Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [125]
“Almost no one knew, except for McNally,” Dugan explained. “He talked about it with a few people, including his immediate superior. But soon enough, Cook’s deterioration overshadowed any puzzle about a nonexistent warrant for a guy no one could find anyway. The mystery of the warrant went into the databanks and was largely forgotten, until you brought it up again today.”
“And the one man who claimed there was a warrant isn’t available to ask about it.”
“You could ask him,” Dugan corrected. “He’s here, in a private care facility in San Francisco. The thing of it is, you just wouldn’t get an answer.”
Ensign Tanguy Messina looked in on his charge several times a day. The poor guy had been Starfleet, just like he was, and even though he could no longer serve, he was still entitled to the respect due the uniform he had once worn. Now he didn’t wear a uniform at all, unless a loose white robe counted. They made sure he was comfortable, at least as far as one could determine the comfort level of a person who couldn’t tell you how he felt. Carson Cook could have stood outside in a blizzard, naked, and except for involuntary responses like shivering and turning blue, he’d have seemed every bit as content as he was inside this temperature-controlled environment with his every physical need catered to. The room was light and airy, the furniture soft and comfortable, and soothing music played in the background. Calming holoimages, rotating at random intervals, were displayed on the walls.
“People asking about you today, Cars,” Ensign Messina said casually. “That doesn’t happen too often anymore, does it? But today, everybody wants to know how you’re doing. Funny, huh?” He watched Carson closely, but there was no evidence that the guy understood a single word he was saying. As usual. He talked to the guy sometimes just because it felt weird not to. He was completely mindless, as far as Messina could tell, but he was still a human being.
“How you doing today?” he continued. “Same as always?”
Carson’s gaze flitted across him as if he wasn’t even there. It was strange, he knew. Modern medical science could cure just about anything, it seemed. He knew that historically, mental health care had been largely hit-and-miss. Some people could be put right again, others suffered forever, their conditions sometimes mitigated by drugs, talk therapy, electroshock, or other treatments. Messina had made a study of the dysfunctions of the mind, and he volunteered at this care facility, which had only the occasional “hopeless” case, where in centuries past it had been full to overflowing, while he worked on his medical training as a graduate student at the Academy.
He had glanced away from Carson, but when he looked back, it seemed as if something had changed. Maybe a little tensing of the muscles, which was rare. Carson sat in a chair most of the time; though he was capable of almost full mobility, he just didn’t seem to have anywhere he wanted to go. He was in that chair now, but he seemed a little more wound up than he had been just a moment before, almost coiled. And his eye movements were different. Rather than drifting aimlessly about the room, they seemed to dart.
This was definitely a change, Messina realized. He had to alert the director. Something was going on with Carson Cook, and that had never happened. He started for the door.
“Wait,” he heard.
He didn’t recognize Carson’s voice because Carson had never spoken, not in the whole time he’d been cared for here. But the room was otherwise empty; there was no one else it could have been. Messina turned around, and Carson was trying to get out of the chair. His muscles, atrophied by inactivity, didn’t seem to be cooperating. “I… can’t…” he muttered.
Messina rushed to help him. “Carson, hold on. Don’t push it,” he said. “Let me-“
As soon as he was close, Carson lunged from the chair, no atrophied muscles holding him back at all. He caught the unsuspecting Messina in a headlock, powerful arms encircling Messina