Day Three [A demon holds my place on earth 'til I die.]howangryaretheyDecember 2 2009, 02:20:26 UTC
There's an Organization-run medical center somewhere downtown and it's here that Wes and Rachel have been taken to continue their recovery. They're sharing a room, because Adam figured it best never to let them be too far from each other after such an ordeal and now that the worst of their injuries have been treated, it's time to tend to the psychological ones.
...The ones that Adam actually can fix anyway.
Topher's been dragged out of his lab, stammering something about how he really meant to tell Adam about someone named Dr. Saunders and Adam figures he can grill him about that later once the boy's done his job. At the moment, he's flailing at a nurse regarding drugs and how he can't do anything with Rachel and Wes unless they're conscious, but sedated enough that they don't notice that they're going to be missing huge chunks of memory until he can replace them.
Eventually, the appropriate drugs are found and, as soon as they're given the signal that Wes and Rachel are waking up, both Adam and Topher enter the room, Topher hanging back somewhat awkwardly until he's needed, while Adam immediately takes charge.
"It's probably uncouth of me to ask if you're feeling better after that ordeal, but I hope you both are, at least, comfortable."
Rachel lay on her side, watching Wes from her bed. She stirred at the sound of Adam's voice, shifting a bit so she could see him.
And still see Wes in her peripheral vision. She wasn't taking her eyes off him for a moment more than was necessary.
"I'm comfortable, thank you," she said diplomatically. "I doubt there's going to be much 'feeling better' until I've torn that man's face off with my bare hands. I'm just sayin'."
Adam's jaw twitches in something that's neither wholly a smile nor wholly a grimace. "I can imagine," he says to Rachel, all but ignoring Wes, save for a casual nod in his direction.
And that's precisely why this has to be done.
He steps to the side as a nurse comes in bearing two syringes and gestures to both the nurse and Topher who bites down on his lip as he selects one. "This is Dr. Brink," Adam explains. Topher looks up at the sound of his name and gives an awkward little wave in Rachel and Wes's direction.
"A little birdie told me you were running low on meds," Topher says, by way of explanation. "Now... These don't make you sleep, but they will make you a little bit, er... Loopy." He picks up the first syringe and injects it into Wes's IV before picking up the second and moving over to Rachel's. "Because it's not really a hospital visit until your friends and loved ones can hear you babbling nonsense about potatoes, right?" He laughs awkwardly as he finishes up with the second IV.
"I took the liberty of contacting Adrian already," Adam explains, eying Topher as he lingers in one corner of the room, waiting for the drugs to kick in and he has the opportunity to actually work. "If there's anyone else, it's no trouble to get them up here."
"Hello, Dr. Brink," Rachel says, eyeing the man as he injects her IV. She's not sure all this is really necessary but she hasn't had an opportunity to object.
She looks over at Adam, and sighs. "Rusty Hunt," she tells him. "But getting him up here might cause more problems than anything, between pulling him from his work--"
Rachel has no idea the man she's addressing is pretty much Rusty's employer--
"--and, well, freaking him right the hell out. But... if he's missed me, let him know I'm okay."
Adam doesn't react, although the wheels are turning in his head. Rusty Hunt sounds familiar. It takes him a moment to remember that he's one of the drug dealers, some common Glays they picked up awhile ago. A no one. He'd be more unamused if he thought Hunt had any capacity for manipulation, Glays or not. He's no one to be concerned with.
When Wes doesn't offer anything he nods and says, "I'll make sure of it."
Topher keeps feeling like people are judging him, like they're expecting him to do something wrong. ...Or possibly it's just irrational paranoia associated with falling into something that's just a hair or two over what's comfortable for his flexible morality.
This is helping, as Adam had pointed out. Wes and Rachel will never be able to obtain closure while they think the man who tortured them still lives. It's for the best. Really.
The drugs are meant to work fast, no matter what the metabolism and as soon as Topher's certain that they're about to take effect, he sucks in a breath and starts.
The human brain isn't organized like a card catalogue. For someone who can view and process a human's mind remotely with just his own brain like Topher can, it's kind of a mess to find the exact memories he needs, but it's easier when the memories are right there and fresh. He starts with Rachel first, finds every memory associated with the last three days from the moment she ran into Den to this very moment and then just... Deletes them.
The brain is like a computer, he once told Echo. And true to that if you delete a file, it has to go somewhere and he can't just let it sit somewhere in the unconscious where it can be dredged up again. That's not how the power works.
So by whatever strange and cruel gods (not that he believes in gods) that invented the Rift decreed, his brain is the recycle bin in this situation.
He's done this before, but usually it's not nearly this traumatic. He has to fight to keep his knees from buckling underneath him. For all practical purposes, he just looks like he's getting a migraine, the way he leans against the wall and pinches the bridge of his nose. Rachel's memories when they hit him are his memories. It's not Rachel Conway being stabbed over and over with a knife and feeling every inch of the euphoria, it's him. It's all him and he has to reassure himself that they're not real and they're not his before shoving them down with every other person's memories that he's taken that aren't his.
He really, really hates this ability sometimes. Mind-wipes were easier when he just had a machine. He didn't really have to worry about imprinting himself in those days.
He sucks in a breath and repeats the process with Wes and it's even worse this time. That feeling of being so close to dying. He wants to run out of the room right now and throw up, but he has to stay put, because this is only half the issue and if Rachel and Wes come out from under the drugs with gaps in their memory, then it's going to be a problem. The good thing about those drugs is that gaps in memory are normal, so they cover up everything he's doing.
He swallows and slowly rebuilds Wes and Rachel's memories from the beginning. Everything is the same, every detail in perfect place, and it helps having their memories right there to draw on, even as it makes him sick to just give those horrible memories right back. The only thing that changes is the face of the man. The face and the name. The face is some generic guy who looks enough like Den to trick the memories but not enough that if Rachel or Wes ever saw Den in a line-up, they'd think him familiar. The name he attaches is the first one that comes to his mind- Laurence Dominic.
Well, Dom's in no position to argue having a sociopath named for him. Hell, he's not even here. So there.
The biggest change of the memories comes towards the end. Adam coming down into the basement, gunshots, the man dead on the ground. And then it's over and Topher can clamp down on the memories in his head, swallow, and excuse himself.... More than likely to throw up.
The whole process takes less than five minutes.
Adam watches him go. "Prone to migraines, the poor boy," he notes. He checks his watch. "Adrian should be here at any moment. I'll send him your way and get in contact with your Rusty. Anything else?"
He'll ignore, for the moment, that playing the role of the dutiful servant leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but someone eager to help and assist is what's needed here. So he'll make do.
He nods. "Rachel, it was no trouble at all." All in a day's work to protecting his ambitions, really.
He's about to leave when an orderly walks in. "Mr. Monroe, you wanted us to tell you when Adrian Vela got here?"
Adam raises an eyebrow in Rachel and Wes's direction. "I'll send him up on my way down," he says before exiting with the orderly, leaving Wes and Rachel alone for the time being.
[threadsplit]crimeatthetimeDecember 2 2009, 05:38:55 UTC
He's not panicking. Not quite. He's pacing at the entrance, resisting the urge to punch the wall every time he nears it.
He should have known. He should have known they weren't okay, he never should have assumed that just because she had her guardian with her she would be okay.
He stops by the wall. Draws his fist back. Stops a fraction from the tidy paint job and rests his knuckles against it.
Charun. Violent, useless demon. He rests his face against it too.
Adam enters the room exactly then and not a moment before or after.
"Adrian," he says calmly. No sense in spooking a scared animal. "She's upstairs if you're ready to see her. They're drugged, but conscious."
He can explain the situation on the way up, but there's no sense in standing here and doing it, watching him grow steadily more anxious with everything he has to say.
And that's the question, isn't it? He's not sure. He's not sure if he is, but it doesn't matter, because whatever happened didn't happen to him. It happened to Rachel. To Rachel and Wes. He has to be ready, even if he's not.
He trails over to Adam, feeling like he's looking up at the man even though Adam is shorter by an inch or two at least. "No," he says. "Take me anyway."
Adam shrugs and leads the way. "A man took her and Wesley off the street and had them tortured," he explains in as calm and soothing a voice as one can explain those words. It's something Adrian needs to hear, whether he wants to or not. Best that he prepare for what he's going to see.
"A friend of mine saw the whole thing and informed me of what had happened. If I hadn't been away, I might have prevented this from happening." He exhales and shrugs again. "No sense harping on what could have been, however. They're both alive and safe. Just shaken."
He spares a glance at Adrian, "And the man who did this is dead."
He stops. He stops when Adam says they were tortured, stops when he says someone saw the whole thing, stops when Adam says the man who did it is dead.
He's burning. In so many ways. He wants to sink his hands into the neck of the bastard who did this and tear his throat open. He wants to kill the person who saw, who saw and did nothing but-- Nothing but inform someone else. He wants to put a knife to his throat at the thought of Rachel being hurt that way. He wants this to be a dream, a horrible, horrible dream that he'll startle out of when he sees her in that hospital bed, wake up and have her next to him, safe, soothe him until all of this is just a lie his mind told itself to relieve subconscious fears.
"Who told you," he says. He tries to say it calmly, but his voice is shaking. He's going to cry. He's going to break Adam's nose for being so calm. He hates this man. He owes him his life and more and would gladly give him all of that in a breath if it meant Rachel--
That's not going to happen. Life doesn't work that way. There is no finality until you die. There's no reset. There's just going on and making do and sometimes not.
Adam doesn't smirk. Some low-level Org operative is going to get a rather unpleasant surprise, but, well, he's suspected that there have been lower level grunts in Den's pocket and this is the best way to get rid of him and assure Adrian gets his own version of closure.
He stares at him incredulously. "He was just one man, Adrian. You can't blame him for being a bit afraid to take on a serial torturer on his own. He was waiting for orders." He sighs and rubs his nose with a finger and says a name, anyway. "The poor man could have done more, I admit, but..."
Well, Adrian will do what Adrian will do. And Adam can pretend he didn't just manipulate into doing it.
...The ones that Adam actually can fix anyway.
Topher's been dragged out of his lab, stammering something about how he really meant to tell Adam about someone named Dr. Saunders and Adam figures he can grill him about that later once the boy's done his job. At the moment, he's flailing at a nurse regarding drugs and how he can't do anything with Rachel and Wes unless they're conscious, but sedated enough that they don't notice that they're going to be missing huge chunks of memory until he can replace them.
Eventually, the appropriate drugs are found and, as soon as they're given the signal that Wes and Rachel are waking up, both Adam and Topher enter the room, Topher hanging back somewhat awkwardly until he's needed, while Adam immediately takes charge.
"It's probably uncouth of me to ask if you're feeling better after that ordeal, but I hope you both are, at least, comfortable."
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And still see Wes in her peripheral vision. She wasn't taking her eyes off him for a moment more than was necessary.
"I'm comfortable, thank you," she said diplomatically. "I doubt there's going to be much 'feeling better' until I've torn that man's face off with my bare hands. I'm just sayin'."
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He sighs at Rachel's answer, though he doesn't comment. Better anger than the way she'd looked when she was singing. Anything but that.
Clearing his throat, he tries sitting up and shifts uncomfortably. He doesn't like being in anyone's debt. Doesn't mean he's an ungrateful bastard.
"I'm comfortable, too. Thank you, sir. For...everything."
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And that's precisely why this has to be done.
He steps to the side as a nurse comes in bearing two syringes and gestures to both the nurse and Topher who bites down on his lip as he selects one. "This is Dr. Brink," Adam explains. Topher looks up at the sound of his name and gives an awkward little wave in Rachel and Wes's direction.
"A little birdie told me you were running low on meds," Topher says, by way of explanation. "Now... These don't make you sleep, but they will make you a little bit, er... Loopy." He picks up the first syringe and injects it into Wes's IV before picking up the second and moving over to Rachel's. "Because it's not really a hospital visit until your friends and loved ones can hear you babbling nonsense about potatoes, right?" He laughs awkwardly as he finishes up with the second IV.
"I took the liberty of contacting Adrian already," Adam explains, eying Topher as he lingers in one corner of the room, waiting for the drugs to kick in and he has the opportunity to actually work. "If there's anyone else, it's no trouble to get them up here."
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She looks over at Adam, and sighs. "Rusty Hunt," she tells him. "But getting him up here might cause more problems than anything, between pulling him from his work--"
Rachel has no idea the man she's addressing is pretty much Rusty's employer--
"--and, well, freaking him right the hell out. But... if he's missed me, let him know I'm okay."
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He has no one that would need contacting.
The only person belonging of such a thing is Rachel, and because he wasn't careful enough she's sitting beside him in a hospital bed.
He wants to say something, anything to quiet down the mounting tension in his shoulders.
Wes says nothing.
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When Wes doesn't offer anything he nods and says, "I'll make sure of it."
Topher keeps feeling like people are judging him, like they're expecting him to do something wrong. ...Or possibly it's just irrational paranoia associated with falling into something that's just a hair or two over what's comfortable for his flexible morality.
This is helping, as Adam had pointed out. Wes and Rachel will never be able to obtain closure while they think the man who tortured them still lives. It's for the best. Really.
Reply
The human brain isn't organized like a card catalogue. For someone who can view and process a human's mind remotely with just his own brain like Topher can, it's kind of a mess to find the exact memories he needs, but it's easier when the memories are right there and fresh. He starts with Rachel first, finds every memory associated with the last three days from the moment she ran into Den to this very moment and then just... Deletes them.
The brain is like a computer, he once told Echo. And true to that if you delete a file, it has to go somewhere and he can't just let it sit somewhere in the unconscious where it can be dredged up again. That's not how the power works.
So by whatever strange and cruel gods (not that he believes in gods) that invented the Rift decreed, his brain is the recycle bin in this situation.
He's done this before, but usually it's not nearly this traumatic. He has to fight to keep his knees from buckling underneath him. For all practical purposes, he just looks like he's getting a migraine, the way he leans against the wall and pinches the bridge of his nose. Rachel's memories when they hit him are his memories. It's not Rachel Conway being stabbed over and over with a knife and feeling every inch of the euphoria, it's him. It's all him and he has to reassure himself that they're not real and they're not his before shoving them down with every other person's memories that he's taken that aren't his.
He really, really hates this ability sometimes. Mind-wipes were easier when he just had a machine. He didn't really have to worry about imprinting himself in those days.
He sucks in a breath and repeats the process with Wes and it's even worse this time. That feeling of being so close to dying. He wants to run out of the room right now and throw up, but he has to stay put, because this is only half the issue and if Rachel and Wes come out from under the drugs with gaps in their memory, then it's going to be a problem. The good thing about those drugs is that gaps in memory are normal, so they cover up everything he's doing.
He swallows and slowly rebuilds Wes and Rachel's memories from the beginning. Everything is the same, every detail in perfect place, and it helps having their memories right there to draw on, even as it makes him sick to just give those horrible memories right back. The only thing that changes is the face of the man. The face and the name. The face is some generic guy who looks enough like Den to trick the memories but not enough that if Rachel or Wes ever saw Den in a line-up, they'd think him familiar. The name he attaches is the first one that comes to his mind- Laurence Dominic.
Well, Dom's in no position to argue having a sociopath named for him. Hell, he's not even here. So there.
The biggest change of the memories comes towards the end. Adam coming down into the basement, gunshots, the man dead on the ground. And then it's over and Topher can clamp down on the memories in his head, swallow, and excuse himself.... More than likely to throw up.
The whole process takes less than five minutes.
Adam watches him go. "Prone to migraines, the poor boy," he notes. He checks his watch. "Adrian should be here at any moment. I'll send him your way and get in contact with your Rusty. Anything else?"
He'll ignore, for the moment, that playing the role of the dutiful servant leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but someone eager to help and assist is what's needed here. So he'll make do.
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"I..." She raises a hand to her head, scrubbing her fingertips through her hair. "No, Adam, thank you, I think that's all I need right now."
A pause, and then: "...I'm really in your debt for this. Thank you for everything. Really."
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He's about to leave when an orderly walks in. "Mr. Monroe, you wanted us to tell you when Adrian Vela got here?"
Adam raises an eyebrow in Rachel and Wes's direction. "I'll send him up on my way down," he says before exiting with the orderly, leaving Wes and Rachel alone for the time being.
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He should have known. He should have known they weren't okay, he never should have assumed that just because she had her guardian with her she would be okay.
He stops by the wall. Draws his fist back. Stops a fraction from the tidy paint job and rests his knuckles against it.
Charun. Violent, useless demon. He rests his face against it too.
"Goddamn it."
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"Adrian," he says calmly. No sense in spooking a scared animal. "She's upstairs if you're ready to see her. They're drugged, but conscious."
He can explain the situation on the way up, but there's no sense in standing here and doing it, watching him grow steadily more anxious with everything he has to say.
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And that's the question, isn't it? He's not sure. He's not sure if he is, but it doesn't matter, because whatever happened didn't happen to him. It happened to Rachel. To Rachel and Wes. He has to be ready, even if he's not.
He trails over to Adam, feeling like he's looking up at the man even though Adam is shorter by an inch or two at least. "No," he says. "Take me anyway."
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"A friend of mine saw the whole thing and informed me of what had happened. If I hadn't been away, I might have prevented this from happening." He exhales and shrugs again. "No sense harping on what could have been, however. They're both alive and safe. Just shaken."
He spares a glance at Adrian, "And the man who did this is dead."
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He's burning. In so many ways. He wants to sink his hands into the neck of the bastard who did this and tear his throat open. He wants to kill the person who saw, who saw and did nothing but-- Nothing but inform someone else. He wants to put a knife to his throat at the thought of Rachel being hurt that way. He wants this to be a dream, a horrible, horrible dream that he'll startle out of when he sees her in that hospital bed, wake up and have her next to him, safe, soothe him until all of this is just a lie his mind told itself to relieve subconscious fears.
"Who told you," he says. He tries to say it calmly, but his voice is shaking. He's going to cry. He's going to break Adam's nose for being so calm. He hates this man. He owes him his life and more and would gladly give him all of that in a breath if it meant Rachel--
That's not going to happen. Life doesn't work that way. There is no finality until you die. There's no reset. There's just going on and making do and sometimes not.
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He stares at him incredulously. "He was just one man, Adrian. You can't blame him for being a bit afraid to take on a serial torturer on his own. He was waiting for orders." He sighs and rubs his nose with a finger and says a name, anyway. "The poor man could have done more, I admit, but..."
Well, Adrian will do what Adrian will do. And Adam can pretend he didn't just manipulate into doing it.
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