characters: Daryn & NPC military investigators setting: The Facility hospital, Daryn’s room, Wednesday evening, January 3, 2018 summary: An informal inquiry rating: Low
Almost two days in the hospital and Daryn was going stir crazy. She was not used to laying around and doing nothing. Then again, she was not used to her abilities being out of whack, and they most certainly were since the little ‘incident.’ The normally steady stream of staticy thoughts of everyone around her was now inconsistent; the thoughts would float in and out randomly, as if the volume was being turned up or down randomly. When a nurse wasn’t looking, she’d tried to use her telekinesis, but instead of lifting a cup carefully from her hospital tray, it just toppled over clumsily and fell to the floor. And as far as Daryn was concerned, her health manipulation wasn’t working at all, because she was still here, in a hospital bed, in more pain than she cared to admit.
Daryn remembered little about the attack and the hours following it. Everything was too fuzzy with large chunks of time completely lost. By the time she was coherent enough, more than 24 hours after admittance, she’d wanted to know about her injuries. Her hands were pretty messed up, but from the bandaging it seemed like she only had a broken left knuckle. Thankfully right-handed, Daryn was able to write down her questions once she could organize her own thoughts. At first, she’d tried to speak telekinetically to one of the nurses she trusted, but that felt like a bomb going off in her head. So for now, communication was through writing.
She was informed that she’d had a skull fracture likely due to blunt force trauma, which caused pressure and bleeding on the brain and led to seizures. Since she was clearly cognizant of what that meant, Daryn was already going through a list of medical rule outs in her head and dismissed the seizures and bleeding as overuse of her abilities. If things had been that bad off, she wouldn’t be able to write down questions and understand answers so soon after such a severe injury. The list of damage she’d sustained went on, broken cheekbone and fractured jaw, cracked ribs, something about her knee and ankle, and a plethora of severe contusions; the more that was explained to her, the less she paid attention. Daryn silently admonished herself for letting this happen. She wasn’t allowed to be hurt, especially not this badly. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was a test, and she clearly failed it.
By Wednesday afternoon, Daryn was ready to leave. She didn’t care if she could barely walk, or that she needed to be monitored due to head injury. She wanted to get the hell out of this hospital ward. She didn’t like playing the patient, she didn’t like having to follow doctor’s orders. And worst of all, she’d seen one of the guards who assaulted her, the one whose wrist she mangled. She woke up in the middle of the night to spot him lingering in the doorway to her room. At first, she thought it was a nightmare, but then she watched him walk away. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to be a menace, or was remorseful. Either way, he was there and she didn’t want to be anywhere near him, especially not in her current condition. If she had to deal with him again, it needed to be a fair fight.
Despite Daryn’s protests, she was told that she’d have to stay in the hospital until Friday at the earliest. They weren’t going to discharge her home by herself, and while she understood that logically, it was infuriating. She didn’t need to be reminded that she was going home alone to nurse her wounds, but she resented the thought that she might not be able to take care of herself. She’d gotten along well enough on her on this far, what was a little traumatic brain injury in the mix? So quite unhappily, Daryn remained in bed in her hospital room and tried not to be too much of a pain. In this case, lack of speech and wonky telepathy was a good thing, no one could hear her cursing out the world right now.
It was just after they’d collected the dinner trays on Wednesday evening that Daryn had an unexpected group of visitors. Three older men, all outfitted in formal military garb, adorned a little too heavily with medals, entered her room and closed the door behind them. Only one spoke, while the second took notes and the third simply supervised. Pulling over chairs to sit at her bedside, the oldest of the three took the lead. “Dr. O’Conner, we’re sorry to disturb your rest. My name is General Lewis, and these are Lieutenant General Wilson and Major General Taylor. We’ve been called in from D.C. to investigate the rash of attacks involving mutants and their property that occured on the 1st of the year. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your experience, if that is alright?”
Daryn eyed the three men carefully, glancing over their uniforms to ensure that their names and titles matched what they claimed to be. If ever there was a time that she needed to be able to read minds, this was it. But right now all she could ‘hear’ was just indecipherable noise. Hesitantly, she nodded once and motioned to the pen and notepad at her bedside. Lewis handed it over to her, but continued to speak. “We’ve been informed of the extent of your injuries, and are aware of your pre-existing disability. So we just ask that you answer to the best of your ability. This shouldn’t take very long at all.”
Daryn’s jaw tensed briefly, painfully, at the mention of a disability, but she nodded once more in assent. Lewis cleared his throat and looked down at a list before beginning, while Taylor scribbled furiously in a notepad. Daryn found that strange, wouldn’t he have a tablet or a laptop to be taking notes on, wouldn’t there be something more official than a tiny notepad filled with chicken scratch? Were they recording this meeting in some other way that wasn’t obvious? Something felt off from the start.
Looking to Daryn, Lewis offered a practice smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Dr. O’Conner, we’ve interviewed two guards who admitted to involvement in your altercation. They reported that you threatened them with a handgun. Is that correct?”
Daryn arched a brow slowly, narrowing her eyes. Picking up the pen, she quickly and carefully wrote on the paper before handing a single sheet over to them. Taking the paper, Lewis read it silently to himself before repeating it aloud for clarification. “You wrote here that you were first physically attacked and then threatened with one of their service weapons, which you subsequently used against them in self-defense. How were you able to obtain the service weapon from the guard?”
Sighing, Daryn wrote again, but this time simply showed the three her note instead of surrendering it. Telekinesis, was written clearly on the page. The three men exchanged a look, but once more Lewis was the only one to speak. “So, you used your mutant ability against three human government officials?”
Daryn nodded yet again, but opted not to write anything more down. She saw exactly where this inquiry was going. Absolutely nowhere. They weren’t investigating any wrong-doing on the part of guards, they were looking for transgressions by mutants, regardless of reason. She wasn’t going to give them anything more to go on. Sighing, she set aside the pen and paper and watched in silence as Lewis continued to go through a list of questions, worded specifically to make Daryn seem like the aggressor in her attack. She offered no more written responses and simply answered with a nod or a shake of her head to indicate yes or no.
When all was said and done, Daryn underwent nearly an hour of questioning before the officials seemed satisfied with the information gathered. As they stood to go, General Lewis offered another, distinctly unkind smile to Daryn and a nod as he exited the room. “Thank you for your time, Dr. O’Conner. I hope you make a swift and complete recovery, and avoid any future mishaps. I wouldn’t want to have to make another visit like this to you, or your family.”
Daryn watched them go in silence, tilting her head curiously at the last comment made. What was that supposed to mean? She didn’t have any family here on the island, and he couldn’t possibly be referring to her parents and her sister back on the mainland. That made no sense, she hadn’t had any contact with them since being shipped off to Destruction. The entire questioning left Daryn feeling uncomfortable and confused, something her sore brain was not able to fully process at the moment. She missed something, some thinly veiled threat that she couldn’t compute. Something that would make sense later. For now, Daryn tried to put it all out of her mind and rest.