kept working through the pain, determined to dig his way inside.
A few more moments and he’d cleared a path into the wreckage. Carefully, he stepped through the doorway and moved down a short passage, stopping twice to push more timbers out of his way.
“Hello?” the child called. “Are you still out there?”
“Yes, my dear.” Doc had to ease his way around a heavy timber that was wedged between ceiling and floor and wouldn’t budge. “Rest assured, I am still moving in your direction.”
“Please hurry!” the child urged.
Doc ducked under another collapsed timber, stepped over a pile of dust and debris, and came to a doorway on his right. He had to contort himself to get through it, setting off his back injury, and then he was in the same room as the child.
He saw now that the shifter child was a little boy, no older than five or six. “You’re here!” The boy’s eyes widened and lit up from across the rubble-strewed room, where he was squatting on the floor beside his mother’s supine body. “You came!”
“There was never any doubt, child.” Doc smiled as he picked his way through the rubble.
“My name is Cardy,” said the boy. “Can you help my mama?”
“I will certainly try.” Doc lowered himself to kneel at the unconscious woman’s side. Her skin was pink; the usual deep red color common to shifters had faded.
Cardy had been right: she wasn’t breathing. But when Doc pressed his fingers into the artery in her neck, he felt a thready pulse. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save her.
“Can you help her?” The boy’s face was streaked with tears.
Doc didn’t want to get his hopes up. “I will try.” With that, he checked her airway, which was clear, and started administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It was a technique he had learned from the whitecoats who’d time-trawled him to the 1990s; at least they’d taught him one thing of lasting value during his captivity.
Doc performed chest compressions on the boy’s mother, then tipped her head back, pinched her nose shut and puffed breath into her lungs. Her chest rose, then fell, and he blew in another breath.
As he resumed chest compressions, he heard a creaking sound and looked up at the ceiling. He saw a single splintered beam buckling under the weight of sagging wallboard; it was only a matter of time until the entire ceiling collapsed.
After administering another series of breaths, Doc applied more compressions. “Go outside, Cardy,” he told the boy. “Go ahead, and I’ll meet you shortly with your mama.”
“No!” Cardy shook his head vehemently. “I won’t leave her!”
“Please,” said Doc. “You must.”
“No!” Cardy placed a hand protectively on the woman’s shoulder. “Just help her!”
Dust from the wallboard ceiling trickled down around Doc. “Go!” he snapped, trying to jolt the boy into getting clear of the imminent ceiling collapse. “Get out of here!”
The boy just shook his head, more tears pouring down his cheeks.
Again, Doc repeated the breaths and compressions, and again the woman didn’t respond.
Was Doc going to have to tell the boy that his mother was dead? The thought of it propelled him through another round of CPR. He knew just how it felt to have a loved one torn away, to never see that person again because of the mistakes of others.
More ceiling dust trickled down, and the creaking of the beam grew louder. Doc’s heart hammered, and his stomach twisted painfully.
Then, suddenly, the woman inhaled on her own. Breath rushed into her lungs, and she coughed.
“Mama!” Cardy lit up with joy. “Mama, you’re alive!”
Just then, the beam above them creaked again, louder than ever. Doc knew they were all out of time. “Let’s go!”
Cardy was hugging his mother around the neck, and Doc pushed him off her. Getting to his feet, Doc scooped the woman up with some trouble, ignoring the protests of his injured back.
“We need to get out of here!” Doc nodded toward the doorway through which he’d entered. “You first!”
Cardy hesitated. “But my mama…” He didn’t seem aware of the fact that the beam was about to snap.
“Just do it!” Doc hollered. “Unless you want all this to be for nothing!”
Cardy scowled as if he might cry. “What do you mean, for nothing?”
Doc was exasperated. “Just go!” He said it with the most commanding voice he could, hoping he would cut through the little boy’s confusion.
It worked. With a hurt and angry glare, Cardy spun and charged out of the room. As young and nimble as he was, he sidestepped the debris in his path as if it didn’t exist.
Doc hurried after him as fast as he could, praying the ceiling would hold up for another few seconds. Navigating the wreckage, he followed Cardy’s footsteps through the doorway and into the passage beyond.
Doc was most of the way down the hall when he heard the ceiling collapse behind him. The crash was like a thunderclap to Doc, seemingly all the louder because it signified the death he’d just escaped.
By the time he maneuvered out the door with the woman in his arms, following on the heels of Cardy, an audience had gathered. Five shifters ringed the doorway, watching with wide eyes as Doc emerged from the destruction.
The shifters all cheered for him at once, then surged forward to help him with the woman. By the time they were done, Doc was standing there empty-handed, but not for long.
“Thank you!” Cardy leaped at him and hugged him tight around the middle. “Thank you for saving my mama!”
Doc had to admit, he felt choked up at that particular moment. The boy’s gratitude was overwhelming.
So was Doc’s surprise and delight at what he’d done. As the reality of it sank in, he relished the thought that he’d acted so decisively and saved someone’s life without help or guidance. He’d done it all on his own, with no prodding, and it made him feel good.
He liked being the rescuer much better than being the one being rescued.
* * *
“CONGRATULATIONS,” ANKH TOLD him later. “You’ve made quite an impression on the people of Struggle.”
Doc was working on a young patient in the middle of the street, setting a broken bone in her arm with a makeshift splint. “I assure you, such was not my intention.”
“The result is all that matters,” Ankh said. “And the result is that you are a hero to them.”
Doc snorted as he wrapped cloth tightly around the splint. “A hero is something I have never been, nor will I ever be.”
“Good, good.” Ankh smiled. “If there’s one thing the people like more than a hero, it’s a reluctant hero.”
Doc looked up at him, thought about arguing further, then decided against it. Perhaps his apparent heroism fit into some plan of Ankh’s that would mean freedom for them both.
“You did something wonderful,” Ankh told him. “You, an outlander, risked your life to save the lives of a shifter mother and child. I don’t think you realize how profound a statement that is.”
“Any decent person would have done the same thing.” Doc finished winding the cloth around the splint and clipped the end with a safety pin he’d been carrying.
“But you’re not just any person, are you, Dr. Hammersmith?” Ankh winked.
Just then, Exo’s high-pitched voice interrupted. “No, he is not.”
Ankh raised his eyebrows and stepped back. Whatever his plans were, he deferred to the leader as always.
“Ah, William.” Exo stormed over with a pink-and-blue candy stick in his mouth. “We are in your debt, as always. We can never repay you.”
Doc helped up the girl whose broken arm he’d set and nodded for her to leave, thinking that Exo could repay him by letting him go.
“Thank you.” Looking nervous, she quietly uttered the words and hurried away, skirting heaps of wreckage piled in the street by cleanup crews.
When the girl left, Exo threw his arm around Doc’s shoulders. “We do have a reward that I think you’ll appreciate, though.”
“What might that be?” Doc asked.
“Final revenge against your abductors.” Exo grinned. “The people of Struggle were so moved by your heroism, they have volunteered to send an army to wipe out the scoundrels who kidnapped you.”
It took an effort for Doc not to show his alarm. Exo had just announced that an army was going to wipe out his companions all because of Doc and his heroism.
“What do you think of that?” Exo squeezed Doc’s shoulder so hard, he made Doc wince. “Isn’t it a noble sacrifice?”
Doc clenched his teeth against the words he really wanted to say. Looking askance, he caught sight of Ankh, who was nodding forcefully and staring intently in his direction.
“Yes,” Doc said finally. “A noble sacrifice indeed.”
“This quake has galvanized them against the outlanders,” Exo said.
“But the outlanders didn’t cause it, did they?” Doc asked.
“Who can say?” Exo shrugged. “Their presence alone might be enough to disrupt the delicate balance of the Shift and spur such disasters.
“But don’t worry.” Exo swung his arm from around Doc’s shoulder and punched him in the biceps. “You won’t have to face them, my friend. You’ll be far from that battlefront.”
Doc frowned. “How far?”
“Dozens of miles in the opposite direction,” Exo said. “While the kidnappers are getting their just deserts, you’ll be heading straight for the core to finish your work.”
Doc cleared his throat. “Maybe I would rather see my kidnappers suffer first. Clear the air, so to speak.”
“Can’t be helped.” Exo shook his head. “We need you to work your magic in the core, or this empire of ours will never get off the ground.” With that, he smacked Doc in the middle of the back, hitting the exact spot where his injury hurt the most. “How does it feel to be in demand?”
Doc sucked in his breath at the wild shot of pain. “It feels…good.” His eyes watered, but he didn’t let himself cry out or show the extent of his discomfort. He was too afraid of what Exo’s twisted reaction might be.
“Excellent!” Exo pulled the candy stick from his mouth and waved it in Doc’s face. “You’re going to change the world, my dear Dr. Hammersmith! In a thousand years, they’ll still be singing songs about you and how you made my empire possible!”
Doc smiled and gave him a thumbs-up gesture while choking back his reaction to the still-throbbing back injury. “Wonderful.” He hoped Exo didn’t pick up on the strain in his voice, the sign of weakness that might invite his vicious scrutiny.
“They’ll sing about how you saved that woman and her child,” Exo said. “And they’ll sing about how the shifters repaid you with the blood of your abductors.”
“Lovely,” Doc grunted.
“Now go get ready to see off the army,” Exo ordered. “They march within the hour. And make no mistake, they will bring you that blood you seek. The shifters of Struggle are the most elite shock troops in all of the Shift. They cannot be stopped, especially on a vengeance quest like this one.”
Doc looked at Ankh, who nodded firmly. Apparently, the Struggle troops lived up to their billing from Exo.
“They will bring you plenty of blood,” Exo promised. “And whatever you want from the corpses of those outlander scum. Though, I have to say—” he chuckled “—I cannot personally guarantee what condition they’ll be in when they get to you.” He laughed, finding the thought of it hilarious.
Then he rushed off down the street, still laughing uproariously.
When Exo was out of earshot, Doc spoke to Ankh. “He should not send those troops. It is a mistake.”
“How so?” Ankh asked. “Don’t let this ramshackle ville of theirs fool you. They are every bit as deadly as he says.”
“My friends…” Doc shook his head slowly. “They will blow them to kingdom come.”
“Save your idle threats,” Ankh said, and then he shrugged. “Though, if your people are that dangerous… Oh, well.”
Doc stared at him. “What do you mean?”
Ankh shrugged again. “If this army was out of the picture, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for either of us. That’s all I’m saying.”
Doc frowned as the implications became clear. Taking the army of Struggle off the board was something Ankh desired, however permanent their absence from the game might turn out to be.
It was a cold-blooded strategy, but the Deathlands was a cold-blooded place.
And bloodshed, all too often, was the only way to survive its brutal climes.
“Don’t be so gloomy, Doc.” Ankh grinned and reached over to pat Doc’s shoulder. “Thanks to you inspiring the people of Struggle with your heroism, their troops—which are intensely loyal to Exo—will be miles away from the core when it most matters.”
Doc raised his eyebrows. “And when will it most matter, exactly?”
“When we are there,” Ankh said. “And the future is ours for the taking.”