The Silence betwen Breaths

Destination: Forgotten.
Dramatis Personae: An old woman.
Drama: Music. Beating.

Heart/beat

Music is calling, again and again; Echoes falling. Regularly. Unheard here in the dark. Dark? There is light here. Fluorescent light in metal-clad halls. Deep is the Mansion, its bowels stretching well beyond the casually appointed limits of human imagination. Just like the veins in a human body they are hidden beyond a skin. Multicolored skin. Fur. Scales. In this case you do not know. It does not matter. We are under. Deep inside the flesh. Gnawing. Beats. Heartbeats. Deep is the place, where a holographic display is engaged, dust motes driving through the beams of coherent light quite vividly. They attest to the fact of this rooms damnation. It is dark down here, no matter the lighting. You can feel the weight of the place above you. The many stories spun. Some only inside the mind of a dreamer. You can feel the stones pressing down, the steel. All vibrating with some idea of tensions, of children laughing. The hint of crying sines through the happiness always. Just beyond the next touch.

Heartbeats of the Mansion. Here no one comes unless things are important. Unless Things Have Gone Terribly Wrong. Again.

Welcome. Beat. To the War Room.

Hip Hop Music plays loudly from speakers used rarely – and possibly never for a thing so mundane. So profane. Music blares really, the quality being not the greatest. Oh the quality of the rap is just fine, if you like Gangsta from some very unsavory parts of town. It's the speakers. Much unused, they produce a blaring in the Heights... well. It sounds a bit ugly. The Old Woman staring at the display deigns to ignore it.

Beats. Heartbeats. Dustmotes drifting.

A video is playing. Plying my trade again, the old woman thinks to herself. Watching, waiting from old eyes behind glasses. She got those out for this occasion. Better to see things clearly through the layers of deception. Leaked, it says about the video, that headline. Only such things are rarely leaked. She remembers the wars. She recalls Watergate and a million other petty scandals. Leaked they were. Sometimes even genuinely.

Hologram, flat, two-dimensional. A browser window. An address with ViewTube.com. Video showing: A girl. Beaten.
Being beaten. Background: Sound/Music/Beat. It is in time with another windows flashing graphs.
An Old Woman is watching. The chair she is sitting in is comfortable by the by. Not used much, that thing. You notice that, oddly, when things start falling apart. The small comfort trying to soothe the big hurt. Failing miserably, amplifying instead as these things go.

It hurts to watch that video. People are playing the big game again, she thinks to herself. The one that gets people killed. Not the game called Politics. That may get people killed. No, she is thinking, this has the hallmarks of the darker games that call themselves Politics. The Paths of Power in the back room where people hiding behind glasses – and the title of undersecretary – decide the fates of the world with just a touch.

She remembers the times that the button they touched was one of nuclear missiles, of mutually assured destruction – an asinine idea if there ever was one – but today things have become more obscure. Information games. Mind=games.

The girl is crying now. Outside herself. For help. Safety. (She will be scarred it seems.)

An old woman behind her glasses, a safe old woman, a nice one, is thinking that it might be time to place a few calls. Old acquaintances from the Wars she fought in. First the big ones – to save the lives of men that came to her bleeding, crying outside themselves. Or they came just staring, because all cries had been spent. Those fights were the important ones. Fight. Fight for your life. It had been her plea to them back then. Fight.

Until she had been called for fighting.

The words had stayed the same. The call. But they had meant a different thing:

Die. Die for your life.

She was an old woman – had seen many things. And a video was more than it took to make her go down memory lane. But it was enough – at the same time it was just enough – to die again a bit inside. Things were moving again. And she would move them. For the Children. Die, die for the children. (It had been a war cry once.)

And under all there is beating, silently beyond the range of hearing – but not beyond the range of hearts to comprehend – the heart of the building, the very heart. It is neither rap nor rapport, neither crying nor laughing. She knows its tunes, the silent secret ones. The words that have power even today. The magic of heartbeats.

(Silence. A dial tone.)

Hello.

Good evening Peter.

Who is this? Where did you get this number? (The second one unasked)

Peter, you sound tired. You aren't sleeping enough again. Mutant troubles?

Who are you and how did you get this number?

Peter you are playing daft badly. Stop trying too hard. Stephens here, 1Lt. Stephens, ret. to be exact. But we both know you know my number, so drop the act and start the tapes if you want to.

(silence) Ms. Stephens... yes... Lt. it has been a long time. How nice to hear from you.

Yes, Peter. I do check in with the Pentagon though, every now and then. After all they're still paying me. And you still aren't sleeping enough I say.

Might be right, then I never did. Especially not in Phenom Phenh.

You never were there during your tenure. I said you can stop the games, Peter. I'm not calling for those. And if you recall I beat you soundly whenever you tried to play. This is a secure line, by the by. And yes, I know the codewords. Pannacotta. Blue. Thirteen. Something like that. (Imagine handwaving) Who chose those anyways? Your secretary? Did you not feed her enough?

You know I cannot answer your questions. Matters of National Security. (slight exasperation.)

I know you do not want to.

So? Why are you calling me this late, Lt.?

Because of your mutant troubles, don't you think so? I want them, Peter, and you are going to give them to me.

I am, am I?

You know opposition won't help, Dear.

You know that there was a time when people were persecuted for sentences like that?

I never noticed. Should I? But to the matter: I believe we shall start with a Hate-group called Church of Humanity – CoH for short. You do have files on them I believe.

(Silence.)

Putting your thinking cap on? (Just a thought that)

Yes, well, I'll see what I can find out. Just for your private... delectation.

You do that, Peter.

Lt., you know you can feel free to call me anytime, but when you call me next, you may use my rank, too.

Wouldn't that be nice, General? And now go, get some sleep. I'll take care of that pesky little problem.

Maybe you will. Goodnight Lt..

Don't be a defeatist. People were persecuted for that, too, you know? (Pause.) Goodnight Peter. Do go to sleep now. It's late for someone your age.

(Silence.)

(A dial tone.)

Exit to fieldwork (I)