Evenfall (170 page)

Andrew had seemed ready to try to slam his way into the apartment but Boyd wasn't comfortable with that; if Ryan was in there and wasn't answering, it was possible he had made his way to the door before something had happened. Perhaps he'd been overcome by his illness or something had fallen on him when the building was damaged. If they slammed the door out of the way and went running in there with guns half-cocked, they could potentially hurt Ryan even more. Boyd was also fairly certain that the enemy hadn't made it inside; as far as he'd been able to tell, they were primarily opportunists and no apartment doors had appeared to have been forced open.

With a little jimmying he was able to pull the cover plate off the lock; using the flashlight function of the detector, he peered at the wires and the mechanisms inside. He'd been told once that there was a way to manually open the Agency's keycard locks but he'd never attempted it; with the electricity out it wasn't like he could unintentionally trip any alarms or electrocute himself so he decided to try. After a few long moments of working on the lock while Andrew remained alert, Boyd finally heard a soft click. He stood, placing the detector back in his pocket and putting the night goggles on again and then glanced toward Andrew, who nodded then returned his attention to their surroundings.

"Ryan," Boyd called as a warning, "we're coming in." He didn't receive an answer or any indication that he'd been heard.

The door opened with little trouble and the two of them entered the room, automatically looking around for any sign of Ryan.

The living room itself was a mess; when the detonation devices went off the entire building had likely shaken violently and the end result was several pieces of furniture being knocked over on their sides. Ryan's desk had fallen backwards, his laptop, mess of papers and action figures dumped on the floor in disarray. The bookcase in the corner had also fallen over and a mess of books, manga and comics were strewn across the rug. However, nowhere in the mess did they see Ryan and the silence of the apartment alarmed Boyd considerably.

They picked their way through the mess carefully and Andrew called out urgently for his ex-lover, body tense beside Boyd as he shoved large obstacles out of their way. "Where the hell could he be?" Andrew demanded out loud, frustration evident in his voice as he peered into the empty bathroom.

Boyd shook his head and didn't answer. The idea of Ryan being out in the courtyard somewhere was worse than him being trapped in this mess. An even worse thought was the idea of him being among the mutilated bodies in the bottom floors of the building. His chest tightened and although he didn't show any outward signs of emotion, his heartbeat sped up. He pushed the bedroom door open and swept his green tinted gaze over the dark room for a moment, almost starting to turn and leave when a soft sound caught his ear.

It wasn't exactly a moan and wasn't exactly a whimper, but it was a definite pained sound. Boyd moved quickly into the room and surveyed the surroundings; the overturned chest of drawers and the bed. "Ryan?"

There was another sound and this time it sounded almost smothered, strangled. Eyebrows knotting, Boyd moved toward the mattress which had slid off the box spring and yanked on it with all of his strength, struggling with the weight of it for a moment before he realized that Ryan's thin, sickly body was trapped beneath it and that it was angled so that the corner was crushing into his chest.

Swearing out loud, Boyd yanked on the large mattress and righted it, sitting it on the box spring before he scrambled over the side of the bed and called out for Andrew. Ryan's face was slack and covered with dust, his breathing labored as he made an occasional wheezing sound that at least no longer seemed strangled. He didn't appear entirely conscious but he had no other visible injuries and Boyd was just thankful that he was alive.

"Goddammit," Andrew hissed, voice thick with concern as he stared down at the slender man.

Boyd crouched awkwardly beside Ryan. "Ryan? I'm going to check for injuries. If you can understand me, say yes." Ryan didn't answer as Boyd had expected but the comment served two purposes; one, to tell Ryan what was happening in case he was conscious enough to understand, and two, to verify the level of his awareness.

He conducted a quick head to toe assessment to check for any injuries that may affect their rescue. There wasn't any airway obstruction, there didn't appear to be blood anywhere, he didn't feel any broken or fractured bones, but Ryan was probably in shock; they would have to deal with that outside the building. He examined his neck next and didn't notice any obvious signs of closed head, neck, or spinal injuries that would complicate their removal of him; however, they wouldn't know for certain until they could get him to better treatment.

With Ryan mostly unconscious it was difficult to check for anything like pain in the neck so they had to operate on the assumption that there were injuries they were unaware of that would be made worse if they handled him too roughly. At the same time, in an unstable building and situation, it was most important to get Ryan out of there and they didn't have the luxury of time to find a perfect solution to get him down fifteen flights without any trouble.

"No sign of C spine or other major injuries but we should still be careful." Boyd turned to look at Andrew, who was standing there still staring with a grim look on his face. When he didn't move immediately, Boyd ordered, "Help me. Find something to carry him with."

Andrew seemed to come back to himself and quickly scrounged through the living room until he returned with a simple, sturdy chair that hadn't been broken in the chaos. It took quite a bit of maneuvering but between the two of them they were able to support Ryan's back and neck as they sat him on the chair. Andrew stood behind the chair and carefully tipped it back on its hind legs so it leaned against his stomach while Boyd carefully moved Ryan's to the side just enough to grab the front legs of the chair. Ryan's head tilted forward in that position but they couldn't help it; Boyd just hoped he didn't have a spinal injury this was worsening.

Although the carrying Ryan with a chair was the best way to deal with narrow, uneven spaces and going down stairs, it also meant neither of them had a free hand for a weapon. That forced them to go a little slower than they would have preferred, but they couldn't afford to run headlong into enemies with an injured comrade and no guns drawn.

As they passed through the building, they set Ryan down on each floor. Andrew stayed with Ryan to monitor his health while Boyd silently and efficiently checked the hallways and main apartment rooms for signs of walking wounded; people who were uninjured or barely hurt and still in the building. Normally he'd yell out to such people, telling them to come to the sound of his voice, but since there was still a large chance of hostile activity in the area, he didn't want to alert anyone to their presence.

He found plenty of abandoned apartments, some corpses of people who had been crushed under debris, and a few other victims who were severely injured or unable to move but were still alive. Although their orders had been to eliminate hostiles from the area, Boyd suspected that Carhart wouldn't exactly complain that they'd also taken the liberty of assessing damage of one of the largest residential buildings on the lot.

The generals had been adamant that they take out the enemy before worrying about the wounded but Boyd highly doubted that Andrew had suggested this area because of the high level of enemies present; he probably hadn't even known that there were enemies inside when he'd suggested it. It was possible that Andrew's goal of rescuing Ryan hadn't been as transparent to Carhart, who didn't know about he and Ryan's past relationship, but Boyd didn't particularly think Carhart would be upset about it considering he had his own ties to the sickly young man.

So with their main shared objective fulfilled, they went about taking in as much of the layout as they could so that at least others could be saved later before the building really did collapse in on itself. They didn't have time or the ability to stop to rescue everyone who was seriously injured so Boyd kept a running tally in his mind documenting the number of victims he found, where they were located, and anything he noted from the quick glances into the apartments such as if the people were caught under something heavy. Over the course of several floors, he found seven people caught under debris that looked heavy enough that he suspected it would require cribbing or equipment to extract them.

A few of the people were awake enough to realize that someone had come and gone and some of them, likely staff who were not used to combat or crisis situations, yelled out in fear and pain, frantically wondering why they were leaving. The best he could tell them was that help was coming; although he didn't say it aloud, he knew they were injured severely enough that he would be unable to help them anyway unless they were brought to the infirmary. With the instability of the building, he didn't dare try to move anything too heavy or roughly on his own; although the enemy had failed to hit the most crucial points in the foundation, they had still damaged the building enough that they had to worry about dynamic weight of people moving around, impact weight from something that could still fall down, and even the wind itself could affect the balance and stability of the building.

As a result, it was important to minimize their exposure in the building and get out as soon as possible, even if that meant leaving people behind him. If he and Andrew were injured or killed on their way out then no one would know what the inside of the building was like or where the victims were that needed help. Ryan would be helpless and probably die without ever regaining consciousness, Thomas and Lowe could put themselves in danger by attempting to rescue them and if none of their team returned then the command post would likely send in another team that could meet the same fate.

They were lucky in that they didn't run into the enemy on their descent back down the building but even Ryan's alarmingly light weight was a strain on their muscles by the eighth flight. Boyd could feel his body trembling lightly with a combination of weariness, stress, and simply the fact that he had already done so much that night and he needed to rest. They didn't dare slow or stop, though; Ryan's breathing had become more labored as they descended closer to the heavier clouds of dust and other airborne debris hovering in the hallways like fog. He'd started to cough and there were a few times when his breath caught briefly in pauses that were startling each time, as if he'd stop breathing. They tried to keep his head tilted back as much as possible in order to keep his airway free but it was difficult with the chair carry and they didn't have a dust mask to give him.

Boyd found himself searching the floors even more quickly than before, barely taking the time to even glance inside rooms whereas before he'd at least poke his whole head inside provided he felt it was safe. Considering the fact that the enemy had detonated the bombs in the middle of the night with people still asleep, there were surprisingly few people who had been killed, although the number did seem to rise the lower they went. It made him wonder what sort of scenes Thomas and Lowe were running across. And what of the enemy Andrew and he had run across upstairs; was anyone like that down here? From what the generals and Sin had said regarding the exit and entrance points of the tunnels, it didn't seem likely that there was any real reason for hostiles to still be in the area after using it for their initial distraction.

It was entirely possible, considering the level of skill and professionalism that the other intruders had displayed so far, that the looters had simply been rogue agents and had been acting alone in their quest for money. That still didn't mean that others weren't lurking around with other goals, though.

As if bidden by the thought, he heard scraping of boots against debris ahead of him and he ducked into an empty apartment, his gun drawn as he waited with a pounding heart for the person to pass so he could see if they were friend or foe. As the footsteps approached he was able to determine that there were two people but they weren't speaking to each other. He watched sidelong as they moved quietly past the door and was relieved to recognize Thomas and Lowe. He put his gun away and moved into the hallway behind them.

"Thomas, Lowe." He said it quiet enough not to let his voice carry in case the enemy was nearby but even that sudden noise caused them both to spin and aim their guns at him, mouths in taut lines even as he held his hands up to show he had no weapon. Within a few seconds, they recognized him; he saw their shoulders relax as they held their guns down to the side.

Thomas let out a low breath, shaking his head. "Sorry. It's just this place..." He waved his free hand vaguely to indicate the entire situation.

Boyd didn't see reason for him to apologize for being on guard, although if he'd been an enemy he could have killed them before they'd turned around. He just shook his head at them and passed between the two of them, heading toward Andrew. "How many?"

"A lot of dead," Lowe replied, her voice carefully neutral but there was a slight tremble to it as if she were troubled. The hint of emotion was not otherwise visible in the bit of her expression they could see or her body language so Boyd didn't think about it too much other than to assume she was disquieted by the situation. "No walking wounded, no agents; I think they already escaped. There were fifteen injured that will need further help."

Boyd inclined his head. "I found similar; seven need immediate attention. Did you run into the enemy?"

"One guy," Thomas said flatly. "He's dead." Beside him, Lowe seemed to hold herself stiffly but she didn't speak.