Bremerton, Washington

A woman’s face looking through a narrow window of the steel door caught his attention. It was the face he had been conferencing with each week for the last month, but she looked older in real life. She observed the waiting area before opening the heavy door. Her round, pleasant face struggled with the severity of her jet-black hair and short bangs, but her movements were kind, like his own grandma. The thought eased his mind. He understood how the system worked. Officially, today’s session must end in a clinical determination. Unofficially, the Mental Health Artificial Intelligence decided his fate. He had no peace about any of this, so he focused on the human side.

It’ll be fine. She’s a grandma.

Stopping his promotion to the next level and withholding the freedoms that came with it were within her power but nothing more. If he walked out, she couldn’t stop him. He thought, I hold all the cards. Go fish, Grandma. 

“Hank,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.” She nodded and stepped away from the door. “I have to ask you to repeat your full name and date of birth.”

“Henry James Gunn. May 12, 2001.”

“Okay, thanks.” She looked at her palm-sized device again and shot her eyes upward into his. “What do you know, you look just like your picture, but your eyes are bluer.” She slid it into a pocket. Her head tilted as if she questioned what she just said, and she retrieved the device for a second look. With a split-second hesitation, her eyes darted across the screen. “Hank, please, follow me to my office.” 

Aware the session had begun, he followed at a friendly distance. She led him to a small office with two chairs separated by a steel government desk. Hank took a seat in a chair with armrests while Susan glanced at a screen propped on the naked desktop. He fixated on the questions Susan might ask.

“Are you happy?”

He considered responding, “I’m happy to be alive,” then he’d laugh. No, don’t laugh… chuckle. Or better yet just smile. Just tell the truth, he thought. They can always detect a lie. He’d answer, “I’m not unhappy.” 

Even though his long legs spanned the distance to the desk, he scooted the chair closer, hiding them from her view. Birkenstock sandles covered handmade wool socks, except at the toes. The socks were damp but clean, though they didn’t look it. Stains dyed the lighter colored yarn, and the weave matted in places with tar. The socks should have been cast off weeks ago, but the mornings were chilly, and the hand-knitted socks covered his missing toe. 

Susan pushed the screen to one side. “Hank, let’s begin by getting to know each other. Please, call me Susan.” 

Her name tag read Susan. Just Susan. No last name, no rank, no prefix, no alphabet—only Susan. Personal yet anonymous. “Okay.” He forced a smile, then added, “Susan,” as if hoping the effort would please her. 

“How do you find your living conditions?” 

“I like my room. Most of the neighbors are quiet.” 

“Quiet?”

Hank wanted to look at her as if she were from another planet. Doesn’t she understand the word “quiet?” It should be easy to play along but being tired and over-caffeinated always made simple things hard. Why was he so worried about convincing Susan what the AI had determined? It had mined the data and computed an impression. Hank was sure the AI would clear him. Just fifty-three minutes without being sarcastic or sending up any number of possible red flags. At the end of their conversation, he’d leave the office, take the bus home, and figure out how to detach himself from the idiocy of Operation Blue Skies. 

Hank looked Susan in the eye, put on an authentic smile, and said, “Port Townsend is a great little city. It suits me. It’s quiet. More of a seaport than a city. Like my hometown.” He regretted bringing up his childhood and hoped to deflect it by adding, “My room has a view up the hill, but the weather has been great, and I spend a lot of time walking around town. I’ve met lots of friendly people and even made friends with a couple of dogs and a cat. Did you see I got a job?”

“Yes, you’re working for a charter company. Is that enough money to help you?” 

She expected him to do the talking. That he understood. But money? Why that topic? At least she didn’t delve into his past. He said, “It works out to minimum wage, but I get paid as long as I’m on board with students, plus amazing food and tips. Tomorrow I have my first gig. I’ll manage to stay afloat.” 

“Stay afloat” had been another poor choice of words. Telling words from a man whose major life change amounted to sinking his boat built with loans and credit cards. His military service wasn’t the reason he was in the program, but it contributed. A vet needed a major life change, or MLC, to get tapped for help. Hank considered the irony that watching your friends die and being shot at and killing people wasn’t enough of an MLC to call for this level of psychological attention. But sink your boat after you get discharged and… bingo. 

“I’m still looking for a more stable job. I’ve applied to all the fire departments. They always need paramedics.” Military to civilian transitions from medic to paramedic seldom occurred, but he supposed she wouldn’t know that. “I’m doing side jobs for a carpenter. It’s under the table.” He saw no expression, so he added, “Do you think I should keep it?” 

She looked less than pleased to be baited. “Hank, I see your mother is still living. What’s your relationship like?” 

“We get along well. She lives in Florida with her boyfriend, Mario. They’re retired and living the good life.” There was no way to keep eye contact. Every word coming out of his mouth seemed wrong. He pressed the edge of his foot into the desk. Mario—now she’s got the dead-father-replaced-by-the-boyfriend thing to gnaw on and sure, why not throw in “the good life?” 

Normally, Hank would get up and keep his body busy. But in this situation, he had to stay still. Any escape from the building tension had to be internal. He forced the words that made everything okay into his head. A kind of emergency pull-lever that worked every time. BE THE DUCK! When tactical breathing or counting to ten didn’t ground him, the disruptive image of the duck lightened his mood and eased his mind. The duck looked sanguine on the water, but underneath it was paddling like hell. Aware of his posture, he sat up straighter, the muscles in his face calmed, and he released a slow breath.

“Do you mind if I get a drink of water? It was a long bus ride.” 

Susan reached into the drawer beside her and pulled out a bottle, offering it to him.  “Hank, what are you nervous about?” 

He sipped his water. “Susan, you’re right to ask that question. As a communicator, I have a poor track record. I can sail into a hurricane and stay calm, and I’ve been under enemy fire so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve even been in stampedes twice—once by a mob and once by bulls. That stuff doesn’t faze me but put me in an interview and it goes to shit.” Hank thought he might have pushed it too far with the bull story and the shit remark, but it helped him relax and form a genuine smile. 

“Okay, Hank.” She didn’t return his smile. “What would you be comfortable talking about?”

“Anything. I’m good. Next time I’ll lay off the coffee.” 

“The reason you’re here is that a major life change occurred. How has that event affected you?”

Hank breathed easily, knowing this would be better than regressing back to his childhood. “It’s been hard, living through the storm and losing my boat. I’m broke—no, worse—I’m in debt. That’s the hardest.” His heart rate slowed as he imagined the conversation going his way. “Not spending much and working hard is easy, but earning enough just to keep up has been a struggle. Still, I’m glad things came out as well as they did.”

Susan asked, “What ‘came out as well as they did?’” 

“I was close to death. As close as ever. Boats can be replaced. People can’t. And I’m alive.” 

“How were you saved?” 

“Well, there was so much damage after the wave hit, we—my boat and me—were like a cork, bobbing in the Southern Ocean. I came to, still at the helm. A couple of smaller waves raced over the deck while I held onto the unresponsive tiller. The sun rose just to the edge of the earth, and it disoriented me. For the first time in thirty-two days, we were facing the wrong horizon. It didn’t matter. We weren’t going anywhere. I tried to move below deck to bandage my foot, but my hip didn’t work and the pain was just showing up. It was bad. I crawled to my medical kit and started an IV. It’s a good thing, too, because the numbness was ebbing and the pain came on like a drumbeat. The morphine I had on board was out of date, but it worked. A minute later, I was on the radio making a distress call.

“I still can’t believe my luck. Halfway between Chile and New Zealand, hadn’t seen a ship or a plane for well over four days, and RCCNZ—New Zealand Rescue—responded right away and told me they have my position and they’re contacting the nearest vessel. My boat was small, and I could check my bilge pump from my seat while I waited—not good. Two minutes later, this woman on the radio says the Diamantina is diverting course and will be there in an hour. I’m thinking, that’s amazing. I’m in the middle of nowhere and I’ll be rescued before my boat sinks. At least, I hope. I tell the woman on the radio, ‘Thanks, I’ll buy you a drink next time I’m in New Zealand.’ 

“I reached over and got my go-bag, then collected a couple other things from my nav station. It wasn’t a fast leak, but my boat was going down. I called the Diamantina and confirmed my position. They said they were forty minutes away. I’d done everything I could to stay alive. I passed out again, this time from the pain or morphine. Probably both. 

“It took the eardrum splitting horn of this giant container ship to stir me into consciousness again. A dark shadow stole the morning light as the hull blocked the winds and calmed the choppy swell. The two men who boarded my boat, spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, but at least I had human companionship. After strapping me onto a stretcher, they placed me into a small boat lowered over the side. The boat never even detached from its cables—incredible seamanship.

“That’s it. The story of my life.” 

Susan waited, but Hank sat still, satisfied. He had told his tale many times, and she might not believe everything he told her, but it was all the truth. Would she care? She was a cog in the workings of a vast machine, barely Susan, barely assisting in the work of shifting suicide statistics downward. His mind raced. She won’t care.

“Hank, what’s next for you?”

“I’m leaving here, having a meal at Mickey D’s on your dime, thank you very much. Then, I’m taking the bus back home.” 

“How does that make you feel?” 

Hank thought, Psychotherapy 101. What a joke. He wanted to ask, How does what make me feel? Was she even paying attention? He played along and asked, “Port Townsend?” 

She nodded.

“It’s colorful and I love everything made from wood. Port Townsend is full of wood. Incredible wooden boats and all the Victorian buildings. Craftsmanship everywhere.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s a safe harbor and there’s always activity.”

Susan’s expectant look said she wanted much more than Hank could give. The rest of his thoughts about Port Townsend, and his life was too personal. The little city on Washington’s peninsula reminded him of his hometown before his dad’s death. He could never hope to communicate the sensation to anyone else—more a belief than anything tangible. Possibilities of a bright future kindled inside his heart.

Susan already knew about his MLC and his job as a sailing instructor. He told her about his under-the-table work as a carpenter, but she didn’t need to know he was building boats again and getting paid in cyber-currency. That could bring trouble. And he had no plans to mention his promising relationship with Brit, the redhead at Doc’s. Still, he had to give her something, so he said, “It’s a great place to heal.”

“Hank, what type of healing are you looking for?”

“Every kind. I’ve come a long way working through the disappointment of losing my boat. The seastead hospital printed a new hip, replaced the crushed one, and sped up the healing with therapeutics I didn’t even know existed. But losing my toe is still weird. At least it’s all healed and doesn’t hurt. I have friends who’ve lost more.”

“Go on. Would you share your story?” 

“You mean about how I lost my toe?”

“Okay. Start there.”

Hank unhooked his feet from under the backside of the desk. “I don’t recall what happened. I’d been sailing under a storm sail wearing boots, but when I came too, the mast was gone, and my feet were bare. My right hip had been crushed and the little toe dangled. The bone was detached at the knuckle, tendons and nerves cut away, and the severed blood vessels retracted into my foot. Just a little blood swirled around the wet deck. Even with the useless hip, I felt most apprehensive about the toe—like a child with a baby tooth held on by a thread. All I could manage was to wrap the foot in a towel and bind it with duct tape.”

He studied Susan to see if his description grossed her out. She stared, unaffected, and encouraged him to continue with a nod.

“A sympathetic crewman on the Diamantina helped me cut the dressing away, then took the scissors and snipped. He held my toe up like he had removed a bullet and tossed it into a shallow pail. He didn’t speak English, so without words he drew the remaining skin together, attached two staples, and gave me a shot of antibiotics. 

“A day later, a long-range helicopter retrieved me from the ship and landed me at a floating hospital in international waters off the coast of Chile. The doctor looked at the scan and said, ‘We can replace the hip, but the toe… it’s gone forever. You’re lucky. All you need to walk is a heel and a big toe. You won’t even miss the little piggy.’

“I do kinda miss the little piggy.” Hank almost laughed but settled on an incomplete smile.