Out of Darkness -Chapter 6
by DethKlaire
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Brendon Small is a god. 'Nuff said.
Gratitude: Huge thanks to my excellent Beta Reader, and partner in crime, the lovely YvetteD!
Notes: My first story. Not yet complete, but I consider these first 6 sections to be "Part 1"
I am not a doctor or a scientist, so sorry if some of the medical / technical stuff is off…
I love Charles. Therefore I challenge him.
Warnings: Some strong language… but seriously, it's Metalocalypse, what did you expect? ;)
Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!
Charles made sure to be settled at the head of the table in the conference room before any of the band members filtered in. As it were they all arrived in a pack, which meant they were probably doing something together before coming. Charles was interrupted from wondering what they had been up to when he heard a familiar voice.
"Dood! Welcome back. I dig the shades!" Charles couldn't help but smile slightly
"Ah, thank you Pickles."
Another voice started off enthusiastically. "I broughts Deddy Bear to the meetings so you could sees him again… I means, so, uh, you could…" he trailed off hesitantly and Charles quickly filled in for him,
"So I could see him again. Yes, thank you Toki. And how is Deddy Bear doing?"
"He ams doing good!" the lightness was back in Toki's voice as he handed the stuffed animal to Charles. Charles had observed, during some difficult conversations with the troubled young man, that sometimes when it came to talking about his own feelings Toki felt safer expressing himself through the bear. So he was glad that "Deddy" seemed to be in good spirits. Charles placed the bear on the table in front of him.
"Charlesch. I know this muscht be rough. So if there's anything you need… ANYTHING… you juscht let me know, okay, buddy?" The last part was practically whispered as Murderface patronizingly squeezed Charles by the shoulders and leaned down so their heads were nearly touching. Charles heard one of the others groan. They had all been witness to Murderface's previous awkward and misguided attempts at "valor", and subjected to the Holier Than Thou attitude that always accompanied the display. Charles did, however, appreciate that this was the bass player's own way of dealing with the situation, and managed to suppress his annoyance until Murderface's lisping dialect caused a delicate spray of saliva to land on his face. Charles deftly twisted out of the other man's grip and quickly wipe himself off with his sleeve, all while thanking Murderface for his "concern" and expressing that he would let him know should he need any "assistance". This seemed to satisfy Murderface and he headed to his seat, commenting to one of the others "It's just such a schame!" Charles rolled his eyes, knowing that they probably couldn't see it though his dark glasses.
Nathan came up then and leaned down towards Charles. "Uh...there's spit on your glasses." He whispered. "Do you want me to…"
"No. I've got it. Thank you for telling me though..." Before he dealt with the glasses he turned back to Nathan and asked quietly, "Is everyone here and seated?" It felt strange to have to ask that.
"Yeah." Nathan replied quietly with his gravelly voice. And he went to go sit down, brushing lightly against Charles shoulder as he passed. Charles felt himself flush and wondered if the contact hadn't been accidental. But he quickly chastised himself for giving it a second thought and turned his attention back to his glasses. He slid them off and pulled a little cloth from his shirt pocket to wipe them with. Then, as he was about to put them back on he stopped and gently set them down on the table. He felt that letting the band see his eyes, one last time, was not only a way to make this all the more real for them, but also a sign of the respect and trust he had for them.
"I called you all here to talk about how this affects the band." Everyone knew what this referred to. "I have every intention of finding ways to still do my job. I want you to know that all of you, and Dethklok as a whole, are very, very important to me. And above all I want you all to know that…. None of you are to blame, in any way, for what happened."
He paused and took a deep breath. The boys were all aware that Charles had gone missing during the last of the promotional events for their most recent album. This was a little under 2 weeks ago. His absence had been purposely glossed over, and then downplayed in an effort to keep the band from getting worked up and trying to take matters into their own hands. Just as their suspicions were mounting, Charles was located and rescued. Now he was back, but he was blind. They didn't know any details.
"I was taken by the Revengencers, lead by the Man with the Silver Mask. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, it's all very foggy. I remember they had some kind of new weapon that we haven't encountered before, but the details are…" He paused, frustrated that he couldn't remember more of the attack. "All the Gears that were with me at the time were killed trying to save me, but it seems they wanted me alive."
Another pause. "The Man in the Silver Mask has a lab, where, we've discovered, he practices… extremely unethical medicine, if you can even call it that. But he definitely has medical training, and very high tech equipment. From the plans that were intercepted when I was rescued, we can guess that the goal of… the procedure they attempted on me… was the installation of some kind of a digital satellite link along both my optic nerves which would allow them to download a continuously streaming image of everything I saw. We gather that they intended to do this, and then return me, to gain classified information through my eyes."
"Since we don't know exactly what they were doing, we don't know specifically, ah, what went wrong. But at some point, most likely a critical one, the operation was, ah, botched, and… Well, they abandoned the plan. It appears there was some kind of fight among the, ah, assailants, because I'm told there were several recently killed bodies at the scene where I was found. Whatever techniques they were using to surgically implement the link were very un-invasive. Probably laser-based. And while they didn't manage to install their information link, they did manage, in the attempt, to, ah, severely damage parts of my optic nerves."
"Well if they ams just hurt parts of the opticals nerve then why ams you all blind?" Toki asked innocently.
Charles inwardly gathered his strength before continuing. He recalled what the doctors had told him and proceeded to deliver a shortened version, with the stoicism that the band had come to expect from him.
"Whatever started to destroyed the nervous tissue also caused it to become acutely necrotic... The dead tissue became infected, which is especially serious around the blood-brain barrier. The doctors had to get rid of the necrotic tissue to prevent brain infection and, ah, death. Traumatic surgery was out of the question due to my already unstable condition. The quickest and safest way was to inject a special substance which can be programmed to dissolve specific types of nervous tissue. But it's only so specific. They effectively had to destroy the remainder of my optic nervous tissue in order to save me from a serious brain infection which most likely would have resulted in my death."
"Holy shit!" Nathan bellowed. "OUR Doctors did this to you? I will fucking kill them!"
"NO you won't!" Charles slammed a fist down on the table, feeling his emotions start to surface. Nathan, by the sound of it, had sprung up from the table and was on his feet. "They did what they had to do. I would have died. Or worse." The thought of being in a vegetative state, trapped between life and death, horrified him. "But I'm here now. I'm going to learn to deal with this. And I expect you all to do the same!"
He wasn't used to given Dethklok orders, and they certainly weren't used to getting them. He wondered if that last comment was out of line. He didn't really expect anything from them. He only wanted it. Charles took the moment to catch his breath, waiting for any reactions from the band. He realized that he was shaking very slightly and hoped they couldn't see it.
After a long pause, he heard a sound that made his heart sink. Nathan's heavy footsteps slowly walking towards the door. But the boots stopped next to where Charles sat. It seemed to Charles that Nathan was bending down, and when he rose again he placed something in Charles' hands.
"He fell off the table when you hit it." Nathan said, sounding surprisingly calm, as Charles recognized the stuffed bear and put him back on the table where Toki could see that Deddy was okay.
Nathan walked back to the table and took his seat. Charles was trying to absorb what had just happened. Whether the gesture was made for himself or for Toki, Charles was struck by the thoughtfulness behind it.
"How did they find you?" Pickles inquired, providing a welcome link back to the earlier conversation.
"The Church of the Black Klok has tracking technology that surpasses even our own."
"Don't they have the technology to repair nerve damage? I mean, they brought you back from the dead!"
"Pickles… There is no optic nerve tissue to be repaired. It's gone."
The sobering fact was followed by more silence. Charles strained his ears to place a familiar sound and then realized that he was hearing the lightening-fast patter of Skwisgaar's nimble fingers as he air-played his guitar. The intensity of the playing told Charles all he needed to know about how the guitarist was doing with all this- he was escaping from something he didn't want to deal with.
Charles continued. "So now you know what happened. I don't want you to dwell on it, I just thought you all deserved to know. It happened. It's over. And it's time to start moving on. I've been talking with the various science departments about possible forms of adaptive technology. I'm telling you this because it's likely I'll be taking another brief medical leave."
"What are they going to do to you?" Murderface asked with interest. He had always been fascinated by anything remotely morbid.
"Any kind of visual perception is out of the question. But there may be a way, using sonar technology, to allow me to perceive solid matter, including people, within a certain area. In brief, it would involve connecting a sonar receptor to my visual cortex." Probably followed by years of learning how to use the damn thing, he thought bitterly. But it was his best option.
"Wait… So you're gonna get brain surgery from the bastards who destroyed your vision?" Nathan's voice rose in anger again. "What the hell are you thinking!?"
Charles was appalled. He was not used to being spoken to like this.
"What the hell am I thinking? I'm thinking that I don't want to be blind, Nathan! But I don't have much of a choice. So if there's an option that at least allows me to one day be able to walk down the hall without a guide, or that fucking white cane, I am pretty damn interested!"
Oh my god. Charles could hear his heart pounding in his chest. Oh my god. Did he really just explode in front of his band? He never would have allowed them to see him so emotionally out of control before.
He had to say something, anything, to try and make this right. He took a deep breath.
"I may not have been ready to come back to you yet. I'm sorry." And suddenly, feeling more emotionally open and vulnerable as one often did in the dark, he found himself opening up to them unexpectedly. "I feel… like I'm surrounded by emptiness. Everything is gone. Everyone is gone. Unless I touch it it's not real anymore. I'm sorry for yelling… There's this awful sense of anonymity… I keep having to remind myself that I'm still here, that you're still here. Like right now… you are all sitting at the table like we normally do, probably ignoring me, and I am babbling like an idiot. Hell, maybe you've all silently left and I'm here talking to myself? How do I deal with that?"
"We're still here," Nathan replied, almost at a whisper.
"We ams still here," Toki echoed softly.
"Holy schit, he'sch not a robot!" Murderface exclaimed in an excited whisper.
Charles, in his heightened emotional state, actually laughed. "No, Muderface, I'm not. This would be a hell of a lot easier if I was though."
"You means the brains skurgerys?" Charles was surprised to hear Skwisgaar's voice. He listened for the sound of fingers against strings and didn't hear it.
"Well all of it, but that too."
"Whats if yous dies again. We can'ts keeps doings this." The quiet guitar playing recommenced and it was clear to Charles why.
"Skwisgaar… All of you… The neurosurgeons we have at our disposal are the best. Beyond the best, if you count what The Black Klok is capable of, and they will be involved. I have a critical job to do here. And I need every sense that I can possibly have to do it the way it needs to be done."
"Don't you juscht kind of schit at the computer and have these boring meetings and schtuff?
So much for not being a robot, thought Charles. But Murderface was right- the band really had no idea how personally involved he was in their security, or how many times he had saved their lives.
"It's, ah, a little more complicated than that. But my point is, while I do appreciate all of your concern, I am leaning towards having this surgery. This will put me off property and out of commission for about a week. I want you to be aware of this. I do not intend to disappear again. I will return, and continue to manage Dethklok, if you will all have me."
"Dood, of course we'll have you! It's just when you're gone that things are fucked. But you gotta do this one thing, before you go, okay, you gotta make sure that Murderface does not pour fucking sand in our living room again!"
Charles smiled as Pickles pleaded the second case against Murderface's second sandscape plans.
"Hey! That schit wasch ART!" yelled Murderface. "It'sch not my fault that you guysch don't have good taste like Charlesch and I do! Right Charlesch?"
"Uh… You know I'm having trouble remembering what the sandscape actually looked like, and, ah, pictures are no good, so I'm afraid I really can't answer that…."
Charles heard Nathan snicker and the boys continued to bicker amongst themselves. For the first time since he had opened his eyes and saw nothing, he felt like there was still a light at the end of his long, dark tunnel.
...
To Be Continued...
