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Old 03-10-2017, 07:27 AM   #91
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default When We Were Us

Dr. Anderson drags a chair next to the guard, Avery, and offers him coffee. Avery still has flexicuffs on his hands, so Dr. Anderson helps him drink a cup of coffee, wiping off his mouth with a napkin once he's finished. Then Dr. Anderson takes out his Homeland Security ID and shows it to the guard.

Dr. Anderson: "My name is Michael Anderson. As you can see, I am from the Department of Homeland Security. Do you mind telling me your name?"
Avery [looks down at his nametag]: "I'm Hayden Avery."
Anderson: "Hello, Hayden."
Avery: "I'm not going to tell you anything, no matter what you do to me."
Anderson: "Do to you? I was going to offer you some Advil for that knee of yours, but I assure you, that is the extent of my diabolical plans for you."
Avery: "I'm not taking your drugs, either. I know about your truth serums and brainwashing chemicals."
Anderson: "You do?"
Avery: "Yeah, the Shadow Government uses them against those who are still loyal."
Anderson: "Ah. Would that have anything to do with why exactly Warden Tyrrell has ordered all the guards to attack us?"
Avery: "No use playing stupid. We're on to you. You're black op assassins sent here to overthrow our loyal outpost, working with the lizard people."
Anderson: "I see. Is this what Warden Tyrrell has been telling you?"
Avery: "Telling us? He's showed us! He has proof! Documents, pictures, everything. Evidence, man. And I've seen the lizard people myself."
Anderson: "And what is it that they look like?"
Avery: "Like humans, only if you know how, you can tell them by the eyes. The eyes are a window to the soul and lizards got no soul. So their eyes are inhuman, reptilian, predatory."
Anderson: "When did you see these lizard people?"
Avery: "We've caught many of your agents."
Anderson: "And what do you do with them?"
Avery: "We've got special cells for them."
Anderson: "Like you did with Vicente Berrocal?"
Avery: "Yeah, he was one of yours, wasn't he?"
Anderson: "Actually, I would not know. I am just a contractor. All I came here for was to evaluate the mental state of Ms. Bell. I have no information about any operation being planned against the guard force here. Nor did I realise the state of things here or I probably should not have agreed to come. But if Mr. Berrocal is a federal agent, it occurs to me that it probably would be in your interest to tell me all you can so that he may be rescued safely once the Coast Guard arrives."
Avery: "Coast Guard? Your kind don't operate that openly. You prefer the shadows."
Anderson: "My energetic associate, Mr. Taylor, assures me that the Coast Guard will be responding to a series of distress calls they have received from here. I can only imagine that the quite loud shooting we heard earlier will hasten their response. Were the guards in the tower shooting at a Coast Guard vessel?"
Avery [confused]: "They wouldn't shoot at the Coast Guard. Half our boys are veterans or still in the Reserve. They must've been shooting at one of your boats. Maybe you put fake Coast Guard marks on them."
Anderson: "We do not have any boats out there. I assure you, any boats with Coast Guard markings on them will be real Coast Guard boats. And there will be a lot of them here, soon. And while I do not know about any Shadow Government, there will be a lot of important people here making decisions. People from Homeland Security. People it would be good to have well disposed toward you. Men who shoot at the Coast Guard and take hostages will be treated as criminals and terrorists. You need to make clear that you are not a part of them. Tell me everything you know and there will be less death and destruction when the authorities get here."
Avery [terrified]: "I can't! You don't know what happens to traitors! Or their families!"
Anderson: "Warden Tyrrell is not going to be in a position to punish anyone once the authorities arrive. And if you help us, I can have people protect your family."
Avery: "Even from her?"
Anderson: "From whom?"
Avery [agitated]: "Cherry Bell, the one they call the Queen. She... she can do things. If we don't do what Warden Tyrrell says, he'll let her punish our families. She can reach any of them, they say. There's no hiding anything from her."
Anderson: "Ms. Bell is no longer in the hands of Warden Tyrrell. She is in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and she will certainly not be permitted to harm the families of anyone who is helping us."
Avery: "Are... are you working for her?"
Anderson: "No, Hayden, she is working for us. And she will not be harming anyone for Warden Tyrrell. Now, tell me everything."

While Dr. Anderson interviews Hayden Avery, Cherry Bell and Chase Taylor sit in companionable silence in the lobby for a minute or two. After a while, Taylor chuckles softly.

Taylor: "Do ya realise, Lynnie, that were the second time in eighteen years we've kissed an' both times it were kind of an accident. Good thing we decided to stop, or people would say we're in love."
[Bell raises her head and looks at Taylor, looking slightly miffed]
Bell: "Hmmm... the second time you push me away for some idiotic reason, too. New girlfriend, scruples, issues."
Taylor: "Yeah, people gonna say I ain't got no taste."

Taylor grins winningly and both chuckle, a great deal more at ease in each other's company than before.

Bell: "You do realise that you're not getting a third chance, right? A girl's gotta have her pride."
Taylor: "Long as I get ya out o' here an' you get your chance at livin', I'ma content."
Bell: "Martyr-complex like that, you'll make some pushy career-minded hag a wonderful little wife one of these days, Chasie. Speaking of which, whatever happened to Rhonda McBride, she of the first idiotic reason you couldn't kiss who you wanted?"
Taylor: "I, uh, asked her to marry me a few months after, you know."
[Cherry Bell giggles]
Taylor: "She said no."
[Bell's giggles dissolve into helpless laughter, which she tries to keep relatively silent]
Taylor: "It's not funny!"
Bell: "Yes, it is, ya goofy, hangdog little boy! Have you ever had a girlfriend you didn't ask to marry you 'bout the time you'd met each other's parents?"
Taylor: "There was Ava Del Rio, before Rhonda."
Bell: "Uh-uh! Ava of the trucker's scowl and doublewide ass does not count. You never did meet her parents, she just met your moms. And I know for a fact that you were planning to ask her to marry you before you broke up, which as I recall was because you told her you'd fallen madly in love with some girl at work, who you hadn't even kissed... or asked out!"
Taylor: "Yeah. You. An' I didn't tell Ava that, I jes' said we been growin' apart an' stuff."
Bell [eyebrow raised]: "And...?"
Taylor: "An' that I couldna feel honest callin' her my girlfrien' when I might be fallin' for somebody else..."
Bell: "Hah!"
Taylor: "I said 'might'."
Bell: "And in what insane boy logic world do you tell your long-distance girlfriend this and fail to mention it to the girl you like?"
Taylor [uncomfortable]: "There were reasons..."
Bell: "Good ones?"
Taylor: "So I figured at the time, but I guess I might could've been wrong."
Bell: "Probably not a new experience for you, Chasie, when it comes to women. Didya ever figure out the basics or have you spent the last two decades in and out of relationships with assertive girls who picked you up in a moment of weakness, despite your crippling inability to flirt, until you scare them away by planning a wedding? With the exception of an occasional one you break up with by oversharing?"
Taylor: "Hey, I ain't as dumb as all that. I done learnt not to make the same mistakes all the time. It's jes', there always seems to be a new way to mess up."
Bell [wistful]: "Is that what real adulthood is like, out in the world? Moving past old mistakes and learning about new mistakes you can make?"
Taylor: "More or less, I reckon. There's also taxes and mortgages and eventual', new movies done stopped making any darned sense."

Cherry Bell smiles and adjusts her position, lying on the floor with her upper body held in Taylor's arms, her head on his shoulder. The position is comfortable, familiar and intimate, but not sexual.

Bell: "I know what you said earlier about running, but when the Coast Guard come, we could get on one of their boats and escape. I could make them not notice us and we could hide below decks. They wouldn't even know we weren't dead somewhere on the island until days later. We could be anywhere by then."
Taylor: "Just we two?"
Bell: "Yeah. Is that such a bad idea? I could go to nursing school and you could be, I dunno, a Pee Wee football coach."
Taylor: "I imagine you'd keep me in the style I'ma gonna become accustomed to, as Pee Wee coaches ain't usually paid."
Bell: "Well, I'd need somebody to do the housework. Cooking and cleaning is included in 'just friends', right?"
Taylor: "That sounds mighty fine to me, actually. If'n I could see any way to get clear and stay clear, I'd be real tempted. I mean, we wouldna leave the doc or the other people here high an' dry, but once we's sure they's saved..."
[Taylor shakes his head, more serious]
Taylor: "But there's another reason I cain't jes' run away to... whereever. Things with Rhonda didna work out, but somebody didn't have the good sense to say 'no' when I asked her."
[lifts up his hands to forestall a surprised interruption]
Taylor: "I ain't married no more. Dolores left after I got sent to Fort Leavenworth. But we got two wonderful little girls. An' I cain't jes' run away when these people might use them to get back at me."
Bell: "You've got children?"
Taylor [smiling proudly]: "Yeah. Betty Rose and Savannah Belle. They's twins, eight by now, an' the most perfect lil' angels you kin imagine."
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Last edited by Icelander; 05-05-2017 at 03:30 AM.
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