Enjoy The Silence

-ead.

Alright, I am going to repeat myself for the recording, I have your permission to make a record of this counseling session?

Yeah, 'course.

Now how do you like to be referred to?

Ahh, you mean by my name or my cape name?

Yes. Whichever you feel most comfortable being addressed as.

Ray is good.

Alright, Ray it is. Now these counseling sessions, while mandated by the court as a part of your rehabilitation, are still a matter that is between you and myself. Your thoughts, feelings, and revelations are typically under the protection of confidentiality barring any kind of immediate threats to yourself or others.

I kinda understood that...

Basically, Ray, everything you say is private except for any kind of threats of immediate harm directed at yourself or others. Otherwise feel free to speak your mind.

So no talking about that miniature solar death ray construction progress using stuff from the commissary?

... have you held these tinker impulses long?

I'm joking, really. I'm no amateur Archimedes here. I'm being good, honest.

Do you usually process your thoughts on new situations with humor?

Straight up? No, it's really really a new thing.

How new is this behavior, Ray?

About four, five days after they found me in Boston. It's really strange cos I wasn't in that mindset. I was feeling lost and stuff and then people started wanting answers instead of asking if I was alright so suddenly I was joking whenever I wasn't alone.

So after losing your Grandmother and home you used humor to garner attention?

Not - garner, dodge it. Yeah, dodge the attention. Focus on making fun of whatever I'm dealing with than to deal or think of it, I guess? It didn't stop me from moping but I was a quiet kid to begin with and yeah.

Avoidant behavior is typically a defense mechanism to protect you from reality, but also behavior changes could stem from traumatic brain injury, so how did you cope with difficult subjects before Boston? Please note that Ray shrugged in response.

If I wanted my life narrated I'd ask Dragon for one of her drones to follow me around... sorry.

No, it's just the limitations of the recording. It's entirely audio so it's best I am aware of the context of any unseen responses on review.

Right, cool cool. Ahh, how I dealt with stuff before. Well, like - I was just about done with Junior year in high school. Gonna be a Senior, and the way Abuela would push me to get extra work done, taking classes in the Summer, and stuff, my Senior year was going to last just one semester. And and she was going to let me have the rest of the year off to work with Gramps' old crew so I could save up for a car for either college or trade school or to get to my real job...

Ray?

Sorry, ah, yeah so I was going to get a preview of the real world, I'd be my own man and all I could think of was my grandmother being all alone just watching her novellas. It sucked cos if my Grandfather wasn't around or I wasn't she'd just pause her life. I wasn't sure if she enjoyed what she did or if she was just used to waiting around from raising my Mom and then raising me that like so we took her life from her. Ya know?

I understand, intergenerational dynamics have changed over time especially with cultural norms still being observed by the traditional minded previous generations. But, Ray, what does this have to do with your coping before your crisis point?

That's exactly it, Boss. I worried. I worried about everything. Gramps heart, Abuela being alone, if what took my Mom's life will eventually get me, racists rolling into the neighborhood and no one stopping them cos what's a few less beaners and spics when little rich white girls go missing? Oh the horror of one missing child when roving packs of scared sociopaths want to spread misery and make money stealing Asians and Blacks and Mexicans to sell for slaves, right?

Ray-

Then one morning Leviathan shows up and sends chunks of ice across the city scrubbing my worries away and replacing it with my soul raw as the carne deshebrada my face looks like. So now I joke, running commentary, because it's that or - there is no or.

I am gaining a sense that you are still dealing with the events that brought you to this program, Ray?

Yeah, my life - this life is Vegas. Everyone else gets chips when the people I care about lose, and I get more scars. They let Cricket go and like half those Chosen, because of what I did. The only ones they clocked for the hostages was the ones who would go down there and-

Slow down, Ray.

Wish I could, Boss.

What do you mean by that, Ray?

Turns out PRT testing folks had a hard time with uhh data points about my powers but they've come to the idea that so it's always on. My default lif- existence is my breaker form, like a ghost forever haunting the Earth.

Are you telling me you are dead or you feel your life ended when you hit your crisis point, Ray?

Yeah, no... I'm done, Boss. Hey, guard, take me back to my cell.

~~x

-ure thing, record away.

Thank you, Ray. Now that you've consented to being recorded I'd like to broach the subject of...

Shadow Stalker?

However you wish to refer to her.

I don't know what you know about her but I'ma call her Dulcinea.

Dul-

This is private, right? She isn't going to hear this?

No, this is private unless you express threats of direct harm.

Cool cool, no worries. Yeah, what about her?

Have you had any contact with her since the night of the raid?

Nah, I don't get so much as a letter or video call since I got here that wasn't Dragon checking in or my attorney.

Would you like to receive letters or calls, Ray?

From who, Boss? Everyone is dead or out there that I know, and it's better that way.

It's better that you're in in-patient treatment, Ray?

If Piggot got it wrong in their head about who lit that place up - it'd be Dulcinea in chains, behind bars, locked up and dug out for use when she's an adult. Like a tool dumped in a tool box, it's only useful when it is, until then it's just in the way.

So that's how you feel, Ray? You're placed in here to keep you out of the way until you're useful to?

The PRT, The Protectorate, ya know - we're cardboard cutouts to put in front of Endbringers and Slaughterhouse Nine until the big guns drive them off. A guy with a shotgun is about the same threat as your average Parahuman when it comes to Endbringers. We can't stop them, just slow them down, they throw tantrums for attention then run when they're going to be spanked by Scion.

So you've been studying about Endbringer encounters, Ray?

No, in my down time for the lil bit I was with The Protectorate, I didn't get much rest - didn't need to. I'd read and watch ahead of my cir- cir- curriculum. All the protocols and rules and regulations for The Protectorate and it just greases the wheels to have capes ready to fight - they're the bulk of the resistance forces around the world for Endbringers.

Is that why you joined, Ray? For revenge on the creatures that attacked your home?

Nah, you don't get it, Boss. Revenge is for the living, I been here for weeks and I'm understanding what I am choosing to be.

And what are you choosing? Note Ray shrugged.

Fine... I'm choosing to be here. Because Dulcinea was concerned that I could just escape and run off and be free. She didn't understand that I am free, I can leave at any time, pass through the barriers and go where I want, but it means losing what I was.

Ray, I'm going to try to bring a concept to you in a digestible manner, okay?

Shoot, Boss.

There is a philosophical concept that there are levels of existence for all beings, that ranges from the matter that makes up your physical self to your mind - thoughts to your soul and then spirit. That the reality that your physical body, mind, soul, and spirit exist in has many inner levels.

... Okay.

My point is, you are saying your trigger destroyed your physical body and that your thoughts, your soul, and spirit pulls itself together to keep yourself tethered to the world?

Sure, that sounds about right.

Now, on the topic of Shadow Stalker, or Dulcinea, you spent time with her - you were close?

Yeah, rough first meeting but yeah, we got somewhat close in the little time we had.

You were physically intimate, yes?

I didn't know she was a minor, we're teenagers anyway.

No accusations, Ray. You shared a bed, I assume you slept, you kept close contact.

Yeah, we actually 'slept' slept together.

You didn't turn into your breaker state when you were unconscious, Dulcinea did not remark on you not being beside her?

What're you getting at?

You don't have to be conscious to control your ability, Ray. You wanted to be there with her, you didn't leave. Medical and PRT records state you would travel in your sleep by changing forms and go places you had been or dreamt of.

Well, when I was in the hospital I thought was in like purgatory, ya know. I broke commandments, like any teenager, ya know so I figured I was being punished.

So, you were dead and your ghost would 'haunt' locations. Yet after the PRT found you, you understood you had powers and these powers let you do seemingly impossible things.

Yeah, but like the traveling was this pull to just go, like I was attracted to go back home or to go back to what I thought was my body.

And that stopped with Dulcinea, these - callings, Ray?

Oh.

Would you like to stop here to think about this until our next session?

Yeah, Boss.

~~x

-ery quickly may I record this session, Ray?

Yes, whatever.

I'm sorry it took so long to get here, Ray, Dragon was insistent I be here. How are you?

Other than ugly all day, uhhh...

Ray is gesturing vaguely.

They took her, the Undersiders took Shadow Stalker, and everyone just let her go, all hunky dory, life is peachy because the PRT and Protectorate are so busy trying to protect the intact portions of the city to prove they got their shit together, BUT THEY DON'T!

Ray-

I'm in here because I put out a fire I started. That's it. Property damage in a city so damaged it'd be discounted for open box policy at Best Buy!

Ray, please, keep calm.

When am I getting let go?

It's not so simple.

Not simple? I WASN'T THERE - FOR HER and those crimelords or whatever are running around like the gangs - stealing people, heroes now! Nah, nah, they need me out there.

We're trying to help you through this difficult time, Ray.

No no, I had a difficult time when I woke up miles from home after watching mi Mama die. Instead I was jammed in a small room with a set of clothes, then tested for powers, fought a ln out of control robot against my will and then given a job to fight criminals. I got jack shit for help, Boss. Then I screw up and suddenly they're all concerned about my mental well being because I showed up with their name on my lips when I saved all those people. Fuck. That.

I understand you're upset.

Upset is under selling what I feel. Now let me out or I will let mys- what're you d-

... Ray Alcaraz has been sedated.

~~x