secret hospital - part 7

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in on Wednesdays for a new installment.

TOP SECRET//CATA-9//ORCON//NOFORN//NOGOV//100X2

Eyes only. Handle via CATA-9 channels only.

Wonderland – Red Cell 1

Dr. Harriman Seldon Poole

Patient code-named Red Queen

07/17/09 9:33 am

Dr. P: Tell me about school.

RQ: School?

Dr. P: Yes, when you were, say, a teen. I understand you went to a high school in New York?

RQ: Yes...( 3 second delay)

Dr. P: Something wrong?

RQ: Dr. Forrester never asked me about school.

Dr. P: Didn't he? What did he ask about?

RQ: He wanted to know about my childhood.

Dr. P: Do you want to talk about that?

RQ: No!

Dr. P: Then why don't you tell me about school?

RQ: I don't know.

Dr. P: Did you get along with the other children?

RQ: (4 second delay) I guess.

Dr. P:I think you had a hard time adjusting. A Palestinian girl. (2 second delay) The Jewish kids didn't like you, did they?

RQ: You went to school to get insight like that?

Dr. P: You're not giving me much to work with. But you're right, I'm not exerting myself. But I think there's more to it. Your teachers were kind to you, yes? Students, well, children can be the cruelest of all. One reason why my wife and I have a dog instead of children. In any case, I would be surprised if nothing happened.

RQ: Nothing happened.

Dr. P: No?

RQ: No.

Dr. P: When I was in school, I always buried my head in a book. Naturally, I got picked on. Then I found a place to hide during recess, which didn't help me get out of my shell. My parents, of course, were worried that I'd become some stunted fellow with no social skills. But by the end of my first year in college, I'd gotten over it. There was nothing really, to my childhood. But you see, I wasn't...

RQ: Special? That's a word Dr. Forrester used. He used it a lot. I hate that word. Special.

Dr. P: I was going to say I wasn't looking to stand out. But it's interesting you brought up the word special. You don't think you're special? Do you remember what I told earlier?

RQ: I...( 5 second delay)

Dr. P: There was an incident at school.

RQ: Don't want to talk about it.

Dr. P: According to the reports

RQ: Don't want to talk about it!

Dr. P :A young boy by the name of Timothy Palin called you a...

RQ: Shut up! Shut up!

Dr. P: A filthy arab.

RQ: No...

Dr. P: A filthy arab, it said in the report.

RQ: Shut up...

Dr. P: And you pushed him.

RQ: Please, I don't want to...

Dr. P: You do know why you're in here, right?

RQ: What?

Dr. P: Why you're in here? These walls, I'm told, are the only things capable of keeping you in.

RQ: I...(2 second delay) What?

Dr. P: I don't think that's true. But back to Timothy. You pushed him. A small tap, really.

RQ: No, please.

Dr. P: You broke his collarbone.

RQ: No. Yes.

Dr. P: It was just a tap.

RQ: Just a tap. I didn't mean to.

Dr. P: They believe these walls can keep you in. In fact, that's what they want you to believe.

RQ: Want me to...believe?

Dr. P: That's right. What can I do to earn your trust? Are you ready to fall into my arms? That little trust-building exercise?

RQ: I...I'm confused.

Dr. P: I know. I'm sorry. But sometimes one has to cut the skin to reach the heart. You broke Timothy's collarbone, and then the kids really hated you. The hate that comes from fear.

RQ: I don't want to talk anymore. Go away. Go away!

Dr. P: All right. We'll take a break. Can I bring you anything when I return? Sweets, perhaps?

RQ: No.

Dr. P: As you like.

RQ: Wait...

Dr. P: Yes?

RQ: Gummi bears.

Dr. P: Gummi bears?

RQ: I like gummi bears.

the ladder - synapse city (part 5)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment!

A squawk on the radio, cryptic nonsense words lost in static.

“I think that means we’ve been spotted,” the Equation says.

“I’ve got it covered,” the Engine says, stopping the Slicer nose-to-nose with a beat-up dumpster that looks like it hasn’t been emptied for months. One look at the Effect and she nods her understanding. She unbuckles her seatbelt, grabs a small black knap-sack, and exits the car into the lightless gloom of the alleys. The Equation’s face bends into a tight smile, but he keeps fiddling with the console.

“Delphi analyzed radio and sensor data. There are 37 cops deployed on foot, roadblocks on every street around Lumen’s lab, and 1 helicopter.”

“My kind of odds.”

The Engine, with a flashy white grin, pushes a small black button on the dashboard. The Slicer’s black exteriors gradually turns to rust and peeled silver paint; a classic jaunt turned wrecked jalopy. While the Slicer undergoes its urban camouflage, the scientist studies data readouts on the screen, schematics, plans. He thinks of the strategy behind the show of force. Police Commissioner Evelyn Grant Warren must have deliberately started the chess game. The prize: answer to the disappearance of Synapse City’s foremost metafictional physicist. And power. Always power. Because Dr. Artemus Lumen, whom the Equation studied with at the Synapse City University, studies phenomena that can alter the very fabric of reality. The Equation is, perhaps, the only to truly understand Dr. Lumen’s work. But to people like Commissioner Warren and her pet mobsters, like Boss Marcone, what counts are the results. So: a massive show of force to draw out the Equilibrium Trio. Possible scenario 1: create enough holes in the net to let the Trio into Dr. Lumen’s lab, find what everyone is looking for, then close the holes and set the trap. Possible scenario 2: blockade the lab and hold it hostage to force the Trio into some kind of action.

Or maybe the Equation doesn’t have enough to properly theorize. The only solution is to wait for the Effect to do what she does best: discover information that people don’t want discovered. Thus: scientist and commando wait in the camouflaged car, eyes open for movement against them, eager to move into action.

the ladder - synapse city (part 4)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment. Better yet, subscribe by eMail to ink [and] ashes and get The Ladder delivered fresh to your inbox!

Note: I will post an organized list of links to all episodes of The Ladder to date next week so you can revisit episodes you may have missed or catch up if you're new to the series. As always, I appreciate your feedback and comments.

Though the Equation knows something about Dr. Lumen’s work he doesn’t elaborate, citing instead the need to gather confirming evidence. His partners, frustrated but accustomed to the Equation’s caution, leave him poring over the holographic display with a notepad in hand. Yawning, The Effect takes to the kitchen, raiding the fridge for a bottle of Chardonnay, and heads off to her sleeping quarters to read a science-fiction novel before going to bed. The Engine works out for an hour, lifting weights that would make most men squirm, then settles on the red leather sofa in front of the large flat-screen television. He doesn’t tune in, however, choosing instead to slip on earphones connected to a portable CD player. French lessons.

Shortly after midnight, however, an announcement on the police scanner catches Delphi’s attention. The hypercomputer promptly notifies the Equation, who sits at a console analyzing data from Dr. Lumen’s information map.

The radio, with a scratchy woman’s voice: “All units converge to 221B Cooke Street. Possible break-in in progress. Over.”

Various police patrol cars check in. The Equation, thunderstruck, hits the alarm button and the Equilibrium Trio’s headquarters fills with the two tones – one bass, one high – of the emergency call to action.

“What’s going on, doc?” says the Engine, who wakes up from his improvised nap on the couch like a panther ready to pounce.

“I’d like to know too,” says the Effect, who has traded her dress for black jeans and a turtleneck. “And thank goodness that chard tasted terrible.”

“Gear up and I’ll explain on the way,” says the Equation, already headed to the equipment lockers.

The Slicer cuts through the city night, a black phantom automobile that people only seem to register in their peripheral vision. Synapse City is asleep, but with one eye open. Characters lurk in the shadows.

“Cooke Street…that’s Dr. Lumen’s lab.”

The Equation looks at the Effect and nods his head. “Without the disc, they’re getting desperate. Dr. Lumen didn’t leave any hint of his whereabouts…we know that much. Either they learned something new, or”

“It’s a trap,” the Engine says, gritting his teeth as he takes the Slicer around a tight turn.

“Probability favours that scenario, yes.”

“So what’s the plan?”

The Engine offers another question: “What was Dr. Lumen working on?”

“That map,” says the Equation, “contains all known metafictions. He was sorting them, looking for something…but what…I don’t have enough information yet.”

A sudden deceleration sends them into their seats. The Engine reverses gear, backs up, then puts the gear in forward as he drives the Slicer down an alleyway. The radio scanner goes crazy with traffic; roadblocks, helicopters, the thin blue line gotten a whole lot thicker.

“There are more cops here than cavities on children’s teeth after Halloween,” the Engine says.

“Quite,” says the scientist. “But we may have to risk it. If we’ve missed something, if there is some clue as to where Dr. Lumen has gone, we have to take it. The consequences otherwise…”

“Speculate?” says the Effect.

“Dr. Lumen was, of course, known for his work on teleportation,” the Equation says. “A breakthrough, combined with the metafictional map…”

“You mean…”

The Equation nods his head again before turning his attention to the computer console. “A breakdown of barriers.”

the ladder - synapse city (part 3)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

Headquarters; in a derelict industrial park of broken-down verses, rhymes of questionable character, and few residents save for sour-faced workers and visiting truckers. Parked on the street, The Slicer would stand out like a polished gem in gravel. But a quick turn into a small warehouse - off an alleyway and wedged between a shoe polish factory and a shoe - and navigation through carefully arranged shipping containers makes standing out a moot issue. The Engine drives inside a container deep in the maze; hydraulics lower the floor, car and all, to a basement wonderland of technology.

Parking the Slicer in a cradle of battery chargers and computer diagnostics, the Trio emerges from the vehicle grateful to stretch their legs. Through the biometric security door in a heavy steel and glass wall, into the main space divided into key functions: research and library, command and control, armory and equipment, living quarters. It’s retro sci-fi wood, cold steel and glass, but everything is precisely designed and engineered, functional and comfortable. The Engine heads for the armory for the post-mission ritual of checking, recharging, reloading, storing and, if necessary, repairing equipment. The Effect heads for C&C’s rows of monitors, radios, and computers orderly laid out in a semi-circle. The Equation walks to a semi-translucent blue cube standing on its corner atop a sleek steel cabinet of blinking lights and controls that straddles C&C and the research section. This is DELPHI: quantum hypercomputer and non-sentient artificial intelligence.

“Decryption is complete, Doctor,” Delphi says, synthetic voice rich and androgynous.

The Equation smiles, a fish in the water of book stacks, computer terminals, and a pedestal on top of which is a translucent dome surrounded by an array of touch-screen controls. “Best display for the results.”

A three-dimensional image forms in the dome; lines of different thickness and colours, dots both fat and tiny. The display coalesces into a web of connections. Manipulating the controls, the Equation discovers the data set associated with the dots: six digits grouped in threes.

“Nothing on the police scanner,” the Effect says. Gone is the sexy red number; in its place is a comfortable pair of faded black jeans and a white t-shirt strategically emblazoned with the Superman S. “A few muggings, some domestic disturbances, nothing major. Looks like Boss Marcone isn’t making a fuss for his pal.”

“It’s a bit of an embarrassment,” the Equation says with divided attention. “The Police Commissioner doesn’t appreciate trifles.” He frowns.

“What is it?

Still frowning, the Equation makes adjustments, moving dots and lines around the display. “Delphi: confirm origin point.”

“Origin confirmed. Synapse City marked at coordinates zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Recenter display?”

“Please.”

The dots and lines move in a wild frenzy until settling with a large glowing red dot marked “Synapse City (0,0,0,0,0,0)” at the center of the holographic display. Leaning over for a closer look, the Effect studies the beautiful construct.

“Hey, what is that thing?” booms the Engine, joining the Equation and Effect in the research section.

“An information map,” says the Effect. “Right?”

“Yes.” The Equation manipulates the display one more time, zooming in on the Synapse City dot. “Delphi: any other information encoded on the disc?”

“Negative.”

“Can you cross-reference map data with last known locations of Dr. Lumen?”

“Negative. Insufficient information.”

The Engine with an exasperated look on his face: “So, Doc. The trail’s cold?”

“No,” the Equation says. “I think I know what Dr. Lumen was up to, more or less. And that, I believe, can lead us to him.”

the ladder - blueprint (part 5)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

The news was delivered by a tight-lipped doctor whose grim expression conveyed the need for condolences long before he spoke. Mrs. Robertson, already in tears from the agonizing wait, collapsed on the chair as the doctor explained that, for all their efforts, Aaron could not be saved from his overdose. Holding on to his mother, Eriq cried too, feeling an acid mixture of grief and anger churning within. This, then, was his brother’s end, and life was no comic book. Superman was not to be resurrected after dying at the hands of Doomsday. Captain America would not be revealed to have been displaced in time and space after his assassination. There was no Lazarus Pit to bring Aaron back.

Guilt at feeling relief that, at last, it was over was too much to bear. The full impact of realizing that Aaron, good and bad, would not even have the chance of returning to the family became equally suffocating. All Eriq could do was hang on to his mother.

Vlad stifled tears of his own, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and he wondered: where do the Robersons go from here?

the ladder - secret hospital (part 6)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in on Wednesdays for a new installment.

The guards were dressed in a black armored combat uniform developed as part of the Future Combat Missions project. Despite plans to release versions of the Future Force combat uniform to regular infantry troops, only the most elite and secret military units were deployed using the most cutting-edge technologies. Powered exoskeletons; networked, HUD-enabled helmets at the locus of a tactical sensor and communications array capable of providing 360 degree situational awareness; intelligent weapons that interfaced directly with the headgear to provide greater accuracy and synchronize fire with other networked assets; smart armor both lightweight and resistant to bullets and fire – the Red Cell Guard Detachment was the best equipped force to stand watch over the patient code-named Red Queen. They stood motionless, half a dozen faceless menaces, while another dozen both in and out of uniform remained on stand-by in nearby barracks. Only a single khaki-uniformed man, fresh-faced and freckled behind a podium imbedded with security and door controls, showed any visible signs of humanity.

Dr. Poole stepped out of the cell with a faint smile; candlelight in the darkness of stern military discipline. He hummed to himself as he eased his way past the unsmiling Captain and through the corridors.

“You seem pleased with yourself,” said a voice. Lieutenant Jazara Jones; Nurse Jones. She walked alongside him, fresh from her rounds and carrying a clipboard.

“A breakthrough, you might say.”

Maram had, at long last, put some small, delicate measure of trust in him, however hesitant. She let herself fall into his arms, head turned to look over the shoulder as if afraid he would let her fall. When he caught her as promised, she repeated the exercise with eyes closed.

“How did you do it?” said Nurse Jones.

The psychiatrist smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “Apple pie; you gather the ingredients, you roll the dough for the pie crust, then you put it in the oven and take in the warm apple-cinnamon smell. Finally, the pie is ready. All it takes is patience and love.”

Jones looked at him with an expression of such ferocious doubt Dr. Poole felt like prey to a lion. “You sound like a self-help book.” A smile softened the blow. The psychiatrist studied the nurse’s face, not offended by her skepticism but puzzled.

“What made you decide to follow in your mother’s footsteps?” he said. It threw her off; she had been expecting a sharp comeback, some form of reproach.

“I wasn’t going to at first,” she said. “But when you grow up with military families, you see things…”

Jazara had met many veterans, young men and women who were physically or psychology maimed – often both. Most were vets from the first Gulf War. “All good people,” she said, “who needed looking after.”

Dr. Poole could not point to a similar, direct call to compassionate action; a college roommate with early onset schizophrenia, a shell-shocked grandfather who fought in World War II, a drastic case of mental illness in his personal sphere of influence. Yet while completing his residency, he became fascinated by the influence of the mind on pain, a question that led to a fascination with the mind itself. A rotation in the cold, sterile corridors and cells of a psychiatric ward – a world of screams and delusions, of sheer unreason and otherness. Filled, childishly perhaps, with Foucault on one hand and the psychiatric heroes of literature (somehow Abraham Van Helsing counted among these) on other, he felt drawn towards exploring that mysterious of all human frontiers. Exploring – and curing what had once been dismissed as demonic possession.

As they reached his office, it seemed to Dr. Poole as if the nurse had something else in mind.

“Oh, nothing,” she said when he offered her the proverbial penny. “I’m just wondering what she’s like…you know…”

The psychiatrist unlocked the door and switched on the light. He looked at Nurse Jones with an expression of sympathy, like a mall Santa looking at a child asking for something that he or she couldn’t possibly receive.

“There is a reason Red Queen is beyond idle curiosity,” he said.

Whatever reply Jones intended to offer was drowned out by an announcement on the public address system. “Well, I guess I’d better not keep the director waiting.”

Dr. Poole wished her a good afternoon, adding advice in a soft, old voice, “The wisest choice is always easiest in retrospect.”

Before she could ask, Dr. Poole closed the door and her summons to Colonel Di Nova’s office repeated on the loudspeakers.

the ladder - blueprint (part 4)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

A waiting room like all waiting rooms – nondescript, inoffensive, with beach scenes on bleached wall and a vending machine filled, ironically, with candy bars and chips. The corridor bisecting the rows of chairs with worn blue cushions hummed with tight-lipped nurses and sour-faced doctors rushing along with insomniac medical residents, visitors, and the occasional shuffling or rolling patient. When they arrived, the overweight Latina handling phones, computers and impatient visitors like a calm octopus regretfully informed them that they would to wait for news. So they sat. And they waited.

While Mrs. Robertson retreated into quiet suffering, eyes moist but filled with resolve, Eriq sketched furiously on a large pad of paper. Vlad watched as vast scenes of superhero carnage unfolded in jagged black and white linework – caped muscle men and tightly-clothed women against armies of robot with volcanic eyes and the armament of a dozen Abrams tanks.

Waiting.

Mrs. Robertson stood up every so often to ask the receptionist for news, only to be told that the doctors were at work and would come out when ready.

Waiting.

Eriq was more angry than worried, fully expecting Aaron to bounce out of the intensive care like a doped-up tigger. What angered him was knowing that his brother would make yet another resolution to quit, yet another promise to his mother to be a good son, yet another attempt to do his part in healing the family. They’d been through it before, stuck in some hellish cycle of expectations and false hope.

Waiting.

Vladimir Kossakovsky remembered his years in the old Soviet Union, but only as if his memory were fogged in. He was nine when glasnost took hold and, in the euphoric freedom that emerged from a new age’s birth, his parents felt compelled to finally escape to the American Dream instead of suffering through the painful pangs of a transforming county. He had memories of that inimitable Russian stoicism, muted opinions, whispers, and a small candle to hold out against the looming shadow of the KGB. Why he thought of this now, he didn’t know, except perhaps for the fact that he caught a look between Eriq and Mrs. Roberson, a guilty exchange that suggested the familiar spectre of uncertainty.

Waiting.

What kind of mother was she? For a moment – a brief, stabbing moment – Mrs. Robertson wished Aaron would die, picturing him on a hospital bed lifeless and with tubes. Not out of punishment, only to spare him the wasted life of a junky or criminal. Oh dear God, she prayed. Why am thinking that? Of course she didn’t want him dead. She wanted him whole and returned to her. She wanted him living up to his potential. But if he wouldn’t listen to her or his brother or to the doctors – what hope did he have?

Waiting.

Eriq also thought of Aaron’s death – how it would be better for everyone – and the self-loathing bubbled up and burst from his pencil onto the page in the form of grotesque battle scenes. But what love did his brother have for him? When he needed someone older and stronger help fend off the bullies, someone more mature to dispense advice, where was Aaron?

Waiting.

the ladder - synapse city (part 2)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

They call it the Slicer. A Studebaker Phaeton. Black with white wheels, bug-eyed headlamps, heavily modified with an armored chassis and bullet proof glass. It’s more like a sleek cruising tank. The Engine, set to drive, disables the security system and the Trio get in. The Effect rides shotgun – manning the Slicer’s defenses - while the Equation sits in the back at a computer console. A roar, power coiled within the Slicer’s deep rumble. The Engine takes the Slicer to the streets like a pro racer, enjoying the quiet streets.

“Disc, please,” says the Equation.

The Effect reaches into her bra – the Engine chuckles – and pulls out a small square piece of plastic. “Can Delphi work with it?”

“Undoubtedly. I’m uploading now. The question is whether it will lead us to Dr. Lumen.”

Eyes in the rearview mirror, a telling side-glance from the Engine. The Effect opens viewscreens on the dashboard in front of her. She clicks her tongue. “We’ve got a party.”

Behind them, gaining, a forest green speeder, slim and low, with guntoting men hanging out the backseat windows. Assumption: Boss Marcone’s alleyway snipers, after recovering the eyesight overwhelmed by the flashbang, set out to hunt.

Gunshots. Wild starbursts. The Engine grins at the futility. Then he doesn’t. “Uh-oh.”

“A rocket launcher?” says the Effect. She pulls out a control console from beneath the viewscreens. Buttons marked SPIKE, GRAPPLE, and others. A pristine manicured finger aims towards the SPIKE button, but the car suddenly veers right. A parked ice cream truck explodes to their left – fireball and smoky-black cloud. The speeder punches through. Sharp left turn, sharp right. Zig-zag. Whoever drives the speeder is good – better than good. The Engine is as impressed as he is annoyed. Studying her viewscreen, the Effect waits until the speeder is in the best position and pushes the SPIKE button. From below the Slicer, dozens of sharp jacks spill onto the road. The Speeder avoids most of them, but even the driver isn’t good enough to escape them all. A jack, glimmering from the streetlamp, cuts into rubber. The speeder’s left rear tire goes flat. But the driver doesn’t lose control, not enough to go swerving through a glass storefront or into one of the parked cars lining the gritty streets. He does slow down. The Engine savours the victory. Then another car, a boxy green sedan turning right from 31st street, takes up the chase from the speeder.

“Effect…” says the Engine.

“I know, I know,” she says. “But we can’t shoot up the neighbourhood!”

The Equation, meanwhile, looks up, interrupting his work coordinating the data upload with Delphi. Sighing, he reaches below the seat for a small, bulbous pistol. He winds down the window, waits for a break in the bullet hail, sticks his head and arm out. A brief moment to aim and he pulls the trigger. Ever-expanding concentric rings of electric blue energy swallow the pursuers. Electrical wires shorts. Batteries die. Nervous systems become disrupted. The sedan dies, slows to a stop. Thugs fall unconscious likes babies after milk.

“No time for trifles,” the Equation says. “We have bigger problems.”

Pouting, a dog deprived of its favourite chew-toy, the Engine drives sedately. Mumbles. “You could at least install one of those things on the car.”

The Effect smiles - regret or relief? And the Slicer cuts through the heavy summer night air on its way to headquarters.

the ladder - synapse city (part 1)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

Synapse City. Metropolis of mixed metaphors and literary allusions both respectable and dubious. New York density in an LA sprawl. A forest of skyscrapers, jagged skyline like broken teeth. The light is blinding, here, and shadows stick like tar. Fog rolls in like hard liquor and crawls out like a hangover. Everyone can hear you scream. Few people care.

63rd and Motter Avenue. Background noise: car honks and sputtering engines, two hobos arguing over a half-empty bottle of whiskey found in a trashcan, a chain reaction of barking dogs, a man and woman having loud sex like they’re reliving a ‘70s porno. The alley is dark and empty except for a large green dumpster that stinks up the dead-end with week-old food and other filth. Trash from a diner and the building of interest, a five-story brick Georgian that houses the Flowers nightclub. A door, gunmetal grey, in the wall under watch. A bald man standing still against the wall, in a shadowed corner, late thirties, thin, hallowed cheeks and pointed chin. He wears a fitted white leather smock-like jacket, asymmetrical black buttons. Black leather gloves like a second skin. Black pants and heavy-duty boots. Goggles with lenses that glimmer with the red of infrared sight. This is the EQUATION; scientist, inventor, cold-minded but warm-hearted, and de facto leader of the EQUILIBRIUM TRIO. Next to him a man built like construction equipment; tall, muscular, square-jawed and black-haired, dark-skinned, midnight commando garb with bandoliers of flash-bangs and grenades, holsters for various weapons and knives, goggles. This is the ENGINE; martial artist, special ops, expert tactician, and a penchant for playful pyromania.

They watch the door, the alleyway, the sky; everything and anything that might disturb their mission, even when they’re playing the waiting game. If there are stars above, they can’t see them. Synapse City spills light into the sky like a john spills himself into a cheap hooker.

“The metaphor is crass,” the Equation observes.

“But it’s true,” grins the Engine.

And they wait, nerves tense, muscles at the ready. Then a clank as the door handle turns, a mousy squeak as the door opens. The two men prepare for the worse, then relax slightly. It’s a woman. Buxom and curvy, a well-proportioned wet dream. Long wavy brown hair. Red dress. Strappy black stilettos with lace ribbons wrapping her calves. Face like a porcelain doll, soft, no edges, innocent, flashing green eyes, perfect makeup of rouge lips and kohl eyes. She looks around, sees the men, sighs relief.

“I have it,” she says. This is the EFFECT; spy, infiltrator, psychologist, seducer of men, women, and machines. The Equation pulls a pair of goggles from his pocket and quickly tosses it to her; she catches it smoothly and puts them on. Then, around the corner at the alleyway entrance: clicks on concrete sidewalk, footsteps. A tuxedoed figure cuts around the corner – suave, cool, but not flashy or arrogant. A stab of streetlight reveals his hook-nosed, masculine, movie star face. Thick eyebrows above serious brown eyes. Also: the cocking of guns from well-dressed goons at his sides, and more goons from the diner’s low-slung rooftop. This is Vitti “Boss” Marcone, an escapee from a Batman comic who set up his own Roman mob in Synapse City after taking out rival sharks with smaller, blunter teeth. He speaks at a measured tone, loud enough but not too loud. The Trio watch him, their goggles make them look like robots or insect. While the thugs are intimidated, brandishing their Tommy guns with a slight tremble in their hands, Boss Marcone is unfazed.

“I figured someone would make a play,” he says. “I even half-figured it would be you three.” A soft chuckle. “Did you think I wouldn’t plan ahead?”

A brief, subtle hand motion from the Equation; all three flick a button on their goggles while, a split-second later, the Engine presses a button on the remote concealed in his hand. A startling thunderclap and blinding lightning flash. Marcone and his goons put hands to eyes in a futile attempt to rub away the silver stars and blackness. The Engine then moves forward, a flash, and disarms the thugs. A few well-placed palm strikes to the chest, elbows to the jaw, and nerve attacks to pressure points on the neck sends Marcone and his muscle to the ground. The Equation smiles slightly - that alone is a magnificent display of emotion – and steps over the unconscious men out of the alley, the Engine following two steps behind. Hearing a groan emanate from Boss Marcone, the Effect lingers just long enough to crouch down, pat Marcone on the cheek in a gesture more sarcastic than sweet, and say with a smoky, caustic, sex-infused voice, “We plan ahead too, darling.” She pronounces it “dah-ling.” The Engine looks back as the Effect leaves Marcone to his appointment with a future headache, grins again, and repeatedly taps the side of his head with his index finger. “They’re crazy, these Romans.”

the ladder - secret hospital (part 5)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

Dr. James Di Nova – a heavyset man whose mass consisted mostly of muscle, attired with a white smock over his pressed olive Army uniform (rank: colonel), with the stern face of a senator from the days of the Roman Empire.

“I was denied access to the transcripts,” said the EPH director.

His office was a strange oasis in the wonderland maze; walls lined with file drawers and modernist shelves neatly, perhaps obsessively, stacked with psychiatry and medical textbooks as well as books on topics as varied as architecture and paleontology. A flat, uncluttered desk; a glass surface resting on an aluminum support structure. Dr. Poole was suspicious of pristinely organized offices, spaces devoid of personal mementoes, sterilized to be free of humanity. “Knick-knacks,” he was fond of telling students, “are the gateways to the mind.”

But while the Colonel could be commended for bringing a refined aesthetic to his office, especially in comparison to the drab utilitarianism of the Wonderland complex, Dr. Poole nevertheless preferred his own cave. Stacks of books, photographs, manuscripts in various stages of progress – nothing disorganized, but also nothing inhumanely classified and stored. He suspected the Colonel kept a file drawer full of nonsensical objects waiting to be fondled when in the comforting cradle of privacy. Perhaps he even kept a bottle of hard liquor.

“Yes. Classified,” Dr. Poole answered. “But you knew that.”

The Colonel nodded his square-jawed head, furrowing his brow into an expression of disapproval and suppressed irritation. Dr. Poole made a peace offering.

“No breakthroughs yet. Just small talk. It takes time to build trust.”

“I don’t like being shut out, Doctor Poole.” He slightly emphasized “doctor” as if it were an epithet.

Dr. Poole smiled with what he hoped was a reassuring expression. “I understand, and I am happy to keep you informed to the extent I am allowed to. But your facility’s record in treating Maram as an experimental subject has helped neither your military masters’ ambitions nor Maram’s mental health, which is in fact my sole concern at this moment. Surely you’re not surprised, are you?”

“I find it interesting you call her Maram.”

“You think of her as a code name?”

The two men stared at each other across the desolate battlefield of Colonel Di Nova’s desk, but Dr. Poole had no interest in a contest of machismo. Neither, apparently, did the Colonel, who cracked the silence to describe, with succinct detail, the extent of his security clearance. The Experimental Psychiatric Hospital was, after all, more secret than even the Air Force Flight Test Center. Dr. Poole was not unsympathetic, remembering his early days as a military psychiatrist butting heads with government officials over what was then a low security clearance. Sympathy could only go so far, however; Colonel Di Nova was an officer first and a healer second. Conflicting interests.

“The clearance is compartmentalized,” said Dr. Poole. “Surely you know that. I have the highest possible authority on this. The transcripts will remain sealed for everyone but authorized.”

“You answer to the highest authority. Sounds like a Hebrew National advertisement.”

Dr. Poole appreciated that the Colonel had a sense of humour, but he didn’t relent. Neither did the Colonel.

“And who is authorized, if not the goddamn director of this facility?”

“I’m afraid that’s also classified. But I’m sure you could make an educated guess.”

The Colonel turned a lovely shade of apple-red, but said nothing. Dr. Poole, seeing no further use to drag on the conversation, stood to leave. This shook the Colonel from his aggravation.

“What happened to Dr. Forrester? He seems to have vanished. Do you know anything about that?”

“I don’t know anything that would be of help to you, Colonel,” said Dr. Poole. “But while we’re asking questions, what is with this obsession with Alice in Wonderland around here?”

Eyes twinkling but filled with suspicion, Colonel Di Nova said, “You have a better name for this place?”

“How about Fortress of Solitude?”

Dr. Poole laughed softly as the Colonel looked at him, confused. The psychiatrist left the office, navigating the corridors, then the elevator, then the administrative offices on the surface. Once outside, he plucked a cell phone from his jacket pocket and, securing the call through an encrypted line, dialed.

“Delphi. I should have asked for this before, but eMail me a complete background on Colonel Di Nova. Full security, of course.”

On the computer monitor in his office, the Colonel watched as Dr. Poole made the call. Turning up the volume, however, didn’t make his words any clearer. It was if the psychiatrist were talking gibberish or in code. Annoyed, Colonel Di Nova ordered security to send a copy of the video footage for linguistic analysis only to be told, a few hours later, that they had insufficient information to determine what Dr. Poole had said.

no post for "The Ladder" this week

I apologize for the lack of an episode of The Ladder this week but truth be told I kinda forgot. In between things I'm trying to wrap up Chapter 6 of a novel, which is rather critical as it marks the end of the first of three parts. I'll post another entry in the Secret Hospital plotline next week. Promise. I hope.

the ladder - blueprint (part 3)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

The way to the hospital took them through residential neighbourhoods pitting flat-roofed houses and leftover bungalows against sizeable Ficus trees whose thick gnarly roots, pushing up and splitting concrete, wreaked havoc on the sidewalks. Eriq withdrew gloomily into himself, thinking of his brother, then trying not to think of him by cataloguing superheroes with addiction problems. Tony Stark, of course: Iron Man vs the “demon in the bottle.” Or before he was born, though he had many of those old issues, the Green Arrow’s sidekick Roy Harper, aka Speedy - Dennis O’Neal and Neal Adams’ memorable foray into the harrowing realm of heroin addiction. It was no Requiem for a Dream, but for comics it had been pretty intense. But Aaron was no hero. Just some punk with daddy issues. His mother would say the same of him. At least Eriq has his art. Aaron had shown an aptitude for math and science, but came to view it as pointless in light of his friends’ obsession with basketball and vandalism.

Vlad also thought of superheroes, noting that even the movie Hancock staked a claim for itself with an alcoholic superhero. But other than stories of heroics directed against drug dealers and powerful cartels, or the personal drama of overcoming addiction, what more was there to say? What kind of hero could rescue a drug addict from addiction?

Eriq considered a superhero with mind control abilities. Or maybe a superhero who could cure addiction by entering into people’s dreams. Certainly his dad wouldn’t be the hero Aaron needed, and his mother was overwhelmed. A story told thousands of times before – broken homes, devils in small plastic bags, all the usual heartaches. It all sucked. Stupid Aaron. He should know better – look at why Dad ran out.

Vlad didn’t entertain fantasies about a superhero who could rescue Aaron. It struck him as condescending, however much he had to admit it fit the challenge of coming up with a better Superman than Superman. As the trope went, we want to look up to heroes whose moral steadfastness inspires us to greatness. But it needed to be more than that. It needed to be…something. He didn’t know what. His own family background – Russian immigrants to the New World – was relatively free of the stuff of unnatural tragedy. Papa Kossakovsky, an autodidact librarian, and Mama, a housewife who had taken to gardening as a hobby and then a business, were ever-fixed marks that remained firmly unshaken by storm and

In the back seat, Mrs. Robertson stared out the window of Vlad’s venerable Jetta, chewing her lip and unconsciously removing her dark cherry lipstick. No thoughts of implausibly proportioned costumed heroes. No adventures in space or parallel dimensions. No saviour, except for a Jesus Christ who seemed ever more a fading wish. Only memories of a young girl in the community college’s nursing program, the handsome young English major with literary ambitions, an impetuous night in the janitor’s closet making love to the scent of pine-sol and rusty pipes. But forget all that: her baby was in the hospital, overdosed on whatever flavour-of-the-month of poison he’d ingested.

the ladder - blueprint (part 2)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

Vlad’s blue eyes – icy but vivid – were anything but windows to the soul. The writer, who disdained metaphysics as, would have scoffed at the very notion of a soul let alone the idea that a glance into the eyes could reveal character. Eriq disagreed, of course; eyes, he often said, were an artist’s best means of revealing character in the printed page. Vlad would retort that living people weren’t drawings on paper and that “ocular fenestration” was only meaningful in the context of body language. It was one of many arguments they never resolved. But for all of Vlad’s disdain, Eriq could tell his friend was churning with ambition and worry beneath the glacial, haughty expression on his face.

“Superman,” said Vlad, reverently but also with clear distaste.

“Break it down for me.”

Not even Vlad could resist the pull of the Superman mythology or, at least, the idea of a Superman resplendent in his strength and power of flight. The steadfastly good hero all but invulnerable to evil, a desirable mirror image to that of unstoppable malevolence. The powerful saviour of the powerless. Even, of course, with the collateral risks of superpowers, dissected and analyzed countless times in comics and essays, Superman still possessed a kind of irresistible majesty. Vlad, raised on Superman and Batman and all the other icons just as Eriq had been, soaked up the fantastical promise of superheroism while aware that superheroes could just as easily be surrogate gods, harbingers of doom for a dependent humanity, catalysts of profound change. But he hated comics. At least, he hated the storytelling that often made comics little more than soap operas.

“It’s the lack of rules,” he said, animated in the peculiar way that only discussing comics or politics could evoke. “People die, they come back to life. You have magic, and aliens, and science fiction, and all these different genres mashed altogether. The Multiverse? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Just totally fucking kidding. It’s an excuse to do anything at any time. It’s ridiculous. Nothing means anything. Why do all stories have to quote ‘exist’ unquote in the same universe? But that’s not life. Right? That’s not life.”

And so on. That Superman was also an alien instead of a human irritated him to no end. “It’s like Von Daniken and his aliens-built-the-pyramids crap. Are humans really too dumb to do anything for themselves?”

“It’s a metaphor,” Eriq said, knowing full well that if anyone metaphor he didn’t like, it was Vlad. Distantly, he heard the phone ring – he didn’t keep one in his room because he hated the shrill disruption of his concentration while drawing. He ignored it.

“Yeah, yeah. Immigration to the US and all that. Of course I understand that. I’d still be in Russia otherwise. But think about it: Superman is superheroic because he isn’t human, and no human could ever hope to be Superman.”

Eriq was about to speak – he had a glimmer of an idea – when his mother’s voice jolted him. “Come down, Eriq! For God’s sake, get down here.”

Puzzled, Eric rushed down the stairs followed by Vlad, who wasn’t in quite the same hurry. They found Mrs. Robertson with the old-fashioned phone receiver in her hand, arm loose by her side. The expression on her face, one of corked anger and despair, put her at odds with the cheery peaches-and-cream décor of the living room. Eriq’s irritation turned to worry, then to resignation.

Mrs. Robertson wept. “It’s Aaron. He did it again. He…”
“That…” Eriq started before choosing instead to swallow the angry expletive. Vlad, who kept his expression neutral, remembered that the Robertson’s car was undergoing repairs at the dealer.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

the ladder - secret hospital (part 4)

The Ladder – An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

TOP SECRET//CATA-9//ORCON//NOFORN//NOGOV//100X2
Eyes only. Handle via CATA-9 channels only.

Wonderland – Red Cell 1
Dr. Harriman Seldon Poole
Patient code-named Red Queen
07/15/09 3:47 pm (continued)

Dr. P: (4 second delay) Thank you, Maram. I appreciate you saving my back. Would you care to try? (2 second delay). No? Yes? No? That’s all right. Perhaps next time. My first purpose in meeting with you today was to assure you that I’m not going to follow the usual script with the usual suspicions. Second, I want to clarify the way I see things, where I stand. (2 second delay). Those soldiers out there? There not bad people. But I’ll be the first to admit that they reinforce the very idea I’m here to rub away: that you are so unique that you have nothing in common with the rest of us. I’m here to tell you that whatever differences you have from us, and I understand these are significant physiological differences with unique psychological consequences, we share the same roots, the same planet, the same history.
RQ: Prick us, do we not bleed?
Dr. P: (5 second delay) Something along those lines. A quantitative difference, not a qualitative one despite what all the bad comic books and sci fi stories would have us believe. You are unique, yes, but just as human. I can assure you of that. But I’m getting too uptight, here. I don’t really want to start things off so formally. I just arrived. I wanted to introduce myself to you. Get some first impressions.
RQ: What a piece of work is a man.
Dr. P: Such stuff as dreams are made on. (3 second delay.) And on that note, I’m going to get settled into my new home, so to speak. I will see you again soon. (4 second delay.) It was a pleasure to meet you.

the ladder - blueprint (part 1)

The Ladder - An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment!

The doorbell chimed an off-key Big Ben. Eriq stomped down the small stairs – the elephantine racket earned him disapproval, shot across the living room by a woman who could stare down a stampede of Pamplona bulls without flinching – and nearly pulled the front door off its hinges. On the porch of the small side-gabled California bungalow stood a mod young man, twenty-something, short blue-black hair, rugged east European face whose paleness was accentuated by the black jeans and smoothly-cut blazer. Buddha as a well-dressed vampire.

Eriq put out a hearty hug. “What’s up mah niggah?”

“Hey there, honky!”

From the couch, Mrs. Robertson furrowed her brow, creases appearing in her otherwise smooth dark skin, lips tightened together. She set down her copy of the LA Times and looked over her turtle-shell reading glasses, dark eyes serious but not without a twinkle. “I wish you boys would stop that.”

“We’re just taking back the power of words, Mom,” Eriq grinned. “C’mon, Vlad mah niggah, let’s hit the headquarters.”

Bemused yet despairing, Mrs. Robertson watched them climb the creaky stairs to the attic space, shaking her head, then returned to her newspaper when they disappeared from view.

“You’re such a fucking stereotype,” said Vlad when he emerged from the narrow stairwell. The attic space that served as Eriq’s bedroom was a tight space further enclosed by stacks of comics, piles of randomly strewn clothes, and tattered, layered posters of everything from Star Wars to the Hulk movie. It was a slovenly artist’s den; the only reasonable fragment of space was the large drawing table next to which was a cabinet of neatly ordered drawing pencils, sketchpads, and other supplies. Eriq himself was no great embodiment of tidiness. The proud bearer of an old-school Afro and three-day old stubble, he wore carelessly maintained, torn blue Levi’s and a white t-shirt on which was written in thin red letters “ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck that. Let’s talk about this mess you’ve gotten us into.”

A quick phone conversation the night before – Vlad talking at an amped-up pace, barely remembering to breathe. The announcement was shocking, like winning the lottery or finally being rid of a Republican president. After months of carefully cultivating contacts sown at Comic-Con and through various friends at the major houses, Vlad succeeded in arranging a meeting with a muckety-muck who had the power to make shit happen. But that wasn’t the shock. The shock came from learning that the pitch for a new comic book character, vaguely worded and stuffed with lofty visions, had worked. Eriq and Vlad, the artist and the writer, didn’t have long to work up a fully-developed proposal.

“Mess, huh. You’d rather keep doing those cheap porno comics you won’t tell your mom about?”

“That’s low, man. Boobella is not cheap porno.” Then, mumbling, eyes cast down towards a floor covered in a stained beige carpet: “And that was way before we did The Grave Captain’s Chronicles.”

Vlad laughed, muttered something about photocopies distributed to rockers coming out of concerts on Sunset Boulevard, then became serious when it seemed like Eriq would pull one of his notorious mopey faces. That was never a good sign for getting productive work done.

“All right, then,” said Vlad. He looked around for a place to sit while Eriq took to the squat stool in front of the drawing board; Foam stuffing from the stool’s cushion poured out of a tear when Eriq sat down. Vlad merely looked for a place to sit that could be cleared off without touching any of Eriq’s laundry.

“So what did we promise the suit?” Eriq said. “What are we supposed to do exactly?”

“He wasn’t a suit, honky. And let’s please not have the kind of conversation a bad writer would inject into a story. The kind in which two characters obviously know what they’re talking about but talk about it anyway for the benefit of readers.”

Eriq’s eyes, alert and restless, settled on Vlad with an intensity worthy of his mother. Unperturbed, Vlad returned the stare as if possessed of an infinite reservoir of cool.

“All I remember is our mouths going blah, blah, blah and the suit nodding his head and going blah, blah, blah.”

Vlad sighed. “At least you remember we promised to deliver something huge, right? I mean, fucking huge?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” All mockery suddenly stripped from his voice, he asked with great concern, “But how are we going to create a better Superman in less than two months? For Christ’s sake…a Superman better than Superman!”

the ladder - secret hospital (part 3)

The Ladder - An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

TOP SECRET//CATA-9//ORCON//NOFORN//NOGOV//100X2
Eyes only. Handle via CATA-9 channels only.

Wonderland – Red Cell Alpha
Dr. Harriman Seldon Poole
Patient code-named Red Queen
07/15/09 3:47 pm

Dr. P: Good afternoon, Maram. I am Dr. Harriman Seldon Poole. I’m sorry to tell you that Dr. Forrester has…(2 second delay)…retired. (7 second delay.) I see. Well. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so sorry. (3 second delay.) First things first. I much prefer to be called Harry. It’s only fair if I should call you Maram. And second I want to be clear that my goal is to get you out of here. By which I don’t mean, obviously, breaking you out. I mean to help make it possible for you to walk out. (4 second delay.) I understand your skepticism. In fact, I hope to prove to you that I understand your position. For the moment, however, it has to be enough for me to say that I’ve been a psychiatrist for over twenty years and while you may think of the profession as consisting of pill-pushing shock-jockeys, I’ve made it my mission in life to raise psychiatric care to something compassionate and, yes, humane. So when I say I want to help you walk out of here, help you to be free of these rather impressively thick walls, I mean it. Fresh air. Freedom. No soldiers with guns. A future. (9 second delay.) I understand. You’re skeptical. You’ve heard this before. Dr. Forrester was…(3 second delay)…I’m sorry. You don’t like thinking about him, do you? I promise I won’t mention him again. Clean slate. (5 second delay.) And I know that with the clean slate comes a need to prove that I am here to help you. So I would like to propose a little exercise. No, not ink blots. No word associations. Actually, what I’m proposing is, I admit, a little silly – one of those things they do in team-building efforts. What I would like you to do is stand in front of me with your back towards me and let yourself fall. I will catch you. It’s a silly thing, I know. But it does help establish trust…(7 second delay). All right. I’ll tell you what. You don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to fall into my arms. But as gesture on my part I will stand right here and count down from. And at one, I will let myself fall backwards and trust that you will catch me. Ready? Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

the ladder - secret hospital (part 2)

An experimental web-only fiction series that spans multiple story lines and characters…Tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

The dull, gunmetal elevator doors, clunky and of dubious stability despite their thickness, slid open to reveal a low-ceilinged lobby better suited to a profitable high-end corporation than a military hospital. Black polished concrete floors, rough cement walls the colour of oatmeal, white plaster ceilings with smoothly recessed fluorescent lighting that cast a diffuse, omnipresent light – the space was modern and minimal, warmed only by the circular receptionist and guard desk crafted from a grainy, amber-coloured wood. On the wall behind the desk, in plain sans-serif letters: US ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH AND MATERIEL COMMAND – RAD 5. The universal symbol of medicine, the staff with entwined snakes, and the insignia of the USAMRMC, both etched into steel panels backlit with a soft white light, seemingly hovered above the text.

The young uniformed woman behind the desk, an attractive Scandinavian blonde, offered Dr. Poole the first genuinely human smile he’d seen while on base. Next to her, an older crew-cut man whose uniform rank insignia marked him as a Sergeant didn’t smile, but was nonetheless polite in carrying out his duty. Again, the Doctor showed his ID. His name was checked against a list in the computer, photographs were compared, and the card returned with the promise of a welcoming committee and lanyard ID he was told to wear inside the hospital at all times. As he waited, Dr. Poole marveled at the subterranean nature of AFFTC (D3). He couldn’t guess how much of the base was, indeed, below ground but of course it was a sensible countermeasure to the continual parade of orbiting spy satellites. Brilliant, if unconventional, was hiding the USAMRMC Experimental Psychiatric Hospital and its highly-classified patients within the country’s most secretive and ironically famous facility.

Soon enough, a jovial black woman with long straightened hair, a sharp jaw line and equally sharp brown eyes emerged from the frosted glass double-doors to the right of the desk. She wore a mock-wrap tunic the colour of a pinot noir with white piping along with matching scrub pants.

“Welcome to…”

“Area 51?” smiled Poole.

The woman looked at him with an air of put-on offense. “I was going to say welcome to Wonderland.”

“That’s good. We wouldn’t want to get started with a cliché.”

They laughed and she introduced herself as Jazara Jones, registered nurse.

“You’re a lieutenant, I understand?”

“That’s right. My mom was in the army Medical Corps, and before her was my granddad. All officers.” She laughed. “Granddad was good old country doctor.”

Dr. Poole smiled politely and murmured some kind of vaguely-sincere appreciation, then steered the conversation towards the purpose of his visit. As they talked, they navigated a set of stark door-lined corridors that reminded Pool of a favoured film, Brazil. The close quarters of the hallways, the numbered anonymity of the heavy steel doors – these were reminiscent of Gilliam’s set for Information Retrieval, where workers occupied tiny rooms laid out in dehumanizing rows and crammed with plumbing and bare furniture. Perversely, Doctor Poole rather liked it, finding some strange comfort in the geometrical, artificial environment. It was precisely the sort of canvas that human nature, as vague and imprecise a concept as any, could paint itself on. A healthy human nature, that is; one of sound mental states. What a chance for the human to define itself, but in confrontations with the dehumanizing? Of course, the Doctor did not subscribe to this sort of environment for any of his patients. He was of the firm belief that the troubled needed healing natural environments; grass between the toes, trees filled with fruit and birdsong, long winding trails. Though he understood the necessity for keeping his newly acquired patient in the highly secure facility unimaginatively code-named Wonderland, the reports he had read suggested it was entirely the wrong environment for her psychological well-being.

“How long have you been assigned here?”

“Over two years, Doctor. She’s a sweet young woman, despite…everything.”

As they navigated the rough concrete corridors, with the Doctor just as keenly aware of the restless eyes of security as Lt. Jones was indifferent, they reviewed a few basic facts. The patient, designated by the code-name Red Queen, was born Maram Abdul-Azim Zuhdi Hasouna in Gaza sometime in 1991. She was discovered in the rubble of a demolished house by an American Red Cross worker subsequent to an Israeli shelling – retaliation for Hamas-launched rockets – that killed her parents, grandfather, two brothers, and aunt. Given the direct nature of the hit, it was considered a miracle that she had survived at all – by witness accounts, the entire roof collapsed over her cradle, which was found in pieces. Although the aid worker found relatives to care for Maram, it soon became clear she was unusual in many respects. The strangest involved behavioural oddities, such as never crying, and biological oddities such as never getting sick. Most troubling, however, were the reports of developmental problems despite the absence of any neuro-physiological damage. Although capable of speech and fond of reading, she most often remained mute. At times, she refused to eat until forced, but even that presented problems in that she was several orders of magnitude stronger than any child her age could be. The poor girl also suffered from screaming nightmares that, inevitably, she never discussed. Eventually, Maram’s family encountered the aid worker again and begged for some sort of medical intervention. Through a torturous bureaucratic chain, this led to the Israeli, than the US, military removing Maram from both her family and the aid worker’s care. Eventually, her journey culminated in Wonderland.

“Your predecessor remained convinced to the end,” Lt. Jones said.

“PTSD, yes. On the surface that might be a helpful diagnosis. But I like to reserve judgment for myself.”

Wonderland’s corridors were neither labyrinthine nor dizzying but strictly ordered along a simple grid and colour-coded. Dr. Poole was not yet familiar with the hospital’s protocols and did not understand the significance of the colours or the guard placements. Even the medical staff’s uniforms were colour-coded. For his immediate purposes, however, the inner workings of the hospital remained a distant second to his much-anticipated introduction to Maram. As he and Jones finally reached red sector, obviously the most isolated and secured part of the hospital, he noted that euphemistically-named “patient quarters” involved the most sophisticated containment technologies available to the military. And a small but intimidating contingent of heavily armed and armored guards wearing one of those onyx-black super-soldier outfits Dr. Poole often read about in futurist speculations. After their identities were checked yet again, Dr. Pool was cleared to enter Maram’s cell. A single vast door confronted him; massive, impenetrable, solid steel and titanium.

“What sort of threat could a single human being pose that requires…all this? The report…”

Lt. Jones smiled, a strangely sad expression Dr. Poole made note of for later consideration. The locks disengaged with a resonant metallic clang and the door swung open.

the ladder - secret hospital (part 1)

A web-only fiction series that will span multiple story lines and characters…tune in every Wednesday for a new installment.

State Route 375 – the “Extraterrestrial Highway” for the tourists – in Nevada’s remote desert landscape. Winding dirt roads. Dust and beating sun. A seamless blue sky joining the endless reddish ground at a horizon that seems infinitely far. It was a long, pensive drive through the beautiful wasteland. Through it all, Dr. Harriman Seldon Poole rejected the kitschy UFO obsession of local tourist traps exploiting the region’s alien mystique but appreciated instead the more earthly alien qualities of the desert, especially in contrast to the legendary, contrived status of his destination.

After entering Nellis Air Force Range territory down in Tikaboo Valley, he traveled Groom Lake Road, taking note of the buses with workers from Alamo and other nearby towns, the desert camouflage Jeep Cherokees that formed part of the security patrol, and the numerous warning signs notable for their emphasis that the use of deadly force was authorized. After a good fifteen minutes, during which he keenly felt the extensive surveillance that came with visiting one of the country’s most secretive facilities, he passed by the row of orange posts that marked an official border and drove his sky-blue Prius to the barrier alongside the boxy white guard shack. An unobtrusively placed sign announced the entrance to AIR FORCE FLIGHT TEST CENTER (DETACHMENT 3).

“ID and destination,” said the severe young man in the tan-coloured uniform. Dr. Poole surrendered his military-issued, biometric-encoded identification card and waited patiently as the guard compared the photograph with the person. Mild olive skin; kindly, surprisingly patrician face for one so young; bright blue eyes; the sharply refined features and demeanour of a Pharaoh – the photograph didn’t do justice to the man, of course, but the guard had no interest in such things.

“Administration Building C, Logistics,” said Poole. The guard swiped the card through a hand-held fingerprinting device and handed the machine to the doctor. After placing his thumb on the small scanner plate and receiving the green light, Poole returned the device to the guard who verified the authorization and nodded curtly. The passenger door opened and another young man, just as serious as the first, took a seat with his M16 held carefully between his legs. Unfazed and with great dignity, Dr. Poole drove off, looking ahead of him to the dry white salt flat of Groom Lake with its airstrips and clusters of non-descript buildings. Next to him, his chaperone remained silent – more serious and attentive in his duties than any the Doctor had seen at other bases. Once away from the entrance station, Poole made sure to follow the precise directions given to him; deviation from his route into areas limited to the personnel involved in aircraft flight tests would earn him his chaperone’s disapproval.

The base was nothing special as far as bases went. Boxy buildings, hangars, utility structures covered in snaking pipes and HVAC equipment, barracks – the only useful description for these vital base elements came from their lack of descriptive features. But for all the carefully cultivated ordinariness of AFFTC (D3), the studied nonchalance, it glowed with the unmistakable aura of importance. Dr. Poole, a civilian through-and-through, was not entranced liked the scores of tourists hoping for a privileged glance at the base’s highly classified operations, whether the banal testing of experimental aircraft or the imaginary nonsense from which fanciful conspiracy theories were spun. He rather wished the patient he had come to see had been housed in a non-military hospital. These were, however, unprofessional and unproductive thoughts; he went where his medical duty dictated.

After a slow drive through the base, he finally reached the long blocky building marked Administration Building C. Chaperone still by his side, he swiped his card through the reader by the double-doors and entered into a bureaucratic realm as pretentiously ordinary as everything else on the base. A uniformed receptionist greeted him from behind a pile of paperwork and, on checking his identification, directed him through an open pit of identical metal desks, through a plain wooden door, into a corridor lined with numbered doors, and finally through the door marked 9 - Medical Procurement. Once inside the plain office with its gunmetal desk and Spartan chairs, the chaperone passed Dr. Poole on to yet another uniformed guard who checked his identification and fingerprints before performing a retina scan using a binocular-like device. Satisfied that Dr. Poole was, indeed, Dr. Poole, the guard buzzed him through an unmarked door, behind which was not a room but a utilitarian elevator that led to one of the base’s many underground facilities.

To be continued...

long road ghost - part 9 of 9 (conclusion)

“Gang warfare,” the Sheriff said. I didn’t have the heart to argue with him. Besides, with the hit my noggin’ took, who knows if I remembered what happened rightly. All I knew was that Alex was missin’, Brom had also disappeared, and a twisted piece of scrap was all that remained of the bikes, mine included. Mornin’ traffic, I learned, is what found us.

The next few weeks were really quiet, the days spent livin’ the old, much-loved routine of pourin’ drinks and fixin’ bikes – and the Bonneville needed a lot of extra lovin’. Then, against all expectations, Brom came in one night, lookin’ like he hadn’t slept in days and was bein’ chased by Old Nick himself. Bloodshot eyes, dirty; his good looks had gone the way of his sanity. But I gave him a beer on the house, feelin’ sorry for him as he yammered on wildly about the headless rider and the cops.

“I can’t be out at night,” he kept sayin’. “I can’t be out at night.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to offer him a spot to sleep in some dusty corner of the bar; he was wanted by the police and I sure as hell didn’t want to cross Monk. Then again, the softie in me didn’t want to see Brom get killed or driven insane before gettin’ a chance to set his life on the right path. But before I could make a decision, Brom jumped off the bar stool and rushed out to a shiny bike – a Suzuki, of all things. I followed as quick as I can, only to see Brom ride off into the moonlit distance on a bike he probably stole. The sound of another motorcycle, like an angry dog, startled me. I turned to see a black and chrome Harley Road King. The rider wasn’t headless, but it seemed as if he burned with the blue-white flame I’d seen on the headless rider. I got in closer for a better look and almost jumped out of my skin when the rider turned to look at me. Within the flame, partially hidden by a black helmet, I thought I recognized Alex Crane, only his narrow face was twisted into the ugliness of a man possessed by anger. I didn’t have a chance to find out for sure; he sped off in the same direction as Brom. I’m not sure why I didn’t follow. Scared, I guess. None of it made any sense.

The doctors said I might suffer some lingerin’ effects from the concussion. Whatever, as the kids say these days. I still didn’t sleep well for many nights after that, and I still get a mighty big shiver whenever someone mentions the headless rider. And I never did see Brom or Alex again. I eventually did tell the Sheriff what I saw, not that it helped any.

A few months after the whole thing peaked in a TV news frenzy and went the way of the latest celebrity fuck-up scandal, Monk stopped by for a beer. Even out of uniform – he had on blue jeans, a clean-pressed white shirt, worn black cowboy boots – the man looked like he could stop a freight train in its tracks with only a stare. But he was in as good a mood as I’d ever seen him, despite the frustration that he’d had no leads in what was now bein’ called the Headless Rider murders. Monk hated the name and without saying a word he let me know what he thought about me blabbin’ my mouth off to the press and givin’ em ideas. I just blamed it on too much beer, though when I sobered up I regretted feeding’ the red meat to the newshounds.

“Ghost and ghouls and goblins, huh,” he said. Seein’ as everythin’ was quiet, I poured the Sheriff and me a pint of that Newcastle the customers kept ravin’ about and leaned on the bar across from him. The radio belted out a static-filled oldie.

“Ghosts and ghouls and goblins,” I said, and we clinked bottles. “Unless you still think its gang warfare.”

He laughed. It sounded like breakin’ glass. “Who the hell knows? Probably not. But who the hell knows?”

When I didn’t say anything, he added, “I ain’t gonna tell what you did or didn’t see. I wasn’t there. Whether it was some headless spectre you saw or it was something else, I can’t say.”

“Guess we’ll never know.”

“Guess not. The evidence ain’t speaking. But I’ll say this.”

“Yeah?”

“Thinking about Alex and Katrina…I’m probably too far gone to find myself a woman to get old and wrinkly with,” Monk said. “But if I do, I’d sure hope…”

I knew where he was goin’ with it. I had been thinkin’ the same. Here we were, two old men hangin’ on to the glory days, faced with not much more than more of the same, stuck with somethin’ we couldn’t explain, and one question that burned more than any other. Without an answer – who could say anythin’ about love’s rise and fall? – we drank our beers in silence.

Finis

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long road ghost - part 8 of 9

The sky was a bleedin’ red and with my eyesight not bein’ quite what it was it took a long time for me to adjust to the lack of daylight. By that time, Brom and Alex had already reached Rasor Road, revvin’ their engines and givin’ each other cold looks. They were none to happy to see me when I pulled up alongside them.

“Ain’t gonna solve nothin’,” I said. Leanin’ closer to Alex, I suggested he let the law handle things. But he just got sad with the pain of a broken heart and said, “I don’t know what I want more; for me to be dead or that rat bastard.”

“If ya gonna get melodramatic about it,” I said. “Christ.”

And the two went off down the freeway, leavin’ me behind with a cloud of exhaust beneath a dark sky. But then I felt somethin’ strange, the hairs on the back of my neck standin’ straight. From nowhere in particular came the howlin’ sound of a motorcycle, like a wolf on acid. Then I felt something rush by me; it was too quick for me to see. My heart was beatin’ fast; I admit it. But I got on my bike and sped off after Brom and Alex and whatever else passed me by, swallowing my growin’ dread – I was very far from bein’ a fearless young buck.

I could feel the furious shakin’ power of my Bonneville between my legs as I gave the engine some gas and counted off the ticks to the 70 mph mark. It didn’t take long for me to catch up with Brom and Alex, who were each tryin’ hard to get the upper hand, but merely passin’ the lead back and forth. And damned if they weren’t alone. A headless rider dressed in black leathers, his stump burning with a blue-white flame like the one comin’ out of his exhaust, was gainin’ on them. I tried yellin’ out, feelin’ the fear build up in me like high-pressure steam, but the roar of engine and wind drowned me out. A goddamned headless rider who somehow always managed to stay ahead despite me pushin’ my growlin’ baby to the limit.

Brom and Alex were close enough to start tryin’ to push each other off their bikes. They swerved on the weirdly dead-quiet freeway – where the fuck was the traffic? – barely keepin’ control of themselves and their machines as they jabbed at each other. And on went the headless rider, that ghost outta hell. I saw him reach down to pull out a wicked blade, a machete with a motorcycle handlebar for a grip. Santa Claus was right; it did glow. I was almost close enough to the headless rider to do somethin’, but what that somethin’ would be I had no idea. That’s when he caught me by surprise by slowin’ down suddenly , forcin’ me to brake. The sudden change in speed made me lose control – a stupid thing, really, for an ol’ biker like me – and I wiped out, barely registering the sight of the headless rider swingin’ his blade towards Alex’s neck and loppin’ the poor guy’s head clean off.

I was lucky. Sometimes you’re meat…sometimes you’re not. I was five for five. But even with a helmet the shock to my head made me see things, like little silver stars, that weren’t there. It hurt like a motherfucker. I passed out.

When I came to, a young woman in a medic’s uniform was goin’ over me with a fine tooth comb, ignorin’ me when I said I was fine. Just a few cuts and bruises. Like I said, lucky. Sheriff Monk, cars with flashin’ lights behind him, loomed over me and didn’t waste time hasslin’ me for details of what happened. I told him what I could, leavin’ out the loopy-soundin’ headless flamin’ parts. When I asked about Alex, he told me they didn’t find head, or body, or motorcycle. That gave me the chills.

Next week...the conclusion!