Rise and Run (Broken Man Trilogy Book 1)

by RJ Plant

  “Seems okay,” I said to Kaitlyn.

  She stepped around me and headed down a hall closer to the front half of the building, which was really the only option she had, seeing how the sixth and seventh floors had sunk down onto the back half of this one.

  “Found some first-aid kits,” she yelled from one of the rooms down the hall.

  “Yeah? That mean you can take a look at my shoulder?”

  “And your pinky,” she said.

  A high-pitched scream followed by swearing had me running. I poked my head through every doorway I came across.

  “Kaitlyn,” I called, moving quickly to the next room. “What’s going on?”

  Kaitlyn’s voice came from farther down the hall: “What are you doing? Give that back!”

  “Kait!” I shouted, skidding to a halt when I saw her in a room playing tug-of-war with someone wearing a dingy brown trench coat wrapped over what seemed like an obscene layer of cold-weather clothing.

  “Kaitlyn,” I said again as I ran in the room and lunged for the stranger.

  Kaitlyn ducked out of the way, the first-aid kits she’d been holding falling away to scatter along the floor.

  “The transport bag!” she shouted.

  I tried to pull back, mid-launch, but ended up having to turn as I tackled the guy holding Kaitlyn’s bloodbox so he’d land on top of me. Which mostly worked. He let go of the container as we fell to the floor and Kaitlyn was quick to grab it and turn it right side up to keep the contents from being further disturbed.

  I got a foot under me and started to stand as the guy struggled to get up. My arms, still wrapped around him, fell to his waist in a low hug, so I put a leg in front and to the left of his to weaken his stance, then picked him up and used the momentum to throw him to the floor again. I managed to get out the gun from the left side of my shoulder holster and aimed it at his head.

  Only it wasn’t a him.

  “It’s a fecking girl!” I yelled, half to Kaitlyn and half just from general surprise.

  Up close, there was no mistaking her gender. She looked young, maybe in her teens. Her coat fell open, showing a once-white turtleneck under a dark yellow … waistcoat? A long scarf—which may have been multicolored or may have just been excessively faded or stained in places—was wrapped loosely around her neck, the edges falling to the floor as she looked up at me.

  “’Course I’m a girl. What’s it to you?” she said, a sneer contorting her face.

  Her accent was similar to Sully’s, only where his had taken on a slight Irish lilt, hers was completely foreign.

  “What are you doing up here?” I asked.

  “It’s none of your damn business,” she said.

  “You’re wrong, there. You attacked one of mine,” I said. “And that makes it my business.”

  “Conor …” Kaitlyn said.

  I looked over to where she was crouching over her bloodbox. She had it open and tilted, very slightly, toward me. The inside of the box was coated in blood, some of the vacutainer tubes crushed bad enough for the tops to have popped.

  In my moment of distraction, the girl scrambled up and away before I could grab her. A thunderous, earsplitting crack slowed her down before she got to the door.

  “Conor,” Kaitlyn said.

  “It’s the building,” I said, assuming Kaitlyn thought I’d shot the girl.

  The sound seemed to come from everywhere, far away, yet right on top of us. I looked up. The ceiling cracked, then groaned under the pressure of the floors above pressing in.

  I grabbed Kaitlyn’s arm and snatched her off the floor, turning us so she was closer to the door. I covered her head with one arm and used the other to cover her neck, shielding her as the ceiling caved in and a heavy steel beam slammed down into the floor, which began to crack and split beneath us.

  “Go!” I yelled.

  “The samples,” she said, and I grabbed her around the waist as she tried to go back for them.

  I slung her toward the door and dove after her with such momentum that I slammed into the far wall of the hallway. Between one blink and the next, the room we’d been in filled with plaster and drywall, structural support beams and broken paraphernalia.

  “Where’d the girl go?” Kaitlyn asked, shouting to be heard over the building’s collapse.

  “Fuck the girl, we’re leaving,” I said.

  I grabbed Kaitlyn by the arm and we headed for the stairwell. We took the stairs two at a time, but the walls were collapsing faster than we could run, so I grabbed Kaitlyn’s arm and pulled her through the doorway to the fourth floor. I dragged her behind me as chunks of concrete peppered our heads and necks. We came to the edge of the building, the edge of the world, where we’d been sitting earlier.

  And there was the girl, sliding down one of the support beams and rolling as she hit the ground. She started to run, then slammed right into Sully, who grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the building, then held on to her as she struggled.

  “Go,” I said to Kait. “Slide down where the girl did.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, I’m fecking serious, Kaitlyn. Go!” I said, steering her toward the edge.

  She sat down and sidled over to the support beam. Another thunderous crack sounded. I gave Kaitlyn a helpful push, then got ready to follow.

  The beam shifted.

  “Kaitlyn, jump!”

  She listened this time, rolling to the ground as the beam fell inward, forcing me farther into the building as it took a portion of the floor with it. I looked over the widening edge, then looked around to see what I could use to get down.

  Which was nothing.

  If I jumped now, I’d have enough room for a running start so I could clear the base of the building.

  “Nothing else for it,” I told myself.

  I backed farther into the building, gaining about ten feet for a running start. Then I sprinted toward the section of floor that extended out the farthest and dove.

  And it seemed endless.

  I might have screamed, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!”

  As I got closer to the ground, I started to twist, trying to angle myself in such a way that I could tumble through some of the impact. It was a nice thought.

  I hit the ground hard and heard another loud crack as I rolled a good twenty feet. I stayed there, on the hard ground, on my back. It took a little longer than I was comfortable with to finally suck in a relatively deep breath.

  I could vaguely hear the building continuing to come down. I wiggled my toes, which didn’t seem difficult. Then I tried to sit up, which proved extremely difficult since only one arm could hold my weight. I wrestled my jacket off with my good arm, shimmying out of it and hissing at the pain as the sleeve caught against my forearm. My left arm was a mangled mess.

  Four blobby-blurs started getting bigger as they approached. The voices were audible, but I was having trouble making out the words. The more they spoke, the easier it was.

  “Holy shit, that was fuckin’ wicked,” the girl said.

  “Oh,” Kaitlyn said—more of a gasp, really—as she walked around to my left side. “My God.”

  “We may have to take him out to pasture,” Brinly said. “Too bad, too.”

  “Fuck,” I said, then fell back.

  19

  1 November 2042, Boston Settlement, Former U.S. Territory

  “Please, stop slapping me,” I said.

  “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead,” Brinly’s voice explained.

  I opened one eye. Brinly was kneeling at my side, leaning over me. Sully and the girl sat a few feet away, both looking sour and grumpy and neither saying a word. I panicked for a minute—which caused a flood of pain—then vaguely remembered that Kaitlyn had made it out okay.

  “Where’s Kaitlyn?”

  “Trying to find something for that useless arm of yours,” Brinly said.

  “Shite. All right, help me up, then,” I said, holding out my right h
and.

  She repositioned herself, sitting taller and hooking an arm under mine in a sort of side hug that allowed her to more easily lift me into a sitting position.

  “You go white every time you sit up. Maybe you should stay on your back,” Brinly said, one side of her mouth turning up.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I said to her, the words followed closely by either a laugh or strangled sob. Maybe a little of both. “We figure out who the girl is?”

  “She’s not saying much. She got a real kick out of your suicide dive though,” Brinly said, motioning to the now unrecognizable building.

  “Didn’t have much choice, did I? And you think you could have done better?”

  “I’d have done something cleverer.”

  “All right, Sully?” I called.

  “Better than you,” he said. “Fuckin’ stupid move diving four stories. Diving. Fuck.”

  Footsteps sounded behind me, moving fast.

  “It’s Kaitlyn,” Brinly said as it became obvious I either wasn’t going to or couldn’t turn around.

  Kaitlyn dropped a bag between Brinly and me, then plopped onto the ground, panting.

  “Have a good exercise?” I asked.

  She shook her head, looked like she wanted to say something but was still trying to catch her breath. Brinly dug around in the bag, frowning hard enough that I imagined it hurt. She gave up after a moment, then stood up and walked away.

  “The fuck is she going?” I said.

  “To the helicopter. She said there’s a medical kit on it, but it’s not for …” Kaitlyn nodded at my arm. “Not for something that serious. I found antibiotics and something for the pain, which should help, but …”

  “But you’re fucked,” said the girl.

  “Yeah, a real high-level medical assessment, that is,” I said to her. Then to Kait, “I have an idea.”

  I explained to Kait about the bullet wound and my missing finger, about the accelerated healing.

  “The virus seems to trigger the accelerated healing,” she said. “Your body must not discriminate between viral and other damage. That’s remarkable.”

  “I’m only thinking it could help. Don’t know for sure, do I?”

  “We’d have to set the bone, then find a way to keep it straight while Felix is in control.”

  “Ideas?”

  “As a matter of fact …” Kaitlyn smiled, and it was not a comforting expression. “Sully, take the girl and gather up something we can use to keep Conor’s arm straight—boards, PVC pipe, anything we can use to make a splint.”

  “For all the good it’ll do,” Sully grumbled.

  He stood and grabbed the girl’s elbow, lifting her. For the first time, I noticed that her wrists were bound.

  “She our hostage?” I asked Kaitlyn.

  “Sully wants to see if she knows anything about his daughter or see if she can give us any leads. Just need to get you off death’s door first.” She looked me up and down, scanning for more damage. “You haven’t done more than sit up since your fall. You might have spinal damage.”

  “I can wiggle my toes,” I said, then slapped my legs to see if there was feeling in them. “Legs seem okay.”

  “Glad to see we have another medical expert on board,” she said, pulling out bandages from a bag.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “Medical center over there,” she said, nodding over my shoulder. “Now lie down.”

  “Think this’ll do?” Sully asked.

  He was holding a piece of a two-by-four in one hand and a broken rebar rod in the other. The girl stood beside him, too curious, I think, to make a break for it.

  “Yeah, that’s perfect,” Kaitlyn said.

  She took the board and rebar from Sully and set them on the ground beside the bandages. Brinly returned, handing Kaitlyn the Raider’s med-bag. Kaitlyn dug around until she found what she wanted. She pulled out a roll of medical tape.

  “Hold him down?” she asked Brinly.

  “My pleasure,” Brinly said. She leaned her body across my chest and abdomen, facing me, and held my right arm between her legs, just above her knees. Kaitlyn lifted my left arm to situate the board under it and pain flashed so forcefully I was temporarily blinded. She put one hand around my elbow, the other around my wrist. Then she looked at me, her lips fading into a thin line …

  … And pulled.

  I might have screamed. I’m pretty confident I did, though my memory went blank at the initial jolt of pain.

  When my eyes cleared, I let my head fall to the left, my whole body filled with a sense of numb heaviness. I watched Kaitlyn work, not registering any of the movement, not feeling Brinly lying on my chest. I just watched.

  After setting the rebar against my arm opposite the board, Kaitlyn taped everything up, then wrapped it all in bandages, then taped it up again.

  “That should work,” she told me. “You can get up, Brinly. We can’t touch him for the next part.”

  She stood, hand on cocked hip, and watched. Sully and the girl were silent. Kaitlyn nodded.

  I let myself fall away as I called out to Felix.

  *****

  “Kaitlyn,” I whispered through teeth gritted against pain.

  Everywhere, pain. Breathing was hard. Getting harder.

  “Be still, Felix,” she said.

  “He’s dying.” Strange voice, woman’s.

  Couldn’t see. Heard Kaitlyn again.

  “The more damage the virus does to the body, the more damage it’s likely to heal, whether it’s from the virus or not,” she said. “At least, that’s an educated guess.”

  “Seth,” I said, grabbing for the last memory.

  I couldn’t hear myself.

  Kaitlyn again. Couldn’t make out the words.

  No more sound came.

  No breath.

  *****

  1 November 2042, Boston Settlement, Former U.S. Territory

  For a while, there was nothing but a lingering sense of pain. My ears popped. I could hear faint noises, the volume increasing with every sound. Black turned to white turned to blurs turned to blobs, then finally to people.

  “You waited a little long,” Kaitlyn said.

  I tried to respond but coughed instead. Warm liquid dripped down my face. I took a deep breath and huffed out the air, hard and fast, and something came up. I turned my head to spit it out.

  “Oh, that’s fuckin’ gross,” the girl said.

  I lifted my head to look at her, but it took so much effort. I let my head drop back to the ground.

  “What kind of freaks are you people?” the girl asked.

  “It’s just him,” Brinly said. “The rest of us are normal.”

  “Debatable,” Kaitlyn said, kneeling beside me again. “I’m going to unwrap your arm now.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait. I can … feel it.”

  So we waited.

  When the tickling, tingling, slightly burning feeling finally subsided, I nodded to Kait. She pulled a pair of scissors from the medical bag and began carefully cutting the medical tape and bandages. It was a slow process. “How’s that?” she asked when she finally had everything removed.

  I flexed my hand, then my wrist, forearm, and so on.

  “Still feels weak,” I said, “but not broken.”

  I sat up, waving Kaitlyn away when she tried to help. I rolled onto my hands and knees. My arm was holding up okay so far. I pushed myself into a crouch, then managed to get to my feet. Standing was a bit wobbly, but otherwise okay. I steadied myself, just getting used to standing and breathing.

  “No more busted arse buildings,” I said.

  “Holy shit,” the girl said. “What are you?”

  “I’ll answer yours if you answer mine,” I said.

  “Yeah, all right.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Madison,” she said.

  “Chimera,” I said.

  “How’d you heal like that?”
<
br />   “What are you doing here?” I countered.

  “You first this time,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

  “Oh, yeah? Same here.”

  “If you’re going to play this game, ask him something he can actually answer,” Kaitlyn said.

  “Yeah, all right,” Madison said. “Where did you come from? You sound funny.”

  “It’s insults we’re trading now, is it?” I said. “United Irish Republic. Now, what are you doing here?”

  “Looking for stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Brinly asked.

  Madison looked at Brinly and it wasn’t a nice look. She turned back to me and said, “Medical stuff.”

  “Do you know this girl?” Sully said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to Madison. When Madison didn’t take the paper, Sully unfolded it and held it up. She leaned in for a better look but didn’t touch the paper.

  “She a doctor?” Madison asked me, indicating Kaitlyn with a wave of her hand.

  “She might be that,” I said. “Answer Sully’s question.”

  Madison twisted one of her feet around in the dirt and shoved her hands in the pockets of her dingy trench coat.

  “I’ll tell you,” she said. “But you got to help me first.”

  “With what?”

  “My dad is sick,” she said, then looked at Kaitlyn. “Can you help him?”

  “I can try,” Kaitlyn said. “And I will, but only if you help my friend here.”

  “Yeah, okay. Come on, follow me.”

  20

  1 November 2042, Boston Settlement, Former U.S. Territory

  Madison led us a few miles east to what looked like a city within a city. Densely packed buildings settled in between pre-War structures. Cars picked down to the chassis sat haphazardly in the streets—where the streets were actually visible—while their repurposed bodies formed the post-War buildings that created a sort of wall around the settlement. The pre-War/post-War overlap gave the city a dark, foreboding appearance.