BOUNDARY(28)

He almost started coughing, then rasped out: "I think I can get out with her, but tie in with . . . local net. . . maps. . . "



He stopped talking and got Anne's limp form over his shoulders. The body was damnably heavy, even though Annie wasn't at all fat.



A.J. just didn't seem to have much strength. Unusual, for him.



It was puzzling. And the VRD wasn't focusing right at all. What the hell was wrong with it? It was supposed to project straight to the retina, focus shouldn't be . . . a problem . . .



A.J. stumbled and almost fell. Oh, shit. I'm the one having trouble interpreting.



He could make out some symbols showing that the conditions were already far worse than they'd been when he entered. His head was spinning. Which way was out?



He couldn't tell. Black smoke was everywhere. Light, he needed . . .needed to find . . .



He was on the ground, blood in his mouth, hurting. He realized he'd fallen. Someone . . . Anne . . . was on top of him.



Got to get up. Get up, dammit!



Light drew him. Orange flickering light. No, he realized, that was bad. Fire bad! Fire bad! The words came into his head from some long-distant movie.



With a supreme effort, A.J. forced himself upright. The VRD had failed. Maybe the fall, maybe soot on the optics, who knew? It didn't matter. A.J. doubted he could have understood it at this point, anyway.



He dragged his feet forward, one step at a time. Just one step more. Now just another step.



It's a building, not a catacomb! You only have a few . . .



The wall smacked him in the face.



He knew that wall texture, though. He was near the back of the



Atmospherics area. He'd gotten turned around and headed in just the wrong direction. A hacking cough hijacked his breathing, forcing him to stop and almost drop Anne. Disembodied knives stabbed deep into his lungs. Somehow he got the pain under control, and managed to turn around.



But there looked to be flames everywhere! He'd have to run through . . .



Running seemed out of the question.



A dull explosion punctuated his oxygen-deprived panic. Move! Have to try!



A.J. managed a sluggish trot. It was already stiflingly hot, but every step towards the flames seemed to double the heat. The pain in his lungs . . .



I can't die yet, dammit. The Faeries haven't flown.



Then he was falling.





A.J. stirred slightly. Joe came alert, looking down at his friend's reddened skin, scorched hair, and streaks of black soot that even scrubbing hadn't yet managed to eradicate. The blue eyes opened slowly.



"J-Joe?" The normally exuberant voice was barely a whisper, almost a hiss.



"Take it easy, man. You were really touch-and-go there for a while. You crazy sonofabitch." He extended a small cup to A.J. "Try to sip a little water."



A.J. sipped, grimacing at the pain in his throat, but sipped more anyway, trying to rehydrate the nearly cooked tissues. "Anne?" he finally managed, his voice now more of a croak.



"Alive. And so are Lee, Susan, and Lindy. Meryl and Bryce, too. Anne's doing fine. She'll have a scar on her head from where a chunk of metal hit her, but the concussion was minor and because she was unconscious and not doing heavy work, her lungs are in decent shape. She didn't inhale much. Lee, well . . . he lost his left leg."



A.J. winced. "Oh, hell."



"Come on, A.J.," Joe almost scolded. "He's lucky to be alive. Wouldn't be—neither would most of the others—if it hadn't been for you."



"Me? Ha. I went charging"—he coughed slightly and his eyes watered at the pain—"charging in there like an idiot and got myself trapped. Anne, too. And never did anything at all for Lee."



"You certainly did, you moron," Joe retorted, with a touch of affectionate exasperation. "You also tied all your sensors into the local net, and with that the firefighters and EMTs who just happened to also have masks were able to navigate through the mess and find everyone in jig time. Apparently they caught you just as you were about to fall into the fire. So you did land yourself in the hospital, but you almost certainly kept the rest of us out of the morgue."



A.J. looked somewhat gratified, if still embarrassed over having turned himself into a victim. "Still. With a leg gone, Lee's hopes to be on the mission are over." That was true, but Joe wanted to change the subject. Obviously,



A.J. hadn't yet figured out the implications of Joe's earlier statement that Anne's lungs were okay.



A.J.'s . . . weren't.



His good looks had miraculously come through untouched, except for a small scar on one cheek that would just draw more attention. But A.J., unlike Anne, had been breathing heavily in that holocaust.