Fly Away Home

Sam got through about half an hour’s worth of paperwork while the Asset read through the book of names. He counted that as a success. No eyes boring into his skull, no insistence on checking the room for weapons or bugs, just the quiet companionable silence of two dudes going about their business. Every once in a while, as he finished on sheet of reports and flipped to the next, Sam would look up and see the Asset mouthing a name to himself. He hadn’t liked Aaron or Adam - though Sam and his minor in English literature thought that naming the Asset Adam after the monster in Frankenstein might have been darkly appropriate - and had since progressed on to the B section. He was staring hard at the page here, and it looked like maybe B was going to be a hit.

Not that the Asset really looked like a Bobby, but maybe a Benjamin? Hard to say.

Still, after half an hour, Sam had to get up. He didn’t want to disturb their fragile peace, but he had other things on his plate today besides paperwork and the quiet contemplation of his new shadow. For starters, he had a counseling session, one that he didn’t think a mysterious threatening presence would improve.

Sam cleared his throat. The Asset looked up and carefully marked his place in the book with a metal finger.

“Find anything good?”

The Asset shrugged.

Sam smiled and shrugged back. “Well, man, you got the rest of the day to keep looking. Hell, you got the rest of your life if you want.” The Asset’s face screwed up like a baby eating pureed carrots. Sam laughed. “Either way, think you can take a walk for a while? I got a client coming in and these sessions are confidential.”

The Asset didn’t move.

“Okay, let’s put this another way: I need you to check the perimeter of the building and check back at 1000. You can take the book with you if you want. I’ll be meeting with another...asset.”

Still eyeing Sam as if he knew Sam was on some bullshit but wasn’t entirely sure how to call him out, the Asset carefully put the book facedown on his chair and left the room. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He genuinely hadn’t been sure that would work, but as was becoming habit, giving the Asset a clear military style command seemed to be the best way to get his compliance.

And didn’t that just make Sam feel skeevy all over. He didn’t actually want the Asset to comply. Well he did, but because the Asset understood about privacy and rights and dignity and human emotion. It felt wrong to manipulate him into getting the right results. But Sam had clients and they had needs too. So for the next two forty-five minute sessions, Sam cleared his mind and focused on the one thing he could control: being a bombass counselor.

At 1000, he heard a gasp at the door, just as his second client, Javier, was leaving. Javier was a good kid, just had a few issues with night terrors and insomnia so far. Sam looked up to see Javier practically climbing the door frame to get away from the Asset, whose body filled the entire doorway and was disconcertingly silent.

Sam gave the Asset an unimpressed look. Reluctantly, the Asset backed up and let Javier through.

The Asset practically sauntered back into Sam’s office. If Sam didn’t know better, he would think that every ten minutes the man had more of a personality, and that personality was 100% grade A dick. Still, it was better than nothing.

He hovered in the middle of the room for a moment, as if caught between resuming his perusal of the baby name book and giving a full report to Sam. Then, in a moment of defiance, he made deliberate eye contact with Sam as he flopped onto the chair and picked his book back up. He pulled it in front of his face. Sam raised an eyebrow. So it was like that was it? Okay.

Sam went back to doing paperwork and enjoyed the quiet for about five minutes before the restless twitching in the chair across from him made him sit up.

The Asset was practically vibrating in his seat. He alternated between looking at the book, looking at Sam, and looking out the window, all while twisting his coat in his flesh hand. When Sam looked at him he made to stand up, but Sam motioned him down.

“What’s up?”

His face a moue of frustration, the Asset glared at Sam. Sam grinned and repeated himself. “What’s up, homie?” he said, kicking back in his chair and casually dropping his feet on the desk. The Asset looked beside himself. Well two could play at this game.

Pointedly straightening his posture, the Asset put down his book - looked like he might be through to the C’s already - and pointedly made his report.

“Perimeter secure, sir. No hostiles. Troops are not combat ready. Could not find the armory.”

Sam nodded with his gravest face on. “Good work, Asset. The troops aren’t combat ready. Because they aren’t troops anymore.”

The Asset just cocked his head to the side and gave Sam that same old confused puppy look from before.

“They’re retired. Discharged. Gone home. This is a place for soldiers who don’t want to be soldiers anymore. Or hell, who do want to be soldiers but can’t for some reason. We don’t have an armory because we’re not under attack.”

Nothing. Just nothing. It was like talking to a big, shaggy wall.

“Did you find anything else?”

The Asset scrunched up his face again. “Encountered Handler June. Was given rations. Did not like them.”

Sam laughed. “She made you eat fruit cake, didn’t she?”

“They were bad rations.”

Putting his papers into the desk drawer, Sam motioned for the Asset to stand up. “Good work, good report, all that. You’re doing just fine, Asset. Now it’s time for group.”

But as Sam went to brush past the Asset and out of his admittedly tiny office, a hand shot out and grabbed his arm. Gently, so it wouldn’t bruise, but still with the strength and pressure of a vice. “Handler.”

“Yes, Asset? Damn, we got to get you a name.”

“Why?”

Sam waited as the Asset struggled through his limited vocabulary, and, to be fair, limited concept of self.

“Why didn’t you punish me for not reporting immediately?”

He turned to face the Asset and gently removed his wrist. “Because I’m not your master. You want to be a smartass and mouth off, you want to skip patrol, you want to sit around and read, you can do that.”

Well, he’d succeeded in confusing a guy with probable brain damage. Was that really a win?

“Come on,” Sam said more gently now. “We’re gonna go to group now. You don’t have to participate, but I bet if you listen, you might just learn a thing or two.”

*

The Asset came. The Asset listened. The Asset did not participate, but Sam hadn’t really been expecting that. Instead he sat in the back with the baby book and looked up every now and again, as if he were grounding himself with Sam’s presence. It was a good group session - those who shared had some real progress to talk about and everyone else was happy to celebrate a win in someone else’s life. And Sam would swear that a few times he saw the Asset perk up and listen just a little bit more to someone’s story, as if it were ringing true for him, as if he were resonating on that frequency just a little bit.

Alarmingly, they were usually the stories about torture that did it. Nightmares. Attacks. Sam didn’t have to work hard to piece together a few parts of this particular puzzle.

By the end of their first session, the Asset had moved silently from sitting in the absolute back of the room to the near back. By the end of the second, he was somewhere in the middle. And by the end of Sam’s third group session, his last of the day, the Asset was almost near the front, visible, and making eye contact with more than just Sam.

He was so totally counting this as a win.

As the room packed up to go, Sam checked his watch. It was already after five, and by the time they got through traffic and back to his suburb it would be almost seven. Better to get dinner downtown a little early than have to go back and cook. He turned to the Asset to suggest tacos, only to be arrested by the look on his face.

The Asset looked positively electrified. He was deep in the baby book, standing in a corner of the room, and it was like his hair was a millimeter from standing on end. He looked up then, alert to Sam’s watchful gaze, and for the first time in their brief acquaintance, Sam saw him smile.

It was a lot.

“Jabez,” said the Asset. “I want my name to be Jabez.”

“Okay, Jabez,” said Sam, smiling back. “How do you feel about tacos?”