[Fic] Echoes (The medic, 3)
...and here's Echoes too. Enjoy :)
The medic, chapter 3
A dozen different alarms brought him back online with an unpleasant jolt, and he cried out in pain. He was injured! Knowledge that he usually applied to others bubbled up unhelpfully, giving him long gory lists of what might be causing each problem - from pinched wires to loss of a limb and everything in between.
Trying to lift his head to work out where he was he found he was pinned under a pile of rubble, covered in debris of metal and stone and dust. His left leg had completely stopped responding to commands, and his right felt like it had been mashed flat. Even just accessing the links below his waist made his processor threaten to shut down with the pain.
Deliberately turning off his diagnostic programs for a moment, he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. Clearly he was not in the city, so where... ah.
Dabble and Longsider.
He had been out with them over that stupid satellite that they claimed had been deliberately shot down as part of some deeply subversive military plot. Then he had left them and tried to hurry back towards the towering city walls so he would not be too late for his shift.
Well, he could still see those walls in the distance. And now he remembered what had happened. As he had been running along he had tripped on a cracked bit of paving and catapulted himself headfirst into the corner of a small decaying shell of a building.
The building must have completely collapsed under the force of the impact. A lot of the structures out here were unstable from megavorns without maintenance following even more megavorns of damage, and he was usually very careful to pick a secure path if he did not have one of the others to guide him safely.
Not today, though. Today he had been too angry to be watching where he was going. And now he was hurt and needing help.
That thought stopped him cold.
There would be no help: no-one knew where he was. No-one at all.
The staff at the admissions office had known he was heading their way, but he had never actually gone inside so he had never told anyone what he was doing. Nor would he have done so if he had entered the building, for that matter. Only Scaler knew he occasionally went into the dead zone, and his friend thought he was utterly mad to do it.
But Scaler would not be looking for him now, not even if he did not turn up for his shift. Everyone would be too busy with the arriving Decepticons.
The only ones who knew he was anywhere near here were Dabble and Longsider, and those two were so shaken up at the moment that they would take his non-appearance in a few joors as proof that everyone was being murdered by the military. It would only send them running from civilisation that much further.
Feeling himself start to tremble as he realised how much trouble he was truly in, he tried to reason with himself.
Obviously, there had to be a way out of this. It would just be too stupid to die like this. And oh what a slow, agonising death...
No. No, he was not even going to consider that. He had to think. What could he do? He was still in the dead zone, which meant no active communications line so he could not summon help. No-one would be wandering out this far from the city walls, so there was no point putting any hope into that either.
"Well." he muttered to himself, trying to get up some courage. "Seems to me, the only option is to get yourself out of this one. Right. Here we go."
"Never again." he promised himself. "Never again. Not leaving the city again. Not for anything. Not ever. Don't need field experience. Happy doing same old shifts. Do it forever, that's fine by me. Boring's good. I love being bored."
He was vaguely aware that he was not making much sense. He was equally aware that he did not really need to talk at all, since there was no-one to actually talk to. But it helped to have a distraction as he half-limped, half-dragged himself through the rubble towards the blessedly beautiful silver walls ahead.
It had taken a long time to get himself free of the metal and plascrete that had pinned him down, and he had offlined several times in the process.
Finally free, he had initially been afraid to examine the damage too closely for fear the knowledge would put him into shock. But then he realised he would need to at least close off any leaking fluids and split any buckled panels, so he had reluctantly turned his analysis programs back on and looked down.
The news was mixed.
The good news - it was all fixable, not fatal, and the fluid loss would be easily contained. The bad news - it was going to be agony to move even a few steps, let alone the daunting distance ahead of him. Apart from his legs, which were miraculously intact if hideously mangled, he had a tear in his right hip and various smaller wounds and dents all over his body. His vocaliser crackled worryingly every so often, and gave an unpleasant buzz every time he spoke, but that was not going to stop him speaking.
He needed to speak to keep his focus off the damage. He needed some noise to cover the grinding of metal and wires that came with every movement.
Something shifted unexpectedly under his right foot and he fell flat on his face with a startled yelp, not reacting fast enough to even put his hands out in front to slow his fall. Spitting out filings and dust, he shuttered his optics and groaned into the uneven ground.
"Never again. Never, ever again."
At first, he wondered if he were simply delusional.
After all, he had been dragging his injured self along for more than an orn now - or so his completely functional chronometer cheerfully reported when he checked it - and he had treated enough mechs with severe injuries to know that when wires got crossed it could have all kinds of weird results.
But even crossed wires did not explain the undeniably closed gate in front of him.
It made no sense. None at all. The city gates had not been closed in his entire functional lifetime; not since the war. Sure they were still there, but they were practically rusted in place from disuse. Why would anyone bother?
Anyone coming to Ordan Helix would either come by air or by barge. Coming by land was just impractical with the dead zone on three sides - land that no-one was ever going to bother cleaning up because it was too much effort.
Besides, it was useful as a scrapyard. The waste had to go somewhere until it could be melted down and recycled, and Ordan Helix ended up with a lot of waste given the number of droids the student medics used to practice on. On top of which, Ordan Helix was open to everyone all the time so there was no reason to keep anyone out.
Unless you were paranoid, he thought abruptly. Which military mechs frequently were. They were programmed to treat every situation as a possible threat, and since there were now large numbers of them in Ordan Helix for these checkups...
"No, no, no." he groaned, knocking his head against the gate and disappointed to find that not only it did not even make a satisfyingly loud noise, it left him with an ache and a new dent.
Paranoia from the military made all too much sense. It also left him in a quandry. If he was right then these gates would not be re-opened until the Decepticons left. Which would be in four orns time - far longer than he wanted to sit here in agony.
He had tried going into recharge a few joors ago to give himself some rest, but simply could not with the level of damage to his body. Or, rather, he could but only by shutting down completely which in this state would leave him like that permanently until someone found him. That could take quite a while, even once the gates reopened, and he did not like the idea of being unaware for a long stretch of time.
Scavengers occasionally roamed through here and they were not known for being picky - if he could not fight back, they were just as likely to strip him without worrying about whether he was dead or not.
So. Other options.
He could work his way back to Dabble and Longsider's place, but that was an awfully long way. It would take him at least an orn and a half, and he did not want to do that only to have to turn around and come back again. Besides, if they held to their convictions they would already have abandoned that shelter and he would be far worse off to arrive in the middle of nowhere when no-one knew where he was and with no supplies to greet him on arrival.
Not good.
Everything would be a lot easier if the comm was working. Strange that it did not, now that he was so close to the city, but then that could also be a fault at his end. Primus knew he had enough systems down that it would not surprise him. Still, he needed to catch someone's attention, and the sooner the better.
Which left only one remotely viable option: heading down to the causeway to signal a passing barge.
The medic, chapter 3
A dozen different alarms brought him back online with an unpleasant jolt, and he cried out in pain. He was injured! Knowledge that he usually applied to others bubbled up unhelpfully, giving him long gory lists of what might be causing each problem - from pinched wires to loss of a limb and everything in between.
Trying to lift his head to work out where he was he found he was pinned under a pile of rubble, covered in debris of metal and stone and dust. His left leg had completely stopped responding to commands, and his right felt like it had been mashed flat. Even just accessing the links below his waist made his processor threaten to shut down with the pain.
Deliberately turning off his diagnostic programs for a moment, he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. Clearly he was not in the city, so where... ah.
Dabble and Longsider.
He had been out with them over that stupid satellite that they claimed had been deliberately shot down as part of some deeply subversive military plot. Then he had left them and tried to hurry back towards the towering city walls so he would not be too late for his shift.
Well, he could still see those walls in the distance. And now he remembered what had happened. As he had been running along he had tripped on a cracked bit of paving and catapulted himself headfirst into the corner of a small decaying shell of a building.
The building must have completely collapsed under the force of the impact. A lot of the structures out here were unstable from megavorns without maintenance following even more megavorns of damage, and he was usually very careful to pick a secure path if he did not have one of the others to guide him safely.
Not today, though. Today he had been too angry to be watching where he was going. And now he was hurt and needing help.
That thought stopped him cold.
There would be no help: no-one knew where he was. No-one at all.
The staff at the admissions office had known he was heading their way, but he had never actually gone inside so he had never told anyone what he was doing. Nor would he have done so if he had entered the building, for that matter. Only Scaler knew he occasionally went into the dead zone, and his friend thought he was utterly mad to do it.
But Scaler would not be looking for him now, not even if he did not turn up for his shift. Everyone would be too busy with the arriving Decepticons.
The only ones who knew he was anywhere near here were Dabble and Longsider, and those two were so shaken up at the moment that they would take his non-appearance in a few joors as proof that everyone was being murdered by the military. It would only send them running from civilisation that much further.
Feeling himself start to tremble as he realised how much trouble he was truly in, he tried to reason with himself.
Obviously, there had to be a way out of this. It would just be too stupid to die like this. And oh what a slow, agonising death...
No. No, he was not even going to consider that. He had to think. What could he do? He was still in the dead zone, which meant no active communications line so he could not summon help. No-one would be wandering out this far from the city walls, so there was no point putting any hope into that either.
"Well." he muttered to himself, trying to get up some courage. "Seems to me, the only option is to get yourself out of this one. Right. Here we go."
"Never again." he promised himself. "Never again. Not leaving the city again. Not for anything. Not ever. Don't need field experience. Happy doing same old shifts. Do it forever, that's fine by me. Boring's good. I love being bored."
He was vaguely aware that he was not making much sense. He was equally aware that he did not really need to talk at all, since there was no-one to actually talk to. But it helped to have a distraction as he half-limped, half-dragged himself through the rubble towards the blessedly beautiful silver walls ahead.
It had taken a long time to get himself free of the metal and plascrete that had pinned him down, and he had offlined several times in the process.
Finally free, he had initially been afraid to examine the damage too closely for fear the knowledge would put him into shock. But then he realised he would need to at least close off any leaking fluids and split any buckled panels, so he had reluctantly turned his analysis programs back on and looked down.
The news was mixed.
The good news - it was all fixable, not fatal, and the fluid loss would be easily contained. The bad news - it was going to be agony to move even a few steps, let alone the daunting distance ahead of him. Apart from his legs, which were miraculously intact if hideously mangled, he had a tear in his right hip and various smaller wounds and dents all over his body. His vocaliser crackled worryingly every so often, and gave an unpleasant buzz every time he spoke, but that was not going to stop him speaking.
He needed to speak to keep his focus off the damage. He needed some noise to cover the grinding of metal and wires that came with every movement.
Something shifted unexpectedly under his right foot and he fell flat on his face with a startled yelp, not reacting fast enough to even put his hands out in front to slow his fall. Spitting out filings and dust, he shuttered his optics and groaned into the uneven ground.
"Never again. Never, ever again."
At first, he wondered if he were simply delusional.
After all, he had been dragging his injured self along for more than an orn now - or so his completely functional chronometer cheerfully reported when he checked it - and he had treated enough mechs with severe injuries to know that when wires got crossed it could have all kinds of weird results.
But even crossed wires did not explain the undeniably closed gate in front of him.
It made no sense. None at all. The city gates had not been closed in his entire functional lifetime; not since the war. Sure they were still there, but they were practically rusted in place from disuse. Why would anyone bother?
Anyone coming to Ordan Helix would either come by air or by barge. Coming by land was just impractical with the dead zone on three sides - land that no-one was ever going to bother cleaning up because it was too much effort.
Besides, it was useful as a scrapyard. The waste had to go somewhere until it could be melted down and recycled, and Ordan Helix ended up with a lot of waste given the number of droids the student medics used to practice on. On top of which, Ordan Helix was open to everyone all the time so there was no reason to keep anyone out.
Unless you were paranoid, he thought abruptly. Which military mechs frequently were. They were programmed to treat every situation as a possible threat, and since there were now large numbers of them in Ordan Helix for these checkups...
"No, no, no." he groaned, knocking his head against the gate and disappointed to find that not only it did not even make a satisfyingly loud noise, it left him with an ache and a new dent.
Paranoia from the military made all too much sense. It also left him in a quandry. If he was right then these gates would not be re-opened until the Decepticons left. Which would be in four orns time - far longer than he wanted to sit here in agony.
He had tried going into recharge a few joors ago to give himself some rest, but simply could not with the level of damage to his body. Or, rather, he could but only by shutting down completely which in this state would leave him like that permanently until someone found him. That could take quite a while, even once the gates reopened, and he did not like the idea of being unaware for a long stretch of time.
Scavengers occasionally roamed through here and they were not known for being picky - if he could not fight back, they were just as likely to strip him without worrying about whether he was dead or not.
So. Other options.
He could work his way back to Dabble and Longsider's place, but that was an awfully long way. It would take him at least an orn and a half, and he did not want to do that only to have to turn around and come back again. Besides, if they held to their convictions they would already have abandoned that shelter and he would be far worse off to arrive in the middle of nowhere when no-one knew where he was and with no supplies to greet him on arrival.
Not good.
Everything would be a lot easier if the comm was working. Strange that it did not, now that he was so close to the city, but then that could also be a fault at his end. Primus knew he had enough systems down that it would not surprise him. Still, he needed to catch someone's attention, and the sooner the better.
Which left only one remotely viable option: heading down to the causeway to signal a passing barge.