Chapter Sixty-Five
Not Me Who's The Crazy One
General Malcolm Reed
I'm more convinced than ever these days that that delta radiation did more than fry what Mama Tucker presumably thought of as her lil' boy's good looks; it must have had more than a peek into whatever basket holds what little sense he once possessed, and done that a power of no good either.
Being nice to people?
Hell's bells and buckets of blood, what does he really think that will get him, apart from pissed on from a great height?
But more incredible than anything else (Lord, if it wasn't so funny I'd run a mile in case his mania's contagious) is that he actually expects me to take a leaf out of his book and start trying to act as mad as he is!
Well. I dare say he has tried it here on Jupiter Station, and I dare say he has had some success. Almost against my will I recall how startled I was by the progress that had been made when I ... Lucifer, how long ago that seems now. Leaning on the wall beside the Observation Lounge's viewing port, staring out across the burnished duranium expanse of the external hull, I remember the view from the bridge of the Sirius as Dreadnaught and Invictus moved forward to examine the vast station for threats. A scene that had been chaotic had been transformed, with progress made that I'd never have believed possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.
And it wasn't just external. Since the good Commodore came to the conclusion that I'm duly tamed enough to trot about a bit without biting people (though not nearly housebroken enough to wander very far unchecked and certainly not unsupervised), I've had the opportunity to weigh up the station from the inside too. In the weeks following the hostage incident, my designated 'range' has gradually increased. Naturally I'm still only allowed in very limited areas, mostly the quieter lower levels and certainly not the busy common areas like the mess hall, the main gym, the primary construction and salvage bays, and the arrivals and departures lounge; considering I already know a number of things about him and his plans that could get him executed for treason, he obviously doesn't want me taking any opportunity to disclose that information to anyone who could pass it on.
When we were in the bunker it was simple enough, it was staffed by people he could trust, but here on Jupiter Station things are very different. Engineering personnel are regularly rotated back from the lines for refresher training, and I very much doubt whether he's had time to get them all eating out of his hands yet; though from what I have seen from a distance, no one is averse to shaking them, and it's astonishing to me how much goodwill and fellow feeling that small act of human contact seems to generate. Not to mention the presence of the MACOs and Command personnel who are stationed here on a regular basis, as well as the captains and crews of the ships docked for maintenance and refitting, who take the opportunity for a change of scene while their vessels are being refurbished. Not only are there bound to be spies in place – that's the Empire's stock-in-trade after all – but any MACO (excepting perhaps Corporal Cole and any of the others he has taken into his confidence) would regard orders from me as superseding his duty of obedience to a mere Commodore.
For all that I reluctantly have to admit to myself that I now owe Tucker something better than a show trial and an extremely protracted execution, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to order his arrest for treason and make arrangements to have the device that allows him to hijack my heartbeat removed while he was secured. My attitude towards him may have mellowed somewhat, but have no doubt of it, if I can get free I'll do it by any means necessary. Our recent minor spat has made me more anxious than ever to do so, at which time I will make a point of revisiting the issue of exactly who is 'small and hurt and scared' now.
He's made it clear in his charmingly blunt way that he's quite aware of my ambitions on the score of regaining my freedom, and it's a relief that he still has that much common sense left. Therefore once I leave my own room I'm constantly shadowed by two guards, MACOs both of them, so that anyone seeing them will take them for my personal bodyguard and think nothing of it. But it transpires they are now MACOs in name only, and when I inform them conversationally that the day may come when I'm in a position to repay them for their infidelity, they simply share a look and shrug, which I realise some while later is a profound statement more eloquent than words of the deep regard they feel for Commodore Tucker. The tracker fitted to me ensures I'm not even tempted to stray beyond the set limits, so presumably their job is to make sure I don't try to communicate with anyone I may encounter wandering into my tightly circumscribed little world. But even what I can see for myself and access through various databases reinforces the message that however he's achieved it, he really has done something above and beyond what I for one would ever have thought possible.
I should probably have been prepared for that when I found myself unable to circumvent the safeguards he'd placed around my computer access (the computer being an upgrade from the PADD as I continued to behave myself and earn additional privileges); without wishing to sound unduly modest, when it comes to sneaking my way around circuitry I'm probably one of the best there is, and I spent a very frustrating afternoon quietly digging one figurative escape tunnel after another only for the ceiling to repeatedly fall in on me with a deafening blast of Rule Britannia from the built-in speakers. The way he smirked at me when he visited that evening and made a point of introducing the number 'seventeen' into the conversation on the most spurious of excuses made it abundantly clear that he knew exactly what I'd been up to and exactly how often I'd been caught doing it. And just in case I might by any remote chance have missed the joke, he whistled the first line of Rule Britannia as he left.
There are times when Commodore Tucker's sense of humour is extremely tiresome.
No doubt the expertise he gleaned during his dissection of Defiant has enabled him to adapt the technology into ours, giving him a station that's years more advanced than anything anywhere else. And it runs with superlative efficiency. When I started walking around, the first thing I noticed was that although the crew work with energy and commitment, they don't flinch when a superior officer addresses them. I'm pleased to report that they still flinch a bit when they notice me, but when Trip was first giving me the tour it was immediately apparent that for all they looked rightly nervous of me, they looked at him as if trusting him to save them.
Well. That pretty bracelet of his may indeed be the saving of them, but reluctantly I acknowledge that probably very few of them know of its existence; most of the time it's invisible under the sleeve of his uniform. So it's not his power over me that they trust, but his will not to expose them to something that poses any real threat. The dim reflection opposite me grins wryly at the realisation that Commodore Tucker walking me around Jupiter Station is much on a par with Archer walking that fucking Rottweiler of his around Enterprise; everyone knew Satan could rip an arm off without breaking sweat, but that choke-chain around his neck was the guarantee that – at least until it was decided you only needed one arm to do your job anyway – both of them would be staying attached for the time being.
The difference here is that people apparently trust Tucker not to turn me loose just for the hell of it to see what I get up to.
The business end of my choke chain is attached to the back of my breastbone, with the hand loop at the other end closely and constantly monitoring the smooth operation of my master's pulse. If his stops, so will mine. A charming arrangement indeed, but as I've mentioned, I doubt whether its existence is widespread public knowledge. That means it's Tucker they trust to keep me in line, and given my colourful past it's a real tribute to the man's powerful personality. That level of trust doesn't grow overnight, nor – in this delightful universe we inhabit – does it grow easily.
Still, even though I can't help but admit that these peculiar methods of his may possibly have their merits in the closed-off world of a space station, I'll be damned if I'm going to adopt them. And I'm still not at all sure there's not some very dark and secret ulterior motive behind all this wouldn't-it-be-lovely-if-we-were-all-kind-to-each-other crap he seems to think I'm going to take at face value. Hoshi's still single and available; so am I; so is he, and we're both undoubtedly aware that there are those other than ourselves who'll see a woman in control of the Empire as being ripe for seizure. I may have been allowed contact with some of my MACO officers via video link recently, but what I was allowed to say to them was very carefully scripted – the Commodore was off screen but well within my line of sight, and I strongly suspected it wasn't a coincidence that his right hand was resting casually on his left, with his thumb discreetly tucked under the cuff of his uniform where that damn bracelet of his lurks. I was well aware that my continued existence was being demonstrated to the MACOs in order to keep the infighting from kicking off, and so far it seems to have succeeded, but he saved me because – in his own words – he thought I could be 'useful'.
Useful for what is still to be established, I reflect darkly. I simply refuse to believe that he really is trying to get me to buy into his 'Peace and Love' lunacy; it would be on a par with asking a man-eating tiger to go vegetarian.
But I have to admit that at least so far his treatment of me has been pretty fair on the whole – we've had our disagreements, but what relationship doesn't? – and immeasurably better than what he'd have got from me if our positions had been reversed. He has continued to allow dear Miguel full rein with the now necessarily long-distance supervision of my recovery, of necessity from a distance, now, and in fairness the two of them did even allow me the dignity of choosing the day I had my ... shall we call it 'added extra' ... removed, and the method of its extraction.
A strange experience, that. I didn't feel much like talking for a couple of days afterwards, and to do them justice they didn't press me to. Even now the thought of it makes me feel a bit queasy, though you'd have thought I'd got used to it by now.
As for the other, additional complication in my life...
...I have no idea what to do about her.
My history to date has given me more than enough information about women's bodies. It kept me bang up to date with how to play on their fears, how to plumb the depths of their terrors, how to root out their weaknesses and use every one to tie them up and paralyse them or set them dancing to whatever tune I chose to pipe. They were prey, soft and vulnerable and easy meat for a killer, there to be used and battered into obedience.
I used her, yes, and battered her too, when I felt like it. Now when she comes into my room (always asking first), she's clearly watching for the signals we've evolved that indicate I need a friendly contact; without making too much of it and damaging my fragile dignity, she leans over me and licks my mouth gently. Although things she's said occasionally suggest she understands why I haven't even tried to touch her sexually, I'm beginning to find her proximity arousing; maybe that's a sign of recovery, though wounds far beyond the reach of a surgeon still break open and bleed inside me when I think about actually having sex. Maybe with Liz it would be different, but right now even the thought of having someone touch me in that way gives me the absolute horrors, and once or twice lately when I've woken to sticky sheets I went into the shower and scrubbed myself half raw, while the sound of my cries echoed off the Plexiglas.
I haven't told anyone about that, though I suspect from the abundance of cuddles on those days that someone must have heard me. Her lick-kisses are always light, but after the ... after the long showers, they're particularly tender.
Sometimes I even lick her in return, and when I don't, I think she understands that too.
She has such a sweet smile.
=/\=
Which is more than can be said for Comm-a-dawr Tucker, bless his cotton socks, who has now apparently decided he has nothing better to do with his day than come and badger me again on the topic of joining this lunatics' crusade of his.
We talk. Except it's more like fencing than talking, because he's trying to get through my guard and I'm resolutely declining to let him. I'm too old to believe in fairy-tales, thank him very much, and if he thinks I'm going to fall for this taradiddle he's trying to feed me, he's got another think coming.
After about an hour he's getting so impatient that I wonder rather nervously how his pulse is doing and whether being a bit more conciliatory might be wise. Not that I'd actually believe him, but honesty isn't always the best policy – especially when it gets the pulse racing and one's survival depends on it staying within set parameters. The words 'too fast, too slow, or gone' are somewhat engraved on my memory.
"Look, Malcolm, I can talk till I'm blue in the face…"
"Oh, please do," I cut in somewhat incautiously. "I'd quite enjoy seeing you become cyanotic and pass out from hypoxia." I don't know why I tend to do that just when I'm thinking about the risks associated with exciting, angering, or excessively frustrating him. Perhaps it's a subconscious death wish, or maybe I'm still smarting from that 'small and hurt and scared' gibe.
His blathering can be exceedingly tiresome.
"… but we have too much history between us an' you're so suspicious of everythin'..." As usual, he simply gives me a look and keeps talking as if I haven't interrupted.
I'm seated on the sofa by now, watching him pace. My rehabilitation has been coming along well – I can now bench sixty kilos, which was the first of my markers, but getting there has been a struggle and after a workout I'm still tired and aching. For the first time in my life, I understand what it means to 'feel one's age' and it's rather dreadful. "Suspicion has kept me alive all my life," I point out waspishly, and then like a wasp indeed I can't resist injecting the venom a little deeper. "The last time I really trusted anyone was the day I came to inspect Jupiter Station, and you know how that worked out."
He folds his arms and looks back levelly at me. "Yeah, I do, an' I know my part in it, an' that's why nothin' I can ever say will convince you. I know how easily words can be used to make lies, an' you probably know that even better than I do, so I can accept that it's too much to ask for you to believe what I say."
"Well, then, what do you propose to do?"
"We need to get past words. The Vulcans have a technique, they can look inside a person's mind, see what's really there. T'Pol seems to think she can do that with me an', if you're willin', she can bring you along with her. You'd see things through my eyes, whatever I chose to show you. You'd know what I thought, how I felt. I wouldn't be able to lie about anythin' because I wouldn't be usin' words. You'd be experiencin' things through my thoughts an' memories."
Ohhhhhh, he has no idea how these words fall howling into the icy depths inside me. He isn't even watching me that closely, preoccupied with exploring for himself how this proposed experience could advance his plans if he can talk me into going along with it. He doesn't even realise that I already know about mind melds, let alone that I've already experienced one.
V'Rel.
The man who uncovered the monster I'd become, who revealed the whole appalling system whereby Section 31 operatives were turned into mindless, murdering slaves.
Lucifer knows I've had time enough to come to terms with it, but even now the memory sends a visceral shudder through me. It was that discovery that set me on the path to power, set me searching out the others who'd been conditioned and brought into obedience for Harris's purposes. And, inevitably, that brought me to...
V'Rel died. I killed him. He was my soul, which was already damned.
But these are not things I have any intention of sharing with anyone, ever, so with a colossal effort I thrust them back into the core of me and maintain an external appearance of calm, slightly mocking cynicism.
"Vulcans."
"Yep. Green blood, pointy ears, got a thing about emotions. You may've noticed 'em around."
Especially around your quarters, mate, I think sardonically. T'Pol may have taken to dressing in a uniform these days (albeit one with 'SLAVE' on it), and gets to walk around the station rather than lying chained to Tucker's bed waiting for her lord and master to feel like spreading her legs and giving her one, but she and hers have never had reason to love Humans and I damn well won't believe they've found one recently. What the bloody hell gives him the idea that it's safe letting her between his ears, with full access to all the ultra-sensitive information he must possess?
Yes, and that reminds me.
"The uniforms."
My sudden non-sequitur takes him by surprise; for once his endless gabbling comes to a stop, if only for a breath or two. He's over by the drinks dispenser, pouring himself a coffee, and he scowls across at me while he tries to work out the connection. Finally, giving up the search for something that isn't there, "What about the uniforms?"
"The women's uniforms." Specifically, the uniforms that showed off flat, toned midriffs and everything north and south of them to best effect for male delectation. "Why don't your female engineers wear the female uniforms?"
He dismisses that with a wave of the hand – fortunately not the one that has his mug of coffee in it. "Simple health an' safety. There's a lot of dangerous chemicals in engineerin'; an' when they're on a weldin' job, there's sparks flyin', even sometimes bits of metal. On average, I'd say my female engineers are better at the job than the men because they're better with precision tasks, with the sole exception bein' times when a task requires brute force. Seemed stupid to me not to provide them with equal protection just so a bunch of horny bastards can get an eye full of skin when one of 'em walks by. The Empress saw the sense in it right away when I submitted it to her for approval. The one-piece is now the standard engineerin' uniform across the Empire – just a few basic adaptations to allow for curves."
I hide a grin at that. From a practical point of view it undoubtedly makes excellent sense – replacing a scorched uniform is far more time- and energy-efficient than repairing a scorched belly, however toned it may be. But I doubt if Hoshi shed superabundant tears over the idea of covering over all those attractive bodies in workhorse one-pieces. It will merely make the contrast between them and her own curvaceous and beautifully displayed body all the more telling, and that, I'm quite sure, was what sold her on the idea, even more than Trip's earnest pursuit of increased Health and Safety for his staff.
As for him referring to 'horny bastards' with such an air of saintly disapproval, well. It's about on a par with me looking down my nose at the Marquis de Sade.
"But what about the mind-meld?"
His question as he sits down opposite me jerks me from the memory of how the officers and crew on the other Enterprise also wore effectively unisex uniforms. The first time I saw a woman wearing one here brought the recollection back to me with a jolt, and now the treacherous thought drifts into my mind that Tucker's lunatic vision for World Love would sound far less lunatic there...
"You say it goes beyond words," I muse, "meaning you wouldn't be talking?"
"That's right," he nods encouragingly.
"Oh, gods yes, then," I say with heavy irony. "Anything to shut you up!"
He doesn't respond with irritation or annoyance, but he doesn't appreciate my humour either. "I'm bein' serious, Malcolm. If you could just see the world how I see it, it could change everything. So, what do you think about the possibility of the two of us sharin' a mind-meld?"
"I don't think about it at all," I reply shortly. Perhaps more shortly than I would have done if the memories weren't such unbearably intimate ones, but I'm not going to make excuses. "And if you'll forgive my bluntness, Commodore, you shouldn't be thinking about it either. It may have escaped your notice, but what you're suggesting would almost certainly come under the heading of conspiring with the Empress's enemies. In a word, treason."
"That's not what I'm doin' it for."
Lucifer, he's so naïve, even now! Perhaps if I spell it out in words of no more than two syllables he'll get the picture. "It doesn't matter what you're doing it for." I lean forward and speak very slowly and clearly, hoping his ears are functioning properly because his intelligence certainly isn't. "Your intentions are completely beside the point. I was the head of the Empire's security, and I'm telling you now, what matters is that Vulcans are a conquered species. Slaves. And the one you're talking about isn't just a slave, she's a failed rebel. The only reason she got let off with her life was because you wanted her as a fuck-toy and the newly-ascended Empress realised such a gift could be enough to earn her some goodwill from the man she intended to make the Empire's chief engineer. And now you're proposing to give her access to your brain, which holds information that could give her fellow rebels so much power they might well be able to stage another rebellion – a successful one this time, if they could somehow get access to enough materiel and facilities on the quiet."
He sits forward. Although the posture shows his eagerness to convince me, his words are surprisingly rational. "Malcolm, that's not how meldin' works. It's not like connectin' a portable hard drive to a computer terminal an' downloadin' all the raw data.
"You allow access to the person meldin' with you. You show them what you want them to see. You stay in control the whole time."
I can't help it. In a move that's nakedly defensive, I pull my legs up and tuck them sideways. It's still not completely comfortable – the flesh at the base of my abdomen is still a little tender, deep inside – but the memories of V'Rel's touch inside my head are far too vivid even now.
'In control the whole time'? That wasn't how it had felt before, although the whole point of the exercise was that the Vulcan search for material that I'd been carefully conditioned to forget.
Harris and his team of experts were well aware of the risks if even one of their lab rats should ever regain the memories of exactly what had been done to them, and but for the temporary disruption in service effected by that Gorn booby-trap it's highly unlikely that the mental blocks would have shifted. Even so, in order to get to the bottom of the mystery I had to allow V'Rel access to pretty well anywhere he wanted, and it wasn't an experience I'm anxious to repeat. Even apart from what felt like violation of my mind rather than my body, his access to it pretty well guaranteed he wouldn't leave Sickbay alive; I couldn't take the risk of him talking – not now he knew...
I'd been aware of that before he walked in, of course. What I hadn't known was that I'd be sorry he had to die, that I'd encounter a man I could have loved and have to kill him.
V'Rel, of course, was dispensable. I have the distinct feeling that Commodore Tucker will not view T'Pol in the same light. (When I had her as part of the initial interrogation procedure it was like shagging a sex doll, though she did have the most amazing tits. Maybe she's warmed up a bit since then, because tits or no, I should think even Tucker would have got bored of the inertia by now.)
I could, of course, agree to the experiment if we found A N Other Vulcan whom he wouldn't mind me killing afterwards. Time was when I'm fairly sure he would have found this a perfectly reasonable compromise. In his present deluded frame of mind, however, I fear he might turn all sentimental on me and say he wouldn't approve of that either.
Besides, even aside from the horrendous risk of allowing a non-disposable Vulcan access to the minds of not only the Head of the Empire's Engineering Programme but also its de-facto Head of Security, and thereby involving both of them in an open and shut case of treason that would see the pair of us in front of a firing squad without even the formality of a trial, there's the small matter of what she might be able to access in mine on other matters than security.
Ants leave a chemical trail, and who knows whether probing Vulcans might do something of the same? Once she was in there I've no doubt the temptation to take a peek would be damn near irresistible.
No.
I think he knows from my expression that I'm not having it. Subtly I tense my muscles, and watch for his right hand to move to his left wrist. There are guards outside, and for all that he promised not to coerce me, that was presumably qualified by the words 'as long as you co-operate'. A few presses of the button on that wristband, and I'll be disabled by my own heartbeat. It won't take long for them to carry me to Sickbay, and then they'll tie me down and call for T'Pol, and it really won't matter any more whether I consent or not. Maybe, in a weird sort of way, it'll be a relief when they do; then I'll be back in a world I recognise, however hateful it may be.
"Malcolm, I know how hard this must be for you, but I'm askin' you to trust me," he says quietly.
"You mean trust the man who co-operated to get me drugged, surgically altered, raped and impregnated." I almost spit the words at him. "Who's wearing an armband that will kill me if I don't do as I'm told."
"Yes, I co-operated with the orders I received." His voice is still low and even. "I had no choice, you've acknowledged that, an' I hated you anyway. I thought you were gonna be put on trial, thrown into prison, maybe just quietly done away with, an' I could live with that, no problem.
"I had no idea they were gonna do what they did to you, an' it made me sick to my stomach when I found out. No-one should have that done to them, no matter who they are, no matter what they've done. I told you I wanted to rescue you to kill you myself, an' that was the truth, but at least you'd have died as a man – not like some goddamn lab experiment.
"It was those three words you said that changed the ball game. 'End of Humanity'. You weren't talkin' about yourself, you weren't askin' for help, you were tryin' to warn me what was goin' on. In that moment you showed me there's some real good buried inside that cruel, murderin' sonofabitch I thought you were. That's when I knew I had to take the chance an' get you out of there – an' try to see if I could get you onside with what's goin' on here."
"So in a word, this is payback time, finally," I jeer, mostly to save myself from thinking about his idiotic theory that there's some 'real good' buried inside me; it's been a damn few years since that was true. "You saved my arse, now I'm supposed to be suitably grateful and do whatever you want. However lunatic I think it may be! I'm merely surprised you don't simply tell me what's going to happen to me and have done with it. After all, I'm just small and hurt and scared, aren't I? Why the fuck should you care whether I trust you or not?"
"You – wha – huh? Sma – Malc – What?"
"That's what you called me the day I came back to my quarters to find you there with Beans," I remind him savagely. My god! Do I really need to remind him? He absolutely flayed me, and he expects me to believe he doesn't remember?
"Malcolm, I…I'm sorry, I don't recall!" He shakes his head, and, to my horror, his expression tells me it's true. He has no recollection of the event whatsoever. I feel my eyes prickling and my throat getting tight. If it was nothing to him, why should it mean so much to me?
An image flits into my mind. Christopher. Thin, blond, the only one of my schoolmates to ever call me friend. The connection between them in my mind dawned on me a while ago. That, if anything, is the answer to the question of why I care that Tucker doesn't recall his devastating gibe, but I thrust it away ferociously. Right now, I want him to explain why having my trust matters to him. I even want him – and how fucking stupid am I to even hope it could be possible – to somehow make up for the pain I suffered when he took advantage of his knowledge of me to hurt so cruelly.
Ginny again. Hurt masking itself as anger. Own the emotion and deal with what you're really feeling, not what you're pretending to feel because it's easier to admit to.
Fuck me, what am I hoping for? He'll put a sticking plaster over my laceration and kiss it better?
To recall this extremely minor incident to his recollection, I go on, in a voice shaking with anger I can't control, "When I asked you what it meant that she preferred me to you, because animals are supposed to be such good judges of character and cats are especially selective about the people they choose, you said she liked to mother things that were small and hurt and scared!"
His expression is changing. He's honestly trying to remember, and I curse myself for broadcasting my emotions so recklessly that he now realises he somehow hurt me and he wants to make it better. For one thing, it shows just how much he hurt me – how much power he had to hurt me – and it reveals my weakness. It shows how badly I was wounded, and far worse, it shows it hasn't healed.
It shows I care.
I should drop it, because right now my defences are lying wide open and that's something I can't allow at any price, but he's trying and for some ridiculous reason I need to know. I need an answer. Lucifer help me, I want him to work a miracle and make things better.
"You'd just threatened to lock me away alone in the dark if I crossed you, to isolate me and revert to the same kind of imprisonment and cruelty I'm supposed to thank you for saving me from." Even as I say this, giving in to this painful emotional overload, I realise I am stronger than I was before. I may admit to feeling hurt where before I would have simply have marinated silently in my anger until I found an appropriate opportunity to exact a revenge that would have made what I did to Sallis pale by comparison, but at least, having to talk about it, I can talk about it without blubbering like a child. It's an indication of both how far I have come and how far I've yet to go. "When I asked about Beans, you told me about how she kills some desert birds but she mothered Private Jones's Inca…"
He snaps his fingers as the memory surfaces. "The Inca dove! Yeah, I remember now!" In the next few seconds, his mangled features go through so many different expressions there's no way I have time to interpret them all. Among those I recognize are surprise, confusion, regret, and something akin to amusement, and then he finally settles on a beaming, brilliant epiphanic grin that makes me want to disembowel him with a rusty spoon; so he thinks my pain is funny? "So that's the burr that's been under your saddle lately!"
"And why shouldn't it be?" I snarl, trying to make my voice sound harsh with disdain and bitterness rather than rough with emotion. "You take every fucking bloody opportunity there is to remind me that I'm helpless!" I stab a finger towards the wrist where that bracelet is peeping from under his cuff. "Like you hadn't already made that perfectly clear!"
The grin evaporates from his face faster than the contents of a flask of liquid nitrogen after they've been spilled onto the floor. It's replaced by a look of contrition, and though I can't quite be certain of its sincerity, he has given me his word that he wouldn't lie to me. Except for the day they returned me to the station, I haven't once caught him breaking any of the promises he made to me during our first meeting in the Bunker, even when I put him on the spot with his brother-in-law, so it's hard not to give him the benefit of the doubt when he speaks again.
"Malcolm," he says gravely, holding my gaze in a way that would be very uncomfortable if he were Pack, "I'm sorry."
For a long moment he lets his words hang in the air. It's such a stunningly simple apology with no bullshit explaining how what he did wasn't really as bad as I'd perceived it to be that I almost believe he means it, but when he resumes talking, my doubts begin to rise again.
"It was never my intention to make you feel that way. I never meant to make you feel demeaned or diminished. In my mind, I guess we were just bickerin'. I said something to piss you off…"
"You threatened me," I interrupt to remind him, and he stops.
After a moment, he nods, much to my surprise. "Yeah, you're right, I did, an' that was wrong. An' rather than callin' me out on it, you said somethin' to piss me off, so I fired back – it's a two way street, you know, neither of us can fight by ourselves. At any rate, I never really imagined that anything I could say would ever frighten or worry you or make you feel, well, as you put it, 'helpless'."
"Well, you've done a bloody good job accomplishing something you never intended to do," I reply sullenly. "So, why'd you do it?"
It's hard to imagine him faking the bewildered look he shoots me – he's not that good an actor – but when he starts to laugh at me, well, if I had a knife to hand, he'd stop it very bloody quickly; though it does conveniently distract him from my absolute mortification over what I only now realise I've just admitted to him. I'm sure if he noticed that I confessed to feeling 'small, hurt and scared' – worse yet, acknowledged that he could make me feel that way – he'll be off crowing about it to Ginny within the hour. Is this what counselling is meant to do to me, make me subject to slipping into such vulnerability without warning, almost without notice?
"I'm sorry, Malcolm," he says when he finally gets control of himself, "but have you forgotten exactly who in the hell you are?"
Now, I'm sure I must look as confused as he did a moment ago. "What do you mean?"
He sighs and gives me a look that's part exasperation, part disbelief.
"I mean, whatever's been done to you lately, you're still Chief Advisor to the Empress, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces, Commander in Chief of the MACOs, an' Head of Imperial Security. You might not be one hundred percent fightin' fit right now, but you're too damned clever to ever be helpless. You're General goddamn Reed, the scariest sonofabitch in the known universe!"
He leans forward, his expression now completely earnest. "I wasn't threatenin' you to scare you, Malcolm, I was lettin' you know that I haven't forgotten for one little minute just how very dangerous you are an' that I'm takin' proper precautions to protect my people an' myself so that you'd think twice about doin' anything reckless like tryin' to escape or contactin' one of your elite MACO teams to come an' get you. I'm still tryin' to figure out how to get through to you. I don't know what kind of language you really understand, other than violence an' threats of violence, an' I guess I was hopin' you'd see it as a sign of respect.
"Now, I told you the first day in the Bunker that I wasn't gonna coerce you to do anything, an' I meant that," he assures me. "I'm not tryin' to control you, Malcolm, but I kept you alive an' I brought you here; that makes me responsible for what you do. So, I've got to protect my people from you. Any threats I may have made, intentional or otherwise, are just my way of statin' the consequences you can expect if you try to hurt me an' mine. I am knowin'ly givin' you enough rope to hang yourself, but I won't be the one to tie it in a noose, put it round your neck, an' pull it tight. I'm just standin' here holdin' the end of it. An' I'm not gonna use force or violence or manipulation or pain or humiliation to make you do a goddamn thing, Malcolm. I'm just gonna keep askin' an' hopin' you'll agree to throw in with me.
"You've always done your best to make sure your MACOs are treated right, so you can't reasonably hold it against me for doin' the same for my people. As for gettin' you to trust me not to hurt you or force you into doin' somethin' you don't wanna do, well, I guess all either one of us can do is wait."
I can't help shaking my head. There's still too much I don't understand about whatever he might be up to. Yes, I'll admit I was just the tiniest bit chuffed, if only for a moment, when he said he recognized I was still a threat. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like someone was seeing me instead of some mad, wounded creature, but then I realise he would more than likely say anything, anything at all, to get me to give in and go along with his lunatic schemes.
"All right!" I finally decide to concede one of his points, for now, only because it gets in the way of discussing another. "Let's just pretend I accept – and I don't, really, but I'm saying I do so we can move on – I accept that all of your threats to date have really only been warnings of the potential consequences of my…bad behaviour."
"All right, you accept it only for the sake of argument," he agrees.
"I still don't understand why it matters that I'm willing. You have all the power in this situation." In case there's any question what I mean, I point to his wrist again. "Right there! Why don't you just fucking use it to get what you want?"
His eyes glitter like ice chips when he's angry, but now, they're burning like a gas jet. Is this hurt or offence? Have I wounded him?
Time was when I'd have known which I hoped it was. Now I'm not sure, and that realisation makes me almost as mad at myself as I am at him.
"Get this through your thick skull, you hard-headed, stubborn little Limey bastard." His voice is rough, not hard. He might be angry, but there's something else there, too. Something masquerading as anger, perhaps? I bet none of them ever expected that, while she's been helping me sort myself out, Ginny has also been teaching me to read other people even better than I did before. "I don't want a fuckin' tool. I don't want a goddamned trained monkey who'll do an' say exactly an' only what I tell him. I don't wanna have to make all the decisions all the time. I want a partner. I want a cohort, someone I can trust, who's smart enough to know what the right thing is, most of the time, brave enough to do it, an' powerful enough to make a real difference."
"Oh, I see," I snipe back at him, almost without meaning to because he is so earnest it gives me gooseflesh; and even more appalling, he's convincing. The man's not a foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic, but he wants to trust me? Has the Universe just shifted ninety degrees to rotate around the X rather than the Y axis? "And now that you've rescued me and become my saviour, I'm just supposed to fall over myself and become that partner out of sheer gratitude, quite against my better judgement and worse nature? Is that it?"
I fully expect him to snap back at me, but he shakes his head and sighs tiredly instead. "If you know your Bible stories at all, I suppose you could say that by gettin' you into the mess I was like Abraham takin' Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him. So whatever way you cut it, I don't deserve much credit or thanks for gettin' you out of it again, but in the end it was your own words that took the knife out of my hands."
I study the glass of water I'm holding. I'm frankly surprised that he remembers anything about the Bible. I'm a few years his senior and I was only about six or seven when religious services were outlawed. I suppose in the American South they could have been a little harder to eradicate. Even now, Americans in general are just a little more resistant to authority than most people, and from my experience the Tuckers in particular are just a little more…Christian.
As for me, Bible studies, for the year or two that we had them, were never really my thing (I used to smuggle weapons schematics into class in my prayerbook, and acquired an entirely undeserved reputation as a devout and pious little scholar), but I remember enough to make the connection. "And Liz Cutler was the angel," I muse.
He gives a snort of laughter at that. "I don't recall any mention of the angel slappin' Abraham halfway into next Tuesday because he stepped out of line, an' believe you me, Liz came right to my quarters an' ripped me a new one the day your shuttlepod arrived."
Sheer surprise at this revelation draws an answering chuckle from me. Liz is about three-quarters the size of Commodore Tucker, and the mental image of her marching to his cabin and whacking him on my behalf is so bizarre it would make a cat laugh.
"So, if I'm Isaac, you're Abraham and Liz is the angel, who's the ram?" I inquire, momentarily drawn into playing along.
He stops grinning. "I kind of thought that was the lab techs," he says soberly. "I had to destroy the facility, I couldn't risk Alpha survivin' an' I couldn't take the chance with a limited blast; he might not have been right beside the charge when it went off. There was a chance he might not even have been in the room."
I'm not grinning now either. Nor, it must be said, am I awash with sympathy for the deceased. Out of the two of us, I'm the one with the most experience of the lab techs' tender mercies, which were never merciful and rarely more tender than necessary. Getting blown into very tiny pieces was far kinder than what they'd have received if I'd ever got free, so on the whole I think they got off very lightly. I'd be surprised if most of them even knew they were dead.
No doubt he reads my lack of sympathy too, and understands the reason for it. "I know you won't give a rat's ass that any of them died, Malcolm, an' I don't blame you for that, but for what it's worth I don't suppose any of them had a choice about what they were doin' either. Any more than I did."
"They laughed," I say between my teeth.
He nods. "So did I."
At that, I set the glass down, because if I keep hold of it there's a good chance I'll smash it in his face. Sometimes I almost wish he would just compel me to do his bidding, press that button on his wristband until my racing heart brings me to my knees and makes me comply to save my life. It would be so much simpler, so much easier, so much less painful than what he is doing by trying to reason with me and convince me. Sometimes, these little chats of ours bloody hurt, and the strain I feel in my chest has nothing at all to do with the device he's placed there.
"Yes, you did. But at least you'd earned the right to laugh. I did my damnedest to blind you, back on Enterprise, actually if we're being honest I tried to kill you. And that fucking little puppy Roberts was one of your pets, too, and I psyched him into killing himself so I could set the trap for you to walk into. So yes, I could have cut your balls off and made you eat them raw for laughing at me, for kicking me when I couldn't kick you back. But I understood."
And with that, I stand up and stalk to the viewing port, where I stand looking out at the stars.
Though if we're being exceptionally honest, I can't actually see them for the tears.
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