Journey

Tarot - Justice

Clean Slate


It was three days before John felt confident enough to stop the rains, and almost a week before he could let the flood waters could recede, a week in which the water trapped in the city walls reached past the second floor of most buildings, submersing small houses all together. The city had banded together during the storms, ferrying citizens through the downpour to what little higher ground existed in the city, then into the skyscrapers as the water continued to rise. The good thing, John reflected, about having so many things controlled by the machines, was that it was very easy for him to change things. Food, for instance, which appeared in various warehouses around the city twice a week, was normally attributed to out of city deliveries brought in overnight by boat. A few well placed anonymous messages, and the people thought they'd arranged the redirection of the midnight delivery to a certain office building all on their own. Then food was one less thing that John needed to worry about.

They worked almost around the clock during those days, in a small motor boat, ferrying stranded people to safety. Then, once the rains stopped, they split up. Daniel enlisted in the rescue efforts, organizing living conditions, comforting the shell shocked citizens, then the people of shell beach, who'd weathered the storm in small fishing boats and sought solace now in the city. The doctor cut an impressive silhouette, John realized, with the limp gone, his scars gone. He stood taller. And somehow those around him instinctively looked to him for guidance, just as John had done so many times.

And John began the real search, from sunup to sundown. Searching through the buildings for survivors and supplies, but more importantly, for any trace of Them. He could sense the city, the buildings, where the water went, and if he concentrated very carefully, small ripples in the fabric of it all that indicated some kind of life... either humans, or Them. That's what was most important. He knew that time was of the essence if he was going to keep his promise to avoid any casualties.

Before leaving at dawn, the day the rains stopped, he pulled Daniel aside, placing a pistol into his hand, an extra clip of bullets. "I assume you know how to shoot?"

"Yes..." the doctor hesitated. "But... why?"

"Them." John looked troubled. "I don't anticipate that they'll be able to travel. I'm counting on the water trapping them in whatever building they're hiding in. But I don't want to take any chances. If you see one, aim for the head and shoot.

Daniel nodded slowly, and tucked the pistol into the back of his trousers, hidden under his coat. "I understand." He looked back up at his lover. "And you? How are you feeling?"

John smirked, trying to cover the uncertainty that he actually felt. "Ready and raring to go. This has been easy so far, nothing so complicated as healing you. I'll be fine." He leaned in to kiss him warmly. "Don't worry about me, love. This will be over and done with before you know it."

Daniel nodded bravely, finding a hand and squeezing it gently. "Good luck."

For days, however, he found nothing. No sign of them, nothing but a few pockets of survivors, weathering the storm in the uppermost floors of apartment buildings. He'd tuned himself a small, one man boat in order to avoid the chance of having to carry "helpers", and found that could navigate the city quite quickly. Better yet, no one seemed to question when one man in one small boat came and went as long as he kept pointing the rescue crews in larger boats in the right direction.

As time went on, John was beginning to doubt he'd find anything at all, and wondered if he'd done this all for nothing. He traveled to the city walls - mostly submerged, picking up with the apartment building he had left off at the day before. This area of the city was one that they'd decided would be best to leave unpopulated, so it wasn't as difficult as areas where he had to preserve the structures of the city. There were houses and stores, mostly underwater, that he simply let collapse, fall into rubble at the bottom of the city-turned-lake. Later, he would siphon away bits of matter back into the city's core, so that there would be less of a clean up for the city's good citizens, but for now he saved his energy, letting everything lie where it fell.

The tall buildings were a bit trickier. He would create a tether to each building in the most out of sight place he could find, tune a hole in the building if needed, and go inside to search it thoroughly. If there were no survivors and no supplies that were immediately needed by the survivors, he'd exit, take the boat to a safe distance, and arrange for the building to slowly collapse.

It had become almost routine to him as the fifth day neared it's close, the sun sinking lower in the afternoon sky. He decided to check one more commercial building, near the banks of where the river would normally be, and as he approached he recognized it as the skeezy hotel he'd woken up in so many months ago, with no memories and the ability to tune. He gave a little smile to himself. It would feel good to be rid of this one.

He anchored the boat and opened a hole in the wall with a simple thought, levitating up to land on the wall. But as he did so, he registered that smell, that decay. A glimpse of rotting flesh, that clicking sound, and he jerks back in alarm as a sharp pain rips through his shoulder, throwing him off balance, back off the building and into the water.

The water closes over his head, and he kicked for the surface, cursing himself for being caught off guard, for having become so complacent. He swam for the boat, eyeing the hole in the building warily, and managed to tune himself into it, dripping and gasping for breath. One of their blades was embedded deep into his shoulder, though as he examined himself, he found that thankfully it hadn't hit anything essential, and he carefully pulled it free, mind stitching up the torn tissue and skin. He'd worry about the blood later.

Still watching the hole, he stretched out his awareness to the building, carefully sensing the matter, how it was formed and composed, the space it occupied. And the dark holes of cold that were the Strangers, blips in his awareness that just weren't right, like the fake bodies he'd tuned. Then his mind grabbed the base of the building and pulled, pulled the support for iron and concrete, and it shuddered, crumbling, falling in a rush of rubble and dust, a surge of water that almost capsized him. But his mind held tight to the feeling of them, memorizing it, making sure each icy touch of alien disappeared into the water and slowly ceased to be. With the sensation imprinted on his mind, he had no doubt that clearing out any stragglers in the rest of the city would be simple.

It was done.

He returned to Daniel near sundown, wet and bone weary, trembling a little despite his attempts to stop himself. "I found them." he said softly, as soon as they could get a spare moment away, as Daniel wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "You were right. They weren't much more than zombies. They surprised me, but they could hardly tune at all, couldn't do much than hurl things at me."

"Are they...."

"Gone? Yes. Finally. Though they caught me off my guard... almost had a knife in my throat."

Daniel shuddered, placing a hand gently on his arm, and John wished they could risk more affection in public. "Oh god, John..."

He smiled. "I'm all right, don't worry. Much better now that they're gone. It needed to be done. I needed to make sure they're all gone, for my own peace of mind. For our safety."

Daniel nodded slowly. "I just wish that you weren't the one that had to do it, John."

John gave him a soft smile. "I know. Lets go home."

They'd thought ahead enough to devote three floors of their building to a bedding store and storage facility, and bedding and mattresses had been moved throughout the building into the empty floors to house refugees. Still, they'd managed to avoid having to open the penthouse, and escaped there now, collapsing into bed in exhaustion, curled in each others arms.