Four months ago.

Clint and Brendan sat back in the pavilion for a break. They'd worked for twelve hours straight. Clint had lost count of how many dislocated joints and limbs he'd put in a cast, how many wounds he'd stitched close, how many people he'd reassured and how many people they'd lost on the sickbed.

Clint sighed in defeat. No matter how many people you save, even one death at your hands is always going to be a bigger number.

"Don't think about it, doc," Brendan said next to him. "We still saved more lives than we lost."

Clint smiled a wry, humorless smile. The kid is a mind reader, he thought before he stopped smiling. He sighed again. "Human lives aren't just a census stat, Brendan," he said as he looked down at the football field pulsing with activity, the tortured cries of pain ringing all the way up to the empty bleachers. Clint frowned. "When someone dies while I'm operating, it's always someone's husband, father, brother, son, daughter, mother, sister, wife. A part of someone else's family. Someone who means something to someone else. When they die because of my mistake, I die a little myself."

The younger man looked at Clint. Brendan had served as a nurse for a better half of his life. In all of his experience yet, he'd never met a doctor as skillful and efficient as Clint to have this much empathy. It was almost as if empathy and skill were mutually exclusive when it came to doctors. They are supposed to play god and save lives that were on the verge of slipping away. But losing a patient meant getting reminded how pointless even skill can be sometimes. Humans will only ever be humans. That simple realization is capable of sending any doctor with empathy on a spiral. Brendan let out a sharp breath as he looked away. "It means a lot to you, doesn't it, doc?" he said. "When you are operating, you aren't just a surgeon. You are trying to be a savior."

Clint grimaced. "Savior sounds like a big word. There's a lot of pride in it." He sighed. "When I'm operating, I'm just a person who is capable of helping another person. Our lives are on the same level. When they die because of my mistake, I feel like I lost a life that was as important as my own."

"But you were amazing, Doc," Brendan said. "We lost the people we lost tonight because we didn't have proper resources. You gave your one hundred percent. It's not your job to shoulder all the blame."

Clint closed his eyes and took a deep breath, tried to remember Marie's captivating eyes, Zack's cheerful smile. Before a vivid image could form in his head, the Field Coordinator's voice boomed on a bullhorn, commanding them to return back to their duties.

Clint swallowed hard and opened his eyes. "Let's go, Brendan." He got up. "Time to work."

###

Three months ago.

"Clint Harris," the ration management clerk mumbled, his cheeks sunken and there were bags under his eyes, "your personnel dependent details state that you have a wife and a twelve year old son."

"I do." Clint swallowed hard. His eyes were intent on the clerk's uninterested features. He didn't even care that the clerk had ink smeared across his chin like a fading bruise. All he thought was: They gotta feed them. They gotta feed them. They gotta feed Marie and Zack. Feed Marie and Zack. Feed Marie and Zack...

"According to Rescue and Relief regulations, each adult dependent gets one unit of ration assigned to them. Each child dependent gets half a unit of ration assigned to them. So your dependents will receive one and a half units of rations to sustain themselves. Would you like to make any changes?"

Clint's heart sank all the way down into his stomach. One and a half? he thought, what is this? Some charity? I've worked my ass off! For a measly one and a half?!

He took a breath and let it out slowly. He spoke as politely as he could. "Can't you assign a full unit to my son?"

The clerk made a ticking sound with his tongue. In the cubby compartment of the rationing management, the sound was as loud as an A-bomb shockwave. Or that's how it sounded to Clint. Final and destructive. They were throwing scraps at his wife and son and all he could do was stand there.

Zack might still be burning with fever. Even if a whole month had passed since he'd come to Rescue and Relief, Zack might've still been in pain, still shivering without the right medicines. He needed proper nutrition. Marie must've been starving herself to spare the rations for the boy. And she had to scavenge on her own.

And one and a half was all that these bastards were going to offer them? He felt like reaching over the desk and whacking a good one to the clerk's ink stained chin, give him a real bruise so he gets his head out of his rear for once.

"Maybe I can," the clerk said.

Clint's heart rose out of his stomach. The ink-stained face suddenly became angelic for him. He felt like apologizing to the man for round-housing him in his imagination. "You can?" he asked hopefully.

The clerk nodded. "If you give up your share of the ration that is assigned to you here for your duty, we can send that unit to your wife and son," he said.

"Do it," Clint said without hesitation.

Something stirred in the clerk's face–an expression–something human, for the first time: disbelief. "You sure, Harris?" he said, narrowing his eyes. "You won't have anything to eat here. It will all go to your family. The unit doesn't just include food, it also has basic painkillers. You fine with that?"

"Did I stutter?" he said.

The clerk was positively astounded now. He shrugged, struck a few keys on the keyboard in front of him and made some changes to his ration assignment record. "Done. Your wife and son will receive two and a half ration units this month. That includes primary painkillers, antibiotics and four bottles of medical spirit."

Clint nodded and he turned to leave. The clerk was watching him intently. "Hey, Harris," he called out.

Clint looked at him.

"Don't starve to death," the clerk said. "If you feel like you won't be able to stretch it this month, just leave. You might be able to reach your family before you die."

Clint shook his head. "I'll leave at the end of this month. They let you write off two more units of ration if you work all thirty days without holidays." He walked out.

That evening, Clint and Brendan stepped into their shared sleeping quarter, which was just a tent on the outer fringe of the football field.

Clint's back was aching and Brendan's shoulders were slouched from fatigue. "We have been working ten hour shifts since day one, yet I'm not used to it." Brendan groaned as he dropped himself on his cot.

Clint smiled wryly at his assistant. He went and lay down on his own cot. He let out a sigh as his muscles relaxed on the military issue mattress.

"Oh wow!" Brendan cried out. "Free goodies!" His eyes happened on the package left by the end of his bed. His share of rations. He opened the box to reveal fifteen cans of food, twenty bottles of water and two bars of soap and a small box of chocolate bars. Brendan took a bar, tore the wrapper and bit in. His body seemed to collapse in relief as the chocolate melted on his tongue. "It's pathetic to feel so happy just from a single bite of this but I don't care." He shrugged and took another bite.

Clint kept smiling but the smile didn't really reach his eyes. The rations were probably delivered to Marie and Zack by now, he thought to himself. He found some relief in that. Then his stomach growled. Quite loudly.

Brendan turned to his partner. "Doc?" He said. "Where is your ration unit?"

Clint sighed. "I declined."

Brendan frowned, leaning ahead. "Declined? Why?"

"So that my son and wife get two more units," he said quietly.

Brendan's eyes went wide. "But, doc. You won't have anything to--"

"I know," Clint said. He pulled out his flask of gin he had brought with him. Alcohol was the only commodity unlimited in supply. Because when they were out of ointments, this was what they were supposed to clean the wounds with. So the government produced this on a larger scale than it produced the medicine. It was way cheaper to do that. Clint took a large sip from his flask.

"You don't plan to sustain yourself on that alone, do you?" Brendan asked.

"I also have this." Clint pulled out the last bar of chocolate he had left over from the supplies he'd brought with him.

"Doc, that's still unsustainable," Brendan said. "You can't make it last a whole month."

Clint felt childish trying to defend his point. Brendan was right. He was being stupid. He was already considering leaving as the clerk had suggested earlier. He kept staring at his flask and his single bar of chocolate.

That's when a can of beans appeared in front of him. But it wasn't a hallucination. It was Brendan's hand that was holding it. Offering him. Clint looked up at the younger man. "Won't you need it?" Clint asked.

Brendan just smiled. "I'm not the only one saving lives here, am I?" he said. "Why do you expect me to eat all this alone?"

Clint stared at the can for a long time. Then he looked up at his partner. "Th-thanks..." He said, not even realizing that his nose was running and tears were rolling down his face.

###

Present day.

"Okay Dr. Neville, I'll go with your wife," Cathy said. "Now please stop crying."

Neville stopped sobbing but the tears kept rolling out of his eyes. He smiled up at Cathy.

"Thank you," he said. "You'll find her on Lauder Street. It is a single-storey blue house with a red convertible out in the drive. That's the place. That's where you'll find her."

Cathy just nodded. She felt unsure of what she was really going to do. "But there's one thing that I don't get," she said. "You keep saying you won't be able to make it. Clint said that wound on your torso wasn't infected. What makes you so sure you are gonna die?"

Neville looked at her with grim eyes. Then he smiled. Then he took off his left shoe and rolled up the pant leg. On the side of his calf was a purple ring mark. Cathy recognized it the moment she saw it. A bite from an infected. "I was bitten about an hour ago. I'm already feeling dizzy and all the blood I lost has probably made it worse," Neville said. "That's why I know there's no hope for me."

"Why didn't you tell us about the bite earlier?" Cathy asked.

"You wouldn't have helped me then."

Cathy just gave another nod.

"One more thing," Neville said, wiping his tears. "You're gonna need a gun. Never know when you might need one," he said, looking around himself. "I'd kept it in my suit."

Cathy perked up, eyes widening. She looked at Neville. "But Clint took your suit--"

"And now I have his gun," Clint said, appearing in the doorway of the garage, the gun in his hand, aiming at the girl and the man.

Cathy and Neville both froze in their places.

Clint walked in, one hand holding the gun, another holding the blood stained uniform. He threw the suit at the center of the garage. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Neville," he said and then he threw something else on the suit. The identity card that had belonged to the real Hugh Jenner. "I didn't trust you the moment I saw that wound."

Neville just scowled at Clint.

"A radioactive rain that will wash away everything it touches?" Clint said, scoffing. "Only a guy who worked for the government can hide something like that."

"Clint, you don't have to aim that gun at us," Cathy said. "There's a lot going on here."

"And trust me, I know exactly what's going on," Clint said. "That man wants you to take that card to his pregnant wife so she can escape C3 before it rains. And what about the rest of us? Are we just supposed to sit back and take it when it hits us? Let me tell you something, we won't. Give me the card."

"Not gonna happen," Neville said.

"I was there, you know," Clint said. "After the riots happened, the First Leader begged all the doctors to help heal those wounded in the riots. I was among the many doctors and surgeons who were taking care of everyone. I was out on the field after the massacre happened. I had to leave my family alone for two months just so I could scrape a few more units of rations for them. And after that we never got any help when we needed it. What did you do, Neville? You helped create something that is gonna kill us all and your wife was supplied with rations every month?" Clint sneered at the other man. "Me and my family deserves to be on that plane more than you or your damn wife."

"They only let you pass if you have the card. You don't have the card, you can't pass." Neville shrugged. "And you are not getting that card, doc."

Clint sneered harder, his nostrils flared. He let out a sharp breath. "Neville, you can either hand me that card, or I'll pry it out of your dead fingers."

"Go ahead and shoot, I'm gonna die anyway," Neville said.

Clint kept sneering at the man. His fingers tightened on the handle of his gun. He finally pulled the trigger.

The bullet got Neville in the throat, throwing him back in his chair while his voice box bled. He writhed and shivered as he grabbed his wound before tumbling down on the ground and he started to choke on his own blood. After a minute of writhing, Neville stopped moving.

The shock of the gunshot and the corpse beside her seemed to stop the moment for Cathy. She stared down at Neville's body. Then her eyes happened on the shiny blue card lying beside him. She made an almost involuntary grab for it.

"Don't move, Cathy!" Clint said. Marie was standing behind him now. She'd probably heard the gunshot. She looked nervous. "You're a nice girl. You offered shelter to my family when we knocked on your door. Don't do anything stupid right now. I don't wanna hurt you."

Cathy just kept looking at Clint, stunned.

"Here, hold this, honey." He handed the gun to Marie. "Cover me while I go and take that card." He slowly made his way to Neville. "I'm just trying to protect my family. Let me just have that card and we'll be out of your hair." He stepped over to the dead body. As he reached for the card, Cathy felt the jolt of cold carbon fiber against her skin.

Her gun! It was still under her shirt. She whipped it out. "Keep your hands off the card." She aimed her pistol at Clint.

He froze at the sight of the gaping gun barrel. "Shoot her, Marie," he said.

Marie froze.

"Marie, shoot her!"

Marie pressed her lips into a thin line, swallowed hard, her shoulders started to jerk as if suppressing a sob. She didn't know what to do.

"Marie, shoot goddammit!"