*Transcript of the Psychological Evaluation of Lincoln Grey*

Grey: “Are you recording this Theo?”

Dr. Lazardis: “You know how it is, we’re supposed to record nearly everything.”

Grey: “Yeah… fucking great. Really looking forward to the shrink session.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Lincoln, Roland sent you to me for a reason. Do you think I like having you sit here like you’re one of the nutcases I usually have around?”

*The recording gives the impression of stopping, but the conversation continues after profound silence*

Grey: “Screw this. Screw all of this honestly.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Lincoln, just what the hell did you find that’s got you so riled up?”

Grey: “What I found Theo? I found the little shop of fucking horrors is what I did. I-“

Dr. Lazardis: “Hold up, slow down-“

Grey: “For what? So I can go over everything slow and steady?”

Dr. Lazardis: “Maybe that would help you cope with it, expose yourself to it so it doesn’t have such a hold over you”

Grey: “Make-believe exposure therapy? Really?”

Dr. Lazardis: “Obviously you found things that disturbed you, something that you’re giving power by refusing to talk about it. And I think It would help a lot getting it out there… like you did when you reported it to Roland.”

Grey: “So go ask him if you’re so curious”

Dr. Lazardis: “I won’t. I’m asking you, and I plan to sit here the entire night if we have to”

Grey: “I can just leave; you’re planning on zip-tying me to the chair?”

Dr. Lazardis: “I won’t, but Roland might if he hears you’re not exactly in a good place mentally after having been here.”

Grey: “Because people are so well known to turn around after a single session.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Well they all have to start somewhere, just like you. Linc, just go over it from the start. I’m right here with you. This time you aren’t alone.”

Grey: “You don’t get it.”

Dr. Lazardis: “I don’t get that you’re disturbed?”

Grey: “For gods sake Theo, are you seeing me cower? Got any smells of piss bouncing off of me in your general direction? You think I couldn’t take it? What I saw? What I found?”

Dr. Lazardis: “Well, seeing how passionate it has gotten you, I might very well assume that part of you has trouble dealing with it.”

Grey: “As-“

Dr. Lazardis: “Keep the insults to yourself asshole.”

*Detective Grey audibly laughs*

Grey: “From the beginning then huh?”

Dr. Lazardis: “I am hoping for that, yes”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Grey: “Fine. A few days ago I got a message from Roland. I was supposed to check out some addresses. One, the supposed place of residence of this Wilson fella, the other a warehouse.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Go on”

Grey: “Had to break into the first place because of the trouble all those files dug up. No way in hell we’d be greenlit to look even further into the case when we now have about another hundred new cases that need filing and tackling.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Seems like something Roland would tell you to do, even if I fully understand what led to that decision”

Grey: “When I got in, something seemed off about the whole place. Not lived in. Too clean. I was expecting something… more foreboding. Or better yet, something more telling.”

Dr. Lazardis: “As in…?”

Grey: “Signs of deviancy. Anything telling you that the person living here was up to no good. Something that would show you a person lived there.”

Dr. Lazardis: “But you found nothing at all?”

Grey: “See there is the problem, you always find something. People who push money especially are the type to have… tastes.”

Dr. Lazardis: “Well, go on, humor me, what kind?”

Grey: “Horsecock”

Dr. Lazardis: “Tell me that is some kind of lingo I am too uneducated on”

Grey: “No”

Dr. Lazardis: “Huh”

Grey: “The financial types are always the ones indulging in things. Trust me.”

Dr. Lazardis: “I take it there wasn’t anything in there.”

Grey: “Like there wasn’t even the illusion of anything human living there. Except for one thing, a journal, well more of a ledger, only much, much more detailed. Names, addresses… prices. Products, neatly ordered. Locations where said products are being stored and where they are moved to… and damages.”

Dr. Lazardis: “So what, art? Expensive contraband? That sort of thing?”

Grey: “Art doesn’t get marked with hepatitis-b”

Dr. Lazardis: “I’m… beginning to understand a little better.”

Grey: “Everything to the tiniest blemishes got written down. Diseases… missing parts.”

*Both participants fall silent*

Grey: “That’s the exact look I had as well. It’s like they were handling cattle”

Dr. Lazardis: “And… the warehouse?”

Grey: “Where to start with that one. I arrived somewhere around midnight. Wasn’t hard to get in, Place looked recently abandoned. Entire place had this incredibly pungent smell of disinfectant, couldn’t escape it at all.”

Dr. Lazardis: “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to”

Grey: “I looked around. The place looked like it was plucked, I mean really stripped down. No chests, no nothing. Checked out the office as well, not a single file as if the fucking building had just been finished, or had never even had anything in it to begin with. That was until I looked inside some of the containers. You know what I found in there?”

*Silence for a few seconds*

Grey: “Dried blood and fingernails. In another container, a much bigger one, the smell of disinfectant wasn’t enough to cover the… miasma anymore. Found a fucking ice-box of all things tossed into the middle of it, just to bring it home as to what the hell they were doing in there.

Couldn’t press around to find anymore, because I had to hightail it out of there in fear of some bad company.”

Dr. Lazardis: “I don’t take It you got any idea who came knocking then?”

Grey: “The arson-for-hire type”

Dr. Lazardis: “Of course.

But Lincoln… if this all is too disturbing for you…”

Grey: “Theodore, in all the years you have worked with me, do you actually believe í was disturbed by everything I had found out? To a degree that would warrant the need for psychological care?”

Dr. Lazardis: “No, but I do believe that. But I know how you are with people. How you care for people, people you don’t even know. People like you don’t take easy to cases like this. It wouldn’t surprise me really if…”

Grey: “If what?”

Dr. Lazardis: “If you think you heard them scream”

*There is an audible sound of a chair being moved abruptly*

Dr. Lazardis: “Lincoln, I know this is hard for you, seeing how- “

Grey: “Stop it isn’t about that. No, this isn’t about that at all. You know what this is about? I spent day and night tracking down all sorts of fucking rejects, rapists, the scum of the fucking earth. And for what exactly? So, they just spent the rest of their lives in a fucking cell, where they’re supposed to rot.

But is that enough? Is it Theo? Do you really think the people involved in all of this deserve the mercy of a cell?”

Dr. Lazardis: “Lincoln… I know why you’re thinking like this… ever since- “

Grey: “I’m at the end of my goodwill here Theo. Knowing just what that Wilson has direct responsibility for? The kind of lives he must have ruined? For years?”

Dr. Lazardis: “You’re saying…”

Grey: “I am scared that I see no injustice here. I am scared of the kind of thoughts I have towards all of this. The kind of contentment I feel that this man has to stay in this world in the state he is in. That he has to live in a world he can never interact with again. That he is being forced to remain in this world, and the only company he has are his thoughts, with nothing, nothing to numb his mind to anything he has done.

I couldn’t begin to tell you how happy I am, that a man like that has to suffer.

And it scares me that I can think like that. I should be better than that.

But I am not. Not anymore.”