WARNING: This chapter includes the depiction of Mature themes.  There is no
sex or splatter and little profanity.  However, this is not for young
children or the sensitive.  The events of this chapter will be discussed in
subsequent chapters.  You will not lose the thread of the story if you skip
this chapter.
I am not trying to tantalize you into reading this, I sincerely mean this
as a warning.  Thank you for your indulgence.

[Ranma][NGE][HPL][AMG][Fusion][Fanfic] Sic Semper Morituri Chapter 28 -
Nabiki's Awakening

Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the characters from Ranma 1 / 2, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Ah My Goddess, or the Lovecraft Cycle involved in these
stories.

C&C, MSTs are welcome
E-mail: dan_s.comments@worldnet.att.net
Stories are available in Rich Text Format and HTML at:
     http://home.att.net/~danjess.gibson
(these are the most updated versions)

Stories are available in Plain ASCII at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/

ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/type/Sic-Sem
per-Morituri
(these are the original versions)

What has gone before:
     About Book 11, Akane and Soun Tendo throw Ranma out of the house.
Nabiki, in the guise of a wish, follows him.  They meet EVA pilots Shinji
Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Soryu Langley and Jeffrey Davis.
     Asuka and Jeff challenge each other to a cooking contest.  Rei
participates as referee and facilitator.  The cooking contest goes to
Asuka, although Rei discovers Jeff made sure she won.
     Asuka and Jeff begin continue analyzing the equations to manipulate
the AT field, they discover an important side-effect of AT fields.  They
begin teaching the other pilots the math to understand it.
     Hiroko accidently discovered the truth about Ranma/Ranko, and is
ordered to keep silent.
     Captain Ramsey meets with the cult leaders, laying down the law and
arranging for their cooperation.
     Nabiki and Ranko interrogate Raccoon about the nature of their
enemies, and the details of his mission.
     The first Sonic Glaives arrive and the pilots train with them.
     Ranko discovers Raccoon knows about the Ranma/Ranko transformation and
has reduced the curse (attracting water) but still believes Ranma and Ranko
are different people.  Ranko uses this to her advantage against Nabiki.
     An attack by were-tigers causes Asuka and Rei to band together to
shoot it out with one group, while Ranma undergoes the Neko-ken,
transforming into a large tiger who destroys a far larger group.
     Shinji decided he must move back to watch over Misato.


When I was a young man I carried me pack and I lived the free life of the
rover.
>From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, I waltzed my Matilda
all over.
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son, it's time to stop ramblin', there's
work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, and they sent me away to
the war.
THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA Lyrics as performed by John McDermott

Chapter 28 - Nabiki's Awakening
     I sat down in the darkness, on one of the logs that separate the
parking spaces. There are no cars in this part of the lot, only gravel out
for a dozen yards in all directions.  I can't go home yet.  I can't face my
`fellow pilots`.  My hands and arms are clean, but the coveralls I'm
wearing are blood-spattered and covered with concrete dust.  I still smell
smoke and antiseptic on my skin and hair.  My face is streaked with blood
and sweat, and tears, only the last wholly my own.
     I hear the crunch of boots on gravel, and the log shifts as someone
sits next to me.  I can't even muster the interest to turn and look at
them, staring at the lights of the city traffic driving by, without seeing
it.
     He leans into my field of view, Jeff, my fellow pilot and Search And
Rescue member, grim determination and a growing concern.  "Nabiki, are you
alive in there?"
     I want to react, to look at him, to move, to say something, but I
can't.  It's not weariness, or apathy, it's almost shock or fear: to move
would make me shatter, fall into pieces, or fall over and die.  I lack the
words to even describe it, an emptiness and fragility perhaps, like hot
glass in a cold wind.  I wonder what my family would think of their 'Ice
Princess' now, the cold-blooded one who doesn't care about others.
     Jeff puts his arms around my shoulders and waist, pulling me close.
"It's okay, it's over," he tells me, and other pleasant things.
     I feel the stiffness leaving, my body seems to automatically mold
itself to the body holding me, like a newborn does.  That too would shock
my family, who always lamented I loved money more than any other person.
With the trivial people I dealt with on a daily basis, that might have been
true.  Not here, not with these people.
----------------------------------------
     It had been an early morning, the alert coming in at 3 A.M..  My
roommates were up and ready, Morning people, I remember complaining
inwardly.  By the time the car arrived, Ritsuko had a quick breakfast for
both of us to eat on the way to the base.
     "No school today," Ranma had crowed.
     At the time I didn't consider that entire families would be heading
for the shelters, instead of fathers going to the`bomb `shelters near work,
children at school shelters and only the housewives to the evacuation
shelters near their homes.  It just wasn't something I'd considered before.
More the fool me.
     Again, with four machines and six pilots, Raccoon and I were left
behind.  The enemy was quickly defeated, our two most aggressive pilots
raced out ahead of the other two.  Our two more circumspect pilots, in
fact, arrived after the `Messenger` was dead.  The machines hadn't even
suffered any damage, so they could dispense with Search And Rescue, but SAR
wasn't done.  The `Messenger` wasn't either, it decided to cause a greater
injury to us.  There were five evacuation shelters built into a sandy hill.
The five shelters had been christened with poetic names by their users.
The U.S. military had a 10 character alphanumeric, detailing location, size
and protection level.  For SAR, and the other rescue workers, the five were
to be: Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog and Echo.  The `Messenger` dove straight
into Charlie, and violently died there.
     We arrived at the pillar of smoke pouring out of the ruined structure.
The idea of evacuation training and the shelters never entered my mind.  As
pilots, we'd be in our machines, or as part of Search And Rescue, we'd be
out in the half-tracks.  I was always amazed that the shelters are feet or
meters of steel-reinforced concrete, the machines have tons of armor and
other protections.  In Search And Rescue, we're protected by the wisdom of
our drivers, and a layer of armor that wouldn't stop a rifle bullet.  And
still I didn't think about it, I don't know why.  We deploy in 15 to 20
American M3 half-tracks filled with equipment.  Someone told me that with
the redundancy of our load-outs, we could suffer 35% casualties and
guarantee we'd stay 100% mission capable.  I don't think that's what I
wanted to know, they could kill a third of us, and we could still do the
job.  Grim thoughts, but only thoughts, comments without context.
----------------------------------------
     "You ready?" Raccoon asked as he settled the steel hard hat on my
head, before we'd even stopped.  It looked like an art deco hub cap.  The
goggles, we all wore, were from the Army's desert warfare section.  The two
offered better protection than nothing, but not as much as the goggles and
helmet I wore in High School Chemistry class and at baseball practice.
Raccoon's concern for me seemed mildly silly, but was very serious from his
point of view.  We and the entire team piled out of the vehicles, carrying
the equipment that we might need.  A column of smoke, firelit from below,
poured out of Charlie.
     I think if anyone tells me burning people smells like pork, they're
going to get a fist in the face.  There's something viscerally horrible
about the smell, as if you recognize the difference at the back of your
mind.  Even if you've never smelled it before.
     "I think we leave Charlie for Graves Registration," Raccoon told the
SAR Captain, I wanted to scream at him that we should try to save
everybody, or start in the worst area.  Before I could start, the Captain
sent me to shelter Baker to start dealing with cuts and other minor
injuries.  I went.  I was confident of the first aid training I'd received
in my native Tokyo of 1992.  It gave me a huge advantage in the `primitive`
1947 Tokyo I now lived in.  I'd even shown the effect of 'mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation' and CPR, to the locals.  Then had to explain my father
traveled and studied in China, an equally mythical and mystic place to both
Americans and Japanese.
     The interior of Baker was surprising, many people were hurt by falling
objects, others had been cut by flying fragments of cement.  Pieces of the
wall facing Charlie had literally exploded into the shelter populace.  I
would learn later it was called spalling, it didn't matter to me at the
time, or to the wounded.  Cuts and broken bones were the main effort,
splinting, bandaging, comforting.  On the few moments between helping, I
wondered angrily what my fellow pilots were doing.  A quick debriefing, and
the rest of the day in school or at home.  But we're still working, sigh, I
volunteered, I'm doing my job, I can't feel the anger, I have too much to
do.
     The occasional trips into the clear and lightening sky - revealed the
dozens of military and Red Cross carrying the stream of wounded away.
Shouts and orders, and the pervasive stench in the air.  Then back into the
darkness below, here the sounds were screams and cries, the smell was
blood, urine and antiseptics.  Much better than in the light.  We were
starting into deeper levels.  There, the damage was heavier.  Some of the
floors had buckled.  One of the reasons Jeff and I were accepted into SAR,
our smaller physical size, was put to use.  As I crawled into crevices the
adults couldn't fit into, to determine if anyone was alive inside the piles
of rubble.
     Now it was starting to get to me.  I'd dealt with minor injuries all
the time back `home`, even major injuries occasionally, broken bones
mostly.  I'd never encountered a dead body before, now I'd just put my hand
on one, in one, something taboo to many Japanese like me.  I forced myself
to keep from throwing up, to keep moving, swinging my helmet light around
the confined darkness.  There might have been someone alive in these ruins.
     There was.  A little boy and his dog, huddled in the corner, shielded
by a wall of his parents and siblings.  All unmoving bloodied corpses,
terrible to see and to smell.  Fortunately he was in shock, and easily
moved to the opening, and handed through.  The dog paused, looked at the
rest of the dead family, then climbed after his sole remaining master.  I
checked the rest of the hollow.  They were all dead, no pulses and no time
for more careful checks.  Now shouting out, then listen to, creep around to
pick up the faintest sound, a tap, a whisper, anything.  Nothing.  I
crawled back out.  Screams are bad, silence is worse.  The look in the
faces of the other rescue workers horrified me.  Then I realized, I must
look terrible, I don't have time for that right now.  I thought that, at
the time.
----------------------------------------
     I was on the surface again, taking a break, breathing the foul air,
when several of the team members rushed up, "Come on!  Someone had propane
cylinders in Able.  They blew!"
     I was running after them, before the echo died.
----------------------------------------
     The air hoses on the floor are a constant danger to trip the victims
and the rescue workers, the air is bad.  The cylinders must have been
leaking the entire time, just awaiting a spark to set them off.  The people
are dazed from the concussion, many with hair and eyebrows burnt off.  The
blast also sucked up most of the breathable air, so while we try to fight
the flames from the cylinders, we're also pumping air into the bunker.  Air
must also be brought in to power the pneumatic tools the rescue workers
must use.  We don't dare use our electric or gasoline powered equipment.
     And we're trying to get the people out, so many are confused, wanting
to stay and look for loved ones.  We have to keep them moving to the
surface.  Once on the surface, they see and smell the carnage they were
spared, and we have to keep them moving to clear the way for more people
coming up from below.
     In the bunker, the lights are all out.  The blast shattered every
light bulb in the place, and the power was cut the next moment because of
the danger of additional sparks.  Noise, heat from bodies and residual
fires, darkness, confusion surround everything.  The babble of frightened
voices, the press of bodies going one direction while you must go the
other.
     Finally, I arrive at the disaster site, it's worse than I thought,
several floors were buckled by the explosion.  Many people are lying
around, seemingly asleep.  I touch one to take a pulse, they're dead.
Killed by the blast or suffocated, not a mark on any of them, not a hair
out of place, it is truly frightening.  One of the Marines is motioning me
forward, a new smell, like raw sewage, and a new sound: jackhammers,
several of them.
     There is a slab of concrete, fallen from the upper level, cutting
across the floor.  Dividing the lower levels.  They were protected from the
blast by it, only to be trapped beneath it.  Through a gap in the slab, I
can see many people are clustered, hands and fingers thrust up through the
gap, a cacophony of prayers, pleas, demands, impossible to sort out over
the noise of the hammers trying to cut through concrete and rebar to make
an escape route.  The shelter was designed to resist damage, now that
hampers rescue efforts.
     "Sewer line ruptured!" the man in charge yells English directly into
my ear, the only way you can be heard.  So these people, on what was dry
land, are facing drowning.
     "What do I do?" I shout back, the hammers are cutting and I doubt I'm
going to make a difference cutting the hole.
     "Tell them in Japanese, we're trying to get them out, tell them to
stay calm."
     I do that, but I can see the liquid level, it isn't water, rising.
The people cling to my words as they try to cling to my hands.  Desperate
glances to the crew indicate all is not going fast enough.  The slab is
thick, the rebar reinforcing rods are plentiful, only explosives could cut
faster, and it would take an expert to place them.  In Japanese I'm
ordering people to move to the higher ground, change to English to shout at
the crew to work faster.  Other teams work, cutting at tangles of rebar
with boltcutters and smaller air chisels.  A few people are able to escape.
Then the slab shifts, sealing the escape, crushing some awaiting rescue.  I
can hear the curses from above and below, I wish I could join them, but I
have to stay calm.  Swallowing my anger and frustration.
     A new site, the cutting begins again, more frantically.  Cries from
below that the ordure is lapping up around even the high places, there are
wounded down below.  Lower in the slab it begins to pour out, a noisome
slick, I only hope that slows its ascent.  Cutting is too slow.  More
screams of panic from below, as people slip into the foul liquid.  Some
drown.  There is no fighting for the high places, some are even surrendered
by those who can swim to those who can't.  An odd kind of heroism.  But
it's rising too fast.  I move up the slab to try and see to those who might
be saved.  One woman thrusts her daughter at me, pleading that neither can
swim.  I reach through the gap in the concrete and rebar, barely able to
get my arm on her, a solid grip on the nightshirt she is wearing.  She
cries for her mother who has slipped away with the rising reek.  A half
dozen men surround me, cutting at the twisted metal and prying the rubble
away from the opening.
     The cutting continues, encouraging cries from the crew.  "Hang on," I
urge, "They're almost through!" I tell her, trying to take her mind off her
mother and her impending doom.  The web of metal is steadily thinning, the
opening is nearly large enough to start pulling people through, once the
metal is out of the way.
     The little girl is clinging to my wrist with both hands, pleading with
me not to drop her, she can't swim.  It's a ridiculous thought, if I could,
I'd pull her through.  I'd do it.  But the gap is too narrow, choked with
twisted metal.  The water level rises, I pull her as far into the gap as I
can, give her as much time as possible.  But the sewage bubbles up through
the crack, covering her.  The crew continues working, I still hold on,
willing for the crew to finish, for some kind of rescue to become possible.
Her grip slackens.  I try to get a better grip, to start moving her to a
safer height.  Her hands fall away, the person I was holding is just a body
now.  There's nothing more any of us can do anymore.  Those below will
remain until they can be dug out, and disposed of.
     I've never felt like this, so helpless, so small, never felt the press
of time so severely.  Another few minutes and we could have saved them,
couldn't the universe have spared us a few minutes?  No, the universe
doesn't keep score, it just keeps rolling along.  One of the men pulls me
away from the site and gestures towards the exit.  We head up out of this
level, before we ourselves are trapped by the rising sewage.  I stare at my
hands during the climb.  The other workers can't meet each others' gazes,
as all of us look around.  If we're searching for answers, we don't find
any on our long tramp to the surface.
----------------------------------------
     Fire hoses clean us off on the surface.  I can't get the image and the
memory of a life slipping literally out of my hands, out of my mind.  A
true, deep horror rises in me, that I'm tainted with death now.  It's a
ridiculous thought, Death doesn't come hunting like some specter of ancient
legend, it's simply a natural part of existence, of the cycle of rebirth.
The limited religious upbringing my father gave me tells me this.  I doubt
father, Soun, ever considered these things before mother got sick, and his
emotional disintegration after she died showed both, how much he didn't
believe, and how cold comfort it was in the face of a dead loved one.
----------------------------------------
     More orders, only the professionals are needed for rescue now, we and
many others who are first-aid trained are given clean coveralls and sent to
assist at the nearby hospital.  Extra hands to deal with the wounded we've
been rescuing for . . . I look at the sun, it must be nearly noon, eight
hours, give or take an hour.  A full day's work and we still have more to
do.
     "You okay?" Jeff has found me in the crowd.  He gives me an
encouraging smile, but it isn't very reassuring.  Too many recent thoughts,
too many hurt people.  I wonder what he has seen in the last few hours, he
smells of smoke, oil and burned metal.  There's soot and dust on his
clothes, hair and face, and the clean outline from his goggles make him
look like a real raccoon.  We're walking along with the walking wounded.
Burns, abrasions, parents carrying wounded children, children dragging
wounded parents on carts or improvised sleds.  I want to help, but Jeff
pushes me forward.
     "They'll make it, or they won't, our job's up ahead."
     I don't curse him for his callousness, however much I want to, but I
know he's right, there are many more seriously hurt at the hospital and
that's where we're supposed to be.
     The hospital parking lot is filled with wounded, doctors and nurses
passing through the huge crowds.  They make marks on the foreheads of all
the people brought in.  Jeff and I are separated, they need strong backs to
haul in the casualties on stretchers.  And he _is_ a big boy.  I'm helping
a nurse with triage.  I wish Jeff was still here, I need to talk to someone
about the rescue, about the deaths, all the pain and suffering, and why it
seems to be bothering me less and less.  I should have done it while I had
the chance, something else to consider.
     What we are doing is horrible.  Earlier today, I would have assaulted
someone doing this to people, now I follow the orders of the nurse without
comment.  These patients who cannot be helped . . . we are dosing them with
morphine and leaving them to die.  I bring some of them water, take down
information about address and family, anything to keep them quiet and
comfortable.  We give them injections.  My main job is cleaning the
syringes between uses, and holding the bottles the alcohol and morphine are
in.
     Some of the people are clearly unsalvageable, bones sticking out,
massive burns.  Some howl in agony until injected, I have to help hold them
down.  Worse somehow are the stoic ones.  They understand they cannot be
helped, and accept it.  They politely ask for their names to be taken down
and pinned to their clothing so their families can identify them later.
They apologize for the trouble they've caused, or they thank us for our
attention.  I want to scream at them, can't they find any outrage at us, at
the `Messengers`, at God, at something for the unfairness of their plight.
It isn't just the Japanese, some of the wounded aid and Red Cross workers
are the same way.  Some offer words of comfort and encouragement to me.
It's horrible in a way I can't understand, they're dying, and they don't
want _me_ to feel bad.  I'd be demanding help, a doctor, something.
'Please it's all right, see to the others,' 'Thank you my dear for humoring
an old man,' 'Please don't cry lady, I'll be with mommy soon.'  It's almost
more than I can take.
     How many more are left out there?  A dozen, or several?  A hundred, or
several?  The action becomes mechanical.  We cross the parking lot,
checking on those who have been dosed to see if they've died, if they have,
we summon a stretcher bearer to clear the space.  I hadn't thought there
were so many people in the shelters, so many of all ages, both genders.
Families clustered around a dying relative.  Young parents weeping over a
dead or dying child.  I wanted to curse Jeff for his callousness, oh God,
how few hours ago - now I am the one warehousing the dying, waiting for
them to become the dead.  I offer what words of comfort are left in me to
the family members who wait.  Normally, I can lie through my teeth,
suddenly the comfortable lies stick in my throat.  I want to shout,
'They're dying!  Go away!'  But I can't, those faces so desperate for hope,
for any good news, looking at me, seeing me and the nurse as a potential
savior, the terrible realization when we tell them to keep their loved one
comfortable.  I can see their spirits die, even the children look with
understanding, knowing that the end has come, the children are the worst,
many try to be so brave.
     There are desperate cries for some attention, until they realize it is
over, then the only demand is to record their name and address, and some a
brief message.  They compose themselves on the stretcher or the ground to
be easier to cart away, to avoid being a burden.  It's obscene, it should
be trite and saccharine.  Until you watch it happen, then it defies
comprehension.
     Their bravery makes a mockery of the bold shouted oaths of the martial
artists back home, and the audacity of the pilots here.  I know I could
never do this, to go quietly.  I'd be kicking and screaming the whole way.
The nurse and I move through the rows.  'F' on the forehead is a death
sentence, an injection, a few words and on to the next.  Only the sun makes
any progress.  Occasionally people come with more morphine and alcohol,
fresh syringes, Jeff is one of these.  We're both too troubled to speak, a
nod, we're still surviving.  Neither of us want to loose the emotions we
both feel.  He's haunted, dark circles under his eyes, an impotent anger
shines through the mask of sanity.  I expect I look the same.  He passes
over the fresh supplies, and collects the empties and dirty syringes.  That
we have to clean the syringes between injections and periodically send them
back to be autoclaved, it's so ridiculous, an affectation of humans.
Trivial ritual, warding off the insanity surrounding us.  When it intrudes
too strongly to be ignored, we adapt.
     Anger bubbles up, No rational gods would allow this!  Where are the
others, the `real` pilots?  Home, clean and safe?  Were they chastised for
this slaughter?  Why did Jeff drag me into this?  Why did I let him?
Handing another clean syringe and the nearly empty morphine bottle to the
nurse are my only reaction.  The anger is smothered by the enormity of what
is happening around me.
     "Nurse?  Where can I put her?" a young Marine asks me, he carries a
Japanese girl in a night gown, in another context, he might be carrying his
bride over the threshold on his honeymoon, except the expression on his
face.  Worried, anxious and earnestly trying to keep his grip on his
emotions.  I reach up to brush her hair from her face, looking for the 'F'
that will mark the girl as much a corpse as the grisly cordwood being
stacked in the far corner.  There's not a mark on her, I pray silently to
find no mark, a mistake, a man brought the girl to the wrong place.  The
same prayer I've prayed a dozen times and more, just this once I wish it
had gone unanswered.  There is no mark, I would thank whatever gods are
listening - except I recognized the face - Hiroko.  All I can do is
remember.
========================================
     "You're new here," she had greeted me, "I'm Ayami Hiroko.  You
probably need someone to show you around."  I did, and more than just the
around school, and I was immensely grateful.
     "Hurry up Boss, I mean slow-poke!" she ran in front of me in gym
class, "How can you be a pilot if you aren't faster than that?"  I gritted
my teeth and pushed myself to keep up with her, the speed-demon.
     "Did you hear the ghost last night, Boss?" she shivered, "Like a
thousand tortured souls, but it sounded happy at the same time."  I'd told
her it was just someone playing bagpipes, like the Navy said.  She hadn't
really accepted my explanation.
     "Yamato can't pay what he owes, but Raccoon arranged for him to tutor
Ken-san in exchange for Ken assuming the debt."  She told me.  "You know,"
she teased me, "If you don't show him more interest, some girl's going to
steal him away."  I growled at her 'We're just business associates', she'd
smiled at me, she knew he was more than that, he was my friend, like she
was.
========================================
     I touch her neck as a reflex, feeling for a pulse, the man must have
seen the horror on my face.  No pulse, cold skin.  I step back, I cannot
speak, cannot hear.  My vision narrows to a tunnel, I'm unable to breathe,
I keep staring at the face of the girl, my friend and confidant.  She's
been with me since my first day at school.  Another hand touches the girl
and gives a curt order, and the Marine takes her away.  I reach out to
touch her again, she's running away, this time I can't keep up.  Someone is
holding me back.  I struggle weakly, I can't take my eyes off of her.  I
can't leave her, I have to do something!
     "Nabiki, Nabiki!  Snap out of it!  Look at me - focus!" Jeff turns me
to face him, his face is stern, "Focus.  I'll take the tray.  Go to the
kitchens.  They're washing and sterilizing the instruments, go."  His tone
softens, "I'll take over here."
     "I can - I can continue," I manage, straining against a current of
despair, all those people around me mourning their loved ones.  I disdained
them, their foolishness.  I'm no better than they are.  There's no anger at
anyone, and no sadness, I just want her back.
     "You don't have to, you've got nothing to prove," he tells me
sympathetically.
     "It was Hiroko, you know?"  I need confirmation, maybe it wasn't real,
maybe I was hallucinating.
     I see the pain on his face, the boy under the `devil-may-care`
attitude, "I know."  A gentle hug that confirms my worst fears.  And he
pushes me gently but firmly in the direction of the kitchens.
     I wander aimlessly for a time, as if nothing around me is real,
nothing matters.  I finally find myself there.  "Reporting."  I want to
sound collected and in control, it sounds like a croak.  An older nurse and
a half-dozen girls almost as young as me, Japanese and Europeans.  The
girls all have the same shattered, horrified look as I must have.  This is
the dumping ground, the people who can't keep working outside, are sent
here.  I'm ashamed, I should be stronger than this, but I'm not.  All my
arrogance and smug superiority didn't mean anything in the face of reality.
I'm at the lowest level of those still working.  I won't fail here, I
won't.
     It's clean here, the first time I've been somewhere clean in hours.
Sinks full of surgical instruments and hot soapy water, a trio of
autoclaves in one aisle.  The nurse has me wash my hands and arms to the
elbow, put on a fresh smock over my dirty coveralls.  Then I put on heavy
rubber gloves, a face mask and a strange cap over my hair, and go to work.
     My English is good enough, the head nurse can explain to me how to
pull instruments from the autoclave to assemble surgical kits: collections
of clamps, scalpels and other tools of surgery.  Others come in and carry
the covered trays to the surgeries.  It is clean and quiet in here, the
same quiet professionalism as outside from the nurse, no jokes, no smart
remarks from the shell-shocked.  The workers are lost in their own worlds,
to a greater or lesser extent.  But I can respond to calls for some
specific type of instrument or other, I'm able to remember the names of
these strange pieces of metal.  The task is mechanical, one of these, one
of those, three of the other, cover with a sterile cloth, put it aside,
start the next.  I help with a few special trays, a half-dozen syringes to
be taken to the storeroom for alcohol and morphine.  I almost can't do
that.  Too many memories, too many dead and dying faces looking back at me.
     I know I could leave, no one would think less of me.  I'm a kid.  I'm
not supposed to weather this.  I shouldn't have come, now that I'm here, I
can never leave, who else can do it?  I hold on and continue working, it's
getting dark outside.  I can see through the kitchen windows.  The demand
ebbs, some of us are allowed to wash up and eat something.  I can't imagine
putting anything in my stomach, I'd throw up immediately.  I don't want to
stop working, the moment I do: I think, I remember, I conjure up the
images.  I don't _want_ to remember, I don't want to think.  I'm ashamed of
who I was this morning, I still want to go back.
     The thought of sleep and dreams terrify me now.  Of going back into
normal life, to answering where Hiroko was, and how many others at the
school?  I hadn't considered that!  Tomorrow, how many empty seats in class
tomorrow, later today?  How many people, how many holes?  I can't go back
there, I can't face that.
     "We're done, honey."  The nurse tells me.
     I stare at her in incomprehension.
     "We're stood down, official," she smiles sympathetically, "You should
talk to one of the Chaplains, no shame in that."
     I'm not religious.  I've seen the things, the self-proclaimed `gods`
we're fighting.  I don't need spiritual comfort.  I need my memories of the
day erased.  The hopeful faces, the desperate cries, the people . . . the
friends, dying around me, in my hands.  "Thank you," I manage as I wander
out.
----------------------------------------
     The air outside is cold compared, to the heat and humidity of the
kitchen.  The stars look down on mere mortals, are they pitying us or
despising us?  Silly, soppy thoughts, I condemn myself for them, Stars are
all balls of fusing elements, some aren't even there anymore.  My nice
rational and ordered universe ended, I can still smell the plume of smoke
from Charlie, still smell the blood from the parking lot.  Trucks are
loading the bodies to take to the make-shift morgue.  I can't go home, I
don't want to move, I don't want to see or hear anymore.
     "Well you're too young to get drunk."  I manage a smile, I always
thought in the old movies it was a cliche, that the heroes would do
something unpleasant, then have sake or whiskey to dull the pain.  Not the
pain, there is no pain now, it's to dull the memories.
     "Nabiki, are you alive in there?"  I almost wish I wasn't, it would be
easier.
     Jeff's holding me now, he seems to be exempt to all the horror around
us.
     "Why are you immune?" I ask.  It's callous and cruel, but he isn't
affected by it like I am.  Doesn't he care?  How can he not?
     "I'm not immune, I'm immured, I've seen it before.  It's easier the
second time, and the third, the fourth, ad nauseam.  You expect to win, but
you can't win this.  It's a negative sum game, all you can do is lose as
little as possible."
     "That isn't an answer," I tell him, it doesn't explain what happened,
why it happened.  I can smell blood and chemicals, and burnt meat in his
clothes, on his skin, in his hair.
     "I can't tell you why, later you'll understand for yourself.  Once the
hurt goes away.  And you'll feel guilty about that too."  He paused,
"Nabiki, it's 3 A.M., we've both been up for 24 hours straight.  I don't
intend to sleep in this parking lot, not when there's a bath and bed only a
jeep ride away."
     "I, I can't, I just can't."
     He misunderstands, picking me up easily.  I want to cry out, afraid of
moving, afraid to see more.  He walks a short distance to where a jeep and
driver waits.  The driver has the same SAR armband Jeff and I still wear,
he looks as haunted as I feel.  The two of them settle me in the back seat.
     "Home James, and don't stop for tea."  Jeff tells the driver, who
manages a weak smile to match mine.  It's a dumb joke, but there's been
nothing to smile about for so long.
     "Is she okay, sir?" the driver asks.
     I must really look a mess, for someone in his condition to ask that.
     " 'Bout like the rest of us," Jeff sighs, "This is a yes-or-no
question, anyone get the final count?"
     "Yeah." The driver concentrates completely on the road.
     "That bad?" Jeff asks.  The driver nods.  Jeff leans back, pats my
knee, "Home soon.  A bath and sleep will do wonders."
     "Don't want to sleep, don't want to dream."  I curl up tightly, a
little ball trying to keep the world out.
     "I think I have something that can help with that," Jeff tells me.
     "You got enough for two?" the driver asks.  Neither of us know what he
went through.  I don't know what Jeff went through, or anyone else.  I
don't _want_ to know.
     "Probably."  Jeff pulls his hat over his face and manages to catch a
nap on the drive home.  I can't believe it!  How could anyone sleep after
what we just went through?
----------------------------------------
     The driver helps Jeff carry me to the apartment.  He sets me in the
bathroom while he heads back to the driver.  I can barely move, the aches
of the day are finally reporting in, pain tells me I'm alive.  I manage to
stand under my own power, before Jeff arrives.  He's got a small glass of
water, he pours a brown powder into it and stirs it with a knife.
     "Can't use silver, it'll take off the plating."  He hands me the
glass, "All of it, all at once.  Ignore the taste, it works."
     The stuff is awful!  Bitter, sour, too-sweet all at once, but I get it
all down.  "What is that stuff?"  I start washing my face.
     "I don't know the word in Japanese, it's from the Latin for pleasing.
Shower quick, the side-effect is extreme grogginess and it hits fast.  In a
hour you won't be able to keep your eyes open.  And no dreams.  You'll
probably wake up _very_ hungry.  It's not perfect, but it does the job well
enough."
     "Are you going to carry me to bed if I can't stand up," I tease.
     "Just hurry up, I want to clean up too.  Get rid of this smell."  He
stares at his hands, clenching his fists.  Then he forces himself to relax.
He touches my chin before he leaves, closing the door after him.
     I shower quickly as he suggested, water as hot as I can stand.
Washing the dust, blood and smells from my hair and skin.
----------------------------------------
     I walk out of the shower, the medicine, or home-remedy, is already
taking effect.  I'm stumbling to my room.  I spot Jeff sitting on the floor
at the entrance to the kitchen.  His legs are tight against his body, chin
on his knees, his hands cover his head.  I can't tell if he's crying.  I
wouldn't blame him if he was, evidently he isn't as immune as he made me
believe.
     I can't stay awake, I don't know what to say, what to do.  So again, I
walk away from someone who needs help, because I can't help them.
     Sleep claims me almost before I can crawl into bed.
----------------------------------------
     Jeff's cooking, lunch by the angle of the sunlight.  It isn't
breakfast with sunlight coming straight down.  Is it even the same day?  I
really don't care.
     He smiles, nods.  No one else is here, at school or at work instead.
He leaves the kitchen for a moment.
     When he comes back in, he freezes, staring at what I have on the
counter: brown sugar and quinine water.
     "Placebo.  You think I wouldn't figure it out?"  I put some of the
sugar in the glass of quinine, brown powder in water.
     He has the decency to look embarrassed, it tastes just like the
`medicine` from last night.
     "No bad dreams, it worked."  I am trying to forgive him, I know why he
lied.
     "Sorry."  He shuffles his feet like a schoolboy, "I couldn't think of
anything else."
     "Thanks.  How are we going to . . . deal with . . . the others I
mean?" I ask.
     "I don't know."
     Neither do I, but we're going to have to.  And next time, and the time
after that.


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