RE: Vox Mentis
05-24-2017, 02:40 PM
Eliot strides to the door, pulls it open, and disappears. This happens much more quickly than you expect, because until a few moments ago, Eliot looked very much like a guy recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound. What has suddenly revived him, you don't know. “Wait,” you say. But Eliot is running down the corridor; you can hear his footsteps.
You heft the rifle. This is going to be especially useless for close-quarters combat. You hadn’t intended to leave the room. You’d intended to stay and pick off guys until Elise got the message and came to see you. You blow air through your teeth. “Fuck,” you say, and go after Eliot. You jog down the corridor, passing two neonatal rooms that were once staffed by a woman named Helen who’d always had pink iced doughnuts, any time of day or night. You never saw her eat one. She just had them. You visited this place often, for those doughnuts.
You reach the corner and poke your head around. Eliot is nowhere to be seen. He's just fucking disappeared. You debate the merits of opening your mouth to make the kind of noise that might attract armed men, then there is a quick one-two of flat gunshots in the near distance, which decides you.
You reach the stairwell and peer over the railing to see Eliot standing below you. At Eliot’s feet is a man in a black suit with no helmet. The man looked dazed. His gun, a semiautomatic, lay a few feet away.
“Shoot them in the face,” Eliot says. “They’re armored, but it’s distracting.”
“What did you do?” The man in the black suit begins to grope for his gun. “He’s moving!” You raise the rifle.
“Don’t!” says Eliot. “He’s on the side of the angels now.”
The man retrieves his gun and gets to his feet. He looks up at you questioningly.
“He’s cool,” Eliot tells the man. “Neither of you shoot the other.” He begins to descend the steps.
“How did you...?” But Eliot has disappeared. You run after him, jumping the steps three or four at a time. You catch Eliot at the top of the second floor, which used to be the surgical wing. “Will you fucking wait?” You go to seize Eliot by the shoulder but the black-suited man slaps his gun into his shoulder and looks down the barrel at you.
“Don’t alarm my prose,” Eliot says. “He wants to protect me.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Looking for Woolf.”
“She could be anywhere.”
“Yes. But it’s a better option than sitting in that room.” Eliot looks around. His pupils are dilated. “You used to work here. What’s a clever way out?”
“I don’t know. Can you tell this guy to stop pointing his fucking gun at me?”
“He’s finding you threatening. So am I, actually.”
“You look like you’re on drugs.”
“I’m releasing a lot of dopamine,” Eliot says. “It’s a natural high. Bob! Gun down.”
The soldier lowers his gun. He stares at you with baleful eyes.
“How about a laundry chute?”
“What?”
“A chute,” Eliot says, “that we slide down to a basement or some-such.”
“No. They don’t work like that. This is a hospital - we’d lose children down them.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think,” Eliot says. “You must have lost a few patients. People who snuck out somehow. It’s not Fort Knox.”
“No one... okay, one time a guy broke into a storage room by climbing onto the roof of the building next door. We might be able to-”
“Yes. That.” Eliot looks at the soldier. “Go cause a distraction. Shoot at nothing. Report false information. Things like that.” The man nods and begins to jog down the stairs. “This storage room, then.”
“How did you compromise that guy?”
“I know him. I used to work for the Organization, you know. Storage room.”
You lead Eliot through double doors. You never liked coming here. It was the surgeons. You were never completely sure they really gave a shit. They seemed to enjoy challenges more than people. “So you, what, shot him in the face, pulled off his helmet, and used words?”
“Correct,” Eliot says.
You reach the storage room and try the handle. No one has been by in the past year or so to unlock it, apparently. But you know where the key is kept. You jog down the corridor, pull open the second drawer in the nurse’s station, and find it among paper clips and rubber bands. When you return, Eliot is tugging at the door. “Quick,” Eliot says.
“I am being quick.”
“Quicker.”
You pull open the door. You're finding the new Eliot unsettling. Somewhere in the distance is a staccato of gunfire. You wait but it isn’t repeated.
“Bob,” says Eliot, fondly.
You enter the storeroom. The window was fitted with new locks since the intruder but they won’t be much of an impediment from this side. You peer through the glass. A short climb down to a secluded part of the roof, then a short run and leap to the roof of the pharmacy next door. You don't see any soldiers.
“The real problem is finding Woolf,” Eliot murmurs in your ear. You flinch. You didn’t hear him approach. Eliot looks at you. “Where is she, do you think?”
“Can you take a step back?”
“I think you know.” He taps your forehead.
“Don’t fucking touch my head.” You begin to wrestle the window out of its frame.
“This place,” Eliot says. “It brought you back to yourself. Maybe it’s having a similar effect on her. And you know her. So tell me. Where is she?”
“That plan you had before, about getting out of Broken Hill? I’m coming around on that.”
“Where,” Eliot says.
You toss the frame to the floor and climb up the shelves. The window is narrow but you manage to work the rifle through it and drop to the rooftop six feet below. You crouch against the wall until Eliot drops beside you.
Eliot looks around. “This was a good idea.” He rises and runs to the edge of the roof, leaps across the gap, and lands on the tin roof of the pharmacy. You see his head turn left, right. Then he stops moving. You freeze. Eliot creeps back toward the edge, peers over, and drops out of sight.
You run after him. Halfway there, you hear Eliot bark out words in a strange, guttural tongue. When you reach the edge, you see Eliot in the alley standing over another helmet-free soldier. This one is bald.
You toss the rifle down and lower yourself over the edge. “I’m starting to feel like you don’t even need me.”
“Oh, I do,” says Eliot. “I don’t know where she is.” He looks at the pharmacy.
“She’s not in there. I don’t remember her ever going in there. Eliot. Eliot?”
“What?”
“You’re staring at nothing.”
“Oh,” says Eliot. “I was thinking about earplugs.”
“Is that... that sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s great against verbal compromise. It’s not so great for hearing someone coming up behind you with a gun. So there’s a trade-off.”
“Right.”
“I’d rather be shot than compromised, though.” He looks at you. “Shoot me if she manages to compromise me. Did I already say that?”
“No.”
“Well, do. I’m serious.”
The bald man says, “We’re on the third floor. We know you’re not there.”
“Thank you, Steve,” says Eliot. “Danny. Where is she?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Think.”
You look around. If you were Elise, where would you go? Somewhere near the hospital. There's a café on the other side of the block, but Elise had never liked it; she said it smelled like men. You’d usually gone to the burger joint farther down. That was actually where you’d first met. Outside of her being a patient, that is. She’d been eating and you had walked by with some girl, whoever you were seeing at the time, and she’d called out. You remember thinking she was a nutcase. Why had you thought that? The card. She’d sent you a card with something crazy written on it, TO MY HERO or YOU SAVED MY LIFE, something like that. But then you’d spoken and she hadn’t seemed crazy. There had been something about her. Something bright, to which you’d responded.
“You thought of something,” Eliot says. “I see it on your face.”
You shake your head.
“Don’t hold out on me.” Eliot leans closer. “Come on, now, Danny.”
“You are creepy as hell right now.”
“This state is temporary. I need to make the most of it. Comedown is going to be a bitch.”
“I’ll make you a deal.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I might know where she is. But if I tell you, I go in first. I get to talk to her. If it goes badly, fine. You do what you have to do. But I get five minutes.”
“Deal.” Eliot sticks out his hand.
You hesitate, suspicious. “You don’t mean that.”
“What do you want me to say?” Eliot shouts. “You’re confronting the futility of your own proposition! Shoot that guy!” This part is directed to the bald soldier, who drops to one knee and raises the semiautomatic. You turn in time to see a pair of dark-suited figures at the end of the alley, and a half dozen on the roof of the hospital looking at you. Time for the contingency plan. You fish around in your pocket and depress a button. The roof of the hospital erupts in a staccato series of explosions, and the guys immolate. The two in the alley turn to look.
“Excellent! Good work. Now Elise,” says Eliot, then grabs your arm and then you're running.
“It’s the burger place,” you pant. “Right, right, circle around the block.” You round the corner. “Five minutes. Promise me.”
“Okay, okay,” Eliot says. “Fine.” He stops, eyes widening at something on your gun. “Whoa, shit, fuck.”
“What?” you say. You can’t see the problem, and look at Eliot, and Eliot’s pistol butt is moving very quickly toward your face. And then that's all you know.
You heft the rifle. This is going to be especially useless for close-quarters combat. You hadn’t intended to leave the room. You’d intended to stay and pick off guys until Elise got the message and came to see you. You blow air through your teeth. “Fuck,” you say, and go after Eliot. You jog down the corridor, passing two neonatal rooms that were once staffed by a woman named Helen who’d always had pink iced doughnuts, any time of day or night. You never saw her eat one. She just had them. You visited this place often, for those doughnuts.
You reach the corner and poke your head around. Eliot is nowhere to be seen. He's just fucking disappeared. You debate the merits of opening your mouth to make the kind of noise that might attract armed men, then there is a quick one-two of flat gunshots in the near distance, which decides you.
You reach the stairwell and peer over the railing to see Eliot standing below you. At Eliot’s feet is a man in a black suit with no helmet. The man looked dazed. His gun, a semiautomatic, lay a few feet away.
“Shoot them in the face,” Eliot says. “They’re armored, but it’s distracting.”
“What did you do?” The man in the black suit begins to grope for his gun. “He’s moving!” You raise the rifle.
“Don’t!” says Eliot. “He’s on the side of the angels now.”
The man retrieves his gun and gets to his feet. He looks up at you questioningly.
“He’s cool,” Eliot tells the man. “Neither of you shoot the other.” He begins to descend the steps.
“How did you...?” But Eliot has disappeared. You run after him, jumping the steps three or four at a time. You catch Eliot at the top of the second floor, which used to be the surgical wing. “Will you fucking wait?” You go to seize Eliot by the shoulder but the black-suited man slaps his gun into his shoulder and looks down the barrel at you.
“Don’t alarm my prose,” Eliot says. “He wants to protect me.”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Looking for Woolf.”
“She could be anywhere.”
“Yes. But it’s a better option than sitting in that room.” Eliot looks around. His pupils are dilated. “You used to work here. What’s a clever way out?”
“I don’t know. Can you tell this guy to stop pointing his fucking gun at me?”
“He’s finding you threatening. So am I, actually.”
“You look like you’re on drugs.”
“I’m releasing a lot of dopamine,” Eliot says. “It’s a natural high. Bob! Gun down.”
The soldier lowers his gun. He stares at you with baleful eyes.
“How about a laundry chute?”
“What?”
“A chute,” Eliot says, “that we slide down to a basement or some-such.”
“No. They don’t work like that. This is a hospital - we’d lose children down them.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think,” Eliot says. “You must have lost a few patients. People who snuck out somehow. It’s not Fort Knox.”
“No one... okay, one time a guy broke into a storage room by climbing onto the roof of the building next door. We might be able to-”
“Yes. That.” Eliot looks at the soldier. “Go cause a distraction. Shoot at nothing. Report false information. Things like that.” The man nods and begins to jog down the stairs. “This storage room, then.”
“How did you compromise that guy?”
“I know him. I used to work for the Organization, you know. Storage room.”
You lead Eliot through double doors. You never liked coming here. It was the surgeons. You were never completely sure they really gave a shit. They seemed to enjoy challenges more than people. “So you, what, shot him in the face, pulled off his helmet, and used words?”
“Correct,” Eliot says.
You reach the storage room and try the handle. No one has been by in the past year or so to unlock it, apparently. But you know where the key is kept. You jog down the corridor, pull open the second drawer in the nurse’s station, and find it among paper clips and rubber bands. When you return, Eliot is tugging at the door. “Quick,” Eliot says.
“I am being quick.”
“Quicker.”
You pull open the door. You're finding the new Eliot unsettling. Somewhere in the distance is a staccato of gunfire. You wait but it isn’t repeated.
“Bob,” says Eliot, fondly.
You enter the storeroom. The window was fitted with new locks since the intruder but they won’t be much of an impediment from this side. You peer through the glass. A short climb down to a secluded part of the roof, then a short run and leap to the roof of the pharmacy next door. You don't see any soldiers.
“The real problem is finding Woolf,” Eliot murmurs in your ear. You flinch. You didn’t hear him approach. Eliot looks at you. “Where is she, do you think?”
“Can you take a step back?”
“I think you know.” He taps your forehead.
“Don’t fucking touch my head.” You begin to wrestle the window out of its frame.
“This place,” Eliot says. “It brought you back to yourself. Maybe it’s having a similar effect on her. And you know her. So tell me. Where is she?”
“That plan you had before, about getting out of Broken Hill? I’m coming around on that.”
“Where,” Eliot says.
You toss the frame to the floor and climb up the shelves. The window is narrow but you manage to work the rifle through it and drop to the rooftop six feet below. You crouch against the wall until Eliot drops beside you.
Eliot looks around. “This was a good idea.” He rises and runs to the edge of the roof, leaps across the gap, and lands on the tin roof of the pharmacy. You see his head turn left, right. Then he stops moving. You freeze. Eliot creeps back toward the edge, peers over, and drops out of sight.
You run after him. Halfway there, you hear Eliot bark out words in a strange, guttural tongue. When you reach the edge, you see Eliot in the alley standing over another helmet-free soldier. This one is bald.
You toss the rifle down and lower yourself over the edge. “I’m starting to feel like you don’t even need me.”
“Oh, I do,” says Eliot. “I don’t know where she is.” He looks at the pharmacy.
“She’s not in there. I don’t remember her ever going in there. Eliot. Eliot?”
“What?”
“You’re staring at nothing.”
“Oh,” says Eliot. “I was thinking about earplugs.”
“Is that... that sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s great against verbal compromise. It’s not so great for hearing someone coming up behind you with a gun. So there’s a trade-off.”
“Right.”
“I’d rather be shot than compromised, though.” He looks at you. “Shoot me if she manages to compromise me. Did I already say that?”
“No.”
“Well, do. I’m serious.”
The bald man says, “We’re on the third floor. We know you’re not there.”
“Thank you, Steve,” says Eliot. “Danny. Where is she?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Think.”
You look around. If you were Elise, where would you go? Somewhere near the hospital. There's a café on the other side of the block, but Elise had never liked it; she said it smelled like men. You’d usually gone to the burger joint farther down. That was actually where you’d first met. Outside of her being a patient, that is. She’d been eating and you had walked by with some girl, whoever you were seeing at the time, and she’d called out. You remember thinking she was a nutcase. Why had you thought that? The card. She’d sent you a card with something crazy written on it, TO MY HERO or YOU SAVED MY LIFE, something like that. But then you’d spoken and she hadn’t seemed crazy. There had been something about her. Something bright, to which you’d responded.
“You thought of something,” Eliot says. “I see it on your face.”
You shake your head.
“Don’t hold out on me.” Eliot leans closer. “Come on, now, Danny.”
“You are creepy as hell right now.”
“This state is temporary. I need to make the most of it. Comedown is going to be a bitch.”
“I’ll make you a deal.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I might know where she is. But if I tell you, I go in first. I get to talk to her. If it goes badly, fine. You do what you have to do. But I get five minutes.”
“Deal.” Eliot sticks out his hand.
You hesitate, suspicious. “You don’t mean that.”
“What do you want me to say?” Eliot shouts. “You’re confronting the futility of your own proposition! Shoot that guy!” This part is directed to the bald soldier, who drops to one knee and raises the semiautomatic. You turn in time to see a pair of dark-suited figures at the end of the alley, and a half dozen on the roof of the hospital looking at you. Time for the contingency plan. You fish around in your pocket and depress a button. The roof of the hospital erupts in a staccato series of explosions, and the guys immolate. The two in the alley turn to look.
“Excellent! Good work. Now Elise,” says Eliot, then grabs your arm and then you're running.
“It’s the burger place,” you pant. “Right, right, circle around the block.” You round the corner. “Five minutes. Promise me.”
“Okay, okay,” Eliot says. “Fine.” He stops, eyes widening at something on your gun. “Whoa, shit, fuck.”
“What?” you say. You can’t see the problem, and look at Eliot, and Eliot’s pistol butt is moving very quickly toward your face. And then that's all you know.