Oh, Bugger - Ellen (16)

I'd never seen Greg flip out like that before. Well, actually I had. Once. But that was a long time ago. The point is, I'd certainly never expected to see Greg flip out like that again. I could see that the whole recruitment thing was really getting to him. Under the circumstances, there were two things I could have done. Option one was to pat Greg on the shoulder and say something supportive, to the effect of, "There, there, Greg. It's okay." But I decided to go with option two, which consisted of crossing my arms, glaring at him, and saying, "Are you finished?"
He said nothing, so I marched up to him, grabbed the microphone, and spoke into it.
"Ian?"
After a moment, a frightened, hesitant voice answered, "Yeah?"
"Hi, my name's Ellen. I'm going to get you out of this, okay?"
"Okay."
Greg was giving me a look which clearly said, okay, hotshot. Let's see what you have in mind. When you fall on your face, I'll try not to laugh.
"Where'd the guy from the mall go?" Ian asked.
"He's right here. I'm the person who talked to your parents."
"Oh. Hi." Poor kid.
"Listen, Ian. You've gone through what we call 'the Other Door.' I'm going to guide you back to that door. You have to listen very carefully and believe what I say. All right?"
"Yes."
"Does it feel like there is a floor under your feet?"
"No."
Greg sighed in exasperation. "For God's sake, Ellen, he said he's in nothing!"
I silenced him with a look.
"What you're feeling, Ian, is an illusion of floorlessness," I lied. "There is a floor. I want you to reach down, and touch the floor with your hand, okay? Let me know when you feel the floor."
I held my breath in the tense silence that followed. Finally, Ian said, "Okay. Here it is."
Greg's eyes widened in disbelief.
The thing about the Other Room is that it's meant to make people go away. Normally, seeing the empty hallway that Ian saw upon opening it would convince most people that they had no business there. If that didn't work, however, and a person entered the hallway... something more persuasive was needed.
Beyond the hallway is the worst thing in the world. And it varies from person to person. Some people see fire, or disease, or disaster. Indiana Jones would see snakes. Superman would see kryptonite. Lady Macbeth would see blood. Some people do see darkness. Ian saw nothingness. That one, I had to admit, was pretty terrifying. Absolute nothingness.
It's not exactly real, whatever is in the Other Room. The problem is in convincing the person in there that this is so.
The people responsible for the Other Room had taken into account that their victims would often become paralyzed with terror and unable to leave. That's why the maze room was built. From there, agents and recruiters can help the people inside the Room to move through their fear, usually by repositioning it ("Oh, look, Mr. Jones! The snakes are all moving that way! Run!"), and get to the door. In Ian's case, there was nothing to work with. So I'd reverted to the slightly harder task of making him believe he was imagining things. It did help that he really, really wanted to believe that he was just imagining it.
"Now, move along the floor to your right, and in about six inches you should hit a wall."
A pause.
"Ow."
"What is it, Ian?"
"I hit the wall with my head."
I smiled in relief. "Now, stand up facing the wall and movie along it to the right. About..." I mentally grappled for a number, "five feet in front of you, there is a door."
"Okay. I found it." The poor boy sounded like he wanted to cry with happiness and gratitude.
"Great. I'm going to send Marcus out to get you. You'll recognize him from the mall."
"Thanks, Ellen."
"No problem, kid."
I put down the microphone, stuck my head out the door to give Marcus his instructions, and turned back. Greg was staring at me in frank admiration. "How did you know that would work?" he asked.
I sighed and let my head fall back against the wall. "I didn't," I groaned. In fact I'd never been so sure of disaster in my life as in those few minutes of guiding Ian out of the Other Room. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry. So I lunged at Greg, shouting, "What the hell is the matter with you?"
"What?" he asked.
"I've already got that irritating extra girl who won't shut up, Gillian disabled the ninjas, Ian went through the Other Door, for Pete's sake, and you-- you just have to make it worse by having your little freak-out and undermining my authority in front of the recruits. My recruits, Greg, on my mission. And I'm sorry that you're one of them, but life's tough sometimes, so get used to it!"
I stood in front of him, panting. I'm not sure if Greg had ever seen me flip out before. From his expression, however, it was easy to judge that he hadn't been expecting to see it today. I looked down at my shoes, feeling embarrassed. "Geez, I'm sorry about that. I... don't know what happened."
"Sorry," Greg said, sounding equally uncomfortable.
"Oh, no, forget it." I cleared my throat and managed to look back up. "You're not just a recruit, Greg. You know that."
"Yeah," he mumbled.
"Well, uh... better go back out and talk about business."
"Yeah." Greg said more brightly, now that the awkward moment was over. "What's taking that other one so long, anyway?"
"I don't know, but we'd better post Steve out there to intercept him."
"Yeah." A puzzled look crossed Greg's face. "What I don't get is... Ian said there was a voice on the other side of the door. What could that have been?"
"Don't know. Could be just his imagination. Could be that someone's messing with us." This possibility was not a nice one to consider, and we both knew it. "Don't let on to the others. You'll have to help me keep an eye out."
"Sure," Greg agreed, and turned for the door.
"Oh, and Greg." I stopped him. "Before you go back out there I want you to know..." I raised an eyebrow teasingly. "You look good without the suit."