MacLean came in about half an hour before he was expected. Benson could only stop and stare at his unexpected guest. MacLean calmly walked through the door, shut it behind him, sat down in his usual chair, and gave Dr. Benson an expectant look. When Benson did not say anything right away, MacLean went ahead and filled the silence. “What? Don’t I have an interview today? You were gonna take down my story for a United Nations commission, or some shit?”
“Oh, ummm… of course,” said Benson, who tried to recover himself as he manipulated the recorder on his desk. “I didn’t expect you so soon, that’s all. Right then… Now, then… as I recall, you were going to tell me about your last days at the Foundation.”
The last straw. Right. That’s right. I’m starting to remember….
MacLean nodded. Benson noted that he seemed significantly more alert today. “Yes. I’d been thinking about quitting the Taskforces for a very long time, but there was one last thing that clinched it for me. I’d… been dealing with paranoia and depression for a long time before that, but that’s more or less normal for the foundation. I think I had my first nervous breakdown after.”
Benson waited for MacLean to continue. Just before Benson started to feel inclined to push MacLean along as usual, MacLean spoke up again, “The paperwork called it Incident 1102-05. We were searching through this disused apartment for… we didn’t know what, really. It was the same old story, agents go in, no one comes out, the brass decides to send in more firepower.” MacLean sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if I was cursed, or something, because I seemed to keep getting the worst jobs. I was already way past my sell-by date as an MTF, so I wasn’t feeling optimistic, but I thought it couldn’t be any worse than any of the shit I’d already done. In retrospect, I don’t really think I was wrong, but I still underestimated how crazy and dangerous the place we were going into was.”
