"Anesthesia, Mona Lisa, I've got a little gun, here comes oblivion..." --Bad Religion Click. Click. Click. Click. Focus. Mania. Obsession with events beyond control. It had been three days since Most Holy had slept. He had spent most of the time since the bombing and the loss of his officer and friend, Half Holy, in his office. He vaguely remembered something about the M.A.U.L. War College. Quite frankly, he didn't care. Click. Click. Click. Most of the other men and women of M.A.U.L. must have thought that he was poring over documents, trying to track down the Rouge Squadron, or the AWOL Chief Medical Officer. Maybe they thought he was working on a plan to get back at them, return the favor, destroy them and everything they stood for. Click. Instead, for the last 50 hours or so, he sat here, trying to look like he was in command when the occasional staff walked in with something to sign or some idea to implement, but mostly he just stripped, cleaned, rebuilt, and stripped again his Glock. Click. Click. Click. This would be the weapon that would kill the CMO. It would also be the weapon that would, perhaps, end his career as a Jihaddi. And he didn't care. ----- "I remember a trip, once, where the whole family went to this beautiful state park, we set up a camp and I remember my father showing me how to pitch a tent. I was thirteen then-" "No. It was not your father. It was Lord B'harne." "No, it was my-" The interrogator pressed the tiny red button on the panel in front of him, and his prisoner screamed, one long, painful, animal scream that filled the room whose walls were painted white and the light was never turned off. ----- Most Holy, having decided to kill CMO Rosenberg, finally slept. ----- The man in this cell, with the number 0014 stiched into his prison uniform, did not sleep. He couldn't sleep, because he was not to sit down. When he was not being interrogated, he was to stand. They never turned the lights out, but if he concentrated hard enough, he though he could hear music, off in the distance. "I love you." His legs ached, but he wasn't thinking about that. His mind reached towards the sound, coming, it seemed, from some place deep in his memory. It reminded him of childhood, of slides and swings and softball games. He tried to amplify the sound in his mind, it was the only escape left him. "You love me." It was there, it was really there, dammit. If he could only reach out to it, embrace it fully, he could escape- transcend- into the euphoria of freedom. "We're a happy family." We are. We are a happy family. And I love you. CMO Rosenberg wept. ----- He didn't answer the gaurd as he left the compound. To do so would require more effort than he was capable of, and would distract him from his purpose. When he had finally made up his mind to kill this Rosenberg, he had been flooded by a sense of inner peace that made him distant from the outside world. The gaurd, however, took notice of Most Holy's strange behavior and, after opening the gate, notified the Air Corps to send a helicopter to keep track of wherever it was that the CINC was going. Most Holy himself didn't know where he was going, but he had a vague idea in the back of his head. He was on foot, and it would have been much simpler to take a Jeep, but the thought hadn't occured to him. He walked west, towards the setting sun, and when the road turned to the north, he continued west, through a field, over a hill, and into a small town whose name he didn't pay any attention to. ----- "You graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1985..." "Yes. I had been having problems with one of my professors, he didn't like my politics-" "And what were they? Your politics." "Lyranalism." "Yes, continue." "Well, I was really upset about it one night, and then Lord B'harne appeared in my room." "When you first came to us, you said your brother came to your apartment." "Of course, I must have said that, because you love me and wouldn't want to hurt me by telling me an un-truth, but all I remember is that Lord B'harne came to me, and we sang a song. He told me how much he loved me, and what a wonderful family I was a part of. I felt so relieved. Everything was okay after that. Of course it was, Lord B'harne made it so." "Let's go back to your first experience with Lord B'harne." "Yes, we were camping in this beautiful state park...." ----- The helicopter hovered over an Amoco station where Most Holy had taken refuge in the night. The pilot, low on gas and grinning at the irony, turned and headed back to the M.A.U.L. compound to refuel and return. Half an hour later, when it quietly moved back into position over the gas station, Most Holy had gone. The pilot didn't know this, however, and continued to maintain her vigil. In fact, Most Holy had noticed the helicopter, and thinking it was the Rouge Squadron tracking him, had hidden out in the station anticipating some sort of confrontation. When the 'copter left, however, he didn't show any surprise, but left. He had to get to Chicago by daylight, and it was still 20 miles away. -----