by P. S. Power
Brian realized suddenly that he felt starved, a deep burning hunger that he hadn't consciously noticed until he saw the food in front of him on the green tray. His right hand still wouldn't close, so he used his left to eat, taking it slow, since he didn't want to throw up right now. Cleaning it up would be a pain and someone else would have to do the work. Better to just be careful than make a mess.
Just focusing on the food for a while, eating one bite at a time, each tasting incredible, even though it was just a beef and cheese sandwich with mayo on white bread and a side of fries, which tasted baked, not deep fried.
Perfect.
The lady was dressed nicely, in a turquoise skirt, white top, and a gray sweater with a black pattern woven in that Brian couldn't recognize. Little flowers? She'd also brought him an orange drink, with no carbonation, but it tasted good anyway, better than it would have with the sting of bubbles against his still raw throat.
After the meal was finished he felt stuffed, even if this amount of food wouldn't have even been a snack to him a week before. Well, he told himself, trying to be honest, it might have been a snack, but not a meal. Certainly not something that left him full. Now Brian didn't think he could eat any more if someone forced him too.
When he finished the woman next to him smiled and asked him if he'd like more. He told her no, adding “thank you” to it a few seconds later, trying to remember to be polite, even through the drugs. It was hard, the world seemed fuzzy and distant, unreal. Ah, Brian understood in a flash that took minutes, the power of drugs.
Not anywhere near clear, head swimming and eyes blurry, he felt like he'd drifted off, but apparently managed to talk the whole while. The woman sat and asked him questions, her voice staying soft, just loud enough for him to hear. Brian didn't pay attention to most of them, useless things really, as far as he could tell.
Did he want to harm the police officers that had beaten him? Of course. Who wouldn't? Did he think they deserved to die for it? A few of them probably did, he allowed, trying not to be unfair about the whole issue. The rest should just be put in prison for a while, or better, given the same treatment he was, so they'd learn not to do it to anyone else.
Would he trade the woman in the bar's life for a chance to kill the police that had hurt him?
“No.” Brian didn't elaborate, how could he? That just seemed like a nonsense question, who'd do that?
He laughed at her other questions too, weakly, a breathy sound, since she seemed to be making jokes. Would he trade her life, the doctor's life, to punish the police? To catch the men in the bar? To save the woman? Would he trade his life to save that woman? To save her, the doctor again, he got after a few seconds slow and fuzzy thinking, if she were in trouble?
Of course, he told her, that only made sense. It made him worry about her a little, that she'd even ask such things. Her life was obviously worth more than his was.
Finally she asked him if he felt afraid of the police. He told her he really did, it wasn't something he wanted to admit, but it was the simple truth. Just thinking about them made him afraid. A deep trembling thing. Terror really. Brian knew it didn't sound very brave, but that really was how he felt. They were monsters. When you encountered that kind of thing, it was best to run away or at least hide, right?
“One last question then. Let's say the police are here in the hall, and they're going to take one of us to the station and beat them exactly like you were before. They'll take me in your place. If you want me to go, I will. Is that what you want? I don't think you can survive another beating like that right now...” She sounded oddly soft and a little unsure suddenly.
“No! Don't take her, take me instead...” He tried to climb out of the bed, but his hands and legs wouldn't really work. Brian had to protect the woman if they were coming for her, didn't he? Those evil men would hurt her for sure. Maybe worse than they had him even. A fat guy was a lot less tempting to rape after all.
His head spun as he searched for something to fight with. He picked up the plastic food tray and held it, barely able to keep it from slipping out of his clumsy half dead hands. Ready to do what little he could, knowing it wouldn't be enough. They had guns and clubs and torture devices. He had a tiny piece of orange plastic. It was too hard to move. He'd gotten halfway to the floor, sliding on the edge of the bed with the woman trying to stop him for some reason, when Agent Lancaster came in.
The large man listened to what the woman said carefully, head tilted, something about the police Brian heard, and then walked over to the younger man.
“Brian, listen to me, there are other agents here now and we took care of the police, they won't come back, Doctor Tull is safe... If they try to hurt her we'll shoot them.” He had to repeat this about a dozen times, but it finally all sank in.
After they got him back into bed and got someone to fix the I.V. that he'd pulled out of his arm, he fell asleep again. Brian didn't really feel clear for days. Almost ten. He first came back to himself fully as a male nurse, Ken, walked him around the halls to make sure he got what exercise he could.
They didn't walk long, about ten minutes, his body still aching in places, but not nearly as bad as it had. His legs were stiff and his right hand only closed about halfway, but he thought that if he could close it that far, he should be able to eventually get it back. His left hand was better, but not perfect. Ken walked Brian back to his room and helped him into bed, then asked if he needed anything.
Brian thought about that, “Um, could I get a razor? I need to shave this growth off. Not really something I can do, grow a real beard. This fuzz on my face looks ridiculous.”
Ken chuckled and told Brian that he'd see what they could come up with. The man did better than that, even helping him shave, since Brian couldn't hold a razor yet. It felt awkward, but nice to have the itching mess gone. A doctor, one he didn't recognize really, but who felt familiar if that made any sense, came in and asked some questions about how things were going. Brian asked some of his own when the other man had finished.
“So, I'm not trying to be a whiner here or anything, honest, but are my hands permanently crippled? I mean, can I get use of them back maybe?” Flexing his hands he tried to show the man what he meant. Working them feebly, barely getting them half closed.
The doctor didn't tell him that it would all be normal again, but he sounded hopeful about him regaining most, maybe even all normal use of them. Enough for playing video games and... other things young men were known for.
Brian gave him a look. “Dude... I'm lying here asking you if I'm crippled for life, and you make a masturbation joke?” He smiled after about ten seconds, it hurt on the right side still, but he did it anyway. A small snort escaped him. “Funny! Well, it can't be that dire then, can it? As long as all the important things come back. After all, that's pretty much my love life we're talking about.”
They were both laughing when the woman that gave him food – and might be beaten by the police – came in. His head had cleared enough that he realized that had been a hypothetical beating, not a real one. She smiled when she saw them talking so happily.
The doctor he'd been talking to excused himself, his smile leaving suddenly, replaced by a more professional look and nodded to the woman as he passed her on the way to the door murmuring, “Doctor Tull” as he passed. The woman, wearing a pale pink dress today with a tan sweater over the top called the man Doctor Richards and moved past him toward Brian with an intense focus.
“Mr. Yi? I don't know if you remember me, my name's Diane Tull...” Her hair had streaks of gray in the sandy blond he saw now that his head had cleared a little, and she wore gold wire-rimmed glasses that either she hadn't before or that had been there the whole time and he just hadn't noticed. Drugs, at least the good kind they'd been giving him, apparently could do that. Make you not see what was really there.
He smiled. “The woman the police were coming to torture in my place?” Brian made his voice wry, feeling more than a bit embarrasse
d about the whole thing. “I'm sorry about that... Obviously I get the hypothetical now, I was just really out of it at the time. I blame the drugs, personally. You know, so I don't have to accept responsibility for looking like a total freak like that? It's a good plan, don't you think? Though talking about it like this now probably shows a little too much insight to really sell that one.”
The woman grinned. “Don't let it worry you. It was actually kind of touching to tell the truth. Nice to know that someone would try to protect me like that, even if they weren't really coming for me.” She asked if it would be all right for her to sit, since they had some things to talk about.
He gestured to the chair, a soft looking cloth covered thing with a thick tan cushion on the seat and a shiny silver metal frame. It must have been there the whole time, people had been sitting after all, Lancaster the government agent had been in a few times, this lady, and Ken the nurse who'd come and read to him, even if he couldn't recall what the man had said. Something about a woman named Gwen stuck in another world? Just having someone there had made him feel better.
As she sat he spoke again. “We need to talk? Are you sure? Every time a woman in my life has said that it meant that we were breaking up.” He tried to keep his face straight as he teased the woman gently. “If that's the case I promise I can fix whatever it is I've done wrong. I'll be more romantic, and lose weight, I promise.”
Brian managed to keep his face deadpan for a while as the woman chuckled and then winked at him.
“Just the opposite in a way, Brian. I actually think we should start seeing a lot more of each other...” Her own face had lost expression, but she watched him closely. He knew his eyes had gotten wide.
Really it was the best offer he'd had in almost two years... She was older than him, a trace of wrinkles around the edges, thin... but cute enough. Given that she'd seen him beaten up so much when she'd seen him each time, she must be a saint to even consider it.
Her smile let him know that she was just playing back, so Brian sighed and shook his head dramatically.
“I should have known that it would be too good to be true. Sigh oh sigh.”
Leaning in she touched his hand briefly, which didn't hurt, he realized, the bruises there having faded over the last days, leaving discolored skin now, but not the black and blue mottling that had been there from when he'd hit the guy with the gun.
The idea of him having tried to take on an armed man, and that Infected guy at the same time boggled his mind for a moment. Then he felt a crushing wave of anger. At himself. He'd failed and that innocent woman had died because he wasn't... enough. Not even close.
The look must have passed over his face, because the doctor asked him what was wrong, probably afraid she'd insulted him or something. Brian didn't want her to feel bad, it wasn't anything to do with her, so he explained quietly.
After a while she pulled out a yellow pad from the bag she carried, a beige or cream colored thing, Brian didn't know the exact name to call the shade. Much past primary colors his names for things started to get more than a bit creative. Then she pointed at something on the paper.
“Her name, the woman, was Barbara Dorn, Barbie to her friends, she worked as the counter person at a mechanics shop in the same town the bar is located in. She's the sixty-eighth victim of a serial/spree killer known as the Jackal. You fought with him and his accomplice, a non-infected man. We don't have a name for him yet. In the last fifteen days they've killed twenty-seven more people, including five members of a CERT team in Houston Texas. Five armed men, wearing body armor. I know it won't help, telling you that it wasn't your fault, your first modality won't let that be enough for you. But I wanted you to know that no one else, not even professionals with training for this, have been able to do any better than you did.” She put the pad down on her lap, out of view as he laid in the bed.
Brian worked the white control lever, raising the bed as far as it could go.
Once sitting all the way up he swallowed, “I know that I couldn't really be expected to win, intellectually. I mean, if they'd been two girl scouts hitting me with boxes of cookies and pillows it would have been a tossup as far as a who'd come out on top, so putting me against some super-powered psycho and his even crazier armed buddy is just... insane. I really know that, I swear!” He shook a little, the anger at himself coming back as he thought about the fight. “But if I could have just gotten her away somehow... Run or something. Run better... I tried and it didn't work. Or fought them harder or... something, maybe she could have lived? I don't even know what they did to her...”
Doctor Tull just shook her head, but Lancaster spoke, walking in just in time to hear the question.
“They... raped her for several hours, then the Infected known as the Jackal killed her, literally eating her alive. His friend then sodomized the corpse – what was left of it – and relieved himself on the other dead bodies. Most of this hasn't made the news, Brian, and just shouldn't, not ever, so if anyone asks about it, don't let it out. The fact that these fucks are killing so many people already has the country in an uproar. We have to stop them.” The agent had dressed in a black suit again, but this time with a deep green shirt on underneath.
Maybe he had a date, Brian mused.
Then the thought made him wince. Barbara Dorn wouldn't have any more dates now. Brian would have traded his life for hers, but he'd had that chance and left her there for them to... He couldn't even make himself think all the words. They were monsters of a kind that shouldn't even be able to exist, much less be allowed to.
What those men, those things, he decided, because no one human could to something like that, had done, horrified him and made him angry again. Brian worried out loud that anger seemed to be that strong emotion thing in him. He'd felt it so often since all of this had happened, building slowly, but there. It almost had to be his thing, didn't it?
Next to him the doctor looked down for a moment, checking her notes again he saw, not looking down in embarrassment or anything.
“Not at all, Brian. That anger, even the rage you've felt, is normal and even healthy. Some bad people have done some really awful things and you should be angry about it. Agent Lancaster had to stop some of his fellow agents from hunting down and killing the police that tortured you last week, which I know was hard for him because he probably wanted to kill them himself. As for what happened to Barbara Dorn and the other victims of these killers... Anyone hearing about it should feel either anger, or fear. That you picked anger doesn't mean you're bad or that you'll feel that kind of thing all the time, it just means you're sane and probably willing to try and stop them, rather than just hiding. Both would be normal though.” She waited for him to say something, Brian noticed, as if there would be some question she expected from him, even wanted.
He didn't have a clue what that would be.
Finally Lancaster broke the silence, a small grin on his face. “Your first mode, the primary emotion that you display, isn't anger or anything negative at all, Brian. I don't know if it will shake out differently over time, sometimes things like this do, but it seems to be a kind of focus on protecting other people, a type of self-sacrifice. Obviously you're not stupid about it... you'd kill those pricks if you could, so it's not just compassion, and it's not blind, but you'd put yourself in front of anyone in danger. Basically like a mother would with a child only to an extreme.” The large, powerfully built man waved his hand. “Or maybe like a father willing to do anything to protect his family. I'm not calling you a chick or anything.” His expression looked halfway between a smile and a smirk when he said it.
Brian shifted uneasily and put his hands down carefully, making sure they were flat on the bed before trying to push himself back. He slid and Lancaster looked like he might try to help, but the doctor gave the man a look with a small head shake, making him back off so that the younger man could do it himself. It took about a minute to get comfortable, having slipped further down twice, the sheets a bit slippery un
der him for some reason. It was the plastic under the cloth that did it.
The woman sitting by him finally saw he'd finished and resumed talking. “Brian, the thing is, as near as our experts can tell with limited data, your ability doesn't have any conscious control mechanism, which leaves us with two main options to explore. The first is what we've been doing already, keeping you drugged into insensibility, which fools your subconscious mind into thinking you're asleep. Apparently you're safe then, as far as we can tell from the readings and tests we've done. Drugged or sleeping. If you want we can keep you that way indefinitely, so that you never have to go through something like what you have again.” Her lips tightened going slightly white around the edges, making little wrinkles appear. It wasn't a happy thing at all.
“The other option is to get you training. We think, and this is tentative, that if you're in enough pain or discomfort, your ability won't put you into danger. That level seems pretty extreme, but we believe that if you train hard enough, the muscle soreness and discomfort should be enough to buy you some time to learn what you need to survive.”
Going silent, the woman took a deep breath, it caught on the way out, as if she didn't want to speak the next words. After a minute of this she looked at Lancaster and shook her head, telling him that she just couldn't say the rest of it, or so it seemed to Brian. The big agent took a single step closer to the woman and put a hand on her shoulder for a moment before taking over.
“The thing is, Brian, both of these options have massive problems. If you choose the drugs, you're basically going to have to be kept so stoned all the time that you won't have a real life. After a while these things will permanently impair your ability to reason. We might as well lobotomize you, which has also been considered, since no kind of drug therapy would leave you any clearer in the long run.