The Haven Hotel

Hangovers

While I'm not entirely immune to hangovers, they don't affect me as much as they affect other people, or maybe I'm just good at functioning with an eye melting headache and a swirling stomach and leaden feet. Either way, I walk from my quarters to the captain's while the ground is still frosty and my head is still pounding. 

Once again, the captains' quarters are unguarded. I walk in as silently as possible; in retrospect I must have sounded like a marching band last night. When I reach the second floor I look at the seemingly endless collection of doors, all of them identical to one another and nearly invisible in the dark corridor. Last night I saw Copperface's room because there was light on the threshold, now they're all the same and I have no idea which one is his. 

I walk to the center of the corridor and face a random room. It feels right and I know that self doubt will get me nowhere so I raise my fist. Just before I commit to knocking there's a creak behind me. I turn and face the captain; I can't see his face in the dark but I know that he's wearing that same tired expression, probably with some anger thrown in to make him look mildly annoyed.

"You showed up." I can hear the morning in his voice; it's dry and deeper than usual.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" My voice is also a bit huskier than normal.

"You were almost late." He walks out of his room and shuts the door behind him. Suddenly the corridor seems much smaller, not big enough to accommodate the two of us. "So, yes."

He starts walking and I follow him. We leave the captain's quarters and walk briskly to the park where the first embers of a new day can be seen in the low sky. "Almost late." Copperface must have been watching the sky and hoping he would see the sun before he saw me so he wouldn't have to do this. I observe the way he walks; there's no evidence of last night's beverages. He keeps his chin up and his back straight and he moves fast enough to be suicide for anyone with a normal hangover. Maybe he's like me. Or maybe the headache from a post booze morning doesn't compare to the kind caused by a bullet to the face. 

"What exactly do you want me to do?" He asks when we reach the exact middle of the playground. I realize that I have no way to answer this question, nothing of substance. I don't have any real reason to want training from him other than my fear that I'll be branded as useless otherwise. 

"I want real training." I say, hoping that he'll know better than I do what that means. "The serious shit, you know? Not that stuff they have you teaching the children."

He snickers; I didn't know he was capable of laughter and I'm almost sad that it's dark because I don't get to see the smile on his face. "That's not how it works." He says. "I've got around two spare hours each morning to help you, and that won't be every day. You'll need to be more specific than that."

"I don't know. Anything that will actually make me better at my job." The simple but vague truth doesn't seem to satisfy him, so I carry on. "I don't know how many rounds I fired back there. Only one of them actually hit someone. The guy who died, the guy who died because of me, he saved my life so many times I couldn't even thank him for it, and he was a fucking scientist. He was more of a soldier than I am. I need to become a real soldier."

"We don't need real soldiers." The first rays of dawn have cast enough light over the park for me to see his outline and I notice that he's not even facing me. He's staring at the playground equipment, where the ice is slowly turning to dew. "We need hands to carry guns to scare people."

"There will come a time when you need real soldiers and hands won't help you." The implication hurts, but I press through it. "I'm living proof of that."

"Well when that time comes, why would I want a soldier with one less limb than all the others?"

Once more I push past the statement, which is now more than an implication, and I think of the best way to answer the question. When I find nothing without flaws, I settle for what I feel sounds right. "I don't see very many soldiers here. Most of the people living here are either fools who don't know how hard it is out there or empty shells who drink the days away until they gather the courage to kill themselves. Everyone else, people like you, go along with the fucked up system for some reason. So I might not be able bodied but I'm the only one here with you at fuck it a.m in the cold, so I'm the best thing you have."