TDS (act 1, chapter 3)
CHAPTER THREE: i’ve leaned on me for years, now you can lean on me
Traveling to the base was exactly how Adam would have expected to travel to a top-secret military facility. A soldier with a blank expression met him at LAX, ran a handheld scanner over him before escorting him through all the safety checks, sat next to him on the commercial airline, and passed him on to another soldier after they landed. A short ride in a black car, then a helicopter, two more cars, and finally a jeep that trundled him across a stretch of dry grassland. He had absolutely no idea where he was, or even if he was still in the United States - which was probably the point.
The first checkpoint looked like a regular border station. A couple of miles past it, the jeep went off the road. Being bounced around was hardly comfortable, but Adam was still lulled into a semi-doze by the unchanging scenery. He blinked awake to find them stopped, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There was a faint humming sound. Adam looked up and saw the driver talking to somebody wearing a loose full-body suit that covered her completely. The weather was uncomfortably warm even with Adam's short-sleeved shirt and jeans; he didn't envy the soldier in the suit. She walked a circle around the jeep, consulted something in her hand that beeped a lot, and waved them on.
Adam must have dozed again, because when he next looked up, they were at the base. The long length of chain link fence seemed to go on forever. The jeep went through a gate guarded by a pair of soldiers and made its way into a spacious compound ringed by six low buildings. He could see lines of soldiers marching in the distance.
Captain Harkness was there to greet him, and he smiled widely when he saw Adam. "Mr. Lambert! How was the journey?"
"A little on the long side, but not bad, thanks," replied Adam dryly, and shook the hand that the Captain offered to him. "How are you?"
"Same old, same old," said Captain Harkness breezily. "Let me take you to where you'll be staying, and then a tour of the place. Well, the parts of it that you're allowed to go to, anyway."
"Actually, I'd prefer to see Tommy first," said Adam, affecting the same easy tone.
Captain Harkness did not appear surprised by the request. "Of course. I had a feeling you would - I'll take you to his room right now."
Adam adjusted his backpack and followed Captain Harkness into one of the buildings. Wide corridor, low ceilings, and a row of identical-looking metal doors along the walls, with numbers stamped above the doorframe. Some doors had keypads next to them, others had white square panels on the walls; a few had neither. The rounded a corner and entered a door that slid open at their approach. This new wing looked a little different, dimmer and with narrower corridors, and people with clipboards darted between doors. Adam lost track of the number of turns and doors they took, though at one point the door slid open with a hiss of compressed air, and the other side smelled strongly of antiseptic.
Finally, they were standing in front of a wide window, floor-to-ceiling glass, looking into what appeared to be a small bedroom. On the bed, looking thinner and paler amidst the stark whiteness of his environs, lay Tommy.
“He’s been in there since he arrived,” said Captain Harkness quietly. “We offer him six hours of outdoor time every day, and we don’t lock his door - he’s allowed to walk around this wing if he wants, we’ve got a tag on him tracking his movements and his vitals. He just… doesn’t. He talks to people when they go in, answers questions, eats his meals. He just doesn’t want to go out.”
That sounded a lot like Tommy on a normal day, Adam thought ruefully. “Can I?” he gestured at the door. Captain Harkness nodded.
Tommy glanced at the door when it slid open, and jerked up to a sitting position when he saw Adam. “What- what are you-“
Adam closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides and pulled Tommy up into a full-body hug. “Captain Harkness,” asked me to come, except everything they said was being recorded, and when did he start shaking? “he said you’re getting worse and maybe I could help.”
“Jack says a lot of things,” muttered Tommy, but his arms around Adam were tight as a vise, his face buried in Adam’s chest. “I thought…“
“What, baby?” whispered Adam, when Tommy didn’t continue. It felt so good to be touching Tommy, to see with his own eyes that he was okay.
“Nothing.” Tommy shook his head, hair tickling Adam’s nose. “I think a lot of shit. My brain… it’s a crazy place right now.”
“He seems okay,” said Adam, later, after Captain Harkness deposited him in the room he’d been given. He’s fairly sure that all the walls were actual walls and he didn’t have his own adjoining observation chamber, but Tommy’s room had looked like a regular room from the inside, too. Actually the two rooms looked identical, including a tiny closet and a television screen built into the wall.
“Wait for a few hours,” said the Captain, his tone ominous. He handed Adam a small, black watch. “You need to wear this while you are here. It lets us know where you are at all times, make sure you don’t wander into any places you’re not supposed to be in, that kind of thing. I can also page you on it, and I’ve programmed it so that alerts concerning Tommy get to you too.”
“Thanks.” Adam put it on. The Captain gave him a small rough map of the base and directions to the cafeteria before leaving, but in the end Adam laid down on the thin, tiny bed and stared up at the ceiling. He hadn’t brought a lot of stuff in case they were taken off him, and indeed the Captain had hinted that it would be preferable for him to wear the bland blue jumpsuit hanging in the otherwise empty closet.
What the fuck am I doing here? came the thought that he’d been avoiding ever since he got on that first flight to here. He had work, a career, fucking responsibilities that he couldn’t afford to neglect. It was insane to come here, even more so to stay for the duration of Tommy’s time. He’d had to do some fast-talking to get Lane to agree, throwing in the need for a vacation; he still wasn’t sure how it had worked.
But... a friend needed him. Tommy needed him. He would have done the same for any of his friends, but Tommy... Too easily, he remembered being back in Wales, in Cardiff, stumbling through the fog, the rest of the world lost to the grey and damp. Calling Tommy’s name, the fog tasting of fear, never mind that he was lost himself - he just had to find Tommy…
He jerked up at a beeping sound. It was coming from his wrist: the watch-like thing that Jack had given him. He blinked at it. The time on the display showed that two hours had passed - he must have dozed off. He realized that the beeping was an incoming message. He considered the buttons arranged around the edge and pressed the biggest one. The message flashed on the display: AL TO TR RM J31. A quick glance at the map showed that J31 was probably Tommy’s room number. Adam quickly changed into the jumpsuit and headed out. Even with the map, he had to ask for directions twice, and once accidentally walked into a dusty room that looked like a graveyard for medical equipment. He noticed that most of the people in the building wore scrubs or white lab coats, and there were relatively few soldiers. The red berets made the latter very distinctive; Adam wondered if that was a good idea for a uniform, if what you did for a living involved being shot at.
When he finally reached Tommy’s observation chamber, he saw that there was a beautiful woman standing next to Captain Harkness. She was wearing a labcoat and holding a clipboard.
“Ah,” said the Captain. “Mr. Lambert, this is Doctor Martha Jones. Martha, this is Adam Lambert, Tommy’s friend and colleague.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Adam automatically, extending his hand.
Doctor Jones smiled warmly at him. Her grip was solid and sure. “Please, call me Martha.”
“Adam. Are you the specialist that Captain Harkness has been talking about?”
“Yes. I would have met you earlier, but I wanted to give you time to settle in a bit.” She nodded towards the observation window. “I believe you haven’t observed Tommy during his sleep phase, yet?”
“Um, no.” He followed Martha to stand near the glass. She reached out, and to his surprise, several computer displays materialized in mid-air, projections. She dragged the displays - or windows, that’s what they made Adam think of - around until she was happy with them, and typed on a keyboard that automatically appeared under her fingers. This definitely felt like it was fresh out of a hi-tech science fiction movie. Three windows showed a live close-up of Tommy from different angles, two showed vital signs and a bunch of fluctuating graphs, and two more streamed numbers and blinking symbols that Adam didn’t understand.
Nothing happened, at first. Tommy appeared asleep, and the graphs either remained steady or followed regular, recurring patterns. Adam expected to feel bored, or at least restless - he was never the type to stand still for long periods of time - but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the window, from the screens, watching as intently as the Captain and the doctor were.
And then one of the graphs spiked. Another one stuttered in its rhythm. The changes seemed to spread over the windows, some discreet and others beeping and flashing urgently. Then Tommy started jerking, limbs flailing about. His mouth opened and closed, jaw working, like he was speaking, only no sound came out. It didn't seem like a normal convulsion, with spasms or random bursts of movement, but like parts of his body were all trying to do different things, a confused jumble of physical activity; but barely any sound could be heard, and his breathing remained distinctly even, regular.
Shit.
“Nightmares,” said Martha. Adam blinked and stepped back from the observation window. There were perfect imprints of his hands on the glass. “But he always says he can’t remember them, once he’s able to talk.”
Tommy’s seizing lessened gradually, until he gave one last twitch and his whole body flopped limply back on the bed. The monitors calmed down. That’s it. Then Adam realized Tommy’s eyes were open. Blank and staring.
His feet took him inside the room without any further thought. No one stopped him, and the doors opened at his approach. Tommy’s head turned to look at him.
“Hey,” Adam said gently, sitting down on the side of the bed. “It’s me. I’ll be here, okay? Tommy, I don’t know if that’s you, or you’re in there somewhere, but I’m right here.”
No, the strange, alien face wasn’t as blank as he thought. Or maybe Adam had seen him enough times to be able to tell. Easier to think of him as a different person. But he could detect a note of relief on that familiar-but-not face.
It was easy to forget about the watching eyes, both human and electronic, beyond the illusionary wall. There was just enough space for him on the bed, and it wasn’t that uncomfortable after all, not with Tommy’s body tucked safely against him.
He expected Martha, at least, to comment, but her eyes were gentle and understanding when she came into the room the following morning. Tommy was awake, Adam knew, but neither of them moved. He warmed to her even more when she didn’t bother asking him to step outside, instead leaning casually against the closet and smiling at them.
“He recognized you when you came in,” she said. “He’s never looked at anyone during his blank state, not even when we try to get his attention. And normally he doesn’t come out of it until noon, so he’s definitely recovered faster.”
Adam’s head was a jumble of thoughts, but what came out was, “He’s harmless.”
Martha cocked her head. “What d’you mean?”
“Whatever happens to him when he… goes away, whoever or whatever it is that takes his place… it’s harmless.” Adam swallowed. The suspicions that had sprouted in his brain the moment Captain Harkness mentioned military base, had maybe lain in wait since the eerie fog over Cardiff, were too fragile yet to be given voice. But they taunted him with their absurdity and possibility. “I think… I think, whatever it is, it’s lost.”
There was clear surprise on Martha’s face. She gazed at him more intently. “You’ve been here less than 24 hours, with no working knowledge of… our work. But you understand. That’s kind of amazing.”
“I want to help,” said Adam quietly. “In any way I can.”
“I know.” She patted his leg. “I wanted to tell you, you already are, just by being here.”
Adam knew he should explore the base; he usually felt the need to familiarize himself with his environment and meet as many people as possible. But he disliked being away from Tommy. At least his friend would come out and eat in the public cafeteria, and took walks outside, if Adam was with him. On the second night, Adam found his things neatly placed in Tommy’s room, and that was that.
"Captain?"
"Yeah?"
"What happened to him?”
He expected Captain Harkness to blow him off, could already see the words lining up behind that handsome face. But the Captain hesitated, and gazed at Adam intently. Adam didn’t look away. "How far do you want to take this, Adam?"
The answer was easy. "As far as it goes, Captain."
Harkness nodded, face thoughtful. There was a beep from his pocket, and he pulled out his cell phone. Whatever he read on it relaxed some of the tightness in his features. “Good. Because now it’s going to get a damn lot weirder.”
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