The Traitor and The Communist

Ow

Song- Paint My Face by: The Devil Makes Three

Tord stared at the ceiling his face expressionless. The right side of his head visibly bandaged with a diagonal wrap leading down under his shirt. Adam was rifling around in a cabinet next to the entrance of the room, and Tord's secretary was asleep on a flimsy chair next to Tord's bed, his head was titled back resting against the wall at an awkward angle. The door at the front of the room opened causing Adam to jump and the secretary to wake up with a jolt.

A person Tord vaguely recognized talked quietly with Adam before dragging him out of the room, leaving the filing cabinet left wide open. Tord slowly sat up, careful of his IV drip. The secretary makes eye contact with Tord, his face lighting up.
"Sir!" The secretary leans over the side of the bed and wraps Tord's left side up in a hug. He lets out a shaky sigh.
"I, I thought..." He hugs Tord harder, though still careful of his right side, "I thought you were gone for, I haven't been able to see you sense you've been back." He paused and let go of Tord,
"We saw the robot go down from here. Nasty explosion, the council didn't even want to go check on you." Tord looked down at his lap for a moment, clenching and unclenching his right hand listening to the sounds the gears made.

"The new council, you did hear right?" Tord sighed and let his head hit the wooden head rest of the bed frame.
"Yes." He nodded and leaned back in his chair.
"So you also know about the discussion about you then."
"Yes, yes of course, next week." Tord ran his left thumb over the back of his other hand.

"Hey," Tord started, the secretary looked over at Tord,
"Yeah?"
"I don't think you've ever told me your name." The secretary opened his mouth to refute but quickly closed it again.
"Nathan." Nathan stuck out his hand, his silver watch sliding up his wrist consequently.
"T-" Tord started, grabbing Nathan's hand and shaking it as he began to say his own name. Nathan put up his free hand in Tord's face stopping him.
"I'll stick with Red, if you don't mind."
"S'fine." Nathan straightened the generic pink flower picture beside Tord's bed.
"I'll be off then, be back in a bit."

With that he left Tord's sick room. Tord sighed and laid back down on the bed, once more staring at the cheap, cracking paint on the ceiling, he raised his right arm over his head then began flexing it. The robotic parts responded twisting and moving at his command. With his left hand he touched the rubber joints at his fingers, wrist, and elbow. Tord wiggled his fingers and stared at the responding movements. His eye flicked from joint to joint. Next he ran his hand over the slight silver divots where metal was welded to metal. 

Sighing Tord dropped his arm back to his side. He looked at the now closed filing cabinet, Nathan must've closed it on his way out. Picking at the corner of his flimsy hospital gown Tord stared at the clock on the wall.

_
The next week droned on as Tord was suck in his bed. Only permitted to get up for physical therapy and the bathroom respectively. Nathan visited every other day or so and Adam continued to look after Tord during his recovery.

"Morning." Adam said as he pushed open the door with his shoulder, his and Tord's breakfast were on trays in his hands. Tord grunted in response something with a similar sound to 'euugggh'. Adam chortled as he placed Tord's breakfast on the nightstand, sitting in the rickety plastic chair.

With a huff Tord flipped over, snatching a piece of buttered toast from Adam's tray.

"Nice..." Adam said as he rolled his eyes, crunching could be heard from underneath Tord's bedsheets. A red metal hand appeared from the sheets beckoning Adam. He grabbed Tord's tray with one hand and held it near the hand. The glass of juice disappeared under the covers straw and all. Adam put the tray back, before beginning on his own breakfast. Tord threw back the covers with a sluggish motion and set the glass on his tray.

With a careful eye Adam watched Tord get out of the bed and stretch. In between bites of stolen toast Adam spoke,
"Your meeting is today." Tord recoiled as Adam accidentally spit some toast in his direction.
"I'm aware." He slid his threadbare slippers on before shuffling over to the grey dresser on the other side of the bed. Adam shrugged, setting his empty tray under Tord's. "I'm just reminding you."

"So you might want to wear something more," he pauses swirling his hand in the air thinking, snapping his fingers once he finds it, "presentable."
Tord looks over his shoulder with a puzzled expression. He narrows his eyes,
"Oh. You mean not to wear my sweater."

Before Adam could defend himself, Nathan burst in the room sliding on his shoes.

His clothes were slightly dishevelled, as was his hair. Nathan was blubbering apologizes and scribbling frantically into his omnipresent tablet.
"I'm, I'm so sorry! I'm so late to breakfast." Nathan made a disgruntled noise as he pulled out some files with one hand, writing on his tablet with his nose momentarily.

Dropping the files on the bed, he sat next to Adam on a even more unsafe looking plastic chair, it wobbled with any slight movement.
"Those contain all the things you'll need to know about for your meeting with the council."

Tord eyed the files, then looked up at Nathan. Adam sighed and set down his drink. A black coffee.
"Teal, calm down." Adam clapped Nathan on the back, almost causing him to drop his tablet. "Deep breaths."

Whilst Adam calmed Nathan down, Tord was nosing through the peach coloured files on the bed. It was filled with basic information that Tord was aware of already. Mostly bullshit about the council itself, little snippets about the five members.
"Fucking fluff pamphlet garbage." Tord muttered under his breath. Adam side eyed him as he patted Nathan's shoulder.

Tord threw down the folder he was holding back onto the bed. Nathan was looking better now, Adam had straightened his tie and fixed his collar. His hair however was an unruly curly mess.

Nathan adjusts his tablet in his hands to look at his watch.

"There's a few hours before your meeting, I suggest you go over those until then." He points at the files on the bed.

_
Tord pulled at the collar of his jacket as he shifted uneasily from foot to foot. His arms were cold without the extra padding that his sweater usually provided. As impressive as it was that Adam had gotten Tord away from his sweater, it was one upped as Nathan had some how managed to pry himself away from his tablet, a feat would possibly be an understatement, Tord was pretty sure that he slept next to the thing, it now however was turned off, and stowed away under his arm. Nathan opened two large oak doors and motioned Tord to go through, following him close behind.

They sat down at a small wooden table, with old chairs. Extremely overshadowed by the judge like table the five members of the council were sitting at. Adam was standing by the door watching next to two bulky guards. A small old lady was perched right in front of the council ready to type on a typewriter.

"Let's start," The council member in the middle boomed. Tord watched from the corner of his eye as Nathan straightened under the council's gazes.

His attention was quickly drawn back to the council itself as the middle member leaned forward and glared at Tord.
"You have been usurped, as a collective my fellow council members and I have decided that you should," They leaned forward even more, almost moving into the single light that was overhead,
"step down whether you choose to. Or, by force."

The table groaned as the weight of the council member lifted slightly as they sat back down. Once the noise of the table stopped echoing throughout the room they continued.
"However," the word was hissed and dragged out,
"We have a proposal for you, Red."

Tord opened his mouth, only getting a single syllable out before being interrupted with a deafening,
"SILENCE." the old crone with the typewriter shrieked. Tord recoiled slightly but otherwise went motionless.

A sound could be heard of a throat being cleared coming from the council's table, before the middle member resumed like nothing had happened.
"Instead of ignoring all of your work for the army and tossing you completely," a hint of malice seeped from the voice, "we are willing to offer you a new position, as a commander."