Nod.  "You'll have your orders."

"Yes sir."

The selfie stick comes back with a bunch of shots of: rubble.

But no giant worms currently thrashing or lolloping catastrophically around.  Good to know.  "Shadowcat, you're up.  Report in, radio for backup, but let's not hang too much hope on it getting here any time soon.  Check out the remains of base camp, once around as far as you safely can.  Anybody alive and safely mobile, bring them back here.  Anyone alive and not safely mobile, make a note for the meds, we'll send them out.  Track what the worm is doing best you can."

"Yes sir."  He regards the portal and rolls his shoulders.  He clicks his power on: No Sandworms should be allowed to register or react to his presence in any way.  (Nothing pings him inside the dungeon, thank God.)

This was not what he fucking meant when he said ready to go round two.

Nothing for it.  He steps through.

Lotta rubble out here. The street is badly torn up. There seems to be an approximate divide between places where the ground level is a little too low (by the guiding and first aid tents where most of the rescuees would've been) and where the ground level is a little too high (closer to the portal), as though somebody came through with a big shovel, scooped up a quick shovel-load of fresh dungeon victims along with the asphalt they were standing on, gave the rest of the area a few solid whacks to crudely level out this strange irregularity known as 'buildings', and left.

The air is filled with screeching, knifelike wormsong.

 - that sounds like a lot more than one worm.

He taps his foot.

It's a lot more than one worm's attention on him, unless it's a monomaniacally focused worm.

But from the screams, from the relative stillness of the ground, the worm that just attacked their base camp doesn't seem to be sticking around.  Arrakis worms are supposed to come out gradually, one by one, but it seems like they're all over the city in a matter of minutes.

First step is to radio this in.  His name's Shadowcat, calling in from outside .14021, outdoors in the middle of Maple Ridge, dungeon's cleared but an Arrakis worm ate their base camp and wrecked the whole block.  Everyone who could fled into the cleared dungeon, he's checking for worm activity and movable casualties, they could use backup.

This is happening all over the place, everyone could use backup.  Sit tight and move anyone you can to safety.

Yeah.

Okay.  Wrecked street.  Wrecked cars.  Wrecked DRT caution tape.  Wrecked human bodies.  Smell of dust and blood.  Cautiously, lopingly, keeping his center of gravity low, he starts to move along the rubble, careful of any shifts beneath his feat, toward the nearest coherent human sound.

The nearest coherent human sound looks to be this person over here.

Let's start with the good news: head and torso intact and visible, one arm definitely free, seems conscious if woozy, making something resembling an effort to free themself from the rubble.

And now for the bad news: their legs are pretty buried and it's hard to see what's going on down there but this is not a "no news is good news" kind of situation; they're woozy enough to be having serious trouble taking directed action; the actions they are taking are making an amount of noise that will probably result in Further Worm Attention sooner or later.

- he can't help this person yet.  He'll reassess if any worms seem to start heading their way, but - he needs to check over the rubble to make sure the medical support can transit it safely, they'll be more able to help the stranger than Bryce working alone.  If anyone can walk, he'll bring them to the portal.  Otherwise - 

"Help!" says the person, who is not privy to his reasoning.

Well.  They're not the only person he can hear screaming.  Some days, in this job, it pays not to be a good person.

Ground's pretty stable.  Most of the medical supplies were in the tent, but this hospital van looks like it might have some intact stuff in it.  Anybody on their feet - 

In a word, no.

Ask a stupid question.  Lotta people out here having pretty rough days.  The fastest way he can help them is by getting back to the portal; and so he does.

Portal's right where he left it. Injured people trapped under rubble also aren't going anywhere.

Sure aren't.

Back in.  He gives Sitko and the medical team a fast rundown: here's the nearest people, here's the ones with rubble that looks like it can be moved off them without disturbing anything precarious, here's the least wrecked looking medical vans.  Most of the wrecked street is pretty stable but these are the stablest paths across it.  Lots of people alive and screaming but nobody ambulatory.

The worm's not paying them any attention, far as he can tell, but there's a lot more than one thing that can hear him when he taps his foot.  From the reply when he called it in, there's a lot more than one worm breaching.  From the wormsong, it might be for miles around.

He needs guiding.

He does, but they need espers out there helping shift the rubble off people's legs as soon as possible.

"I can - "

" - I can ride it out."

" - okay."