Patience

By Don Muchow

 

Dr. Kevin Baker flipped through his notes as he walked up the weedy, off-camber sidewalk and up the battered concrete stairs of Greenfield Hospital. They always gave the mental hospitals unassuming names and locations, as if nobody would notice a dozen schizophrenics dropped in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. 

He braced for the smell of mold, natural gas, vomit, and urine, signs of long-ignored safety and patient care. He’d been sent by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, to check on reports of patient abuse and a lack of upkeep. 

As he arrived, a thirtyish man emerged from the front door wearing a white coat, large dark round spectacles, and a wild tuft of strawberry blond hair that looked like someone had tie-dyed a hamster and strapped it to his head.

“Dr. Baker,” the man said as he leaned forward with an outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Dr. Pat Oliver. I’ve been expecting you.”

Baker declined Oliver’s hand. No reason to make false friends with someone he’s probably be writing up within the week. 

“Dr. Oliver,” Baker said drily, “you know why I’m here, so let’s skip the pleasantries. Your office has consistently refused to admit health inspectors or release patient medical records to oversight. I’m afraid I don’t have much patience today.”

“We have nothing to hide, Dr. Baker,” Oliver replied. “You can view the records yourself. Have the run of the place. Go where you like.”

Baker let himself in. To his surprise, the facility looked relatively modern, well-kept, and up-to-date. There was no smell other than a slight bleachy whiff suggesting recent cleaning.”

Oliver followed Baker down the hallway as Baker took notes. “Where would you like to start?” he asked.

“The break room,” Baker said as he followed the smell of a sandwich being microwaved.

“Anyone in particular you’d like to talk to?”

“I’ll decide that,” replied Baker.

“Fine,” said Oliver. “I’ll just make myself scarce. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Baker sat down next to a fortyish white man who sipped periodically from a foam cup while the head nurse, a large black woman with a pleasant demeanor, looked back at him. “Would you like to review the med schedule?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” said Baker. He didn’t need to see falsified records, and genuinely clean records wouldn’t tell him anything. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

The nurse went about her business dividing up patient meds.

The patients he had seen so far were well-behaved and alert, not agitated or catatonic, a good sign. At the previous facility, one sat giggling to herself while another bit her fingernails while a third squirmed and muttered furtively as if planning something. Often it was far worse.

Baker turned to the patient next to him, an older man with blue eyes, who stared at his water cup as if it could foretell the future. “How ya doin’?” Baker asked.

“Haven’t shaven in days,” the patient said. “Won’t let me near a razor. I’m not crazy, y’know.”

“What’s your name?” Baker asked.

“Philip,” said the man. “I don’t intend to hurt myself. I just want a goddamn shave.”

“Do you know why you’re here?” Baker asked.

“Yeah,” said Philip. “Delusions, can’t be trusted, danger to myself or others. I’m a 5150.”

Baker raised an eyebrow. “You know that term?”

“I ought to,” said Philip. “I’m a psychiatrist.”

“That’s interesting,” said Baker. “What kind of delusions? How are you a danger?”

“I’m from the future,” said Philip. “Came through a time portal that emptied out into this place and now I’m stuck with a bunch of schizophrenics. I’m not a danger. But they think I am.”

Baker leaned forward and cleared his throat. Now the truth was coming out.

Philip frowned. “I figured you wouldn’t believe me,” he said as he spat in the Styrofoam cup, “Here. Get a DNA sample, run a methylation test. Look for the synthetic gene tag TACAGATA. Check for prints. Come back to tomorrow. Then we can talk like peers.”

Baker gingerly lowered the cup into his pocket. It was a simple but provocative request, a challenge from someone who seemed more certain than psychotic. “How are you so sure I’ll be back tomorrow?” he asked.

“You people always come three or four times,” Philip replied, “then walk away giving this place a clean bill of health. Maybe this time it will be different.”

#

As Baker prepared to leave, Oliver provided him with a keycode for night inspections, and the next day, he let himself in quietly and returned to the break room, where Philip was waiting. 

“Well?” asked Philip. “Did you get the methylation results? The prints?”

“Still being analyzed,” Baker replied as he sat down. “What do you expect me to find? And how do you know about DNA methylation?”

“I too was sent here to check on the patients,” said Philip, “ But the transition through time is imperfect. You land in the wrong place or the wrong person’s head. It looks like schizophrenia, and if you wait too long you can’t tell crew from patients. That’s why we have Checkers.”

“Crew?” asked Baker. “Checkers?”

“The ones sent on the mission,” said Philip, “and folks like me, who follow up on them.”

“Riiight,” said Baker as he scribbled on a napkin, rationalized schizophrenia consistent w/machine fantasies.

“The future you,” continued Philip, “can’t tell if the mission succeeded, because as the timeline changed underneath you it deletes future memories. Checkers only have a short time to extract their team members and not some random nutcase.”

“You still remember who you are,” Baker said. “How do you explain that?”

“The effects aren’t immediate,” replied Philip. “They accumulate. That’s why time is critical.”

“And what will I learn from the DNAM test?” asked Baker.

“That I’m telling the truth,” replied Philip. “So you’ll believe me when I say the world will end.”

“What time are you from, and why did come to this time?” Baker asked.

“Decades from  now,” replied Philip. “Time travel will be discovered, and we’ll sent folks back to save people who are important to the timeline. But if it doesn’t succeed this time, the world as we know it will end.”

#

Baker returned the next morning with the test results. This time, he visited other patients for a while before seeing Philip. As a result, it was almost 7:30 p.m. before he met the steely-eyed time traveler in the cafeteria, where he sat trying to eating noodles with a plastic spoon. 

“How did you know we’d detect TACAGATA?” Baker asked.

“Because I haven’t been born yet,” said Philip. “And won’t be until 2045. TACAGATA is my personal code, I’ve had it ever since 2060 when I joined the program. I won’t begin practicing medicine until 2070. The first team to successfully transition won’t leave until 2090. But the So-Udan come this year,” he added. “We have to stop them.”

“So-Udan?” asked Baker. “Who are they?”

“Vaguely reptilian humanoids,” said Philip. “I assume you’ve spoken to Lyneta. She’s the chubby Hispanic lady about halfway down the hall. She’s obsessed with the So-Udan because she thinks she caused the invasion to occur. She’s always getting into it with Keller.”

“The head nurse?”

“Yeah. Keller’s had it with Lyneta, so she keeps her heavily sedated.  But Lyneta’s learned to hide the meds in her mouth until Keller’s gone, then she spits them out. When Keller checks on her, she fakes a stupor and lies still until Keller goes.”

“So Lyneta’s trying to avoid being drugged?”

“Yes,” said Philip. “She kind of lost it after the first loop, and probably really is schizophrenic.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Baker. “Overmedication is plausibly patient abuse. That might be helpful. Who else is on your crew?”

“Corinne and Meg,” replied Philip. “Corinne’s brother Aidan died in a time jump. She blames herself. Oliver repeatedly shouts at her for not snapping out of it even with meds.

“So we have verbal abuse,” said Baker. “And Meg?”

“She’s the plotter,” said Philip. Don’t take her too literally. She might actually be paranoid.”

Baker let out a long sigh. “So we have Lyneta possibly overmedicated and Corinne claiming verbal abuse,” he said. “That’s a start.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Look,” he continued, “If I can make the abuse stick, Oliver will be gone on a month. If I can’t…well, it’s awkward.”

“You’re the one talking to a schizophrenic, Dr. Baker. You figure it out.”

#

On the next visit, Baker spent more time with Lyneta and Corinne. Corinne was a fiftyish, longhaired depressive who carries existence like lead weight. Baker entered her room, sat quietly, and waited for Corinne to trust him enough to talk. 

“He’s here, then, isn’t he?” Corinne finally asked.

“Philip?” baker replied.  “Yes. He says he’s the Checker.”

“That makes sense,” Corinne’s said faintly. “I thought he might have forgotten.”

“What happened, Corinne?” Baker asked quietly.

“We failed,” Corinne said at length. “The threat was detected near here. But we didn’t know what or exactly where. We had to guess the coordinates. Aidan materialized in the middle of a street in the head of some old Asian woman and was immediately hit by a car. It didn’t kill him right away. Everyone else’s transitions were altered because his failed. The altered timeline hadn’t caught up with us yet, but I could already feel Aidan’s memory slipping away from my present even before the jump. We knew something had gone wrong. When I went to see Mom and Dad just before the mission, but they said I never had an older brother. That’s how it works, you know. Your past disappears and you hold on as long as you can.” She bowed her head and seemed lost in her own darkness.

Baker patted Corinne’s shoulder. “Stick with me,” he said. “I’m trying to help.”

“Okay, Dr. Baker,” Corinne said. “I’ll try.”

“Corinne,” he found himself saying, “I believe you. God help me, but I do. Philip knew I was coming before I walked through the door. He’s not in any databases and talks about experimental genetic tests like they’re already common practice. But what I need to know right now is what Dr. Oliver did to you. That’s the only way I can get rid of him.”

A look of concern spread over Corinne’s face. “Oh, no,” she replied earnestly. “He’ll know we talked. They’ll move up the invasion and that will jeopardize everything.”

:Look,” Baker said, “I can’t help you if I don’t report Dr. Oliver.”

This time, Corinne put her hand on top of Baker’s. “I’m sorry, Dr. Baker. I miss Aidan so much and I want you to succeed. It’s hard doing it the right way. Be careful or they’ll outthink you.”

“So what’s the right way to do things?” asked Baker.

“Find the portal they used,” Corinne said. “Shut it down. They won’t be able to let their people in. Oliver won’t exist. If you don’t, they’ll lock down the facility, claim it was an infectious disease outbreak, but of course it won’t be. They’ll falsify the records just like before. You have to get past Dr. Oliver. Your way has been tried before, hundreds of times. It never works.”

“Jesus,” Baker said softly, his head sagging. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“If it helps,” said Corinne, “You’re doing better than the last guy. He’s still angry at himself.”

Baker stared at the pale sunlight that filtered through the room’s heavy curtains. “You’re talking about Philip, aren’t you?”

#

Baker didn’t return for an entire week. He just couldn’t. Failure to timely submit patient medical records wasn’t enough to hang anything on. He’d convinced himself that the prints and DNA from Philip didn’t prove or disprove anything.

Worse, Oliver clearly knew how to play the game. Greenfield was clean but not perfect and clearly not a healthy environment. Patient fantasies had bled and commingled, creating a self-consistent, impenetrable fantasy world they all lived in. The increasingly bizarre tale of sci-fi intrigue just kept feeding itself. Lyneta was clearly afraid of someone or something, but it wasn’t Dr. Oliver. Taken collectively, the patient reports didn’t support anything but each other.

It wouldn’t matter now anyway. SAMHSA had gotten tired of his pointless visits and failure to turn up anything solid., and had told him to drop the investigation, make his final notes, and move on. He drove back to Greenfield for his final, pointless visit with his head half lost in thought. If they really were time travelers, he thought, it was a hell of a way to make a living.

For the longest time, baker sat in the parked car, envelope in hand, prepared to deliver a letter granting the facility a clean bill of health, provided that they released patient medical records within a reasonable amount of time. Then he finally cut the engine, got out, walked up to the door, and knocked out of courtesy to the man who had outsmarted him one way or another.

Oliver opened at the door, a wry smile on his face. “So you decided after all that I wasn’t a time-traveling alien collaborator from the twenty-second century? Can’t find the portal? Or the magic key that restores memories?” He reached out for the letter, but Baker drew it back.

“If I had my choice,” Baker said as he held the letter up just out of Oliver’s reach, “I’d burn this. I know your operation’s unethical if not illegal. Today’s just your lucky day.”

“Sadly, not yours,” replied Oliver. “And unless you show some evidence, Dr. Baker,” “I’d advise you to discontinue such harassment and defamation. If you speak one word publicly, you’ll be picking lawyers out of your ass like cactus needles.”

Baker handed the envelope to Oliver. “It’s conditional,” he said. “On your providing the medical records, on time and to my satisfaction, or lose your operating license. I’m watching you.”

“We’ll be watching you, too, Dr. Baker,” said Oliver as he slowly closed the door. “Don’t bother coming back. When you return, it will be too late to do anything. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Baker plodded down the worn concrete steps and picked the rest of his way through the weeds to his car. Above him, dismal gray rainclouds began to release droplets of water that made him hurry to climb in. As he closed the car door and looked back at Greenfield toward the distance behind the building, stars swirled in the sky as if going down a bathtub drain. The sky turned purple, the wind picked up, and he felt electricity in the air.

Slowly, a spaceship materialized in the center of the formation and made its way toward the ground. The So-Udan were here, and they were right on schedule.