Specials.

The world tumbled around her as she was thrown from the bike, catching brief glimpses of Jay expertly pulling the anti-grav bike up out of its spin and skidding to a rather undignified halt in some bushes. She rolled across the ground in an undignified tangle of limbs coming to a halt a few meters away from the rapidly vanishing portal. Arien and Sven, not wanting to be stuck in the room of horrors, leapt out before it fully closed.

“Where is it?” Arien asked Plisken, coming to the old man’s aid and helping him up.

“Not sure…” Plisken said, training his senses on the jungle ruined camp around them.

By this point, Tara had dusted herself off, and checking herself over, found no serious injuries, just a few scrapes and bruises.

“Huh. Hard-light hologram has its advantages I guess.” She scanned the trail of the bike and noted Jay grumbling as he dragged it out of the bush.

“Who the smeg are you?” Plisken asked, wishing once more that he had his gun, knowing that he’d be wasting bullets on a hologram.

“Ssshh… It’s OK baby… It’ll be OK…” Jay cooed to the bike, as one of the stabilising peddles fell off. He grabbed it and placed it in one of the storage bays on the bike, in place of the plasma rifle which he now slung over his shoulder.

“You all right?” Tara asked, ignoring the accusatory question from Plisken, focusing on her one connection to the past.

“Yeah… What…” Jay said, finally leaving the bike in the shelter of a ruined shed. He looked up as he brushed his hands off on his trousers. “Woah! Plisken. How’d you… We came to get you. You know Cass is pissed at that stunt you pulled?”

“He’s one of us?” Tara asked at the same time as Plisken said “She’s one of us?” Once he’d been identified as friendly, Tara took a closer look at him as the introductions were made all round.

“You need to sit down.” She ordered to the old man, “I’ve not seen anything this bad for a while…” She muttered, probing the newest injury, she subconsciously reached for her medical kit. Then stopped. “Ah…” She said, looking at Jay helplessly. He saw the distressed look on her face and fished out a medical kit from his own pack.

“What needs done?” Jay asked, moving over to Plisken to dress the multitudinous wounds coving the old man. Plisken began to protest, but Jay shot him a look that Tara missed, the ‘not the smeg right now’ look, and the old man settled back down reluctantly. With the ministrations directed by Tara, and several bottles of anti-septic fluid and bandages later, Plisken was looking much better.

“It’ll do for now.” Tara frowned, “But we really should get you back to the medi-bay as soon as possible. You need much better treatment than this. I reckon that a small application of…”

“Don’t say it.” Jay warned.

“I almost sounded like Him didn’t I?” Tara chuckled, “Still, it would work. And Ointment number 346 would be perfect for this. I’m sure the side effects would ware off eventually. You don’t mind having a tail for a few months do you?” She queried to Plisken. The old man just blinked, looking towards Chrysler for some sort of help. Tara laughed at the worried expression. “When did things get so serious around here?” She asked sighing.

“That… thing…?” Jay asked Plisken questioningly.

“Some sort of mutant… There’s a facility underground here, all sorts of unpleasantness inside. That charged through a wall at us. Arien was able to change the portal co-ordinates or else I would have had to take quite a tumble.” He looked up at where he imagined the portal to be, back above the ground at a bone pastingly high height and shuddered slightly, causing his wounds to twinge.

“It reminds me of one of the zombies from an Xbox game I used to play. Left for Dead..” Jay mused, scanning the ruins and overgrowth for the monster that still had yet to return.

“I am aware of an old game. Reference Left for Dead.” Sven rumbled, his metallic frame creaking as it adjusted to better scan the area. “Large monster special, akin to this creature was referred to as a…” There was a low, growling roar from the shadows.

“TANK!” Jay yelled, scattering as a hunk of building was thrown into the group causing them to scatter.

<TAG!>