Thoughts on the therapy of Wanda Maximoff
In his cell, seated with perfect posture in the chair that is bolted to the floor, with the heavy laptop resting on the table that is also bolted to the floor, Dr. Lecter's eyes flicker in short rapid movements over the glowing screen. His lips are pursed and his left hand is raised, the tips of both of his unusual middle fingers resting lightly against his lips. Barney sits in the hallway, a solid weight of tangible calm; his influence is felt in some of the surrounding cells, where the patients have quieted. Barney is going through his mail for him-- the paper mail-- removing the staples, the paper clips, anything metal. Normally this would be done at the nurse's station down the hall; but, because of the computer, it's being done here. Where Barney can watch him. The computer is hard plastic and heavy and the doctor is more than capable of finding ways to use it or its pieces as a weapon; his "supervised" computer access is both for what he might do on the computer, and what he might physically do with it. So Barney watches, makes sure that the doctor's strong fingers do not take the chance to pop the plastic casing up and work out screws and reach the guts of the machine with the small wires out of which he might conceivably make lock-picks. The doctor, for his part, far prefers the machine intact, but he understands their caution. He ignores Barney's presence right now, concentrated as he is on his correspondence for the half-hour he's allowed with the machine each day.
Currently, the doctor is puzzled.
It's an uncommon state for him, and he takes a moment out from the puzzle itself to note the sensation. He's felt bemusement perhaps a handful of times in his life; rarity creates value. He slots the feeling away in his memory palace then dismisses it, returning to the question at hand. Why is the hospital allowing this correspondence with Wanda Maximoff to proceed?
The security that has been set up on the computer he uses ensures that all his e-mails are read by the staff before he sees them. Chilton did this at first, then grew bored and delegated the task to his underlings. His responses are also read before they are actually sent back into the great void of the Internet. They have stomped on and censored both the messages he receives and the messages he sends with great consistency so far.
Yet his e-mails with Wanda have been untouched. Not a word from Chilton regarding them, or Barney, or anyone else. It is as if they are simply not seen.
Dr. Lecter taps his pursed lips with his identical fingers.
First; that this might be a ruse on the part of the hospital staff. Chilton is, quite simply, too stupid to think of this on his own, but perhaps one of the ever ambitious reporters suggested it to him. But it makes no sense; they would be much better off fabricating a "patient" for him than using someone like Wanda Maximoff.
Alternately, the correspondence from the woman is genuine, and they say nothing hoping to trap him in some criminal indiscretion in one of his e-mails. But that also has flaws; it would show, to the doctor. In their little nervous gestures, in their desperate desire to pretend they don't know. No. Their ignorance is genuine.
How, then?
The answer must of course lie with Maximoff herself.
Lecter's eyes half-close as he moves mentally away from Wanda's e-mail and into the labyrinth of his memories. There is a hall whose entrance is watched over by a statue: the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue is full-size yet fits without difficulty under the vaulted roof; Dr. Lecter ignores questions of physical reality when they do not comply with his sense of aesthetics. In one hand, the Colossus holds a scroll upon which is written all of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Dr. Lecter passes the statue by and enters the gallery of the Overmen.
The hall is much more garish than the rest of his mental palace. Bright primary colors clash and swirl. There are men in capes and women in masks, like a fabulously extravagant masquerade; there are mind-readers and mutations and strongmen and invisible women, like a Barnum and Bailey attraction.
Before his incarceration, some of these "super-humans" had been already active. Indeed, he had settled in Baltimore because Baltimore had showed no signs of acquiring for herself one of these costumed defenders, unlike Washington, New York, Gotham and Metropolis. He had wanted to watch them from an interested-but-respectable distance. Since his incarceration, however, their numbers have skyrocketed. The headlines are filled with their exploits, their extravagances, their petty conflicts and their world-saving heroics. Still, they have never seemed quite real to him, with their sprawling battles continually destroying the downtowns of whatever city they're in this week. Rather, something out of the more childish parts of God's imagination.
Wanda Maximoff. Also known as the Scarlet Witch (and what a delight, their preposterous code names and aliases! What a splendid smorgasbord of the absurd!). One of the mutates; Homo superior. One of the so-called Avengers. Old articles from The New York Times on the Avengers mention that the Scarlet Witch has the ability to alter probability. She has been removed from the Avengers' active roster, no explanation given. There has been little said of her whereabouts in the papers. The tabloids postulate she is dead, of course, and conduct gory hypotheses of who her murderer might be. He gathers all these facts from a work of Goya's (El sueno de la razon produce monstruos) that hangs in the hall of the Overmen.
There is no question in Lecter's mind, there has never been, that the Wanda Maximoff who has written him and the Avengers' Wanda Maximoff are the same.
So, then. Her.... powers, however it is they work; is it possible she keeps their correspondence from the eyes of his jailers? How fascinating, if so. He wonders if she does it consciously.
Lecter's eyes re-open. It has taken him a full thirty seconds of thought; a full thirty seconds deducted from his thirty minutes of access with the machine. His right hand, that has rested still and immobile on the laptop's keyboard, comes back to life, and he begins typing a reply to her.
Currently, the doctor is puzzled.
It's an uncommon state for him, and he takes a moment out from the puzzle itself to note the sensation. He's felt bemusement perhaps a handful of times in his life; rarity creates value. He slots the feeling away in his memory palace then dismisses it, returning to the question at hand. Why is the hospital allowing this correspondence with Wanda Maximoff to proceed?
The security that has been set up on the computer he uses ensures that all his e-mails are read by the staff before he sees them. Chilton did this at first, then grew bored and delegated the task to his underlings. His responses are also read before they are actually sent back into the great void of the Internet. They have stomped on and censored both the messages he receives and the messages he sends with great consistency so far.
Yet his e-mails with Wanda have been untouched. Not a word from Chilton regarding them, or Barney, or anyone else. It is as if they are simply not seen.
Dr. Lecter taps his pursed lips with his identical fingers.
First; that this might be a ruse on the part of the hospital staff. Chilton is, quite simply, too stupid to think of this on his own, but perhaps one of the ever ambitious reporters suggested it to him. But it makes no sense; they would be much better off fabricating a "patient" for him than using someone like Wanda Maximoff.
Alternately, the correspondence from the woman is genuine, and they say nothing hoping to trap him in some criminal indiscretion in one of his e-mails. But that also has flaws; it would show, to the doctor. In their little nervous gestures, in their desperate desire to pretend they don't know. No. Their ignorance is genuine.
How, then?
The answer must of course lie with Maximoff herself.
Lecter's eyes half-close as he moves mentally away from Wanda's e-mail and into the labyrinth of his memories. There is a hall whose entrance is watched over by a statue: the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue is full-size yet fits without difficulty under the vaulted roof; Dr. Lecter ignores questions of physical reality when they do not comply with his sense of aesthetics. In one hand, the Colossus holds a scroll upon which is written all of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Dr. Lecter passes the statue by and enters the gallery of the Overmen.
The hall is much more garish than the rest of his mental palace. Bright primary colors clash and swirl. There are men in capes and women in masks, like a fabulously extravagant masquerade; there are mind-readers and mutations and strongmen and invisible women, like a Barnum and Bailey attraction.
Before his incarceration, some of these "super-humans" had been already active. Indeed, he had settled in Baltimore because Baltimore had showed no signs of acquiring for herself one of these costumed defenders, unlike Washington, New York, Gotham and Metropolis. He had wanted to watch them from an interested-but-respectable distance. Since his incarceration, however, their numbers have skyrocketed. The headlines are filled with their exploits, their extravagances, their petty conflicts and their world-saving heroics. Still, they have never seemed quite real to him, with their sprawling battles continually destroying the downtowns of whatever city they're in this week. Rather, something out of the more childish parts of God's imagination.
Wanda Maximoff. Also known as the Scarlet Witch (and what a delight, their preposterous code names and aliases! What a splendid smorgasbord of the absurd!). One of the mutates; Homo superior. One of the so-called Avengers. Old articles from The New York Times on the Avengers mention that the Scarlet Witch has the ability to alter probability. She has been removed from the Avengers' active roster, no explanation given. There has been little said of her whereabouts in the papers. The tabloids postulate she is dead, of course, and conduct gory hypotheses of who her murderer might be. He gathers all these facts from a work of Goya's (El sueno de la razon produce monstruos) that hangs in the hall of the Overmen.
There is no question in Lecter's mind, there has never been, that the Wanda Maximoff who has written him and the Avengers' Wanda Maximoff are the same.
So, then. Her.... powers, however it is they work; is it possible she keeps their correspondence from the eyes of his jailers? How fascinating, if so. He wonders if she does it consciously.
Lecter's eyes re-open. It has taken him a full thirty seconds of thought; a full thirty seconds deducted from his thirty minutes of access with the machine. His right hand, that has rested still and immobile on the laptop's keyboard, comes back to life, and he begins typing a reply to her.