Aberrant RPG - War Journal: Healer

[Heritage]

Author's Notes:

This is a work in progress - you know the drill.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Healer

They came for Cooper in the middle of the night, hauling his broken body off the cold concrete floor. A dizzy moment as the light of hissing kerosene lamps flashed past his face, and then they were dragging him out of his cell, out of the machine shed, outside into the chill night air.

Cooper was a doctor first, and a soldier second; he served with the Greens out of a sense of loyalty to Chimera, and duty to the men and women of the cause. He was no stranger to bloodshed - he waded up to his waist in casualties in the Congo and Namibia without so much as batting an eye. They were all elites then, and that was to be expected. But the War was different - now hundreds of baselines fought alongside novas under the Green and White, and their bodies were far more fragile. It didn't help that the Blues never fought fair - well, neither did the Greens, but few of them were sadists, and Cooper now knew from personal experience that this was not the case in the enemy's camp.

Their mission was simple - get food and medicine to families in the Dead Zone, the edges of the Blight where the damage was more psychological than physical. True, the dust got into everything, under your nails and into your lungs, but as bad as it got, it was nothing compared to the blasted hell of the Hot Zone, where the thought of 'humanitarian aid' was a sick joke. Chimera, old softy that she was, instituted the Warplift, filling stomachs, bandaging wounds, and hopefully winning over some hearts and minds, the sort of grand gesture she was known for. Once word got out, every blight-town with a working radio or OpNet connection was begging for help: children hungry, cows dead, nothing to eat but flour and rice. The warpers tore a hole in the sky and out popped a handful of Greens, bringing canned goods, blankets and penicillin to the folks that stood and gaped, shotguns loosely cradled in arms like weathered sticks, faces caked with dust. The kids were smarter, knowing there was no time for awe when the nice people had candy bars and teddy bears.

The first warps Cooper went on brought tears to his eyes - out west in the Cascades, hunkered down in well-stocked bunkers, you forgot how brutal life was in the Dead Zone. The US forces where too busy pulling bodies out of the rubble after the Kabalists and the One True Cult went toe-to-toe using the Eastern Seaboard as their sandbox. The Red Cross would like to help, but it was spread so thin you could see your hand waving on the other side. And the UN was desperately trying to find at least one person in the Balkans who wasn't insane. Nope, it was up to the Greens to help out, and for at least a little while, they felt like the Good Guys.

But Chimera hadn't counted on the Tatter-Tots - one cry for help pretty much sounds like another, and it was only after you popped into a deadly crossfire that you knew it was a trap. Knew that the Blues were going to strip your body for food and ammunition, then throw it into the furnace to return it to the hellfire from whence it came.

Lost Cabin was a trap; in his gut, Cooper knew it even before the warpers tore their hole in the sky. Desperation is a curious thing, and in time you learn that it comes in different flavors. The people of Lost Cabin were hungry, but not just for cling peaches in light syrup - they were hungry for blood. You could hear it in their broadcast if you listened hard enough. Cooper thought he'd heard it, but he wasn't sure, and the thought of ignoring yet another cry for help out of fear of the Blues was too much for him. So he organized a team, loaded up the gear, and led them all into the jaws of the beast.

His captors were delighted to find out he could regenerate - oh, the fun they had, playing little games for hours and hours with his twisted flesh. And in the morning, presto, the fun began anew! He didn't resist because he knew that as long as they had him to play with, they might leave his baseline comrades alone. Except after a few days, their toy didn't grow back as fast, and they had to find new toys to play with.

So tonight when they pulled him outside, Cooper was confused - maybe they'd grown nostalgic? But they weren't taking him to the old school where he had spent so many nights having his head smashed into the blackboard; they were taking him down the darkened street to one of the cozy little trailers nestled under the corrugated metal walls that circled the small town. He caught a quick glimpse of a sentry up in one of the watchtowers they'd built out of construction scaffolding, up where they kept the machine guns and RPGs that had ripped his team apart the minute their feet touched the ground. Where the hell did these psychopaths get their weapons from? Cooper had a few ideas, but no hard proof.