The Weight of Darkness
By RocheIle17
I've managed to follow a rhythm of publication. We are approaching the end. The title of this chapter is a reference to the song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Otherside", which obviously refers to the world after death, but which can also be understood as life after the drugs. Indeed, the expression "Otherside" is often used by former drug addicts to evoke their new life after a detox.
Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read and post comments; always very inspiring.
Where am I?
Why can't I move?
I'm cold.
Am I dead?
The man tried to open his eyes but his eyelids felt like they were sealed. He tried to move, but his body, as if paralyzed, refused to obey him. Only his brain seemed to function normally, and he was running at full throttle, analyzing the sounds, the movements, the odours, the sensations around him.
I have pain.
No, I'm not dead...
He was in the hospital. He was sure of it. Everything evoked to him the hospital environment: the peculiar smell, mixture of ether, detergent, and medicines; sounds, like the regular and haunting sound of a monitor, the distant conversations, and the sound of a push-cart. The fine material of his nightgown that didn't protect him from the cold and the roughness of the coarse cotton sheets against his skin.
Whose was that heart that he heard beating? Was it his? Was he hurt?
Yes, he was hurting. An intense pain twisted his temples to the point that he had the impression that his head was stuck in a vise that a malignant gremlin was tightening conscientiously. He also suffered from pain in the shoulder, but much less.
He was thirsty. His mouth was so dry that he couldn't swallow. His throat was irritated as if he had had something shoved into his trachea.
I've been operated upon...
A little reassured after finding his bearings, the man made a new attempt to open his eyes. With a superhuman effort, he lifted his eyelids laboriously before closing almost immediately, assaulted by the brightness of the room.
Now he was certain he was in the hospital. He had had time to see the decorations characteristic of this kind of place: the pale blue colour of the walls, the television suspended on the wall, the rolling table for meals, and the window with open curtains which allowed him to glimpse the buildings of the city.
New York.
I'm in New York...
He gently raised his hand to lay it on the location on his body which made him suffer most, namely, his abdomen. This tiny movement was as exhausting as it was painful. His arm was heavy as lead and the simple feat of lifting it provoked a very unpleasant tightness in his belly. But when his fingers brushed the bandage that was firmly wrapped around his waist, just below the navel, the pain struck him to the point of causing him to let loose a faint groan.
Suddenly his hand was caught with gentleness but firmness. He felt a benevolent presence leaning over him and whispering to him softly, "Mr. Wren, do you hear me? Squeeze my hand if that's the case."
Harold gathered all his strength to for this little gesture that a two-year-old child could do with ease, but that, for him, demanded absolute concentration and superhuman strength.
"Very good, I'll tell the doctor you're awake. He's coming to talk to you. Your friend will then be able to come to see you," declared the gentle but unknown female voice, as she quietly placed his hand by his side, deliberately away from his wound.
The recluse let himself remain silent. He felt exhausted, confused, very weak, and without knowing why, depressed... His mind was troubled, but although he'd searched the corners of his memory, he had no memory of what had brought him here. Everything was black and empty. Darkness and nothingness.
Why am I in the hospital?
What has happened?
He inhaled deeply to try to calm an uncontrollable burst of panic that threatened to engulf him whole, and reopened eyes cautiously. He was relieved to find that the light seemed less aggressive than it had been in his first attempt. Maybe the nurse had closed the curtains.
He swept his room with his gaze. He didn't have his glasses and his vision was blurry, but still, he guessed that on his right were a bedside meal table and a wide window with the blinds down. On his left, the open doors of a small cupboard allowed glimpses of some personal effects: a coat, a suit, a shirt, and shoes. The door to his room was ajar, and outside he could see the crowded and restless corridor of the hospital which was bustling with nurses, doctors in a hurry, slightly haggard patients, and anxious visitors, arms laden with gifts or bouquets.
Finch brought his attention to his body, more painful than ever. Electrodes placed on his chest allowed the monitor next to his bed to record his heart rate. He had a catheter attached to a bag filled with a transparent liquid that hung from a hook; painkillers most likely. He doubted their effectiveness. His body, broken in the ferry attack, had long ago developed a tolerance to opiates. That was probably why he was in such pain.
He carefully turned his head sideways to look at the screen of the cardiac monitor. The readouts appeared to be normal. His gaze then slipped toward the bedside tray. Next to a pitcher and a glass of water, he spotted his carefully folded glasses and a phone earwig. He was surprised not to find his cellphone. He brought his attention to the tiny electronic device. Completely harmless, this object awakened a completely irrational pain. His breathing quickened. Drops of sweat beaded on his forehead and temples while his heart raced. The monitor began to spike.
And suddenly, all the memories of these last days came back to him as brutally as a truck that had embedded itself in a wall: John's abduction, the exchange on the bridge, Greer's ultimatum, the torture sessions inflicted by a drugged John... and... The memories of what ensued were so unbearable that Finch closed his eyes, from which a few tears escaped.
Instinctively, Harold laid his hand on his belly again. He touched the dressing with care, feeling the tightness of a recent surgery. But he didn't worry so much about his wounds as he did the hand that had inflicted them upon him.
John...
His partner, his friend, the one he loved more than anything, had been forced to hit him, injure him, and even kill him. Behind the gaze expunged of all emotion by the drug, Harold had seen love shine at the bottom of the killer's eyes. In the way John had told him, he had proved it: by his pleading glance first, then by that kiss. A passionate, distraught, hopeless kiss. A love so unconditional that he hadn't hesitated to sacrifice himself to save him. John had preferred to die rather than hurt him. He had implored Harold to kill him, to prevent him from harming him...
And he had acceded to John's supplications. Against his will, for John, to put an end to his suffering which was equal, if not superior to his own, he had shot him. Even in his worst nightmares, he would never have thought that the first man at whom he would point a weapon would be John. That the first man he would kill would be the man of his life. And beyond the guilt and sadness that made his heart bleed as surely as his belly wound, Finch felt a deep anguish. Nagging questions about John's fate were looping in his mind, obscuring any other concerns.
How was he?
Did he survive?
If so, where was he?
More and more tormented by these unanswered questions, Finch began to stir in his medical bed. He inhaled deeply before putting his hands firmly against the mattress, to straighten up in order to take a look around him. He clenched his teeth so as not to moan as he pulled himself painfully into a sitting position, at the risk of disconnecting his catheter. Nobody. He was alone in the hospital room. No sign of John. A long sigh of mingled disappointment and agony escaped from his dry lips as he let himself fall back against his pillow.
Suddenly a tall silhouette appeared in the doorway. Finch's heart missed a beat, instantly detected by the monitor that emitted a contrary beep before resuming his monotonous rhythm. The stranger took a step into the room and the recluse couldn't hold back a new sigh. It was only the doctor that the nurse was responsible for informing. He observed the practitioner approaching, totally indifferent to what he was going to tell him. He had as a furious impression of déjà vu: an awakening in an unknown place, an unbearable pain, the loss of a friend... Sadness... the desire to die...
"Hello Mr. Wren, I am Dr. Latimer, and you are at Mount Sinai Hospital. I'm delighted to see you awake," declared the man in white as he stood next to the bed. The doctor checked the medical record and the patient's most recent readouts before returning his attention to him.
Finch kept quiet, waiting patiently for the verdict.
"You come back from afar, you know?" he began in a paternalistic and reassuring tone.
Finch gave him a neutral look. No, he hadn't come back. Part of him was still in that cell: his naivety, his innocence, his values, his confidence in mankind...
Understanding that his patient wouldn't respond, the man continued, "Your friend brought you here just in time. A few minutes more and you would've been gone."
Finch smiled slightly. Too bad, he would've preferred... But now that he was here, he had no choice but to listen to the surgeon congratulating himself for saving his life. The life of a murderer… perhaps of a man responsible for genocide.
"We performed an emergency operation on you last night. The stab wounds you received had punctured your spleen and torn a kidney, so we had to remove them." As the man continued his monologue, Finch turned his head towards the window, letting his mind wander and getting lost in the midst of the buildings. These injuries were nothing in relation to the severity of the acts he had committed. He listened with a distracted ear to the doctor's detail of the procedure, the duration of his anesthesia, the amount of blood he had received. But the last sentence startled him and he winced in pain. "But don't worry, Mr. Wren, you can lead a completely normal life," the doctor concluded as he lay a comforting hand on Finch's free shoulder.
Harold slowly turned his head towards the speaker and a silent tear slowly rolled down his cheek. No, his life would never be the same. He was a killer now.
Misunderstanding the tears which he thought were of joy, the doctor added with a broad smile, "You can thank your friend; she has been watching you since you arrived yesterday. Do you have any questions?"
The doctor waited a few minutes, then, understanding that his patient wouldn't speak, he decided to slip away. He was accustomed to this kind of silence, which was frequent after an assault. The victims were in such a stunned state that they often lost the use of speech, or sometimes remained prostrate for long weeks before returning to their senses.
He was about to leave but then relented and asked, "Would you like to see your friend?"
The recluse's blue eyes recaptured a little of their brilliance as he replied in a hoarse voice, "Please."
The doctor nodded, smiling, satisfied to have heard his patient's first words. He left the room, leaving Finch alone with his demons.
So he was going to live. He had once again escaped death, as if the Grim Reaper had taken a malignant pleasure in reaping all the lives around him while conscientiously avoiding his own. He lost himself again in the contemplation of the urban landscape, dull and grey beyond his window, finding it substantially identical to his state of mind. Totally absorbed by his dark thoughts, he didn't hear Root approaching, despite the sound of her heels on the linoleum floor of his room.
"Harold," she whispered cautiously as she came up to the side of his bed.
The man slowly turned his head and gazed at the young woman in silence. She wore the same black clothes as she had while assaulting the Samaritan-controlled base, and seemed extremely tired. Dark circles shadowed her eyes and her features were drawn. She'd probably not slept for several days and her body was screaming to rest a little. But it wasn't Root's health or even his own that concerned Finch.
"How is he?" he asked with no other form of politeness.
Root's eyes widened as she found that her friend seemed more worried about John than for his own health. For although he wasn't explicitly named, she knew perfectly well who Finch was referring to. To prepare herself, but also to allow herself the time to find an appropriate answer, she walked slowly to a corner of the room, seized an extra chair and drew it closer to the bed. Once comfortably seated, she held Finch's hand between hers and hesitated before giving him a voluntarily evasive answer. "He's fine."
But the computer scientist wasn't fooled by the maneuver. Despite his postoperative lethargy which weighed down his body and darkened his mind, he had perfectly noted the young woman's hesitation.
"Where is he?" he demanded dryly as he tried to sit up.
Understanding his gesture, Root rose hurriedly and pushed him gently back against his pillow.
"Stay calm, or you'll reopen your wound," she whispered in a gentle voice to ease him.
Although Finch consented to lie down, his mind still remained completely obsessed with John.
"Is he here?" Harold continued as he plunged his shining gaze of fear and hope into Root's dark eyes.
Ill at ease, the young woman quickly lowered her eyes and replied in a whisper of embarrassment, "No."
"Where is he?" repeated the other man as he grew more and more worried.
Root then decided to be honest, knowing full well that it would be useless to beat around the bush, if not to agitate and unnecessarily worry Finch, who needed rest. She inhaled deeply and then blurted, "He's in the subway station."
"What?!" exclaimed the recluse as he sat up so brutally that he couldn't hold back a groan when his stitches stretched painfully with his movement.
The young woman leaped out of her seat again and laid her hands on the man's shoulders to calm him down. "Stay calm. We didn't have a choice. With his chip, we couldn't bring him to the hospital or he would have been spotted immediately by Samaritan. His wound was superficial and didn't require surgery. We put him in the Faraday cage that you had set up for the simulations between the Machine and Samaritan."
Although Finch's rational side fully understood the arguments that Root gave, his love was completely irrational. His heart sank as he imagined John, lying on the small rollaway bed in the middle of an empty, hermetically locked room, in an abandoned subway station that was far from being a model of propriety.
"Who's looking after him?" he asked with a trembling voice, doing his best to avoid being overwhelmed by emotion.
"Shaw is at his side. She treated his shoulder wound and stole Methadone and Subutex from a drug clinic to start weaning him as soon as he wakes up."
At the very moment when she pronounced this last word, Root regretted it immediately. She looked up and found that Finch had fully understood what had eluded him. His eyes were wide with fright and his face reflected a deep concern as he asked in a trembling voice, "He's still not awake?"
Root's expression trembled slightly as she answered in a weak voice, "No..."
After a quick calculation, Finch came to the conclusion that John had been unconscious for 24 hours. His blood turned to ice. He didn't need to be a doctor to understand that this coma was absolutely not normal for a superficial injury to the shoulder and doses of drugs... unless it wasn't a conventional drug... "What did they inject him with?" he asked, gradually retrieving his fighting spirit and his sharpened mind.
"The Samaritan doctor talked about angel dust."
Finch frowned, he'd never heard of that substance. He listened with the utmost attention to Root's explanation.
"It's a synthetic drug developed by the CIA during the Cold War as part of a program on mental control. Unfortunately we've no remedy, but Shaw has recovered a few drops of the product and hopes that this will allow the Machine to produce a suitable substitute."
At the evocation of the Machine, Finch started, plagued by a strong sense of guilt. He had liberated her. He had given her full power at the risk of seeing the AI not only escape them, but perhaps turn against them. Ashamed, he bowed his head and asked the other question that tormented him, "She's still helping us?"
Root hesitated before replying, "She was the one who notified the hospital of our arrival and created this identity for you."
Finch remained silent for a few seconds. He lifted his head and squinted his eyes to examine his companion. He noted obvious signs of discomfort even though he had to admit that she was hiding them well. He noticed her eyes were too fleeting, her hands that nervously pressed the sleeves of her leather jacket and her leg which nervously tapped the ground in a uncontrollable tic.
"That's not what I asked," he clarified while sitting up slightly, trying to capture the young woman's gaze. His suspicions were verified when he crossed Root's brown eyes that were full of doubt. The hacker had always had a hard time hiding her feelings. She wore them like a standard on her always expressive face.
"Since your admission to the hospital, she hasn't spoken to me," she confessed finally.
But Finch had already understood the situation for a long time. He closed his eyes, again overwhelmed with guilt. So his worst fears seemed to materialize. The Machine had saved him, but now that his life was no longer in danger, she was gone. She had left him to his sad fate... had abandoned him. Was she coming back? Would she continue her mission and provide numbers? Would she continue to help the humans or would she consider them as threats and order their elimination? These unanswered questions kept turning in the computer scientist's mind.
Finch sighed loudly and sank a little more under the covers as if he wished to disappear, beset by shame. He was the perfect example of man's bankruptcy, using technology for his own sake. He, who had lectured Nathan on morality by explaining to him that he had to make choices between relevant numbers and irrelevant numbers, that the Machine had to work for the general interest and not particular interests, he had not hesitated to use the power of the AI to save them. In the end he was no better than Greer. He couldn't hold back a mirthless laugh as he thought of the sad irony of the situation.
Root looked at him in silence. She had already seen Finch at his worst, during their escape after the commissioning of Samaritan, after taking the poison to save Elizabeth Bridges, after the abduction of Grace, or even after that of John, but this... This was something else. The man before her had lost the taste of living, the will to fight. His condition worried her, just as much as the silence of his creation.
Where am I?
Why can't I move?
Why do I hurt so badly?
The man tried to open his eyes, or turn over to change his position, but nothing worked. His body, as if paralyzed, refused to obey him. Only his brain seemed to function normally and he was running at full throttle, trying to perceive the sounds, the movements, the odours, the sensations around him. But there was nothing. Emptiness. It was like he was floating in limbo.
Am I dead?
Strange, I imagined it would've been a little warmer..
But on the contrary, he was cold. He was frozen, even. He slowly opened his eyes and noticed that everything was dark around him.
This might be Hell... after all...
He slowly closed his eyes. He was bloodless, hopeless, devoid of any will. He felt himself sinking into a bottomless abyss, engulfed in this icy, black, and silent darkness.
Darkness...
Again and always...
He was the darkness. He had caused pain. He was evil. He had tortured Harold. He had beaten him, stabbed him, shot him. What man could kill the being he loved more than anything? Not a man, no. A monster. He was a monster. He deserved death.
Convinced of this result, John let himself go, wishing to die, to be swallowed up in the darkness that had accompanied him throughout his life. Death, a faithful friend, had always followed him like a shadow, marking his journey with corpses: his parents first, then the enemies of his country when he worked for the army and the CIA, Jessica, the Samaritan agents, and finally... Harold, his last victim. It was only fitting justice that it finally consented to take his life.
Suddenly, a female voice called him. "John?" The voice was soft, warm, comforting. It enveloped him in gentle, soothing warmth. Strangely, he felt well.
"John?" repeated the voice.
Does she know me?
Why do I feel so good?
"Who are you?" he asked, just reopening his eyes. The darkness had vanished, replaced by a glowing light, so powerful that the agent had to put his hand in front of his eyes to protect himself.
"You know who I am," replied the voice that seemed to enjoy cultivating a mystery and talking in riddles.
John slowly lowered his hand. Of course he knew. He had recognized her from the very beginning. But he had trouble naming her. As if just saying who she was, gave her a real consistency. Yet the man had always been particularly suspicious of her, preferring to rely on the creator rather than the creation, also all-powerful and infallible.
"Name me," repeated the voice, still gentle and soothing.
"You have no name," replied Reese, pushing back the moment where he had to name the entity who spoke to him.
"That never stopped you from calling me when you needed it," remarked the voice, slightly ironic.
John affected a slight smile before answering in the same tone, "That's true. You're the Machine," he murmured in a breath.
"Good," the AI contented itself to answer.
This sibylline response disturbed the agent. What did she want? Why was she contacting him if it was to remain silent now? After a few seconds of disturbing silence, he dared to ask, "How are you talking to me?"
"I'm using the chip that Samaritan planted in your brain."
"Awesome," murmured the man, appalled to learn that two artificial intelligences potentially had access to his mind. A silence greeted the agent's caustic remark, as if the supercomputer was giving him time to accept this intrusion into his thoughts. Then the Machine began to talk to him again, slowly, as if she were afraid to scare him.
"I've been watching you for a long time, John."
"It's too much honour," the agent couldn't help commenting, still on the defensive.
"Don't be sarcastic; you're a very important person..."
"Important for the missions," the man abruptly cut her off with bitterness, painfully conscious of having always been an asset, a pawn in the eyes of the army, the CIA, and even artificial intelligences...
"Important for Harold," the Machine corrected him.
It was John's turn to remain silent. His heart sank at the evocation of Finch. He closed his eyes and was assailed by images of unbearable violence. He saw himself slapping Finch, strangling him, humiliating him, tearing his clothes and allowing himself to be displaced, inflicting water torture on him, and finally the...
The man suddenly reopened his eyes, hoping to put an end to his nightmarish visions. But it was a lost cause. One couldn't erase those memories, or muzzle the little voice of his conscience that kept yelling at him that he was a monster, that he was evil, that he did not deserve to live while Finch was dead. "I killed him," he murmured in a broken voice, unable to hold back the tears that slipped silently down his cheeks.
"No, you didn't kill him."
John's heart skipped a beat. He'd been digging into his memory; his last memory showed him pointing his gun at Finch's head, hoping with his whole being to be killed before he committed the irreparable... "What do you mean?" he asked in a trembling voice, wiping his tears.
"He's currently being cared for at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where I had him admitted under a false name and under false pretense. His surgery went well, Dr. Latimer withdrew his spleen and a kidney, but he can return to a normal life without repercussions."
John had the impression that he had just had a huge weight taken off his stomach. An intense joy squeezed his heart and he couldn't speak for long minutes as he relished the happiness of knowing that Harold was alive. "Harold... is... alive," he repeated as if to make sure that he understood what the Machine had just announced.
"You saved him, John," declared the AI, point-blank.
John let out a great burst of laughter when he heard this aberration. "You think I saved him?!" he exclaimed when he calmed down. "I was the one who inflicted the wounds that sent him to the hospital! I almost killed him!" How could a super intelligence be so mistaken?
"But you did not," insisted the Machine in a voice still so soft.
"I'm a monster," continued the agent, still traumatized by the unspeakable acts he had been forced to do.
"You aren't."
"I'm dangerous for Finch!" said Reese, raising his voice, somewhat annoyed by the stupid stubbornness of the AI.
"You protected him."
"It's because I'm an assassin that Samaritan chose me! It used my skills and my connections with him to reach him!" Damn it! Why didn't she want to understand? Why was she so stubborn?!
"It's precisely because it was you who held the weapon that Harold did not die," continued the computer.
John frowned. What did she want him to understand? "How's that?" he asked, feeling more and more lost.
"Watch."
Suddenly, the soft light in which the agent had been bathed from the beginning of his conversation with the Machine became the cell in which Finch had been held captive. He recognized only too well this room which had been the scene of his last abuses. Then, silhouettes materialized in front of him: Greer, Gabriel Hayward, two Samaritan agents and the doctor, then Finch on his knees before him. Like a helpless spectator, John watched himself point his gun at Finch. The latter, weeping, awkwardly lifted his pistol with a trembling hand. John could see himself begging his boss to shoot, to kill him. Then the shots cracked.
Reese jumped. He saw himself collapsing on the ground, hit in the shoulder. But he knew that his wound was only superficial. On the other hand, he was amazed to see his partner not collapse as well. Harold remained kneeling, his brandished weapon still smoking, merely hit in the shoulder, a simple scratch, judging by the small tear in his suit jacket.
The voice of the Machine pulled him out of his morbid contemplation. "Did you see?"
"Yes, I almost killed him," said John, his eyes riveted on Finch's face ravaged by pain and sadness.
"You missed."
John kept quiet.
Seeing that her agent still didn't see where she was coming from, the AI decided to develop her idea. "Can you explain to me how you, John Reese, the weapons expert and the marksman without peer, could have missed a target at close range, almost touching?"
John pondered a few moments before answering with a bit of irony, "Maybe because I was drugged?"
"You know that's not true."
The agent plunged again into a hushed silence. Why didn't she leave him alone? Why was she talking to him? Could she not let him go to a place where he was no longer at risk of harming anyone? "Let me die," he whispered with a fragile sigh. He had had enough of all this, of this life dominated by evil, glazed with so many deaths that he couldn't even make an exact count.
"No."
"But for God's sake, why?!" the younger man exploded. "Can't you see I'm dangerous? Dangerous for others? Dangerous for Finch?!"
"I'll tell you why you missed him. You deliberately missed your target. You sacrificed yourself to save him."
John blinked in surprise but he scowled almost immediately. "It's no less true that I am dangerous for him. Everyone who gets close to me dies. I'm not going to let that happen again. I am his weak point, his weakness. He's better off without me," he declared in a mortified tone.
"No, he's not. Without you, Harold would've died countless times. You protected him at the peril of your own life."
"I almost killed him, let me die," pleaded John, more and more disturbed by the Machine's arguments.
"If you die, Harold will die."
Taken aback and worried about these new revelations, Reese straightened his head. "What do you mean?"
"He loves you. If you disappear, he won't recover."
John kept silent, torn between fear and hope. That's when the Machine asked him the question. The one that was going to upset his existence. The one that was going to either flip him to the other side, or make him stay.
"And you, John, do you love him?"
John knew that his answer would determine his fate. But he was certain that the Machine was waiting for much more than a simple yes or no. Besides, she had to know his feelings about Harold already. Wasn't she in his mind? No, she was simply asking him to choose between life or death, Finch or death.
John inhaled deeply and replied gravely, "Yes, I love him."
