by Loki Renard
“Perhaps you could tell me what happened," the doctor says to Tyko. “Instead of repeating unprofessional insults.”
Tyko bristles. He doesn’t like being called unprofessional. He thinks he is the most professional hard man military big dick who ever walked the planet. The fact that he ended up here tells me he’s not one of the good guys. He’s not even one of the decent guys. He’s a total bastard, same as everyone else, a disgrace to whatever uniform he wore and the country he served. From what I’ve heard, he’s an ex-Marine. Dishonorably discharged, of course. He likes to forget about the latter part of his career, the part where the military he loved rejected him and tried to imprison him forever. I know that’s probably the truth, because I bring it up when he makes me angry, and it never fails to enrage him. He has ideas about what a special forces soldier should be. He forgets that we’re not special forces. We’re something far worse. And me, I might be the worst of us all.
“So, what happened to her?” The doctor prompts him before he can throw a hissy fit.
“She fell from the training course,” Tyko explains.
The doctor’s gaze darkens. He shoots a sharp look at Tyko.
“Is that the one I’ve been saying needs fall protection installed?”
In this line of work, fall protection is the least of our worries. We’re mercenaries. Government-owned assassins. We do the work nobody else is allowed to do. The work nobody admits is done. We’re the last chance debris of the special forces. At least, that’s how I see us. People like Tyko take great pride in the work we do. Being disposable doesn’t matter to them. The more dangerous it is, the less we get paid, the more we are treated like rabid dogs, the more pleased they seem to be. I’m not pleased, or proud. I don’t want this life. But nobody ever asked me what I wanted.
“She shouldn’t be falling,” Tyko replies. “The aim of the course is to stay on it.”
Doctor Ares’ lips harden into a thin line.
“She’s been told many times not to try to cross it as fast as she does. She fell because she was being careless,” Tyko insists. “You go across slow, you do fine. You run across, you set up a vibration in the wires and they go out of sync. She knows this. She chose to fall.”
I let out a little growl. I didn’t choose to fall. Maybe I was going a little too fast, but that’s because we have records that matter. If I’m slow, I get punished.
“You can leave her with me,” Doctor Ares says. “I’ll call you when I’m done examining her.”
“I can’t, sir. She’s classified high risk.”
“I don’t think she’s going to hurt me in this state.”
“Sorry, sir. Can’t do it.”
Doctor Ares turns his attention back to me. I can see he is frustrated with Tyko, but he has the self control not to show it. I respect that.
“Lay back,” he says gently, not putting any of that anger on me. “Can you tell me where it hurts?”
I shake my head. I want to tell him. I want to tell him a lot of things but this is how the block works. I can’t talk when I most want to. The doctors who made me messed with all my natural impulses so I can almost never respond appropriately to anything. It’s why Tyko calls me a freak, and why I spend so much of my life locked away. Usually, I don't mind when I find myself unable to speak. I know that every small mouth noise I make is another node of data collected and inevitably used against me.
Most people get frustrated when I refuse to speak to them. I’ve been beaten for it. But Doctor Ares doesn’t seem to mind at all. He works around it, as if it’s not even an issue.
“I’m going to do a physical examination,” he says. “I want you to breathe nice and slow for me, and let me know where it hurts. Just make a sound, any sound when you feel pain.”
He starts touching me, his big hands running down the sides of my body. I let my eyes close a little. He presses on my stomach lightly, checking for sensitive spots. When he finds none, he rolls me gently onto my side, his big hands running over my flank, lifting my knee toward my chin.
I let out a little gasp. Not a word, but something closer to speech.
“Alright,” he says. “It’s okay.” He releases that leg and gently straightens it, then rolls me to the other side and repeats the action.
I let him do what he wants. I let him examine me. I let his hands roam my body. I let him hurt me, because at least when he hurts me, he’s trying to make it better.
“Likely a broken tailbone,” he concludes after some time. “Possible slipped disk or nerve involvement. I’m signing her off training, and I’ll do some further tests to…”
“No need. I had to have a diagnosis for the report, that’s all,” Tyko says. He’s already bored.
“Well, I’d like to see her back tomorrow.”
“I don’t think so, Doc.”
The doctor gives Tyko a stern look. “I’m aware that you have authority in general, but when it comes to medical matters, the doctor on duty always has rank. I’m not satisfied that you’re going to give her the rest she needs. And, given your attitude, I’m not satisfied she’s been given proper medical care at any time previous to this one. I’m going to do a full exam.”
Usually, I’d fight like hell if a doctor tried to examine me fully, but I’m on Ares’ side. Tyko is an asshole, and Ares is right. I don’t get any medical care. They don’t think I need it. Usually, I don’t. This doctor is making a lot of my usuals very unusual.
The doctor picks up some kind of doctoring tool and starts waving it near my body. I don’t know what it is, or what he’s doing, but I trust him.
“I’m going to be talking to the Head about fall protection,” he says to Tyko. “This is getting out of hand. I’ve spent more time splinting limbs since that course went up than I have doing anything else. Someone is going to die on it.”
“Not if they do it correctly,” Tyko insists.
Doctor Ares’ hand is on the back of my neck. He runs it down towards my back, stopping abruptly at the base of my neck.
“There’s something here,” he says.
“Tracking implant,” Tyko sighs, somewhat impatiently. Tyko knows a lot more about me than this doctor does, and he obviously can’t be bothered explaining it.
“That’s… large for a tracking implant,” the doctor says, pressing his fingers around the foreign object which haunts my body. “And it seems to be fused into the spinal column.”
“Tracking. Implant. Doc.” Tyko says the words heavily, as if they’re not meant to be questioned.
Ares shoots a look over at Tyko. It’s hard, but it’s not angry. It’s just firm.
“Listen, she’s not a normal patient. She doesn’t need to be looked at over and over. She’ll heal up soon. I just need to put something on the report, for the Head.”
“I’m not here to help fill out paperwork. I’m here to take care of the people who work here.”
“If you want me to call the Head because you don’t want to do what I’m telling you your job is….”
The doctor ignores Tyko and keeps examining me. I’m too busy smirking at Tyko to notice what the doctor is doing. Suddenly, there’s a sharp pinching sensation in my arm as Doctor Ares doses me with painkiller. I let out a growl and glare at him, but he’s smiling, and I can’t quite gather the rage needed to hurt him. He has me thoroughly off-guard.
“Alright, young lady,” he says, smiling. “You be careful and I will see you back here tomorrow. First thing in the morning.” He looks over at Tyko. “First thing.”
I nod and give him a thumbs up.
“Yeah,” Tyko says. “We’ll see.”
“Is there some reason you're unable to follow simple orders?”
I let out a snort of laughter. Ares is pulling rank hard with just a simple sentence, and it is such a joy to watch. Tyko is always swaggering around. He thinks he’s hot shit because he’s the one assigned to my case. The feral freak everybody else is afraid of. He thinks he has me tamed. He’s wrong.
&
nbsp; “Look what you’ve done,” Tyko snaps at me as it finally occurs to him that the doctor isn’t going to back down on this condition. “We’re going to have to reshuffle missions because of this. You need to be more careful. Your body doesn’t belong to you. It’s property of the government.”
“Easy,” Doctor Ares says. “That’s no way to speak to a lady.”
“She’s not a lady,” Tyko replies. “She’s a tool. To be used.”
“There’s only one tool here,” I grumble under my breath.
Doctor Ares looks at me with a mixture of surprise and amusement. I guess I’m relaxed enough to talk again. Selective mutism always surprises people. They hear the mute part and forget about the selective bit before it. I can usually speak just fine. I choose not to most of the time, unless I’m sassing or swearing. Nobody listens to me anyway.
“I will deal with you when we get back to your cell,” Tyko snarls at me, threatening me right in front of the doctor.
I look at Ares with big blue rescue me eyes. This is a tactic I was taught during training. I’ve been told that big strong men like to feel as though they’re rescuing a weak little female. My strength should always remain hidden until I need it.
“Cell?”
Oh, now Tyko’s let the cat out of the bag. The doctor didn't know they keep me locked up.
“Why would she be in a cell?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about your patient, doctor,” Tyko says. “You should stop asking questions.”
“Stopping asking questions doesn't make sense as a strategy if there’s a lot I don't know,” the doctor replies with a dry smirk. Oh I like him. He is sassy, in a muscular way.
“You're not cleared to know. This matter is top secret. I shouldn’t have brought her here,” Tyko says. He is incredibly stupid. He only realizes he’s made a mistake about half an hour after he’s made it. This has worked in my favor more than once. “Should have asked for a doctor cleared to the top levels.”
“The top levels of top secret topness,” I giggle under my breath.
Tyko lifts his hand to cuff me, then realizes what he’s doing and puts it down. He’ll still hit me. Just later, when there’s no doctor to file an incident report about the matter.
“I don’t think she should leave medical,” Doctor Ares says.
Aw, he’s trying to save me. It’s not going to work, but he’s trying and that is rather sweet.
“You’ve got no reason to hold her.”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking to her.”
“Well, this isn’t a country club. I’m not obligated to treat this feral little fucker like a princess, and the medical bay isn’t nearly secure enough to hold her.”
Doctor Ares looks me up and down. I know what he’s thinking. I don’t look like trouble. I am five feet two of blonde curly hair and blue eyes. I look like I was made in a porcelain doll factory. Angelic.
I see Doctor Ares raise a brow. “She’s a fairly small female. I can’t imagine her being that much trouble.”
“That’s a good thing” Tyko replies.
“What am I missing?” Doctor Ares murmurs the question, his eyes running over me.
“It’s classified, doctor. I can’t tell you. And you probably wouldn’t believe me if I did,” he scratches his chin. “Hell, I still don’t believe it.”
Tom
My mystery patient sits on the end of the bed and swings her feet back and forth in small motions. That’s encouraging. Means the tailbone injury isn’t as serious as I first thought. Maybe she’s only bruised it. Or maybe, and this doesn't make any sense, it is already healing.
I don’t like the agent with her. Tyko. No last name. It’s not uncommon for people to abandon their real names when they come to work for this facility. They’re beginning new lives. Their old ones are forever over. You’d think that would result in some kind of camaraderie and mutual understanding between agents. Nobody here is perfect. Everybody has fallen from grace in one way or another. Some agents treat the people around them like their last chance at family. Then there's ones like him, who seep hostility from every pore.
He seems afraid of this girl, which makes no sense at all. A man like him should be capable of overpowering a girl like her without issue, and yet they were scuffling when she came in. Maybe she's stronger than she looks, but there’s still a limit to how much power the female frame can generate. Smaller skeletons, thinner muscle attachments, less torque generated in the limbs. Simple physics.
I should finish the exam up and send her on her way. There’s really nothing clinically wrong with her aside from an injury which will heal on its own. But something tells me that I need to keep her close. If this were a public hospital, I’d be suspecting some kind of abuse. In this place, every day life is abusive by normal standards. The people here throw themselves into armed engagements, occasionally are seriously injured, sometimes they die and when they do, they are not mourned. It is understood that this is a place of last chances. It is the end of the road.
Sometimes, I wonder how I ended up here. Or rather, why I decided to stay. I had a choice. Unlike most of the inhabitants of this dark underworld, I was never disgraced and forced out of a military unit. I thought I wanted a quiet life. I thought a white picket fence, a wife, and a civilian hospital job would suit me. I was wrong. My marriage ended in divorce and I was drawn into this dark world by my brother and his fiancee, the need to make sure that they would be alright.
I’m a healer by trade and by nature. The military didn’t change that and neither has this place - though it has made it hard. This girl looks at me with eyes which are strangely innocent. She doesn't belong here. Most of the eyes that meet mine are jaded, like the agent looking after her. He looks at me like he doesn’t know I’m human. He sees the world as nothing but a series of ambulatory meat obstacles. The girl looks at me like she doesn’t know what I am. She’s confused by me. I can tell by the way she flinches when I touch her that she expects to be hurt. Looking at the agent with her, I can understand why.
I do not want to let her walk out of this examination room with him. I need to get in touch with management.
“Stay here,” I say. “I need to consult some files.”
“Sure, Doc. You do what you need.”
I leave the room, pick up the phone in my office, and call the Head. I of course, do not get the Head. I get her assistant, Trevor. Trevor is new. He arrived a month ago and his sole job seems to be obstructing access to the Head.
“Something important, Doctor?”
“I have a patient in my exam room with a concerning presentation. I need to speak to the Head immediately.”
“I’m afraid she is unavailable today.”
The woman is only contactable when she wants to be. Since coming on board, I’ve spoken to her a handful of times, but I know she has eyes on everything that happens inside her organization.
“Please tell her to contact Doctor Ares at her earliest convenience.”
The line goes dead. Politeness is in short supply around here. There’s a thin veneer of military discipline in place, but it doesn’t run terribly deep. Scratch it, and people start bleeding.
I’ve thought many times about leaving. The reason I came here in the first place, to watch out for Ken and Mary, my brother and his wayward girl, that’s not really necessary anymore. They’ve settled into a groove, become one with this place in a way that suits them. This place is a hive of barely contained villainy. But it saved Mary. And it meets Ken’s need for adventure, chaos and death. It’s even changed me. I don’t think there’s any way I can go back to living a normal life now.
The girl in my examination room reminds me of the life I used to live. Or rather, she reminds me of how removed this place makes you from the outside world. Her strange disconnection makes me think I need to go home tonight instead of sleeping onsite, and have a bath and make dinner for myself and remember what normal is.
I get to the keyboard and p
repare to put her details in when I realize that I don’t have them. I don't even know her name. I didn’t ask it. The chaos of meeting her made me forget simple protocol all the way down to basic human communication. Shaking my head at myself, I give myself an internal lecture about keeping my head in the game.
I rejoin the patient and the agent in the examination room. As I come through the door, I hear harsh, hissed words of censure. Tyko is furious at her, and I truly don’t understand why. I know gentlemanly urges are in short supply in this facility, but he’s treating this young woman like she’s a personal enemy.
“What is the young lady’s name? I need to pull up her file.”
“You won’t be able to look her up,” he says, straightening as I come in, moving his hands from the table where he’d been bent down hissing threats into her ears.
“And why not?”
“She’s classified.”
“Electra.”
It’s not the man who speaks. It’s the woman, trusting me with her name. She doesn’t look at me. She whispers it to the floor.
“Electra? Very pretty name. Do you have a last name?”
Tyko makes a snorting, sighing, generally annoyed sound. “Electra’s not her name. It’s just what she likes to call herself. She’s got a serial number, but like I said, you won’t be able to access her file. It’s restricted. Even I don’t have full access.”
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to treat someone with no medical records. What if she is allergic to something?”
“She’s not.”
“Well, I appreciate your attempt at informing me, but that’s not really good enough.”
“Listen, Doc. I told you, I needed a medical review to fill in the report. We’ve done that now. I’m going to take her back to her cell and we’ll…”
“You keep saying cell. Is she a prisoner?”
“You ask too many questions,” Tyko says with a smirk I very much do not like. It is disrespectful to me, and it makes it impossible to do my job.