SHADO HQ, Medical
Five minutes later
"Can you feel that?" Dr. Jackson inquired mildly, as he applied minimal pressure with a needle to Jennifer's anaesthetised finger.
"No, nothing," she shook her head.
"Excellent. Then we begin." He picked up a scalpel and prepared to make the first incision into her fingertip.
The scalpel gleamed brightly as the blade caught the clinical light...and suddenly Jennifer was somewhere else.
She was in Reynolds Associates, strapped to a table, helpless...
Hardcastle's smile was almost beatific as she took Sophie's hand in hers, disregarding (but savouring) her terrified pleas...as she slowly, carefully slit open the fingertips one by one, as if she were doing nothing more than peeling a fruit.
She spoke almost clinically over Sophie's piercing screams of agony and terror, as a helpless Jennifer looked on in unbelieving horror. "The fingertips are particularly sensitive to cuts, but don't bleed too much. It'll be the work of a moment to stop the bleeding..." she smirked, "if I want to."
The scalpel's edge touched Jennifer's skin. Abruptly she freaked out.
"No!" she screamed in terror, jerking back. "NO! No, please, don't, don't hurt her -!"
"What the hell?!" Kelly gaped as Jennifer, unrecognisable in her wild-eyed hysteria, kept screaming.
Suddenly a panting Harriet Page, SHADO Combat Counsellor, was there, gasping while entering at a run, "You - bloody - idiots! Leave her to me!" She took Jennifer in her arms, soothing her; Jennifer was now crying, sobbing her heart out. Harriet called upon her superb training and expertly pitched her voice to be low, soft, reassuring (proven as such by SHADO medical research). "No, no, it's over, love, you're safe, and Sophie's safe...it's all right..."
It was long minutes before Harriet gently released her and cupped Jennifer's tear-streaked face in her hands. "Are you all right now, love?"
"I...I think so...thank you..."
"Harriet, what was th -?"
"She had a flashback, you dozy twats!" Harriet snapped angrily, her Welsh accent strong and harsh with stress and her heartfelt concern for Jennifer. "When I got word of what you were doing - and I should've been informed beforehand, I might add! - I ran all the way from my office! I knew this would happen! God, you can be so bloody thoughtless sometimes, mark you!"
Kelly gulped, aghast, as he realised what Harriet meant: Jennifer had flashed back to that horrible day when Lisa Hardcastle, then still under Alien influence, had tortured Sophie with a scalpel...cutting into her fingertips. "Oh, Jesus, I never thought...oh, Jen, I'm sorry...!"
"Give her some time, for Christ's sake," Harriet said testily, but then Jennifer spoke up:
"No...no, I'm okay now, really. I'm okay."
"You need time, love," Harriet demurred softly. "You never really realised you have PTSD, did you? But I did...and this dozy bugger," she glared irritably at Kelly, "should have realised, what with his psychology expertise - no loving mother could watch something so horrible happening to her child and not be traumatised by it! Thank God it happened here and not on the bloody mission!"
"I'm not perfect, Harriet," Kelly admitted, quietly contrite. "You're absolutely right; I should have seen this coming. Jennifer, I'm really sorry. Look, we'll, we'll figure something else out -"
"No, I'm okay now," Jennifer avowed. "Really, it was just...just the gleaming scalpel that set it off. I remembered Hardcastle's scalpel, when..." She stopped herself and shook her head. "Honestly, I can do this."
"Jen, are you sure?"
"Yes," she nodded.
"Don't be too hasty, Jennifer," Harriet chided her, and looked at Kelly. "I understand the mission's a Two-Alpha, Commander?"
"It is. She can pull out at any stage."
"No!" Jennifer insisted. "You need me! Sir, I swear I'm all right now!"
"Jennifer, you probably don't know this, but as the Combat Counsellor I have a certain degree of latitude when it comes to clearing operatives for missions. If I reckon they're not fit - or not ready - they do not go. And I have to say I do have my doubts as to the wisdom of taking a cadet on a mission - especially one which carries what I'm sure the Commander is willing to admit is an unknown degree of risk," Harriet pointedly finished.
"All true," Kelly confirmed tiredly as Jennifer looked to him for confirmation of this, "and I'm not so stupid as to override or ignore the recommendations of my Combat Counsellor - even though, as the Commander, I can. So what do you recommend, Harriet?"
"Well, admittedly the success of the mission is a priority," Harriet conceded, "so I do have to take that into account. Hence my primary question has to be: Is Cadet Harrison's participation absolutely necessary for that success, Commander?"
"No," Kelly admitted readily, "I could take Penelope with me instead. But for purely operational and tactical reasons, not the least of which is the role she'll be expected to play, I'm sure it'd be better if Jennifer went." He very carefully did not mention the cost of Jennifer's ensemble which would be wasted if she didn't go, because he was utterly certain there was no way in hell that dress would ever fit Penelope...
"Hmm. Alright, give me an hour with her," Harriet pronounced briskly, "and we'll see. Come with me, love." As Jennifer hesitated, the Counsellor added, "Believe it or not, I am in the chain of command, holding the permanent rank of Major...which means I can order you to come with me if I have to." She sighed. "I'd rather not, though." She looked pointedly at Kelly. "People get ordered around quite enough as it is."
Jennifer remained seated a moment longer, then acquiesced and rose to follow her.
SHADO HQ, Combat Counsellor's office
Unlike everywhere else in SHADO HQ, there was no air of hard-edged efficiency here; the entire, fairly large room was in total contrast to the rest of the facility. Jennifer took a moment to look around, fascinated.
Straight edges seemed to be verboten; the office furniture was all curves, a sort of 1960s Art Deco style, and even the room's corners were rounded rather than right-angled - even the door was oval in shape rather than the usual upright rectangle. Colours were warm, friendly non-contrasting shades, no primary colours, no black or white; the lighting was soft, diffuse. Nothing was sharp or harsh.
There was a very large, round fish tank, containing what appeared to be a miniature (bonsai?) coral reef, even to the extent of including sea anemones - several clownfish, among other tropical species present, were swimming in and out of the tentacles, secure in their protection (though of course there were none of their natural predators in the tank). Looks like I've found Nemo, Jennifer couldn't help thinking wryly. All in all, the entire office was...friendly, relaxing.
Which of course was the whole point, she comprehended readily.
"Have a seat, love."
"Harriet, I'm fine, really," Jennifer protested as she sat. The chair, padded with a type of memory foam triggered by body heat, was incredibly comfortable, moulding itself to Jennifer's form.
"Let me be the judge of that, Cadet," Harriet admonished mildly. She too sat, and sighed heavily. "He gets such tunnel vision at times; it's an occupational hazard in his line of work - sometimes he focuses too much on the objective and doesn't look carefully enough at other issues. Straker was just the same, I gather.
"Oh, he means well, and to be fair I know he'd have addressed this himself if it'd occurred to him. But PTSD can be triggered by anything - a sight, a sound, a scent, a single word, even; memory's a tricky thing. And you can't actually cure it, even with cognitive behavioural or reconsolidation therapies; you can only help a sufferer find ways to live with it.
"The only way to remove the trauma is to remove the associated memories...but if you ask sufferers if they'd take that option - if it existed outside of SHADO - they wouldn't. For better or worse, your memories are a part of you. Combat veterans would never go for it, because you might be expecting them to forget the last sight of a comrade, and that would be unacceptable to them - and rightly so. Forget a friend? They'd rather die."
"He'd never forget Katniss," Jennifer murmured.
"Mmm," Harriet soberly agreed. "Besides, outside of SHADO's security requirements it's considered unethical to remove memories, and quite right too."
"So...if I have a psychological condition...does that mean I'm unfit for duty?" Jennifer asked hesitantly.
Harriet sighed again. "If it were that simple, love, nearly 80% of SHADO's personnel would be in the same boat and we'd be in real trouble. It's staffed by walking wounded - Kelly, you, Harmony Bradley, the poor lass, Paul Foster...the list goes on."
"Paul?" Jennifer wondered curiously.
"In the UFO incident resulting in his recruitment, he lost his co-pilot - he used to be a civilian test pilot," Harriet explained. "Peter Carlin, the first Captain of Skydiver One, lost his sister to the Aliens - that's why he joined; he wanted to find out what had happened to her. Eleven years later, he did," she finished sadly. Jennifer could easily picture what that meant. "Even the Captain of Skydiver Five - her dad fell afoul of the Aliens, she was kidnapped as leverage, and he committed suicide because he thought they'd have killed her."
"'Proper Procedure in the Event of Alien Kidnapping of A Loved One'," Jennifer recalled, "yes, Kelly explained that to me. He told me what happened." Now she smiled. "In pillow talk."
"I'm glad you brought that up, love. When I heard he'd gotten involved with a woman, especially a mature one, I felt nothing but relief. You see, he's not a military man by background or temperament -"
"I've been wondering about that," Jennifer ventured curiously, "just what is his background?"
"Purely academic, actually," Harriet smiled, "he unknowingly drew attention to himself at UMIST by deducing SHADO's existence from first principles while working on his thesis, a new paradigm of operational analysis. As a direct result he was recruited even before he graduated!" she chuckled, and went on:
"So basically he's a university boffin who's in command of a military organisation, and that's been worrying me ever since I took this post - not that I thought he couldn't do the job, as he would never have been appointed in the first place if that were so, but because that lack of experience and hardening would put him under extra emotional pressure.
"I'm what SHADO calls a Combat Counsellor," she explained, "catering primarily to military personnel who are regularly engaged in battle, so I've learned a few things about the military along the way. I had to, really; it'd be harder counselling people if I didn't understand what they were talking about."
"Ah, I see."
"One invaluable service you can perform for Kelly - and for SHADO - is to provide him with an emotional outlet. He can't let go and cry in front of subordinates, he just can't - they need him to appear strong and resolute no matter what, even when he isn't, and he knows it. He is the Commander, after all. But he can cry in private on a girlfriend's shoulder. He can accept from her the comfort and support that he needs, that we all need. In private he can let his guard down, be human." She smiled warmly. "Be there for him, Jennifer...and for all of us. I know that's a hell of a responsibility to bear, but I think your shoulders are broad enough, love."
"If he needs to cry on my shoulder, he's welcome to," Jennifer returned softly. "I've only ever respected men who can cry."
"Quite right, too," Harriet approved firmly. "It's a sign of strength, not weakness. Men like Kelly, real men, understand that. For all his faults, I have to admit I do admire and respect him; certainly I give him full marks for admitting he doesn't have to take you with him." She paused briefly before asking, "Now you may have been asked this before, but how do you feel about taking orders from your lover?"
"It's not an issue," Jennifer shook her head, "because we both draw a very definite line between our personal and professional lives. If he ever tried to give me orders outside of a SHADO context or situation I'd shut him the hell down," she asserted firmly, "but when we're on duty he is my commanding officer. I've no problem with that, and I don't see any conflict."
"Exactly correct," Harriet approved with a brisk nod, noting the promptness of Jennifer's response which showed she was telling the truth and was certain of what she'd said, not that Harriet had expected anything else. "That's exactly the way it needs to be."
"Hang on," Jennifer wondered curiously, "when did this become about Kelly rather than me?"
Harriet chuckled. "It's about both of you; his attitude towards you is naturally coloured by his own PTSD - which you, bless you, love, are helping him deal with. In a way, you're helping each other. You're so intertwined personally that it's more useful for counselling purposes to contemplate both of you together."
"I love him, Harriet," Jennifer stated softly, "and he loves me. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that."
"I know, and I'm happy for you both; we all are," Harriet returned as softly.
After a contemplative pause, Jennifer asked, "So where does this leave us? Are you going to clear me?"
Harriet sighed again, deeply. "Oh, hell, he's right, damn him - to be honest, I really only brought you out of Medical to give you a chance to calm down, decompress a bit. The PTSD aside, you are ready, Jennifer. You're far more grounded than the average SHADO Cadet, as you're a mother - and a single mother at that - and you're older than the average by at least a decade.
"Plus it won't be the first time you've been placed at risk, so it's not as if you're inexperienced in that regard - and we don't know it's going to be dangerous; SHADO only suspects Shostakovich of dealing with the Aliens, there's no concrete proof."
"Which is partly what the whole mission is about, of course," Jennifer nodded.
"But you are a volunteer, and you can change your mind. No-one'll think any worse of you, that's the whole point of the Two-Alpha thing. The military term is 'dissenting without prejudice'."
"I know." Jennifer squared her shoulders. "Let's do this."
Harriet smiled gently. "You're a brave one, and no mistake. He's lucky to have you." Her smile turned impish, rather reminding Jennifer of Sophie. "Don't let him forget it."
"Oh, I won't," Jennifer grinned, and added conspiratorially, "Where else would he get his spanking fix?"
They laughed together.
SHADO HQ, Medical
"She's clear," Harriet sighed as they entered. "I still have my doubts, but nothing strong enough to gainsay it."
"Thanks, Harriet," Kelly nodded with professional respect; she smiled at Jennifer and took her leave, her job done. He turned to Jennifer. "You'll need another dose of local anaesthetic by now, Jen - when you're ready," he offered tactfully.
"I know, I can feel my fingers again. Um, I've had an idea: could we do this so I can't see what's happening? It might help," she suggested.
"An excellent idea," Jackson agreed, "my apologies for not thinking of it myself. A simple medical partition should suffice..."
It didn't take long, and Jennifer suffered no further panic attacks. Jackson exhaled, "It is done. Allow me to apply UV light..."
"Why?" Jennifer wondered curiously.
"The healing effect is more rapid if the salve is exposed to UV light immediately upon application, as Dr. Hardcastle discovered a few days ago," he explained while setting up a lamp.
"Oh, okay." She smiled as she quipped, "I thought you were trying to give me a tan."
"Indeed," he chuckled. He switched on the lamp and applied Hardcastle's Salve, which went rapidly to work.
SHADO HQ, Combat Simulation Firing Range
Twenty minutes later
"We'll just use paintball practice ammo," Kelly informed her, "there's no point in shooting knockout or poison flechèttes into a practice target; that'd be wasteful. Here's how you load it: just press the ammo clip - green cartridge - firmly to your finger, using the opposite thumb; you should just barely hear a click and your finger will feel slightly warm."
She complied; the self-sealing slot automatically concealed itself by masquerading as a scar, so no-one could tell it was even there. "Ooh, that feels nice," she remarked as a mild warmth suffused the digit.
He smiled indulgently. "Same with the other one, red cartridge." She did.
"Um, Kelly, I've thought of a practical flaw in these things," she ventured, holding up her hands (with her forefingers carefully crooked as an obvious precaution), "what if I point at someone and shoot them accidentally?"
"Well spotted," he smiled, "but for one thing you're not in the habit of pointing at people, and for another, the designers already thought of that. Try it."
"Mmm?"
"Point at a target," he invited her. She frowned, but shrugged and complied.
Nothing happened.
"Is it jammed?" she asked concernedly.
"Can't," he grinned, "it has no moving parts, so there's nothing that can jam. No, it's still locked on safety," he explained. "No self-respecting gunsmith would ever make a gun with no safety mechanism, and no gunman with the sense he was born with would ever use a gun that didn't have one. You take off the safety by pressing the tips of thumb and forefinger together; the same to re-engage it."
"Oh," she replied, and did so. Again her forefinger felt warm; it was a silent, subtle and thus covert signal to the user that the gun was doing as it was told, she correctly surmised - such subtlety meant no-one else would know.
"You're not quite ready yet, Jen. The chip has to be calibrated to your nerve impulses, so the very first time you point, nothing will happen except your finger will feel warm again, confirming that the chip has picked up and encoded the impulse - if it feels cold, that means the opposite and we'll need to run a diagnostic. That's highly unlikely, though; failure rate for that chip is as near to zero as makes no odds. Go ahead," he encouraged her.
"Okay, yes, that felt warm. So should I try it now?"
"Go for it."
"Aim for any area of bare skin," she recalled pensively, and pointed. There was a barely audible phut.
The target, a menacing-looking life-size figure, suddenly sported a green spot on his right cheek.
"Nice shot," he nodded. "Of course, it could've been beginner's luck."
That, she knew, was pure teasing and typical of this odd, difficult man. And he calls me fractious. Well, I'll show him...!
"I'll give you 'beginner's luck'," she muttered in mild vexation. She pointed with her left forefinger after repeating the safety and calibration procedure; a red spot appeared just under the green one. He raised an eyebrow; it wasn't just a fluke, then. Hmm. He began rattling off a series of aiming points, 'left eye', 'right cheek', 'left hand', 'forehead in caste position', and so on, ordering 'stun' or 'kill' randomly.
Every point he designated, she hit dead-on - and with the correct finger each time.
"Hold!" he ordered; she lowered her hands and put the guns on safety without needing to be told (which earned her another point on her assessment, for initiative and shrewd grasp of proper firearm safety procedures, viz. a firearm should always be put on safety when not in use). "How many shots, total?" he rapped.
"Thirty-six so far," she answered instantly, "nineteen 'lethal', sir." She glanced idly at her hands - and froze.
There comes a time in everyone's life when the most commonplace abruptly becomes the most unfamiliar and bewildering, and this was one of those times. Her hands, of course, didn't look any different after the surgery...yet now they seemed as, as...alien...as the Aliens.
Correct, he mused, genuinely impressed. "Okay, let's test your..." But he trailed off as he became aware she was no longer listening. She seemed to be staring at her hands as if she couldn't see anything else. "Jen, are you okay?"
"How...did this happen...?" she asked distantly, gazing at her hands with a lost, confused expression. He abruptly understood she wasn't asking him.
"Jen?" he inquired concernedly, and then he got it. SCS, I bet. Well, it happens.
"I used to be just a single mother doing my best to get by," she murmured, sounding bewildered. "I was earning a living however I could, bringing up my daughter, keeping house, so...how...how did someone like me, someone so...ordinary...how did I end up fighting hostile aliens and signing the Official Secrets Act and spending a week on the Moon and...and getting weapons implanted into my...my hands...?!"
Kelly chuckled sympathetically and embraced her. He'd seen this reaction before.
Seen it? Hell, he'd had it.
"Jen, what you're experiencing is what we call SCS: SHADO Culture Shock, otherwise known as the 'what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?' feeling. Pretty much every operative feels it at some point, even after years of service, and often more than once. We do lead very very weird lives by the standards of 'normal' people, so it's a perfectly natural reaction.
"It can all get a bit overwhelming at times - the sheer scope of what we're up against," he told her sympathetically, "the nature and magnitude of the problem...listen, let's take a break, give you a moment to adjust." He took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "The usual remedy for SCS is to remind the operative of a 'normal' life by doing normal, everyday things."
"Such as?"
He kissed her and gently squeezed her bottom; she readily responded, pulling him close and moaning softly in pleasure. As much as she constantly kidded him about his seeming fixation on that particular portion of her anatomy, she loved him fondling her rear, and he knew it.
When they gently broke the kiss, he smiled and said merrily, "Such as snogging. There's nothing more normal than bestowing affection on a lover."
"You're a soppy one sometimes, do you know that?" she returned, obviously regaining her usual sass.
He looked miffed. "Minor contentions and disagreements are perfectly normal, too."
She laughed softly and returned his kiss, replying fondly, "I never said I didn't like a bit of soppy now and again. It's endearing coming from the commanding officer of a super-secret worldwide organisation," she quipped archly.
"Whatever works," he shrugged, and they laughed together, hugging.
After a while he felt her relax, gave her bottom one more affectionate squeeze and inquired softly, "Okay now?"
Jennifer smiled and kissed him again. "Yes, I think so, thanks. Um...weren't you tempted to shake me out of my self-pity by lovingly reassuring me that you don't think of me as ordinary?"
"Well, yes, I was tempted...but I didn't want you to think I was patronising you," he couldn't help quipping, bracing himself for the inevitable pinching...which he got.
"Well, maybe I wanted to hear it!" she returned with faux indignation.
She'd half expected him to come out with a further quip (or put her over his knee...or both...), but he sobered, looked deeply and solemnly into her beautiful emerald eyes and told her, "You are anything but ordinary to me, Jennifer. I still can't believe how lucky I was to meet you. You're amazing, beautiful, strong, fractious, sometimes hard to live with, inspiring, wonderful company, all of that and more. I love you, and I can't imagine life without you now. I don't know how I ever managed without you."
Tears sparkled in her eyes as she realised he was speaking from the heart, a mature man's sincere declaration of true love acknowledging her flaws along with her virtues. No man, or woman, had ever given her that, not even Ursula - or Stephanie, bless her lecherous heart. "Oh, Kelly...I love you too, darling. You're all of that, as well." But she just couldn't resist quipping: "Well, except the 'beautiful' part."
She laughed at his own faux indignation and enjoyed the firm slap to her bottom. She took him in a deep French kiss and held him close. She was tempted to fondle him intimately and so invite more, but...there were other priorities, she knew, as always with SHADO. So she gently broke the kiss and promised softly: "Later, love. I suppose we should be getting on, mmm?" He chuckled mildly and nodded, stepping away from her - and with that, the moment was lost. "So. Where were we?"
"We were about to test your situational judgement and target discrimination capabilities," he pronounced, all business again now. He could swap attitudes in a moment, she'd observed.
"Okay," she nodded. "Could you expand on that, please?"
"Different targets will pop up at different distances and time intervals; use your judgement to decide whether or not to shoot - and which finger to shoot with if you do. You get one second to decide each, because that's about as long as you'd get in a firefight where civilians might be in your line of fire - which, in a place like a casino, is highly likely. Clear?"
She grinned, knowing she'd impressed him with her earlier performance. Hell, she'd impressed herself. "Let's go!"
The targets varied as he'd said; in rapid succession and in random sequence there were, among others: cops; masked hoodlums; women with and without babies; a woman with a gun; a kid; a man holding up a UKIP placard (she amusedly debated for the full second whether or not to shoot, but decided against...); a SHADO operative - plus Hardcastle and a spacesuited, helmetless Alien.
The Alien took a 'killing' one right in the neck the very instant he appeared; it took everything she had not to fire at Hardcastle's depiction, but the woman was on their side now.
It was so very hard to remember that, but she managed it and held her fire.
"Hold," he ordered again, "take five." As Jennifer caught her breath and again put the guns on safety, he pulled up her score from the target reader which automatically picked up on whatever firearm was in use on the range, monitoring the weapon and tracking its shots.
Fire Accuracy: 100% - every shot was a hit. That alone was impressive, even given the weapon's exquisite precision; it was in fact a miniature railgun, powered by her body's bioelectricity. Tiny grains of cobalt-nickel alloy (carefully sheathed in plastic, because both metals can be toxic) were incorporated into the flechèttes to permit the electromagnetic field to accelerate them; the alloy possessed very high magnetic permeability. Thus they were projected at high velocity, affording equally high accuracy.
Once the flechètte dissolved in the bloodstream the grains would be excreted harmlessly from the target's body, passed into the urine by the kidneys, and were too small to be detected by standard airport-style scanners. The gun itself was composed not of metal but of carbon fibre nanotubes, carefully doped to achieve near-superconductivity, and so it was equally undetectable.
Discrimination Score: PERFECT - she hadn't made a single error in choosing and assessing her targets. A non-threatening figure/good guy was ignored, a dangerous one dealt with. She'd even correctly assessed the depiction of a panicked-looking civilian holding up a gun as if he didn't know what to do with it. Since untrained civilians caught up in crossfire often did pick up stray weapons, usually in a misguided attempt to help out the good guys, there was a SHADO safety regulation which stated that the proper course of action was to disarm or stun said civilian in case he might accidentally hurt himself or anyone else, and Jennifer had indeed nailed him with an 'anaesthetic' flechètte.
But in a rare procedural lapse, he'd neglected to inform her of that regulation...oops. On the other hand that only emphasised her quick, clear thinking and the quality of her situational judgement; she'd arrived at the correct decision without needing instruction or even a hint in that regard.
He was especially pleased and impressed that she hadn't shot at Hardcastle's depiction, even with a 'non-lethal' round, given her history with the woman - he'd deliberately included that one to test her reaction. Either Jennifer had now accepted that the doctor was cured of being the deranged, sadistic pervert the Aliens had made of her, or she'd refrained from firing for purely pragmatic reasons, i.e. Hardcastle was now working for the benefit of Mankind and hence was no longer an enemy. Either attitude, Kelly decided, was just fine with him.
But he'd still advised Hardcastle to steer clear of Jennifer for a while, just in case. No sense in pushing it.
As for the Alien, that one was deliberately ambiguous and it didn't actually matter which flechètte was fired, because in a real-life scenario the correct course of action would depend entirely upon mission context: if the operative were merely defending herself, a colleague or a civilian then lethal force might be necessary; if on the other hand the objective was to capture an Alien alive, then an anaesthetic flechètte would be appropriate.
She'd fired without hesitation, and scored a direct hit. That was the important thing. Too many newbies quite understandably froze on first seeing an Alien, even after intensive training and preparation. She hadn't.
Then again she'd encountered one even before she learned about SHADO, but still.
Effectiveness Rating: 100% - this meant that not only was every shot a hit, it also had the desired effect, i.e. every shot hit an area of bare skin and therefore wasn't wasted; the flechèttes weren't 100% guaranteed to penetrate clothing. Had she been in combat and displaying this level of prowess, every target she selected would've been anaesthetised or killed, and thus eliminated as a threat.
"That's amazing," he breathed, "I'm not sure I could do that well. You seem to be a natural shot, Jen."
"Just call me Dirty Harry - or Harriet, since I'm a woman," she quipped nonchalantly, very pleased with herself.
On impulse he pressed the 'Surprise!' key to suddenly bring up one more target behind them. Her response was both correct and gratifyingly swift: she reflexively whirled, armed the guns with impressive speed and took aim. The target was a depiction of Kelly himself; she took a second, then grinned wickedly - and fired.
The shot would've been an anaesthetic round, but her point of aim..."That had better be a joke."
She'd shot 'him' in the balls!
They burst out laughing and hugged. Then a thought occurred to her: "Kelly?"
"Mmm?"
"Do, um...do you have these things?"
There was a standard target at the far end of the range; he abruptly stepped away from her, pressed the tips of his right thumb and forefinger together and pointed. At the exact centre of the target a tiny hole suddenly appeared.
"Yep," he grinned, "though mine are permanent - I had 'em put in just after the coup d'état."
"Just in case?" she surmised.
"Just in case," he confirmed, to her utter lack of surprise. He was consistent if nothing else re his condom principle. "Let's have a contest sometime...the loser buys a meal at Toni's."
"And gets spanked?" she suggested archly.
He looked quizzically at her. "You're determined to get your own back, aren't you?"
"Well, if you don't believe you can beat me -"
He knew perfectly well she was trapping him but decided, just for once, to indulge in the typical male response to a woman's goading, i.e. rising to it. "Alright, madam, if that's the way you want it..."
She laughed and hugged him again.
Kelly's home
Later that night
"You know, TAPS is gonna throw the computational equivalent of a hissy fit when I upload that result to your file," Kelly idly remarked, dipping his spoon into the carton of Ben & Jerry's Blondie Brownie they were sharing (he'd laid in a plentiful supply some time ago, having learned of her fondness for the dessert). "Here it is, blithely certain in its recommendation for the STAND, and then you go and get a combat practice score that would've made the SAS sit up and take notice."
She giggled at his turn of phrase and at the very notion of vexed AI software. "I do have a way of upsetting things, don't I?"
"Seriously, Jen, it'll recommend we revisit the issue, and maybe we should. With cool judgement, natural skill and superb fire accuracy like that, you might make one hell of a field operative. You're like me," he smiled, "a borderline case."
Jennifer looked fondly at him and kissed him - with a blob of ice cream between her lips. He chuckled as he accepted and swallowed it. "I think that's one of the nicest compliments you've ever given me. Thank you." She shrugged. "But it'd be different if it were for real, wouldn't it?"
"To some degree, yes," he conceded, "but even a practice bout can be almost as stressful as being in the field. If we had time before we leave, I'd seriously consider sending you to our practice grounds for a live fire exercise, have you shooting at people rather than targets - and, of course, they'd be shooting back, for the good old verisimilitude."
"Like paintball, only more serious," she noted, dipping her own spoon. "Mmm, I love this stuff; thank you for getting it, love."
"Oh, you'd be surprised how many paintball players take it seriously," he grinned, "some actually read up on - and use - military tactics." He then took a few minutes to ruefully relate a story of actually meeting such a group trespassing on the grounds. Once they discovered there was another group in the forest - they didn't recognise them, of course, and assumed they were just another team or whatever - they had the audacity to engage before Kelly and the SHADO instructors could get there to defuse the situation.
But the paintballers soon learned the difference between just playing at war and engaging people being trained to actually fight one...they were soundly trounced - by a team of cadets! - and given amnesia treatments. The practice grounds were situated in Wales, but in one of his notorious fits of mischief Kelly had the paintball players dropped off, before they awakened, in a similar forest...in the Scottish Highlands!
"Oh, you're bad," a laughing Jennifer scolded him.
"Well, they were trespassing," he protested feebly, and she only laughed harder.
Later she asked, "Could we talk about something not related to the mission for a bit?"
"Sure," he shrugged, "what'd you have in mind?"
"Something Harriet told me about your background...I'm always curious as to how things begin. How did you come to join SHADO?"
He grinned and recounted the tale of his happy days at UMIST, merrily developing and then employing his new paradigm of operational analysis to determine whether or not UFOs existed, fully expecting (out of a healthy scepticism) to prove they didn't...and instead proving, to his shock and horror, that they did.
He described how he'd tried to find fault in his own work, failed, and spent the next two days causing disruptions in the UMIST computer network...forcibly taking control of the entire system in order to hide and encrypt his VAX and UNIX accounts, the sysop proving utterly unable to stop the disruption or even determine what was occurring or who was causing it.
It was the best hacking work he'd ever done, the encryption elegant and sophisticated, but had he known it was essentially a waste of time and effort he would never have bothered. SHADO already had a backdoor into the UMIST network, as well as those of other prominent universities around the world, always on the lookout for potential bright young recruits for R & D and the STAND. So they'd already read - and been impressed by - his work...and further impressed by the hacking and encryption he'd accomplished.
He related how he'd gone to Carolyn Baker, the campus advisor, pouring out his tale of woe, only belatedly realising she understood what he was talking about to a remarkable - and frankly suspicious - degree. He'd finally realised she was part of the whatever-it-was he'd discovered, and was astonished to be offered recruitment rather than, as he'd expected, facing execution or forced disappearance. Then he was introduced to Ed Straker, who explained SHADO in detail...
"...and so I was recruited," he finished, "while still attending UMIST and finishing up my dissertation. Ed and I had to edit it very carefully; it still had to be accurate and valid, but I couldn't possibly include any accurate details of SHADO or the Aliens, of course. The eventual conclusion was that 'there might be something to the whole phenomenon, but there are too few objective, verifiable data to form any definitive conclusions, and further study is indicated'.
"Not that it mattered," he shrugged, "I knew the math and the theory would be what the dissertation committee was most concerned with, and those were rock-solid. I graduated in 1987 with 1st Class Honours, then I went to work for SHADO full-time; I'd long since qualified."
"In other words, you just went straight from UMIST to SHADO?" He nodded. "So you've never had a proper job?" she teased.
"What -? A proper job?! How, precisely," he spluttered with a put-upon air, "do you define 'proper'? You mean something like warehouse work, manual labour?! You mean 'honest work' - dirty, inefficient, ill-paid, the kind of work which in this day and age should be done by robots? That kind of 'proper'?!" Now he burst out laughing. "Jen, the whole point of my going to UMIST was to avoid that sort of job!"
"So you haven't?"
"Oh, that is it, young lady! You are so gonna - hey, c'mere -!" he protested as she wriggled out of his grasp and dashed around the couch, giggling. He pursued her, both laughing as he managed to catch her sleeve and drag her to the floor, and a brief, merry struggle ensued. One slap to her pert bottom was enough, as usual; she yelped in pleasure and surrendered to her spanking.
After they'd adjourned to the bedroom and made love, Jennifer quipped, "Have we ever made love without you spanking me first?"
He laughed softly. "I haven't noticed you complaining..."
She kissed him, chuckling, and then sobered. "Kelly, have I ever actually said how much I like it - and appreciate it? I do, you know. I really like it, especially the way you spank me. I've had one or two other boyfriends who indulged me, but not to this extent and I didn't enjoy it quite so much."
"They did it a bit too hard, I'm guessing," Kelly surmised, caressing her still-pink bottom gently.
But she shook her head. "No, it wasn't that. It's more a question of...well, intent, I suppose would be the best way to describe it. You don't spank me just because you like it - you do it because I do, you're not selfish about it. You don't overdo it, either; you're careful, you respect my limits." She kissed him affectionately. "I love you for that, Kelly. That and a whole lot of other reasons."
He returned the kiss with equal affection, touched. "Thanks, Jen. I have a whole list of reasons, too. I'm glad I met you."
They hugged, and caressed each other for a while. When he gently pinched her nipples, she became aroused and softly requested, "Oh, I like that - mmm, that's good...again, please..."
Sensing she didn't necessarily want to be spanked again, he simply spread her gorgeous legs, thoroughly licked and stroked her pussy and, once he was sure she was ready - i.e. sopping wet and near orgasm - he entered her and they again made love...after which he gave her the impish rejoinder: "There you go."
She laughed and hugged him tightly.
Just before they took a nap he murmured, "A 'proper' job, indeed..."
She was still chuckling as she dropped off to sleep, snuggling closer to him as he stroked her hair. He didn't follow suit straight away; he'd long since mastered the trick of concentrating on staying awake for thirty seconds after his orgasm, so as to be able to indulge his lover with the après-sex conversation and cuddling he knew women liked so much, defeating the natural male tendency to fall asleep owing to the rush of various hormones which promote relaxation and sleep in men - and ensuring she had no reason to gripe, "Men!" on seeing her lover simply dropping off just when she most wanted a cuddle.
Katniss had taught him that, and he'd made sure she knew how much he appreciated her educating him; she'd read the Swedish research into the phenomenon and told him about it. "The number of women who think their man doesn't appreciate them just because he falls asleep after shagging her, and it turns out it's because he can't help it, unless he knows why it happens and what to do about it...thank God for the Swedes!" she'd chuckled, and he'd readily agreed. It'd served him in good stead over the years; it was certainly worth the effort, as second-round sex was usually more satisfying because both partners were relaxed and happy, the ideal state in which to make love.
Jennifer would've loved her, was his last, regretful thought before drifting into sleep himself.
Unfortunately it was an unwise thought for a PTSD sufferer to have just before the onset of sleep, i.e. thinking about the very cause of the trauma; an hour or so later Jennifer was awakened by his restless turning and his sudden cry of "No! KATNISS -!"
She came fully awake, realised what was happening and gently urged him, "Kelly, wake up, love. You're dreaming - wake up!"
He suddenly jerked upright with an incoherent cry, gasping and sweating. His head jerked from side to side in obvious panic - until she took his face in her hands and exhorted him: "Kelly, look at me! Look at me! You're safe! It's all right, it's over. You're safe...!"
He shuddered as he regained full awareness and fought for calm; she caressed his cheeks, murmuring soothingly (Harriet had given her a few tips on that score, with the ongoing issue of Kelly's PTSD in mind). Finally he got a grip, took a deep breath and held her tight. "Thanks, Jen. I'm sorry I woke you." He shivered. "That was a bad one."
She smiled gently. "Oh, that's all right, love, you couldn't help it. Are you okay now?"
"As okay as I ever get," he soberly replied. "Thank you."
She kissed him. "You're welcome, darling. Always." She stroked his cheek and beard, then offered, "Should I fix you something? A hot drink, maybe?"
"Hmm...that'd be nice," he reflected. "Maybe a hot chocolate, please?"
"Yeah, I'll have one, too," she decided briskly, kissing him again and rising from the bed to pull on a dressing gown. "Two ticks."
Once they had a steaming mug of hot chocolate each, Jennifer asked gently, "Would it help you to talk about it?"
He sipped. "Mmm, there's not much to tell," he replied. "My last thought before I fell asleep was how much I think you'd have liked her. I guess that set it off."
She intuited then that he needed, but understandably didn't want, to talk about it. So she softly persisted, requesting, "Kelly, tell me about her. You haven't said all that much about a woman you obviously cared a great deal for. I mean, I understand why, it's just...well, it might help, and I'd really like to know. Please?"
"I'd rather talk about the mission," he evaded.
"I know. But you need to talk about her."
"And how would you know that? I'm the one with expertise in psychology."
"I have something better," she returned. He looked the question, and she finished, "Women's intuition."
He sighed. "Oh, that."
"Yes," she nodded, "'that'." A brief pause. "Please." As he hesitated, she made the one appeal she knew he couldn't resist: "For me," she entreated him. "Please, Kelly. Please talk to me. Let me help."
Kelly sighed again, deeply, and surrendered. "You play really dirty poker, Jen."
"I'd like to talk about that, too - ah-ah, later," she interrupted as he made as if to speak.
"Okay. We met at UMIST and became friends - actually she was already dating Denise, albeit secretly."
"Why 'secretly'?" Jennifer frowned. "Dating your own gender's nothing to be ashamed of."
"You're forgetting this was in 1984," Kelly replied quietly. "Things were a lot different then, even in universities, though Manchester's always had a thriving gay community and so it wasn't too bad when people found out. Oh, things were changing for the better, it's true, but society still had a long way to go towards gay and lesbian acceptance."
"Sorry, I forget we have a twenty-two-year age gap," she chuckled ruefully, and hurriedly added, "Oh - not that it matters! I didn't mean that the way it -"
"Ssh," he assured her, stroking her cheek. "I know what you meant, love - it does matter, it's just not a problem, because you're a mature woman as opposed to a teen or twenty-something. That would be an issue, since we'd likely have little in common and we'd want different things from our relationship." He grinned in the way that told her he had an irreverent quip in mind, and sure enough he went on, "The Little Women equation is half the man's age plus seven, yeah? I'm nearly fifty-eight, so twenty-nine plus seven is actually dead on at thirty-six - your age in a few months!"
"So it is," she laughed, "ah do dee-clare!"
They laughed and hugged for a while, before Kelly returned to his tale.
"We three became friends owing to our shared IT interests - we were convinced back then that Tron was the greatest movie ever made, with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back a close joint second," he grinned. "Katniss had a little trouble getting to grips with UNIX, and I was helping her out. Wasn't long before we were happily nipping in and out of each other's student flats.
"Thinking back, I'm not even sure what got me interested in Katniss at first; I knew she was sleeping with Denise." A wry grin. "I found that out by accident, going over to Denise's place earlier than planned one night because the SU bar had a power cut. Seeing both of 'em naked and Katniss with her head between Denise's legs was a bit of an eye-opener for a hetero eighteen-year-old lad, I can tell you," he smiled.
"What'd you say to that edifying sight?" she quipped.
"Well, what could I say? 'Oops, sorry!'," he laughed. "But they took it well; Katniss burst into giggling when Denise complained, 'You couldn't have waited another minute to catch us at it? I was almost there!'"
Jennifer collapsed into laughter.
"They knew I hadn't meant to intrude; I was supposed to be going there that night anyway, so as to reassure Katniss that daemons aren't as terrifying as they sound -"
"Daemons?!"
"Oh, don't you start," he sighed. "It's a UNIX term; a daemon is just a small utility program that runs in the system background. They were called after Maxwell's daemon," and he explained what that meant.
"Oh, I see. But since you turned up early..."
"Oops," he said again. "But they both knew I was a) unprejudiced, b) not a gossip...and c) not nosy. I didn't mean to 'catch them at it', it was just that I was a couple of hours early. Denise made us hot toddies and we just laughed about it. Not long after, they decided to come out...and hardly anyone in UMIST thought anything of it.
"But somehow Katniss and I took an interest in each other; it just...crept up on us." He sighed. "I seem to recall you mentioning you're a Heinlein fan...like most of our personnel," he remarked wryly, recalling Cadet Colin Farrell's ad hoc research into the literary preferences of SHADO operatives. "Remember that entry in Lazarus Long's Notebook, in Time Enough For Love, where he says, 'A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale'?"
"Oh, yes - 'After a while he realises that she is beautiful - he just hadn't noticed it at first'." She nodded in understanding. "So that was you and Katniss? She raised your morale?"
"She did, yes; this was at a time I was finding the operational analysis work to be a bit of a trial - there was an aspect of the theory I couldn't quite get to grips with and it was getting me down a bit. She helped...mainly by teaching me that I didn't have to be a dedicated geek all the time." He looked sombre. "When I read the description of Kristine Kochanski's 'pinball smile' in the first Red Dwarf novel, years later, I cried...because I knew exactly what the writers were talking about. Katniss really was like that: almost plain on the face of it, but a smile or a laugh completely changed that. She was as warm as her smile, too, always friendly and cheerful."
"You developed a relationship," she nodded again, "without meaning to."
"Even Denise knew we hadn't planned it," he sighed. "I mean, she was a year older than us, with the added maturity that implied. She understood...which sort of made it worse. 'The heart wants what it wants, darling. You can't help who you fall in love with, I know,' she said, and it didn't change our mutual friendship. But it was Katniss who was suffering the most."
"How so?"
"Jen, these days it's accepted that human sexuality is a lot more fluid than was once thought, and labels such as 'hetero', 'lesbian' and so on don't represent hard-and-fast, rigid categories - a person's orientation can change at various times in their life."
"Well, I know mine has," Jennifer readily agreed, "I went through a phase where I had no time for men at all, about ten years ago. Plus everyone feels attracted to their own gender now and again, even if they're happily married - even men, sometimes."
"Mmm. But you see, back in the '80s no-one knew all that - at least, no-one who hadn't read Kinsey. So Katniss was feeling social and peer pressure to choose a lifestyle and stick to it. It never even occurred to anyone back then, even the gays, that it didn't have to be like that...so the poor lass ended up wavering between Denise and me, trying to figure out how not to hurt either of us.
"We knew she was bi, but we couldn't really make it work as a threesome. It might've been different if Denise had been hetero or bi, but she was and is a phallophobic lesbian. Not," he added hurriedly, "that I'm trying to lay blame, if that's the right word, on her - that would be crass, unfair and untrue. None of it was her fault...or anyone's."
"Kelly," she ventured quietly, tactfully, "is...is this why you're not into threesomes?"
"Because they remind me of our unintended triangle? No," he shook his head, "I'm just not that way inclined, I'm strictly monogamous by nature. I was willing to try to live with a three-way, for Katniss' sake...but no two of us could make love without the third maybe feeling left out, and we didn't want that to happen - plus there were only two pairs that would work: Katniss with Denise, or Katniss with me. We were bending over backwards trying to be fair to each other." He shook his head. "This was still unresolved even after she and Denise joined SHADO in mid-'86 and were inducted into the same cadet class as me...and then, of course, a few months later Katniss was..."
Jennifer gently put a finger to his lips to stop him saying anything more...she knew too well what had to come next, and she wanted to spare him that. Instead she asked softly, "Do you have a picture of her?" She knew perfectly well before she asked that he did. He had to have kept at least one if she'd meant that much to him. Sure enough, he tapped at his phone and showed her two photos - one of a sober, serious-looking (and, yes, a little plain) young woman...and one of a stunning beauty who looked as if she were ready to grab the world by its tail and merrily swing it over her shoulder like a duffle bag, humming a jolly tune like 'Nelly The Elephant' as she went.
Yet the two photos were of the same person. She was of medium height and weight, neither small-breasted nor top-heavy, her brunette hair long and straight, her eyes hazel. On her looks alone Jennifer had to admit even she wouldn't have given the girl a second glance.
It was the smile that made the difference - made all the difference. Katniss was a woman who'd enjoyed life, Jennifer saw, and her heart ached for her lover, still missing her after all these years. Bad enough he'd lost her at all; how much worse was it to lose anyone in such a horrible way?
And yet he wasn't looking for revenge. That was the odd yet marvellous thing about all the walking wounded of SHADO, she thought curiously and with admiration: none of them were trying to claim vengeance from the Aliens, except maybe young Harmony (and given her youth that was entirely understandable). At worst, they were seeking justice. That said so much about their characters, that they could put aside vengeful desires and just do their jobs...
They talked more about Katniss and the odd but deep friendship she, Kelly and Denise had shared, Kelly's mood lifting as he related various anecdotes, such as:
"Denise frequently threatened, kidding, to catch Katniss and me 'at it' one day, as turnabout's fair play." A wry smile. "Want to guess what happened?"
Jennifer giggled. "She did, didn't she?"
"It was every bit as unintentional," he nodded, "and just to give it a soupçon of poetic justice, Katniss was just about to come when Denise came in. Actually, we both were." He chuckled as he went on, "She put her hands on her hips as she stood in the bedroom doorway and called out, sounding very innocent, 'So that's what straight sex is like!'"
Jennifer's giggling turned into full-blown laughter, and Kelly joined in. When he got his breath back he finished, "Katniss just dissolved into helpless laughter - what made it funnier was that she and I had put so much effort into synchronising, timing things so we could climax together, and this totally blew that apart! Oh, we were laughing and teasing each other for hours!" he recalled fondly, shaking his head.
"It sounds like a really special friendship," Jennifer remarked gently.
"Oh, it was," he nodded, still chuckling, and gradually sobered. "I still miss her. I know Denise does, too." Then he chuckled again. "There was an odd sort of sequel, actually. Denise is, as I said, phallophobic...but that didn't stop us making love one night."
"Say what?"
"While I was recovering from the injury, one night it all got too much for me," he recalled sombrely. "I couldn't stand to be alone that night, so I called Denise. I was just going to ask if I could come over...but I ended up practically begging her. She was reluctant at first, because she knew what would happen - we'd end up looking at photos of Katniss and reminiscing, and crying on each other's shoulders, and in fact we did...but that wasn't all we did." He shook his head in bafflement. "To this day I'm still not sure how it happened, but we ended up in bed. But even though we were having sex, it wasn't really sexual...we were just comforting each other. It did help."
"Well, as you said, sexuality is more complex and fluid than labels and pigeon-holes," she pointed out.
"True, though as I also said, no-one really knew that back then. We certainly didn't," he added wryly. "Afterwards, Denise said, 'That was weird...I can't say I didn't enjoy that at all, but we're definitely not doing it again.' 'Fair enough,' I replied. We came to the mutual conclusion that it was just one of those things, and resolved not to mention it again. Needless to say I'd appreciate -"
"No-one'll hear it from me, I promise," she vowed, kissing him. "I understand. I wouldn't want to ruin my professional relationship with Denise by spreading gossip, especially not about confidential things you would never have told me if I hadn't practically forced you to. So...thank you," she murmured, kissing him again and stroking his cheek. "Thank you for telling me about Katniss; I hope it helped, darling. I wish there was more I could do."
"You do, love," he quietly demurred, "every day. You're there for me when I need you." He hugged her. "I think I'll always need you."
"I hope so," she returned, crying quietly now. "I love you so much."
"I love you, Jennifer," he answered.
They held each other for the rest of the night. They didn't make love.
Somehow they didn't need to.