Thursday, October 17th, 1996. 10:41am
Scene Chaos Factor: 2
Expected Scene: Debriefing with Leah Bellon
Testing the Expected Scene: 1 - Altered Scene
I've been sitting in this briefing room for about ninety minutes now. Bellon had me escorted in here to wait while she attended to arranging medical assistance for the Shanis. I didn't complain too much, especially after one of the military brought me some coffee and a couple of cookies. The cookies were dry and a little on the stale side, but they were better than nothing. It'd been a while since I ate anything, and I was hungrier than I thought.
The Army's coffee was still crap though. Probably just some shitty instant stuff. Not that I expected it to change from only a couple of days ago.
After polishing off the cookies, I reclined as much as I could in my seat and closed my eyes. I wasn't particularly tired, even though the drive back up here had taken it out of me. Instead, I just wanted to not have the fluorescent lights in my face all the time. One of them was flickering slightly, and it was making my left eye slightly twitchy.
I don't know how long I stayed like that until the door opened. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Ms Bellon, but was surprised when Vinit was shown in by a soldier, who left and closed the door behind him.
Is Vinit upset that Eamon has handed the Shanis over to Sentre and the military? 50/50 - 67 - No.
Vinit looked at me, then pressed his hands together in front of his chest, and bowed towards me. "Namaste."
"Hey," I said. "Vinit. I didn't expect to see you in here."
He pulled out a chair from the table and sat down opposite me. "I asked if I could see you. I was told the woman was not yet available, so I was allowed a chance to talk."
He paused, as if to gather his thoughts. "My son has been taken into custody by the military. We were woken when some soldiers were getting us out of the back of your pickup truck, and you were nowhere to be seen."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. You two passed out hard when we got on the highway, and stayed asleep even after I arrived. I asked for them to arrange some urgent medical attention for you both. I thought they had some on site here, but apparently it's not enough to cope with Nym's condition, so they are going to bring in some better equipment and personnel from somewhere else."
Vinit nodded. "That is correct," he said. "They have him in a medical tent, and have attached a drip to his arm to put some fluids back into him, but they don't have the medications they need to bring him back to health. They also lack the medications required to assist me."
"Are you OK? I saw that you were vomiting a few times earlier this morning."
Does he know what's wrong with him? 50/50 - 04 - Yes.
Is it life threatening? Very Likely - 27 - Yes.
"I am unwell," Vinit said. "My old doctor said that I have cancer."
"Jesus, Vinit! You never said anything!"
The old man shook his head. "It was not relevant at the time, and my son's condition was more important than my own. I am an old man, and have already lived most of my life. Soon, it will be time for me to move onto my next life, so I am doing what I can to make sure that my son is looked after."
I looked at him, and could not believe the calm on his face. All I could do was shake my head. "You said you wanted to talk to me?"
He nodded. "I came to thank you."
"Thank me? What for? Your son is in custody."
"My son is in a place where he will get some help. His mind has been troubled for some time now, and he has done things that he will most likely regret when he attains a degree of inner peace." He started coughing for a few seconds, before it died off and he was able to catch his breath.
"Yesterday, I prayed to Ganesha to send help for my son. I felt that there was very little else I could do for him, and nothing I did would rouse him enough to come out from his helmet. I prayed for many, many hours, long into the night."
He paused and looked me in the eye. "And then you came. You pulled my son out of the trap he was in, and you helped us both. You got us out of there, and you brought us here. So I came here to see you to say thank you."
I don't get this old guy, really I don't. I'm not sure he understands the shit his son is in with Sentre.
"Don't thank me yet. It's possible Nym could be in some serious crap."
"As I said, my son has done things that he will probably regret, even if he feels he was justified in doing them. The soldiers and the others will no doubt need to question him, but for that to happen, they will need to nurse him back to health first. That in itself is a blessing."
I started feeling like shit again. "Vinit, look, I didn't bring you out of Barstow out of the goodness of my heart. There's somewhere else I need to be soon, and they weren't going to let me go until I had looked for Nym."
Vinit just smiled knowingly. "The reason why you think you did it doesn't change the fact that you did it anyway. You came in answer to my prayers, regardless of what was in your heart at the time. That is why I trusted you."
I could not believe what I was hearing. I sold his son out, and he's *thanking* me for it?
There was suddenly a knock at the door, and Leah Bellon let herself in. Vinit turned around in his chair and bowed to her, saying "Namaste" again.
"Mr Shani," she said. "You'll have to excuse us. I need to talk with Mr O'Sullivan privately. I'll have one of the men take you back to your son."
"Of course," Vinit said, with a small smile. He turned back and looked at me earnestly. "I will pray to Ganesha for you. I will pray that he will remove the obstacles from your path, and you will find what it is you seek."
I really didn't know what to say to that. "Thank you, Vinit. I wish we might have met under better circumstances."
He pushed himself up to his feet using the table. He might be walking under his own power, but he was still very sick and weak. He looked across the table at me and smiled. "We met when we needed to meet. If our paths are destined to cross again, then we shall meet each other again in time."
He put his hands together and bowed to me again, an action which I mirrored. Then he turned and shuffled out of the room.
End of Scene Bookkeeping
Vinit put Eamon on the back foot in this scene, so the Chaos Factor rises to three.
End of Scene Notes
I really loved the way this scene played out. Vinit became a lot more rounded and powerful, despite being physically very weak. He plays right into Eamon’s Dream of “Be disproven wrong about the foulness of human nature.” Vinit is a good man, and that rattled Eamon a bit, and will factor into his thinking as the rest of the story unfolds.