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Part Four/Shadows
Henry Rondeau often wondered if, when Doc Omura had retired, it had been a blessing or curse that he got the nod to replace the canny old psychiatrist.
True, it was a wonderful opportunity, to be consulting psychiatrist to G Force; if he was ever allowed to publish, he had material for some truly groundbreaking work, and there were nights when visions of Nobel Prizes danced in his head. But there were drawbacks.
Doc Omura had been part of the Project from its very beginnings; he'd watched over the five members from the time they'd been children and he'd never had to worry about being accepted, or accepting for that matter.
Rondeau on the other hand at been around them for only eighteen months, and he still found himself wondering if they truly trusted him yet. They had such a tight-knit sense of union with each other that it was difficult in the extreme for outsiders to include themselves. It wasn't a conscious thing on their part, but Rondeau knew they found it frustrating sometimes to try and communicate something to him that their teammates would have understood in a heartbeat.
Also, at times, he still found himself being overawed in his dealings with what amounted to a group of legends-in-the-making; it was difficult to remember they were only human, more than just the hero-figures on the newscasts. He found he had to be very careful in his dealings with them.
For example, he rarely talked to them as a group. He had adopted different ways and manners for dealing with each of them, and he couldn't play five roles at once. To Keyop, he acted something like an uncle, to Tiny a brother. Mark was rational and calm, relating one professional to another, although in different fields. Jason... that had taken some time to get right. They'd settled into a verbally combative sort of relationship. It wasn't antagonistic, but Jason seemed to enjoy matching wits in a testing kind of way. Princess, similar to Mark in cool professionalism, but more likely to talk hypothetically about possible cases. He'd never got the feeling that she was disguising her own problems by talking about an anonymous "friend" though.
Then, there were combinations of G Forcers he would not address. For example, he'd never tried to get Tiny and Keyop in a session together; they'd just spend the time cracking each other up and dodging serious issues. In front of anyone except Princess or, rarely Mark, Jason would just clam up and do his "tough guy" impersonation.
Initially, he'd spent a lot of time trying to chart personalities and relationships within the group; for only five people, it was complex. Then he'd gotten something of a shock while talking to Princess one day.
"Put the pen down," she'd said abruptly during a session some weeks after he'd started. "I'll tell you something."
"What?" He'd thought to humour her, taken in by the slight, endearing smile she'd worn.
"You write the wrong things."
Rondeau hadn't known what she'd meant, and had asked for clarification.
"You got annoyed with Doc Omura because his notes were so brief, didn't you." It was a statement, not a question, and he nodded, wondering how she knew that. "We still talk to him, you know. And so do you. The reason his notes got sketchier the longer he was with us was because he realised that he was writing the wrong things.
"I've never seen your notes, Doctor Rondeau, but I can predict a few things. You've got little jottings about our characters. Under my name you'll probably have 'analytical' or 'genius', or words to that effect. For Jason, 'combative' or 'aggressive' are pretty sure bets. Tiny's probably got 'placid', 'calm' or 'mild', Keyop's probably got 'hyperactive' and something about 'bravado'. Mark...." She paused to think, cocking her head sideways. Rondeau thought it was an act, although very well done. "Courage? Calm? How am I doing?"
"Batting a thousand," he'd admitted. "Your point?"
"We're more than just a few rather predictable adjectives. Get to know us, then take notes on what's important, not on how we present ourselves to the public."
That night at home he'd tried to make more notes, and then torn them up; he'd dumped all the carefully created charts as well. Omura had laughed when Rondeau had told him about the conversation, as though Princess had played the best joke ever.
Now, Rondeau compared his memories of a perfectly groomed, cool and collected seventeen year old to the reality seated across the desk from him.
He'd last seen Princess the day before her release from hospital, a week ago. She'd still been looking somewhat battered, but her implants had been helping her heal, and he'd been able to see the improvements from visit to visit. Now she looked tense and weary; her fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on the arm of her chair.
"How have you been sleeping?"
"Some disturbances," she said. "It's not too bad, though."
"If you'll excuse me saying so, you like you haven't had a decent night's sleep since you left hospital."
She shrugged and looked away.
"The last time I saw you in hospital, you seemed to be coping okay with what's happened to you; you said you'd call me if you had a problem. If you're not going to talk to me today, why did you ask for this appointment?"
She bit her lip; the pace of her fingertip-tapping decreased. Rondeau waited.
"I can't sleep in my bed, even with a light on. It doesn't feel safe. I'm...I went out with Mark and Keyop the other day, to the Glebe Point markets and all those people, I couldn't relax with all those strangers around."
"You've been there before? It's not a strange environment?"
She shook her head. "It's a favourite place on a weekend. I've been there plenty of times and never felt...threatened like this."
Rondeau wrote 'sleep disrupted' and 'hyperalert' on his notepad and then put his pen down. Were these symptoms all of it, or just the cracks in the dam wall? He noticed that her finger-tapping hadn't stopped, and decided there was more to come. "Anything else?"
"I don't know how to explain this.... Things seem," she took a breath and looked away, then back at him. "Things seem out of balance. I keep having this feeling that there's something waiting for me to put a foot wrong, that there's something hanging over my head. Do you ever watch horror movies?"
"I wouldn't have picked you as a particular fan of the genre."
"I'm not," she said dryly. "Keyop is, and the more gruesome the better. Why he doesn't have nightmares, I'll never know."
Given the sorts of sights Keyop - all five G Force members, in fact - had been exposed to, and the stresses they'd been put under, Rondeau wasn't surprised that some computer-generated monsters didn't make Keyop's emotional dials twitch, but he stayed silent.
"Back on track, though," Princess said. "There's that moment in most of them where you know that something bad is going to happen, the monster's just the other side of the door, or coming through the forest. You know that someone's about to come to a messy end. Do you understand what I mean?"
Rondeau nodded. "And you feel that now?"
"Not right at this minute. But often enough."
"Is there anything that seems to trigger this? A particular place, or sight?"
"It comes and goes." She looked briefly down at her wristband and back up at Rondeau; the glance had been infinitesimal, but he caught it.
"On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it? Like, do you feel the world's going to end, or--"
"No, it's nothing like that. It's just that... I know something's wrong. Out of kilter, that's all."
Rondeau noted down 'free-floating anxiety', then put his notepad and pen down. "G Force or not, there are a number of symptoms you could reasonably expect someone in your position to display," he began. He had to make it clear that her problems were nothing unusual; for all that she was a member of an elite fighting unit, she was still a human being and had to react as such. "You were trapped in an intolerable situation. You had no access to your usual resources, being unable to transmute, and you had other people with you who needed your help, so you were constrained from escaping by that as well as by the fact that you were drugged heavily. That you were effectively rendered helpless only makes it worse. You're used to taking action rather than waiting.
"Disruption to sleep patterns and a hyperalert state are usual in your situation, and I'm not surprised by the presence of either. Survivor guilt, flashbacks triggered by circumstances or physical stimuli would not surprise me either."
Her hand stilled and relaxed.
"Neither would reliving the experience, either when awake or in intense dreams. Emotional numbing or avoidance of what your experience makes you feel - avoiding or at least downplaying how severely the traumatic event affects you. Exaggerated startle response, concentration difficulties. There's a whole list of them."
"It's too early to make a PTSD diagnosis, if that's what you're thinking. DSM-8 calls for at least a month of symptoms," Princess said.
Theoretical, hypothetical. She was discussing generalities to avoid her specific symptoms, Rondeau knew. Avoiding, downplaying. "It's not too early to start thinking about that diagnosis. And to start treatment."
An uncharacteristic look of hesitation crossed her face.
"You are in no danger of losing your place in the team because of this," Rondeau hastened to add. "You're not back in full time training yet, much less back in action, so we have time to work on your problem." He anticipated her comment. "You do have a problem. There's no point denying it; hiding only gives it time to make it stronger."
She deflated. "I know."
*****
It was half past six when his communicator chirped for attention. "Yuh...G1," he said, not opening his eyes.
"Br-rrip... gotta problem. Come over?" Keyop's terse words betrayed an upset mind.
"Whassup? Mark sat up, blinking away sleep. "What's happening, Keyop?"
"Ree-eet... just come!" The communicator clicked off.
Mark fell out of bed; damned if Keyop hadn't sounded near tears. He dressed in a hurry, and headed out.
It took him a quarter hour to get to the Snack J; he parked and bolted up the stairs around the back. Keyop met him at the door.
"What's the problem? Princess?"
Keyop nodded. "Br-rrip... in her room."
Mark turned and walked fast, trailing Keyop in his wake. "What happened?"
He stuttered. "Won't move."
Princess was curled up small, snarled in the disarranged covers; her luminous green eyes were open in a thousand-yard stare that saw nothing in the room. A guttered-out candle sat on a stand in the middle of the small room's floor; the faintest odour of smoke still hung in the room.
She'd been meditating, then, and slipped into this... trance state? Mark gathered her up in his arms, tangled bedclothes and all and walked out into the living room. Maybe a change of scene would snap her out of it.
He sat on the couch, Princess in his arms; Keyop sat beside him and held Princess' hands. They were cold as ice, and she made no response.
Mark held her close, smoothing her hair, talking softly to her; that long stare never altered, and he wondered what she was seeing, what had triggered this state. "Keyop, did she do anything unusual last night? Did you notice anything strange?"
Keyop shook his head, then looked a little shamefaced. "Brrip... stayed in bed, that's ar-root all."
Mark frowned. "That was unusual?"
Keyop reddened and ducked his head. Haltingly he explained Princess' new sleeping habits, adding that she'd never said anything to him; it was just something he'd observed.
Mark sighed and cradled Princess closer. "It probably doesn't matter, Keyop." Maybe it did, but making him feel worse wouldn't help the situation. "Princess, can you hear me?"
At last, a reaction. Two thin lines of tears ran from her eyes; she blinked, closed her eyes and sighed softly. To Mark, it didn't sound contented or relieved; more like someone taking up a heavy load. "I'm sorry," she said softly.
"What where you trying to do? No, don't sit up, stay where you are for a moment." He wanted to be sure she was really okay before he let her go.
"We - Doctor Rondeau and I - tried hypnotism to help my memory yesterday. It didn't help. You know I don't remember much beyond the first day or two." She lay limp, speaking tonelessly. Mark listened, continuing to stroke her hair; Keyop wouldn't let go of her hands. "I decided to try... meditation is something like self-hypnosis. I thought I might remember something more than I have."
"Did you?"
She nodded listlessly; tears continued to leak slowly. "Only a little. It doesn't help. There's more yet."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not yet. I can't...." She curled herself up smaller, shaking her head. "Not yet."
"That's okay. You don't have to yet." But sooner or later she would, Mark knew. First of all for her own state of mind; she had to let at least some of it out. She might have talked to Doctor Rondeau about her ordeal, but she'd said nothing to her teammates, changing the subject or citing her poor memory every time the topic was raised. Then, too, they hadn't yet figured out what Zoltar's plan was; Princess had information, even if she didn't realise it or want to recall it, and they needed it. The idea of subjecting a teammate - especially Princess - to what amounted to an interrogation was repugnant, but they needed to know what she knew.
"I know," she said, as though she'd read his mind. "Sooner or later I'll have to. That doesn't mean I have to like the idea."
With a glance, Mark sent Keyop off to the kitchen; coffee or tea would be a good idea. "Princess, I know you've been through something horrible, but Zoltar's got a plan, and we need to know what it is. Anything you can remember might be the clue that breaks it wide open for us."
"Later today. Just give me a little while to get my head around this. Later. Tomorrow, or in a few days, all right?"
Mark gave way; it was hard to press her when she was like this. "All right. How are the sessions with Doctor Rondeau going?" If he'd given her permission to try this memory-retrieval experiment on her own, with no one watching over her...
"Don't blame him," Princess said. "He didn't suggest this."
"Sometimes I swear you read my mind." He had to smile.
She shook her head and sat up. "Tone of voice. It's the first time this morning you've sounded angry. It's going okay, but slowly. We've only had the one session since I left hospital."
"And how long were you planning on sleeping in the chair instead of in your bed?"
"Who--"
"Keyop. He's noticed, Princess."
She nodded wearily. "He would. I suppose I was kidding myself thinking I'd put one over on him."
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