Chapter Five: Float to the Dark Side
Chapter Index
I woke up screaming. I can’t exactly remember just what kind of dream I was having, only that I was in what appeared to be all seven levels of Hell at once, and dragons were doing my hair. They had tried to brush it but their claws kept getting caught in the tangles, and they kept trying to burn off the split ends but they kept burning my neck, and worst of all they kept talking in my mother’s voice about how if I just slowed my life down and thought more about hair, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Apparently I was in hell for having bad hair. I don’t know. There were more things, flying monkeys and other normal dream stuff, but the point is I woke up screaming because apparently someone said it was necessary to send Jimmy Page, THE JIMMY PAGE, to Hell. I mean, SERIOUSLY, GUYS? THE JIMMY PAGE. TO HELL. SERIOUSLY. I mean, he seemed like he was having a good time, eating crackers and drinking tea with Hitler, BUT STILL, GUYS. THIS IS A DREAM WORTH WAKING UP SCREAMING TO.
Okay. So. I woke up screaming. And the first face I was TOTALLY RECOGNIZABLE, YAY! Because it had kind of been spitting in my face during the first half of the interrogation sessions. “What the hell?” I murmured, stirring.
“Name?” the owner of the face demanded. I blinked.
“What?” I asked, and then licked my very dry lips.
“Name,” it said again. “What’s your name?”
I exhaled heavily. “Oh come on, Morgan!” I snapped. “You know exactly who I am. You’ve wanted to leave me for dead TWICE.”
“Oh sweet god,” he growled, and then there was a syringe again, the needle glinting in the (once again, excessively bright) light.
The last thing I remember before passing out completely again was another voice I recognized, Gordon’s shouting “NO. NO. NO.” Then I closed my eyes and was out like a light.
The dream I had that time was SOOOOO much crazier! I was three years old again, sitting on the towel at the beach, watching the waves. I had actually been terrified of water as a little kid, after having been allowed to stay up far too late and watch too many late night horror movies. I remember, the one that had scared me the most was this one about the Loch Ness monster coming out of people’s drains in bathtubs and eating their toes while they relaxed. I remember sitting with my toes curled. Anyway, in my dream I was sitting on the towel with my toes curled in in case the Loch Ness monster came out of the water when a crab scuttled across the towel. Which was SO WEIRD. Because that never happened in real life. And while I totally understand the difference between dreams and reality, my dreams are either TOTALLY OUT THERE or so bland they might as well be reality. This whole almost reality thing was SO TRIPPY. Like seriously.
So the crab scuttled across the towel and stopped, which, like I said, was SO WEIRD. It just blinked at me with its tiny, tiny eyes and I blinked at it. It raised its tiny claw at me, clicked it once (to get my attention I suppose) and then pointed it at the water-or at the sun, I wasn’t entirely sure. I blinked at it, and it clicked the claw at me and pointed again. I leaned out, to touch it I guess, and then my mother suddenly appeared with a shotgun and a cigarette and blasted the crab thing away. She spat out the cigarette, grinding it into the sand with her heel, and looked me straight in the eye.
“Come on, babe,” she said, and then the dream went back to the normal mindfucky dream state, following my mother and I as we held up bands with octopi as clerks, became Amazons dressed like Princess Leia with the golden bikini, and were commissioned by Hitler to do a portrait of him with his favorite penguin, which of course led to us assassinating his bigot a by knocking him over and shooting him in the head. Or rather, we were about to-we were so close!-but then I heard my name being called.
“Finn... Finn...”
I turned my head to hear where the sound was coming from, and then Hitler grabbed my gun and I had to move to punch him and then I finally woke up to shouting. Apparently I had punched Hitler, except Hitler was actually Morgan, who was now sitting on the floor, his nose bleeding. The woman-Shiloh, her name was Shiloh-was crouched next to him, trying to help him even as he cursed at her and waved her away.
I raised myself off the gurney thing I was on, and just gaped at the blood on the floor. “I’m so so sorry!” I apologized quickly. “Oh god I’m so sorry I totally did NOT mean to do that, I was punching Hitler see...”
“Shut up!” Morgan shouted at me, and my jaw snapped shut. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he muttered, dabbing at his nose with his wrist.
“Um. Shiloh, if you could take Morgan to the back room and get him cleaned up that would be great, thank you.” I turned over to see Gordon, face expressionless except for a single raised eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if this meant he was amused or disgusted... or maybe it was neither.
“Yes sir,” Shiloh began, moving to grasp Morgan’s arm, but he jerked out of her reach.
“I can get it myself,” he growled, then stood up, wiping his still-bleeding nose on the back of his hand. I expected her to just back off and let him go, but she got up, grabbed his arm and began to drag him. He protested loudly (“Let me go! Get off, I can take care of myself!”) but she didn’t pay any attention. I couldn’t help but smiling a little, except it was kind of the wrong time because Morgan happened to look back at just that moment, and the death glare he sent me was frankly terrifying. The smile quickly disappeared and he bit his lip, sniffled a little, and then was dragged from the room.
I quickly turned to Gordon. “I didn’t mean to!” I said quickly. “Like I said, I was just punching Hitler in the face!”
“Hitler?” I glanced across the room, and saw the tall man whose life I had saved during the dragon attack.
“You’re alive!” The words burst from my mouth before I could put a filter on them and think of something less idiotic to say. I immediately winced and began attempting to backtrack, something I am not generally very good at. “Uh, what I meant was, well I mean I know you’re alive but you’re alive alive, you know? You got better, there was no real lasting damage I’m really sorry of course you’re alive what was the question again?”
“How... Why were you punching Hitler in the face?”
“Well... it’s a long story. The short version is my mother and I were Amazon assassins slash thieves hired to paint Hitler and his penguin, after the crab pointed at something and my mother shot it with a shotgun also I was three years old.” The man just blinked at me. “It was a very complicated dream,” I said quickly.
“Oh.”
“So, um, the moral of the story is I didn’t mean to punch Morgan, really I didn’t, and is he going to be okay?”
Gordon shrugged at me, and then burst into chuckles at my expression, which had suddenly become very alarmed. “He’ll be fine,” he reassured me. “He really needs a good punch in the face every now and again. It could be so much worse-it HAS been so much worse before. I wouldn’t really worry about it.”
“Okay.” I exhaled heavily. “That’s a relief.”
“The real question, of course, is are you okay?”
I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow at him. “Uhm... am I not supposed to be okay? I feel fine.”
“Do you know who you are?”
“Finn Ireland, twenty-five, first year med student. You already asked me that, twice.”
“And you remember who I am?”
“Henry Gordon, over a thousand years old, saved me when I was three years old from a multi-legged sea monster that almost killed me.”
“Oh damn,” he muttered. He rubbed his forehead, and then yanked at his hair.
“What?” I demanded. “What?”
“It didn’t work,” the other man said.
“Thank you, Lucky,” Gordon snapped. “If I need any other blatantly obvious things to be said, I’ll turn to you.” Lucky-the man I’d saved-looked down at his feet, pressing his lips together.
“What?” I asked, looking from Lucky to Gordon. “What didn’t work?”
“We, uh... You remember when we... discussed what happened next?”
“You grabbed my arm and did something with a syringe, shot me up full of something. What’s going on, Gordon?”
“And, and all you remember is that?” He was rubbing his first finger with his thumb, the sound of taut skin making a snap like a rubber band breaking.
“Well, then I had a dream about being in Hell for a bad hair day and Jimmy Page was there with Hitler and then I woke up.”
He seemed to perk up at my mention of Hitler. “This is the dream with your mother assassinating Hitler?”
“No, I woke up to Morgan in my face. He asked a couple questions about stuff I’d already answered, and then I said his name and he shot me up with something again. And THEN I had the dream about assassinating Hitler.” Gordon’s shoulders had slumped and Lucky was back to biting his lip. “Why?” I asked. “What happened? What did you shoot me up with?”
“It was a combination sedative and memory alteration drug. Because we can’t have you knowing who we are and what we do.” Gordon put his face into his hands.
I blinked. “Then why did you tell me?” I demanded. “Why not just tranq me up, wipe my memory and dump me off before we even GOT here?”
“Because I thought you deserved to know,” he said. “Because you recognized me. Because we had to figure out why you know my name.”
“Okay. So. After you wiped my memory the first time, I was supposed to forget everything?”
“That is corrected.” Gordon winced as if he knew what was coming next.
“So why do I remember everything? I mean, you tried to do it twice.”
“Three times, actually. We attempted to do it when you were three years old, too. We figured that the traumatic situation coupled with you seeing me overrode the wipe and caused you to remember it again.”
“But I didn’t. I never forgot.”
“No.”
“From what we can tell,” Lucky cut in, “you have some kind of allergy to the memory alteration drug. It causes you to convulse and, uh... do you always have such strange dreams?”
I shrugged. “Pretty much,” I said. “It’s kind of a normal thing.”
“Okay. SO. Uh... you have an allergy to the drug that causes you to, uh, convulse violently as far as we can tell, though that could just be a reaction to the dragon venom?” He turned to Gordon, sticking his tongue out a little bit. He raised an eyebrow at Gordon, who was shaking his head.
“Shiloh said she checked her blood for any traces of the venom,” he said, “and the levels were nearly nonexistent.”
Lucky sighed. “Then there’s no way we can wipe her memory without attempting dangerous invasive surgery.”
“Is there any one who’d miss her?” Morgan had reentered the room, any trace of the nosebleed gone except for the reddish raw around his nose.
“Now that’s not very nice,” Shiloh said.
Morgan shrugged. “It’s a legitimate question.”
“Well?” Gordon turned to me and my jaw dropped. “Answer the question. Do you?”
“I... I.. uh... Yeah! Parents! I’ve got parents. And a sister! And, and... Outstanding student debts that need to be paid. So. The student debt companies. And my job! Because no one else covers the night shift at Jiffy Burgers like I do. And, um... yeah, lots of people will miss me!” I licked my lips nervously. Morgan just looked bored with every word I said, raising one eyebrow slowly as I finished.
“Well, they’ll find a way to cope I suppose,” he said, and my heart sped up into double time, my fingers going numb. “Because as far as I can see, you have no real redeeming value.”
My jaw was practically on the floor by now. “But, but, but...” I stuttered, and tears were forming in my eyes, making Morgan a giant, shimmering, flesh-colored blob, the red nose blinking at me as I tried so hard not to cry. I know, pathetic of me, but come on. THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT KILLING ME! Which... really, I’ll come clean with you, I AMM TERRIFIED FO DYING. I don’t know why. I just am. “But I saved him-“
“And nearly got yourself killed in the process,” he snapped back. “Stupidity is not well-paid around here.”
“Actually,” Gordon said with a small grin on his face, “I believe she nearly got us ALL killed!”
I whirled on him. “WHY ARE YOU HELPING?” I demanded at the top of my lungs. “YOU SAID I HAD REDEEMING QUALITIES EARLIER.”
“Actually, uh, I’m really grateful-“
“Lucky, shut up,” Morgan growled, and the excessively tall man looked at his feet, his ears turning red with embarrassment and shame.
“Uh, my teachers say I’m promising, uh...” My voice cracked as I struggled for words and I stopped, which was sort of a dumb idea because it gave Morgan more time to abuse the hell out of me.
“Oh. Well then. Excuse me for suggesting anything. You’re PROMISING. I’m sorry, I didn’t know!”
“And, um... I don’t know, I just don’t want to die!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, pounding my fist on the edge of the gurney. I then winced, shaking my hand out because metal on bone. OW. “I... I don’t know, I guess telling you I wouldn’t tell anyone wouldn’t make much difference, but please please please don’t fuck with my head, please because you have to be awake for that and I get claustrophobic at the DENTIST, much less during BRAIN SURGERY!”
And then I burst into tears because the only surgery I could not watch was brain surgery, because they told me to talk to the patient but I could see them probing IN HIS BRAIN so I had a panic attack and the patient ended up trying to comfort me and it was just bad and I swore to never be a brain surgeon ever. So the thought of the probes in MY BRAIN... I started crying. And then hyperventilating. Shiloh was at my side in a second, telling me to lie down, that it would be okay, that I needed to calm down and breathe. Gordon was shouting at Morgan, words I couldn’t make out, and Lucky was looking on awkwardly and then apparently Shiloh decided it would be a good idea to just knock me out.
My dream that time was really boring. My mother and I were drinking tea and she was droning on about crack cocaine addicts in Chicago and then she got up to get more cookies and suddenly I heard Gordon’s voice. “We’re keeping her.” It sounded like a roll of thunder, or Zeus or something like that. It sounded big. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times but didn’t move, choosing instead to just lay there and eavesdrop.
There wasn’t much to hear, at first. There was a sort of stunned silence, and then, of course, Morgan started talking. Or rather, he said words. “You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Gordon...” I heard him sigh. “We cannot keep her. She’s a liability, she’s a distraction, she’s a-“
“Human?” It was Shiloh’s voice, and the room fell back into an awkward silence. You could practically cut the tension with a knife.
“I didn’t say that,” Morgan finally growled.
“OH, but you were going to, weren’t you?” snapped Shiloh. “You are so ridiculous, Morgan, if you can’t get over your prejudice to follow orders.”
“Shiloh, this is not the time,” Gordon began, and then there was the crack of someone’s palm across another person’s face. “MORGAN-“ Gordon yelled, and I listened for the whimpered gasp of whoever Morgan had slapped-I suspected Shiloh-but instead, there was another slap. “DAMMIT, SHILOH!” Gordon roared. “BOTH OF YOU, STOP. WHAT ARE WE, CHILDREN? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.” The silence was stunned again. I was almost shaking. Okay, lies. I was shaking. But I’m a big fat chicken. So. It’s no real surprise. But. Yeah. Um. It was awkward. And tense. And just... you know. Generally bad. Gordon broke the silence again, his voice sounding vaguely strained, like he was resisting slapping both of them. “She will stay. There’s no where she can go now. We have to keep her here until we know the dragon venom is totally and completely out of her system, and that could take weeks. And if we can’t wipe her memory, who’s to say she won’t have some kind of dream about what happened and talk about it in her sleep?”
“Actually, from what I’ve heard, that would be a normal dream for her,” Lucky cut in.
“Shut up, Lucky,” all three said simultaneously. I bit my lip to keep from protesting the abuse.
“Boss,” Morgan said, exhaling heavily. “We can’t just keep her here. She’s a liability, like I said. I doubt she’d be willing to carry a gun, much less some of the weapons we have. She’s weak, she can die-“
“You can die too!” I said as I turned over, scowling at Morgan because I was more than a little irritated with him. “And anyway,” I continued, swinging my legs off the edge of the gurney, “just because I’m going to be a doctor, it doesn’t mean I can’t handle a gun. Because I can. You have to learn for EMT classes, I don’t know why and yeah, it made me cry a little bit, but that’s just because I don’t really like loud noises and as we all know, gun MAKE loud noises. But after I had a small to medium sized panic attack, I actually managed to hold the gun kind of steady and once I actually hit the target. So THERE, you pompous ass!” I moved forward to hit him or maybe push him a little bit, but then the support I got from my hand holding me up was gone, and my legs fell out from underneath me. I arched my head back, for reasons unknown, and smacked it against the metal bar on the gurney. Metal is stronger than skulls, generally speaking, and brains do not take well to severe trauma (or any trauma, really.) They tend to just sort of shut down function if you introduce them to too much trauma, out of protest I guess. I don’t know. Brains freak me out to be quite honest. It’s like a tiny alien in your head. You don’t really need to worry about mind control, BECAUSE YOUR MIND IS ALREADY CONTROLLING YOU. Go. Tell your friends. Brains are freaky.
Anyway. So. Trauma. To the head. Means I was out like a light. Again. For the fourth... third... aw hell if I know. The only thing I do know is that I was collecting a lot of sleep time that wasn’t going to count, because I have learned, though experience mainly, that unconsciousness does not equal good sleep. You don’t wake up after a head injury and go, “Ooo, I feel well-rested, let’s go take on the day!” No. Mostly you wake up groggy, with the worst fucking headache of your life, and you open your eyes for like point five second before realizing that holy SHIT, those lights are blinding. Literally. Your vision goes BLACK and as much as you want to say “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!”, the only words that come out of your mouth are “What happened?” or “Where am I?”, which sounds like a stupid question, but you have to remember your first comment that you actually never said: “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!” And therefore you can’t see where you are. Except you never say that. No one does when they wake up.
Except for me, apparently. Because the first thing out of my mouth actually was “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!” Screamed. Loudly. It was bad. Because it startled whoever was with me (who I clearly couldn’t see at the time,) and they started screaming, which startled me even more than waking up totally blind did, so I started screaming and there was a lot of screaming and then there was a very authoritative voice I recognized as Gordon’s.
“What in HELL’S NAME is going on here?” he demanded. All the screaming instantly stopped, replaced by heavy breathing as I fought to control oxygen flow to my brain.
“She, she, she she she she...” someone else stuttered. I realized then that it was Lucky.
“She what, Lucky?” Morgan snapped.
“She woke up and she was yelling about being blind or something. It startled me, I didn’t know she was awake so I stared screaming and she screamed which scared me even more so I kept screaming and then you came in, and uh... here we are now.”
There was a pause as the whole story was processed. And then: “She’s BLIND?!” There was a hurry of feet as they all raced over to me.
“Finn?” Gordon’s voice came from somewhere above my head. “Finn, can you hear me?” I nodded, still too stunned to speak real words. “Can you talk?”
“Of course she can, you heard her screaming before we came in!”
“Shut up, Morgan. Finn. Can you talk to me? Can you answer?” I nodded again, because occasionally I am an idiot. “Can you actually speak, so I know nodding isn’t just another reaction?”
“Oh! Yeah, sorry I... I didn’t know, my brain kind of died and I have like the shittiest headache of my life am I still alive am I talking too much, I never know the names of the presidents but my name’s Finn Ireland, I’m twenty-five that’s half-way to fifty you know so I’m not really as young as I look, kinda like you, right, huh?”
“Okay. Verbal function is fine.” There was a snort from somewhere near my elbow. “What about memory? Do you remember who I am?”
“Henry Gordon, over a thousand years old-“ I began, using the same summarization as I had the last time he asked me that question.
“Oh damn,” muttered Morgan, who was definitely near my left elbow or thereabouts.
“Hush, Morgan.” Shiloh was closer to my head, on my left side as well.
“What about motor function?” Gordon continued, ignoring the two squabbling people on his... it must have been his left, because he was standing at my head and was therefore facing the same way as me and THEREFORE had the same left and right as I did. Or something. I’ve always been really bad at left and right. “Can you move your fingers, Finn?” I did, still clearly too out of it to really do anything beyond what I was ordered to do. “Okay. What about toes?” Toes were moved. “Okay, can you bend your knees?” Knees were bent. “Elbows?” Elbows. “Okay. Can you lift your head and turn it to either side?” I did, wincing as my neck cracked. “Okay, can you open your eyes?” I whimpered at the thought, because it had HURT the first time, but slowly one eyelid peeled open and then the other. I blinked a couple times and then realized I wasn’t really blind after all, and that the now purple blob clouding my vision was slowly disappearing. I stared straight up until it was completely gone, and then blinked a couple more times. Gordon smiled at me, somehow aware I could see again. I smiled back.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Welcome where?” I asked, because it was kind of a weird thing to say.
“Welcome to the Team,” he replied.
I woke up screaming. I can’t exactly remember just what kind of dream I was having, only that I was in what appeared to be all seven levels of Hell at once, and dragons were doing my hair. They had tried to brush it but their claws kept getting caught in the tangles, and they kept trying to burn off the split ends but they kept burning my neck, and worst of all they kept talking in my mother’s voice about how if I just slowed my life down and thought more about hair, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Apparently I was in hell for having bad hair. I don’t know. There were more things, flying monkeys and other normal dream stuff, but the point is I woke up screaming because apparently someone said it was necessary to send Jimmy Page, THE JIMMY PAGE, to Hell. I mean, SERIOUSLY, GUYS? THE JIMMY PAGE. TO HELL. SERIOUSLY. I mean, he seemed like he was having a good time, eating crackers and drinking tea with Hitler, BUT STILL, GUYS. THIS IS A DREAM WORTH WAKING UP SCREAMING TO.
Okay. So. I woke up screaming. And the first face I was TOTALLY RECOGNIZABLE, YAY! Because it had kind of been spitting in my face during the first half of the interrogation sessions. “What the hell?” I murmured, stirring.
“Name?” the owner of the face demanded. I blinked.
“What?” I asked, and then licked my very dry lips.
“Name,” it said again. “What’s your name?”
I exhaled heavily. “Oh come on, Morgan!” I snapped. “You know exactly who I am. You’ve wanted to leave me for dead TWICE.”
“Oh sweet god,” he growled, and then there was a syringe again, the needle glinting in the (once again, excessively bright) light.
The last thing I remember before passing out completely again was another voice I recognized, Gordon’s shouting “NO. NO. NO.” Then I closed my eyes and was out like a light.
The dream I had that time was SOOOOO much crazier! I was three years old again, sitting on the towel at the beach, watching the waves. I had actually been terrified of water as a little kid, after having been allowed to stay up far too late and watch too many late night horror movies. I remember, the one that had scared me the most was this one about the Loch Ness monster coming out of people’s drains in bathtubs and eating their toes while they relaxed. I remember sitting with my toes curled. Anyway, in my dream I was sitting on the towel with my toes curled in in case the Loch Ness monster came out of the water when a crab scuttled across the towel. Which was SO WEIRD. Because that never happened in real life. And while I totally understand the difference between dreams and reality, my dreams are either TOTALLY OUT THERE or so bland they might as well be reality. This whole almost reality thing was SO TRIPPY. Like seriously.
So the crab scuttled across the towel and stopped, which, like I said, was SO WEIRD. It just blinked at me with its tiny, tiny eyes and I blinked at it. It raised its tiny claw at me, clicked it once (to get my attention I suppose) and then pointed it at the water-or at the sun, I wasn’t entirely sure. I blinked at it, and it clicked the claw at me and pointed again. I leaned out, to touch it I guess, and then my mother suddenly appeared with a shotgun and a cigarette and blasted the crab thing away. She spat out the cigarette, grinding it into the sand with her heel, and looked me straight in the eye.
“Come on, babe,” she said, and then the dream went back to the normal mindfucky dream state, following my mother and I as we held up bands with octopi as clerks, became Amazons dressed like Princess Leia with the golden bikini, and were commissioned by Hitler to do a portrait of him with his favorite penguin, which of course led to us assassinating his bigot a by knocking him over and shooting him in the head. Or rather, we were about to-we were so close!-but then I heard my name being called.
“Finn... Finn...”
I turned my head to hear where the sound was coming from, and then Hitler grabbed my gun and I had to move to punch him and then I finally woke up to shouting. Apparently I had punched Hitler, except Hitler was actually Morgan, who was now sitting on the floor, his nose bleeding. The woman-Shiloh, her name was Shiloh-was crouched next to him, trying to help him even as he cursed at her and waved her away.
I raised myself off the gurney thing I was on, and just gaped at the blood on the floor. “I’m so so sorry!” I apologized quickly. “Oh god I’m so sorry I totally did NOT mean to do that, I was punching Hitler see...”
“Shut up!” Morgan shouted at me, and my jaw snapped shut. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he muttered, dabbing at his nose with his wrist.
“Um. Shiloh, if you could take Morgan to the back room and get him cleaned up that would be great, thank you.” I turned over to see Gordon, face expressionless except for a single raised eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if this meant he was amused or disgusted... or maybe it was neither.
“Yes sir,” Shiloh began, moving to grasp Morgan’s arm, but he jerked out of her reach.
“I can get it myself,” he growled, then stood up, wiping his still-bleeding nose on the back of his hand. I expected her to just back off and let him go, but she got up, grabbed his arm and began to drag him. He protested loudly (“Let me go! Get off, I can take care of myself!”) but she didn’t pay any attention. I couldn’t help but smiling a little, except it was kind of the wrong time because Morgan happened to look back at just that moment, and the death glare he sent me was frankly terrifying. The smile quickly disappeared and he bit his lip, sniffled a little, and then was dragged from the room.
I quickly turned to Gordon. “I didn’t mean to!” I said quickly. “Like I said, I was just punching Hitler in the face!”
“Hitler?” I glanced across the room, and saw the tall man whose life I had saved during the dragon attack.
“You’re alive!” The words burst from my mouth before I could put a filter on them and think of something less idiotic to say. I immediately winced and began attempting to backtrack, something I am not generally very good at. “Uh, what I meant was, well I mean I know you’re alive but you’re alive alive, you know? You got better, there was no real lasting damage I’m really sorry of course you’re alive what was the question again?”
“How... Why were you punching Hitler in the face?”
“Well... it’s a long story. The short version is my mother and I were Amazon assassins slash thieves hired to paint Hitler and his penguin, after the crab pointed at something and my mother shot it with a shotgun also I was three years old.” The man just blinked at me. “It was a very complicated dream,” I said quickly.
“Oh.”
“So, um, the moral of the story is I didn’t mean to punch Morgan, really I didn’t, and is he going to be okay?”
Gordon shrugged at me, and then burst into chuckles at my expression, which had suddenly become very alarmed. “He’ll be fine,” he reassured me. “He really needs a good punch in the face every now and again. It could be so much worse-it HAS been so much worse before. I wouldn’t really worry about it.”
“Okay.” I exhaled heavily. “That’s a relief.”
“The real question, of course, is are you okay?”
I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow at him. “Uhm... am I not supposed to be okay? I feel fine.”
“Do you know who you are?”
“Finn Ireland, twenty-five, first year med student. You already asked me that, twice.”
“And you remember who I am?”
“Henry Gordon, over a thousand years old, saved me when I was three years old from a multi-legged sea monster that almost killed me.”
“Oh damn,” he muttered. He rubbed his forehead, and then yanked at his hair.
“What?” I demanded. “What?”
“It didn’t work,” the other man said.
“Thank you, Lucky,” Gordon snapped. “If I need any other blatantly obvious things to be said, I’ll turn to you.” Lucky-the man I’d saved-looked down at his feet, pressing his lips together.
“What?” I asked, looking from Lucky to Gordon. “What didn’t work?”
“We, uh... You remember when we... discussed what happened next?”
“You grabbed my arm and did something with a syringe, shot me up full of something. What’s going on, Gordon?”
“And, and all you remember is that?” He was rubbing his first finger with his thumb, the sound of taut skin making a snap like a rubber band breaking.
“Well, then I had a dream about being in Hell for a bad hair day and Jimmy Page was there with Hitler and then I woke up.”
He seemed to perk up at my mention of Hitler. “This is the dream with your mother assassinating Hitler?”
“No, I woke up to Morgan in my face. He asked a couple questions about stuff I’d already answered, and then I said his name and he shot me up with something again. And THEN I had the dream about assassinating Hitler.” Gordon’s shoulders had slumped and Lucky was back to biting his lip. “Why?” I asked. “What happened? What did you shoot me up with?”
“It was a combination sedative and memory alteration drug. Because we can’t have you knowing who we are and what we do.” Gordon put his face into his hands.
I blinked. “Then why did you tell me?” I demanded. “Why not just tranq me up, wipe my memory and dump me off before we even GOT here?”
“Because I thought you deserved to know,” he said. “Because you recognized me. Because we had to figure out why you know my name.”
“Okay. So. After you wiped my memory the first time, I was supposed to forget everything?”
“That is corrected.” Gordon winced as if he knew what was coming next.
“So why do I remember everything? I mean, you tried to do it twice.”
“Three times, actually. We attempted to do it when you were three years old, too. We figured that the traumatic situation coupled with you seeing me overrode the wipe and caused you to remember it again.”
“But I didn’t. I never forgot.”
“No.”
“From what we can tell,” Lucky cut in, “you have some kind of allergy to the memory alteration drug. It causes you to convulse and, uh... do you always have such strange dreams?”
I shrugged. “Pretty much,” I said. “It’s kind of a normal thing.”
“Okay. SO. Uh... you have an allergy to the drug that causes you to, uh, convulse violently as far as we can tell, though that could just be a reaction to the dragon venom?” He turned to Gordon, sticking his tongue out a little bit. He raised an eyebrow at Gordon, who was shaking his head.
“Shiloh said she checked her blood for any traces of the venom,” he said, “and the levels were nearly nonexistent.”
Lucky sighed. “Then there’s no way we can wipe her memory without attempting dangerous invasive surgery.”
“Is there any one who’d miss her?” Morgan had reentered the room, any trace of the nosebleed gone except for the reddish raw around his nose.
“Now that’s not very nice,” Shiloh said.
Morgan shrugged. “It’s a legitimate question.”
“Well?” Gordon turned to me and my jaw dropped. “Answer the question. Do you?”
“I... I.. uh... Yeah! Parents! I’ve got parents. And a sister! And, and... Outstanding student debts that need to be paid. So. The student debt companies. And my job! Because no one else covers the night shift at Jiffy Burgers like I do. And, um... yeah, lots of people will miss me!” I licked my lips nervously. Morgan just looked bored with every word I said, raising one eyebrow slowly as I finished.
“Well, they’ll find a way to cope I suppose,” he said, and my heart sped up into double time, my fingers going numb. “Because as far as I can see, you have no real redeeming value.”
My jaw was practically on the floor by now. “But, but, but...” I stuttered, and tears were forming in my eyes, making Morgan a giant, shimmering, flesh-colored blob, the red nose blinking at me as I tried so hard not to cry. I know, pathetic of me, but come on. THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT KILLING ME! Which... really, I’ll come clean with you, I AMM TERRIFIED FO DYING. I don’t know why. I just am. “But I saved him-“
“And nearly got yourself killed in the process,” he snapped back. “Stupidity is not well-paid around here.”
“Actually,” Gordon said with a small grin on his face, “I believe she nearly got us ALL killed!”
I whirled on him. “WHY ARE YOU HELPING?” I demanded at the top of my lungs. “YOU SAID I HAD REDEEMING QUALITIES EARLIER.”
“Actually, uh, I’m really grateful-“
“Lucky, shut up,” Morgan growled, and the excessively tall man looked at his feet, his ears turning red with embarrassment and shame.
“Uh, my teachers say I’m promising, uh...” My voice cracked as I struggled for words and I stopped, which was sort of a dumb idea because it gave Morgan more time to abuse the hell out of me.
“Oh. Well then. Excuse me for suggesting anything. You’re PROMISING. I’m sorry, I didn’t know!”
“And, um... I don’t know, I just don’t want to die!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, pounding my fist on the edge of the gurney. I then winced, shaking my hand out because metal on bone. OW. “I... I don’t know, I guess telling you I wouldn’t tell anyone wouldn’t make much difference, but please please please don’t fuck with my head, please because you have to be awake for that and I get claustrophobic at the DENTIST, much less during BRAIN SURGERY!”
And then I burst into tears because the only surgery I could not watch was brain surgery, because they told me to talk to the patient but I could see them probing IN HIS BRAIN so I had a panic attack and the patient ended up trying to comfort me and it was just bad and I swore to never be a brain surgeon ever. So the thought of the probes in MY BRAIN... I started crying. And then hyperventilating. Shiloh was at my side in a second, telling me to lie down, that it would be okay, that I needed to calm down and breathe. Gordon was shouting at Morgan, words I couldn’t make out, and Lucky was looking on awkwardly and then apparently Shiloh decided it would be a good idea to just knock me out.
My dream that time was really boring. My mother and I were drinking tea and she was droning on about crack cocaine addicts in Chicago and then she got up to get more cookies and suddenly I heard Gordon’s voice. “We’re keeping her.” It sounded like a roll of thunder, or Zeus or something like that. It sounded big. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times but didn’t move, choosing instead to just lay there and eavesdrop.
There wasn’t much to hear, at first. There was a sort of stunned silence, and then, of course, Morgan started talking. Or rather, he said words. “You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Gordon...” I heard him sigh. “We cannot keep her. She’s a liability, she’s a distraction, she’s a-“
“Human?” It was Shiloh’s voice, and the room fell back into an awkward silence. You could practically cut the tension with a knife.
“I didn’t say that,” Morgan finally growled.
“OH, but you were going to, weren’t you?” snapped Shiloh. “You are so ridiculous, Morgan, if you can’t get over your prejudice to follow orders.”
“Shiloh, this is not the time,” Gordon began, and then there was the crack of someone’s palm across another person’s face. “MORGAN-“ Gordon yelled, and I listened for the whimpered gasp of whoever Morgan had slapped-I suspected Shiloh-but instead, there was another slap. “DAMMIT, SHILOH!” Gordon roared. “BOTH OF YOU, STOP. WHAT ARE WE, CHILDREN? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.” The silence was stunned again. I was almost shaking. Okay, lies. I was shaking. But I’m a big fat chicken. So. It’s no real surprise. But. Yeah. Um. It was awkward. And tense. And just... you know. Generally bad. Gordon broke the silence again, his voice sounding vaguely strained, like he was resisting slapping both of them. “She will stay. There’s no where she can go now. We have to keep her here until we know the dragon venom is totally and completely out of her system, and that could take weeks. And if we can’t wipe her memory, who’s to say she won’t have some kind of dream about what happened and talk about it in her sleep?”
“Actually, from what I’ve heard, that would be a normal dream for her,” Lucky cut in.
“Shut up, Lucky,” all three said simultaneously. I bit my lip to keep from protesting the abuse.
“Boss,” Morgan said, exhaling heavily. “We can’t just keep her here. She’s a liability, like I said. I doubt she’d be willing to carry a gun, much less some of the weapons we have. She’s weak, she can die-“
“You can die too!” I said as I turned over, scowling at Morgan because I was more than a little irritated with him. “And anyway,” I continued, swinging my legs off the edge of the gurney, “just because I’m going to be a doctor, it doesn’t mean I can’t handle a gun. Because I can. You have to learn for EMT classes, I don’t know why and yeah, it made me cry a little bit, but that’s just because I don’t really like loud noises and as we all know, gun MAKE loud noises. But after I had a small to medium sized panic attack, I actually managed to hold the gun kind of steady and once I actually hit the target. So THERE, you pompous ass!” I moved forward to hit him or maybe push him a little bit, but then the support I got from my hand holding me up was gone, and my legs fell out from underneath me. I arched my head back, for reasons unknown, and smacked it against the metal bar on the gurney. Metal is stronger than skulls, generally speaking, and brains do not take well to severe trauma (or any trauma, really.) They tend to just sort of shut down function if you introduce them to too much trauma, out of protest I guess. I don’t know. Brains freak me out to be quite honest. It’s like a tiny alien in your head. You don’t really need to worry about mind control, BECAUSE YOUR MIND IS ALREADY CONTROLLING YOU. Go. Tell your friends. Brains are freaky.
Anyway. So. Trauma. To the head. Means I was out like a light. Again. For the fourth... third... aw hell if I know. The only thing I do know is that I was collecting a lot of sleep time that wasn’t going to count, because I have learned, though experience mainly, that unconsciousness does not equal good sleep. You don’t wake up after a head injury and go, “Ooo, I feel well-rested, let’s go take on the day!” No. Mostly you wake up groggy, with the worst fucking headache of your life, and you open your eyes for like point five second before realizing that holy SHIT, those lights are blinding. Literally. Your vision goes BLACK and as much as you want to say “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!”, the only words that come out of your mouth are “What happened?” or “Where am I?”, which sounds like a stupid question, but you have to remember your first comment that you actually never said: “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!” And therefore you can’t see where you are. Except you never say that. No one does when they wake up.
Except for me, apparently. Because the first thing out of my mouth actually was “HOLY FUCK I’M BLIND!” Screamed. Loudly. It was bad. Because it startled whoever was with me (who I clearly couldn’t see at the time,) and they started screaming, which startled me even more than waking up totally blind did, so I started screaming and there was a lot of screaming and then there was a very authoritative voice I recognized as Gordon’s.
“What in HELL’S NAME is going on here?” he demanded. All the screaming instantly stopped, replaced by heavy breathing as I fought to control oxygen flow to my brain.
“She, she, she she she she...” someone else stuttered. I realized then that it was Lucky.
“She what, Lucky?” Morgan snapped.
“She woke up and she was yelling about being blind or something. It startled me, I didn’t know she was awake so I stared screaming and she screamed which scared me even more so I kept screaming and then you came in, and uh... here we are now.”
There was a pause as the whole story was processed. And then: “She’s BLIND?!” There was a hurry of feet as they all raced over to me.
“Finn?” Gordon’s voice came from somewhere above my head. “Finn, can you hear me?” I nodded, still too stunned to speak real words. “Can you talk?”
“Of course she can, you heard her screaming before we came in!”
“Shut up, Morgan. Finn. Can you talk to me? Can you answer?” I nodded again, because occasionally I am an idiot. “Can you actually speak, so I know nodding isn’t just another reaction?”
“Oh! Yeah, sorry I... I didn’t know, my brain kind of died and I have like the shittiest headache of my life am I still alive am I talking too much, I never know the names of the presidents but my name’s Finn Ireland, I’m twenty-five that’s half-way to fifty you know so I’m not really as young as I look, kinda like you, right, huh?”
“Okay. Verbal function is fine.” There was a snort from somewhere near my elbow. “What about memory? Do you remember who I am?”
“Henry Gordon, over a thousand years old-“ I began, using the same summarization as I had the last time he asked me that question.
“Oh damn,” muttered Morgan, who was definitely near my left elbow or thereabouts.
“Hush, Morgan.” Shiloh was closer to my head, on my left side as well.
“What about motor function?” Gordon continued, ignoring the two squabbling people on his... it must have been his left, because he was standing at my head and was therefore facing the same way as me and THEREFORE had the same left and right as I did. Or something. I’ve always been really bad at left and right. “Can you move your fingers, Finn?” I did, still clearly too out of it to really do anything beyond what I was ordered to do. “Okay. What about toes?” Toes were moved. “Okay, can you bend your knees?” Knees were bent. “Elbows?” Elbows. “Okay. Can you lift your head and turn it to either side?” I did, wincing as my neck cracked. “Okay, can you open your eyes?” I whimpered at the thought, because it had HURT the first time, but slowly one eyelid peeled open and then the other. I blinked a couple times and then realized I wasn’t really blind after all, and that the now purple blob clouding my vision was slowly disappearing. I stared straight up until it was completely gone, and then blinked a couple more times. Gordon smiled at me, somehow aware I could see again. I smiled back.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Welcome where?” I asked, because it was kind of a weird thing to say.
“Welcome to the Team,” he replied.