What You See...
Chapter Eight
For the Love of Sanity
As it turned out, someone had, indeed, let the loonies out of the bin. The whole place crawled with schizophrenics, delusionals, psychotics, parapsychotics, addicts, cured patients who'd just come in for a sixth-month-since evaluation, 'the wrong guy's, and so many more.
Gray shuddered to think of it. Yes, one insane person every once in a while was fine and good to deal with – it made him feel sane, himself – but the whole hospital was a bit much.
But he found himself navigating the labyrinth of nutcases, dutifully escorting both Aki and her uncle off the premises under pain of Hell to Pay.
Whatever that meant. If he could have paid off Hell to relent on his pitiful life, he already would have done so.
Anyhow.
He guided Aki, seemingly pacified for now; Sid, slightly more agitated; and the troupe, oft loitering and taking their damn time, towards the underground parking lot. For some odd reason, the hospital had an underground tunnel leading to the underground parking lot that ran straight through the underground treatment facilities, which always managed to give Gray the creeps. Especially since the lights were almost always off.
None of the lunatics – with the exception of Aki – had explored the path, though, which made him think that they were more sane than he thought.
Somewhere, he estimated, past the electroshock therapy room and before the archaic instrument collection room, Gray bumped into someone. At first he thought it was one of his group, one that had gotten ahead of him in the darkness, but as he backed off he saw it wasn't so.
As if on cue, the lights flashed on – though they sputtered a bit at the first connection all season. The mystery man – or Robert, as he was more commonly known – stared at the lights with much irritation.
Gray, on the other hand, stopped having a panic attack and relaxed considerably. Finally, someone sane!
Robert, for his part, glanced at each one in turn, blinking with all the confusion due a man just run into by a loon, a cracked old man, two FBI agents, a CIA employee and one fellow security guard.
"What's going on?" he asked suspiciously, cautious for the warning signs hanging evident over everyone but Gray and Aki.
Oblivious, Gray rushed through the whole situation as he knew it. He forgot, and so left out, the little things – such as the drug racket, the counterfeiting scam, and the lip gloss thing. In the end, he was nearly screaming.
"It's a madhouse!" he exclaimed, and was gifted to an echo in the confined tunnel. After a pause, where everyone glanced this way and that as the sound drifted around them, Gray continued at a slightly lower volume, "I'm getting the hell out of here."
He might have suggested for Robert to do the same, if the man hadn't smiled in a completely psychotic way and drawn a J-22 pistol out of… well, somewhere. Gray was too shocked to notice whence. If only Robert had only done one or the other, he might not have been so bewildered.
Heedless, the loyal guard continued his smile – through the psychosis, there was something dispirited about it.
"I can't let you do it, Gray," he hissed, "I can't let you destroy everything we've worked for over the years. You see, we're-"
And whatever Robert was about to say was cut off by the sound of gunfire… after which he promptly fell over screaming.
Not that anyone could hear it – the report deafened everyone for a few moments… even Ryan, who, wise to the situation, had covered his ears in priming.
After the ringing in his ears had dimmed, Gray could hear Neil berating Jane's choice of tact.
Hardly any improvement over being deaf.
---
While Gray and company were involved in the popular endeavor of saving ass, another was crawling around the institution like the worm he was.
The man of shifting identities had, by chance or by fate, found his way to Aki's cell. There, between the mattress and the wall, had slipped and been forgotten a piece of paper. Upon the paper was the study of a man under an atmosphere of the darkest wavelength.
The man studied the portrait intricately, as though trying to draw a conclusion of utmost importance.
At length, he folded the paper and tucked it away. Secure in his new persona, he stood tall and went about his business.
---
Back with Gray's party, things had become rather boring. Of their escape, there were no more incidents… In fact, things seemed to be going quite well. The parking lot had been unguarded, and Neil's car was where they had left it.
Things were going so well, in fact, that a stop at the All in One convenience store, which lay between the city limits and the hospital, was a safe and feasible idea for… various reasons.
Sid took Aki for a short walk around the parking lot; Ryan decided to get a snack; and Jane decided to call in a report to the field office from the corner payphone. Meanwhile, Neil kept a solid vigil over the conservative watch strapped to his wrist and Gray… well… stood by, regaining the feeling in his legs after Aki squashed his circulation.
A couple of minutes later… rather, exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds by Neil's watch, Gray attempted the age-old ceremony, oft regrettable as an experiment gone wrong, of small talk.
"So…" seeing as he had never met a CIA employee before, Gray was at a loss for what to say, "Must be an exciting life…."
He only trailed off because Neil was staring at him with all the affection of a wet cat. Or, at least, your ordinary alley cat… and not something exotic like a Turkish Van.
"Yeah, it must be…" Neil drawled, "But why don't you ask them about it?"
"What do you mean?" Gray asked, his cowardly brain already seeking an escape route for this classic example of small talk gone wrong.
"I don't do this sort of thing," Neil elaborated, if not relieved to find someone to talk to, he seemed at least pleased to bitch about it, "I sit at a desk all day dabbling in magic code. I have no reason to be here except for this joint endeavor thing, and if I lived through this abuse, my wife's going to kill me for disappearing like they made me."
Gray, stunned enough to not even um… at the thought, "Interesting… I'm going to go get a pack of cigarettes, after all, so…" inched away all the while.
"Whatever…"
He made his way to the convenience mart, passing Jane (engaged, as it seemed, in a pleasant enough conversation with whoever was on the opposing line of the phone). He ignored that she ignored him.
As it turned out, Ryan was grocery shopping; instead of reminding him of his own needs, it instilled in Gray the fact that the FBI were in the habit of living off junk food.
And Gray, as he had decided he wanted cigarettes, set about purchasing his cigarettes… despite the fact that he never smoked. Following what seemed to be his honest fate, the clerk asked for his identification.
"Do I look underage to you?"
"No, you look like a drugged out hippie," the clerk smiled, "But I'm not one to judge people by outward appearance. ID, please."
One long argument later, Gray grudgingly obliged. All the while he cursed the damn kid, who had probably never seen a hippie in his life, let alone a drugged out one.
His string of thought, mostly curses, and which was already tenuous at best, was cut short by the most inconvenient report. Inconvenient, that is, because it set his fearful mind wondering where said gunfire might have come from.
Not that he would have to wonder long, mind you, as Ryan was quick to investigate… and quick to drag the relenting security guard with him.