Fic: To Live and Die in Los Angeles (6/8)
“To Live and Die in Los Angeles”
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Summary: Charles attempts to recover from his ordeal during a legal tussle in LA.
[ Start back at the beginning]
Also: One racial slur in this one. Situation appropriate, I think.
Chapter 6
“It’s here! It’s here!”
Normally, Sarah Stern (née Ofdensen) couldn’t keep up with Max, even if she typically made it a point to give medical students a lot of leeway, but the magazine in his hands was just too enticing. And would lead to days (and maybe weeks) of infighting at worst and snickers at best. She held her calm and let Wendy take the lead in grabbing it from his hands, but sooner or later they were all gathered around the copy of the Los Angeles Times magazine, Best Doctors of So Cal edition.
“Fucking shitass motherfucker!” Female surgeons were generally rough people, but Wendy was the best curser. “I’ve been fucked over by the committee again.”
“You’re not being fucked over,” Sarah said, flicking ash away from her and onto the cement. “You were in it twice in five years. That’s a lot.”
“Says Little Miss Isn't-Even-Bothering-to-Look,” Wendy said. She appeared vicious, but she was just angry. A couple other doctors had followed the scent of glory and defeat and were crowding around Max. “Do they hand-deliver your copy?”
“I might not even be in it,” she said, because at the moment it was all just bothering her from enjoying her cigarette. “Pediatrics is a big field.”
“Hey, Sarah! You’re in!”
She could have slapped herself in the face, but she didn’t. Actually, she was relieved, now that they were talking about it. When the clamor died down, she did finally get a look at the now-torn magazine.
Pediatric Surgery
Dr. Sarah Stern
Mission Hospital Viejo
Well, that was nice. “You have to get on some big research projects,” she told Wendy. “The committee likes research projects. Not bedside manner. If they rated based on that you would be on it every year and I wouldn’t be.”
“Says the woman who can pay for her own research. Some of us have to work for a living.” Wendy qualified that after a moment. “OK, that was low. I’m sorry. I’m just jealous as hell.”
Sarah just cursed the day she made it into the Forbes Top 50 list. Yes, as number 48, but she was the only full-time doctor on the list. She called her brother and the following year, mysteriously did not make the list. “It’s just a magazine to give doctors something to put up on their tacky office walls. The only people who get something out of it are those expensive framing companies.” The cigarette was down to a stub, and she put it out under her sneakers. She didn’t smoke regularly, but after an eight-hour surgery, she deserved something for her nerves and it wasn’t going to be Xanax, not with her schedule. Besides, a doctor taking their own advice? That would be a first.
“You didn’t get the tumor,” Wendy said.
“We got it. It just took much longer than it should have and it was malignant as hell.” She looked at her vibrating beeper. “So how are you? Aside from the whole magazine business.”
“Do you need to go?”
“New floor head. I’m avoiding him.”
“Oh.” Wendy, who was a gastrointestinal surgeon, shrugged. “I’ve got a bunch of kids who think they’re dying and want to meet Dethklok.”
“But none of them are actually dying.” Because there was actually a whole organization for that, which Sarah had nothing to do with.
“They’re willing to fake it. It’s kind of cute but it’s also kind of sick. You shouldn’t want to die.”
“Especially if it’s to meet a big dumb rock star who really is going to have a hard time giving a shit about you,” Sarah replied. “OK, I’m not being completely fair there. I’m not looking forward to the post-op prognosis. And Pickles is actually pretty small.”
“I thought you haven’t seen him in years.”
“He may or may not have been in passed out in my pool two weeks ago,” she said, looking around unconsciously. It just felt good to talk about something other than intercranial neoplasms. “I don’t know why he didn’t wear sunscreen. Maybe it’s just not metal.”
“What was the richest guy in the world doing in your pool?”
“I don’t know if he’s the richest. It varies from year to year.” She did have a subscription to Forbes, after all. “He was in town to sue someone with a ridiculous name over his old band. I invited my brother over for dinner and he tagged along.”
“You make a member of Dethklok seem like a home invader.”
“He’s not bad, actually. Though I have no idea why he calls me Mrs. O.” They started walking back to the double sliding doors. “If I ever get him when he’s not high or drunk, I’ll correct him, but that hasn’t happened yet.”
“You know who I want to meet? The Dethklok Minute guy.”
“And that is why you’re still single.” She checked her beeper again. Same number.
“What? I set my standards too high?”
“By saying you only want a guy with his face chopped off, yes. Look, maybe - maybe I can get his number. Maybe. But no promises.”
“Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou - “
“Seriously. No promises.”
From there it was time for another pop-in at post-op, where her patient was still unconscious and the parents still awaiting results that wouldn’t manifest themselves for days or even weeks. At the fifth call she found herself at her new department head’s office. “I have to be back in scrubs in ten minutes.” It was a lie, but not a big lie.
As it turned out, he wanted to congratulate her, then bicker over policies regarding surgical room music. In her opinion and possibly the opinion of every surgeon who had ever cut someone open, it was her damn decision as to what to pump in, be it Beethoven or Dethklok, but he had some kind of child psychology kick about soothing music for the patient, whom she assured him was always very, very unconscious. She used the scrubs excuse to escape.
Sarah was still muttering about her refusal to listen to Raffi in the surgical theater after her patient was released from recovery and sent to the floor. Six more consultations and she could go home.
Josh greeted her at the door but immediately put down the magazine. “Wow. Punch face.”
She supposed it was the punch face. “It was a really long day. Where’s Sam?”
“Getting high at David’s house. But for the record, he said he was studying for a Spanish quiz and only David has the right book.”
“How could only one person have the right book?”
Josh shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out when the Spanish quiz is graded. The point is, he’s not going to be home until we drag him home. So, I thought we could celebrate.” And he held up a baggie. You really had to call it a baggie.
“I thought we were supposed to celebrate with too much white wine and some dish with only a French name.”
“It’s from Pickles,” he said in a sing-song voice, waving the bag of weed back and forth.
“I’m in.”
Twenty minutes later they were both sacked out on lawn chairs facing the ocean and stoned out of their minds. The day, which was ending, was definitely looking up.
“OK, OK, I’ve got it. I want to do something with whales.”
It was hilarious, and not just because she was high. She just laughed even harder. “You’d have to eat kelp.”
“What?”
“Whale hunter ... hunter people eat kelp.”
“Gross. I hate kelp.”
Dinner consisted of ransacking the kitchen and eating twelve Dethkones and some leftover Chinese food. It was a full hour before Sarah was aware enough to check her messages.
“It’s me.” Charles, as always was brief. “You said to check in even if I was fine, and that’s what I am. Fine.”
“Your brother is a dick,” Josh said from the guest chair in her study. She wasn’t really aware that he was listening to the playback.
“He’s just ... fine, he’s a dick sometimes. So am I.” She looked at the clock, and it took her an exceptionally long time to calculate the time difference. “I should call him back.”
“He’s gonna lie to you.” Josh usually wasn’t this honest, but he usually wasn’t this stoned, even if he was definitely coming down. “He’s gonna tell you he’s fine and his arm feels fine and he’s not stressed out.”
Josh didn’t know the half of it. Josh didn’t know way more than that. Like, 90% of it. That was what Josh didn’t know, and wouldn’t know, because Sarah could never be stoned enough to tell him. A tingle in the back of her brain told her she should feel sad about that, that she couldn’t share what was for her sometimes a deep source of anxiety and pain with her husband, after that rabbi went on for long about the importance of a couple being on the same “level.” But she made promises and she kept them. “I’m gonna call him.”
“You should wait um, some more time.”
“No. It’ll be too late.” She made the gesture for him to shoo. The phone rang for an exceptional amount of time before Charles picked up. “Hi!”
“...Hello?” Charles sounded really tired. Or just ... asleep.
“Shit! Are you asleep?”
“No. I am not currently asleep. I could not have this conversation otherwise,” he said, his voice muffled and still a little slurry. “What - oh, right. Hold on.” There were shuffling sounds but not a lot else. “Congratulations. On, um, the magazine thing.”
“You were asleep. I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t help but giggle. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m up now,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It’s a big honor. Especially six times in a row.”
“Everyone in the hospital hates me now.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m sure the other people who made the list feel just fine about it.”
Sarah laughed, even though it wasn’t that funny. It just was to her.
“Are you ... drunk?”
“No...” She ran her fingers across the desk. Why did she even have a day planner on her desk if she never used it?
“Are you high?” He took the silence as a confirmation. “Fucking Josh.”
“Hey, we got it from Pickles.”
“Fucking Pickles.” He said this was much less vehemence. “It is less addictive than alcohol. It’s just not a very good example for my nephew.”
“Oh, he’s getting high at a friend’s house on what I’m sure is far less potent product. And hopefully at some point studying for a Spanish quiz, if he even really does have a Spanish quiz.” She paused. “Am I hypocrite?”
“I believe it’s required of being a parent.”
“You always know the right thing to say.” Sarah traced her finger along the edge of the pad. “Even when I’m being a bad parent and being a bad sister for calling you in the middle of the night in Canada or wherever you’re floating and I’m being a bad doctor.”
“I thought the point of this was that you’re a good doctor.”
She sighed. “I guess I’m an OK doctor. I just had a really shitty day. You don’t want to hear about it.”
“I do.”
“Nobody wants to hear about what I do. They say it’s disgusting.”
“I won’t say under what circumstances this happened, but I have definitely seen human brains in the past forty-eight hours,” Charles said.
She did not ask any further questions. Sarah slumped into the office chair and put her feet up. “I think I’m going to lose this patient.”
“You’ve lost patients before.” He was, as always, very reasonable.
“It’s worse when I know it’s going to happen down the road. We took the whole tumor out, but it was malignant and nasty and the course of it was too aggressive. Provided there’s no significant brain trauma from the surgery itself, I’ll be surprised if I’m not operating on her again in six months. And she’s a sweet little girl who doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Nobody deserves to die.”
The weed wasn’t helping her as much as she wanted it to. “Do you ever wonder what the hell you’re doing with your life?”
“Hourly. But I don’t really have a back-up plan, so here I am,” he said. “Those kids need you. Even the ones who don’t make it.”
“I know, I know.”
“I think you’re in an extremely admirable profession. I think Mom and Dad would be proud.” He must have really meant it, because he usually didn’t talk about Mom and Dad. “You’re just doubting yourself because you had a long day and pot makes you paranoid. I know this is terrible advice, but things always look better in the morning.” There was some noise on the other end of the line and muffled “Shut up!” that didn’t sound all that serious.
“Charles? Do you have me on speakerphone and there’s like six bodyguards surrounding you? Because I could start talking about your chubby phase.”
“That was you.”
“They don’t know that.”
“There are no bodyguards around and you are not on speakerphone,” Charles huffed. “It’s the middle of the G-ddamn night.”
“So who’s in your office in the middle of the G-ddamn night?”
“I’m not in my office.”
“Do you just have your secretary around all the time?!?”
“Angela is not a secretary. She is an assistant.” Then, there was a pause as her brother realized what he’d said. “Oh fuck.”
“Oh my G-d!” There was nothing to prevent her from squealing like a teenager. “I’m so happy for you! Put her on.”
“This conversation is over.”
“Seriously, when we met in the hospital, I thought - “
“Conversation. Over.” His voice was so quietly cold that it just made her laugh harder. “I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m going to call back.”
“I’m going to block you.”
“I have her number.”
Charles knew a lot of Danish curses. Or, she assumed they were Danish, because they were so fast and low that she didn’t understand any of them. He’d always been more proficient at keeping his different languages up than she had. “Seriously,” he said when he came back on the line, “we’re not having this conversation. And you cannot tell - ”
“Oh seriously, what can I tell Josh? He doesn’t even know your middle name. HEY! ANGELA! FOSTER IS NOT HIS MIDDLE NAME!”
“Ow. And you don’t have to scream, she’s in the other room.”
“Which is your bedroom.”
“Look, I don’t ask you about your ... what I assume is a completely celibate marriage, so don’t ask about my sex life.”
She softened her tone. “Aw. I just worry about you. You’re all alone up there in your flying dungeon.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Charles said in his flattest voice.
“OK, OK, I will leave you to ... go back to sleep. Or whatever else you decide to do.”
“Thank you very much.” He did not sound entirely grateful. “Good night.”
“I love you, too.” She finally let him go, to be annoyed and crabby and eventually forgiving. Sarah decided it was worth it.
********************************************
“My sister knows,” Charles said as he climbed back into bed. He was still a little wound up from the call but he was fading fast.
“I gathered that,” Angela said. She hadn’t being trying to listen, but his apartments were soundproofed, so noise within them carried very well. “I take it she approves? If I need Dr. Stern’s approval.”
“Um, no. I mean, you don’t. But yes, she does.”
Charles Ofdensen, as Angela (strange how she fell into calling herself that again) was beginning to learn, was a very strange man. When he was at work, which constituted almost every waking hour of his day and then some, he was a force of nature, steady and dangerous. None of that was revelatory - she’d seen him order enough deaths (and in two cases, personally kill people) to know that. All he needed was to be behind closed doors, lose the suit, and have a woman around, and his confidence drained out of him like he was leaking. He had admitted very early on, I am not very good at relationships. She could say the same, but somehow she was left taking a lot of initiative. Maybe it was just a guy thing.
Or he had been battered, physically and emotionally, over the past month, and he needed more support than he would ever admit to.
Probably the second thing.
Which was all fine by her. If the job description had included having sex with the boss, no, she would not have applied (thought she would have thought about it). It was obvious that to Charles, this whole concept was new and the thought of treating his employees, whom he regularly ordered to do outright suicidal things, as sexual objects was repulsive to him. But it was not how their relationship had started or how it was panning out, and it was a relationship. Maybe she was sexist about thinking this, but if the guy really just wanted to be held sometimes, it was a relationship.
People had to know. They weren’t stupid. She didn’t go into her room in the morning and mess the bed up. Her appearances in the executive cafeteria were increasingly sporadic. She didn’t walk in there in pajamas and order up two cappuccinos to go or anything, but you didn’t get to the top and stay there by being stupid. On the other hand, they also wanted to keep staying alive, and that would require a fair amount of discretion around the boss.
Currently, the big, scary boss was drifting back to sleep, his initial agitation fighting an uphill battle against the host of sleeping pills and general relaxants on his dresser, pushed together to form a beehive of orange plastic and white labels. She didn’t read the labels; she didn’t know her way around advanced pharmaceutical combinations, and if it was something he wanted her to keep track of, he would have told her a long time ago. He didn’t sleep naked - he didn’t like to be naked - and she buried her face in the back of his neck and the worn fabric of a T-shirt with the old Dethklok logo on it, the simpler version from their early days. It was the rattiest thing in the room and it was probably worth the most. Well, no one could claim he didn’t love Dethklok.
She quickly followed him to dreamland, remembering nothing substantial of her dream (something about dragons and a mountain, that was all she got, and it probably came from a Dethklok cover that was on her screensaver) until she was woken by movement. Charles was shivering in his sleep again, and not because he was cold. By the time he woke, he was covered in sweat.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” That was the answer the other two times. He reached for his Dethphone to check his messages. It was already three in the morning, so there would be plenty. “You sound like my therapist.”
“I assume he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Charles made a ‘hrmph’ sort of sound and continued playing with his phone. Now he was shivering for real, because the sweat was drying, and she threw the blanket over him, knowing the phone was backlit. There was a mumbled ‘thank you’ from underneath the comforter.
There was no further discussion and she went back to sleep. When she woke, at the very reasonable time of five-thirty when the alarm clock went off, he was already gone. He probably hadn’t gone back to sleep. It was not taking her long to figure out what was exceptional and what wasn’t. She showered, dressed, and found him in his office, where he gave her a polite wave and continue with his call. It sounded like the venue in Budapest but she didn’t stay to figure it out.
The administrative staff ate in the regular cafeteria for meals, but had snacks available in their own room near the command center. There was usually enough to get breakfast if she didn’t want to wait in line. All of the coffee was, of course, Duncan Hills, which she liked even if Charles couldn’t stand the stuff.
“I know something about you,” Mark, or 944, said in a voice that was way too giddy for six-fifteen in the morning. Angela rolled her eyes and focused on the frappuccino maker, which was cursed and therefore on the fritz like everything else in the damn building. At least it hadn’t been the cause of death on any certificates yet. “Or, more precisely, I know something about the boss.”
“Why don’t you tell him? I’m sure he’d love to hear it.”
His mood would not be dampened. “Someone’s crabby. Had a late night?”
“Say it already or we’ll find out if your hood will protect you from boiling coffee beans.”
“Nothing. Just that the Commander might have a case of the jungle fever.”
She was angry, but she kept it in check. “Good going, Matlock. How long did the obvious take you?” She got her coffee and did not throw it into his face, which was something. “I know. Let’s talk about how jealous you are.”
Mark was blushing under his hood. She could tell because it extended to his arms.
“And let’s talk about how slow and painful your death is going to be when you spread it around like the gossipy bitch you are,” she said.
“The bitch thing I’m not denying,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”
“Then don’t do what you’re inevitably going to do, which is ask for details. Because you’re not getting them.”
“Awwww. But I tell you everything.”
“You don’t have much to tell,” she said as she grabbed her coffee and left.
********************************************
Charles Ofdensen was having a fairly ordinary morning, full of the usual band-related stresses, which was good. He liked stress he was familiar with. He could handle that. It took his mind off his dreams, and his frustration with his behavior. He didn’t want to answer Angela’s questions - he just wanted to stop having the dreams that made him wake a side short of screaming so there wouldn’t even be questions. That would be the simplest way.
Around noon, a message from his sister showed up in his email.
Sorry about waking you last night.
My friend Wendy in Pediatrics wants to know:
(1) Is the Dethklok Minute guy married?
(2) If not, is he gay?
(3) If neither of those, can she get set up with him?
She’s a huge fan so I promised I’d ask. That’s what I called about, but something else came up and I forgot. ;)
Love,
Sarah
Honestly, he didn’t even know if the guy could talk out of the Dethklok Minute voice. Or chew food properly. But it was easy for him to look into. He put a call down to public relations for the information, then headed down to the laboratory, where he spent the rest of the afternoon with the scientists, as they liked to be called. They had numbers, but they didn’t use them. He was impressed with the new technology. It was far from perfect or even that inventive, but it would have to do. After checking in on the boys, who were tossing melons at the yard wolves over balcony 45b for some reason, he called for Angela. He just didn’t call her that when he did it.
He cut the scientists off before they could begin their long and poorly-coordinated speech. “There are times when I need to be here when I’m not here,” he told her. “When everyone needs to think I’m here. So I have to take calls and draft announcements. We have a program for that.”
“It’s far from comprehensive,” the taller scientist said. His number was 323. “Obviously, we can’t duplicate Mr. Ofdensen’s physical presence ... yet. That project is still in the test phase.”
“But recordings are workable,” said 232, who was much shorter, and gestured to the computer program. “This program has a wide selection of recorded replies, and the program sorts them by frequency and tailors them to the situation. It still requires human hands and a very quick response time to handle it, for the moment.”
“Dealing with the boys will still require a lot of stalling,” Charles said, “but I’ve got a lot of recordings to be sent to their phones about recording schedules. That usually puts them off.”
Angela was not visibly calculating, because she had a hood, but he could tell anyway. “And you want me to run this program?”
“Letting anyone else have access would be a massive security concern,” 323 said. “Your thumbprint would be required as well as a password and it would only work when Mr. Ofdensen authorizes your use.”
“There should be a secondary person,” Charles said. “Someone who doesn’t also have to manage the company when I’m gone. But I haven’t found someone suitable yet. I want to give it a test drive first.”
“Who, exactly, would know you were gone?” Angela asked. She did not look intimidated by the monumental task before her. Good for her.
“You.”
“Even we wouldn’t have access,” 232 explained, “but since we designed the program, we could probably guess - if we were trying to communicate with him. It does have a few programming ticks left in it.”
Angela didn’t flinch. “When?”
“Tomorrow. If I’m lucky, it will only take a few hours. If I’m not, maybe the whole day. You’ll have my phone, and I’ll have a secondary phone. The program will patch me through in case of emergencies.”
He took the laptop with the program and went up to his office. The scientists warned him that working the program at full-speed would take finesse, and Angela had very little time to learn, but sometimes things just came up. She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening on it. Not liking to listen to the sound of his own voice, Charles went to the command center for a round of calls and tactical discussions, then returned after swinging by the kitchen for dinner. Angela was so absorbed in her work she barely looked at the food on the plate before eating it. “This is a very elaborate way of seeing your therapist.”
“It’s not for my therapist,” he said, sinking into his own guest chair with a plate of ramen noodles. “The people watching Dethklok already known who I see and when I see him. This is something else.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I’ll consider it.”
“After we rescue you?”
“It’s not like that.” He silently added hopefully. “And as I recall, I rescued myself pretty well.”
“I’m sure your arm feels the same way.”
He grunted. It was the reason he couldn’t just slip out as a hoodie on the morning shuttle tomorrow, and would have to hide in the cargo bay instead. The cast was too distinctive and hard to cover up.
He worked late, and so did she. Plans for sex turned into falling asleep while she was in the shower. He woke up a bit later, but she was dead to the world, too. He looked at the clock and willed the minutes to pass. He had now idea how the next twenty-four hours would go - probably fine, but he wouldn’t know that until they came. And he would tell her at least some of it when he got back, he promised himself. If it was safe.
********************************************
Charles had never been in a VA center before, and there was a reason. It was old and dingy and smelled of cardboard boxes just as much as he thought it would. Older veterans, mostly tired from the looks of it, were sitting at folding tables, playing cards and drinking beer and complaining about their hearts and livers and an assortment of other ailments. Despite the non-smoking signs everywhere, a faint smell of tobacco wafted through the aisles from time to time. The community center had several public computer terminals and a small library, mostly airport fiction like Tom Clancy and James Patterson. There were magazines and crossword puzzle books on the racks.
No one in the Maine VA center paid him any mind. He was wearing jeans, a work shirt, and a worn green jacket. His hair wasn’t moussed so perfectly and he had one of Pickles’s trucker hats on. He had his papers in a backpack instead of a briefcase, even if there wasn’t much in there. In other words, he looked like a vet.
He stalled for a few minutes in the stacks before entering the conference room with a sign on it indicating computer classes would be held at seven in the evening. It was empty except for more tables and squeaky folding chairs, and an unplugged projector. There was glitter glued to the table in front of him. Someone had been doing arts and crafts.
General Crozier didn’t keep him waiting. They were both a little on edge, and there was no need to acknowledge it. Crozier was wearing some ridiculous track outfit. Charles didn’t comment. “My sources say you’re still in Mordhaus. How do I know it’s really you?”
The man had a damned good reason to be paranoid, so Charles widened his two fingers to reveal the scar where his unit number used to be. It was something people didn’t notice about him, much less would remember to imitate.
Satisfied, Crozier retrieved a folder from his briefcase, and Charles responded in kind. Neither had much information that the other didn’t have, and it would probably stay that way. It was a gesture of trust, not sharing secrets. What Crozier had was considerably more pictures of Selatcia, including one in a hat and glasses, on a street somewhere too generic to identify.
“When did you first meet Selatcia?”
“We weren’t formally introduced. I was introduced to him when I was picked for the Tribunal.” Crozier didn’t elaborate on that, and Charles didn’t ask him to. Yet.
“And that was the first time you saw him.”
“No - he had some contacts with the brass when I was still a colonel. I’m not sure what about, but he was described as an ‘adviser.’ Someone said he was a scientist, but couldn’t back it up with actual credentials.”
“Do you remember the first time you actually saw him? Not just heard about him?”
Crozier paused. “It was in Panama. And it was the other way around - I saw him, but I had no idea who he was. Some big guy, not military, on base with some credentials he flashed at the gates but I never saw.”
“This is the same base - “
“Yes. In fact, it was ...” Crozier rubbed his chin. “He went to speak with the committee. Cutter, Stampingston, Wegner.”
“You’re saying it was the exact same day?”
“They didn’t sit for very long. It was more like the same hour. I saw him go in the tent, but that’s it. My mind was on other things.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Charles was the first to speak. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“My life is a long string of coincidences,” Crozier said with some bitterness, but it was how he said almost everything. “You left the tent restrained and bound for the States, and he went in. I’ve never had a reason to think about it until now. Maybe you even saw him.”
“My mind was also on other things.” And it wasn’t long after his threat to Cutter’s life that he was restrained and tranquilized. But the same damn day?
Part of him could not bring himself to be surprised.
“So tell me something about him I don’t know,” Crozier said a little impatiently. It was his life on the line here. Both of theirs, technically, but Charles had somewhere to hide. “And keep in mind the last person I had this conversation with. He said Selatcia was in his mind.”
“That’s the thing. He can get in your mind, but I don’t think he can read it,” Charles said. “He would have done it already, wouldn’t he?”
Crozier considered his answer and said, “Yes.”
“They’re two different things. If he has total control over you, it doesn’t really matter, but he can’t access your thoughts. He can only implant his own. Which, we both know, he’s pretty damn good at.”
“He sent something to you?”
“By accident, maybe. Or maybe I’m just very perceptive.” This was a card Charles was not willing to play yet. “Have you ever taken drugs, General?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Crozier huffed, then belatedly added, “Yopo. But not of my own free will!”
“The hallucinary experience can be controlled. It’s very difficult to do, I assure you. Even if you have some experience. There’s a technique that can temper the sensations crowding your brain. In the case of traditional hallucinogens, it’s a sitter, or a comfortable setting, or soft music. Something to steady yourself. Your control will be limited, but less so if you understand what’s happening to you.”
“If you think I’m going to drop acid with you, Charles, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Charles smiled despite himself. “I never touch the stuff. But the process is similar. Your brain is processing images in a different way than it does when you’re clean. You’re telling yourself it’s not real, but it seems so real that it might as well be. Your brain makes it real. So you give up the fight.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“You let it happen. You let it pass. You can’t be unaffected, but if you accept it for what it is - a series of images - it might not be as traumatizing.”
“Like watching a movie.”
“Yes.”
“This is a lot fucking more intense than a movie.”
“The demands are a lot higher. I didn’t say it would be easy - or even that you could do it. But you could try.” He removed a book from his bag, still in its wrapping so his fingerprints wouldn’t be on it. The Practice of Tibetan Meditation: Exercises, Visualizations, and Mantras for Health and Well-Being.
“Hippie crap,” Crozier said, but he did open it.
“It’s by a monk who counsels refugees who spent years in Chinese prisons,” Charles said. “Enduring a hell of a lot of torture, propaganda, and doublespeak.”
“Did it stop your nightmares?”
There was no reason to deny it. “No. It just made them stop bothering me. So I could get a good night’s sleep.”
Not every night, he didn’t have to add. Just most of them.
To Be Continued...
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Summary: Charles attempts to recover from his ordeal during a legal tussle in LA.
[ Start back at the beginning]
Also: One racial slur in this one. Situation appropriate, I think.
Chapter 6
“It’s here! It’s here!”
Normally, Sarah Stern (née Ofdensen) couldn’t keep up with Max, even if she typically made it a point to give medical students a lot of leeway, but the magazine in his hands was just too enticing. And would lead to days (and maybe weeks) of infighting at worst and snickers at best. She held her calm and let Wendy take the lead in grabbing it from his hands, but sooner or later they were all gathered around the copy of the Los Angeles Times magazine, Best Doctors of So Cal edition.
“Fucking shitass motherfucker!” Female surgeons were generally rough people, but Wendy was the best curser. “I’ve been fucked over by the committee again.”
“You’re not being fucked over,” Sarah said, flicking ash away from her and onto the cement. “You were in it twice in five years. That’s a lot.”
“Says Little Miss Isn't-Even-Bothering-to-Look,” Wendy said. She appeared vicious, but she was just angry. A couple other doctors had followed the scent of glory and defeat and were crowding around Max. “Do they hand-deliver your copy?”
“I might not even be in it,” she said, because at the moment it was all just bothering her from enjoying her cigarette. “Pediatrics is a big field.”
“Hey, Sarah! You’re in!”
She could have slapped herself in the face, but she didn’t. Actually, she was relieved, now that they were talking about it. When the clamor died down, she did finally get a look at the now-torn magazine.
Pediatric Surgery
Dr. Sarah Stern
Mission Hospital Viejo
Well, that was nice. “You have to get on some big research projects,” she told Wendy. “The committee likes research projects. Not bedside manner. If they rated based on that you would be on it every year and I wouldn’t be.”
“Says the woman who can pay for her own research. Some of us have to work for a living.” Wendy qualified that after a moment. “OK, that was low. I’m sorry. I’m just jealous as hell.”
Sarah just cursed the day she made it into the Forbes Top 50 list. Yes, as number 48, but she was the only full-time doctor on the list. She called her brother and the following year, mysteriously did not make the list. “It’s just a magazine to give doctors something to put up on their tacky office walls. The only people who get something out of it are those expensive framing companies.” The cigarette was down to a stub, and she put it out under her sneakers. She didn’t smoke regularly, but after an eight-hour surgery, she deserved something for her nerves and it wasn’t going to be Xanax, not with her schedule. Besides, a doctor taking their own advice? That would be a first.
“You didn’t get the tumor,” Wendy said.
“We got it. It just took much longer than it should have and it was malignant as hell.” She looked at her vibrating beeper. “So how are you? Aside from the whole magazine business.”
“Do you need to go?”
“New floor head. I’m avoiding him.”
“Oh.” Wendy, who was a gastrointestinal surgeon, shrugged. “I’ve got a bunch of kids who think they’re dying and want to meet Dethklok.”
“But none of them are actually dying.” Because there was actually a whole organization for that, which Sarah had nothing to do with.
“They’re willing to fake it. It’s kind of cute but it’s also kind of sick. You shouldn’t want to die.”
“Especially if it’s to meet a big dumb rock star who really is going to have a hard time giving a shit about you,” Sarah replied. “OK, I’m not being completely fair there. I’m not looking forward to the post-op prognosis. And Pickles is actually pretty small.”
“I thought you haven’t seen him in years.”
“He may or may not have been in passed out in my pool two weeks ago,” she said, looking around unconsciously. It just felt good to talk about something other than intercranial neoplasms. “I don’t know why he didn’t wear sunscreen. Maybe it’s just not metal.”
“What was the richest guy in the world doing in your pool?”
“I don’t know if he’s the richest. It varies from year to year.” She did have a subscription to Forbes, after all. “He was in town to sue someone with a ridiculous name over his old band. I invited my brother over for dinner and he tagged along.”
“You make a member of Dethklok seem like a home invader.”
“He’s not bad, actually. Though I have no idea why he calls me Mrs. O.” They started walking back to the double sliding doors. “If I ever get him when he’s not high or drunk, I’ll correct him, but that hasn’t happened yet.”
“You know who I want to meet? The Dethklok Minute guy.”
“And that is why you’re still single.” She checked her beeper again. Same number.
“What? I set my standards too high?”
“By saying you only want a guy with his face chopped off, yes. Look, maybe - maybe I can get his number. Maybe. But no promises.”
“Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou - “
“Seriously. No promises.”
From there it was time for another pop-in at post-op, where her patient was still unconscious and the parents still awaiting results that wouldn’t manifest themselves for days or even weeks. At the fifth call she found herself at her new department head’s office. “I have to be back in scrubs in ten minutes.” It was a lie, but not a big lie.
As it turned out, he wanted to congratulate her, then bicker over policies regarding surgical room music. In her opinion and possibly the opinion of every surgeon who had ever cut someone open, it was her damn decision as to what to pump in, be it Beethoven or Dethklok, but he had some kind of child psychology kick about soothing music for the patient, whom she assured him was always very, very unconscious. She used the scrubs excuse to escape.
Sarah was still muttering about her refusal to listen to Raffi in the surgical theater after her patient was released from recovery and sent to the floor. Six more consultations and she could go home.
Josh greeted her at the door but immediately put down the magazine. “Wow. Punch face.”
She supposed it was the punch face. “It was a really long day. Where’s Sam?”
“Getting high at David’s house. But for the record, he said he was studying for a Spanish quiz and only David has the right book.”
“How could only one person have the right book?”
Josh shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out when the Spanish quiz is graded. The point is, he’s not going to be home until we drag him home. So, I thought we could celebrate.” And he held up a baggie. You really had to call it a baggie.
“I thought we were supposed to celebrate with too much white wine and some dish with only a French name.”
“It’s from Pickles,” he said in a sing-song voice, waving the bag of weed back and forth.
“I’m in.”
Twenty minutes later they were both sacked out on lawn chairs facing the ocean and stoned out of their minds. The day, which was ending, was definitely looking up.
“OK, OK, I’ve got it. I want to do something with whales.”
It was hilarious, and not just because she was high. She just laughed even harder. “You’d have to eat kelp.”
“What?”
“Whale hunter ... hunter people eat kelp.”
“Gross. I hate kelp.”
Dinner consisted of ransacking the kitchen and eating twelve Dethkones and some leftover Chinese food. It was a full hour before Sarah was aware enough to check her messages.
“It’s me.” Charles, as always was brief. “You said to check in even if I was fine, and that’s what I am. Fine.”
“Your brother is a dick,” Josh said from the guest chair in her study. She wasn’t really aware that he was listening to the playback.
“He’s just ... fine, he’s a dick sometimes. So am I.” She looked at the clock, and it took her an exceptionally long time to calculate the time difference. “I should call him back.”
“He’s gonna lie to you.” Josh usually wasn’t this honest, but he usually wasn’t this stoned, even if he was definitely coming down. “He’s gonna tell you he’s fine and his arm feels fine and he’s not stressed out.”
Josh didn’t know the half of it. Josh didn’t know way more than that. Like, 90% of it. That was what Josh didn’t know, and wouldn’t know, because Sarah could never be stoned enough to tell him. A tingle in the back of her brain told her she should feel sad about that, that she couldn’t share what was for her sometimes a deep source of anxiety and pain with her husband, after that rabbi went on for long about the importance of a couple being on the same “level.” But she made promises and she kept them. “I’m gonna call him.”
“You should wait um, some more time.”
“No. It’ll be too late.” She made the gesture for him to shoo. The phone rang for an exceptional amount of time before Charles picked up. “Hi!”
“...Hello?” Charles sounded really tired. Or just ... asleep.
“Shit! Are you asleep?”
“No. I am not currently asleep. I could not have this conversation otherwise,” he said, his voice muffled and still a little slurry. “What - oh, right. Hold on.” There were shuffling sounds but not a lot else. “Congratulations. On, um, the magazine thing.”
“You were asleep. I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t help but giggle. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m up now,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It’s a big honor. Especially six times in a row.”
“Everyone in the hospital hates me now.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m sure the other people who made the list feel just fine about it.”
Sarah laughed, even though it wasn’t that funny. It just was to her.
“Are you ... drunk?”
“No...” She ran her fingers across the desk. Why did she even have a day planner on her desk if she never used it?
“Are you high?” He took the silence as a confirmation. “Fucking Josh.”
“Hey, we got it from Pickles.”
“Fucking Pickles.” He said this was much less vehemence. “It is less addictive than alcohol. It’s just not a very good example for my nephew.”
“Oh, he’s getting high at a friend’s house on what I’m sure is far less potent product. And hopefully at some point studying for a Spanish quiz, if he even really does have a Spanish quiz.” She paused. “Am I hypocrite?”
“I believe it’s required of being a parent.”
“You always know the right thing to say.” Sarah traced her finger along the edge of the pad. “Even when I’m being a bad parent and being a bad sister for calling you in the middle of the night in Canada or wherever you’re floating and I’m being a bad doctor.”
“I thought the point of this was that you’re a good doctor.”
She sighed. “I guess I’m an OK doctor. I just had a really shitty day. You don’t want to hear about it.”
“I do.”
“Nobody wants to hear about what I do. They say it’s disgusting.”
“I won’t say under what circumstances this happened, but I have definitely seen human brains in the past forty-eight hours,” Charles said.
She did not ask any further questions. Sarah slumped into the office chair and put her feet up. “I think I’m going to lose this patient.”
“You’ve lost patients before.” He was, as always, very reasonable.
“It’s worse when I know it’s going to happen down the road. We took the whole tumor out, but it was malignant and nasty and the course of it was too aggressive. Provided there’s no significant brain trauma from the surgery itself, I’ll be surprised if I’m not operating on her again in six months. And she’s a sweet little girl who doesn’t deserve to die.”
“Nobody deserves to die.”
The weed wasn’t helping her as much as she wanted it to. “Do you ever wonder what the hell you’re doing with your life?”
“Hourly. But I don’t really have a back-up plan, so here I am,” he said. “Those kids need you. Even the ones who don’t make it.”
“I know, I know.”
“I think you’re in an extremely admirable profession. I think Mom and Dad would be proud.” He must have really meant it, because he usually didn’t talk about Mom and Dad. “You’re just doubting yourself because you had a long day and pot makes you paranoid. I know this is terrible advice, but things always look better in the morning.” There was some noise on the other end of the line and muffled “Shut up!” that didn’t sound all that serious.
“Charles? Do you have me on speakerphone and there’s like six bodyguards surrounding you? Because I could start talking about your chubby phase.”
“That was you.”
“They don’t know that.”
“There are no bodyguards around and you are not on speakerphone,” Charles huffed. “It’s the middle of the G-ddamn night.”
“So who’s in your office in the middle of the G-ddamn night?”
“I’m not in my office.”
“Do you just have your secretary around all the time?!?”
“Angela is not a secretary. She is an assistant.” Then, there was a pause as her brother realized what he’d said. “Oh fuck.”
“Oh my G-d!” There was nothing to prevent her from squealing like a teenager. “I’m so happy for you! Put her on.”
“This conversation is over.”
“Seriously, when we met in the hospital, I thought - “
“Conversation. Over.” His voice was so quietly cold that it just made her laugh harder. “I’m hanging up now.”
“I’m going to call back.”
“I’m going to block you.”
“I have her number.”
Charles knew a lot of Danish curses. Or, she assumed they were Danish, because they were so fast and low that she didn’t understand any of them. He’d always been more proficient at keeping his different languages up than she had. “Seriously,” he said when he came back on the line, “we’re not having this conversation. And you cannot tell - ”
“Oh seriously, what can I tell Josh? He doesn’t even know your middle name. HEY! ANGELA! FOSTER IS NOT HIS MIDDLE NAME!”
“Ow. And you don’t have to scream, she’s in the other room.”
“Which is your bedroom.”
“Look, I don’t ask you about your ... what I assume is a completely celibate marriage, so don’t ask about my sex life.”
She softened her tone. “Aw. I just worry about you. You’re all alone up there in your flying dungeon.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Charles said in his flattest voice.
“OK, OK, I will leave you to ... go back to sleep. Or whatever else you decide to do.”
“Thank you very much.” He did not sound entirely grateful. “Good night.”
“I love you, too.” She finally let him go, to be annoyed and crabby and eventually forgiving. Sarah decided it was worth it.
********************************************
“My sister knows,” Charles said as he climbed back into bed. He was still a little wound up from the call but he was fading fast.
“I gathered that,” Angela said. She hadn’t being trying to listen, but his apartments were soundproofed, so noise within them carried very well. “I take it she approves? If I need Dr. Stern’s approval.”
“Um, no. I mean, you don’t. But yes, she does.”
Charles Ofdensen, as Angela (strange how she fell into calling herself that again) was beginning to learn, was a very strange man. When he was at work, which constituted almost every waking hour of his day and then some, he was a force of nature, steady and dangerous. None of that was revelatory - she’d seen him order enough deaths (and in two cases, personally kill people) to know that. All he needed was to be behind closed doors, lose the suit, and have a woman around, and his confidence drained out of him like he was leaking. He had admitted very early on, I am not very good at relationships. She could say the same, but somehow she was left taking a lot of initiative. Maybe it was just a guy thing.
Or he had been battered, physically and emotionally, over the past month, and he needed more support than he would ever admit to.
Probably the second thing.
Which was all fine by her. If the job description had included having sex with the boss, no, she would not have applied (thought she would have thought about it). It was obvious that to Charles, this whole concept was new and the thought of treating his employees, whom he regularly ordered to do outright suicidal things, as sexual objects was repulsive to him. But it was not how their relationship had started or how it was panning out, and it was a relationship. Maybe she was sexist about thinking this, but if the guy really just wanted to be held sometimes, it was a relationship.
People had to know. They weren’t stupid. She didn’t go into her room in the morning and mess the bed up. Her appearances in the executive cafeteria were increasingly sporadic. She didn’t walk in there in pajamas and order up two cappuccinos to go or anything, but you didn’t get to the top and stay there by being stupid. On the other hand, they also wanted to keep staying alive, and that would require a fair amount of discretion around the boss.
Currently, the big, scary boss was drifting back to sleep, his initial agitation fighting an uphill battle against the host of sleeping pills and general relaxants on his dresser, pushed together to form a beehive of orange plastic and white labels. She didn’t read the labels; she didn’t know her way around advanced pharmaceutical combinations, and if it was something he wanted her to keep track of, he would have told her a long time ago. He didn’t sleep naked - he didn’t like to be naked - and she buried her face in the back of his neck and the worn fabric of a T-shirt with the old Dethklok logo on it, the simpler version from their early days. It was the rattiest thing in the room and it was probably worth the most. Well, no one could claim he didn’t love Dethklok.
She quickly followed him to dreamland, remembering nothing substantial of her dream (something about dragons and a mountain, that was all she got, and it probably came from a Dethklok cover that was on her screensaver) until she was woken by movement. Charles was shivering in his sleep again, and not because he was cold. By the time he woke, he was covered in sweat.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” That was the answer the other two times. He reached for his Dethphone to check his messages. It was already three in the morning, so there would be plenty. “You sound like my therapist.”
“I assume he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Charles made a ‘hrmph’ sort of sound and continued playing with his phone. Now he was shivering for real, because the sweat was drying, and she threw the blanket over him, knowing the phone was backlit. There was a mumbled ‘thank you’ from underneath the comforter.
There was no further discussion and she went back to sleep. When she woke, at the very reasonable time of five-thirty when the alarm clock went off, he was already gone. He probably hadn’t gone back to sleep. It was not taking her long to figure out what was exceptional and what wasn’t. She showered, dressed, and found him in his office, where he gave her a polite wave and continue with his call. It sounded like the venue in Budapest but she didn’t stay to figure it out.
The administrative staff ate in the regular cafeteria for meals, but had snacks available in their own room near the command center. There was usually enough to get breakfast if she didn’t want to wait in line. All of the coffee was, of course, Duncan Hills, which she liked even if Charles couldn’t stand the stuff.
“I know something about you,” Mark, or 944, said in a voice that was way too giddy for six-fifteen in the morning. Angela rolled her eyes and focused on the frappuccino maker, which was cursed and therefore on the fritz like everything else in the damn building. At least it hadn’t been the cause of death on any certificates yet. “Or, more precisely, I know something about the boss.”
“Why don’t you tell him? I’m sure he’d love to hear it.”
His mood would not be dampened. “Someone’s crabby. Had a late night?”
“Say it already or we’ll find out if your hood will protect you from boiling coffee beans.”
“Nothing. Just that the Commander might have a case of the jungle fever.”
She was angry, but she kept it in check. “Good going, Matlock. How long did the obvious take you?” She got her coffee and did not throw it into his face, which was something. “I know. Let’s talk about how jealous you are.”
Mark was blushing under his hood. She could tell because it extended to his arms.
“And let’s talk about how slow and painful your death is going to be when you spread it around like the gossipy bitch you are,” she said.
“The bitch thing I’m not denying,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”
“Then don’t do what you’re inevitably going to do, which is ask for details. Because you’re not getting them.”
“Awwww. But I tell you everything.”
“You don’t have much to tell,” she said as she grabbed her coffee and left.
********************************************
Charles Ofdensen was having a fairly ordinary morning, full of the usual band-related stresses, which was good. He liked stress he was familiar with. He could handle that. It took his mind off his dreams, and his frustration with his behavior. He didn’t want to answer Angela’s questions - he just wanted to stop having the dreams that made him wake a side short of screaming so there wouldn’t even be questions. That would be the simplest way.
Around noon, a message from his sister showed up in his email.
Sorry about waking you last night.
My friend Wendy in Pediatrics wants to know:
(1) Is the Dethklok Minute guy married?
(2) If not, is he gay?
(3) If neither of those, can she get set up with him?
She’s a huge fan so I promised I’d ask. That’s what I called about, but something else came up and I forgot. ;)
Love,
Sarah
Honestly, he didn’t even know if the guy could talk out of the Dethklok Minute voice. Or chew food properly. But it was easy for him to look into. He put a call down to public relations for the information, then headed down to the laboratory, where he spent the rest of the afternoon with the scientists, as they liked to be called. They had numbers, but they didn’t use them. He was impressed with the new technology. It was far from perfect or even that inventive, but it would have to do. After checking in on the boys, who were tossing melons at the yard wolves over balcony 45b for some reason, he called for Angela. He just didn’t call her that when he did it.
He cut the scientists off before they could begin their long and poorly-coordinated speech. “There are times when I need to be here when I’m not here,” he told her. “When everyone needs to think I’m here. So I have to take calls and draft announcements. We have a program for that.”
“It’s far from comprehensive,” the taller scientist said. His number was 323. “Obviously, we can’t duplicate Mr. Ofdensen’s physical presence ... yet. That project is still in the test phase.”
“But recordings are workable,” said 232, who was much shorter, and gestured to the computer program. “This program has a wide selection of recorded replies, and the program sorts them by frequency and tailors them to the situation. It still requires human hands and a very quick response time to handle it, for the moment.”
“Dealing with the boys will still require a lot of stalling,” Charles said, “but I’ve got a lot of recordings to be sent to their phones about recording schedules. That usually puts them off.”
Angela was not visibly calculating, because she had a hood, but he could tell anyway. “And you want me to run this program?”
“Letting anyone else have access would be a massive security concern,” 323 said. “Your thumbprint would be required as well as a password and it would only work when Mr. Ofdensen authorizes your use.”
“There should be a secondary person,” Charles said. “Someone who doesn’t also have to manage the company when I’m gone. But I haven’t found someone suitable yet. I want to give it a test drive first.”
“Who, exactly, would know you were gone?” Angela asked. She did not look intimidated by the monumental task before her. Good for her.
“You.”
“Even we wouldn’t have access,” 232 explained, “but since we designed the program, we could probably guess - if we were trying to communicate with him. It does have a few programming ticks left in it.”
Angela didn’t flinch. “When?”
“Tomorrow. If I’m lucky, it will only take a few hours. If I’m not, maybe the whole day. You’ll have my phone, and I’ll have a secondary phone. The program will patch me through in case of emergencies.”
He took the laptop with the program and went up to his office. The scientists warned him that working the program at full-speed would take finesse, and Angela had very little time to learn, but sometimes things just came up. She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening on it. Not liking to listen to the sound of his own voice, Charles went to the command center for a round of calls and tactical discussions, then returned after swinging by the kitchen for dinner. Angela was so absorbed in her work she barely looked at the food on the plate before eating it. “This is a very elaborate way of seeing your therapist.”
“It’s not for my therapist,” he said, sinking into his own guest chair with a plate of ramen noodles. “The people watching Dethklok already known who I see and when I see him. This is something else.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I’ll consider it.”
“After we rescue you?”
“It’s not like that.” He silently added hopefully. “And as I recall, I rescued myself pretty well.”
“I’m sure your arm feels the same way.”
He grunted. It was the reason he couldn’t just slip out as a hoodie on the morning shuttle tomorrow, and would have to hide in the cargo bay instead. The cast was too distinctive and hard to cover up.
He worked late, and so did she. Plans for sex turned into falling asleep while she was in the shower. He woke up a bit later, but she was dead to the world, too. He looked at the clock and willed the minutes to pass. He had now idea how the next twenty-four hours would go - probably fine, but he wouldn’t know that until they came. And he would tell her at least some of it when he got back, he promised himself. If it was safe.
********************************************
Charles had never been in a VA center before, and there was a reason. It was old and dingy and smelled of cardboard boxes just as much as he thought it would. Older veterans, mostly tired from the looks of it, were sitting at folding tables, playing cards and drinking beer and complaining about their hearts and livers and an assortment of other ailments. Despite the non-smoking signs everywhere, a faint smell of tobacco wafted through the aisles from time to time. The community center had several public computer terminals and a small library, mostly airport fiction like Tom Clancy and James Patterson. There were magazines and crossword puzzle books on the racks.
No one in the Maine VA center paid him any mind. He was wearing jeans, a work shirt, and a worn green jacket. His hair wasn’t moussed so perfectly and he had one of Pickles’s trucker hats on. He had his papers in a backpack instead of a briefcase, even if there wasn’t much in there. In other words, he looked like a vet.
He stalled for a few minutes in the stacks before entering the conference room with a sign on it indicating computer classes would be held at seven in the evening. It was empty except for more tables and squeaky folding chairs, and an unplugged projector. There was glitter glued to the table in front of him. Someone had been doing arts and crafts.
General Crozier didn’t keep him waiting. They were both a little on edge, and there was no need to acknowledge it. Crozier was wearing some ridiculous track outfit. Charles didn’t comment. “My sources say you’re still in Mordhaus. How do I know it’s really you?”
The man had a damned good reason to be paranoid, so Charles widened his two fingers to reveal the scar where his unit number used to be. It was something people didn’t notice about him, much less would remember to imitate.
Satisfied, Crozier retrieved a folder from his briefcase, and Charles responded in kind. Neither had much information that the other didn’t have, and it would probably stay that way. It was a gesture of trust, not sharing secrets. What Crozier had was considerably more pictures of Selatcia, including one in a hat and glasses, on a street somewhere too generic to identify.
“When did you first meet Selatcia?”
“We weren’t formally introduced. I was introduced to him when I was picked for the Tribunal.” Crozier didn’t elaborate on that, and Charles didn’t ask him to. Yet.
“And that was the first time you saw him.”
“No - he had some contacts with the brass when I was still a colonel. I’m not sure what about, but he was described as an ‘adviser.’ Someone said he was a scientist, but couldn’t back it up with actual credentials.”
“Do you remember the first time you actually saw him? Not just heard about him?”
Crozier paused. “It was in Panama. And it was the other way around - I saw him, but I had no idea who he was. Some big guy, not military, on base with some credentials he flashed at the gates but I never saw.”
“This is the same base - “
“Yes. In fact, it was ...” Crozier rubbed his chin. “He went to speak with the committee. Cutter, Stampingston, Wegner.”
“You’re saying it was the exact same day?”
“They didn’t sit for very long. It was more like the same hour. I saw him go in the tent, but that’s it. My mind was on other things.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Charles was the first to speak. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“My life is a long string of coincidences,” Crozier said with some bitterness, but it was how he said almost everything. “You left the tent restrained and bound for the States, and he went in. I’ve never had a reason to think about it until now. Maybe you even saw him.”
“My mind was also on other things.” And it wasn’t long after his threat to Cutter’s life that he was restrained and tranquilized. But the same damn day?
Part of him could not bring himself to be surprised.
“So tell me something about him I don’t know,” Crozier said a little impatiently. It was his life on the line here. Both of theirs, technically, but Charles had somewhere to hide. “And keep in mind the last person I had this conversation with. He said Selatcia was in his mind.”
“That’s the thing. He can get in your mind, but I don’t think he can read it,” Charles said. “He would have done it already, wouldn’t he?”
Crozier considered his answer and said, “Yes.”
“They’re two different things. If he has total control over you, it doesn’t really matter, but he can’t access your thoughts. He can only implant his own. Which, we both know, he’s pretty damn good at.”
“He sent something to you?”
“By accident, maybe. Or maybe I’m just very perceptive.” This was a card Charles was not willing to play yet. “Have you ever taken drugs, General?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Crozier huffed, then belatedly added, “Yopo. But not of my own free will!”
“The hallucinary experience can be controlled. It’s very difficult to do, I assure you. Even if you have some experience. There’s a technique that can temper the sensations crowding your brain. In the case of traditional hallucinogens, it’s a sitter, or a comfortable setting, or soft music. Something to steady yourself. Your control will be limited, but less so if you understand what’s happening to you.”
“If you think I’m going to drop acid with you, Charles, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Charles smiled despite himself. “I never touch the stuff. But the process is similar. Your brain is processing images in a different way than it does when you’re clean. You’re telling yourself it’s not real, but it seems so real that it might as well be. Your brain makes it real. So you give up the fight.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“You let it happen. You let it pass. You can’t be unaffected, but if you accept it for what it is - a series of images - it might not be as traumatizing.”
“Like watching a movie.”
“Yes.”
“This is a lot fucking more intense than a movie.”
“The demands are a lot higher. I didn’t say it would be easy - or even that you could do it. But you could try.” He removed a book from his bag, still in its wrapping so his fingerprints wouldn’t be on it. The Practice of Tibetan Meditation: Exercises, Visualizations, and Mantras for Health and Well-Being.
“Hippie crap,” Crozier said, but he did open it.
“It’s by a monk who counsels refugees who spent years in Chinese prisons,” Charles said. “Enduring a hell of a lot of torture, propaganda, and doublespeak.”
“Did it stop your nightmares?”
There was no reason to deny it. “No. It just made them stop bothering me. So I could get a good night’s sleep.”
Not every night, he didn’t have to add. Just most of them.
To Be Continued...