Chapter 118: She Isn't Mad, She's Just Crazy.
Pat hummed as he turned his swivel chair around again. Just how shady did someone have to be to get Mark\'s attention like this? Pat started to type out on his computer and he grabbed Salazar\'s public records from the government database. He picked up a small squeezeball at the side as he started to read off the important parts while playing with it
"Orphaned at 12, joined the army at eighteen, and survived through two military tours to Afghanistan before leaving the army when he was thirty, and then joining the NSA after the Armageddon attack. No wife, no children, no relatives. He\'s the sort of person who ends up as a ghost member of the black ops or something. What the hell is with this shady-ass bio?"
Pat did not hide his surprise as he read through Salazar\'s bio and Mark was silent as he committed everything to memory. Mark was already sure that Salazar was going to be an issue, so Mark was going to try to get rid of him before things could get out of hand. But finding a way to get rid of someone who was so deeply intertwined with the government was difficult.
Especially since Mark was technically just a child and no one would believe him if he went and told them that Salazar was evil.
What could he possibly say? I saw his affiliation through my True Sight skill so I am sure that he is evil. That was stupid and no one would believe it.
Since asking for Salazar to be put in jail immediately was out of the question, Mark had to stay one step ahead of Salazar and then catch Salazar in the act. That way there would be no doubt and Mark could send that bastard away.
"Should I put a few surveillance cameras on him? I don\'t think he will be too much trouble to track. Government officials are usually in the open a lot."
"Yeah, thanks. I don\'t know what he is going to do, but just keep an eye on him until you find something unusual."
"You seem certain that he will do something."
Mark glared at the image of Salazar on the screen.
"You didn\'t see what I saw. That bastard is definitely going to try something. The only question is when."
...
"Well, your girlfriend isn\'t normal, that\'s for sure."
Mark and Arit were sitting on the couch in the middle of the living room while Jeanne spoke to them. There was some ruckus echoing from inside Pat\'s room, but everyone just ignored it as she spoke about what the results of the diagnosis were.
Jeanne tried her best to explain it using simple terms that normal people who weren\'t doctors would understand, but she still found it a little difficult since Arit\'s condition was so special.
"You don\'t have to be afraid that she will suddenly lose her mind and someone else will take over, I looked over her mind and I can tell that it is all her in there, but that doesn\'t mean there aren\'t any side effects from the… I don\'t even know what to call this. Psychological Merge? Well, yes, whatever this is, there are some side effects from it.
For one thing, she possesses almost no moral restraints now and this allows her subconscious mind to speak to her like it is a different person entirely. Something like having a split personality. They are both her, but there is still a massive difference between the both of them.
"I guess I can call it a metamorphosis of sorts. Arit and QUEEN are no longer two different entities. You can say that they merged and they are now one entity with two distinct personalities in one body. It\'s almost like being a psychopath honestly. Your girlfriend isn\'t mad, she\'s just crazy."
Jeanne tried to think of a more medical term to use in describing what happened to Arit, but she just couldn\'t. Arit told Jeanne how the QUEEN corrupted her and also how she was constantly hearing QUEEN\'s voice in her head, so Jeanne was sure that this was a psychological issue, not a physical one.
But that really didn\'t help Mark at all and Mark just raised a brow as he waited for Jeanne to continue. They didn\'t just come here to find out if Arit was crazy or not. Hearing voices in your head is one indication that you are at least a little crazy and Mark was not surprised by that information.
They came to see if there was a way to reverse the problem or to get rid of the voices once and for all.
Mark asked Jeanne if there was anything more and Jeanne scratched her hair with a sigh.
"There really isn\'t any way for the two of them to be separated from each other. At least, there isn\'t any way that I know of. You know what my ability is, I\'m sure, and you know it is pretty versatile when it comes down to healing people. But I can\'t heal Arit because as far as her body is concerned, there is nothing wrong with her.
The voice in her head is a part of her, so trying to get rid of it would be like trying to take her heart out of her body. She\'ll drop dead."
Jeanne carried out a lot of analysis on Arit, and after everything, she was certain that there was no way that Arit could be separated from the QUEEN. The two of them were permanently joined together and it was only through sheer luck that Arit was able to take control of the body instead of QUEEN.
Jeanne remembered how Arit almost attacked her at the start of the diagnosis and even though she was still a bit put off by it, she couldn\'t blame Arit for that either. That reaction was not something that Arit could have stopped even if she wanted to. It is the same way your leg jerks when they hit your knee with a small hammer. It was an involuntary reaction from Arit for self-defense.