VULNERABLE MIND
Disclaimers apply
This story is set in third season, a while after 'In Fathers Footsteps'. No real references are made to the unfilmed episode so it's not really necessary to have read the script.
CHAPTER ONE: ‘Vulnerability’
Loud music and flashing lights reverberated through the packed nightclub. Tony, closely followed by Tim, Dagwood and then Lucas, pushed his way through the busy crowd, looking for some place for him and his friends to sit.
The crowd jostled him so roughly that at times he had to place his hand over the red and white-stripped top hat he was wearing so that it didn’t fall off.
Eventually, he spotted a place in the corner that a group of people where just leaving from and dashed towards it, marking it as his own territory. Tim eventually slid over opposite Tony. Dagwood came in and sat next to him.
Lucas was lagging behind, mostly because he was a tad embarrassed at Tony’s funky behaviour, but also because he would have preferred to be doing something else with his time. He eventually sat down solemnly next to Tony.
“Cheer up, Lucas,” Tony told him, “At least Hudson didn’t find anything for you to do this shore leave.”
“Yeah,” Tim chuckled, “Lucky for you,” he told Tony.
Tony laughed and Lucas scowled at them both.
“Lucas, why don’t you go get us some drinks?” Tony teased.
Lucas sighed in exasperation, “I don’t drink, Tony,”
“Yeah, that’s because no one will sell you any,” Tony laughed.
Lucas looked up and realised he’d walked right into that one. “Tony try to treat me with a bit more respect will you? I am an officer and I am suppose to be twenty-nine,”
“Yeah well my mother wasn’t suppose to be able to have children,” Tony told him.
“Exactly,” Tim agreed.
“That's completely different, Tony. Your mother wasn’t suppose to have children I am suppose to be older,” Lucas defended.
“What's the difference?" Dagwood said slowly, confused.
When Lucas couldn't answer, Tony laughed, “Genius Luc strikes again.”
“Anyway,” Tim continued, “If Hudson finds out we got you into a night club we’ll be in enough trouble as it is.”
Lucas rolled his eyes, “Well just don’t blame me. I can think of much more constructive things to do on my first shore leave in three months,”
The group ignored Lucas’ attitude.
“So what now?” Dagwood asked Tony.
“We pick up some ladies,” Tony winked at him.
Lucas rolled his eyes and Tim looked equally unamused, “You pick up ladies in cars, Tony. None of us have cars,” Lucas told him.
“Watch and learn, my young friend,” Tony told him, “Excuse me,” he asked indicating that Lucas should move over.
“Sure,” Lucas said as he got up, “I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“Lucas,” Tim called out to him, a bit concerned. But Lucas kept walking.
Lucas pushed through the wooden door and walked over to the sink. He leaned up against it and stared at his own reflection. His eyes were sunken in and he was getting dark shadows from lack of sleep.
He couldn’t explain to Tim that he was upset because nothing ever made him happy. He sighed and put his hands into the water to splash it over his face.
He thought about Tim and Tony. Sure they were his friends, but they had their own issues, and he worried that their friendship wasn’t eternal.
There was no one he could talk to - even if he did understand why he was so depressed all the time. Which he didn’t.
Sure, he was grieving for his father. But he was already depressed before that. He couldn’t see an end to any of this. What was the difference between twenty-nine and nineteen anyway?
Lucas stared at his reflection some more, leaning towards the mirror. God, he was so lonely. Captain Bridger didn’t even understand. He had told him that he had never pictured Lucas in the navy. Lucas scoffed.
“Well I guess I could always go back and live with my dead parents,” Lucas said out loud to his reflection.
He hung his head. He did wish he had someone. Someone that he knew loved him and would always be there.
“Lucas?”
Lucas turned to find Tim standing in the doorway of the men’s room, “Are you okay?”
Lucas honestly didn’t know the answer to that one. But he gave the token answer anyway, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Tony’s not having much luck out there,” Tim said.
Lucas chuckled, “I guess we might as well go then, huh?’
Tim nodded, “Yeah I guess. You look like you could use some sleep.”
***
“We’ve been watching this kid closely for a long time. Even before the SeaQuest disappeared in 2022.”
Steven Cuwley was one of Section Seven’s top secret service agents. He had bachelors in Psychology and Social Science. He was also an incredible interrogation and propaganda strategist.
Cuwley now stood in front of a large group of Section Seven agents. A picture and profile of Lucas Wolenczak was up on the screen.
“Although he doesn’t have strong social skills,” Cuwley continued, “He operates well as part of a group.”
“So he’s special because he’s a genius and not socially impaired?” one of the unamused leaders growled.
Cuwley ignored his tone, “Well he is socially impaired. But he has demonstrated an ability to be an incredibly powerful person. If trained early enough, he could become one of the UEO’s finest secret service agents.”
“I agree with the ‘if trained early enough’,” one of the other agents replied, “But isn’t this young man in his late teens? I think we might have missed our opportunity here."
The others nodded their heads in agreement.
“No. Firstly, it is not too late for anyone who is in his or her late teens. Sure, the process of converting them entirely will take more work. But it can still be more effective than on fully-grown adults. Especially with boys.”
Cuwley continued, “This young man is in an unusual situation due to the fact that he already has taken on more responsibility than usual for someone his age. He's never really had to make his own choices about where he is, and everyone just expected he would be what they wanted him to be.”
The agent that had questioned him before scoffed and shared an amused look with another, “So now you’re his guidance councillor?”
Cuwley smirked, “You’ll be surprised how effective that role is for brainwashing.”
He continued, “While other young adults are looking at adulthood as increased freedom, this boy has not realised that he has choices. Leaving the navy will not even cross his mind until it is too late and he realises that it isn’t what he wants but it will be all he ever knows.”
“What are you saying? You’re trying to make out that we’re doing something great and moral by rescuing this boy from his social circumstances?”
He laughed, “Ahh.. no. I mean, think of it that way if you like," he smirked,"But what I’m saying is he is prime for our taking."
"He’s just lost his family, his guardian, and his world as he knows it. He has become just another face in the military, no longer anyone special. All he needs is someone to show him he has choices and someone to guide him towards them. He will follow.”
“He can be easily indoctrinated,” the Section Seven executive confirmed.
“That’s right.”
The agents in the room gave Cuwley an amused look before one of the senior agents spoke, “That’s a bit of a long winded way of putting it, Cuwley but I agree with you.”
“I take that as a go ahead, sir?”
He nodded, “Go get him.”
***
Lucas adjusted his uniform collar around his neck as stood near the moonpool. A flutter of de ja vu aroused itself inside Lucas, a millisecond flashback to the SeaQuest from the first tour.
His blue eyes rolled upward, listening to the officer on duty warn the crew that they were entering waters that could possibly be hostile.
“This place has lost its magic,” Lucas said quietly to himself.
***
The night after the crew had been granted leave; the SeaQuest shore party arrived on land at 0900. There had been considerable tensions between the locals since the UEO had reclaimed the territory from Macronesia six months ago.
SeaQuest was to be docked there for about two to three weeks during what was thought to be the tensest times of conflict.
Captain Hudson was meeting with the man in charge of the MP division, and he had ordered Lucas to check out the communication systems.
Lucas and Tony headed straight around towards the newly built village that had been burnt down after the Macronesians had stormed it two years ago.
Lucas looked at his watch irritably, “He was suppose to be right here,” he said referring to the specialist they were meant to be meeting.
“Well maybe you’ll have to wait for him for a few seconds,” Tony said, subtly having a go at him.
Lucas shoved his hands into the pockets of his neatly ironed khaki pants and looked around.
Tony walked away to amuse himself by chatting up some of the local girls.
“Excuse me, kid,” a man wearing blue overalls and moving furniture called out to him.
Lucas turned around, pushing his short but stringy hair back as the wind knocked it into his face, “Yeah?”
“We’re a bit stuck here, would you help us out?”
The man was standing next to a heavy wooden table. On the other side was another removalist wearing the same jumpsuit. It looked like they had just managed to get it out of the small van but were having trouble getting it inside the one of the huts.
Lucas looked around. The specialist wasn’t there yet. He shrugged and made his way over.
“Sure, no problem,”
“Great. Would you go around the other side and lift it for us?”
Lucas walked around so that he was facing the van and bent his knees so he could pick up the table.
The other two men heaved the table upwards, deliberately smacking Lucas hard in the head with it.
“Urgh!” Lucas grunted painfully as the blow knocked him to the ground.
The second man dropped the table and grabbed a hold of the boy’s underarms and threw him into the van.
“Hey!” Tony called out from where he was standing about fifty meters away.
The first man jumped into the van and closed the doors behind him, whilst the second sprinted towards the front at top speed and jumped in.
Lucas was still recovering from the blow to his head as he lay on the floor of the van. The doors closing darkened the back so that it was difficult to see.
Tony raced over towards the van, making a beeline for the front. Just before he could get close enough to grab for the handle, the van took off at top speed. Tony tried to keep up with it for a few meters but it was obvious there was no way he was going to catch them.
Lucas didn’t realise what was happening until he slid across the floor and bumped into the side of the van as it sped away. It was then that he realised there was another man in there with him.
The last thing Lucas would remember was the man knelling down towards him and the sharp ache as a needle penetrated the skin and muscle of his neck.
Tony ripped out his own PAL, “Ensign Wolenczak has just been kidnapped! Two guys in removalist uniforms just drove away in a blue van.”
Lonnie Henderson answered from where she was across the other side of the village, trying not to react to strongly, “Have you got the licence plate number?” she asked him urgently.
“There was none,” Tony told her.
“Damn,” she swore, letting the hand holding her communicator drop down to her leg.
Tim advanced from behind her. She turned around, “Lucas was just abducted.”
Tim’s face registered shock.
She lifted the PAL back up to her mouth, “Tony put everyone on alert. You start with everyone on your end, I start with everyone here.”
“Oh my God,” Tim whispered to himself.
Henderson turned off the PAL.
“I’ll notify the SeaQuest,” Tim said to her, snapping out of it. She nodded and the two of them ran off in opposite directions.
Chapter Two: 'Environmental Control'