Patient 91586

“How are our lovely children today, doctor?”
“As well as they ever are, doctor.”
“Of course.”
The two figures, one male and one female, were dressed in identical thick white coats.  Their hands were covered in white gloves and their white collars extended up just to the tips of their white noses.  The clatter of their white boots reverberated loudly down the hall as they strode towards the elevator.  The male figure nodded slightly to the massive orderly who stood guard at the end of the hall before the doors opened and he and his companion were swallowed up into the bowels of the facility.

“Which is this one?” asked the female.  The male consulted his small handheld computer before responding.
“Patient 91586,” he replied, a little weary.  They had been doing this all morning.
“I can see that,” she said, glancing towards the bold black number stenciled precisely on the white door.  “But what’s wrong with it?”
Again the male was forced to reference his computer.
“He suffers from recurring dementia.  Delusions.  His ability to recognize reality is questionable at best.”
“Well I suppose we should go in and say hello.”
“Yes, I suppose we should.”
The door hissed open, and the two figures went inside.  Curled in the corner of the small room was a pale, gaunt young man who looked to be about twenty.  He was dressed in the blue patient’s uniform and his hair had been shaved down almost to the scalp.  He looked up at the figures as they entered, his brown eyes blank and unfeeling.
“Good morning, 91586.”  That was the doctor talking.  The female one.
“Good morning,” replied the man in the corner.
“Did you sleep well last night?”  That was the male.
“No,” said the man in the corner, lowering his head to rest his chin on his knees.
“Oh, well that’s a shame,” the female again.
“Was it a problem with your accommodations?  Can we do anything to help?”
The man in the corner shook his head sadly.  “No, no I don’t think you can.”
“That’s a shame.”
There was an awkward pause.  The doctors looked at one another, then back at the man in the corner.  He had not moved.
“Well … how do you feel today?”
The man looked up at the doctors, as though attempting to find the proper words to respond.  After a few moments he said, enunciating each syllable clearly and slowly, “Peachy.  Keen.”
The doctors looked at one another again.  The male tapped his finger nervously on his computer.
“No more delusions?” the female asked at length.
“If I say no, will you let me go?”
“Well, no.  You have to be cured first.”
“Oh.”
The male doctor stopped his tapping.
“According to our records, 91586, you said you were an artist when you were first brought here.  Would you like us to get you some crayons and paper?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m not that kind of artist,” was the reply.
“Oh.”
“Well, we’ve a long day ahead of us Patient 91586.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing you later,” the female this time.
“Sure thing,” said the man in the corner.
After another few tense moments, the door slid back open and the doctors left.  The door slid closed again.

Harper revved the engine on his hover-bike, propelling it forward faster and faster.  He laughed with delight as he zigged and zagged at lighting speeds, skillfully avoiding boulders, cacti, and the occasional wild desert animal.  His dark blue tie flapped erratically in the wind.
He heard a jubilant peal of laughter from behind him.  Harper looked over his shoulder to see Harmony, his wife, speeding up towards him on her own bike.  Her short blonde hair flapped and waved like an undersea anemone.  He grinned and gunned the engine of his metal stallion, soaring ahead even faster.
Behind them he could barely hear the engines of their pursuers; a small gang of thugs and mercenaries assembled by “Astro Man” Joe and sent from Glitter City to kill them both.  Harper wasn’t worried.  No one could catch them.  
He squinted through the whipping wind and sand and was barely able to make out the shape of a small desert town ahead of them.  He eased up on the throttle, causing his bike to fall back and allowing Harmony to shoot ahead of him, before igniting his retro boosters and quickly catching up with her once more.
“Head for that town!” he shouted above the racket of the wind and engines.
She smiled at him and nodded, before burning her own retros and blasting ahead of him.  
Not one to be so easily outdone, Harper jinked sideways towards a fairly sizeable sand dune.  Crouching low over the handlebars of his bike, he sped straight towards it, zipping up its surface and over its crest.  For a few wonderful, gut-wrenching seconds he hung suspended high in the air before plummeting back to the desert floor.  He bounced hard in his seat as the anti-gravity engine struggled to reconfigure itself, but was soon back on track.  He look back at Harmony and smiled, his mouth full of impossibly white teeth.
Within seconds they were careening into the town, zipping past the locals at astonishing speeds.  Laughing with wild abandon, Harper moved his bike alongside that of his wife and, impossibly, managed to lean over to give her a kiss on the lips even as they continued to blaze ahead.
Then, against all odds, Harper heard a crack and felt something whiz past his ear.  He glanced over his shoulder to see Joe and his goons in hot pursuit.
“Impressive,” he thought, “but we’re not beat yet.”
Harper had just drawn his elaborate semi-automatic Sorci-Tech handgun and leveled it to fire at his pursuers when he saw, to his horror, that Harmony had been hit.  The white shirt under her black suit coat was soaked red with blood and she was sagging in the seat.  She looked at him, helpless, before falling from the moving hover-bike, dead before she hit the ground.
Speechless, unable to fathom what he had just seen, Harper looked ahead once more.  He was too late, however, to avoid careening headlong into the side of a nearby building.

“Stop wiggling, will you!” the orderly barked at the man in the cell, who was at the moment desperately attempting to avoid capture by pressing himself against the wall.  The orderly’s meaty fist impacted sharply with the smaller man’s stomach, causing him to double over in pain.
“That’s better.  Now take your medicine like a good boy and we’ll all be on our way.”
The orderlies held him down as the doctor, the male one, approached with a wicked looking syringe in hand.  
“I wish you wouldn’t struggle so, Patient 91586,” he said, clucking his tongue.  “You know this will make you better.”
His arms pinned to the floor and his head held in place by the irresistible strength of his tormentors, the man could only watch as the long needle of the syringe was lowered towards his eye.
He screamed.

“And how is he responding to treatment?” the female doctor asked.
“It’s very hard to say,” the male responded.  “I upped the dosage last week but the delusions persist.”
He paused, his hand moving to stroke his chin but stopping once it remembered that his chin was quite inaccessible behind his collar.
“Maybe we should up the dosage again,” he suggested.
“Maybe,” his colleague replied.  “Still,” she continued, “I can’t help but wonder whether we might be more successful if we identified what the cause of these delusions is.”
The male doctor stifled a slight laugh, “Well yes, that would be ideal, I suppose.  But you know that’s impossible.  Just look at him!  It’s almost as though he doesn’t WANT to accept reality.”  He chuckled once more and shook his head.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” the female said, before turning her attention to more important matters.

“Aha!  Well if it isn’t Saxon the Blue!”  shouted the Baron of Oseu from his position atop the stone spiral staircase.  “You’ll never stop me, you fool!  I have the princess here and by nightfall we’ll be married.  Then I’ll be the heir to the throne and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
He gave a sinister laugh before disappearing through the elaborate metal archway behind him.  Saxon smirked slightly before drawing his rapier and sprinting towards the foot of the stairs, shouting with bravado as he did so.
The legion of guards standing between him and his true love were nothing to Saxon, as he soon proved with a dazzling display of swordsmanship.  His blade flicked to and fro, hither and thither, striking at his opponents with lightning speed and sending them tumbling down the staircase two and three at a time.  They were helpless before his virtuoso assault, and in no time at all he had cut his way to the top of the stairs.  He paused before the doorway and took a moment to straighten the long blue hair that gave him his name.  He wanted to be sure to look his best when he went to save the princess.
His booted foot impacted mightily with the door in front of him, sending it flying from its hinges.  He strode confidently into the room, his sword in his hand and a dashing grin on his face.
“What!?  Impossible!” shouted the Baron.
“I told you you wouldn’t get away with this!” said the princess triumphantly, pulling away from the Baron and rushing down from the altar and into Saxon’s free arm.
Flustered, the Baron snapped his fingers and pointed towards Saxon.  The two guards who had been positioned nearby stood forth, shoving the priest to the floor as they did so.
“Kill him!” the Baron shrieked.
Saxon laughed and gave a quick flourish of his sword as he prepared for their attack.
The guards cocked their flintlocks and obeyed their orders.

“You know, this really is quite disturbing,” said the female doctor, looking around the cell disapprovingly.  She wagged her finger at the brown-eyed man sitting on the floor in the center of the room.
“Not only do you continue to waste our time and money with these delusions of yours, but you also make a mess of your accommodations!” she waved her hand to indicate the room’s unmade bed.
“Really, 91586, you should try to be more respectful of our hospitality.  And I don’t see why you would even want to live in disarray like this.”
“I’m sorry,” said the man quietly.
“Humph,” she replied, peering down at him from over the extended collar of her white coat.
“And your uniform is getting rather ragged too, isn’t it?  You should’ve said something.  We could’ve gotten you a new one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well there’s no harm done, I suppose,” said the doctor in a manner that suggested that a great deal of harm had, in fact, been done.
“Was that all you wanted?” asked the man, who was now staring at the floor in front of him.
“No, no it wasn’t,” she replied, looking towards the bed as though she were contemplating sitting on it, but deciding against it.
The man waited for her to continue.
“The reason I came here,” she said after a moment, “was to speak with you about your problem.”
“Oh.” said the man tonelessly.
“Yes.  You aren’t responding to the medication, no matter how many times we up the dosage.  We find this very troubling.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well it’s hardly your fault,” she said in a tone that strongly implied that it was, in fact, his fault.
The man blinked.
“Anyway, I just thought I’d come down here to let you know how disappointed we are in your progress, Patient 91586.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s all right.  Just try to do better in the future.”
The man nodded.
“And do be sure to make your bed,” she added before leaving the man alone in his cell once more.

Nails looked out over the glittering lights of the city at night and smiled.  He was in uncharacteristically good spirits lately, and this magnificent sight only buoyed them further.  He breathed a contented sigh and took a step up to edge of the roof.  Leaning forward slightly, he spread his arms on either side of him and allowed gravity to gently pull him over the edge of the building.
After a few moments of exhilarating freefall, Nails slowed his descent and began to drift lazily through the night sky.  Carefree and weightless, he twirled and spun in the air, laughing softly as he felt a light gust of wind flow over his face.  His coat flapped dully in the gentle breeze, its dark blue interior visible as it gradually billowed out like the wings of a massive butterfly.
Still smiling, Nails began to pick up speed.  The lights and shapes below him melded into a continuous twinkling haze beneath him as he soared jubilantly onward and upward.  Through a break in the clouds he could see the vast, starry night sky and the massive glowing shape of the third moon.  
Deciding he would like to join them Nails angled himself upwards and began his ascent, slipping easily into the clouds, causing a faint puff of mist to ripple outwards as he did so.  The cool moisture felt good against his face, and he relished the moment when he would rocket forth from this vast airborne blanket and into the sky.
But the clouds did not recede.  No matter how fast Nails flew, he could not seem to find an end to the dark haze all around him.  His clothes gradually became heavy as they absorbed more and more of the ambient water vapor.  At length the burden became so great that Nails could no longer keep himself airborne and he began to fall, lost in the dark abyss, the lights of the city and the sky distant memories.

One of the orderlies nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another as he continued his vigil over the darkened hallway.  Desperate, wracking sobs were emanating from the cell marked “91586.”  
The one voice was soon joined by another, then another, until the night’s silence had given way completely to a ragged chorus of despair.