Book 1: Serendipity

  “John “, Kate said, “I know you want to do this, but really, is it wise?”

  “I don't know if I really care if it's wise. I think I've got a debt to repay. You can understand that, surely?”

  “Oh, I understand it, we can probably help, even, but that doesn't mean I like it,” Kate sighed. “I just wish I could think of a good reason to stop you.”

  The missile functioned perfectly, in some ways a real credit to its designers. It entered the enclosed space at just the right angle and speed to penetrate the force field. It filled the air with just the right amount of fuel and detonated with precision just below the middle of the volume, for maximum effect. Destruction was almost perfect. Casualties were 99.9%.

  It was a shame that it had not been properly decommissioned after the war it had been invented for never started. It was a shame that no one had bothered to censor the command codes when the archives had been opened and were released for academic study after a hundred years. It was a shame that the military museum hadn't had better security, and that it had been so easy to put it back into working condition.

  Most of all, it was a shame that its target had not been a hardened military bunker, but an ultra modern shopping centre, whose architects have decided that a force field's running costs over the lifetime of the centre were less than the cost of more normal building techniques. Terrorists were figures from history books. An extinct breed, like highwaymen; they thought. It was Christmas sales time, the centre was packed. There was academic debate whether the forcefield made the death-toll higher or lower. At least the few survivors weren't trapped under rubble. One of those who'd survived the initial blast died from their massive internal injuries, despite the best medical care available. That left two.

  The director knocked on the door. Hesitatingly. Not like her, really.

  “She's coming here isn't she? The Smith girl,” John guessed.

  “How did you know?” Kate asked.

  “Your face, you hesitated. You're not sure you should let me be involved at all.” On paper (strange archaic expression that) John was the right person to take on the young woman, not a girl now, as a client. He was the most experienced trauma counsellor, now that Kate had moved into her role as the director.

  He was someone she should feel comfortable talking to: of compatible religion and also ethnicity if that mattered to anyone. Their ages were perhaps a little too close — he was only twelve years older, but at twenty she would probably feel that a lifetime. It should be OK.

  But... her root trauma, for which she'd been counselled for half her lifetime was also his, it was how he'd ended up working here: the patient joining the staff. They'd both survived the same attack. They'd both lost their families. John was still officially under the director's care. He was outwardly recovered, or at least patched up as far as medicine allowed. He was fine. He'd not had a single nightmare for over 6 years now. His mourning was an aching sadness, not a sharp pain.

  The director had nothing to worry about, he tried to reassure her. But she did worry. Such deep wounds could reopen, or there could be other consequences, too deep an involvement. It was a risk. She'd warned him.

  “So what are you more worried about, Kate? Me going back to ga-ga land, or the bad press in the remote likelihood that we break from the counsellor-client relationship into another one entirely? She's safe from me in that respect, you know that. They patched me up a lot with the metal and implants, but I'm never going to be able to consummate another marriage. She needs help and we're the only centre this side of the planet that has any experience with her problems.”

  She raised her hands in disgust. “You know perfectly well there's more to romance than the bedroom, you silly man, but if you insist that you can keep your emotions under control, then OK, you try and help her. And if she doesn't pick you then I'll dump some admin work on you and make some space for her in my diary, somehow.”

  John was at his desk, when there was another knock on the door. Not Kate this time. Sarah Smith, average height, dark hair, hazel eyes, not plain but certainly nowhere near being the delight to the eyes that John's wife had been.

  “Welcome, please, have a seat, pick anywhere.” There was a two seater sofa, an easy-chair and two office chairs in his room. He liked to give people choice. Couples usually chose the sofa. Safety in numbers, he guessed. Others preferred the office chairs. She sat on the sofa, calm, but evidently not sure why she had accepted the invitation. She said as much.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “OK, you invited me, but really, I don't know why I'm here. I'm wounded and I'm not going to heal. I just cannot be in a crowd without my head exploding. It's a pain, but I need to get on with life. I've tried everything!”

  “Oh, come on. You're not old enough to have tried everything, and I expect you're not gullible enough to have either. But you're here because your name came up on the 'too hard a case for the computers' list, live close by and my boss thought we could help. So you got invited. What have you tried? Counselling, of course. Drugs?”

  “Illicit? I'm not that stupid. Prescription, they've tried all sorts on me. I hope there aren't long term cross-interactions, or I'll be a textbook case.”

  “OK, so they've tried dosing you on all the usual list. What else did your counsellor programs try?”

  “They thought it was fear of attack, so put me through self-defence classes until I could throw the instructors through windows, they tried slowly introducing people and quickly introducing people and once some ingenious program tried dropping a parachute group into the field I was supposedly having a therapeutic walk in. Of course my head got worse as they approached, I saw them coming, and I ran when they landed.”

  “How many people can you be near at once?”

  “It depends on how tough I'm feeling, or how noisy they are. Twenty is O.K.ish normally, but fifty is very bad news.”

  “In what sort of space? Would you be OK with a hundred people in an arena that seated ten thousand?”

  “I expect so, but I hope you're not planning any more crazy schemes. The insurance company's said I've hit the limit. It's only because this place had been recommended to me before and your invitation said 'free assessment interviews' that I'm here at all. What would sessions cost once I'm assessed? I can't afford much.”

  “Well, we're not a commercial organisation all the time. If people want to help pay the bills we don't object of course, and we do have lots of nice rich clients who need to pay so that they can feel they're getting real help. But we have other cases too, and your case is so special. I've cleared it with the boss, and she's drawing up a draft contract right now if I'm right. We won't charge, but we will ask something else. When you decide you're cured, we'll ask for your help for a year — two hours a week, maybe in administration or public relations, maybe even in my seat here. It'll be up to you.”

  Her face clouded and she stood, fury restrained, just barely. “You know, I hate being a special case, you can't imagine how often some group has offered me some kind of special offer so they can get the free publicity. 'Proctor and Welcome care for you, just like they care for little orphan Sarah Smith.' I hate it, and I will not be a part of it. Goodbye.”

  Fortunately, John thought, she had to pass him to leave. He stood up, his metal leg ringing noticeably, and he gently barred her way.

  “Wait. You didn't realise. I'm sorry, I thought you'd have made the connection. I'm that John Williams. The other survivor. I probably owe you my life, I'm the one who wants to help you, not the publicity people.”

  Sarah sat down.

  “I thought it was a coincidence. You're recovered? You're working here? Of all places why here? Haven't you seen enough pain?”

  “Kate, my boss now, she helped me pull the pieces together. Bit by bit. It took a few years. Survivor guilt, you know. It comes back. Why me? Why us? But if you hadn't screamed, well, there would be no survivor guilt for me. I'd be with my wife in eternity. But I survived, and I talk to others, and they know it's real what I can tell them about pain fading but not really going away. So the help I got, I try to pass on to help others. That's me.” John shrugged. “What about you? I presume you've been studying something, or haven't they let you be more than a lab rat?”

  “I've studied. Remote-learning. It was easier that way. I've got a degree in avoiding exam rooms and other crowded places. Mostly physics, some psychology, I couldn't really avoid that. Some geology — it makes a good excuse to be in a lonely spot. I was thinking of going to one of the Antarctic stations, until I heard there are thousands down there at peak season. Perhaps astronomy, that's pretty peaceful, I hear, as long as you avoid the major conferences. It's not that I want to avoid everyone, it's just... I don't do crowded places.”

  “I hate to say it, it sounds too much like I'm recruiting, but we don't get crowds here. Or reporters.”

  “Oh, bliss. Hardly a month goes by without some reporter deciding that the best thing for their career is to interview the famous bomb victim.”

  “And of course if you claim privacy then you're a recluse and they try harder. And here I am, the reconstructed man... I'm just so sad that I have to decline interviews due to my profession.”

  Her hazel eyes glowed with laughter. “I thought you weren't recruiting! So, assess away, fellow victim. You've talked to me, what do you think?”

  “Oh, come on, you didn't really expect a single 5 minute chat to solve all your woes did you?”

  “Well, no, not really but...”

  “Miss Smith, you've been through the normal system, and you've proven it isn't as effective as one might hope. Oh, I'm sure it is fine for the normal problems people face, but computerised therapists aren't ever going to be better than the academics who stuff them full of their latest theories. And of course the theories are full of if's and but's and that's hard to explain to even the best AI. No, it'll take time.

  “This assessment interview wasn't for me to assess you. Quite the opposite, in fact. You actually have a choice. It's not me or nothing. My boss has taken the unusual decision to step back into front line practice if you want her to be your counsellor instead of me. Kate's very good, managed to put me back into working order. It's going to be your choice. Always your choice. Let me introduce her to you.”

  “Do you think we scared her?”

  “No, I don't think so, Kate. She's been through a lot of computerised stupidity, I'm sure she'll cope with a bit of human foolishness too. I did almost lose her once.”

  “I know. I was listening in. I know, I know, I shouldn't have. It was unethical and only just legal but I justified it to myself because I care about you, you stupid boy.” Kate brushed her grey hair behind her ear, a sure sign of something, but John still hadn't worked out quite whether it was determination or concern. “Well she's got that mockery of a contract you wanted me to write up, unspecified hours from one of us in return for a hundred hours' voluntary work! It's coming out of your salary, you know.”

  “Hey, that's the same contract you had me sign!”

  “I know it was. I'm a soft hearted fool too. Oh well, we'll know when she calls.”