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Jean Kemp blinked as he slowly woke up, a pen light in his eyes. He squinted against it, which drew a response from a distorted shape hovering over him. He thought he heard somebody say, "Good, well-done steak." ...or was it "Good, you're awake."? He couldn't tell, he was filled with so much painkillers. He glanced over and saw what appeared to be an I.V. tube leading from his right arm to a clear plastic bag. He squinted and barely saw it begin to drip anew, and he slowly dozed off again.
---He awoke several hours later, standing by a door for some reason, looking out the window into the hall. He blinked and looked around, trying to remember how he got there. His head seemed to be spinning and he was very disoriented, mostly from the morphine. Man, what the hell happened?... He glanced down at his left arm, limp and disabled, hung in a sling. Then he looked around the room, realizing that he was in what was the closest thing to an intensive care recovery room. Slowly the realization hit him, That blasted Joker!!! He'll never get away with this!!! He can't do this to the police commissioner of Gotham City!!! Well, maybe not the correct realization, but the morphine didn't make that possible. Kemp threw open the door and stepped into the hallway, still wearing his assault uniform from the day before on the alien base attack. He quickly looked up and down the halls, and spotted Lieutenant McManus walking down the hall sipping from a coffee mug, he didn't seem to notice him yet. Kemp ran up to him, "Alfred! Gosh, I'm so glad to see you!" while McManus arched an eyebrow. "Listen Alfred, Gotham City is in terrible danger! The Joker has broken out of the asylum again, and I can't find the Bat Signal! I think my cleaning lady misplaced it...but anyway! I need you to find Batman! And if you can't find Batman, find Bruce Wayne, because he ALWAYS knows where Batman is!" Kemp was ranting rather loudly, and by now several people walking down the halls had stopped and turned to stare at what was taking place. McManus glanced around and started to speak, but was interrupted when Sophie Thornside came up behind Kemp and grabbed him by the back of the shirt collar.
"Coulda sworn that I locked that door before I left..." she mumbled as she dragged a confused Kemp a few feet down the hall and put him back in the recovery room, careful to lock the door this time.
As she left, Kemp had another realization hit him, "CATWOMAN!!! YOU FIEND!!!" he screamed, barely audible from behind the closed door. Sophie walked up to McManus, "Sorry about that sir..."
McManus nodded, "A little generous with the morphine, eh?"
Sophie yawned and rubbed her eyes, "Yeah, I guess so. I saved his arm, but he only has about twenty percent use of it left now, there was a lot of nerve damage." she said with a sigh.
McManus patted her on the shoulder as they walked down the hallway, "You tried regardless. Will you have to amputate it?"
Sophie replied, "He might get full use back, but the chances are slim. I want to wait until he is 'himself' again and explain the situation to him, and let him decide. I don't know how he'll take it, the guy never talked very much. I only saw him actually converse with Krotyla a few times." She blinked and yawned again.
McManus sighed, "He'll probably be alright. He might actually learn from this, bottling up his emotions isn't healthy. He seemed to be going crazy. Him being dumb enough to try to bum rush an ethereal only confirms it. You need to get some sleep though, you look like hell."
Sophie nodded, not in the mood to argue. "Yes sir." she said as she walked off to her quarters.
---Kemp rubbed his left arm. He could barely feel a thing, and when he tried to move it, his hand only released and closed it's grip inside of it's sling. Okay, there's something quite wrong here... he thought as his worries began to build. Just then Sophie came in and Kemp sat up immediately. "Umm, Sir, I mean, Ma'aam...I'd like to apologize for my behavior in the halls yesterday-"
Sophie promptly put a piece of surgical tape over his mouth. Kemp took that as a sign to shut up. "Squaddie, I know you were doped up on morphine, and it was my mistake. The best way to apologize to me would be to never do something like that again!" she scolded, pointing at his left shoulder, the point of injury. She sighed, "Kemp, what were you thinking?" Kemp took the piece of tape off of his mouth and started to answer, but Sophie just took the tape and put it back over his mouth, "That's the thing, you weren't thinking. You lost about eighty percent function of your arm because you weren't thinking. Kemp, I have no idea what goes on in that head of yours, and sometimes we're all scared to even ask..." she took the tape off of his mouth. Kemp had his eyes to the floor, so apparently her words had sunk in somewhat. "I have no idea where you came from, what personal issues you have, or anything else, but there are more efficient, less painful, and less time consuming ways to kill yourself..." She took a breath, "As for your arm," her tone was more patient and lower toned now, not that of a scolding officer, "there is a chance that you could regain some function of your arm in the future, but judging from the nerve damage that I saw in your shoulder... it just doesn't seem likely. So it's your call on whether or not to amputate it."
Kemp sat and stared at the floor, not answering for a few minutes, before finally taking a deep breath and quietly saying, "No, I'm going to keep it..." he said, standing up.
"Where are you going?" Sophie asked as Kemp opened the door and began to leave.
"Nowhere..." Kemp responded without looking back and without much heart. He wandered aimlessly down the corridors for what seemed like hours until he got outside the base, after grabbing an equipment bandolier and slinging it over his shoulder as he walked out the door. There was no wind and no snowfall that morning as Kemp stared out over the horizon. He felt like he needed a cigarette, and most of all, he needed to clear his head and think. He looked down at his now useless arm with a sigh, "I'm weak now...no, I've always been weak...now it's just even worse." He stared at his sling for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and grabbed the sling with his good arm and began to rip it off. This probably isn't the smartest thing I've ever done... he thought, but it will make me feel a hell of a lot better. Once he was done, he reached into the bandolier and grabbed the pistol, then set off towards a nearby grove of trees. In the horizon he could see Anchorage, a few parts of it burning from napalm bombs. He chuckled to himself, At least we took the city back... Kemp finally stopped wandering once he came to a small clearing, which was filled with signs of a small skirmish in the last few hours. There were the bodies of two soldiers here as evidence. Kemp glanced around as he thought he heard the sound of a snakeman nearby. Kemp's nostrils flared up as he threw his pistol to the ground and yelled out at the surrounding woods. "Alright you Marvin The Martian sons of bitches!!! It's time for a showdown!!! This is IT!!! It's either YOU, or ME!!! I'm tired of this bullshit!!! I'M RIGHT HERE, COME AND GET ME!!!"
In response, a lone snakeman slithered out from the woods into the clearing, looking at Kemp like a crazed and bloodthirsty predator. Kemp glared at the snakeman, his rage building, while he spoke in a chillingly calm and low voice, "You picked a really, really bad day, space boy..." The snakeman hissed and charged, and Kemp quickly unsheathed a combat knife from his bandolier and charged, letting out a loud war cry as he did so. Back outside the base, the roar of a snakeman and the yelling of a very pissed off man were all that could be heard in the distance.
---John Poole was sitting by one of the base entrances at a table, playing a game of solitaire. Suddenly, the bunker door flew open with a hiss and Poole jumped up and pointed his laser rifle at the door. He let his rifle down as he saw what came through. It was Kemp, and he was covered in various places with snow, blood, alien blood, scrapes, and claw marks. He carrying a four foot pole with some kind of bundle wrapped in green cloth at the end. Poole's expression went to a look of shock as he looked him over, "Jesus, where did you go?"
Kemp simply walked past him, staring forward with his usual cold stare, "Out..." he replied in a threatening voice that spoke volumes in subtext. He continued on down the hall until he found a floor panel with metal grating covering a service shaft. He took the pole he was carrrying, raised it up, and drove it between the grating so it stuck there, wedged upright. He then unwrapped the bundle at the end to reveal the snakemans's decapitated head impaled on the end of the pole. He absently threw the cover to the side and walked back down the hall to his quarters. Meanwhile, McManus watched from down the hallway. He took one glance at the decapitated snakeman head and calmly picked up his radio and spoke into it absently, "By the way Sophie, I think you should get down to the south end of the base, I think Kemp needs some more morphine..."
Written on April 26th, 2000 by "Jean Kemp"