Fic: The Two of Us are Dying (16/21)
"The Two of Us are Dying"
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD
Pairings: None
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Dethklok, Crozier, Selatcia, Stampington
Summary: Charles Ofdensen has a lot of demons to deal with, both figurative and literal.
[ Start back at the beginning here]
Chapter 16
The nice thing about Dr. Bradley was he knew when to stop pushing, and Charles could go back to coloring or whatever stupid shit he wanted to do with the other soldiers who didn’t want to put into words what they had come here to put into words. He stared at the clock, eager for the lunchtime pills and the relief they would bring. For not the first time in his life, he wanted his mind to stop thinking. He wanted to feel numb again, the very thing he’d been rebelling so hard against since he checked himself in.
He needed to stop crying. He tried to talk himself into it or will himself into it, but it just didn’t stop. It was embarrassing and unprofessional. The only thing he wanted more than to stop crying was to make sure people didn’t see him doing it, and the ward had a “doors open” policy during the day so he had to go outside, where a hoodie (the real jacket kind) protected him against the cold. Eventually he would just run out of tears. His body was only what, 2/3rds water? But if he shriveled up and died, someone would probably notice. Crying himself to death. Not fucking metal.
He knew about Brett’s presence long before his roommate made it anywhere near the bench. “If I tell the nurse I’m going to kill myself, they’ll shoot me up so I’m numb again.”
“Someone who was actually going to kill themselves wouldn’t say that,” Brett said, and sat down next to him, a horrible invasion of Charles’s person space at the moment. But Charles didn’t push him away. “If there was a pill that made me stop doing crazy things, I wouldn’t be here. I would be back with my wife and kids, going to work, and mowing the lawn on weekends. Shit, I would give anything for that.” Thankfully, he didn’t look at Charles. He looked out at the horizon. “I did not sign up for this shit.”
Charles tried to imagine Brett hitting things, or people. It wasn’t very hard. And he was big, so it would do a lot of damage even if he didn’t try. “Please don’t tell Tim I cried.”
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but OK.”
“I have to be invincible. All of the time.” He said it to mean all of the time, even right now, when he was bent over from weeping in the backyard of a mental hospital. Or clinic. Or whatever. He was trying to will himself up to his own words, but it wasn’t working, and the exercise was giving him a headache. “No one even knows I’m here.”
“My kids think I’m in Afghanistan,” Brett said, and offered him a cigarette. Charles found himself accepting, his first non-joint smoke in a long time. Per policy, the hospital only gave out matches one at a time, so Brett had to make it count. “My wife doesn’t really want me to call. She says she does, but it’s like I’m always catching her at a bad time.”
“Jesus, I hope my sister doesn’t call the office looking for me. She’s never not been able to get me before,” Charles said. “But she would probably just be happy that I got help. She’s been bugging me about it for a long time.”
“Started acting crazy around her?”
“Blackouts,” he said. “The neurologist said they were fainting spells. He couldn’t find a medical reason for them, other than stress. And I did kind of ... threaten to kill my employer. Or just beat him into unconsciousness. I wouldn’t have killed him.” He was definitely sure about that.
“You said you wouldn’t talk about Dethklok.”
“I didn’t say it was Dethklok.”
“You said you would rather talk about the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“I already did that today. Why do you think I’m out here?” Charles readjusted his glasses and looked at Brett for the first time. “We were nowhere near medical help. Someone in my squad asked me to shoot her to put her out of her misery. And I did.” The cigarette was helping his nerves a little, at least to the point where his hands weren’t shaking so badly he would drop it.
“Do you regret it?”
“There was no better way for that situation to have ended.” She would have died a slow and painful death, or a short one at the hands of the Fuentes gang, after they raped her. “But yes, I fucking do.”
“I killed a kid,” Brett said. “He had a gun, but it was plastic. It even had one of the little orange tabs at the end, if I had been looking harder - but I wasn’t. I was sloppy and mad because I had a friend lose his leg to an IED the day before, and I wanted to kill everything in sight. Even some hajji kid who wanted to play cops and robbers.” He took another puff. “So ... you going to tell me about Dethklok now?”
“Never.”
“Fucking hardass.”
Charles smiled. It felt really good to smile. Borderline incredible.
*********************************************
Charles made his afternoon call when his number came up. He was a lot steadier by then, on another round of medicine but also Advil for his headache, which worked pretty well. “It’s me.”
3201 sounded very relieved. “The band would like to speak with you.”
“About?”
“The crocodile - wait, alligator situation.”
“It’s a situation now?”
She gave him a run-through of the progress they’d made without him, which was considerable. A habitat was being constructed and the band thought he was ‘cheating on them.’ It didn’t sound like he could add anything; she was handling things pretty well. They just wanted to hear his voice. It would be endearing if now wasn’t possible the worst time since he met them to be available. “Can you put up the hologram? I can’t do the motion capture program but it’ll be better than my voice. And tell them my time is limited.”
“Yes, sir.”
He took a deep breath, and prepared to make his voice as flat as possible.
*********************************************
The members of Dethklok were in the rec room on individual laptops - except for Skwisgaar, who still didn’t know how to turn his on - when their manager’s red hologram popped up. The voice was extra tinny from the connection as he said, “You wanted to speak with me?”
“Yeah, uh ...” Nathan scowled. A whole fucking day had passed. How was he supposed to remember stuff? “We couldn’t reach you.”
“I try to make myself as available as possible, but there are going to be exceptions to the rule. Nathan, you’re having problems with your alligator?”
“Yeah, uh, he won’t wear the shirt. Or the glasses.” Nathan realized that Charles probably couldn’t see the alligator, who wasn’t terribly far from where Charles’s ‘feet’ where.
“Dood, that t’ing’s fuckin’ psycho. Afdensen, you gatta talk Nathan out of this.”
“Well, Pickles, it was his million dollars and so far none of you have been injured. I’ve been told the zoologist is developing a more ideal enclosure for, um, Snackers. And as for hoodies feeding him, well - as long as their paperwork is up to date, that should all be fine. Anything else? I have a very small number of minutes on this phone.”
“He’s gots a new phones!” Skwissgar shouted. “It’s is proofs! He’s cheatings on us!”
“Yeah, yous seeing another bands? What we does wrongs?”
“Fucking cold isch what that isch.”
“I assure you, I have no band business outside of Dethklok, nor do I plan to have any in the future.”
“Yous promises?” Toki pleaded.
“Yes, I promise. I am technically on Dethklok business now and ... I have to go, actually. I’m running down my minutes. I’ll be back in a few days, and then you can bother me with whatever.” The hologram was usually a lot more expressive, but this one just had a couple different expressions it cycled through. “I’d say try to stay out of trouble, but that would just, ah, jinx it. Take care of yourselves. Goodbye.”
The hologram disappeared. They didn’t have a chance to say goodbye - not that any of them could ever really saying elongated goodbyes to their manager except Murderface, and that was because he couldn’t end a conversation to save his life.
“Maybe he’sch schacked up with a chick,” Murderface said out of nowhere. “Grossch.”
“How is dat gross?” Pickles said, lighting up a fresh joint. “Yer jist jealous.”
“Hey! I can get way more chicksch than Ofdenschen any day of the week!”
“Wow, this has turned into a creepy conversation,” Nathan said. “He didn’t say anything about ... you know, stuff ... and even if he’s got, like, one date or whatever, that’s still one up on you. We have all that evidence from the contest.”
“Goils likes de quiets guys,” Toki said. “Mysterious’s. Plus da internets fans. I’s on Fandom secrets, sees stuff all de time abouts him.”
“Man, yeah, people are weird on the internet.” Nathan drank to that. And in general.
“Dat’s why I wants nothing-ks to do wit’s it,” Skwisgaar said in the same confident voice he said almost everything in. “Real lifes womens much better.”
They could all drink to that. And did.
They would ask Ofdensen awkward questions about his sex life when he got back.
*********************************************
Charles was happy that this method seemed to placate the band, though he couldn’t be sure without visuals. If they were really serious about the idea of him managing another band - if that was physically possible - they wouldn’t have been so easily reassured. No, they were just bored, and coming up with stupid shit because being together lowered their collective IQ. A strange part of him wanted to admit - and this was the time for admitting things, in therapy - that he wanted to feel like they missed him, and maybe they did. He only gave his whole life for them; would it hurt them to notice if he was gone? But apparently they did, even if it took a flesh-hungry alligator to do it.
Charles Ofdensen didn’t have a lot of time in his schedule in general, much less time set aside to feel like a worthless human being. Being trapped in an institution, more by a sense of obligation than actual security, provided him with that time. If he could replace himself with robot parts, the band probably wouldn’t notice, he could do his job better, and he wouldn’t feel absolutely terrible because he wouldn’t have human emotions. What a comforting idea.
He passed on the offer for pot. “I said I wouldn’t do it. Also, Dr. Bradley knows.”
“He seems pretty observant,” Mary said. “Plus, they have cameras on us all the time.”
Charles was used to that feeling, except he was the only one really watching. This was not a good time to say that, at least in front of Tim, who so far had not acknowledged that they had any past association, which was pretty damn nice of him.
“Who was that orderly who used to get us scotch?” Tim said.
“Albert.”
“What the fuck happened to him?”
“Maybe he got fired for giving liquor to a bunch of psychopaths,” Brett said. “Though he did water it down pretty heavily.”
Everyone had been here a long time now, or it must have seemed to them, even if in most cases it was weeks or months. Charles expected his time in the loony bin to last five days, which now seemed impossible - but he was used to doing the impossible. If the boys said they needed him, he would check out as soon as he hung up the phone. He had read the paperwork carefully, and he could actually do that. There were loopholes in the admission documents. But the boys were OK, and he was the one who was miserable. His depression and anger (at himself, mostly) had sunk to the pit of his stomach, and he almost gave up on eating altogether until the orderly stood over him and told him to eat something, even if it was Jello, so he wouldn’t be tearing up his stomach with his medicine.
Charles actually felt much better about himself after an incident in the rec room. A guy he didn’t know and had the good sense not to approach flipped out at the silent Vietnam vet during chess, threw the board across the room, and picked up a chair to hurl it at his opponent. The response of the orderlies, while hardly astounding, was adequate to keep anyone else from being injured, including the patient himself before he was properly sedated and removed from the ward.
The Vietnam guy, as he was known, didn’t say anything, of course. He’d reacted a little slowly, but not like someone who was impaired, mentally. He was just perfectly silent.
Charles sat across from him. “Hey.”
No response from the guy. The orderlies called him Mr. Peterson, which was probably his real name.
Peterson’s eyes were partially hidden by his bushy eyebrows and general slacking posture. They were an exceptionally dark brown, almost black. Without any real reason, Charles found himself squinting to look into them more intensely, and Peterson looked right back.
He wasn’t stunted, mentally. The war hadn't made him stupid. He watched Charles with crystal clear eyes full of understanding, so much so that it gave Charles the shivers because he knew exactly what it was like, and somehow, Peterson knew Charles had been there, too. Maybe not many people looked him in the eyes. He was trapped in there, a functioning human being whose only deficiency was the ability to communicate with the outside world. Charles knew that doing so was like trying to walk when you were sure you had no legs, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.
“Do you want to play something?” It was getting late, but the lights were still on. Some people were already asleep, mostly on the couch. The Game Show network was on, and Charles would certainly take chess over that.
Peterson didn’t respond, of course, but when Charles found all the scattered chess pieces and set them on the board, Peterson made his first move, a classic advancement of a center pawn. Really the best opening move you could make.
“I guess they still haven’t found a drug to make people speak,” Charles said. “Except maybe sodium pentathol. But that doesn’t always work.”
Peterson wasn’t going to respond to him, but he was listening. That was all he could do.
“I remember it was like banging my head against a wall,” Charles continued, advancing his knight. “I was screaming and no one could hear me. The floor doctor really had no patience for me. But he was aggressive and maybe that was better, because I recovered. Or maybe our experiences were just too different. I don’t really know.” There was a reason, though, that he’d retreated from the speaking world without trying to, and why it was so hard to come back. You weren’t supposed to go that deep into yourself. It wasn’t contemplative or enlightening. It was just an escape from what was going on around you. “It’s not my place, but I will give you some advice - if you manage to talk again, the first thing you say shouldn’t be to threaten the life of your superior officer.”
Somewhere inside Mr. Peterson, the man was probably laughing, and no one heard.
*********************************************
General Crozier did not like being called into an office. Any office. He wasn’t a four-star general for nothing. People reported to him, something he’d worked hard for all his life. Yes, there was the occasional meeting with a bureaucratic busybody like the President, but the general was good at making himself busy in the field. But being summoned - that was practically an insult, and it would have been if he didn’t know who summoned him. There was only one person who did that, always with no warning, and expected him to come. And he always did.
The elevator shaft was purple like everything else. It went deep down, drilled into bedrock, as if the Earth itself were hiding them. Maybe it was. Dethklok couldn’t destroy what they couldn’t find - could they?
Crozier unconsciously straightened his jacket before entering. Selatcia was on his throne - it couldn’t be called anything less than that - glowering, of course. Senator Stampington was standing, but he always was. Knee injuries from his service days made sitting for too long uncomfortable for him. Crozier knew that for a fact. Orlaag was also standing, meaning it would be a brief meeting. Just orders, probably.
“Thank you for joining us, General Crozier,” Stampington said. “Vater Orlaag?” There were no crazily-named experts in this room.
“It has recently become known to us that Charles Ofdensen may finally be in a vulnerable position.” Behind him, the screen flashed with various satellite images, none of them particularly interesting to Crozier. It was some wooded area, probably in New England or southeast Canada. “This began with his notably erratic behavior in Beijing.”
“I heard he beat a man to death while on speed.” Crozier’s job was to be on top of things. Especially things he wasn’t sure whether to kill or protect, even if he was sure he had to do one of them.
“The authorities did an excellent job of covering it up, along with all of Dethklok’s usual antics,” Orlaag continued. “Since the concert in Israel and Syria, we’ve been tracking his movements along with the actual members of Dethklok. He has been taking trips to New York to visit various doctors - neurologists and psychiatrists. One of them staffs a mental hospital outside Albany.” Now the images on the screen made a bit more sense. “Four days ago Ofdensen left Mordhaus, officially on business. At the same time, a name popped up in the computers at this facility which is known to be one of his ... lesser used aliases.”
“So he checked himself back into a loony bin,” Crozier said. “Doesn’t that make him less dangerous and Dethklok practically unprotected?”
“Ofdensen rejected our offer for negotiations,” Orlaag said, something Crozier didn’t exactly need to be reminded of. He didn’t expect Charles to say yes to him, but he didn’t expect it to go as badly as it did. “Now he is undoubtedly at his weakest, and even if he is not, security is limited at the hospital and is more designed to keep patients in than to keep others out. More to the point, there are no Dethklok security forces there. Now is the perfect time to move against him.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Because he wanted to know, down to the dirty details. He did not want to fuck around on a mission concerning Ofdensen, for multiple reasons.
“We need to know what he knows about the Falconback Project, if he does in fact know anything, and his plans against the Tribunal. You are authorized to use whatever forces necessary to acquire this information, provided you leave Ofdensen alive. Whether he recovers or not is not our concern.”
“He is needed ...” Selatcia trailed off, and the meeting was over.
Crozier left with Stampington. The silence in the elevator was not at all unusual, but this time Crozier broke it. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“What do you mean, General?” Stampington at least had a rather neutral voice, not because he was afraid of Selatcia, but because perhaps he really needed the answer before he could draw a conclusion. It wasn’t as if Crozier ever spoke to the Senator on a personal level, or had time, or would have made time if he was so inclined.
“I mean the last time we underestimated Ofdensen, it turned out rather badly.”
“I don’t think Mr. Selatcia has ever truly ... underestimated him.” He did leave room in there for interpretation.
“I’m not talking about - wait, do you even remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Charlie Ofdensen. Sergeant Ofdensen. The only man to threaten General Cutter’s life and live to tell about it? As if he ever would.”
The elevator stopped and they got out, but didn’t go any further. Stampington was clearly racking his brain for an answer that he didn’t have. Instead he said, “Are you keeping something from the Tribunal, General?”
“Maybe you should just read the files more carefully,” Crozier said. “Panama. 1992. You were there at the hearing! Does a dishonorable discharge of one of my best soldiers mean anything to you?”
It took a moment, but now there was some recognition. Stampington had very muted expressions, due to both age and partial paralysis of the face from a mortar explosion, but he could show surprise in his eyes. “The staff sergeant who went insane in the jungle?”
“That was Charles Ofdensen. When we started following Dethklok and I heard his name, I didn’t believe it either - but it’s definitely him. And I think he made good on his promise with Cutter.”
“What do you mean? Cutter died of a heart attack.” They were both at his funeral. The retired general had passed out in his living room in New Hampshire and was found later by the maid. “He had heart disease and a stent.”
“Yes ... and the family decided not to perform an autopsy as a result. But this was while we thought Ofdensen was dead - those nine months he was missing. When he reappeared, I did some research. Cutter had three live-in servants and a volunteer nurse for a wife. The day of his heart attack, all three servants either were off, or running late due to abnormally heavy traffic. His wife got called in to help at the hospital two hours before his body was found. And his Life Alert necklace had a dead battery. That’s astounding number of coincidences,” Crozier said. “I can’t prove it, but I know he killed him. He just took his time. Exactly as he said he would.”
“Then I suppose this is the right mission for you, General,” Stampington said. Meaning, I am staying out of this shit.
Onto the next chapter...
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD
Pairings: None
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Dethklok, Crozier, Selatcia, Stampington
Summary: Charles Ofdensen has a lot of demons to deal with, both figurative and literal.
[ Start back at the beginning here]
Chapter 16
The nice thing about Dr. Bradley was he knew when to stop pushing, and Charles could go back to coloring or whatever stupid shit he wanted to do with the other soldiers who didn’t want to put into words what they had come here to put into words. He stared at the clock, eager for the lunchtime pills and the relief they would bring. For not the first time in his life, he wanted his mind to stop thinking. He wanted to feel numb again, the very thing he’d been rebelling so hard against since he checked himself in.
He needed to stop crying. He tried to talk himself into it or will himself into it, but it just didn’t stop. It was embarrassing and unprofessional. The only thing he wanted more than to stop crying was to make sure people didn’t see him doing it, and the ward had a “doors open” policy during the day so he had to go outside, where a hoodie (the real jacket kind) protected him against the cold. Eventually he would just run out of tears. His body was only what, 2/3rds water? But if he shriveled up and died, someone would probably notice. Crying himself to death. Not fucking metal.
He knew about Brett’s presence long before his roommate made it anywhere near the bench. “If I tell the nurse I’m going to kill myself, they’ll shoot me up so I’m numb again.”
“Someone who was actually going to kill themselves wouldn’t say that,” Brett said, and sat down next to him, a horrible invasion of Charles’s person space at the moment. But Charles didn’t push him away. “If there was a pill that made me stop doing crazy things, I wouldn’t be here. I would be back with my wife and kids, going to work, and mowing the lawn on weekends. Shit, I would give anything for that.” Thankfully, he didn’t look at Charles. He looked out at the horizon. “I did not sign up for this shit.”
Charles tried to imagine Brett hitting things, or people. It wasn’t very hard. And he was big, so it would do a lot of damage even if he didn’t try. “Please don’t tell Tim I cried.”
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but OK.”
“I have to be invincible. All of the time.” He said it to mean all of the time, even right now, when he was bent over from weeping in the backyard of a mental hospital. Or clinic. Or whatever. He was trying to will himself up to his own words, but it wasn’t working, and the exercise was giving him a headache. “No one even knows I’m here.”
“My kids think I’m in Afghanistan,” Brett said, and offered him a cigarette. Charles found himself accepting, his first non-joint smoke in a long time. Per policy, the hospital only gave out matches one at a time, so Brett had to make it count. “My wife doesn’t really want me to call. She says she does, but it’s like I’m always catching her at a bad time.”
“Jesus, I hope my sister doesn’t call the office looking for me. She’s never not been able to get me before,” Charles said. “But she would probably just be happy that I got help. She’s been bugging me about it for a long time.”
“Started acting crazy around her?”
“Blackouts,” he said. “The neurologist said they were fainting spells. He couldn’t find a medical reason for them, other than stress. And I did kind of ... threaten to kill my employer. Or just beat him into unconsciousness. I wouldn’t have killed him.” He was definitely sure about that.
“You said you wouldn’t talk about Dethklok.”
“I didn’t say it was Dethklok.”
“You said you would rather talk about the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“I already did that today. Why do you think I’m out here?” Charles readjusted his glasses and looked at Brett for the first time. “We were nowhere near medical help. Someone in my squad asked me to shoot her to put her out of her misery. And I did.” The cigarette was helping his nerves a little, at least to the point where his hands weren’t shaking so badly he would drop it.
“Do you regret it?”
“There was no better way for that situation to have ended.” She would have died a slow and painful death, or a short one at the hands of the Fuentes gang, after they raped her. “But yes, I fucking do.”
“I killed a kid,” Brett said. “He had a gun, but it was plastic. It even had one of the little orange tabs at the end, if I had been looking harder - but I wasn’t. I was sloppy and mad because I had a friend lose his leg to an IED the day before, and I wanted to kill everything in sight. Even some hajji kid who wanted to play cops and robbers.” He took another puff. “So ... you going to tell me about Dethklok now?”
“Never.”
“Fucking hardass.”
Charles smiled. It felt really good to smile. Borderline incredible.
*********************************************
Charles made his afternoon call when his number came up. He was a lot steadier by then, on another round of medicine but also Advil for his headache, which worked pretty well. “It’s me.”
3201 sounded very relieved. “The band would like to speak with you.”
“About?”
“The crocodile - wait, alligator situation.”
“It’s a situation now?”
She gave him a run-through of the progress they’d made without him, which was considerable. A habitat was being constructed and the band thought he was ‘cheating on them.’ It didn’t sound like he could add anything; she was handling things pretty well. They just wanted to hear his voice. It would be endearing if now wasn’t possible the worst time since he met them to be available. “Can you put up the hologram? I can’t do the motion capture program but it’ll be better than my voice. And tell them my time is limited.”
“Yes, sir.”
He took a deep breath, and prepared to make his voice as flat as possible.
*********************************************
The members of Dethklok were in the rec room on individual laptops - except for Skwisgaar, who still didn’t know how to turn his on - when their manager’s red hologram popped up. The voice was extra tinny from the connection as he said, “You wanted to speak with me?”
“Yeah, uh ...” Nathan scowled. A whole fucking day had passed. How was he supposed to remember stuff? “We couldn’t reach you.”
“I try to make myself as available as possible, but there are going to be exceptions to the rule. Nathan, you’re having problems with your alligator?”
“Yeah, uh, he won’t wear the shirt. Or the glasses.” Nathan realized that Charles probably couldn’t see the alligator, who wasn’t terribly far from where Charles’s ‘feet’ where.
“Dood, that t’ing’s fuckin’ psycho. Afdensen, you gatta talk Nathan out of this.”
“Well, Pickles, it was his million dollars and so far none of you have been injured. I’ve been told the zoologist is developing a more ideal enclosure for, um, Snackers. And as for hoodies feeding him, well - as long as their paperwork is up to date, that should all be fine. Anything else? I have a very small number of minutes on this phone.”
“He’s gots a new phones!” Skwissgar shouted. “It’s is proofs! He’s cheatings on us!”
“Yeah, yous seeing another bands? What we does wrongs?”
“Fucking cold isch what that isch.”
“I assure you, I have no band business outside of Dethklok, nor do I plan to have any in the future.”
“Yous promises?” Toki pleaded.
“Yes, I promise. I am technically on Dethklok business now and ... I have to go, actually. I’m running down my minutes. I’ll be back in a few days, and then you can bother me with whatever.” The hologram was usually a lot more expressive, but this one just had a couple different expressions it cycled through. “I’d say try to stay out of trouble, but that would just, ah, jinx it. Take care of yourselves. Goodbye.”
The hologram disappeared. They didn’t have a chance to say goodbye - not that any of them could ever really saying elongated goodbyes to their manager except Murderface, and that was because he couldn’t end a conversation to save his life.
“Maybe he’sch schacked up with a chick,” Murderface said out of nowhere. “Grossch.”
“How is dat gross?” Pickles said, lighting up a fresh joint. “Yer jist jealous.”
“Hey! I can get way more chicksch than Ofdenschen any day of the week!”
“Wow, this has turned into a creepy conversation,” Nathan said. “He didn’t say anything about ... you know, stuff ... and even if he’s got, like, one date or whatever, that’s still one up on you. We have all that evidence from the contest.”
“Goils likes de quiets guys,” Toki said. “Mysterious’s. Plus da internets fans. I’s on Fandom secrets, sees stuff all de time abouts him.”
“Man, yeah, people are weird on the internet.” Nathan drank to that. And in general.
“Dat’s why I wants nothing-ks to do wit’s it,” Skwisgaar said in the same confident voice he said almost everything in. “Real lifes womens much better.”
They could all drink to that. And did.
They would ask Ofdensen awkward questions about his sex life when he got back.
*********************************************
Charles was happy that this method seemed to placate the band, though he couldn’t be sure without visuals. If they were really serious about the idea of him managing another band - if that was physically possible - they wouldn’t have been so easily reassured. No, they were just bored, and coming up with stupid shit because being together lowered their collective IQ. A strange part of him wanted to admit - and this was the time for admitting things, in therapy - that he wanted to feel like they missed him, and maybe they did. He only gave his whole life for them; would it hurt them to notice if he was gone? But apparently they did, even if it took a flesh-hungry alligator to do it.
Charles Ofdensen didn’t have a lot of time in his schedule in general, much less time set aside to feel like a worthless human being. Being trapped in an institution, more by a sense of obligation than actual security, provided him with that time. If he could replace himself with robot parts, the band probably wouldn’t notice, he could do his job better, and he wouldn’t feel absolutely terrible because he wouldn’t have human emotions. What a comforting idea.
He passed on the offer for pot. “I said I wouldn’t do it. Also, Dr. Bradley knows.”
“He seems pretty observant,” Mary said. “Plus, they have cameras on us all the time.”
Charles was used to that feeling, except he was the only one really watching. This was not a good time to say that, at least in front of Tim, who so far had not acknowledged that they had any past association, which was pretty damn nice of him.
“Who was that orderly who used to get us scotch?” Tim said.
“Albert.”
“What the fuck happened to him?”
“Maybe he got fired for giving liquor to a bunch of psychopaths,” Brett said. “Though he did water it down pretty heavily.”
Everyone had been here a long time now, or it must have seemed to them, even if in most cases it was weeks or months. Charles expected his time in the loony bin to last five days, which now seemed impossible - but he was used to doing the impossible. If the boys said they needed him, he would check out as soon as he hung up the phone. He had read the paperwork carefully, and he could actually do that. There were loopholes in the admission documents. But the boys were OK, and he was the one who was miserable. His depression and anger (at himself, mostly) had sunk to the pit of his stomach, and he almost gave up on eating altogether until the orderly stood over him and told him to eat something, even if it was Jello, so he wouldn’t be tearing up his stomach with his medicine.
Charles actually felt much better about himself after an incident in the rec room. A guy he didn’t know and had the good sense not to approach flipped out at the silent Vietnam vet during chess, threw the board across the room, and picked up a chair to hurl it at his opponent. The response of the orderlies, while hardly astounding, was adequate to keep anyone else from being injured, including the patient himself before he was properly sedated and removed from the ward.
The Vietnam guy, as he was known, didn’t say anything, of course. He’d reacted a little slowly, but not like someone who was impaired, mentally. He was just perfectly silent.
Charles sat across from him. “Hey.”
No response from the guy. The orderlies called him Mr. Peterson, which was probably his real name.
Peterson’s eyes were partially hidden by his bushy eyebrows and general slacking posture. They were an exceptionally dark brown, almost black. Without any real reason, Charles found himself squinting to look into them more intensely, and Peterson looked right back.
He wasn’t stunted, mentally. The war hadn't made him stupid. He watched Charles with crystal clear eyes full of understanding, so much so that it gave Charles the shivers because he knew exactly what it was like, and somehow, Peterson knew Charles had been there, too. Maybe not many people looked him in the eyes. He was trapped in there, a functioning human being whose only deficiency was the ability to communicate with the outside world. Charles knew that doing so was like trying to walk when you were sure you had no legs, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.
“Do you want to play something?” It was getting late, but the lights were still on. Some people were already asleep, mostly on the couch. The Game Show network was on, and Charles would certainly take chess over that.
Peterson didn’t respond, of course, but when Charles found all the scattered chess pieces and set them on the board, Peterson made his first move, a classic advancement of a center pawn. Really the best opening move you could make.
“I guess they still haven’t found a drug to make people speak,” Charles said. “Except maybe sodium pentathol. But that doesn’t always work.”
Peterson wasn’t going to respond to him, but he was listening. That was all he could do.
“I remember it was like banging my head against a wall,” Charles continued, advancing his knight. “I was screaming and no one could hear me. The floor doctor really had no patience for me. But he was aggressive and maybe that was better, because I recovered. Or maybe our experiences were just too different. I don’t really know.” There was a reason, though, that he’d retreated from the speaking world without trying to, and why it was so hard to come back. You weren’t supposed to go that deep into yourself. It wasn’t contemplative or enlightening. It was just an escape from what was going on around you. “It’s not my place, but I will give you some advice - if you manage to talk again, the first thing you say shouldn’t be to threaten the life of your superior officer.”
Somewhere inside Mr. Peterson, the man was probably laughing, and no one heard.
*********************************************
General Crozier did not like being called into an office. Any office. He wasn’t a four-star general for nothing. People reported to him, something he’d worked hard for all his life. Yes, there was the occasional meeting with a bureaucratic busybody like the President, but the general was good at making himself busy in the field. But being summoned - that was practically an insult, and it would have been if he didn’t know who summoned him. There was only one person who did that, always with no warning, and expected him to come. And he always did.
The elevator shaft was purple like everything else. It went deep down, drilled into bedrock, as if the Earth itself were hiding them. Maybe it was. Dethklok couldn’t destroy what they couldn’t find - could they?
Crozier unconsciously straightened his jacket before entering. Selatcia was on his throne - it couldn’t be called anything less than that - glowering, of course. Senator Stampington was standing, but he always was. Knee injuries from his service days made sitting for too long uncomfortable for him. Crozier knew that for a fact. Orlaag was also standing, meaning it would be a brief meeting. Just orders, probably.
“Thank you for joining us, General Crozier,” Stampington said. “Vater Orlaag?” There were no crazily-named experts in this room.
“It has recently become known to us that Charles Ofdensen may finally be in a vulnerable position.” Behind him, the screen flashed with various satellite images, none of them particularly interesting to Crozier. It was some wooded area, probably in New England or southeast Canada. “This began with his notably erratic behavior in Beijing.”
“I heard he beat a man to death while on speed.” Crozier’s job was to be on top of things. Especially things he wasn’t sure whether to kill or protect, even if he was sure he had to do one of them.
“The authorities did an excellent job of covering it up, along with all of Dethklok’s usual antics,” Orlaag continued. “Since the concert in Israel and Syria, we’ve been tracking his movements along with the actual members of Dethklok. He has been taking trips to New York to visit various doctors - neurologists and psychiatrists. One of them staffs a mental hospital outside Albany.” Now the images on the screen made a bit more sense. “Four days ago Ofdensen left Mordhaus, officially on business. At the same time, a name popped up in the computers at this facility which is known to be one of his ... lesser used aliases.”
“So he checked himself back into a loony bin,” Crozier said. “Doesn’t that make him less dangerous and Dethklok practically unprotected?”
“Ofdensen rejected our offer for negotiations,” Orlaag said, something Crozier didn’t exactly need to be reminded of. He didn’t expect Charles to say yes to him, but he didn’t expect it to go as badly as it did. “Now he is undoubtedly at his weakest, and even if he is not, security is limited at the hospital and is more designed to keep patients in than to keep others out. More to the point, there are no Dethklok security forces there. Now is the perfect time to move against him.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Because he wanted to know, down to the dirty details. He did not want to fuck around on a mission concerning Ofdensen, for multiple reasons.
“We need to know what he knows about the Falconback Project, if he does in fact know anything, and his plans against the Tribunal. You are authorized to use whatever forces necessary to acquire this information, provided you leave Ofdensen alive. Whether he recovers or not is not our concern.”
“He is needed ...” Selatcia trailed off, and the meeting was over.
Crozier left with Stampington. The silence in the elevator was not at all unusual, but this time Crozier broke it. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“What do you mean, General?” Stampington at least had a rather neutral voice, not because he was afraid of Selatcia, but because perhaps he really needed the answer before he could draw a conclusion. It wasn’t as if Crozier ever spoke to the Senator on a personal level, or had time, or would have made time if he was so inclined.
“I mean the last time we underestimated Ofdensen, it turned out rather badly.”
“I don’t think Mr. Selatcia has ever truly ... underestimated him.” He did leave room in there for interpretation.
“I’m not talking about - wait, do you even remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Charlie Ofdensen. Sergeant Ofdensen. The only man to threaten General Cutter’s life and live to tell about it? As if he ever would.”
The elevator stopped and they got out, but didn’t go any further. Stampington was clearly racking his brain for an answer that he didn’t have. Instead he said, “Are you keeping something from the Tribunal, General?”
“Maybe you should just read the files more carefully,” Crozier said. “Panama. 1992. You were there at the hearing! Does a dishonorable discharge of one of my best soldiers mean anything to you?”
It took a moment, but now there was some recognition. Stampington had very muted expressions, due to both age and partial paralysis of the face from a mortar explosion, but he could show surprise in his eyes. “The staff sergeant who went insane in the jungle?”
“That was Charles Ofdensen. When we started following Dethklok and I heard his name, I didn’t believe it either - but it’s definitely him. And I think he made good on his promise with Cutter.”
“What do you mean? Cutter died of a heart attack.” They were both at his funeral. The retired general had passed out in his living room in New Hampshire and was found later by the maid. “He had heart disease and a stent.”
“Yes ... and the family decided not to perform an autopsy as a result. But this was while we thought Ofdensen was dead - those nine months he was missing. When he reappeared, I did some research. Cutter had three live-in servants and a volunteer nurse for a wife. The day of his heart attack, all three servants either were off, or running late due to abnormally heavy traffic. His wife got called in to help at the hospital two hours before his body was found. And his Life Alert necklace had a dead battery. That’s astounding number of coincidences,” Crozier said. “I can’t prove it, but I know he killed him. He just took his time. Exactly as he said he would.”
“Then I suppose this is the right mission for you, General,” Stampington said. Meaning, I am staying out of this shit.
Onto the next chapter...