Only A Lad

Dr. Kallie Reed

Dr. Kallie Reed

Member
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[font color=purple]DATE: 1993
LOCATION: L-14
ASSETS: Dr. Kallie Reed; Mr. Hal F. Note
EQUIPMENT: Examination equipment including an x-ray machine and a medical kit.
PURPOSE: Examination of Hal F. Note [/font]

There was a young man, they said, who needed an examination. He had been assigned to Kallie, possibly because they were hoping they could kill two birds with one stone and get a psych evaluation out of her at the same time. This had unfortunately become a recurring situation. She suspected it was because she was just too good at her job. Being one of the few doctors with a degree in both internal medicine and psychology made you a hot commodity.

She walked down the hallway to the examination room they had put the young man in. According to the file she had gotten, he was roughly twenty-one years old, almost a decade younger than she was. He was still well within the safe realm of adult, though, so she confidently strode into the room. She just barely caught sight of a shock of straw blonde hair and an extremely tall frame before she took her seat.

Kallie flipped open the file, setting it on the table. Then she picked up a clipboard and a pen and turned to examine the young man. On second glance, that tall frame was actually so tall that it made her a little uncomfortable. Between that and his… unpleasant face, he looked almost alien, or maybe fae, like something other than human. She couldn’t help the frown that took over her face then. Uncanny valley, just ever so slightly off as to make him hard to look at. She looked away from his face and back to the clipboard.

[font color=purple] “Afternoon, Hal. I’m Dr. Kallie Reed. I’m going to be the doctor performing your physical examination today. I see that you have no anomalies about you, but that you have experience with occultism. Are there any modifications to your body I should be aware of before we begin?”[/font color]

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[div style="background-color:lightgreen;border-top:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-left:lightgreen 4px inset;border-right:#ADD8E6 4px outset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightgreen 4px inset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-right:lightgreen 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]The woman who came in was a professional. Black shirt, gray slacks, white lab coat. Short, curly black hair, youngish, Asian-American with accompanying dark eyes, very lightweight. Noticeably so. Of course the clothes fit her properly, unlike Hal’s “Highway To Hell” t-shirt and baggy jeans that hung loosely on his frame like rags on a scarecrow. He’d much prefer his clothes be too loose than too short, and he also hadn’t wanted to turn up in the robes they’d let him keep, because those were enchanted.

His eyes followed her as he came in, but he didn’t look at all like he was studying her, or even listening to what she’d said. He had a somewhat distracted look. The distant look in his mismatched eyes would’ve been easier to pull off if they’d let him keep his instrument, but someone had mentioned it might be occult and despite all indignance it had been taken away for examination. If the lab coats so much as frayed a string on its neck, he planned to ensure they’d regret it.

His half-lidded gaze was on her, looking down, but still unfocused over the crookedly smiling mouth as his fingers tapped out the hardest part of “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” on the table where he rested his hand. Some might attribute that to nerves. Hal had become very good at controlling what some might attribute to anything about him. Only a week ago, he’d had a whole conclave well under his thumb using that, his general if often hidden charisma, and his outstanding talents in the area of magic. Now they were mostly gone. He had a hunch someone else had survived, slippery witch she was, but there’d been no time to go looking. He didn’t dwell on it right now. Right now he didn’t seem to dwell on anything.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"What’s the matter, doc?"[/font] He let his usual lilt drag out into a drawl. [font color="lightgreen"]"Do I got somethin’ on my face?"[/font]

He laughed, a frenetic cackle that either indicated he knew exactly what she’d seen, or he was just crazy, and he didn’t exactly specify which. The settling that immediately followed probably wouldn’t clarify anything.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"I’ve not made modifications to my physical form, naw."[/font] The smile that split his face seemed lazy, easy, even, but it bridged the space between his ears and likely made him even harder to look at than before.

Good.

[font color="lightgreen"]"I’m guessin’ that little clipboard of yers has my name on it,"[/font] he continued, casually. He’d negotiated with the gentleman who’d come by his house last week about not having his full middle name on any papers – it was the one he hadn’t contracted yet, and he was saving it for something special. What that was? He had no idea. He figured it’d come up when the time was right. [font color="lightsteelblue"]"Anywho, anythin’ unusual you find on me is au naturale."[/font]


Or unintentional, but that would make him look unprofessional, and he couldn’t have that in front of the nice doctor, not when he already had her nerves in a knot. Who knew these people were as jittery as everybody else?
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He was surprisingly laid back. For the most part, newcomers were usually nervous when they came to Kallie. His calm demeanor was either a good sign or a very bad sign. She wouldn’t know which until after she had spent enough time talking to him. He either had nerves of steel, which would be good in their line of work, or he was stupid, which was bad. Only those with nerves of steel or stupidity or a sense of absolute wonder came to work for the ACF. That was just Kallie’s opinion, of course, and she couldn’t ever hope to collaborate it with facts, so she kept it to herself.

She shifted a bit in her chair but chose to ignore his quip about his face. In fact, she avoided looking up at him as much as possible. It wasn’t because he was ugly, per se, but because he was unsettling. The unsettlingness was just enough to make even Kallie, who considered herself among the nerves of steel grouping, uncomfortable. She moved on to his second question. Well, he hadn’t really said it as a question, but she chose to answer it anyway.[font color=purple] “Yes, Hal Note, I have your name right here. They give me the name of every patient I treat. You are no exception to this.”[/font color]

What she didn’t tell him was she even had some of the details of how they found him. She wasn’t privy to everything but knew enough to take into account in her examination. Once again, she assumed this was because they wanted her to give him a simultaneous psych evaluation. But Kallie was stubborn, and unless he presented with anything obvious, or anything strange and peculiar, she would not be doing double the work during this physical.

[font color=purple] “Now, I’m going to ask you some questions. Answer them to the best of your abilities, and we’ll confirm them with some tests.”[/font color] She looked up from her clipboard and directly into his eyes. She held his gaze while asking her questions, almost as if to prove to him that his face didn’t bother her. Her face remained neutral, almost stern as asked,[font color=purple] “Please confirm that your age is twenty-one, to start. Do you know any of the following? Your height, your weight, your blood type, and… whether or not you’ve ever been tested for giantism?”[/font color]

Holding his eyes was… difficult. His eyes were actually rather pretty. They were a pleasant green and blue, with lashes that made her jealous, and a shape that was incredibly pleasing. It was unfortunate that they were set into such a face. It was the rest of his face that really made the act difficult, but she steeled her nerves– something she was very good at doing– and managed to keep her eyes on his. She let her body remain as loose as possible, trying not to tense up. If she did, he would know it affected her. And her job, in part, was to remain impartial.

Or maybe that was the psychiatrist in her.

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[div style="background-color:lightsteelblue;border-top:lightgreen 4px outset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-right:lightgreen 4px outset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-left:lightgreen 4px outset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"][font color="lightgreen"]"Yes, [font color="lightsteelblue"]six-foot-seven,[/font] been a while since I checked, [font color="lightsteelblue"]probably mostly Eldritch by now,[/font] and no."[/font]

Almost all of the answers were true. His blood type was O negative, but right now his blood pressure should’ve been very low after the ritual, so he had no idea what it was going to look like on tests. He noticed her maintaining eye contact, and as a result blinked just a little bit less than he strictly needed to. If he wasn’t good at ignoring his body’s signals that there was something wrong, he would’ve chickened out of his current life path ages ago. So the smile remained, and he held her gaze without hesitation or really even thought. His fingers began to tap out the intro to “Sanitarium” while he turned a few other things over in his head.

She had his name, but she didn’t have his [font color="lightsteelblue"]N[/font][font color="lightgreen"]a[/font][font color="lightsteelblue"]m[/font][font color="lightgreen"]e[/font], so that wasn’t a cause for concern. He processed the information and let it go in stride. He also noticed she didn’t want him to see he’d gotten under her skin. Why? He didn’t seem to scare her. She was still being very professional. He’d seen the moment of weakness, so why take it back?

Maybe that’s what it was supposed to be, just a moment of weakness. She’d hidden it to pretend he didn’t bother her, that she’d just been taken by surprise. Oh, good.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"See somethin’ ya like, Kallie~ Can I call ya Kallie?"[/font]

He said the last part in the tone of someone who was still going to do that whether she wanted him to or not.

This was going to be more fun than he’d thought.
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[font color=purple] “Six foot seven. You’re even taller than I thought. Intriguing. We should run a test for giantism, most certainly. That height qualifies you. We can weigh you, and I firmly doubt that your blood is that significant a level of Eldritch. We’ll have to run some blood tests to confirm any potential diseases or pre-existing conditions so we can provide proper healthcare for you.”[/font color]

She paused and stayed silent for a long moment after he asked if he could call her Kallie. Then she gave a slightly unnervingly calm and unphased smile.[font color=purple] “You may call me Kallie, if you wish. If that would make you more comfortable. As for seeing something I like– you have rather pretty eyes.”[/font color]

She said it clinically, as though she was informing him of his weight or his glucose levels. The smile fell back into a neutral expression, and she finally disengaged to look at the clipboard and write some notes. She filled in his age, his height, as well as his general physical description. That was required information for all personnel in the facility– it helped prevent mix-ups with files.[font color=purple] “We’ll have to draw your blood, but first I’m going to take your heart rate and blood pressure, listen to your lungs, take your temperature, and I’ll weigh you.”[/font color]

She stood up, setting the clipboard down. She walked over to the corner and opened the cupboard, taking out the equipment she needed. She laid out a thermometer, a blood pressure cuff, her watch, and a stethoscope. She donned the stethoscope, tucking the head into a pocket on her jacket. Then she took the blood pressure cuff and turned around, facing the young man.

It really was a shame that he looked the way he did. His voice was rather pleasant as well, accent and all.

She tried. She really tried, but she couldn’t help herself. As she walked back over to him and began to move his sleeve out of the way, she asked him,[font color=purple] “Tell me, is there a particular reason you want to call me by my first name? Does it give you a sense of comfort to see me as a person, or does it maybe give you a sense of control over the situation?”[/font color]

She punctuated this with a loud ripping sound as she opened the blood pressure cuff, her eyes returning to his. She had taken his first comment as a challenge. She would hold his fucking gaze, no matter how uncomfortable the rest of his face made her.

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[div style="background-color:lightgreen;border-top:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-left:lightgreen 4px inset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightgreen 4px inset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-right:lightgreen 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]It was the smile, not the compliment, that made Hal decide he might actually like this one.

Not in a like sense, but in the sense of… approval, that was about right. Hal didn’t like people that way, or most other ways, anymore. He’d seen what people were capable of, he knew what they could do. He’d easily believe Kallie Reed was as capable of atrocities as the worst of them. In some ways, he’d be disappointed to find she wasn’t. But what the smile did do was prove her a good foil for the character he’d spent all this time weaving around himself – and by R’lyeh, he wasn’t going to let her make him break character, either.

But the character he’d made wasn’t the character everyone saw. He had proof.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"Control,"[/font] he said, honestly, with a little shrug. Most of his old associates wouldn’t take what he said at face value. How Kallie took it was how Kallie took it. He debated expanding, then decided to go only halfway. [font color="lightgreen"]"Not because I ain’t in control now, mind you, but because I like to be prepared."[/font]

And because making people uncomfortable gave him a certain degree of power over them, but he wasn’t going to lay that out for her. Besides, she thought his eyes were pretty, and he almost believed she was telling him the truth there. He kept his eyes on hers the whole time, breathing steady, rarely blinking.

Even if he’d looked at the blood pressure cuff, he wouldn’t be able to read it. Even if he could he’d hardly be surprised to find his pressure to be extremely low. He hadn’t had the time or materials to force his body to recover proper, it only made sense that the self-sustaining system of blood magic and magic blood was the only thing keeping his energies running. Like he’d told Kallie, most of his ‘blood’ was likely just Eldritch energies. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t believe him. Or maybe it was, hell, he didn’t know. As much as he liked to predict what people were going to say and how they were going to act, he couldn’t read minds. Telepathy had always felt a touch too personal for him.
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Kallie broke eye contact to check the pressure cuff. And immediately that neutral expression she had maintained turned into something different. It was almost imperceptible, but the line of her lips became a little harder, the lids of her eyes closing just a little. She looked up at Hal from under her lashes and then back to the cuff.

Three things had just come to her attention. The first was his blood pressure. It was abysmal. It was levels she had seen in people whose death was imminent. It was less than 80mm Hg. That meant he shouldn’t be conscious. The second was his veins. Where there should have been visible veins, there wasn’t. She couldn’t see them at all, and his skin was much paler than it should have been. The very dark patches under his eyes proved that.

The third was the scars.

They hadn’t appeared visible at first, given his paleness. But now that she was looking for signs of veins, she saw them. They were deep, almost uniform in some places, and they were mostly scared over. She pushed his sleeve up and saw more of them. She didn’t ask about them. Instead, she smiled again and made a soft noise,[font color=purple] “Hmm.”[/font color]

The scars didn’t match up with his answer. Scars like this implied extensive self-harm. She wondered what the rest of his body would look like if this was what his arms looked like. Kallie made a quick choice, nodding to herself. She smiled slightly as she wrote down the numbers on her board.

He had said control. She believed that. But his reasoning, she didn’t necessarily believe that. It didn’t feel like a whole truth. What was he preparing for? That was what she wanted to know. Instead of asking, however, she just removed the cuff from his arm and placed it back on the table. She started to raise the stethoscope, placing the earpieces in her ears.[font color=purple] “Remove your shirt, please. You can put it back on when I’m done.”[/font color]

The smile was still on her lips as she said this. He was becoming interesting.

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[div style="background-color:lightsteelblue;border-top:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightgreen 4px inset;border-left:lightgreen 4px outset;border-right:lightgreen 4px inset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]He could tell by the look on her face that the instrument had said exactly what he’d suspected about his blood. She sounded thoughtful, and her face went from neutral to a curious smile in a moment as she seemed to notice his scars.

[font color="lightgreen"]"That bad, eh, doc?"[/font] He chuckled a little, but pulled off the AC/DC shirt to reveal his already obviously thin frame. The little flecked scars stopped at his shoulder, which he’d made sure to reach before giving up on having rhyme or reason to where he flicked the ritual blade. There were also what seemed to be teeth marks on his hands, between his forefinger and his thumb. That was where he took blood when he was in a hurry.

There was one longer scar, deeper, made with a larger blade. That would be the one above his heart, where he’d needed to nick an artery and broke through bone to do so. The backlash of the failed ritual, which had kickstarted the occult combustion engine that was currently his circulatory system, had also forced the spot of entry to heal, leaving behind a cauterized scar that looked much older than a week or two. For all that, though, his heartbeat would be almost unnaturally strong. That was where the magic was flowing from, after all, the center of life in the body. Where the blood refreshed itself, the worn magic was set aside, and the new entered the system replenished by the lingering darkness.

Once his hands were empty, his fingers changed their tune to “The Thing That Should Not Be”. C’thulhu of R’yleh wasn’t the one they’d been trying to call, but he doubted Kallie would get the reference, anyway. She didn’t seem like a Lovecraftian scholar. She’d find his breathing steady, although at the tip of every breath was a soft hum, like he was always on the edge of bursting into song and restrained himself at the last moment. It wasn’t so far off, but when he opened his mouth, he spoke instead of catching the tune.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"So, Kallie, whaddy’all do for fun around here? When I got here I thought you’d be a buncha stiffs, but you seem okay enough. Got any hobbies?"[/font]
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The smile got a little bit wider at the sight of more scars. Interesting, indeed. Maybe it was inappropriate to smile at such obviously self-inflicted scars, but he was turning into a puzzle, and Kallie loved puzzles. She walked around behind him, inserting the ear tips of the stethoscope.[font color=purple] “Well, Hal, you should probably be dead. I think I understand your comment from before now. You definitely don’t have enough blood in you to still be moving around. I’m not an expert in the occult, but I know magic when I see it.”[/font color]

As she raised the stethoscope, she let her hand briefly brush across his arm under the guise of pulling him back far enough to reach the back of his heart and lungs. The scars were more nicks than the one she had seen on his chest. They didn’t feel like that had been terribly deep. She withdrew her hand and put the cold, smooth head of the stethoscope against his back. His lungs sounded fine, although seemed to have little hitch. It wasn’t a troublesome hitch and rather seemed to be something he was doing, rather than something that was happening to him.

His heartbeat was far stronger than it should have been. Not only was it healthy, and all-around right, but his pulse was particularly strong. Magic, she guessed. She took the device out of her ears and walked back around in front of him. She walked over to the chart while gesturing that he could redress. She jotted down the numbers and notes while she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

[font color=purple] “I’m afraid I’m probably the worst person you could have asked.”[/font color] She gave him a full smile this time, one that hinted at real happiness in her answer.[font color=purple] “You see, I’m quite boring. I’ve been learning to knit, lately. I have an interest in music, so I frequently go to concerts. But aside from that, I mostly just work, Hal. Very boring.”[/font color]

She walked around him again, this time opening up a drawer. From within she pulled out a sterilized swab kit and a solution in a sealed vial. She walked back around him and fished out a set of sterile gloves from the drawer, ripping the package open. She started to don them while asking,[font color=purple] “You seem very interested in us here at the Foundation. What about you, Hal? What do you like to do?”[/font color]

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[div style="background-color:lightgreen;border-top:lightgreen 4px outset;border-left:lightgreen 4px inset;border-right:lightgreen 4px outset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]Hal was paying attention to Kallie, more than her little measurements. He knew what most of them would mean, even if he couldn’t read the instruments yet. Maybe he never would, though he intended to dabble in everything. But he wasn’t watching the researcher. He was watching the woman, fascinated with the individuality. He hadn’t discouraged individuality in the cult. His predecessor had, and most of the now-deceased members had been inherited when he passed. He’d expected the Foundation to be like that, which was almost like what Kallie had told him, but apparently he was wrong.

He liked being wrong, he realized. He’d already known that, but it was refreshing to be reminded. Wrong meant there was something to be learned, and like Kallie, that made this situation interesting to him.

So he was watching her face, and saw her smile when she described her hobbies. One wasn’t happy like that, not about knitting and concerts. Music was written into his soul, and he didn’t smile like that about concerts. His face, which had relaxed a little with the relaxed eye contact, broke in half again.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"Take it you’re learnin’ with a friend,"[/font] he teased, with a strong emphasis on the last word. It probably wasn’t smart to poke while she was preparing to poke him back with a sharp object, but he couldn’t help himself. He would’ve asked about her taste in music, but he decided against that, too. She looked like she listened to oldies, Sinatra or jazz or swing.

But then again, Hal looked and sounded like someone who listened exclusively to Marty Robbins or Johnny Cash, so he didn’t judge on sight. He’d just circle back around to it.

[font color="lightgreen"]"Me? I ain’t decided yet. The too-nice gentleman in the suit said I’d be suited for field work with my experience, or occult studies. I ain’t never really had the chance of higher education, though. I think I wanna poke around n’ see what I can learn, first."[/font] He produced his right arm while he spoke, pushing up the sleeve. Most people would assume the left was best for injections, but he needed his dominant hand steady, and he wasn’t sure how the medicine would interact with the magic. [font color="lightsteelblue"]"One thing I do know is the Eldritch overlaps with the mind. If I could get a little formal overview about psychology, that’d be nice. Help me out in other areas, I think."[/font]

Anyone who knew Hal would think he was being strangely honest, or hiding something. They’d both be correct, but he’d caught on to Kallie’s gently leading questions and the piqued interest at his clearly self-inflicted scars. He was just poking back, as was his right given his circumstances. That, and he was genuinely interested in dabbling around the sciences involving the human mind, because then he might be able to understand a few of the things that made himself different. Why he didn’t break when he should, how he figured out loopholes first. He certainly didn’t trust another shrink to tell him what was going on in his own brain more definitely than he could, unless they were a mind-reader, and in that case he wouldn’t trust them farther than he could throw them.

Then again, that was already true about most people, so it didn’t say much about his opinion on the subject.
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And just like that, Kallie’s smile was suppressed. She looked away quickly, trying to control her reaction as her thoughts abruptly shifted. It took her a moment, but then she turned a completely neutral face back in Hal’s direction. There might have been a little bit of color to her ochre skin, but her facial expression betrayed nothing. It didn’t have to, because her eyes betrayed everything. Kallie’s eyes had always been a direct look into her soul, and right now it was full to bursting, despite her attempts at hiding it.

[font color=purple] “As a matter of fact, it’s my friend who is teaching me. He’s rather skilled.”[/font color] She watched as Hal rolled up his sleeve and held his arm out. She bit back the smile that threatened to spill over and ripped open the swabbing kit. She kicked the stool over in front of the patient's table. She climbed on top of it and waited for him to stop talking, and just as his mouth was about to close, she forcefully jabbed the swab into his cheek, giving it a strong roll before hopping back down.

[font color=purple] “I think you’d be well suited to psychology. You seem to like asking questions and inferring things from them. However, I meant what do you like to do for fun.” [/font color]She took the swab and held it carefully in her fingers before cracking open the seal on the vial. She took the swab and dipped it inside, then covered it back up.[font color=purple] “This is a glucose testing kit. It’s going to tell us if you have giantism or not.”[/font color]

She turned around, facing him, her arms crossed in front of her. She gave him a considerate look, her eyes flicking over him.[font color=purple] “Answer my question about fun first, but I am curious. Why psychology in particular? I understand the reason you’ve already stated, but it’s usually more than that. You get into psychology not to learn about others, but to learn about yourself. Every single psychiatrist I know, hell even Dr. Klive, even she got into this to learn about herself. So what is it you want to learn, Hal?”[/font color]

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[div style="background-color:lightsteelblue;border-top:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-right:lightgreen 4px outset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightgreen 4px inset;border-left:lightgreen 4px outset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]Oh. That was a reaction. Hal didn’t perk up when he saw it, though he wanted to. Instead he just quirked an eyebrow and tried to ask a follow-up question before cotton was shoved into his mouth.

It certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but it was a testament to how little he’d been taking care of his physical health the last few years to know he hadn’t been to see a doctor since his Ma got ill. Now wasn’t the time for all that to get dredged up, though. She’d answered him just before the jab, and now he thought he deserved the chance to savor the response.

The surprise curled into a bigger smile as he spoke quickly around the swab, [font color="lightgreen"]"Goof wif hif hanfs I hake it."[/font]

He didn’t really mean anything by it, but it was the first chord he’d struck with Kallie since he came in. Whoever her knitter was, they clearly hadn’t admitted feelings yet. Like a shark scenting blood, Hal felt the emotional weakness, and hit it to cover up his own moment of surprise and recovery. It was likely Kallie had noticed it anyway. That was surprisingly fine by him. Let the game stay fair, until it didn’t have to be.

He played with his mouth for a minute while she spoke and checked her test. He had questions about the chemistry at play here – in both senses – but he took the time to scrape his tongue on the roof of his mouth to rid himself of the cotton taste and feeling.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"I’m a bit of a music man. Banjo mostly, some voice, but I've learned I can play anythin by ear. I think I coulda gone big if I hadn’t got tangled up in all this."[/font] He waved his hand, not necessarily at the Foundation. Mostly at everything, and nothing, and something specifically vague. [font color="lightgreen"]"Always been good at it. I think it’s best I kept it a hobby, though. I don’t think I woulda liked it becomin’ a job."[/font]

He paused, thoughtful. He did not want to answer Kallie’s question honestly. He also did not want to lie to her. But the threads were coming together.

[font color="lightgreen"]"I like readin’. My pa – dunno who he was, but he left behind a lotta fancy name books. Had an H.P. Lovecraft collection. Y’know what got me into the Eldritch in the first place, doc?"[/font] The question was rhetorical, because there was no way she would know. He shook his head a little. [font color="lightsteelblue"]"I dunno either. It wasn’t the book, though that’s where I learned mosta the names. Yer committee man said I ain’t the type to get sucked into a cult like that, and I think he’s right. I think it was the idea of somethin’ incomprehensible that really got me. The truest anomaly – committee man’s words, not mine. By nature we ain’t supposed to understand ‘em without breakin’ somethin’ fundamental about ourselves. Everyone else had some kinda disorder, not that I could diagnose ‘em, specifically. Joe’d only ever speak in five syllables, and did everythin’ else counted out like that, too, and shut down if he did anythin’ in threes by accident. Lisa was always doin’ somethin’ with her hands, all twitchy-like. The number of people who heard voices that definitely weren’t outer messengers prolly wouldn’t surprise you."[/font]

He threw that in there just to confirm his suspicion about her. Hell, maybe if he was lucky, she’d offer diagnoses, and give him a baseline to work with from there.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"But me? I’m the same ghost I was before, but I’ve not changed my desires."[/font] He mixed up the lyrics so they made sense. [font color="lightgreen"]"I picked up the book and I didn’t break. I poured myself out and I stayed whole. I’ve made pacts with things that should not understand what a deal is, and lost nothin’ of what made me. I want to know about them, sure…"[/font]

His voice softened toward the end, almost like he’d forgotten she was there, or that she had become unimportant, but he probed both wrong as he looked up. He met her eyes again, and now there was a strange cold light behind them. Something hard that was not madness, not confusion. Maybe it was determination, set over the now closed crescent smile of his mouth. Similar to the hard light of a musician who had just realized his own masterpiece, and wished to dissect it for fun.

Maybe Kallie would be able to determine the dooming sparkle of hubris.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"I wanna know what makes me so special."[/font]
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[div style="background-color:purple;border-top:purple 4px outset;border-left:purple 4px inset;border-right:purple 4px outset;border-bottom:purple 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:purple 4px inset;border-left:purple 4px outset;border-right:purple 4px inset;border-bottom:purple 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]
Despite her cool and calm mask that she had put on, the moment that Hal suggested Alvis was “good with his hands”, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. A furious blush spread from her nose to her cheeks, then down her petite neck. She was quick to turn around and attend to her test after that, only turning back once she was sure had finished it to talk once more. She chose to ignore the comment and move on from it, asking about why he was really there. His answer was… not disappointing.

She listened in fascination to his explanation. Unless she gravely misunderstood what he had said, he had made pacts with Eldritch beings. While not her department, she could appreciate that that was special. Special enough to belong at L-9, not L-14. She debated saying something about it, but then stopped herself. He was brought to L-14 for a reason. After being with the Foundation for a few years, Kallie had come to appreciate the concept of “things at play that we don’t understand.” The powers that be wanted Hal Note at L-14. If he was meant to be at L-9, then he would come to be at L-9. Now she could sit there a speculate on the kinds of disorders his cult had, and she wanted to, or she could get straight to the heart of what he was saying.

[font color=purple] “Well, if you want to find out why you’re special, this is the right place for you. The foundation will do a million tests on you and you’ll be able to study things and people like you. You’ll definitely find out what’s different about you here.”[/font color]

She knew that glint in his eyes. It was a mixture of things she had seen in other people’s eyes before. People who thought they could do anything, or get away with anything. It was confidence, determination, and cockiness. Now that, that explained a lot about the man sitting before her. He had the will to do whatever was necessary for him to get what he wanted– those scars might have been self-inflicted, but they were done for a reason. They weren’t the marks of a suicidal man. They were the marks of a calculating and determined man.

Now they were getting somewhere.[font color=purple] “Tell me, Hal. What do you think is so special about you? Why do you think you can do all of this?”[/font color]

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[div style="background-color:lightsteelblue;border-top:lightgreen 4px outset;border-left:lightgreen 4px inset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-right:lightgreen 4px inset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"][font color="lightsteelblue"]"Well, I ain’t paranoid."[/font] He drawled that part, because he wanted it to be clear without being too aggressive about it. He wasn’t. If there was a problem, it was actually for the best. Kept life interesting. Then he stepped back into his Alabama lilt. [font color="lightgreen"]"But I think too many steps ahead. No– that ain’t right, either. I think the right amount of steps ahead. Like– not literal, mind ya, but I see threads that other people don’t seem to notice. I know where they’re pointin’ and I can figure out where they tie together. I ain’t infallible. But I can make good guesses."[/font]

Or make it come about. His hands weren’t clean. Sometimes, prophesy wasn’t enough. Sometimes there had to be a little mortal influence, direct or accidental, to reach the foreseen goal. Maybe that part was normal, but how far he was willing to push the goal wasn’t. He already knew that.

What also wasn’t normal was that he had a knack for foreseeing things that benefited or would benefit him, specifically. Hal was abnormally selfish. It was very, very weird of him to be aware of that. Maybe even weirder for him to not care too much about it. It wasn’t a survival issue. It was, in fact, a control issue, but where that usually was a secondary response, Hal found in himself that it was the root instead, hovering just above the constant threat of boredom.

Take Kallie and her knitter, for example. In the moment, bringing them up with a joke had distracted her from his moment of surprise. It covered up weakness, but it also kept the questions interesting. Something like, “when was the last time you saw a doctor?” wasn’t going to hold his interest for long.

Something philosophical, this question of why are you special, held his attention like nothing else. It was the Devil approaching Johnny. I’m the best there ever was.

But that wasn’t the right answer, was it? And it wasn’t the wrong one. He really wanted to see how much of the right and wrong of it he could mix up for Kallie’s sake. So he smiled, not quite the split, and continued in a genial fashion. He decided to give either the easiest, or the hardest, answer, and see what she made of it – because that, not the real answer, was the point.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"I’m just better’n the rest of ‘em were. Sturdier, more focused."[/font] Now, the carefully timed half-moon split to make his already ugly mug worse. [font color="lightgreen"]"More likeable fur shore. Handsome, smart, talented. Humble. The works."[/font]
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[div style="background-color:purple;border-top:purple 4px outset;border-left:purple 4px inset;border-right:purple 4px outset;border-bottom:purple 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:purple 4px inset;border-left:purple 4px outset;border-right:purple 4px inset;border-bottom:purple 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]
Kallie snorted and crossed her arms in front of her chest, leaning back into the counter.[font color=purple] “Oh, if only you had a good face to go with all that personality, Hal. Well, seems like quite the burden to be right so much. Do you enjoy it? The being right?”[/font color]

His answers made a lot of sense. Throughout their conversation, Kallie had been trying to come up with a soft diagnosis for him, but now she was fairly confident about her decision. None. That was to say, nothing diagnoseable. He was in complete control of his faculties, maybe a bit too much. That could have been part of whatever crazy he was a flavor of. Because crazy was what she was diagnosing him with. Not the kind where you need a straightjacket, but the kind where you had to watch out for them. The kind where they might do anything to get what they want, even if it meant throwing you under the bus.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Dr. Klive was like that too. She would willingly sacrifice people in her department if it meant the ACF could keep functioning as intended. She had done some unorthodox things in the name of getting the truth from patients. Things that Kallie didn’t support. She greatly hoped that Hal Note wouldn’t become the type of doctor who did such things.

For now, though, she could focus on the present. Not the possible future. And right now, she was seeing the spark of crazy in his eyes. But obviously, only the most crazy of people belonged in the ACF. Kallie would even go so far as to describe herself as crazy. In the last few years, she had quickly grown to accept the world as it was in the Foundation. It had surprised her how quickly she had just acclimated to the craziness. Almost like she was meant to be there in the first place.

Hal gave her that same vibe. Like he was meant for the ACF.

Kallie turned around to check on the test swab, only to find it the appropriate level of blue for an average person. She frowned and turned back around.[font color=purple] “You IGF-1 is perfectly normal. That rules out giantism. You’re perfectly normal, just… very tall. Now we’re going to try and draw some blood.”[/font color]

She went to another drawer and opened it, pulling out some more sterile-wrapped packages. This time she pulled out a hypodermic needle and syringe, a cotton ball, and some medical tape. She closed the drawer, opened another, and pulled out a string of rubber

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[div style="background-color:lightgreen;border-top:lightgreen 4px outset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-left:lightgreen 4px outset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]Kallie called him out on his bullshit, and he laughed, a high cackle that teetered on the edge of maniacal. When it died back down to a sardonic smile, he decided to try the truth again and see what that brought up.

[font color="lightgreen"]"Not as much as I enjoy bein’ wrong."[/font]

She said something about the swab, and he was interested to find he was just tall. He’d decide later how exactly he felt about that. Maybe it didn’t need an explanation. Maybe, as he’d just suggested, he was just wrong, and that was more than fine by him. He didn’t mind that one bit.

He debated whether to offer to concentrate the blood into a single spot, but decided against it. First, doing that might cause the system to backfire, and he couldn’t afford to risk that because it might just kill him where he sat in a way that breaking the seal of his skin wouldn’t. Second, he wanted to see what exactly would come of letting Kallie try to draw blood on her own, and whether there’d be any kind of sparkly magical trouble to go with it. So instead he just offered his right hand again, the fingers of his left switching back to the almost frantic tap of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” while he let Kallie do her work.
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[div style="background-color:purple;border-top:purple 4px outset;border-left:purple 4px inset;border-right:purple 4px outset;border-bottom:purple 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:purple 4px inset;border-left:purple 4px outset;border-right:purple 4px inset;border-bottom:purple 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]
So, he enjoyed being wrong. That was pretty telling of the kind of person he was as well. She took the rubberband and tied it around Hal’s upper arm, pulling it tight. She tapped the inside of his arm and frowned. No viens. That was to be expected, but she also didn’t like it. She went back to the drawer and retrieved a second band.

[font color=purple] “Well if you like being wrong, then the ACF is definitely the place for you, Hal. Hopefully, we’ll be surprising enough to throw you off balance.”[/font color] She turned back around with a genuine grin on her face. This kid wasn’t half bad. Sure, he might have a face that set her off, like something pretending to be human that wasn’t, but he was also an intriguing person. She got the feeling that there was a lot more to him than he was letting on.[font color=purple] “Tell me about your tastes in music. What do you listen to? You look like a Lynyrd Skynyrd guy. Am I off base?”[/font color]

She wrapped the second band around his arm while she spoke, and this time, one of his veins popped to the surface. She sighed as she took in how faded in color it was. This was going to be a bitch. She turned around and retrieved her syringe and needles, opening the packages and assembling the device. She turned back around and shook her head slightly as she placed the needle against the inner side of his elbow, getting the direction just right. Then, she pierced his skin, piercing right into the vein. She tugged up on the syringe and watched.

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[div style="background-color:lightgreen;border-top:lightgreen 4px outset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-left:lightgreen 4px outset;border-right:lightgreen 4px inset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]He returned her smile with something still the wrong side of being human, and that only broadened after she suggested Lynyrd Skynyrd as one of his bands of choice.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"Sweet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue."[/font] His voice didn’t have the slight warp that a radio would give the song, but he wasn’t aiming for perfection, just casual recognition. [font color="lightgreen"]"Sweet home Alabama–Lord, I’m comin’ home to you."[/font]

He cut himself off with a chuckle, a harsh contrast to his smooth singing voice. He let his drawl come back.

[font color="lightsteelblue"]"Nawh, I’m a bit more hard-rock’n all that. Master of Puppets, Highway to Hell. Dabbled in Kansas, but ain’t much of theirs I like outside the popular. I’ve composed a little, but there ain’t much overlap between what I used ta write and what I write now. Ain’t much in common between incomprehensible Eldritch chantin’ and rock’n’roll, despite what all ‘em ol’ church ladies think. I can do a purty good banjo rendition of ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia, though."[/font]

After picking his fingers bloody practicing somewhere around the age of 13. He was gifted, but not a miracle worker. A fiddle piece was no good on a banjo without a lot of patience, hard work, and pain tolerance. For now, he kept that to himself. Those scars were hidden around and under tooth marks and callouses along his gnarled fingers.

Truth be told, Hal wasn’t sure he’d found his taste in music yet. There was some that touched on his interest, but it seemed to skirt around what he was looking for. Maybe with a little more access to the wider world, he’d find a little more of himself in that department, too.

Not like there was enough of him to go around right now. If Kallie’s face as she looked for a place to poke him was any indication, anyway. He recognized the tone as she looked for a distraction for him, not that he needed it.

A little blood came through, when she began to draw, and Hal watched it with detached sincerity rather than morbid fascination. He wanted to know exactly what would happen as it happened, and sure enough, red appeared in the syringe. What he wouldn’t notice – because it originated from him – was how hot the metal and glass began to get as more than just liquid life poured in. Magic was just raw energy, however dark or cold its origin, and had to find expense somewhere when pulled out of its standard habits, and heat was most common. The system did not backfire and stop Hal’s heart where it beat, which was what he’d been worried about, but after a few seconds the syringe would be untouchable to Kallie’s bare human hand.
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[div style="background-color:purple;border-top:purple 4px outset;border-left:purple 4px inset;border-right:purple 4px outset;border-bottom:purple 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:purple 4px inset;border-left:purple 4px outset;border-right:purple 4px inset;border-bottom:purple 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]
She smiled at his response, but before she could respond, she felt the syringe begin to heat up. She stopped tugging and the temperature of it kept rising. She carefully pulled her bare hand away from it, holding it steady at the head where the heat had yet to ignite the metal. She quickly covered her hand with the double layer of her sleeves, then switched her hands out and did the same. Her sample was barely enough for the basic tests they needed to run, but it would have to be sufficient because the temperature of the vial was still rising. She withdrew it from Hal’s arm and hurried it over to the counter, where she carefully deposited it. She quickly removed her hands, shaking them out to shake off the residual heat.

That was definitely the most interesting blood draw that Kallie had ever done, She very carefully took some gauze and tape and tapped them over the hole in Hal’s arm. She very subtly ran her thumb over his skin, but it was cool to the touch. Frigid, even. Precisely like someone who has lost a shit ton of blood should be. Corpse-like.

That was a new level of weirdness for Kallie. She decided it would just be best to let the blood sit for a while, in its container, until the vial was cool enough to touch again. She looked up at Hal as she finished bandaging the insertion spot. She decided to share a little bit about herself since he had answered her. Give a little, get a little.[font color=purple] “That makes a lot of sense for you. The rock music, I mean. I heard you came in here with a banjo, so I just assumed a little more folksy music. Rock music fits though. Can’t say I listen to a lot of it, but I know my way around it.”[/font color]

She gestured for him to stand and picked up her clipboard, moving toward the wall. There was a scale there, and she gestured for him to stand on it, as she jotted down some notes about him needing another blood test in about a week. Hopefully, his body would have replaced whatever was missing by that point.[font color=purple] “Now Hal, if you could just stand up here… we’re just about done, I think. I have a few more minor tests, then you’ll be free to leave.”[/font color]

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[div style="background-color:lightsteelblue;border-top:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-left:lightgreen 4px inset;border-right:lightgreen 4px outset;border-bottom:lightsteelblue 4px inset;"][div style="border-top:lightgreen 4px inset;border-left:lightsteelblue 4px outset;border-right:lightsteelblue 4px inset;border-bottom:lightgreen 4px outset;"][div style="background-color:white;color:black;padding:15px;font-family:courier new;"]While Kallie tried to be subtle in the aftermath, the actions she took during the drawing made Hal aware of what had probably happened. He watched her with only dull intent, however, as if this event that had surprised someone who did research for a group called The Anomaly Containment Foundation was very mundane to him, an outsider. It was mundane by his standards. Most magic was. He only took an extra moment to interpret what exactly happened, then nodded slightly as Kallie bandaged him up.

[font color="lightgreen"]"Shoulda ’spected that."[/font] It wasn’t an admonition directed toward Kallie – although it could’ve been interpreted that way. The flatness of the tone was different from the usual pattern of his speech, but he picked back up as if nothing had happened in the next breath. [font color="lightsteelblue"]"Reasonable assumption, of course, Kallie, but I’ve learned not to judge albums by their covers with music. I do like my fair share of Johnny Cash but the rest ain’t really my taste except for practicin’. You can cover anythin’ with anythin’ if you’ve got the ear for it."[/font]

And Hal had been born gifted with the ear for it. He stood back up when directed, although he slouched a little when he did so as if he was used to using that method to hide his full height. He wasn’t, but he knew when to use it, and the other benefit was that it made him seem relaxed, even as he continued talking to Kallie.

[font color="lightgreen"]"Now if I was to judge ya at face value I’d say you’re probably one for the oldies – Jazz, swing, Ol’ Blue-Eyes. Ya seem like ya might listen to records."[/font]

He preferred cassettes, himself. Blocky old things might be just a little outdated, but not by much, and there was something satisfying about re-winding something when you were done with it. Not quite because it was ritualistic, but because it forced a change of pace in whatever you were doing for a span of silence. Without well-timed silences, noise lost its meaning. That was part of the reason why Hal didn’t let it slip in too often.
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