"Trauma"

Link to article: "Trauma".

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+ Breach

"… and then, fifteen minutes later, the Strike Team breached and entered," Bullfrog concluded. "And that was that."

"Was it?" the woman in the blue sweater asked.

The big man stared down at the cup of coffee in his hands for a long, silent moment.

"Agent," the woman said. "I want you and your team back in here tomorrow morning for another debriefing session. Until then, I'm taking you off the active roster."

"If you feel it's necessary."

"I do. And Agent?"

"Yes?"

The woman in the blue sweater sighed. "Try to get some rest."
-----
Bullfrog drove straight home to his apartment after the debriefing, walking wearily up the stairs with his kit bag over one shoulder. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, to find himself surrounded by candlelight. The scent of perfume was redolent in the air, which was permeated by gentle sounds of smooth jazz music.

There was a beautiful, diminutive redhead woman sitting on the couch. Fox grinned at him as she stretched her arms out over her head. "Hey, big guy!" she said, cheekily, sauntering up and taking hold of his tie. "I've got a week off, so I thought I'd surprise you!"

She reached up and tenderly kissed him.

Bullfrog felt the bile rise. He pushed her away, raced into the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet.

----

"… sorry," he said later, after Fox had snuffed all the candles, turned on the lights, and put on some more sensible clothes.

"Apology accepted," the Strike team leader said, "provided you tell me what the shit is going on, Bull."

"I don't want to talk about it," Bullfrog insisted. "It's work-related. Security clearances and all. Need-to-know basis."

"Bull," Fox said sternly. "It's me. Kate. I've got the same security clearance you've got. And considering that I've flown twelve hours from Ireland, not to mention shaving and trimming myself for tonight… I think I've got a bit of need-to-know."

"Kate…"

"And more than that, Jerry… you look like you've got a serious need-to-tell," Fox said, picking up her teacup and taking a sip. "So talk."

There was a long moment of silence before Bullfrog spoke once more. "You know I just got back from the field, right?"

"Yesterday, yeah. Some op downtown? I didn't hear the details, but the front-desk guy told me your team had it rough. Which was why I thought you could use some cheering up."

"Yeah. Downtown," Bullfrog muttered. "Luxury hotel. Fancy place. We got the call after PALISADE interrupted a really weird 911 call by the concierge. They scrambled us, put us in isolation suits, and sent us in. The first thing that happened was that this old fat dude came after me with a beach umbrella. . . "

-----
"Jesus Christ!" Bullfrog shouted, as the old-timer lunged at him with the heavy piece of pool furniture. "Calm down! We're the good guys!"

"Get the hell away from me, you commie bastard!" the toothless old man screamed. He continued to swing the umbrella at them wildly, his shriveled dick swaying gently back and forth with each swing. "You'll never take me alive, Ivan!"

"Skunkboy, tackle him!" Bullfrog shouted.

"Screw you! You do it! I ain't grabbing that guy!"

Kitten calmly walked up to the naked old man, caught the umbrella in one hand, and casually reached out to punch him in the jaw, hard.

"Jesus, Kitten! You coulda killed him!"

Kitten looked down at the unconscious naked old man in her arms, checked him for a pulse, and shrugged. "He'll live."

"Wonder what the hell that was about?" Skunkboy asked.

"Maybe he had a bad night at the bingo hall," Bullfrog quipped.

-----

The team stopped laughing when they found the main ballroom.

"Bullfrog?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this hell?"

"If it's not, it's about as close to it as we're ever going to get," Bullfrog grimaced. He leaned down and ran his fingers over the eyes of the naked man lying on the floor of the ballroom. His skin had been peeled back from every inch of his body and was staked to the carpet with sharpened pencils. A severed penis and testicles rested next to his head. The bullet wound in the middle of the forehead hadn't been there when the team entered the room: Bullfrog had done that the moment he realized that the man was still alive (as well as removing the man's severed genitalia from his mouth).

"Skunkboy, toxin analysis?"

"Nothing I can see." The young man waved the sampling wand in the air and studied the readout on his screen. "No psychoactives. Lots of adrenaline, blood, shit, urine, saliva. . . that's expected given what we're seeing here."

Bullfrog looked up at the rest of the conference room. The entire place was filled with them: hundreds, if not thousands, of men, women, and children in brightly colored vacation garb slumped over in death. Here, a young man had grabbed a young blonde woman by the throat and throttled her to death before being stabbed in the back by another woman with a penknife, who lay on the ground lifelessly staring into oblivion, her eyes glased over in death, the hem of her skirt stained with shit and piss. There, a forty year-old woman had punched a grey-haired man's face before smashing in his head with a bar blender. Over there, a young boy sat huddled in the corner of the room. His severed arm lay in his lap.

"Well, if it's not a toxin. . . Spider, Thaum analysis?"

"Tending hard Flat, intensity around one hundred kilocaspers… hue Sapphire, Tight weave," Spider reported. "Not sure if this is because of the sheer number of dead people around here, or what caused it. Just to be safe, I recommend we all keep buttoned up. Just in case this thing turns out to be cognito or memetic."

"No arguments there. Kitten? You've been quiet," Bullfrog said.

". . . I say we leave and burn this place down," Kitten said curtly. She looked down at a young man slumped in the corner with his arms and legs all blown off, checked him for a pulse, then casually, coldly, put a bullet in his head. "It's the only way to be sure."

"It might be better if we just do that. There's no way that any level of steam cleaning is going to ever get these carpets sanitary," Skunkboy pointed out. "You know what they say about the smell of dead bodies." He shifted his weight on the sodden carpet. It squelched under his feet.

"So that's two votes for burning the building down. Spider? Your opinion?"

"Wait one." Spider said. She stared into her computer screen, swallowing hard, as she fiddled with her monitor. "Bull? I've uh. . . I've got a lot of VERITAS signatures on the top floor penthouse suite," she said. "Looks like we could have a bunch of civilians or hostages hiding out there."

"All right. Let's go rescue them," Bullfrog said. "Find an override, and let's get into that penthouse suite."

-----
"Hey, Bull?" Skunkboy asked on the elevator ride up.

"Hm?"

"Doesn't this place get a lot of Japanese tourists?"

"What are you, a fucking racist? Apologize to Spider."

"Shit, sorry, Spider, it's not that. It's just that. . . well, this place gets a lot of Japanese tourists this time of year, right?"

"I think so. Guest register had a lot of Tanakas and Kims in it, yeah."

"But half the dead guys in that ballroom weren't, right?" Skunkboy pointed out. "In fact, I think most of them were white or black or hispanic. Isn't that a bit weird?"

Bullfrog frowned as he rubbed his chin in thought. The reinforced glove of his iso suit made a hard, metallic clink against the faceplate of his suit. "Spider?"

"Yeah?"

"Show me that ARAD reading again."

Spider passed the tablet computer to her team leader, who cocked his head to one side for a moment and stared at the pattern of colors and lines on the screen. Suddenly, Bullfrog swore, dropped the computer, and thumbed his comms circuit open.

"Central, this is Sparkplug!" he practically shouted into his mic. "We're going weapons free and assaulting the penthouse suite! Case Bixby, I say again, Case Bixby!"

"Fuck!" Skunkboy shouted. He fumbled with his DMR as he attempted to rack a round into the chamber. "Fucking shit!"

"Oh gods," Spider whispered. She began scrabbling through her tactical webbing.

There was a cheerful ding! sound, and the elevator doors opened onto. . .

-----

The starshells exploded overhead, casting the entire jungle in hard white light. Jeremiah felt the cold, hard knotting in the pit of his stomach as he saw the gooks in their black pajamas crawling through the wire.

"CARTER!" his lieutenant screamed. "Get that Sixty up!"

He fumbled with the charging rod of his machine gun, finally managed to get the weapon locked and loaded. He raised himself to the lip of the trench and opened fire, screaming in terror and rage. The weapon chattered and scattered hot brass and steel all over the red jungle mud as the muzzle flashes lit up the night.

He could see the gooks falling, he could see them dying, and he wanted to laugh at the sight. "Get some, you stupid fucking slopeheads!" he screamed. "COME AND GET SOME, YOU FUCKING GOOK BASTARDS!"

He saw the second set of starshells go up, and he saw his lieutenant rise up from the trenches, pistol raised over his head, grey-bearded face twisted in fury. "ASSAULT THROUGH!" the lieutenant was screaming. "We got them on the run! Get em'! Put the steel to them! Kill those fuckers!"

Jeremiah rose to his feet and screamed in triumph as he continued to fire his machine gun from the hip. He could see his brother marines rising up from the trenches, cutting down the fucking VC like wheat before the scythe. The machine gun's bolt slammed back as the belt ran out: he handed the weapon to his A-gunner and drew the .45 from his belt. He fired into the mass of the fleeing, black-clad bastards, fury rising in his heart. How dare they! How dare they drag Ma Carter's little boy out of his home and take him to this fucking stinking jungle? How dare they?

One of the gooks was screaming at him. He put two into his chest and the pistol locked back on an empty chamber. He could see two more of his men holding the fucking chink down. He thought about reloading his pistol, but it would take too much time. He smacked the fucker across the face with the hilt of his gun, knocking that stupid straw hat off his face, was surprised to see that the goddamn slanthead was a girl. Fucking bitch. Fucking VC whore.

He remembered poor Hawkins. Good kid. Just turned 18. Hired a hooker for his eighteenth birthday. Hooker brought a grenade into the tank where they fucked, left it behind. Blew his fucking guts out all over the inside of the entire vehicle. Good fucking kid. Nice guy, everyone liked him, and he died in the middle of a fucking Saigon street because he wanted to get his dick wet for the first time. Fucking waste. Fucking gook whores. He'd get this bitch for him. He'd do it for Hawkins.

He could feel the other gooks trying to pull him off. He fought them off of him and continued punching the fucking whore in the face. He was screaming, he could see the bruises rise. . . and then she swung something at his face, and he could see that it was some kind of rabbit foot on a chain. . .

-----

And then Bullfrog found himself laying on the floor of the penthouse suite, and he was grabbing Spider by the throat. Her face was covered in blood and bruises, and her left hand clutched the rabbit's foot on a chain she always wore around her neck.

And Bullfrog screamed even louder.

There was a sudden scream of alarm, and he spun around to see Kitten coldly, methodically, and violently grabbing an old, grey-haired man in camouflage by the face and slamming his head back against a granite countertop. Her face was a mask of fury as she smashed the man's head into a pulp.

Bullfrog looked around silently at the bloody room, at the men and women and children laying in broken, bloody piles on the carpet, at the bullet holes riddling the walls and spidering the glass, at his broken, bruised, and bloodied teammate, and at the empty box magazine of his weapon.

It seemed to him that it would be a good idea to just go away.

So he did. It took four large men to carry him out of the room.

-----

"… Jesus," Fox whispered. Her tea had gone cold, as she sat at the breakfast nook, watching Bullfrog tell his story.

"Yeah," the big man said. He laughed bitterly. "My team is a fucking mess. Spider's in the hospital with two broken cheekbones and a whole mess of smashed teeth. She's lucky to be alive. Kitten went… mechanical. Just kept pounding the guy against the countertop. There wasn't nothing left of his head by the end. They had to sedate her. About the only one who seemed to get through it okay was Skunkboy… at least, that's what I thought before he tried to punch me in the face."

"Lance took a swing at you?"

"Cussed me out, too," Bullfrog admitted. "Called me every fucking name in the book. Said I'd nearly gotten them all killed. And the thing is, he was right."

"Bull…"

"No. Don't interrupt me, Kate. I fucked it up." The big man smacked his fist into his open palm. "Racial profiling in the targets. That meant that whatever the hell was doing this was filtering by race. That implies agency. Sapient controller, not an autonomous effect. And then there was the VERITAS pattern."

"Bull…"

"I should have checked the pattern before we got in that damn elevator," Bullfrog went on. "Spider's a newbie. She doesn't have the experience in reading VERITAS signatures like I do… like Beagle did! She's barely been on the team for a year! She doesn't know how to pick out a mindbender. If I'd known there was one up there, we would never have gotten in that damn elevator!"

"Jerry…"

"And THEN!" Bullfrog shouted. "Me, the fucking DUMBASS, decided to breach that fucking room with FOUR Assessment guys! The moment I realized we were walking into a fucking mindbender's lair, I should have stopped the fucking elevator: slammed the emergency stop, called it in, and sent in Strike… but no! I had to BREACH! And I sent all four of us in to become that goddamn psychopath's playthings!"

Fox just clutched her mug more tightly as Bullfrog's tirade continued. "And the most FUCKED UP THING?" the big man concluded. "Even more fucked up than that. . . that sick bastard using me to nearly kill my own teammate? The most fucked up thing is that in the end, that fucking newbie saved all our asses! If she hadn't gone for her ward. . . if she hadn't broken the effect on me and the others, we would have killed each other just like those poor bastards down in the ballroom! Jesus Christ!"

Bullfrog collapsed onto the couch and buried his face in his hands, letting out a loud scream of frustration, muffled in his own hands.

Fox sat down and put her arm around his shoulders. The big man flinched. . . then settled in and rested his head on her chest. It took a long time for his breathing to finally slow.

"Jerry?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember what you told me after the Alaska op?"

"It's not the same thing."

"It's exactly the same thing, Jer," Fox said. "And I'm going to tell you the same thing you told me."

"You're fucked up," Fox went on. "And rightfully so. And you're gonna stay fucked up for a while. Shit like this doesn't go away fast. Bits of it never go away. But the raw, jagged edges… they'll get smoothed over. We'll help you do it. And in the end… it won't cut you as deep. It will still hurt… but you'll be able to take it."

Bullfrog nodded in silence as he rubbed his forehead, staring off into nothingness. But his shoulders weren't as tense, and his eyes weren't as haunted. That was something, at least.

"You should get some sleep," Fox said. "If I know the Coalition, they're going to want you in for therapy bright and early."

"Eight in the morning," Bullfrog admitted. "All-day therapy and debriefing with the team."

"All right," Fox said. "Ready to go to bed?"

". . . no. But I'll try."

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+ Post-Mortem

> //Subject has reportedly had trouble sleeping since the incident, and has reported several incidents of bad dreams and flashbacks to the event. Continued therapy has been effective in alleviating these symptoms, but//

Angela Schowalter stared at the screen for a solid moment, her fingers gently tapping against her keyboard, before she finally typed in the next sentence.

Angela leaned back in her chair and stared at the screen for another long time, before deleting what she had just written and typing in, instead:

She rubbed her forehead in both hands and sighed deeply, before picking up her glass of water and taking a large drink.

> //Subject has expressed trouble sleeping since the incident, and has reported several incidents of bad dreams and flashbacks to the event. Continued therapy has been effective in alleviating these symptoms, but the subject remains below expected parameters. As the subject is an integral part of their unit, it is my recommendation that the unit be disbanded and its members seconded out to other units pending full recovery.//

"Full Recovery." It sounded nice and simple. As if such a thing were possible.

Angela shook her head again. //I need more data. I can't decide a person's fate based on what I have.//

> > //Subject has expressed trouble sleeping since the incident, and has reported several incidents of bad dreams and flashbacks to the event. Continued therapy has been effective in alleviating these symptoms, but the subject remains below expected parameters. Further evaluation is required.//

Angela double-checked the form, signed it with her thumbprint, and hit the "Upload" button. Her screen immediately began to display a complicated fractal pattern, looking like a swirling bunch of palm fronds swaying under the ocean. She stared past the cognitohazard and picked out the four-digit passcode, typed it into the appropriate text box, and hit "Confirm."

She switched off her computer, picked up her water glass, and got ready for bed.

-----

"Agent Fox?"

"That's me."

Angela extended her hand to the small redheaded woman in the hardhat and blue coveralls. "Angela Schowalter."

"Good to meet you," Fox said. Her grip was strong and firm. "So you want to see the site, huh?"

"I thought it might be helpful," Schowalter said. "Or maybe it's just my morbid curiosity."

"Well, you're in luck. They start rigging up the explosives tomorrow. No civilians allowed on-site after that."

"It's the only choice, then?"

"We're already getting spontaneous psychic manifestations. The entire place is in a giant ARAD loop. We've tried three exorcisms already, but the thing is soaked into the very structure of the building. We're gonna have to demolish and decontaminate the rubble piece by piece. Not that the owners exactly mind: no one wants to stay at a hotel where a bunch of terrorists recently took the entire guest list hostage."

"So that's the cover story PSYCHE is going with?"

"It was the best we could do on such short notice." The redheaded woman passed Angela a set of isolation gear, helping her into the reinforced coveralls and mask. "Story's got bigger holes than swiss cheese, but hopefully it'll end up as a local urban legend."

"Hopefully," Angela agreed. "By the way, Agent, I have you listed as Agent Bullfrog's Acknowledged Paramour, but I don't have reciprocating documents from you. Are they still en route?"

Fox paused in the middle of checking Angela's mask for a seal. "No," she said curtly. "And he should have checked with me before he did that. I think the boy and I need to have a talk."

"So you are not in an intimate relationship with Agent Bullfrog?"

"Define intimate," Fox said, giving Angela's mask one more tug. "He's not bad-looking, and I don't mind fucking him when we have a chance. He pushes. . . well, he pushed. . . all my buttons just right in bed. And we talk whenever we can. I guess we're friends, too. But Paramour?"

Angela just stared at the redheaded woman for a long while.

Fox laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, I just defined it, didn't I? I'll file once I get home."

"Please do," Angela said, before jumping into the rote lecture on internal relationships: "The Coalition doesn't forbid internal intimate relationships between agents, so long as they do not interfere with the chain of command. . ."

". . . but you do require us to disclose them, to avoid possible conflicts. Yeah, I know. I guess I didn't think it was that big a deal. It's not like I'm gonna marry him or anything. We're just friends."

"We'll get into agape vs. eros, storge, and filia some other time," Angela said, "but multiple sexual encounters plus actively seeking out contact does fit the definition of Paramour. Still, you should have that talk with him. Perhaps in my office. There's no regulation that says you should check with someone before listing them as a Paramour. . . but failing to do so implies a troubling breach of trust."

"Yeah," Fox said. "There's been a bit of that going on recently."

"Care to talk about it?"

"Later, over coffee," Fox said. "Right now, I need to walk you through the site. The air supply in these suits doesn't last forever."

-----

"Initial contact was made in this ballroom," Fox said. "They took initial toxin and thaum readings here. Multiple contacts with affected individuals, before retreating back to the elevator lobby and heading up to the penthouse suite."

The massive conference room was dotted with spotlights and extension cords, illuminating the entire place in stark, white light. Hundreds of small white numbered tags were dotted all over the floor, walls, and furniture, each one with a small, hand-written note and a small photograph picturing what had originally been found at that location. Angela leaned over one card and studied it up close.

//Tooth fragment plus bloodstains, DNA analysis pending.//

"Bloody hell," she whispered.

"You got that right," Fox snorted. Her eyes were hard and angry, through the curved glass of her faceplate.

"How many casualties?"

"About five hundred. One quarter of them self-inflicted. People came out of the trance, realized what they'd done, wigged out. It's a fucking mess."

"Agent. . ."

"Look, doc. . ."

"Let me finish, please," Angela interrupted. "I understand gallows humor. But you don't need to hold back from me."

Fox turned away and stared up at a dark brown patch on one wall. There were a couple of handprints in the same color beneath it, in the same reddish-brown, as well as a long streak leading down to the ground from the initial patch.

"He laughed, you know. When they first saw the scene. It seemed ridiculous to them. He even cracked a couple of jokes."

"I've read the comms logs. I know."

"He still feels guilty about that. I mean, here he is walking into a mass mind rape scenario, and he's cracking jokes about an obviously mentally disturbed naked old guy."

"It's a normal reaction. Humor is a defense."

"I guess. It just got me thinking. . ." Fox clasped her hands behind her back and looked up at the high ceiling of the conference room. "They say that these Type Green guys. . . they're most dangerous when they stop thinking about people as people, right? Don't we do the same thing? What's the difference between cracking jokes to get through a mission and turning people into this?"

"A matter of degree, for one. There's a wide difference between a playful slap on the arm and a punch to the jaw. Even a punch to the jaw can mean different things, coming from a sparring partner, a spouse, or an enemy soldier."

"Maybe." Fox took another deep breath and set her shoulders, her face resuming its usual slightly sarcastic mask. "Ready to go see the penthouse suite?"

"If that's the next place we're going, sure."

-----

Angela watched as the little redheaded woman pretended to raise a rifle to her shoulder, hunched over in a tactical stance.

"Bull feels a bit squirrely on the way up. About ten seconds before the doors open, he calls for Breach," Fox explained. "He and Skunkboy get their weapons up first. Kitten gets hers up a moment later. The only one who doesn't get her weapon ready is Spider. She grabs her lucky rabbit's foot instead."

"The mind shield?"

"More of a protective fetish. I'm not sure how it works. She could tell you more."

Angela nodded silently as the elevator doors opened. The Penthouse suite was another mass of extension cables, light sources, and little bits of numbered white cards, each one indicating a tiny bit of horror that had taken place up here.

"Here's the setup: Bixby is here, in front of the bar. He's got the remaining Asian population of the resort lined up here in neat rows. He's already executed two of them with a mother-of-pearl handled M1911: the same one he carried in the Vietnam War. We presume he was re-enacting some sort of. . . event from his experience there. Gone full psycho. . . reliving past experiences and changing the perceptions of his victims to match."

Fox gestured to the bullet-riddled wall, then walked back to the entrance of the elevator.

"The team gets hit by the mental effect the moment they leave the elevator. Bixby sees them, enacts a scenario shift," she says. "Skunkboy and Kitten? They take cover here and here," she said, pointing to a pair of overturned armchairs in the center of the room. "Bullfrog goes to the ground with this SAW. Spider, on the other hand, freezes in place: we think she was fighting the compulsion effect. According to their OCULUS gear, they remained like that for sixty seconds."

"Bullfrog breaks first. Seventy seconds after initial contact, he charges his weapon and begins strafing the crowd. We think he got about six of them with the initial burst. A few seconds later, OCULUS records him shouting, and I quote, 'Get some, you stupid fucking slopeheads, come and get some, you fucking gook bastards.'"

She lay down on the carpet, then got up to a kneeling position, pretending to hold a weapon to her shoulder.

"Bullfrog continues to open fire. The Bixby shouts at him, 'Assault through, we got them on the run, get them, put the steel to them, kill the fuckers.' Bullfrog complies, rising to a kneeling position and opening fire, then switching to a standing position and advancing on the targets. We think this is when the rest of the civilians died."

"What were Kitten and Skunkboy doing at this time?" Schowalter asked.

"Didn't I say? I guess I didn't. Kitten's gone catatonic at this point: she's still not fully in the illusion. I guess she didn't fit the right profile for the scenario: the Bixby's subconscious hasn't fitted her into a role yet. Skunkboy. . . he's using the back of the armchair as a brace and firing precise headshots. He accounts for about four kills before Spider breaks through the illusion and dispels him with her lucky rabbit's foot."

Fox mimed stepping out of the elevator and tapping someone with an object, then turned towards another invisible person standing on the other side and tapped them too. "She releases Skunkboy and Kitten. All three of them see Bullfrog going complete psycho. They try to stop him. Big mistake."

"Bixby focuses on Spider as the big threat. . . both because she unlocked Skunkboy and Kitten, and because she's Asian. Fits the profile. Bullfrog plugs Spider twice in the chest: the armor catches it, but she goes down with a fractured sternum. Skunkboy and Kitten jump him: he shakes them off and grabs Spider. Bullfrog turns on Spider and injures her severely."

Fox's face twisted into a triumphant grin. "Meanwhile, Kitten does the smart thing and rushes the Bixby. He tries to interpose Skunkboy, but Kitten manages to clock him in the face before it happens. The pain disrupts the rest of the illusion. . . which means that Bullfrog gets to see what happens next. Namely, Kitten smashing this motherfucker's head in like a goddamn melon. HELL yeah!"

Angela let out a low chuckle.

"And you wanna know something really great, doc?" Fox asked, grinning. "Come look at this." She led Angela to the wet bar at the back of the room, where two tall lighting fixtures had been arrayed next to the cracked granite countertop. "We found this when we did the VERITAS scan of the room. See, it turns out that when certain Bixbies, especially psychic ones, undergo emotional trauma? Their mind separates. . ."

She flipped a switch, bathing the entire wet bar in a sickening greenish light.

It was the ghostly image of a tall, powerfully built woman slamming the back of an elderly man's head into the granite countertop. As Angela watched, the scene played itself out over and over again: The old man shouting orders as he waved an ancient pistol around. A fist lashed out and punched him in the jaw. The old man raising his hand to his bruised face, shouting silently in alarm. Then a tall, powerfully built woman grabbing him by the hair and delivering a powerful headbutt, stunning him. Then a few short seconds of Kitten dragging the man over to the bar and cooly, calmly, violently and methodically, smashing it into the countertop over and over and over again.

"I could look at this for hours," Fox admitted. "Just. . . look at that."

"It's certainly. . . impressive," Angela admitted.

"Isn't it?" Fox laughed. "And you know what the best part is? They say that part of this. . . part of this is a little bit of the Bixby's own mind. . . his own point of view. . . stuck in an endless loop. Reliving the trauma over and over again. I almost wish they weren't going to demolish and decontaminate this thing. I'd sleep better at night knowing there's a tiny bit of this bastard constantly getting his head smashed for all eternity."

-----

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions," Angela said on the elevator ride down. "And I'm going to request and require you to be as truthful as possible."

"Sure thing. I got nothing to hide," Fox said.

Angela nodded in reply and closed her eyes meditatively. "Has he had trouble sleeping?"

"Sometimes," Fox admitted. "Lately he's been able to get through it all night without waking up. He still has bad dreams, though."

"How do you know?"

"He thrashes around. Makes moaning noises. Keeps me up all night sometimes."

"What do you do on the nights he keeps you up?" Angela asked.

"Usually I go out onto his balcony and read a book or a casefile. Might as well get some work done."

Angela nodded again. "You volunteered to help with the investigation and decontamination of the site," she said. "Do you have training in such?"

"I did a couple of years with Assessment before I transferred to Strike. And mostly I've just been another pair of hands. Grabbing and bagging and tagging and taking snapshots."

"How is your team functioning in your absence?"

"We're getting ready to start the next training cycle. Nothing big. Jackal's been handling the setup and paperwork for me. He's done it enough times to know what he's doing." Fox nodded and took another deep breath. "Actually, I've been thinking about requesting an extension on my leave."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Fox said. "There's nothing big going on back home, and Bull could use my help."

"I see. Next question. Do you know what 'survivor's guilt' is?"

"Of course. It's what happens when you feel like you did wrong for getting through something that someone else didn't. The shrink talked to me about it back after I lost a few team members in a botched op."

"I see," Angela said. "One last question, Agent Fox. Do you ever relive the traumatic experience of visiting a close friend and loved one for a weekend together, only to find out that they had recently suffered from a mental, spiritual, and physical violation?"

-----

> //Subject has expressed trouble sleeping since the incident, and has reported several incidents of bad dreams and flashbacks to the event. Continued therapy has been effective in alleviating these symptoms, but the subject remains below expected parameters. It is my recommendation that Assessment Team 735 "Sparkplug," including Agent 43856518/735 "Bullfrog," continue psychological rehabilitation for a period of thirty (30) days before being allowed to return to active duty.//
>
> //Signed on this date by the officer in charge, Dr. Angela Schowalter, Human Resources Department, PTOLEMY Division.//

Angela signed the form with her thumbprint, authenticated through the "Brainlock" Captcha, and sent the report off to her higher ups. She leaned back in her chair, taking another sip of her coffee, before clicking the "NEW REPORT" button on her computer screen.

> **SUBJECT:** Agent 42921102/1102, "Fox"
>
> **CAREER SERVICE VITAE:** Subject is a long-time veteran of PHYSICS Division, including multiple tours of duty in both Assessment and Strike. Subject has been decorated multiple times for bravery and valor in the line of duty. Personnel evaluations cite her cool demeanor under fire and personal bravery in combat.
>
> **CONTACT HISTORY SUMMARY:** Made initial contact with the subject after subject's Acknowledged Paramour (who had recently undergone a traumatic event in the line of duty) expressed concern for subject's mental and emotional state. Initial contact was made to determine whether Acknowledged Paramour's concerns were accurate, or were an attempt at emotional transference.
>
> Subject asked to meet the Officer at the scene of the traumatic event to Acknowledged Paramour. Subject showed a heightened affect, including excessive desire for vengeance against the instigator of the traumatic event. Subject also expressed trouble sleeping (indicating that she had remained up all night on multiple locations), and an unwillingness to return to the living room where she initially heard of the event (preference for sitting on the patio to read, despite the dim lighting conditions). Subject acknowledged feelings of survivor's guilt, and was able to draw a parallel between current events and those of several years prior (see Addendum A: Officer's Report from Prior Incident)
>
> **TREATMENT RECOMMENDATIONS:** Subject is mostly stable, but remains below baseline for field operations. Contact was made with the subject's second-in-command, and arrangements have been made for an extended leave of absence no shorter than one week, and no longer than thirty (30) days. Subject will join Acknowledged Paramour in psychological rehabilitation. It is this officer's belief that Subject's presence will be mutually beneficial both to her personal treatment and that of her Acknowledged Paramour."
>
> Signed on this date by the officer in charge, Dr. Angela Schowalter, Human Resources Department, PTOLEMY Division.
[[/tab]]

[[tab 2]]
+ Sunshine

Kitten opened her eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling of her quarters, counting the dots on the acoustical tile. When she got to thirty-two, she sat up on the edge of her bed and stretched her arms out over her head.

The first thing that she saw sitting on her desk was her laptop computer. She tapped the space bar, and the screen lit up to reveal the words "WATCH ME FIRST" written in giant 100-point font in the center of a black screen.

//Oh. It happened again.//

She checked the date on the computer's calendar, checked it against the date she remembered the last time she went to sleep.

//Two weeks off.//

She reached out and tapped the screen. There was a brief pause, and then the video began playing.

On the screen, she could see herself sitting at her desk. There was a glass of water and two blue pills in front of her, and a slip of paper in her hand.

The Kitten on the computer screen cleared her throat, looked down at the slip of paper, and began to read.

"I, Agent Tabitha St. Matthews, Serial Number 43857764 slash 735, hereby elect to undergo memory redaction therapy. I have been completely briefed on the risks and dangers this therapy may entail. I hereby state that I am undergoing this therapy of my own free will and that I have not been unduly coerced into doing so by any other party."

She saw herself take both pills, down it with the glass of water, and reach out to turn off the video recorder.

Kitten sighed. //What does that make it, twenty times, now? This can't be good for my brain.//

She closed the video file and opened up the folder marked "Mission Report," to find out what she'd decided she no longer wanted to remember first-hand.

[[/tab]]
[[tab 3]]
+ Visiting Hours

"Hey, girl," Skunkboy said, grinning broadly, as he walked into the room. "You're looking prettier."

Spider rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at the tall, handsome young man. He laughed and caught it in mid-air, before tucking it under his arm. "Seriously. The doctors did good work."

"Too good. My cheekbones were never this defined. And my face was fatter before," Spider sighed.

"Hey, as long as you're getting your car put back together, why not spruce it up a bit? Do a little body and trim work?" He tucked the pillow back under his friend's head and hugged her gently around the shoulders. "So, how long until the doctors let you out?"

"They say I can go home tomorrow, actually. Then I need to go see the orthdontist. Get my implants put in." She pulled down her lower lip, revealing a gumline missing three teeth.

"Ouch. That's. . . kinda nasty."

"It was nastier before they pulled out what was left," Spider admitted. "I was eating through a tube for a solid week."

Skunkboy kicked himself internally as an awkward silence fell over the room. //Oh yeah, remind her of the guy who punched her so hard her jaw and cheekbones shattered. Real smooth work, asshole.//

". . . how is he?" Spider asked.

"Bullfrog? That's a hell of a thing to be asking," Skunkboy growled. "He should be asking you that."

"He hasn't come by. Besides, it wasn't his fault. He wasn't in control of himself."

"That sounds a lot like what an abusive boyfriend might say--"

"Abusive boyfriends weren't literally mind-controlled by a fucking psychopath," Spider interrupted coldly. "And if you ever say anything about Bullfrog like that again, we are through."

"Sorry," Skunkboy said. He sat down next to her on the bed and smoothed out the sheets. "Just got this. . . thing. . . about guys hitting girls."

"That's because you're a gentleman," Spider said.

". . . not much of a gentleman," Skunkboy smirked. "I mean, I did just look down your hospital gown right now. Cute mole, by the way."

Another awkward silence descended upon the room. "Hey, Skunkboy?"

"Yeah?"

"There's a thing you should know. . ."

"You're trans?"

"You knew?"

"Technically, only the team leader's supposed to know about your sealed file. But after Bullfrog read it, he brought me and Kitten in and we went over that part of it together. He wanted to make sure you'd get no trouble off of us."

"Oh." Spider said. She hugged her blanket closer to her chest. "What did you decide?"

Skunkboy shrugged. "Fuck it. You're you. You do the job, we don't care."

"Ah." Spider laughed out loud and lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "You want to know something messed up? When Bullfrog came after me, I thought I was dead. I seriously thought I was going to die. And the last thought that went through my mind was. . . 'Shit. I'm gonna die a virgin.'"

"No shit?"

"I completed identity reassignment just before being assigned to Sparkplug," Spider explained. "And I've been too busy for relationships since then."

"Well, we're gonna be off-duty for at least a month now, getting our heads and bodies fixed," Skunkboy pointed out. "Plenty of time for you to get laid."

". . . was that a proposition?"

"What? Oh, hell no!"

"Gee, thanks." Spider rolled her eyes.

"What? Oh, shit, sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I mean. . . you don't fuck your teammates. Just a rule. Bad things happen if you do that, and the Coalition cracks down hard on people who do. But there's no real rule against inter-squad or inter-department relationships. So long as you openly disclose them."

"That seems a bit. . . backward."

"It's just the way the Coalition does things." Skunkboy smoothed out another wrinkle on the blanket. "We're human. Humans will want to fuck. Stifling that leads to bigger problems than letting people do it openly. But teammates fucking teammates. . . that causes even bigger problems. So fuck whoever you like. Just let PTOLEMY know and don't fuck your teammmates."

". . . guess that makes sense. In a weird way."

"It's the Coalition way." Skunkboy grinned. "So, little sis. Looking for the hookup? I'm sure I can find a nice, healthy, young man to rock your world all night long. . ."

He didn't dodge it this time when Spider smacked him in the face with her pillow.

-----

There weren't many people in this part of the operating base at this time of day. Skunkboy took a deep breath, straightened the collar of his dress greens, and stood up straight as he heard footsteps coming around the corner.

He nodded as his team leader walked down the hall towards him. "Bull."

"Skunkboy." The big man's eyes were as hard as granite, his jaw set firmly. "Are the girls here?"

"Yeah, they're waiting inside. I wanted to talk to you in private, though, first."

"Oh." Bullfrog's eyes narrowed.

Skunkboy took a deep, nervous breath and forged on. "I'm sorry I took a swing at you."

"Skunkboy…"

"No, let me finish. It wasn't your fault. That bastard was deep inside your head. You'd never hurt any of us if you'd been you. Hell, if you hadn't recognized that we were walking into a mindbender's lair, we would all have been screwed. You saved all our asses."

Bullfrog just stared at him impassively, so Skunkboy took a deep breath and went on. "Look. I've followed you into hell. And I'll keep following you into hell as long as you lead me there. Cause I know you'll get us out… as long as you keep breathing and standing, I know you're not going to give up on us. I was scared as shit. There was still no reason for me to take your head off. So, yeah. Sorry."

Bullfrog just nodded silently at that. Skunkboy sighed. "I'll just… head on inside, then."

"Give me a minute," Bullfrog said. "There's something I need to do first."

Skunkboy nodded and turned to walk into the conference room. The door closed behind him with a soft metallic click.

Bullfrog stood in the hallway for a moment, before walking over to the bulletin board. He made a minute adjustment to his collar in his reflection, and smoothed out an errant strand of hair.

Then he turned and followed his teammate into the room.

[[/tab]]
[[tab 4]]
+ Scars

She couldn't help running her tongue over her new teeth. Even after all these weeks, the dental implants still felt unnatural in her mouth.

The Spider she saw in the mirror looked pretty good, she decided. The black dress flattered her figure pretty well, and the scars from her facial reconstructive surgery had healed over quickly, a process helped along by some magical assistance. She wasn't above using her powers for her own personal gain, from time to time.

She picked up her purse and checked it for the third time, confirming that her keys, phone, rabbit's foot, and holdout pistol had not magically disappeared from her handbag in the twenty minutes since she'd last looked inside.

She nearly dropped it, however, when the doorbell rang at last. Taking one last moment to compose herself, she checked herself in the mirror one last time, smoothed out a wrinkle in her dress, took a deep breath, opened the door.

He was standing in the doorway, as handsome as in his photograph, with the same strong jaw, the same twinkling eyes, and the same friendly smile that had caught her attention. "Hi," the man said. "You must be Spider?"

"Call me Ara for tonight," she said, extending a hand politely. "It'll draw less attention."

"Ara. Nice. I usually go by Flintlock." He shook her hand firmly but gently. "I guess you can call me Flint, then?"

"Flint's good," Spider said. "Sounds a bit like a comic book character."

"Just call me Superman, and I'll sweep you away," Flint laughed, then groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. That was bad."

"Yes, it was," Spider said. "And just for that, you're paying for dinner."

"You wound me to the quick." Flint groaned and clutched at his chest. "How can I restore my lost honor?

//There was a young couple in the back of the room. They looked a bit like her mother and father. She screamed as Bullfrog opened fire and the father fell to the ground, clutching at the spreading red wound on his chest. The mother and son fell a moment later, bullets riddling her corpse as they punched through her flesh and into the body of her young son. . .//

". . . just uh. . . paying for dinner's fine," Spider said. She smiled awkwardly, but took a deep breath and steadied herself. Hopefully her date would just chalk it up to jitters.

-----

"So, what is it that you do?" Flint asked, as they waited for their appetizers to arrive.

"Me? Ummm. . . I'm in Assessment," Spider said. She glanced around at the rest of the diners, then hazarded a bit more. "Assessing situations, advising the higher-ups of courses of action. . . that sort of thing."

"Ah, I see. I'm uhhh. . . I'm in PR," Flint replied. "Mostly media work."

"I see," Spider said. "Did you hear about the incident downtown, about a month ago?"

"Yeah. . . I had a hell of a time explaining that to the media. Was that you?"

". . . partially. I was on the team that handled that case," she said.

Flint nodded respectfully, his hands folded on the tablecloth in front of him. "That was. . . a tough one," Flint said carefully. "A lot of. . . mmmm. . . side effects to deal with."

"We weren't exactly told what we were getting into," Spider pointed out. She took a sip of her ice water: the cold caused her dental implants to ache a bit. "But we improvised and handled it pretty well, I think."

"I wasn't putting you guys down. It was a tough situation, yeah. Mister Bixby can be a pain in the ass."

"That he can," she admitted.

The waiter came by then, and served them their meals. She felt a wave of absolute joy rise up as she saw the steak on her plate. Nice and tender piece of porterhouse. First decent steak she'd had since getting into the hospital.

"Wow. You sure you can finish that?" Flint asked.

"I'm sure," Spider said. "I've been looking forward to this for weeks." She cut into the tender meat, and the pink juices flowed out and mingled with the creamed corn

//Her vision blurred as she felt the fist slam into her face again, hard. Something broke in her mouth and fell onto the carpet. It was a tooth, broken at the root, and it was covered in her own bloody spit. . .//

Spider swallowed hard as the bile rose. She took a deep, steadying breath and raised her hand for the waiter.

"Yes, ma'am?" the young man asked.

". . . could you bring this back to me well-done?"

". . . madame did ask for it rare, did she not?" the waiter asked, concerned.

"I did," Spider said. "But I think I've changed my mind this time."

-----

After dinner, they took a walk by the beach. The sun was setting over the ocean. Almost everyone had packed up and gone home, except for a few hardcore surfers still riding the waves.

"So, what do you do for fun?" Flint asked.

"Me? I usually read. Or play computer games. Or watch movies. Or experiment with traditional magic," she said.

"Not a lot of call for traditional work," Flint said. "Most everyone's gone over to UT these days."

"I don't use it much in the field, but it's interesting to study," Spider explained. "The old rituals have a poetry to them that modern workings often lack."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. For instance. . . a lot of the old "good luck" charms are derived from elements disruptive to EVE flow. Horseshoes, for instance: iron was a rare commodity back in the day, and ferrous metals have a reducing influence on EVE flow. Or rabbit's feet." She took the rabbit's foot out of her purse and showed it to him. "Rabbits are prolific breeders. They tend heavily Sharp, aura-wise. But you kill one in a cemetery under a dark moon, and that balances out the aura more Flat."

"I see," Flint said, he reached out and touched the charm lightly with one fingertip. "Doesn't seem very lucky for the rabbit, though."

"It's just the start of the working. The second step is imbuing it with a disruptive spell that breaks magical workings." She put the rabbit's foot back into her purse and patted it carefully to make sure it was firmly in place. "Technically, you can imbue a pendant with it, and it'll work just as well, but I like the symbolism of the rabbit's foot."

"So you like tradition, then?"

". . . kind of," Spider said. "I guess I just like the style of the old ways."

She reached into her purse again and touched the rabbit's foot. Her fingertips rested against a clump of matted fur.

She felt a chill run up her spine.

-----

They were walking back home after the movie, and they were laughing out loud. Spider was leaning against his arm, and feeling pretty good about it.

"That had to be the dumbest thing I've seen in years," Flint said. "How the hell does anyone watch these things?"

"Hey, you picked it out. . . and you made me pay for the tickets, too."

"Made you? You insisted on it. To pay me back for dinner, remember?"

"If I'd know the movie would suck this badly, I would have made you pay."

Flint laughed out loud, and he put his arm around her, giving her a gentle, experimental squeeze. Spider felt her heart warm at the contact.

//Yeah. I could go with this.//

They came up to the foot of the stairs, and paused at the doorway of the apartment building.

Flint cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly. "Well. I guess we're here."

"Yeah," Spider said. "I guess we are."

She stood in front of him expectantly, and was happy to see him take a deep breath and set his shoulders. He leaned forward, eyes closed, and she lifted up her face and closed her eyes too.

She felt his hand touch her face, brushing a hair back from her eyes. His fingertips brushed over the place where her cheekbones had been shattered a month before.

She flinched.

She felt him pull back.

"I'm sorry," she said hurriedly, "I've just. . ."

"No, no, it's okay," Flint said. "I don't want you to feel any pressure."

"It's not that, it's just that. . . I've got these. . . I guess a few issues. I'm still working through."

"Oh," Flint said. "Can you tell me about them?"

Spider shook her head and sighed. "If you don't know, I think I can't tell you."

"Oh," Flint said. He shuffled his feet a bit and sighed. "I see."

Spider nodded and swallowed hard. Her fingers clutched the hem of her dress tightly.

". . . I guess I'll head home, then." Flint said, smiling as gallantly as possible. "Thanks for a lovely evening, Ara."

"Thanks, Flint. I'm sorry about this."

"Don't be," Flint said. "I don't know what you guys in Assessment go through. . . I can't imagine it. But uhhh. . . I know when a date's kinda going wrong, and I'd rather. . . not push it right now, you know. Unless you really want me to?"

Spider thought about it for a moment, then sighed deeply and didn't answer.

"I thought so," Flint said. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"If you ever decide you want a second date? Give me a call," he said.

-----

She tossed her purse onto the couch, took off the dress and sexy underwear, and tossed them in her clothes hamper. She rummaged through her back drawer for a moment, found her oldest, most comfortable pair of flannel pajamas, and pulled those on instead.

Discovery Channel was showing replays of Survivorman. She sat down on the couch, wrapped in a warm blanket, and watched the balding Canadian man struggle in the wilderness for a few hours.

Sleep finally overcame her just as the early morning twilight peeked through her blinds. She caught a few hours of sleep before the alarm clock rang and told her it was time to wake up.

All in all, it was a good night.

[[/tab]]

[[tab 5]]
+ "Sledgehammer."

Fox woke up to the sound of screaming. She rolled off the couch and scooped up the pistol on the coffee table in one smooth motion, scanning the doorways for threats. As her vision cleared, she realized that the screams were coming from the bedroom.

//Shit.//

She tucked the pistol into the waistband of her shorts and walked into the bedroom. Bullfrog was thrashing about and moaning in his sleep, the bedsheets rumpled and tangled all around him. He screamed out loud at something, hands reaching up and flailing at something in the air in front of his face.

Fox very carefully put the pistol down on the floor and walked, slowly and deliberately, to the side of the bed. Careful not to touch him, she leaned in close and whispered one word into his ear.

"Jeremiah."

His eyes snapped open, and he let out one last strangled scream of alarm. His hands flailed one last time, hitting her in the face, hard.

"Sonovabitch!" Fox shouted. She put a hand to her face and leaped back from the bed.

". . . oh." Bullfrog whispered. He rolled out of bed, his face contrite, and reached for her, recoiling at the last minute.

"I'm fine," Fox said quickly. "You just clipped me a bit in your sleep. I got a bit too close. I'm. . ."

Her heart broke at the expression on his face.

"I'm fine," she reassured him, and then, to make sure that he understood, she crawled under the sheets with him and held him tight.

It took a long time for him to finally get to sleep again, and when he did, he trembled and shuddered. She put her arms around his waist and held on tightly, refusing to let him go as his shoulders shook and silent tears fell.

He finally calmed down and went to sleep about a half hour later.

She climbed out of bed once his breathing had evened and picked up the pistol from the ground. She walked back out into the living room, wrapped herself back up in the blankets, and stared at the wall for a long, long time.

[[/tab]]
[[tab 6]]
+ Quarterly Review

"701 'Jellybean?'"

"Status nominal."

"722 'Bottlecaps?'"

"Status nominal."

"735 'Sparkplug?'"

"Offline."

"Really?" D.C. al Fine asked. "What happened?"

"Psychological casualty. Mindbender encounter. Involuntary Blue-on-Blue, Blue-on-Green. PTOLEMY recommends 30 days offline for psychological rehabilitation," the Director of Human Resources said.

"Yikes," muttered the Field Operations manager. "Hope they pull through."

"They're strong. Bullfrog's a solid leader, he'll get them through this," al Fine said.

She turned the page. "742 'Jericho'."

"Status nominal," the Director of Human Resources said. . .

[[/tab]]
[[/tabview]]

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"Trauma"

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