damned_institute | Day 47: Doctor's Office 5 (Dr. Venkman) [Second Shift]

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Day 47: Doctor's Office 5 (Dr. Venkman) [Second Shift]

Second day on the job. Whoop-dee-freakin' doo.

From the looks Venkman had taken at today's files, it seemed like everyone was trying to out-crazy his first-day patients. A paranoid space case who had taken the detective fantasy to a level that would make Jimmy Doyle look like Nancy Drew in diapers. An Andre the Giant wannabe who thought he was a killer robot searching for a bigger, badder killer robot. A guy with a pointy-eared birth defect and unfortunate eyebrows, which apparently gave him license to go full-on Martian space ranger. Oh yeah. Just another fun-filled day at Landel's Institute.

Sherlock Paranoia and Robby the Robot were up first, both in the same shift. They were both going to have to go quick in order to fit the time constraints, and Venkman wasn't going to complain about that one bit. He'd be getting paid the same amount to do half the work on two patients. That wasn't so bad, at least. He had just the perfect way to get this done, too.

Rummaging in his bottom desk drawer, he started hauling out a piece of equipment - a shock machine that had become near and dear to him over the course of his research days at Columbia. It had served him well during several experiments, many of them of dubious quality but immense entertainment value. Babe, never leave me, he thought at the machine with a short chuckle, untangling all the little wires and starting to plug it in behind his desk.

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The end of breakfast had brought with it a number of unpleasant surprises.

First, there was the man who was ostensibly Landel on the intercom, savoring a cup of coffee brought to him by a helpful assistant: his enjoyment had been audible. During his stay at the Institute, L had been deprived of both coffee and coffee-bearing subordinates. He had dealt with it as well as he could, mostly by trying to ignore his longing for it, but today, the craving was strong. It was obvious that a strenuous demand for it would only result in sedation, though.

That brought him to the second surprise. He'd turned in the direction of the doors to the Recreational Field, but the nurse leading him -- not Carter, this time -- had said, in a patient voice, "Daniel, this way. It's time to see your doctor," and led him somewhere else entirely. When he asked, all she would tell him was that he was seeing Dr. Venkman for his first session of therapy.

He had mixed feelings about this, and more than a little bit of trepidation. On one hand, there was the smallest chance that a doctor might be more useful to him than a nurse: the interaction involved in therapy was more in-depth than his rote encounters with the other staff, who were both kindly and evasive. On the other hand, there was a chance that the doctor would take his "treatment" in hand and insist on even more serious strictures. He had to admit to himself that the latter seemed the more probable of the two.

When the nurse led him into the office, he was surprised to see how lived-in it looked, covered with an array of promotional clippings. One of the men featured in them was plugging a dubious machine in behind his desk. L simply stood staring at him: a flat, unamused look.

Venkman stared right back when he had finished plugging in the machine. "Well don't look so thrilled to be here. You'll give yourself a heart attack from the sheer excitement," he quipped in a deadpan, gesturing toward the chairs in front of his desk.

The guy was a little older this time, at least. In fact, all the patients today were, which was great. No damned, dirty kids to deal with, and he could legally share alcohol with them if he thought they were good enough. He somehow doubted they would be, but hey, the option was there. He especially doubted it with Daniel here, who, with his messy hair and dark rings around his eyes, looked like the poster child for Insomniacs Anonymous. He wondered briefly how the no-coffee restriction was hitting this guy.

"I'm Dr. Venkman, by the way. How are we feeling today, Daniel?" he asked, putting on a patronizing smile as he leaned against the edge of the desk on one hand, waiting for Danny Boy to come sit down.

L's gaze narrowed a little; he didn't find heart attack jokes amusing. But if Venkman was working off of the Laurier file, it was possible that he didn't know that L had spent months dreading anything that might be the opening stages of his death at Kira's hands.

If he had a moment of anxiety, it expanded in light of the fact that anxiety was one symptom of acute myocardial infarction, as were things like indigestion and paleness and feelings of impending doom. If his shoulder felt a little stiff, as it sometimes did, he was left wondering if he had minutes to live. Of course, he never experienced all the symptoms at once, and he told himself that he was prepared for it if it came, but he found that preparation and acceptance were two different things. He didn't want to die.

"'We'? I am fine today, Dr. Venkman." His reply was cool, and his raised eyebrows caused his eyes to widen. He took his seat, clambering up into it, crouching on his haunches, his long hands folded over his knees. He looked like a crow, full of curiosity but not impressed with anything he saw. "Why the apparatus?"

Edited 2010-01-29 06:55 (UTC)

Ah, so he was definitely at least a little bit as sharp as advertised. From the look on Daniel's face, he had caught the casual heart attack dig right away. Again, what was with the unusually smart crazy people? First Jimmy, now this guy. He was supposed to be dealing with delusionals, not autistic kids with no social graces and freakish math skills or something, right?

He regarded the way Daniel chose to sit with a raised eyebrow. "Good. You look fine," he said in a tone that clearly communicated the opposite of his words.

When asked about the machine, he turned back toward his desk. "'The apparatus,'" said Venkman, grabbing a wire with a round, sticky pad on the end, "is just something I'm trying out for today. I want to see if maybe a different approach to therapy will have any effect on the type of disorders Landel's specializes in." That was a bald-faced lie and he didn't really care if Daniel knew it. Maybe electric shocks would help, maybe they wouldn't. What Venkman did know was that he could report testing innovative techniques in his work, which always looked good, and that he could get his patient to quickly answer questions the way he wanted a little more easily this shift. Oh, and maybe he'd get a good chuckle or two out of the deal. That was the most important thing.

Going up to Daniel, he held up the end of the wire. "If you'd be so kind as to lift your arm up? Don't worry, this won't hurt you." Badly, anyway.

L gave Venkman a hint of a cold smile: his mouth curved up, but his gaze remained dead. He did not lift his arm.

"You have a degree in psychology and a degree in parapsychology, yes?" His speech was soft and precise. "And you have been affiliated with" -- he peered at the wall above the shelf -- "'Ghostbusters.' I'm sorry to say, Dr. Venkman, that I think I would prefer to see you demonstrate the apparatus on yourself before I submit to it." He had been dragged to the Institute, but he would not, of his own free will, offer himself up as a guinea pig for pseudo-scientific "therapies," particularly ones that were connected to an electrical current and administered by a man who did not seem to have a medical degree.

He tilted his head to the side, as if he wanted to view Venkman from a different angle, and conceded, "At the very least, you could explain to me how it works, and how it is meant to assist in my recovery."

Edited 2010-01-29 10:42 (UTC)

Venkman put on a mock pouting face. "Aw, baby afraid of a little static shock? I understand. It's like being afraid of needles. People get themselves all worked up over one little pinprick just because it seems so weird." He made little wiggling motions with his hands and fingers on that last word. "There, there, it's perfectly natural to think that way. No need to worry."

Though he seemed nonchalant on the outside about Daniel's refusal to be subjected to the machine, Venkman was most definitely irritated by it. His patient was asking exactly the sort of questions he himself would have been asking had someone presented him with such a dubious device. It was like he was playing with a crazier, possibly somewhat smarter version of himself. How to get around that? Was there some weakness of Daniel's that he could play off of?

Venkman wandered around to the other side of the desk, hoping that movement would help him to think of something. "If it makes you feel better to know, then what I'm aiming for is to see what effect small, negative reinforcements have on perception of the self in a paranoid delusional state," he explained in the meanwhile, throwing out a few random, psychologically relevant terms as they seemed to fit. As he spoke, his eyes fell upon one of his top drawers - the one where he kept a few pieces of junk food for himself. Among other things, he had a couple of good candy bars in there. He raised an eyebrow. Hadn't it said somewhere in Daniel's file that he was more than a little bit partial to sweets?

Opening the drawer, Venkman pulled out two of the bars. One he set on the edge of the desk nearest him; the other he took in hand. He then casually plopped down into his leather chair, letting it spin around once as he began to carefully unwrap it, showing the thick milk chocolate underneath the silver foil. "But, of course, I'm not gonna make you do anything you don't want to do, Danny Boy. Patient consent and all that," he said with an exaggerated sigh, taking a bite out of the bar at the best possible angle Daniel could see it at. "If you're not interested in being part of groundbreaking research, that's fine by me. I'll just sit here and wait 'til they say you've been in here long enough." He took another bite. Mmmm, was that caramel? That was good stuff. Nice and chewy, but not overly sticky. There were little almond bits in there too, adding just the right amount of crunch to the confection. Doyleton sure didn't slouch in bringing in quality candy stuff.

He gave Daniel a brief glance. "Oh, 'm frry, di' 'u 'an' s'me?" he asked with his mouth still full, gesturing to the still-wrapped bar on the desk. He swallowed, then added. "Oh wait, that's right. Rewards are for participants in the scientific process only. How silly of me to forget."

In response to the suggestion that he might be afraid of mild pain, L shot a look at Venkman that was both deadpan and scornful. However, he gave his full attention to the explanation of what the machine was intended to do, and when it was finished, his smile returned.

... No, I think you are only looking for an excuse to shock me with your machine. Either it is pure sadism, or it is an attempt to make it look as if you have accomplished something. Or, the real experiment is to see how long it will take for me to accede to your request.

How qualified are you for this position, Dr. Venkman?

"You shouldn't waste your time." His tone was casual, now; conversational. "It was proven decades ago that negative reinforcement will have no effect at all on the paranoid delusional state. Apart from that, how have you structured the experiment? What desirable habit will be formed by cessation of these shocks? Maybe you are speaking of punishment rather than negative reinforcement."

The candy bar looked delicious, he had to admit, and the smell of it was getting to him. The suggestion, though, was not just that he cooperate, but that he perform like a monkey or a rat. If Landel's were a normal psychiatric hospital, and he had been trapped there for five days, he might have been more accommodating; however, after his experiences the first and second nights and the third day, the chances of him willingly submitting to forced participation in an experiment of this kind were almost nil.

"I am only curious, Dr. Venkman."

"Hey, who's the scientist here?" Venkman again had to give the guy props for knowing the right questions to ask and the right holes to poke. That didn't mean he had to like it. "This kind of stuff works on all the time autistic kids. Why not on other disorders, I say." He knew perfectly well why; autism and delusional states were two entirely different phenomena. What worked for one would not necessarily work for the other. Still, there was no way to know for sure until they actually tested it, right? "Thus, science marches forward."

He left a long pause there, watching Daniel's scornful gaze. He finally sighed in annoyance, then turned his chair back to face the younger man. "Look, just take the wire and I'll give you a freakin' candy bar. You want out of here faster and with sugar in hand, and I want something that looks good on my report at the end of the day. The shocks are seriously not that strong. It's win-win. Now can we get on with this?"

L heaved a deep sigh, managing to sound thoroughly put-upon. "Autism and the paranoid delusional state are nothing alike; there should be no specific correlation between effective treatments." As to who the scientist is, Dr. Venkman, he thought, I'm really not sure.

"If you are merely concerned about whether or not you have something to write on your report, there are two options. One is that you can demonstrate to me that the shock is harmless by using it on yourself first; if it is as minor as you say, I will probably consent. The other is that you could simply write on your report that I accepted the shock and that it worked in the manner which you hypothesized: in other words, falsify your results." There was a leading note in his tone which suggested that the ownership of the candy bar in question would, of course, be transferred to him at that point.

"Either way, given my experiences this week, and the manner in which I was brought here on Sunday, I am leery of accepting a pointless therapy which I do not know to be safe, particularly one which you are so obviously eager to administer."

He avoided continuing this line of discussion: You made me experience my mother's death; you subverted my identity. Venkman was only a representative of the responsible parties -- there was nothing in this meeting that suggested he might have masterminded the mistreatment -- but he had more authority than any one else with whom L had come face-to-face so far. L maintained his outward calm, but his fury began to well up again; pushing it back required awareness and concentration.

"To be honest, Dr. Venkman, I do not think that having something to write on your report is your only motivation."

Venkman left a long pause there, letting Daniel's last statement hang for just the right amount of time. "You're absolutely right. That isn't my only motivation," he answered then, leaning his elbow on the desk and propping up his chin in his hand. "My other motivation is doing as little actual work as I can."

With his other hand, he casually reached for Daniel's file and a pen. He began to scribble a few notes in it. "Okaaay here. Subject accepted the experimental treatment with promise of reward. Began responding to questions favorably after associating the negative punishment with answers conforming to delusional identity. Check back next session to see how well test results hold up," he read aloud slowly as he wrote before dotting the last period with a solid note of satisfaction.

Looking back up at his patient, he gave Daniel a wry grin. "All right, so you win this time, Bond." Venkman put down his pen and flipped the wrapped chocolate over the desk in Daniel's direction. "Just wait up 'til next time, though. We'll try something different, maybe. Something that works better on bug-eyed weirdos," he added, taking his index and middle fingers and making the universal "I'm watching you" gesture.

"Now get outta here. You're botherin' me," he finished with a short chuckle, taking another bite of his own bar.

"Mr. Youngberg, wake up. You can't miss meeting your therapist, can you?"

Lugnut groaned, muzzily, into his pillow. He felt weak and trembling and hollow, and oh, his shoulder hurt, and his legs, and the human was trying to make him move...

"Come on, Hal, you've already slept through breakfast. I know you're not feeling well after that little fall you had, but you can't stay in bed forever."

Dully bitter, he grumbled something like "Yes, I can," but still the human nagged at him, its high voice as irritating as grit in his servos, and eventually he nudged the blankets away from him and let the human half-drag his human body from the bed, just to quiet it. Every inch was pain in his limbs, was a fight against this useless body, but he made it upright eventually, and trudged listlessly behind the human as it led him someplace he'd never been, letting him into a room with another human.

He stared at the human, blankly, looking grey and dull and as if he were half a breath away from tumbling over like a shallow-rooted tree in a hurricane.

Oh boy. Suddenly playing with electric shocks didn't seem quite as fun anymore. Yet, anyway. Hal certainly was a big guy, as had been described in his file, but he barely looked imposing in this state. The file had included some nurse's notes about not eating enough, but he hadn't thought it was this bad. Venkman wasn't normally one someone could expect much sympathy from, but this looked just sad.

"Come over here, sit down. Look like your gonna fall over if I blow on you, for Christ's sake," he muttered, pulling out a chair for Hal and gesturing for him to sit in it.

Lugnut hesitated for a moment, then did as he was told; any rebellion would have been merely for rebellion's sake, and would have earned him nothing from this place, this place that had already taken Lord Megatron and Blitzwing.

Once he'd sat down, he closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself-- what had that irritating human called this? Therapy? It was happening during the day, so it was likely just some bizarre fleshling thing he would have to endure-- then sighed and opened them again, looking at the human who had told him to sit with a sort of blank air about him.

Venkman went around to his own chair and sat down, leaving the machine for the time being. He would probably get to it in a bit if it seemed like the guy needed a good jolt of reality, but it wouldn't do any good to start with it right off the bat.

He spidered his fingertips, resting his elbows on the desk as he looked Hal over. He was almost tempted to diagnose him with real-deal Depression just by looking at him. And an eating disorder or two. This stuff really hadn't been in the file at all, or at least not enough. Thanks for the heads-up, Landel, Venkman thought, rolling his eyes a bit.

Silence for a little longer. "You wanna talk about it?" he asked in defeat after a bit, not able to find a much better segue into things. Might as well go with the straight-forward approach for now.

"It?" Lugnut asked, voice low and tired. What it? There were a million things that it could be, and none that he particularly wanted to talk to a human about, though his wants were particularly irrelevant in this place. He wanted his wingmate at his side and this place burning at his feet, he wanted Lord Megatron's clear wisdom and strength to follow, he wanted to not collapse from the pain of minor wounds and to drink energon and oil again and to fly, yet here he was, helpless as a protoform and subjected to the whims of humans.

"Yeah, 'it,'" Venkman said back, being surprisingly good and holding back an irritated look. That could be saved for if the guy kept up the mostly-silent treatment. "Everything. Something's obviously wrong - you're not exactly Mr. Sunshine and Lollipops right now. And it's my job to listen, so—" Venkman shrugged and held up his hands "—I'm listening. Tell me what's on your mind, Big Guy. What's got you down?"

Miss an oil change, maybe? Damn, that was a good one. Maybe next time he had a quip like that on the tip of his tongue, he would actually let it out. It all depended on how agreeable Hal was.

Lugnut didn't hold back his own irritated look. Did the human want a list, ennumerating the ways Lugnut hated his situation? Well, the human could have it, and Lugnut started, "I was shot in the shoulder last night, lost my flashlight, and delayed my party to the point where the night ended before they finished treating my wounds, making the whole excursion worse than pointless. Lord Megatron has been taken by this place. Blitzwing has been..." Killed, offlined, sent to the well of Allsparks. "... likewise been taken from me. I'm here. I'm in this useless, weak body. HK-47 associates with Lockdown. My surest ally is an Autobot..." The last point made him sigh, deflating somewhat, and looking less blank and more absolutely miserable.

Venkman sat. Venkman stared. Venkman's expression remained neutral.

"That bad, huh?"

A big "hoo boy" sigh was let out then, and Venkman drummed his fingers together. What to say to all that? On the one hand, this was one big ball of crazy just ready to be picked apart and mocked for all it was worth. On the other, the guy seemed completely sincere and distraught about the whole thing. He could just end up hurt even more if Venkman wasn't careful.

On the other other hand, this was one big ball of crazy just ready to be picked apart and mocked for all it was worth.

He wasn't going to go all out for fear of getting punched in the mouth, but he did feel an approach to Hal's problems forming in his mind. "Now this 'Megatron.' He's a heck of a guy, I take it - sorry, robot. Otherwise you wouldn't call him 'Lord,'" he started, putting emphasis on the word "robot" to highlight his dubiousness on that front. "Tell me some more about him, then. Why's he such hot stuff?"

Typical fleshling ignorance, but Lugnut had never been one to pass up talking about his liege, his lord, his god-and-religion-in-one. "Lord Megatron is much more than a 'heck of a guy'; he is my liege, and I have always done as he commands, for his wisdom is far greater than my own," he began, voice unusually quiet for how fervent his words were, "far greater than anyone's. He is a great leader, and will be the savior of the Decepticons, leading us to rise up against the Autobots and, someday, take our home back from them."

His gaze had slowly risen to the ceiling, a fervor that was entirely religious lighting his expression, before he leveled a look at the human, one that was meant to be angry but came across as helplessness. "He was in this place, his glory undiminished even in the human forms you've forced upon us; then he was not. You've taken him someplace, or killed him, or crippled him with your reprogramming."

So Megatron was basically Robot Jesus. Outstanding.

"Okay, okay. I get that. Everyone's gotta look up to someone. Sure, some people - let's call them, oh, say, 'normal people' - prefer to stop at smaller idols. Athletes. Actors. Musicians. Humanitarians. Presidents." Ghostbusters. "But not you - you shoot high. Right for the giant, cartoon-like robots."

Venkman raised an eyebrow on the term "cartoon-like." A judging pause was left before he continued. "Anyway, you said you saw him here in 'human form,' and I take it you don't think this is your true form either. Now how do you think you guys got like that? After all, it's not every day giant, sentient, talking, world-domination-bent, sinisterly-named robots suddenly turn into Joe Schmoe from New Jersey." Venkman had been sorely to stop his sentence before the "suddenly," but this way, the dig fit in better with what he had already said. Though, as a side point, he did add: "Seriously, 'Decepticons'? You guys gotta get better marketing, man."

[OOC: Sorry this took so long! Work was tiring over the weekend, so I only got to a couple of tags in all. x_x Backthread after shift changes?]

Lugnut scowled, helplessly, and huddled slightly in his chair. "I don't know how it was done, or why. If I new, I would have reversed it, and crushed this place and all you vile organics." He paused, then added, almost sorrowfully, "Then bombed you for what you did to my wingmate, until there was nothing left of this place but a glassy crater and smoke."

[S'all right, it happens. <3 And that sounds good to me!]

Venkman laced his fingers together and leaned forward so that his mouth was hidden behind his hands. He was on the verge of grinning at the thought of Landel's Institute as a crater. It wasn't necessarily a sight he would be against seeing. Sure, they were paying him well, but there were definitely a few less-than-desirable things about the place and how it was run that a good bombing wouldn't cure. It wouldn't do any good to let the big guy see that kind of expression when he was acting so damn sorrowful about the whole thing, though.

"Yeah, I know you don't know. That's not what I asked. I asked what you thought might have happened," he pointed out bluntly. "Can you seriously think of any possible way that something that crazy could happen?"

Lugnut gave it some earnest thought.

"... I do not know enough about organics to know what is possible with these bodies. Mapping our processors onto whatever primitive nervous system your kind has, perhaps. What you have done with our sparks, I do not know." It was a distressing thought, his spark, his soul, his life not being within his own body; he looked away and down, obviously not very happy about the idea.

"Well I can tell you right now, then: that sort of thing is not possible with 'organics.' At all," said Venkman, finally getting to the big smack of reality he had been waiting for. "Mapping processors onto the nervous system? What, are you high? What are we going to do that with? An army of Apple computers running Playing God OS 1.5? Human beings are smart, but they're not that smart."

He stared Hal right in the eye, giving him a very frank look. "I think your 'spark' is still inside your body right this second. And it probably always has been, whether you want to see that or not."

Lugnut snorted, skeptically, and huddled deeper into his seat. "What would I know? You think I'm an insane human. You humans think we're all insane." It was irritating at best, being ignored, having who he was and is and would always be called a fantasy, a delusion, meaningless.

As for having his spark within... "Don't be ridiculous. Organics don't have sparks," he said, as if it were common knowledge that anything non-robotic was soulless.

"Hey, don't you go dissing my spark," Venkman said sarcastically, making a lazy attempt at a hand gesture used by those rising rap artists he'd heard from sometimes. He continued after that: "Seriously, if there's one thing my past work has shown me, it's that people have something inside them besides meat, bones and brain cells. I don't really know what that is exactly. It turns to slimy ectoplasm stuff when a ghost is formed, but it is something. Probably what you call a spark. What I'd call a soul."

It actually kind of worried Venkman that Hal essentially thought people were soulless. There were a lot of things Venkman didn't believe in, but souls (or something like them) were the one kooky, pseudo-spiritual thing he actually had proof of. That was a comforting thought, wasn't it? Life after death, harmony with God, and whatever else that entailed. If Hal now thought that sort of thing was only possible with these robots of his, then he suspected that some kind of spiritual crisis might have been the trigger for his delusions. How to ask about that, though, if he had blocked out the human part of his brain?

"What about that wingmate of yours that you mentioned. He's a 'Decepticon' too, I take it. What happened to him exactly?" Venkman asked, thinking maybe if he found out more about this person Hal had lost, he could get some clues to the root of Hal's problems. Good God, he was starting to feel like a real-deal psychiatrist. That couldn't be good.

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Day 47: Doctor's Office 5 (Dr. Venkman) [Second Shift]

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[Sorry for the reposts. Caught a couple separate typos and messed one up a second time. XD;;]

[No worries! <3 ]

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[Luggers: LORD MEGATRON <3 ]

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