Hexad: The Ward (15 page)

Anyway, the huge Laffer, he of the bushy beard, huge muscles and few words, was holding her down tight in the fetal position on the floor, so there wasn't even any point trying to fight it.

Nurse Emily was carefully letting the fluid collect into a tiny vial as it dripped out of the open end of the long needle. In a few minutes it was over.

"All done now, Amanda. You were a very good girl today, well done. We must see about moving you onto the general Ward soon, let you mix with the others. Isn't that right, Doctor?" Nurse Emily carefully gathered up her equipment, placed a plaster over the spot where the needle had taken away the badness, and smiled at Amanda like an Angel come to make everything all better.

"Hmm, yes, I think you might be right, Nurse Emily. We shall have to think about that, won't we, Amanda? At our session this afternoon we shall evaluate you to see just how far you have come since you first arrived here so many months ago. Laffer, you can go now. Thank you."

"Laffer wait until lady not dangerous." The huge man frowned down at the frail form of Amanda, as if waiting for her to try something, but it had been months since she'd tried to escape or even complain in any real way. After the first few weeks at The Ward, her sessions with Hector — such a sweet man — and her medication and Giving, she understood how ill she was and what was happening to her was for her own good.

It was, wasn't it?

The thoughts passed, nothing could stay in her mind for long, especially on Giving day when the morning meds were of a higher dosage than normal, not wearing off enough for her to be more than an empty shell until the afternoon when she had her "chat" with her psychiatrist, although he always said he wanted Amanda to think of him more as a friend than anything else.

"Laffer go." He followed the nurse as she left, closing the door behind him.

"You did very well today, Amanda, I am very pleased with your progress. So different to when you first arrived. Yes, very different indeed. Now, let's just get you all safe and cozy and then you can rest until our afternoon session." Hector fastened the straitjacket after helping Amanda up, then watched as she slowly eased herself back onto the floor, resuming the fetal position of earlier. "There, that's better now, isn't it? You just rest, I'll see you later."

Hector left; Amanda was alone.

She felt so drained after Giving. It was such a stressful experience after the quiet she experienced for the rest of her week, apart from the sessions with Dr... Hector, that's what he preferred. Yes, twice, sometimes three times a week she saw him, a comfort now, when at first it was nothing but a nightmare. Now she was feeling better, and she had Hector to thank for that.

Her arrival and the subsequent weeks were little more than a blur, hard to recall, not that she ever really tried any longer, but sometimes she wondered just how sick she must have been then — very, she assumed.

So tired now, too tired to do anything but rest, let everything go.

Sleep.

~~~

"Amanda, Amanda, it's time for your appointment." Nurse Emily shook Amanda gently by the shoulder until she stirred. She'd been having such a peaceful sleep, no dreams, no nightmares of her false past, just a dreamless nothingness of perfection.

"Oh, okay." Amanda stared at Nurse Emily, noting the usual heavy-handed makeup, the dark, dyed hair with the gray roots showing through, the chipped paint on her fingernails and the fake smile.

She didn't trust her, not quite, but had no idea why. There was just something about her. Maybe she caught glimpses of the real woman underneath, a spiteful forty-something that seemed to take pleasure in her suffering. Amanda shook the sleep and the bad thoughts away. She was being silly, Nurse Emily had been nothing but kind to her, helping her calm after her "episodes," although there hadn't been any of those for a while. Had there?

Sometimes she forgot things, forgot where she was, how ill she was, and never recalled getting mad and having to be sedated, merely told of it by Hector at their sessions.

Amanda went to put a hand to her own face, wondering if she looked pretty, like she was sure Nurse Emily did underneath the makeup. She couldn't though. Of course, how could she forget that she was still restrained? Amanda hung her head in shame. How foolish she was to still be unable to recall such simple things.

"Hey, what's the matter, love? Why so sad?" asked Nurse Emily kindly.

"I forgot, about my hands. I wanted to touch my face. I wondered if I was pretty too."

"Of course you are. A very beautiful woman." Nurse Emily parted Amanda's hair, tucking the limp strands behind her ears, opening up Amanda's vision that was so often clouded by her hair.

"Really? I don't feel pretty."

"Well, you are," affirmed Nurse Emily. "And soon you will touch your own face, brush your hair, have a shower yourself and be cured. Won't that be lovely?"

"Yes, lovely. Um... what were we talking about?"

"Never you mind, don't worry your pretty little head about it. Now, it's time for your session, are you ready?"

With a nod of the head, her hair hanging over her face once more, Amanda was led out of her room, nothing to show that she had spent so long inside apart from a tiny wet spot on the padded floor where a drop of her spinal fluid had dripped over the edge of the vial.

Amanda shuffled awkwardly down the corridor, as familiar as her own room, the stark walls about as institutional as you could imagine, all off-white and green until waist level, scuffed and scratched from the gurneys that were pushed up and down on a regular basis by Laffer, seemingly the only orderly in The Ward, or the only one she had ever seen or heard at any rate.

Her nurse didn't rush her, allowed her to take her time, even stop and stare at the other patients, although Amanda could never bring herself to look at them for more than a moment — it reminded her that she was far from well. She was getting better though, could almost convince herself they had different hair styles, different colored hair, were fat or thin, large or small, old and young, rather than all looking almost exactly the same. Looking like her.

She would get better soon, would be able to see the other women for who they really were. Once she got better and fixed her head then all the visions of multiple images of her would clear, be replaced with their real faces.

She had a long way to go yet though, that was for sure, but she was getting better, little by little, day by day, and besides, it wasn't even that bad once you got used to it.

Not really.

She was directed down yet another corridor, catching a glimpse of the recreation room before being ushered away. She stared longingly at the open space, the women not restrained but playing cards, watching TV, even reading books. They were quiet, somber and mostly rather insular, but they had their freedom — of sorts.

It was a lot more than she had.

"Here we are. Go straight on in, Amanda, no need to knock." Nurse Emily paused for a moment then put her hand to her mouth in shock. "Oh, I'm so sorry, how terrible of me." Nurse Emily opened the door and ushered Amanda into Hector's room where he saw his patients.

Did she say about knocking on purpose? No, I'm not well, I'm not well.

It's all in Your Mind

37 Years Future

"Hello, Amanda, you're looking well," said Hector from behind his desk. He glanced down at a stack of papers, picked them up and tidied the pile before placing it to one side.

"Um, thanks?"

"Was that a question?" asked Hector, peering at her over glasses Amanda couldn't help but imagine were there just because it was what was expected of your resident psychiatrist. Same for the timeless suit and the gray hair. In fact, the whole room couldn't be more clichéd if you tried: dark panels, lots of unpronounceable book titles and he even had an oak desk with leather inlay and a green reading lamp — it was like he'd just looked up psychiatrist in the dictionary and followed the rules.

"Amanda?"

"Oh, sorry. No, I guess not, I am feeling better."

"Good, good." Hector pushed back in his chair and stood before walking around the desk, moving close. "I think we can take off all this unnecessary restraint, don't you?"

"Yes please, my arms are numb."

"Sorry about that. It's for your own safety, as I am sure you know. There were, um, certain incidents when you first arrived. Do you remember?" Hector untied the straitjacket as he spoke and Amanda gratefully moved her arms about, clenching and unclenching her fists to improve the circulation, sure to make it as non-threatening as possible when all she wanted to do was grab him by the throat and make him tell her what... No, she was ill, he was helping her.

"Thank you," Amanda forced herself to say instead. "I'll be good."

"Of course you will. Now, please do sit down. I suppose a chair is quite the luxury to you at the moment, am I right?"

"Yes, Doctor." Hector frowned over his glasses as he sat. "Sorry. Yes, Hector." Amanda sank into the comfortable chair, as amazed as she always was at how such a simple luxury was taken for granted in the past.

The haze of the morning was long forgotten, more like waking from a dream, not really recalling anything but the vaguest idea of what it contained, but the drug-stupor had lifted for the most part. Giving days were the only ones where she almost felt herself for a few hours in the afternoon preceding and subsequent to her session with Hector.

Amanda was never sure if it was a good thing or a very bad thing. Thoughts and distant memories would begin to crowd her mind as they were doing now, and it was hard to separate fact from fiction. So much made little sense, so much seemed wrong, yet she knew she was unwell, knew that the drugs administered at every mealtime were stopping her from losing her, albeit tenuous, grip on reality.

Part of her wanted to become semi-comatose once more, to be lost in the fuzzy haze of timelessness where thoughts could no more be held onto than the clouds in the sky. But part of her wanted to see what complete clarity would deliver, to find out just how insane she was and be an observer of her own thoughts and emotions, try to understand what was wrong with her, why she was broken and how she could be fixed.

But what if she wasn't broken? What if everything she had once believed was actually true?

What if she had jumped through time? What if they were keeping her here to take the fluids from her and build time machines for the masses? What if all the other women here really were other Amandas and what if she had once had a life with a handsome man for over a decade and she had met The Caretaker and another version of her had jumped into The Chamber, that strange inverted world at the end of time where another warped soul had tried to take what he had no right to from endless Amandas from universes created by the paradoxes that built because of time travel?

God, I am utterly insane. But how did I get here? Who brought me and when will they let me go?

"You're doing it again, aren't you?" said Hector calmly, steepling his fingers, resting his chin lightly on the well-manicured tips in what Amanda was sure was a mere affectation of what a man of position was supposed to do.

"Sorry, I was just..."

"Trying to understand what's happened to you? Wondering if you are in need of help? Not quite sure if what you believed to be true really is?"

"Yes, I mean no," said Amanda hurriedly. She knew the only way to get out of her cell and at least into the open Ward was to show she was making progress whether she believed it or not.

"So you don't really think that time travel exists? That The Ward is full of other women that are exact clones of you? What did you call them, other versions of you from alternate universes?"

"Haha, yes, but I'm better now, Hector. I know that is silly, that it isn't true. I just... get a little confused sometimes. It's because my medication is wearing off, I'm just getting withdrawal symptoms, that's all. I know what's real." Amanda put a hand through her hair, trying not to grimace at how oily and dirty it felt. Why couldn't she at least shower every day? Have five minutes of her own to get clean?

"Amanda?"

"Sorry, I was just thinking."
Keep it together, it doesn't matter what's real, you just need to get out of your cell — it's not a room, it's a cell — and be allowed to at least move your own hands.

The conversation continued. Amanda tried her best to act normal, or at least what she thought normal meant, and focused as much as her still-slow thoughts allowed her to do so. It wasn't easy and it took all of her energy to focus on the conversation, to try to act how she believed she should, and to not just leap across the desk and rip out her tormentor's eyes and—

"Sorry, can you say that again please?"
Did I hear that right? Please, God, let it be true.

"I said, I think you have made excellent progress and that you can enter into the general population area of The Ward whenever you feel you are ready," said Hector, smiling benevolently like it hadn't been him responsible for her spending who knew how many months constrained in a straitjacket, locked away in isolation and having to eat like a dog off the floor.

"Today?" asked Amanda, trying not to let the eagerness overwhelm her.

"If you wish, yes. I shall get Nurse Emily to arrange everything and first you can have a shower with real shampoo and even conditioner if you like. I know how important that is to you."

"Really? Oh, thank you Doctor— Hector, can I do it twice?"

"Twice?" asked Hector, confused.

"My hair, can I condition it twice? I always used to."
I did, didn't I? Where are you, Dale? Do you even exist?

"Twice it is then," said Hector, rising and walking around the desk again. "Now, Amanda, I want you to listen carefully. Are you paying attention?"

Amanda looked him in the eye, forcing herself to appear pleased rather than homicidal, reminding herself that this man had total power over not only her body but her mind. She needed to think straight, to sort out what was really happening. Now was her chance, she just had to be the person he wanted her to be.