Spilling Guts

Part 125 - "How do we fix him?"

Rachel and Hayman's tablets went off, summoning them just down the hall to see Louis carrying Will in the direction of the Med Tech. They followed, leaving Cetz and Balcuwitz in the doorway of the conference room.

Cetz leaned against the door frame. "So, we have a device that makes people experience trauma patterns of rape victims. I know a couple of politicians that could use a taste of that."

"Quite the departure from kitchen gadgets, air purifiers, and possible weapons of mass destruction you usually deal with," said Balcuwitz.

"According to Reese, some kitchen gadgets are just as horrifying as weapons of mass destruction."

Balcuwitz nodded. He took a measuring look at the Head of Watch Two, the slump in his shoulders, the crease around the eyes, the hands that wanted to fiddle with the headset around his neck. "You have yet to set up an appointment with me."

"I can manage."

"You are better than Rachel at delegating tasks so you don't get overwhelmed, but if you need it, my door is open."

"I'm not the focus right now, Will is. If you have any free time, you can keep working on the profile for Yaniff Retten."

Cetz put the headset back on and strode away, doing his rounds of the various parts of Watch Two.

***

With Will tucked back into bed and checked over twice by Rachel, Hayman, and Balcuwitz, Louis returned to the conference room. He had placed Will on the hospital bed and left, but he could still feel the weight in his arms. The day had barely started and a mental exhaustion already crept into his mind.

Cause I don't have coffee to fight it off, Louis excused as his sipped a bottle of water. Hydration is nice, but Balcuwitz was right; this is punishment.

The two doctors and the shrink joined him half an hour later, each of them walking as if they also carried an invisible weight. The images of the Devil's Neckbrace's insides and flawed code glowed on the whiteboard; an insistent ghost.

"He's sleeping now," said Hayman. "Proper sleep, if you can call it that. He'll wake up in an hour or so."

Louis picked at the label on his water. "The attack seemed more... gradual this time. He didn't think I was real."

Rachel nodded. "He's going to start questioning things and wondering if reality is a dream more and more. I can't think of how scary that is."

"The truly scary thing is we have a machine that has actually reprogrammed a part of the brain to do this," said Balcuwitz. "Not through a methodology over the course of weeks, not through drugs, or surgery. Once and done. His mind has changed. And the Neckbrace has done this to many people. Some couldn't survive it and died."

"So how do we fix him?" asked Louis. The lost expression on Will's face when he questioned reality had dampened whatever hope Louis had of things working out. He didn't need hope, he needed results. And the more he stared at the wall and it's ghastly image of the Devil's Neckbrace the more he wished he could punch it.

"Medications have been recommended," said Hayman. He motioned to Balcuwitz. "Therapeutic treatments. Ongoing therapy."

"But that just treats the symptoms to a disorder that will still be in Will's mind," said Rachel. "It can't delete the problem."

"Trauma, real or not, cannot simply be deleted," said Balcuwitz. "It takes time to heal, to process."

"We'll need therapy anyway to deal with the aftermath," said Hayman, rubbing at his bleary eyes. He woke his tablet and turned the whiteboard projector off. "How can we make the cycle of nightmares stop?"

Balcuwitz, Rachel, and Hayman bandied suggestions back and forth while Louis gazed at the blank whiteboard. The afterimage of the Devil's Neckbrace's schematics lingered like a ghost in Louis' vision. He focused on the bottle of water in his hands and slowly the afterimage faded.

"Why don't we delete it?" said Louis, making the other's discussion come to a halt. "The Devil's Neckbrace wrote these nightmares. Why not make it un-write it?"

Balcuwitz seemed to see where Louis was going with his runaway thought. "You want to use the device to undo the damage it's caused?"

"What if there was a new computer?" said Louis, turning the bottle in his hands as a focus point, pushing out his train of thought through a wall of "fuck I'm tired". "A fresh sleeper system that is programmed properly with nothing recorded on it. No static, no trauma, no past victims. Put the Devil's Neckbrace back on Will with a clean slate and unable to record or playback the nightmares. Make it delete, or at least overwrite, whatever is causing the episodes."

"Cetz already has Grant putting apart the sleeper system's programming." Rachel nodded, her shoulders slowly pulling back. "We could request Doctor Fatima Nasrallah from Watch Three to help him code a new one, but the sleeper system can't go on Will without a baseline. The last thing we want is to delete any chance of reclaiming a normal REM cycle."

"So the sleeper system needs to be able to project a calm sleep," added Hayman.

Louis stilled his water bottle. "...what about me then?"

Balcuwitz gave Louis a measuring look. "What?"

"Put the Neckbrace on me for a clean slate," said Louis. "I sleep pretty well. Guaranteed after another day of no coffee I'll sleep like Rip Van Winkle."

Rachel was already writing notes on her tablet; focused, in the zone, working towards something that might work. "I'll keep you in mind for a control test for a calm sleep. But let me make some calls to Watch Three." She rose from the table, still scribbling on the tablet as she left. Hayman followed her adding notes of his own.

Louis avoided looking at Balcuwitz as he left the table, but he could feel Balcuwitz's stare like a stray hair stuck in his collar. Balcuwitz followed him out of the room.

"Go ahead, say it," rasped Louis, walking faster not only to try and outpace the shrink but also in an attempt to stay alert.

"You don't have to volunteer for this," said Balcuwitz. For a man walking in plum argyle socks and no shoes, he could keep up with the pace Louis set.

"Yes I do," said Louis. "I was at Parker's funeral two days ago. I don't want Will to end up like the others. I don't want him gone. If there is something I can do to help him, I want to do it. I worked with the original victims. I took notes with Miss-Misses Watts when they were put into mental hospitals. I saw how lost they were. Will was going down that way since California. Will already looks like some of the worst victims. I don't want him to end dead up like Terry."

"That's a lot of pent up guilt you're pinning to the healing of one man."

Louis slowed to a stop outside Main Tech and faced Balcuwitz. "Will's my partner. I'm supposed to pin stuff on him, and vice versa." Louis sighed, taking off the shades for a moment to rub a hand down his face. The "lesson" Cetz had snuck into his punishment settling in and making itself at home. "One person can't keep up. That's why there's two of us."

"The two of you have the rest of us too. Remember that."

"I'm trying." Louis gave a rueful snort and pointed to his desk. "Wanna help me keep up?"

Balcuwitz frowned at the unstable towers of patents. "I've actually never been trained with the patent entry."

Louis shrugged and trudged to his desk for a self imposed hour of busywork. "Lucky you."