I showed up at the building on Spear Street, where Palmer Reznik had suggested we meet. Got there right on time and went to the fifth floor to room 507. Walked in, and damned if it wasn't some kind of lobby for a shrink's office, the door to which was on the opposite wall.
"What the fuck!"
And yes, I said it loudly enough for whoever was on the other side of the door to hear me. When the door opened, a knockout of a female specimen stepped through with a raised eyebrow. I did the asshole man thing that chicks hate and raked her over with my assessing eyes, and then disregarded her beauty altogether. I've got my life partner at home. I don't need anyone else. "I'm supposed to meet some dude named Palmer here. Do you know anything about that?"
"You're in the right place, Mr. Ensohn," she told me. "Come this way please."
My instincts told me to bolt, but my balls and ego said to stay and show her who was in charge of me and my life. She led me into her office, which was a tad sterile with its neutral color palette and the clean lines of her decor. I was not impressed. I like color and comfort, like what we have a the flat I share with my best friends.
"So, Palmer fucking tricked me into seeing a shrink," I surmised. "Nice."
"He felt you could use a sounding board," Phyllis confirmed. "I believe he's quite worried about you. I've known Palmer for a few years now, and he doesn't usually stick his neck out like this."
"Lady, I can't tell you anything," I said matter-of-factly. "My secrets are way beyond your scope of practice. I'm quite sure of that."
"Well, even if that it is the case, Mr. Ensohn, - "
"Call me Halp."
"-Halp, what you tell me here is confidential, and will stay within these walls."
"You won't record?" I asked suspiciously.
"Absolutely not," Phyllis told me. "I understand you are in a great deal of danger, and that, in itself, could put my own safety at risk. Therefore, I will not keep any traceable record of our conversations."
I stared at her as I contemplated actually voicing all of the shit in my head. "Just to be clear, I am not the one who is a threat to you," I said.
"I understand that completely."
"Okay…" I was suddenly choked up. Where to start? And what to say that won't make my voice crack like a weenie?
"Tell me about your friends," she suggested. "Palmer tells me there are five of you."
"Yeah," I confirmed. "We're The Circle of Power. There's me and Skipper, and Rafe and Alfonz, and Dakota."
"Tell me about Skipper."
"Skip and I have been together since the moment we set eyes on each other. She's tall, blond and gorgeous, and comes off like a total ditz. And sometimes she really is a ditz, but she mostly is completely aware of what's going on. She chooses not to engage in shit that is a waste of energy. I respect that about her."
"But you are afraid for her," Phyllis surmised. "Why?"
I blinked. How the hell can she see that? I battled myself for a moment. Say it. "We all have implants in our bodies. They're made of a special material that is not available to the general public - some kind of biotechnological breakthrough miracle shit that was used to replace our shattered bone matter. Every one of us had suffered violent and devastating injuries that should have killed us about fifteen years back. Skipper's was to her skull. She's got a plate in her head that's made of this stuff. And I have a bad feeling that it's failing her."
"Why do you think this?"
"She has always had occasional bouts of dipshit moments where she spouts off incoherent nonsense. We've called these incidents her trips, and they've always only ever occurred once in a while. But in the past couple of weeks, they're happening all of the time. And the scary thing is, she's saying stuff that comes from our past, that's part of the secret we keep."
"Maybe she's tired of keeping secrets?"
"No, it's not like that. It's like her brain is misfiring. She's saying shit that - it's like it's coming from another dimension."
Phyllis raised her eyebrows and waited.
I sighed. "I occasionally have flashbacks to my time at the Institute that the others don't know about. I was there first, you see, and I saw things and heard things, and was silenced. I think something was done to my brain to make me forget the majority of what I saw there, but, like I said. I have flashbacks."
"And this Institute? Does it still exist?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Supposedly it was shut down when we were released to go to college. It was a top secret facility, and we were subjects of an experiment. I know it was government sanctioned, and I know that if all of the details were revealed, that the public outcry would be substantial and that public figures would be disgraced."
"And when you consider the degree of danger you are in," Phyllis asked carefully, "do you believe your lives to be at stake?
"Oh yeah," I said firmly. "Hell yes."
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