.

Euphoria

Chapter 11: Compassion

Author's note: This was a nice chapter to write for a lot of reasons. I feel like it's been coming for a long time. Here's hoping I can keep up this speed and post the next installment in a timely manner too! A huge thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing, you make my day every time you do. I appreciate you all very much. Please do keep on letting me know what you think! :)

Monday

6:19 pm

.

He was sitting on the steps of her apartment, head bowed like a broken Atlas. She approached with slow caution. At first she mistook him for a hobo slouched in the entrance to the building, looking for comfort away from the cold. Then she noticed he was wearing a suit. Then she noticed the cut of his coat and the colour of his tie. Then she noticed a small glass vial, vividly blue, which he was running through his fingers. His face was not visible. He was not moving at all except for his fingers, in that strange repetitive motion, strangely fluid, possessively wrapped around the tube. She clutched her bag and stepped closer.

"Norman?"

Almost before she had even spoken, his head snapped upwards. He pierced her with his eyes. They looked distant somehow, as if he had spent a long period of time on a faraway island and was only now returning. He stumbled to his feet. He had to press against the wall for balance. Agent Donahue could see now how cold he looked, how the tips of his fingers were almost blue. Or had that been a reflection from the vial? It was already gone. He had already ferreted it away somehow, somewhere, in an instant in some pocket and without her seeing. She almost wondered if it had been there at all.

"Melissa," he breathed. Then he had to take a moment to stop himself from falling over. He took a heavy step towards her. She had to resist the urge to step backwards. "Thank God you're here. Please don't ask any questions, don't say anything, just listen to me. I need you to drive me away. To somewhere else, to a hotel maybe. I was chased. I was attacked. We have to leave right now, I don't want them following us, but I don't want them knowing where you live. I think I've lost them for now. Melissa, you've got to take me somewhere safe."

Donahue was rifling in her bag for something. She wasn't even looking at him. He felt a momentary flush of annoyance, then a cold slab of terror. She would help him, wouldn't she? He was desperate, he could feel the instinctive desperation seeping from his pores even as another, higher part of himself turned away in disgust. In the panicked moments after the chase he hadn't known who else he could turn to, and his brain had thought of her first.

But now she'd found whatever she had been looking for and was staring at him severely. He was nearly afraid of the resistance in her eyes, turning all the warm honey to stone.

"Who was chasing you?" she said.

"I don't know. Three cars. I don't want to say who I think it might be. It's too crazy."

Now she was the one who looked desperate, like a psychiatrist dealing with a troubling patient. "How long have you been sitting out here?"

"I'm not sure, a while." He was shivering. "Please, let's go. Is your car nearby?"

"I… I just parked it round the back."

He took another step closer and grasped her arm. She looked down at it as if she had not even felt his touch. The skin between her eyebrows was furrowed and a deep look of anxiety had settled on her face.

"Please, we have to go. I'm sorry. I really need you to do this for me. I can't drive. Please help me, Melissa."

"Norman, you can't just leave your car here like this -"

"Never mind the car. I don't care if they tow it, it's a wreck anyway. Please. Please," he moaned.

In her expression was a surrender. She looked into his eyes, saw how deep they welled with the waves of fear, and let out a small breath she had been holding.

Just as she'd said, the car was parked behind the apartment block. Norman sat in the passenger seat and placed his hands flat on his thighs. Melissa watched him sitting there for a moment, breathed deeply, then turned on the engine and pulled the car out of its parking spot.

They drove on through the endless conveyor belt of the road system, surrounded on all sides by other people in other cars who had no idea what was happening in Norman's own private world. He sat and stared out of the window at the strangers, watching how their cars glistened under the sharp streetlights like sharp crocodile backs, paying particular attention to the vivid whites of their eyes as they drove past. They were frightened little crocodiles themselves, too afraid even to show their crocodile tears now. Agent Donahue kept checking her mirrors and running a hand through her hair like she was feeling anxious. Norman was no longer feeling anxious.

The city laid strung out before them like a glittering teal and amber necklace. If Jayden had been paying attention he might have noticed that Melissa did not really know where she was going and was leading them in rough circles of the parts of Washington she could navigate until she had decided on what to do. As it was, he watched the beads of light and movement until they blurred into a giant glowing corona on the surface of his eyes.

"Okay, Norman," said Melissa, and when his sight focused he saw that they had stopped outside a motel in a quiet-looking area of the city.

She switched off the engine. She turned to him and for a long time he thought she was going to say something, or maybe just force him out of the car and then drive away without him. He tried to concentrate on her face but the lights in the distance were flickering in and out of focus as cars on the highway passed in front, like a row of fireflies flaunting for his attention. When he looked back at her she had her fingers over her mouth and was watching him strangely.

But Donahue did not drive away. She got out of the car with him. They stepped into the motel and she booked the cheapest room available. Then they both walked up a set of corroded steel steps to the room which had been signed for, number 47.

This motel was so old that it still used metal keys. Melissa unlocked the door and flicked on the light switch. Closing the door behind them, Norman felt it would be too much to check if they had been followed. He still scanned the parking lot once, regardless.

Inside the motel room was very little to comfort or console. The pillows on the bed were thin and the light on the ceiling was a bare bulb. There was no wardrobe, only metal clothes hangers on a railing against the wall. In the corner a small, grimy bathroom displayed itself unappealingly. Both agents had seen dead bodies in rooms like this before. As soon as the door was shut Melissa turned around with her arms crossed, and Norman just stood there with his hands in his trouser pockets, looking at her plainly, like a lost dog who had no excuses to disperse.

It started with a sigh. "Alright, Norman. Now I need to know exactly what's happening."

He thought he should sit down on the bed before trying to explain. The mattress sagged under his weight. "I was driving back from HQ. I was going home, when I noticed these cars following me. Three of them, big and dark. They weren't doing anything wrong, at first, only they seemed to be pushing me, making me drive a certain way." The experience hadn't been long ago, but forming words to describe it seemed like a mighty exertion to him. "Anyway, they drove me off the highway. They were going so fast and I was surrounded. I think they were trying to get me to crash. Or maybe they were taking me somewhere, I don't know, or just trying to scare me."

Agent Donahue stood over him with arms still crossed. He could see her nails digging into the flesh of her upper arms. What was it about her when she stood like that, which made her seem so tall, so like statues of Lady Justice he had seen, fierce and just with her sword and scales? What put that severity in her face? "How did you end up at my apartment?"

"I didn't know where I was going. I had lost the cars but I didn't know for how long. I saw the apartment out of the corner of my eye, I made a rash decision, I wanted to stop, I was scared."

"You didn't see who followed you?"

Norman shook his head.

"Didn't get a number plate?"

Another shake.

"And you came to me because you were desperate and wanted help?"

Norman nodded. Then he wondered if this was how suspects felt when being interrogated.

Melissa nodded back slowly. She hadn't taken her eyes off him since they had entered the room, had barely blinked. "I'm going to be very plain now, Agent Jayden. I can see how bloodshot your eyes are, and how you can't quite stand up properly, and how you're not thinking straight or making rational decisions, and when you say that you've been chased through the streets of Washington by three cars, my immediate reaction is not to believe you. I'm thinking and thinking but nothing is making any sense in my head. Because what I'm thinking is, who would do this to you? Who would have any reason to do this, Norman?"

"You're not going to believe me if I tell you."

She made no attempt to hide the roll of her eyes. "At this point I'm not believing anything that's coming out of your mouth. So go ahead Norman, give it your best shot, you've got nothing to lose."

"I can't. I can't. I don't think I even believe it myself, how can I try and convince you…" He clasped his hands in his lap, let the sentence hang unfulfilled in the air.

Melissa shifted a little on her feet, and he knew that she wanted him to look up at her. "Are you in some sort of trouble?" she said gently.

Norman shrugged. He refused to move his eyes from the floor. "Define trouble." It became hard for him to stop himself from smirking. Christ, what's wrong with me?

"I'm being serious. You have to tell me if this is really serious, if you really are being followed. What if you were in grave danger because someone knew who you were, what if an old enemy had an old grudge? I'm grasping at straws here. Aren't you even going to try and explain this to me?"

She was becoming exasperated. And still he couldn't do it. He couldn't tell her. Who could find the bravery to do such a thing? It had always been a secret, it should always remain a secret. He had grown accustomed to living in the shadows and had begun to assume that it was his deserving place. Why try to raise yourself when all you were worthy of was the dirt and the dark? This was a burden he had learned to bear alone, had been forced by circumstance to endure all by himself. Then that was the way of things. There was no use trying to fight fate. The universe was forcing him back downwards with every passing moment, like the great press of gravity, so downwards he would go.

He was laughing now, he could hear the sound emanating from his own mouth. "What's the use? What could you do?"

"Alright. You know what, fuck you Norman Jayden. I've tried to help you and you just keep spitting it back in my face. There's only so many times I can try. You think you can just keep on acting like this around me and I won't take notice, that I'll just smile and shrug it all off? Screw it, I'm just going to come right out and say it. Are you taking drugs?"

The laughter had stopped long ago. Slowly, slowly, Norman put his head in his hands, and stayed like that for a long time. Minutes passed. Melissa began to think that he might never speak to her again. She paced a little, stared at the glum spartan objects in the room, tried to figure out what the hell was happening and what kind of fire she had been thrown into after the frying pan of the FBI. Eventually a shrill wind rattled through the doorframe, and Jayden found he was able to raise his head. His eyes looked even worse than before, flecked with red like spots of blood in foam. When he spoke his throat sounded constricted as if he had been holding back tears. "I'm going to speak plainly to you now, Melissa. What I have to tell you isn't pretty and it isn't easy to swallow. But I guess I owe you enough to try. Everything started with the glasses."

Donahue took a deep breath and steeled herself for whatever was to follow. "Your Added Reality Interface glasses?"

"Yes. ARI for short. They were developed by the Bureau and handed out to exceptional agents who were believed to be capable of using them best. I was chosen. The glasses changed my life and made me a better agent than I ever thought I could be." Norman was struggling to compress months of suffering and silence into one clear explanation. "But… they also produce unwanted side-effects in those who use them regularly."

Melissa came to sit beside him on the bed. He took this as a good sign, and continued.

"Migranes, nervous tics, anxiety, bleeding in severe cases - withdrawal symptoms essentially. The best way of describing it is like an addiction."

Jayden rummaged in his pockets. His fingers closed around a cold, thin glass vial and stayed there, clenched. This was the moment. It was time to reveal which he had never before willingly revealed. Norman knew if he thought about it much more he would never be able to do it. It no longer mattered if it was a good idea: it would have to come out, like an uncontainable torrent, like a dam which had grown thick with decay and mould and which would finally burst. He would have to do it now, now, before the strength left him forever. He looked up into the face of Melissa sitting next to him, and if she had been a Lady Justice before now she was a goddess of protection and understanding, gentle and fierce and sublime, a lion-headed Sekhmet or golden Amaterasu or another one he had forgotten the name of, clothed in the robes of the sun.

He pulled the tube out. It sat brazenly in the palm of the hand. "This is what I was given by the FBI to offset the effects of the glasses they also gave to me. It is a drug, an opiate. It is called Triptocaine."

Melissa was just staring. He felt a brief flash of pity for her, then wondered why. Jayden wanted to continued speaking. Now he had begun to tell, he wanted to tell it all.

"I take it by inhaling. It's a depressant, so it slows me down after I've been using ARI for too long. Used together, it's possible to control all the various side-effects pretty well. The only problem is, I've been using them both for a while now, and, well, issues are starting to occur." He chuckled under his breath. "I'm a bit addicted."

"To them both?" Melissa whispered.

"Sure. To the speed of the glasses, to the calm of Triptocaine. Maybe they're having completely opposite effects and I'm just stick in the middle. When I get a new symptom, at this point I just don't know. It could be one or it could be the other. They've become so tangled that there's no way for me to unpick them now without killing myself in the process."

Donahue looked down at the tube in his hand, then back at him, a little afraid, very curious, silently asking permission. Norman remembered she had done the very same thing with his glasses when they had first met. That seemed a long time ago now. He nodded and she picked up the Tripto, brushing his palm with the tips of her fingers.

"You're saying that the FBI gave this to you?"

"Yes."

"But the FBI abhors drug use."

"I know that. I didn't say it made a lot of sense."

She passed the tube back to him. The sight of it was making him feel sick, so he pocketed it again.

"I don't understand," said Melissa quietly. "What does this have to do with you being chased?"

Norman was tracing patterns into the bed sheets with his finger. "I accepted all of this for a long time," he began. "I accepted that ARI and Tripto was just part of who I was, unfortunate maybe, but necessary, that the Bureau was trying its best to reduce the negative effects of an otherwise highly successful device and I had no reason to complain. But recently I've begun to think, to question, and I've had evidence passed my way to suggest that the ARI project is darker than I ever dared imagine. Things have become clear to me. I think the FBI planned it all along. I think they wanted their agents to become addicted to the glasses and the drug."

There was a steady silence. Jayden did not look up, and when Donahue spoke, the doubt in her voice made him flinch.

"But why, Norman? Why would anyone want that?"

"They're an unparalleled combination even if they do have horrific consequences. Leads to improved efficiency, more cases solved, a happier government, better public opinion. And once their agents are hooked, they have to stay agents if they want to get their fix. Forever. There's no backing out. That's a hundred percent employee retention for special agents, no more wasted resources on those who decide to leave after a couple of years. It seems like I was involved in the initial trial run of ARI and Tripto. Maybe they want to roll them out to more agents in the future. Maybe they're still testing to see if it's a viable option. I just don't know.

"Anyway, that's only part of it. I started getting these letters. From someone called Raine, an anonymous tipster, like my very own Deep Throat. Don't ask me why he did it, because I just don't know. But he told me that he'd been researching and now he had proof that ARI and Tripto were actually manufactured to create addicts out of special agents. He gave me evidence, proper hard would-stand-up-in-court evidence showing that senior FBI employees were behind the whole project from the very beginning, that they knew full well what they were creating and the damage it would do. I met Raine in person today, for the first time. Only briefly, but he said that the Bureau was getting suspicious of him and of me. The letters had to stop."

Melissa had her hands at her temples, and her elbows balanced atop her knees. Her eyes were closed, like she was deep in thought, or could no longer take the sight of the dirty motel room with its sad, weathered carpet and paper-thin walls. "I'm just - I'm having trouble trying to comprehend any of this. Why would the FBI be involved? They must have known no good could come of any of it. I mean, secret drugs and addictive glasses? What sort of message is that sending?"

"The world's full of awful people, right? It's something you can't escape no matter where you go. We should know that most of all. Just because the FBI is a big respected agency doesn't mean it's immune to corruption or vice. Somehow evil has managed to ferret itself somewhere high up into the hierarchy and make a nice comfy home for itself." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Or maybe those bastards honestly thought they were making a good decision. I mean, fuck, someone dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, didn't they?"

"So the people chasing you…?" Her bright eyes were open now. She stared right at him as though all the pieces were clicking into place, and what was forming was a very frightening jigsaw.

"It was the Bureau. It had to be. They know that I know too much."

"But… what were they going to do to you, Norman? Kill you? Hurt you? Make you stop following this trail? They can't get away with shit like this!"

Jayden smiled wanly, then looked back down at his empty palms. "If I've learnt anything from my years as a special agent, it's that the FBI can get away with whatever it wants."

Agent Donahue got to her feet and held her hands on her hips for a moment. She stared at a significantly insignificant spot on the ceiling for several seconds, then blinked slow and hard, then turned back to him. "You said you have evidence?"

Norman nodded.

"I think I'd like to see it, please."

With a hint of embarrassment and reluctancy, Jayden reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small portable DVD player. Sorry, Raine. Norman had been meaning to destroy the DVD which had been sent to him, but something, an urge or an instinct, something that seemed important and intuitive, had encouraged him to keep a hold of it. So it had remained in his jacket since Sunday, quiet, unassuming, vital. Who knew when he might need it to convince someone else? Now it seemed like his instinct had been right. But more than that, he knew he needed the DVD to prove the truth to himself. If he doubted his mind, if he turned away and once again tried to blanket reality with his own lies, as he knew he was all too capable of doing, it would be there to remind him that he wasn't going crazy: that he really was part of something larger. Passing the device to Melissa, Norman became acutely aware of how critical it was that he looked after that disc.

Donahue found the play button and pressed it. And just as Norman had done two days before, she watched as the cheap plastic screen lit up, as tinny voices began emanating from the speakers, as two FBI Executive Assistant Directors began planning their dark plans in a brightly-lit room.

When it was over the silence clung to the motel room like a cobweb. Norman wondered if he should say something. He could say something designed to be comforting or reassuring, but why should he, said the selfish corner of his brain. Nobody was there to comfort me when I needed it most. That was a frail excuse. Truthfully, there was nothing comforting which could be said.

"Excuse me," said Melissa. She left the DVD player on the bed and headed for the door without a backward glance. "I need to be alone for a while."

Norman shut the device down and returned it to his jacket pocket. He sat on the bed for a long time, looking out of the small window at the inky night and the sky blanketed by clouds. He was feeling numb. It was a good feeling: his mind was blissfully empty for once, free of all thoughts, like a busy thoroughfare now gone quiet. He went into the adjacent bathroom and turned on the faucet to wash his hands. The water was frostily cold. His skin protested at the feel of it, and when he splashed his face he could sense every pore being scoured by the glacial chill, until it had percolated down to his very bones and turned them to ice. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it had just turned 9 o'clock. It was getting very cool on this early December evening. Even with his jacket on Norman was shivering. Melissa would be freezing outside.

He went and opened the door to the room. A small crouched shape was sitting at the top of the steps just some paces away. She had her arms wrapped around her knees and her head was bent low. The wind had picked up, was whipping her hair and her coat and causing some of the cheap awning at the motel entrance to flap about disconcertingly. It made it difficult for Norman to shut the door again.

Once he'd succeeded he sat down next to Donahue, and the steps groaned. She was looking out at Washington, at the buildings rising tall out of the streets and the lights of hundreds of indistinct beady cars melding into a thin orange beam snaking around them all. And in the distance the Washington Monument could just be made out, thin and ghostly on the skyline, pointing upwards like a knowing clue, up to where the moon glowed behind the clouds. Cars and trucks flashed by the motel every so often, but this part of the city was mostly silent now. Melissa turned to him. Her eyes were covered in a hazy sheen which had probably been caused by the cold, but maybe not.

"How could they? How could they? Without even telling you?"

Norman looked away as she wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. The next moment he jumped at the feel of cold skin on his neck, and turning around, saw that Donahue had placed her fingers gently on the base of his jaw. She withdrew them apologetically. They were sitting awfully close.

"Is that whiplash?" she said.

"Yeah. From my seatbelt, earlier in the car."

He rubbed at his neck somewhat self-consciously. There was only a slight mark, and it hadn't been hurting before, but for an hour or so now it had begun to ache. Hopefully it wasn't serious. Norman wasn't sure how much more neglect his body could take.

All of a sudden he felt painfully lonely, lonelier than he had ever felt in his life, like it was a real bodily pain along with the ache in his neck. Raine had deserted him. He didn't know who else he was supposed to turn to. In adventure novels the hero was never alone - even at the darkest of times he had a partner, a sidekick, somebody to help him through the worst of it all. I'm not exactly a hero, though, am I? Jayden shook his head, as if it were possible to physically shake those childish thoughts free and away from him altogether. But the loneliness remained. Loneliness was not something that could be shook free.

"Melissa," Norman said, just above the soft whistling of the wind. "All I want is to not be alone. I don't think I can handle being alone right now."

She was still looking out at the city. She blinked once. She did not smile, but her voice was firm, and when she spoke it was just as heartening as her smile would have been.

"I'm not going to leave you."