Surviving winter

“I need to report possible telepathic abuse,” Fosher says, and the girl behind the window sighs, hands him a form.

“Fill this out, please,” she says, “and have a seat.”

“Oh,” Fosher says, looking around. There are a rather lot of other people here, now that he thinks about it. “Alright.”

“Hang on,” she says, “What’s your name, please?”

“Captain Fosher Whim.”

“Okay, have a seat; someone will be with you shortly.”

She looks so tired, in her pink knit tunic, brown hair dull and held back by an equally faded pink headband, and Fosher is reminded that they are a nation that struggles just to survive the winter, never mind total war.

This is reflected in all those other people he’s just noticed, they’re hunched over, sort of grey at the edges, and he’s probably the same.

“I’m sorry,” he says to a man who can’t be more than thirty, with a child that young clutched to his chest, but he’s easily fifty at first glance. I’m sorry, because whatever has been done to you was done by one of my own, I’m sorry because you look exhausted and please, don’t let them have hurt your little boy, I’m sorry, because I have to draw your attention to where you are and why.

The man shrugs, and moves the diaper bag to his feet, settling deeper into his chair, child in one arm, clipboard and that form in the other.

Fosher looks up, meets the eye of the girl behind the counter. That’s the only answer he needs, and he shivers.

The feel of cold metal against his skin reminds him of his own clipboard. He reaches into his greatcoat’s breast pocket, but it’s empty, and he looks helplessly at the paper before he sees the pencil clipped to the top. “Oh,” he says, and slides it free.

Name, the form asks him, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to fill this out.

He stands again, and people look up and away. “I’m sorry,” he says again, this time to the girl in washed out pink. “I don’t know how I should fill this out.”

“What?” She says blankly, lips so dry they crack as she talks.

“It’s not for me,” Fosher says, “it’s for my friend, or friends, I guess, I don’t know.”

“Oh, they should probably fill it out themselves.”

Fosher looks down, considers it for a minute. “No,” he says, “that won’t work; you wouldn’t want that, I’m pretty sure.”

“I can hold your place in the queue if you need to get them,” she offers.

“No,” he repeats, “we can’t do that; we really, really can’t do that.”

She frowns, “we might not have a choice,” and all of a sudden they’re together in this, and Fosher feels strangely calm.

“He won’t stop screaming,” Fosher says, “and, uh, he’s not safe, not like this.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“I don’t think I do either,” he admits. “Can you help me with this?”

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and leans over the form. “I guess we start with name.”

0---

“Your attention, please,” pours from the speakers, crackling and spitting.

“Your attention,” it repeats, “for just a moment.”

People shuffle to a stop, some resting bags and boxes on the ground, others pulling small children close, out of the way of Fleet sailors hurrying past.

“There have been several reports in the past three days of varying levels of telepathic abuse,”

The Fleet halts, as one, eyes and ears tuned in.

“If you have experienced spot amnesia, please visit the Liaison office on the West End. Also, all telepaths are requested to present themselves at oh six hundred tomorrow in the central Auditorium. All launches are cancelled until further notice.”

General confusion reigns, civilians exchanging frightened looks, Fleet trying to bury panic.

“Oh,” the speaker says, “Crow lands at fourteen hundred hours.”

0---

“Telepathic abuse?” Reefer says, frowning, “here?”

“I don’t see what’s strange about it,” Jamie says, “it’s a decently sized base, in a decently sized town. It sort of seems like the obvious choice, really.”

“It hasn’t happened before, at least, not on this scale.”

“It has,” Connor says, “just not here, in this specific place. Somewhere very like it, though.”

“Oh,” Reefer says, “I…”

“There’s all sorts of turmoil here, of course, a lot of fear, exhaustion, makes people more susceptible to breakdown on a massive scale, because that’s what they’re after.”

“I hope there isn’t an empath in town,” Jamie says, “because they’re probably already dead.”

“Crow’s in town,” Reefer says, “or is coming to town, I guess. Do you think they’ll bother investigating any further?”

Jamie shrugs, “maybe, maybe not. Depends how bad it was, depends who got hurt.”

0---

A return to 2007 Additions.