Troy’s head hurt. It sounded like a drunk seagull, ready to engulf his mind into an existential crisis of pain, confusion, and utter delusions. In utter words, the man felt a mix of tired and awake, not sure what state of mind he was currently in. His vision was blurry, his arms didn't want to respond to him, and the ever-present pain in his leg was making it hard for him to actually focus on anything.
"Isn’t the brain activity a bit higher than it’s supposed to be?" A voice said from Troy’s right side, though it could just as well have been from right in front of him. His left ear felt clogged, no noise coming through at any level. The feeling of blood streaming through his ear could be heard, his pulse coming forth in the beats as well. It was rhythmic, allowing him to at least know that time was passing and that he wasn't just looking at a blurry still image of the world.
"It is indeed," was heard. this time from another place in the room. It was hard to really tell where it was, though Troy could make it out as being from the other officer. The one who had caught him shot him, and… the young man was decently sure he had been tranquillized.
He had been caught, sedated, and put into a location he wasn't exactly sure about. It was inside the station. That much was immediate. However… Where inside the station was he? The cells? Then why was he lying down? Even if his eyes were non-functioning, the white ceiling and mild whirring of fans to the side told the man of something obvious. He was in a large room with one or more beds, able to hear people from a distance of over two meters.
The bed alone made it clear that he was in the medical wing. The fact he couldn't move his functioning leg or the arms made it just as obvious that he was being restrained. Not that the restraints could have been needed by that much, the man feeling his entire body being sluggish. It was as if it took just a second more to respond, and even then it was to the point where a ton of force would barely equal a gram.
"Then… shouldn't we make sure that we aren't getting some kind of trapped-mind effect? The one last year almost made an entire squadron lose their positions," the first voice said again. This time, Troy was able to pay enough attention to know that it was a male voice. And the voice had been heard before. Was… was it the one who had thrown him through a window? It might just have been. His head was hurting too much to really tell.
"I suppose we should," the second voice said again, keeping it up with the shorter responses. Troy did idly wonder why that was until he felt a hard pressure on the place a bullet had gone through his leg.
The response was immediate, the man groaning in pain from the extreme pain. It hurt! It hurt so much. Troy pushed against the restraints again with the vain hope of being rid of the pain but he could only do so much. Nevertheless, the pressure vanished a moment after. A few blinks of the man’s eyelids afterwards, Troy could see a little better. Not enough to actually have a chance of making out a face, but at least he could distinguish two objects from each other. He could see the overhead scanner and the ceiling, both having been similar shades of white. It had made the man without the ability to see the difference before, yet he could clearly see it now. A camera… The man wondered if it was working on him right.
"The criminal is awake, it seems," the first voice said again. If Troy had actually had the mental capacity in the moment to frown, he would have. Instead, the man was left to be annoyed at the way that he heard the voices. That wasn't the way that Adam had taught him.
The names, locations, and almost everything else had been repeated to him so many times. If asked of him, Troy was decently sure he could point out the locations of the building’s fuze boxes. He could describe in vivid detail the sorting algorithms of the different items in the different storage rooms. So much was known to him that it wasn't even funny. But, the first thing he was made to know was undoubtedly the most important one.
Names. Faces. Identities. While the voices had been hard to understand at first, each passing second felt like waking up from a dark dream. Troy was having an easier time remembering it all, knowing what needed to be said and when he needed to think it as well. The woman’s voice wasn't just some unnamed cop. There were only three officers within a ten-kilometre range, and Troy knew for sure which of them had any chance of having such a voice.
Cassandra… something. Troy was having a hard time with the last name, the man was utterly focused on the fact that the woman was normally called Cass. That nickname was apparently loathed, though the woman didn't do anything to discourage it. There was also something about where she had come from, some larger firm that her parents owned, yet Troy couldn't get himself to sort through that information. His mind was too addled for actual names of sub-information. It wasn't important anyway.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Then what do we do with the guy? Give him another dose and hope he sleeps for a few more hours?" the second voice asked. But it wasn't just a second voice, oh not at all. Instead, it was the voice of one Jared… Troy was having some real trouble with the last names as of late. Anyway, the man wasn't the oldest one of the officers, but he likewise wasn't that far behind in the rankings, having gotten in the close ranges of a straight forty years old.
The man had supposedly been a part of a larger-specialised force in the city, managing inner affairs and being the front-man on more high-classed operations. He had also been the head-man when it came to less-liked executions. That was apparently one facet of the outer-city life that nobody talked about. That detail had certainly rattled Troy, the young man had thought that such things were left for cities with populations actually above one million.
There were also some trauma profiles. Jared had had a larger influence on the ones who had worked there previously. Being the one to handle inner affairs, many friendships had apparently been formed. Friendships had led the man to be friends with people high up in the world. While it might never have been used for political gain, the friends had apparently not been too happy about the older man having only a six-figure bank account. While Adam had not told Troy the true numbers that Jared held, the young man knew he would have retired with such an amount. Over six figures equalled a lack of ever having to work again.
"We will have to," Cassandra the officer stated. Even without having the ability to actually see the woman, Troy knew just how displeasing the state of life was to her. There apparently wasn't so much happiness in the act of giving Troy another dose. Which equalled that the man had already been given one before, with the expectation of him being under the border for a few hours. "He needs to be asleep for the surgery."
Yet… here he was, awake and spry, possibly able to run a few meters without collapsing if not for the restraints holding him to the bed. The young man could only guess that they had been unfortunate with which sedatives they had given him, Troy likely having some form of a resistance to the drug. Such a thing was great in times when it was good to be awake. Now? It was bad, the young man very much wanting surgery on his leg. He could feel the hole in his leg, and that wasn't something Troy had ever wanted to experience. It wasn't a good sensation, having the full understanding of some part of his body being separated at a weird point. Yes, it could be reattached, but that did not automatically mean it would be. He was having a hard time staying asleep and that needed to be fixed.
A slight hiss came from behind his head, the machine looking over him likely having been put into some other gear. Troy didn't pay attention too much, the man’s eyelids suddenly feeling so much heavier than before. It wasn't like he actually had to close them, knowing full well that he could remain awake if he fought for it. A tensing on his injured leg would be all that was needed for a burst of adrenaline. However, there was no real desire to remain conscious, the need for healing more important than anything else.
So the young man closed his eyes and waited for the bliss of the void. Not that it came that quickly, the dull thud and pain in his ears and body, in general, being more than ever-present. Troy was decently sure things like that weren't meant to be in his dreams, even if they had been pretty abstract as of late. Maybe the flying circus would pay him another visit in a few days. The news anchor still had quite a number of questions he needed answers to.
"Do you think the bastard will be able to walk?" Jared asked, clearly not understanding that an injured criminal needed peace and quiet if he was to be asleep for surgery. Honestly, just because they both had access to the medical wing didn't mean that only one of them needed to be in bliss during it. "Those images don't look too kind."
That peaked Troy’s ears right up. While the man was very focused on getting his leg fixed up, he was likewise very interested in knowing just how well his leg was holding up. While he had tried to access the damage himself, it wasn't as if he had truly known what the hell he was doing the whole time. It was all too confusing to really compute, with the details of muscle damage not exactly being his forte. The man knew he hadn't died from blood loss and that was about the only medical certainty he could put out without speaking out of his ass.
"It’s not the legs that are making those white spots. You don't have to worry about that," Cassandra answered in an annoyed tone. White spots? Troy wasn't that up-to-date with how medical scanners showed off bodies, but he was decently sure that white spots weren't meant to be there no matter what.
"Then what’s making them show?" Jared questioned, following his question with a small hacking cough. It sounded a bit painful, with a small sniffle ending it off. "What’s the reason for them being there?"
"I believe it might be the very same reason we can’t count his nose-hairs," Cassandra answered with a sigh. "Somewhere in his body is a jammer of sorts that’s stopping us from seeing the things that we could use to identify him. It’s not hidden in some part of his clothes, it’s not in his mouth, and it’s not in… the more hidden parts of his body. If I had to wager a guess, the jammer is likely somewhere in his brain-implant, made to be impossible to remove."
"Well that sucks for us," Jared surmised with a pop of his lips. "No way to remove the spots to get a better look?"
"Not without removing the jammer," Cassandra answered. Troy, the man that knew exactly where the jammer was, was happy they weren't going to try it. "We might have to put pressure on interrogations instead. Even that will have to take a day or two. The bastard won’t wake up until then."
"Don't be so sure about that," Jared quibbled. There was some rustling of sheets. "It seems that the dose was barely enough to keep him under during the surgery."
Wait, they had already done it? Checking out movement in his legs, Troy was surprised at the fact that there wasn't instant pain surging through his body. There was still a dull ache, but it wasn't even close to the level it was before.
He gave out a small chuckle at that. What they had been looking for was right in front of them. Why had they averted the attention of the authorities when they were the ones able to fix bullet holes in a matter of hours? Or minutes. Troy wasn't too sure about the passage of time.
The only thing the man was sure of was the cursing to his side and the rapid rate of footsteps coming closer to him.