-1-
Audrina Laurenti pulls back the sleeve of her black uniform shirt and scans her arm over Rx machine before pressing in the code. When the drawer opens, she carefully counts out three pain pills and drops them into Sgt. Maxwell’s waiting hand.
The early morning visit from her superior had been a surprise to her. Usually he only came in at noon to check on which soldiers were ill, but this morning he’d been waiting for her at the door. While Maxwell took his prescriptions better than most of the tough-as-iron-mean-as-sin RLA types, he’d always refused pain killers because they disoriented him.
“Are you alright, sir ?,” Audrina asks carefully.
“I’m fine. I just pushed myself a little too hard during my workout yesterday,” he responds amicably. “I’ll also need a refill of the psych meds while I’m here.”
She knows his medication schedule better than anyone but pulls up his chart on her Syndicate to check
“The psych refill is not until next week, sir,” she responds, blowing up the image so he can see.
“Yes, well, I’ll be on leave for a few days.”
Audrina doesn’t mean to laugh. She presses her lips together and tries to swallows the sound, but he’d already heard her. She’d known him for nearly two years and she couldn’t imagine him taking a vacation, wearing sandals and sitting on a beach somewhere.
“Is that really so funny to you ?,” Maxwell asks amused.
“I’m sorry, sir. I just--”
“I’ve been called to Ft. Perch for a review,” he interrupts, his voice taking on a serious edge.
“Oh. Shit,” she whispers, knowing that the RLA headquarters in Ft. Perch preferred to ignore Camp Harmony’s existence. If they wanted to see him, it must be something bad. He makes eye contact with her before casting his gaze down in defeat.
She gets it. This could be the end.
“Shit. What’s going to happen to me if they dismiss you--”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves."
“I’m sure they won’t dismiss you. You’ve done some good work here,” she smiles.
Audrina didn’t believe that, but she was making a play for his ego.
“In the past three months I’ve had two inmate deaths, countless assaults and half my unit transferred out. If I don’t get court martialed I’ll be sent to a recruitment office and spend the rest of the war giving presentations to asshole teenagers.”
“Sounds like you need a good lawyer,” she says after a beat.
He gives her a half smile for that comment and surveys the room. In one bed was Corp. Tanner, a twenty-year-old from the Sprawl who had managed to shoot himself in the eye during drills yesterday. The other was Corp. Trousseu, a recent enlistee who had a cruel streak with the prisoners that Maxwell appreciated at times.
Trousseu had claimed severe dehydration yesterday, but Maxwell strongly suspected he was hungover.
“Don’t be too hard on him while I’m gone,” Maxwell says stepping close to Audrina.
“Who ?,” she breaths, caught off guard by his proximity. His chest was mere inches from her own.
“Haley. I know you dislike him--”
“I don’t dislike him, sir,” she says quickly. “I’m just concerned.”
“Why ?,” he asks as he reaches a hand to her and gently removes the gold earring from her ear.
“I--I don’t know, sir.” she says, her breath hitching at his touch to her ear.
But she does know more than she lets on. Maxwell had been showing sympathy towards Haley and that scared her. In all the time she’d known him he’d never shown emotion to anyone. He was always saving face.
When his parents and sister traveled to visit him in the hospital she had watched him regard them with distance and disengagement. He had convinced them he was doing fine when he’d just been told days before he may never walk again.
“Do you remember him from City of Hope ?” Maxwell asks, putting her gold earring into his shirt pocket.
She nods.
“I saw him and his grandmother every now and then, but I stayed out of their way because I didn’t have time for their New Revolution bullshit--”
“Did you know we met once ?” Maxwell says looking away from her. “It was when I was first admitted. I was practically bedridden and had nothing to do for hours except think about what I’d seen and I had those terrible nightmares--”
“I remember, sir.” she says.
Her entire ward of RLA patients was always loud at night with the screams and thrashes of soldiers in the middle of night terrors.
“One day I got sick and he helped me,” he continues. “He—touched me. He looked me in the eye for only a second and barely said three words to me, but I swear after the moment I never had another nightmare again…what do you make of that ?”
Audrina is unsure of how to answer, shaken by her superior’s sudden show of vulnerability.
“Well, I think it could have just been a coincidence,” she says. “Maybe his visit coincided with a medication change--”
“I wasn’t on medication,”
“The brain is powerful thing,” she says. “But something tells me you don’t want my medical opinion.”
"It bothers me," Maxwell says. "He could have been sent to anywhere after getting arrested but he got sent here.
“Has he adjusted to what happened to
Harlow ?,” she asks.
“We do not talk about that,” Maxwell says, his carefree tone suddenly icy. His eyes train on the sleeping corporals in the bed.
“We have to, sir,” Audrina continues. “You don’t think it’s going to come up ? Especially in Ft. Perch ?”
“Audrey you know what you need to say--”
“I know,” she says. “Just make sure he does too. He’s not like us.”
She’d lie to defend Maxwell, if only to save herself. She wasn’t going back to her small neighborhood where everyone thought she was an idiot for loving an unfaithful drug dealer.
The shrill morning bell sounds through the camp and fills the infirmary through the speakers. The sharp sound causes the corporals in the infirmary beds to stir. Audrina breaks her stare from Maxwell and turns to check on the men.
“How do you feel this--”
Maxwell cuts in front of her and jerks Trousseau up from the bed by his shirt collar, the man looks confused for a moment and then terrified
“I know you know better than to bring alcohol into my camp, Corporal,” Maxwell growls at Trousseau.
“Sir, I--”
“I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses.”
Maxwell turns the Corporal to face Audrina.
“Since you’ve wasted the valuable time of our medic I think the least you can do for her is a favor.”
“Of course, yes, sir,” Trousseau responds shakily.
“Audrey has lost one of her earrings. You are not to speak or leave this facility until you find it.”
“I can do that, sir,” he says a note of relief in his voice.
Maxwell walks Trousseau over to the far corner of the small infirmary, where dozens of bright orange medical waste bins line a walk in closet.
“She lost the earring while disposing of trash. You are going to look through each of these bins until you find it. And if you don’t find it by the end of the day you’ll be leading the entire squadron in 10 sets of 10 pushups. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Trousseau responds, his voice taking on a defeated tone.
***
-2-
Hours later, a light flashes in the corner of Maxwell’s syndicate as St. John reports the prisoners have been secured back in their barracks.
Maxwell writes a terse response to the squadron they are off duty before turning back to the queue of legal reviews in his inbox. His goal was to finish responding to them before going to headquarters. But he was constantly interrupted by the regulation bulletins that came in on the hour. Regulations he’d be expected to know.
Maxwell steals a glance behind him to see Haley at the desk in the far corner. Haley is silent, as his hands glide over the screen in front of him. Maxwell hadn’t spoken to him in the 11 hours they’d been sitting in the office together. When working on a tight deadline Maxwell had always preferred to do away with the niceties and sit in silence.
“Has transport been arranged for prisoners 4564 to 4576 tomorrow ?,” Maxwell asks
Haley jumps slightly at the sound of his voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“What about those relatives?,”
“I sent them your message,” he says
“Is everyone headed for the barracks ?,””
Haley quickly switches the screen to the satellite map of Ft. Harmony that shows where each RLA Syndicate is at any time. Maxwell had made a point of never telling the corporals their every move was being tracked and recorded although some suspected. Haley scrolls through the dots on the screen quickly and then stares.
“Um--,” Haley starts.
“Well ?”
“I think Corp. Halloran and Corp. Strong are out of bounds, sir.”
Maxwell pulls the image up on his screen and sees the two dots that represent Corp. Halloran and Corp. Strong are behind the administration building construction site.
Maxwell patches his syndicate into each of the Corporals and hears the same silence from both connections. Angry, he quickly connects to St. John.
“Sir--,” St. John answers
“Do you understand the kind of scrutiny this camp is under right now-”
“Sir--”
“You are supposed to be managing these men. You have the next 48 hours while I’m gone to make sure these men—these boys to be more accurate---understand the code of conduct we have around here.”
“I always do, sir.”
“Is that so ? I want you to go to the building site and if I find a drop of semen there I will personally make you clean it up with your tongue Corporal.”
He cuts the connection before he can get a response. Maxwell closes his eyes in frustration and has to fight himself not to keep them that way. He hadn’t felt this kind of stress in long time—this wasn’t the stress that fueled him but the kind that made him want to tell everyone to fuck off.
“Time for bed,” Maxwells announces turning off Haley’s screen.
Not bothering to fix his loose tie Maxwell follows Haley out of the office and locks the door with a retina scan. The sky is a churning mix of grays and deep black and he notices how the wind blows the stray strands of Haley’s hair in his face.
After a few steps they depart without a word as Maxwell heads to his quarters and Haley to his cot in the utility shed.
Once inside his room Maxwell undresses and turns his Syndicate to the RLA Access Channel where one of his former law professors is supposed to be having a debate with one of Barrister-Finch’s advisers about the ethics of the RLA’s continued draft.
Feeling a stress induced headache coming on Maxwell steps into his shower and picks up the glass bottle of jasmine oil off the shower floor. He lets oil coat his hands, inhaling the floral scent.
He tries to think of anything else but Haley and that tiny erotic sound he’d made when he kissed him. He knows it’s an inappropriate thought. He refocuses. He tries to think of the great sex he’d had with his exes but he can't focus on a specific moment.
His sadistic side finally settles on the memory of when he’d handcuffed a defeated St. John in isolation days earlier. Reliving that power play sends a pleasurable feeling through his veins. He dips into a fantasy and imagines what would have happened if he could get away with asphyxiating St. John until he cried like a bitch. Just as his strokes became hurried and desperate something hits his window and rattles the glass, breaking his concentration
Maxwell jumps from the shower and pulls back the thick curtains to see strong winds blowing through the camp, picking up sand and hurling it against the windows. Moving quickly, Maxwell pulls on a long sleeve shirt and running pants and connects to St. John.
“Sir ?,” he responds, groggy.
“Who is working the overnight ?”
“Anderson and Cavanaugh, sir.”
“Tell them to handcuff prisoners to their beds. There’s a windstorm and I don’t think their tent will stay secure.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pushing against the wind Maxwell forces open his door and jogs a few feet across camp towards the utility garage. The doors are blown open and Haley is curled up on the cot, with his cover pulled over his eyes. He sits up when he hears Maxwell’s approaching steps.
“Come with me. Now!” Maxwell shouts over the howling winds.
Haley stands to follow him. Outside the sand is flying through the air and without thinking Maxwell puts his hand on Haley's back to push him towards his quarters. He closes the door and the room is suddenly very silent.
“You may sleep in here. The weather is awful tonight and the shed isn't secure.” Maxwell says.
“Thank you, sir.” he respond. “I didn’t—I should go back and get the cot--”
“You can sleep in my bed--”
“Oh--”
“I’m not sleeping tonight,” Maxwell says quickly. “I have to pull an all-nighter and get some work done.”
Haley looks over at the neatly made bed, his eyes settle on the garment bag Maxwell had packed and left on the bed earlier.
“As you may have heard I’ve been called to to a review at RLA headquarters in Ft. Perch,” Maxwell responds, realizing he’d never mentioned this to Haley directly. “I’ll be gone for a few days.”
“Will Corp. St. John be in charge in your absence ?”
“Yes,” he says. “And I want you to report to me everything that asshole does.”
Maxwell drops into his desk chair, letting his long legs sit on the desks surface. He turns to give a brief glimpse to Haley who seems perfectly uncomfortable sitting on top of his bed. When they make eye contact Haley goes rigid.
“I want to apologize for yelling at you the other day.” Maxwell says making eye contact with Haley through the mirror on his desk.
“You yell at everyone, sir.” he responds. “I understand.”
“No you don’t. I yell at them because they are idiots who deserve it.” He says. “You on the other hand frustrate me because I know you deserve better than this place.”
“How do you know that ?,” he asks.
“I told you. I’ve seen your record.”
Haley casts his eyes down before looking squarely at Maxwell’s reflection.
“I’m really not who you think I am, sir.” he says quietly.
“Are you about to make a confession ?,” Maxwell asks
“I don’t have one,” he says in stilted breaths.
“I will get the truth out of you one day,”
After a beat of silence Haley opens his mouth.
“You deserve better than this place too, sir.” he says.
“Oh, really ?,” Maxwell scoffs.. He is shocked by the statement and a small smile plays at his lips.
“You are stationed here until the war is over, right ?” he says. “That doesn’t seem fair. You have to stay in a prison camp when you never did anything wrong.”
“I’m really not who you think I am,” Maxwell echoes
Part of Maxwell wants to keep him talking, it was a nice change to have a conversation with someone who wasn’t Audrina or his god damn mother. Someone who sees him as he wishes to be seen—a capable military officer—not a fuck up who spent the better part of 9 months not being able to wipe his own ass.
But the other part of him remembers his professional boundaries.
“It’s lights out,” Maxwell says quietly.
He lowers the lights in the room and pulls up the rest of his work on his Syndicate. The desk chair is a well-worn leather and built to be ergonomic. Maxwell leans the chair all the way back and begins to slowly page through the documents.
Careful not to get too comfortable Haley lies down on top of the bed, the pillow smells like Maxwell and he doesn't know why that is something he'd even notice. He shifts down away from the pillow and rests his head in his arms as his heavy eyelids slowly close.
----