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“Please tell her to contact Doctor Ares at her earliest convenience.”
The line goes dead. Politeness is in short supply around here. There’s a thin veneer of military discipline in place, but it doesn’t run terribly deep. Scratch it, and people start bleeding.
I’ve thought many times about leaving. The reason I came here in the first place, to watch out for Ken and Mary, my brother and his wayward girl, that’s not really necessary anymore. They’ve settled into a groove, become one with this place in a way that suits them. This place is a hive of barely contained villainy. But it saved Mary. And it meets Ken’s need for adventure, chaos and death. It’s even changed me. I don’t think there’s any way I can go back to living a normal life now.
The girl in my examination room reminds me of the life I used to live. Or rather, she reminds me of how removed this place makes you from the outside world. Her strange disconnection makes me think I need to go home tonight instead of sleeping onsite, and have a bath and make dinner for myself and remember what normal is.
I get to the keyboard and prepare to put her details in when I realize that I don’t have them. I don’t even know her name. I didn’t ask it. The chaos of meeting her made me forget simple protocol all the way down to basic human communication. Shaking my head at myself, I give myself an internal lecture about keeping my head in the game.
I rejoin the patient and the agent in the examination room. As I come through the door, I hear harsh, hissed words of censure. Tyko is furious at her, and I truly don’t understand why. I know gentlemanly urges are in short supply in this facility, but he’s treating this young woman like she’s a personal enemy.
“What is the young lady’s name? I need to pull up her file.”
“You won’t be able to look her up,” he says, straightening as I come in, moving his hands from the table where he’d been bent down hissing threats into her ears.
“And why not?”
“She’s classified.”
“Electra.”
It’s not the man who speaks. It’s the woman, trusting me with her name. She doesn’t look at me. She whispers it to the floor.
“Electra? Very pretty name. Do you have a last name?”
Tyko makes a snorting, sighing, generally annoyed sound. “Electra’s not her name. It’s just what she likes to call herself. She’s got a serial number, but like I said, you won’t be able to access her file. It’s restricted. Even I don’t have full access.”
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to treat someone with no medical records. What if she is allergic to something?”
“She’s not.”
“Well, I appreciate your attempt at informing me, but that’s not really good enough.”
“Listen, Doc. I told you, I needed a medical review to fill in the report. We’ve done that now. I’m going to take her back to her cell and we’ll…”
“You keep saying cell. Is she a prisoner?”
“You ask too many questions,” Tyko says with a smirk I very much do not like. It is disrespectful to me, and it makes it impossible to do my job.
I don’t know anything about this girl, but I know she doesn’t look like she belongs here. She looks like she should be gift wrapping presents in the mall. If I had to place her age, I’d say she was around nineteen years old, and that’s young for this place. Really young. It usually takes at least half a decade more than that to get in the kind of trouble that leads you here.
“Is that right, Electra? You’re classified?” I tease her gently.
“I got super powers,” she grins, her blue eyes lighting up with mischief.
“Uh huh. Such as?”
“I can fly.”
“The fact you fell off the assault course suggests that’s not true.”
“I can fly,” she says quite seriously. “Downwards. Right up until I hit the ground.”
Tyko snorts. “Don’t fall for the cute act. She’s a pain in the ass, a dangerous little bitch.”
She retreats into silence. I glare at Tyko. I don’t like how he talks to her, unnecessarily degrading her.
“I understand that outside this room, you have charge of Ms… Miss… Electra,” I say. “But here, I am in charge. And nobody speaks to my patient like that.”
Tyko shakes his head, unashamed. “You don’t know her like I do.”
“I don’t need to know her to know she’s worthy of respect.”
The young woman is staring at me with wide, shocked eyes. I don’t think the people here have treated her very well. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but constant death and danger doesn’t breed empathy.
“You can take a break, Agent Tyko,” I say, attempting to throw him out for a second time. “I’d like to speak to the patient in private.”
