INTERLUDE THREE: Outside Contractors

November the 18th, 2014

Patrick Hogg had always been very good at his job. His friends call him ‘Patty’ or ‘Pat’ and his mother, now long dead, called him ‘you fucking piece of shit’. He didn’t like to think about that last one though so he didn’t. Just call him Pat. Or Patrick. Do not call him ‘Paddy’. Pat was a rough-looking man, which matched his lifestyle. His red hair was balding and he was starting to run a little to fat but his arms were thick and sinewed and all in all he was a very large man. This is why he had always been very good at his job!

He’d been born large and he’d grown larger and had always looked older than he was, even as a kid. He’d learned to fight, not because he needed to but because he was just so gosh-darned good at it. He hadn’t liked it, not at first, but why not go all-out on the hand God dealt you? And so Patrick Hogg had wound up falling into a set of careers where violence was needed. Not out of cruelty, not out of wickedness or a lust for blood but rather because it had just seemed destined to have always been his way.

Nothing else had worked. He was Patrick Hogg and he could be nothing else.

Right now, he was driving the van over. Usually he’d meet up with a few partners, other fellows in the trade, before arriving at the client’s house. But not today. This client was a bit of an odd one apparently. She’d told the Academy that only one transportation specialist would be needed. And hell, who was Pat to judge?

It was her kid, after all. Presumably she’d know. Patrick didn’t like to ask questions about his job. He didn’t like learning details. It was easier that way.

It was just past midnight when he pulled up outside the client’s house. It was small but upmarket, one of those little suburban boxes that smelled like money. It looked like a ‘good’ neighbourhood in general, ‘good’ meaning that people weren’t out on the street or scrawling graffiti or stealing. No poor crimes. And rich crimes, for the most part, technically weren’t crimes at all. Patrick felt out of place in it, even though he had assumed all along that the client was probably upper middle-class at least. You typically had to be, to not only afford the Academy but also to afford the Academy affording the services of Patrick Hogg and his unmarked black van.

Peitarch Academy, more formally known as The Peitarch Academy For Troubled Youth, was a private boarding institute dedicated to child reform. It took in wards and juvenile delinquents from the state but it stayed open through private clients, parents offering up their wayward children to the Academy’s care.

To be sent to Peitarch by the court system required some real proof of wrongdoing or delinquency. But to be sent by your parents just required that they pay the fee. No further questions asked. The Academy prided itself on discretion.

But not every kid came quietly. And not every parent had it in them to do the confrontation. And so Peitarch Academy kept a few child transportation specialists like Patrick Hogg on retainer. It was a pretty simple job most of the time and, since the parents paid for it, completely legal. But sometimes Pat had to get violent. Those were bad days. And when he wasn’t out on a client’s request, he and his cohorts stayed on Academy grounds. Free room and board, all included as part of the job, provided that they be on call to retrieve escapees and truants.

Peitarch had a lot of attempted escapees. But thanks to Patrick Hogg and his friends and his strong, strong arms they had very few successful ones.

The client was home, sitting out on the porch and waiting for him. That was a rarity. Most of the time parents who requested his services absented themselves from the house while he did his job. But here she was, the child’s mother, without even a trace of concern on her face.

She was an odd-looking woman and wore odder clothes. Why the suit? But Patrick Hogg decided it was none of his concern. Maybe she had to go to work soon.

“He’s down the hall to the left,” she said. “Third door down.”

Now this was even more unusual. She didn’t say his name, she didn’t try and introduce the target to him. She didn’t try and justify her actions or give him some long-winded explanation about why the child was ‘simply too much’. Clear and concise.

Pat appreciated this. He was a professional and beyond that, considered himself a pretty nice man. And the only way to preserve this self-image was to not know too much about the teens and pre-teens that he enacted violence upon.

“Thank you, ma’am. Rest assured, your son is going to a better place. You’ve made the right choice.” He had brought his tools with him, bundled up in a soft black bag. He didn’t use them by default, like some of his colleagues did, only if the target was being recalcitrant. And considering that the mother had specifically requested only one man for the job, this probably wasn’t going to be a problem case.

“Oh and one more thing,” the woman said as he opened the front door. “He’s already dressed and I’ve already packed all the things he should need and sent it ahead to the Academy. You won’t have to trouble yourself.” She must have had a sore throat or a cold or something, her voice sounded terrible.

“Much appreciated, ma’am.”

The house was as nice inside as it was outside. It was dark and Pat didn’t get a very good look at everything but it was enough. What a swank little place. Well, the target will have to get accustomed to a much more spartan life soon. Peitarch Academy was a strong believer in tough love. He didn’t see all the unconscious people in the living room. After all, it was dark and they were classified.

Down the hall to the left...third door down…

Patrick gently opened the door. An open window with a full view of the full moon illuminated the scene. There was the bed, covered in a quilt with pictures of rocket ships and ringed gas-giants emblazoned all over it. And a huddled shape, all screwed up and swaddled in its blankets.

Go time.

He grabbed hold of one corner of the quilt and ripped it off, reaching down and grabbing hold of the target’s shoulder all in the same motion. “Wake up!,” he hissed.

The standard procedure was simple. Wake the child up, restrain them (with just his hands ideally) and then tell them to follow him out to the van. In case of a non-compliant client, tools would be employed. Given everything that he’d known about this case, he’d been expecting compliance.

The target was not compliant.

“Hey, no, no listen! Shut up!” He hissed as the son began to screech and wail, some of it in ultrasonic tones. But he wasn’t listening, the child thrashing back and forth across the bed. Swearing, Pat opened his bag of tools and got to work.

First, he got the little brat to stay still for a moment with a hard slap around the head. That stunned it for a little while, like it almost always did. After that it was a matter of rolling him over, tearing the other blankets away in the process and locking zip-tie cuffs around his arms. This was harder than it usually was, since this kid had at least five of the bloody things. But he did it all the same and pulled each cuff tight, accidentally tearing the skin in a few places. Shit. The son’s flesh was soft and white and very fragile, puffing up around where the cuffs were secured, where the tendrilous pseudo-limbs were lashed together into immobility.

“Stay quiet!”

He didn’t, the kid moving on from screams to a low-pitched and chaotic number sequence, one that made Pat’s head hurt. He punched him this time, right in the child’s misshapen eyeless face. He would have gagged the kid at this point but he couldn’t find his mouth. The tubular orifices protruding from the thorax didn’t count.

With that done, Patrick dragged the lady’s son out of bed and hauled him over his shoulder. It was far from a perfect carry but that was due to how long the target was, not because of any mistake on Pat’s part.

With the target secured, he hastily made his exit from the house. The mother was still there on the porch but had turned away. He only saw the back of her head. That was fine. Parents often didn’t have the steel to watch. He tossed her son into the back of the van and slammed the doors shut, bolting them from the outside.

“Sorry about that ma’am,” he later said, breathing heavily. “He didn’t want to come. Had to get a little rough there. But that’s practically the motto of Peitarch Academy, isn’t it? Roughness solves what kindness won’t.”

“Thanks,” Agent Z told him. “Good job.”

On the drive back to the Academy Patrick would think of that phrase over and over. “Good job”. He didn’t hear that often, not from the private clients. For some reason it was niggling at him. For some reason this whole job felt a little strange and not just because the mother was a weirdo. The kid had acted weird. Maybe some sort of developmental disorder or something?

Patrick thought about the thing in the back of his van. Its paper-white skin, its muted and muddled features, the long tendrils that made his hands feel numb and were numb still…

No. There was no getting around it. That was a perfectly ordinary child. He really needed to stop worrying.

And way back behind him, back at the house, Agent Z strolled around and checked the pulses of the family members. Good, still just knocked out. No ill effects. They’ll all wake in the morning, with no memory of this night and no memory of the creature in the third room down the hall to the left.

She did one last scan of the property for any lingering semiotic confusions, any residue left behind by the Cuckoo-class threat. Nope. All clear!

She hoped that the Peitarch Academy For Troubled Youth appreciated the gift. Couldn't happen to a nicer place.