A Spaceman

Chapter 34--How to fail at everything by really trying

"How bad is he?" Hawking asks from behind me.

"Hey, you," I say, turning around and giving her a quick kiss, "I didn't think you'd be in this quickly."

"After I heard about Ebbel I had to," she says, wrapping her arms around my waist, "I'm not having anything happen to you."

"I think I'll be okay," I say, leaning against her all the same.

"Well, I'll just make sure of that, now, how's James?" she asks.

"He's in there with the doctor now, they've had him on sedatives since he broke after seeing Ebbel's body," I say, "He woke up a couple of hours ago."

"What are they doing?" she asks.

"Oh, he's holding up the doctor with his own scalpel."

"What?!"

"It's Dr. Truth Juice so that's actually valid. The IA guys just told me to wait here for you and see if you could talk some sense into him, Harris is in there watching over things, the commissioned staff is watching the small noisy people," I explain.

"Oh, well, that is valid, but what was he saying? Your message just said he was rambling," she asks.

"His end of the universe thing---he's told you that one right---"

"Yes—"

"Well it's fixated on one of the students," I explain, "He thinks that one of them is either the Beast or the Antichrist or possibly will slay the Beast, he waivers. But he's convinced this sixteen year old boy is going to destroy the universe."

"Sixteen---oh god," she groans, tipping her head back.

"What?" I ask.

"I've just remembered---I'm an idiot, okay he had a Project 10," she says, pointing at the hospital room.

"What?" I ask, "I didn't---"

"No, nobody knew. he had a son, Project 10, he visited the kid when he could, all that, it was when we were only a couple years in that the kid was born, so pretty young, but even so he was happy, he'd always go back and see him. Finally had a family, he said. Well, the little boy died. stupid accident, running up some stairs or something and hit his head, blood clot went to the heart he was dead in a few days. We were on deployment, James never even got to go to the funeral. He's never spoken about it since, only reason I know is I was with him when he got the news," she said, tears almost in her eyes at the pain of her friend.

"Oh, my god, that's horrible," I say. I would be devastated if anything happened, happens to Tony. I'm worried now and that's only because he's busy and keeps his messages short

"Yes, it is, thing is---this is the class he would be in---exactly if I'm right he was born in the fall and this is the spring class. I'm sure that this would be it. That's probably why he's so off, he doesn't need to be on planetside duty right now, he said he was going mad, I should've realized," she sighs, angrily.

"It's okay, just help him now," I say, squeezing her arm.

"Yeah, all right," she says, going in.

"Stay away from me---"

"Justh sthm—jucie m' boy," the doctor slurs.

"Okay, James, put the scalpel down---"

"No, not until that lunatic gets away from me," Thorn says, gesturing at the doctor with the scalpel.

"Reilley will get him----what happened to his face?" Hawking asks, noticing the good doctor is lipless.

"Oh, he was the mutilation I told you about, come on doctor," I say, pinning him against the wall.