This week the small office off the interfaith chapel on Cloudbase was occupied by Pastor Juniper. While originally Baptist by training, Pastor Juniper felt that at 64, he had been around the block enough times to comfortably speak to people from most walks of life. A former British Marine before he heard the calling to a different kind of battleground, he was previously attached to the British Special Air Services as a chaplain and served in the same role at Spectrum’s London office when not on Cloudbase.
He liked to think that with the combined experience of himself, Imam Stone, Rabbi Azure, Padre Saffron, Bhai Sahib Iris and the back-up of specialised spiritual help (once properly vetted and read-in on protocol, sometimes by audio only call if necessary) there were very few bases left uncovered in their particular field of human activity. They shuttled in on rota, swapping every week or calling in if someone needed them before their shift.
But despite his decades of experience with the nurturing of the human heart, mind and soul he wasn’t quite sure how to handle this one.
Juniper thumbed through the last pages of the file and glanced up at Saffron’s stark black crucifix glued to the wall beside the lone porthole, spilling golden light into the slightly cramped office space. “Lord, guide my words on this one,” he murmured. “I’m going to need some help.”
The clock ticked over to 15:55 and Juniper squared his shoulders, set a plate of biscuits (a nice medley of high quality kinds) on the small coffee table under the porthole and put the kettle on in the kitchenette. He liked to greet people properly but also set them at ease; the two comfortable, quaintly antique-style armchairs flanking the window, slice-of-tree branch coasters and the slightly shop-worn wooden coffee table had been his idea for the office, a more homey and relaxed ambience, as he’d argued.
Just before 15:59 expired, the door chimed and Juniper left his tea-preparations to welcome in his visitor. “Good afternoon, Captain Scarlet. Please come in. Tea or coffee?” he offered, standing aside to let the captain enter.
“Hello, Pastor. Tea please, with a dash of milk, thank you.” Scarlet entered the room and doffed his RadioCap. Tucking it under his arm, he automatically swept the office with a practiced glance as he sized up entry/exit options and room contents.
“Please, take a seat, Captain.” Juniper placed the two plain white ceramic mugs down on the table and took a seat himself, gesturing at the coffee table. “You can put your ‘Cap there, I’m afraid the coat hook is somewhat full. Help yourself to a bikkie,” he invited.
“Thank you, Pastor.” Scarlet placed his ‘Cap down and sat, making no move towards the biscuits, his eyes watchful and expression guarded.
“I would normally begin with a bit of small talk about the cricket, the Rugby World Cup or whatever takes your fancy to put you at ease,” Juniper began, selecting a gingernut biscuit and dunking it in his tea. “But I worked with the SAS long enough to know that would simply put your guard up in preparation for questioning.” He paused to take a bite. “I’ve just finished reading the non-redacted parts of your medical and personal file, everything cleared to Grey-level,” he added, handing Scarlet the folder and letting him flick through it. “It took me a little while to get through it; not the lightest reading, that.”
Scarlet nodded slowly as he took the folder, seeming slightly more comfortable with the proverbial footing now that he knew what Juniper knew – a vague outline of his military career, current role in Spectrum and recent missions, the existence and basics of retrometabolism and a ‘for non-medical layperson consumption’ level briefing on the events of the past year and a half that he’d been med-evaced for.
Grey Clearance was what future colour captains would be briefed on. White Clearance was the next level up with the theories, technical details (such as they were) and protocols around retrometabolisation and supporting his recovery. Along with his Cloudbase medical file, it was what a new chief medical officer would get. Only Rainbow Clearance gave the full, sordid story of how everything had happened.
“So, I’ll be direct.” Juniper finished his biscuit and leaned forward, hands loosely clasped and elbows on his knees. “With all of that history, why ask to talk to me instead of someone with an actual medical degree in the mind, such as our ever ebullient Doctor Cinnabar?”
Scarlet was just as direct in return. “Cinnabar looks at me and sees the papers he could write and conditions he could name.” His lips thinned in a grimace as he glanced away. “He doesn’t say anything about doing that, but Doctor Fawn listened in on a bedside session a couple of months ago. Afterwards, he told me that that’s what he saw from Cinnabar’s questions.” Scarlet’s grimace turned into a frown, his fingers worrying at the edges of the folder. He paused, realised he was fidgeting and set the folder down before he started tearing paper again – the initial marker that had flagged him for more attention. “Fawn can get me away from Cinnabar for now, but regulations state that with the stress-markers I have, I have to debrief with someone. I can’t be cleared for duty otherwise.”
“I see.” Juniper nodded slowly, his respect for Fawn going up several notches. “Hence why you’re here with someone who has no outlet for journals and papers?” he asked for clarity’s sake, wanting to know exactly where he stood in this web of regulations, secrets, command chains and standing orders.
“Exactly.” Scarlet picked up his tea, turning the cup in his hands but making no effort to drink it. “I have had quite enough of being put under the microscope.” The statement was delivered with steel, but that steel had a brittleness to it.
“So, what do you want from me?” Juniper asked when he felt like the silence had stretched for long enough. “Help, advice, distraction, someone to listen to you, a combination or all of the above?”
“I’m…not sure, Pastor.” The admission was made reluctantly, the captain staring into the milky opaqueness of his tea as curls of steam shimmered in the sunlight.
“Well, let’s just see how this conversation goes, then.” Juniper sipped his tea. “It doesn’t have to be all laid out and sorted in one go,” he added. “I don’t expect to deal with everything in one visit, no one should. So, let’s make a start – what’s bothering you?”
“All right.” Scarlet blew out a long sigh, set down the tea and picked up the discarded file. Riffling through the pages, he plucked out his medical report from the DT-19 disaster and laid it on the table, open to a simple front and back human outline annotated with a grim list of injuries – brain hemorrhage, spinal fracture, flail chest segment, pneumothorax, internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen and lower bowel, contusions, abrasions and more. Several more reports followed telling tales of gunshots, crush injuries, poisoning, cerebral electrocution and more. Finally, Scarlet laid out his post-Car Vu fall autopsy/examination report – gunshot with cardiac injury, multisystem trauma from the fall, massive internal organ damage, multiple fractures.
Scarlet fanned the reports out and laid them on the table for Juniper’s perusal. “I died or received injuries that should have left me crippled for life several times this year alone.”
Pastor Juniper nodded, letting the younger man deliver his report in the brisk, clipped elocution of an officer in an official briefing.
“So far, every time, I came back,” Scarlet continued, the report coming almost by rote, well-practiced and rehearsed. “And before you ask, I don’t remember anything about being dead – no white light, no flames, no harps, nothing. I’m just... not awake.”
“Does that trouble you, Captain?” Juniper queried, his thoughtful expression putting deep frown lines in his brow. “That there seems to be nothing there? Death is described as just being asleep, in several parts of the New Testament.”
“Perhaps.” The reply was non-committal and guarded as Scarlet wrapped his hands around the comforting warmth of the teacup.
“I noticed you said ‘so far’.” Juniper set down his tea and picked up the reports, grimacing at the images his mind’s eye painted of the pain and trauma described in such clinical terms. “Are you worried that, one day, you’ll stay dead or that you won’t return to full health? That you’ll let your team down, leave them alone to face the enemy?”
“... Yes.” The admission was quiet, Scarlet scrupulously attending to the tea cup in his hands and not making any move to clarify which question he was answering.
“Would it be the latter that scares you more?” Juniper asked gently, taking the slight tightening of the lines around Scarlet’s mouth as an affirmative. “Well, I can reassure you that this is a fear held by everyone who risks life and limb for others. How did it go again… ah yes, something like ‘The one brave act was taking the oath, everything after that was in the line of duty.’”
At Scarlet’s quizzical look, Juniper clarified: “My daughter married a man who was descended from a firefighter who died in a terrorist attack in New York 9/11. Some of the families were given a fire axe, engraved with that phrase in commemoration and he had inherited it. I thought it was quite fitting; it isn’t too different from the spirit of what you and I said when we first swore our oaths when we signed up, and each subsequent oath, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it is.” Scarlet nodded, relaxing a little and taking a sip of his tea.
“Well then, I should say that I’m happy with how this conversation is going but…” Juniper knew he had hit his mark when Scarlet immediately tensed up again, his glance going towards the door and the escape it promised. “… these are all things you’ve been learning to process and build coping mechanisms for, for well over a year now. It’s been almost two months since the last Mysteron threat which you got through unscathed, and Fawn’s referral said your stress markers jumped three weeks ago. Something else is going on. Something new.”
Juniper took a sip of tea and gave the silent and somewhat surly younger man a knowing look. “I’ve worked with stubborn, secretive, British military men long enough to pick up when someone’s feeding me a convenient, convincing story to avoid having to talk about the scary emotional things that are actually going on,” he pointed out and took another sip of his tea. “What’s the real thing bothering you, Captain?”
Scarlet applied his attention back to his tea, jaw clenching and unclenching as he wrestled with himself.
Pastor Juniper simply waited patiently for him to come to a decision.
After several long minutes, he finally looked up at Juniper, expression guarded and blue eyes carefully taking his measure. “This is all completely confidential?” Scarlet finally asked, tension radiating out of him.
Juniper held up his right hand as if he were swearing an oath. “Not even the Old Man will get this out of me,” he promised. “Nothing said in here will leave this room.”
“... I’ve been having a recurring nightmare,” was the quiet, almost ashamed admission, the younger man dropping his gaze back down at his cooling cup of tea. “It’s been happening every two or three nights for the past month.”
“What’s this nightmare?” the chaplain asked gently. “Take your time.”
“It’s at night, in a storm,” Scarlet began, still refusing to meet Juniper’s eyes. “There’s lightning, thunder. I’m climbing up a rocky hill in a forest and the rain makes it slippery. It’s so dark, and the forest around me feels… hostile. I slip and fall so many times, but I have to get up, I have to get to the top of the hill. I know something is there,” he explained in a halting voice, taking a moment to sip his tea and wet his suddenly dry mouth.
“That’s what I dreamed the first few times. I always woke up before I got to the top of the hill. Two weeks ago, I got to the top of the hill. When I get there it’s not a hill, it’s a clifftop beside an ocean. There’s nothing but bare rock between me and the edge of the cliff, and the rain is lashing down. I can hear waves crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and I know that if anyone falls off the cliff, they’re done for.” Scarlet swallowed hard, his voice quiet. “There’s a flash of lightning and suddenly, Captain Black is standing at the edge of the cliff, waiting for me.”
“Last week I saw that Black... He isn’t alone. He’s got Rhapsody on his left, Captain Blue on his right. They’re handcuffed and gagged. He’s holding onto the chains that link the cuffs. When he sees me, he forces them to lean back so if he lets go, they’ll fall. They’re both terrified… I can see it…” He paused again, his eyes haunted. “Last night… that was when I heard the Mysterons: ‘We will destroy you, Captain Scarlet. You can only save one. Now choose whom you will save.’ I think – maybe I can work my way forward, get into tackling range, throw a rock at Black, somehow grab them both before they fall. But I hear that voice again: ‘Any move of aggression and they both will fall. You must choose who will live and who will die. We will destroy you.’” Scarlet reflexively shuddered at the memory. “That’s when I woke up last night... I had to fight to wake up... and...”
“And you’re afraid of what choice you’ll make, or be forced to make, when you next have this nightmare,” Juniper finished the thought that he sensed Scarlet couldn’t bring himself to speak aloud, confirmed by the captain’s mute nod. “A terrible choice, between your beloved and your brother-in-arms. Either one ends in anguish and pain, and shatters the relationship you have left.” Juniper shook his head sadly at the cruelty of it. “I’m glad you trusted me with this, Captain. This is a battle I know how to fight.”
“Pardon?” That got Scarlet looking up at him, surprised.
“The weapons of my particular enemy are lies, doubt, fear, isolation and manipulation,” Juniper pointed out. “The Mysterons are trying the same tactics – putting you there alone, making you think that you’re helpless and powerless before them and their might. Think about Rhapsody Angel and Captain Blue. Would they meekly submit to this?”
An amused ‘You know the answer to that’ and half-smile was Scarlet’s reply.
“Let’s turn this situation around, bring some light into the darkness they’re trying to put on you,” Juniper suggested. “What are you wearing in the nightmare?”
Scarlet canted a curious look at the pastor at the unexpected question. “... My uniform,” he replied after a moment.
“Do you have your ‘Cap?”
A slow smile spread across Scarlet’s face as he picked up Juniper’s train of thought. “Yes, I do.” He perked up noticeably. “No sidearm or other weapons, but I do have my ‘Cap.”
“All right, Captain. Your file suggests you’re a sneaky bastard like my SAS boys. Let’s use that. Go back into that nightmare and figure out how a sneaky bastard with access to everything and everyone on Cloudbase would actually approach something like this,” Juniper instructed, setting down his empty tea cup. “I want you to get comfortable, let the tension out of your muscles and shut your eyes. Tell me when you are ready.”
Scarlet set down his tea cup as well, resting his hands on the armrests and putting his head back. He let out a long breath as he forced himself to unclench his jaw, drop his shoulders and let his eyes close.
“Ready.”
“Take yourself back to the start of that nightmare,” Juniper instructed, his voice low and reassuring as he built up the scene. “You can hear the thunder and see the lightning. The wind is blowing, rain is making the way slippery. You are climbing the hill. As you approach the crest, what do you do?”
“Get on my belly, crawl up and get a look at the terrain first,” was the reply, sure and confident.
“Do you see Black, Captain Blue and Rhapsody Angel at the cliff edge?” Juniper asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you been spotted yet?”
“... No,” the answer came after a pause. “Captain Black is looking for me, but he can’t see me yet. I have sufficient cover right now.”
“Captain, what is your tactical assessment?” The sharp question came in a near perfect mimicry of Colonel White’s cadence and inflections.
“Sir, one hostile and two hostages,” Scarlet rattled off instantly. “Minimal cover, bad weather, low visibility. Requesting backup.”
“What do you require, Captain Scarlet?”
“No go on air support, weather is too dangerous. Requesting Captain Ochre and a sniper rifle,” Scarlet responded. “Best access is on the south side of the hill, plenty of cover and sniping positions to my left.”
“S.I.G., Ochre is enroute to you now.” Juniper paused, cleared his throat and returned to his normal voice. “Is he there yet, Captain?”
“Yes, he’s in place up a tree with a clear line of sight to the target.” Scarlet frowned slightly as he considered the situation. “Conditions are not ideal but he has a clear shot.”
Juniper nodded absently, planning out his next question to guide the scenario. “Can you communicate with the hostages?”
“Yes,” Scarlet affirmed. “Ochre can use his laser sight to attract their attention and flash Morse code messages on the ground at their feet.”
“What message do you send?”
“Hit deck on signal nod to acknowledge.”
“Did they see the message?”
“Yes, they’ve both nodded.”
“What is your signal?”
“This.” Scarlet touched one hand to the side of his head as if activating his ‘Cap. “Ochre, take the shot now.”
“What has happened?”
“Ochre has shot Black in the chest. Blue and Rhapsody threw themselves forward so he could not drag them back. Black has fallen off the edge of the cliff.” Scarlet opened his eyes and smiled. “They’re both safe.”
“Good work.” Juniper grinned back. “Take that plan with you if this nightmare happens again, and remember – that whole thing is a lie. The Mysterons want you to think you’re alone, but you’re not.”
Juniper sat back and loosely clasped his hands again, elbows on his knees. “I’ve noticed you’ve become quite withdrawn ever since the incident last year.” He held up one hand to forestall the protest he could see forming. “Ah, wait, let me finish. And while it is completely understandable – you had a singular experience to process and come to terms with – it is not healthy for you to keep holding people at arm’s length. You’ve let some people back in, but that list does need to grow. People are not made for isolation; we are made to be connected. Your greatest strengths come into play when you are around people you trust, I’ve seen that. Now, this nightmare could have been the Mysterons, or it could have been your own subconscious acting on deeply held fears, that’s neither here nor there, but my concern right now is that this might scare you into withdrawing again.”
Pausing for a moment, Juniper reached into the bookshelf next to him and pulled out a tattered old Bible, its cover duct-taped back together and the gold edging on the pages worn away in a few places. “I just want to remind you of something,” he explained, leafing through the pages. “Ecclesiastes isn’t my favourite book, but there are a few gems in there, like this one. Chapter four, verse nine.” He cleared his throat and started to read out loud: “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”
Scarlet found himself nodding along, the familiar words coming back to him. “Yes… I think I understand.”
“Good.” Juniper smiled and shut the Bible. “This sort of battle isn’t an easy one to face. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. What would you say to a standing appointment to debrief on life when I’m in the office? We don’t have to have a deep conversation every time, I’m quite happy to drink tea and discuss the World Cup, but think of it as a safety valve, so that stresses and fears have a place to come out before it can build up and turn into something like that nightmare.”
“I think I would like that, Pastor.” Scarlet felt himself smile back, then rather cheekily held out his cold cup of tea. “Any chance of a refill? I’ve still got another half-hour of this appointment, and I’d like your opinion on that disgraceful fracas at the cricket at Lord’s on Friday.”
Juniper laughed and collected the cups. “Ha! ‘Disgraceful’ is putting it lightly, who takes a perfect opportunity like that and only gets three runs out of it?” He chuckled, putting the kettle back on for tea.
Fin.