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The plane landed and pulled to a stop at the King Vladik International Airport. The airport was primitive, so the plane did not pull up to the terminal. Workers instead wheeled staircases to the front and back doors of the plane. Kim, Tiffany, and the two cops accompanying them walked with the other passengers to the terminal. Right outside the entrance Vladim Dukov, as well as his son Vladik and his partner, were waiting. Kim's temporary escort saluted Vladik, said goodbye to Kim, and departed into the terminal. As her nervous and forlorn client looked on, Kim saluted Vladik and his partner, who saluted back. She then presented Vladim Dukov's faxes. In Danubian Kim announced:
"Officer, I am entering the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia with the United States citizen Tiffany Walker, who has volunteered to return to the Duchy to face charges of marijuana possession, direct perjury, and indirect perjury resulting from offenses committed July 2, two years ago."
"Very well, Apprentice Lee, I am declaring your client, the American Tiffany Walker, under arrest for the crimes of marijuana possession, direct perjury, and indirect perjury."
Kim turned to Tiffany to address her in English. "OK, that's it. You're under arrest. Turn around because Officer Dukov needs to cuff you."
Once the handcuffs were on, Vladik's female partner firmly gripped Tiffany's arm, not painfully but with enough force to let the prisoner know who was in charge.
Once Tiffany was properly subdued and handcuffed, Kim saluted Vladik and made another for-the-record statement in Danubian.
"The United States citizen Tiffany Walker will require medical treatment for methamphetamine and heroin addiction before she is processed through the Danubian judicial system. I request that my client be placed under medical confinement instead of judicial confinement. Furthermore, I request that the National Police of the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia utilize the public resources necessary to conduct a full medical evaluation of her condition and to remove all traces of illicit narcotics from her body. I request that Tiffany Walker's medical needs be fully resolved before any judicial action is taken against her by the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia."
"That request is granted, Apprentice. I will escort this prisoner to the medical treatment center of the Danube City National Hospital and have her processed for medical observation and chemical detoxification."
Kim turned to Tiffany to explain in English what was going on.
"Alright, these two police officers are taking you to the Danube City National Hospital and putting you under the care of the police doctor. They'll have to test you to see what's in your body. I'll have to catch up, 'cause I need to get my bags and get our passports stamped. I gotta drop my bags off at Spokesman Dukov's office and pick up your police file from two years ago."
Tiffany was shaking from both fear and withdrawal, which was starting up in earnest. Vladik and his partner pushed her into a nearby squad car and they took off. Kim and Vladim Dukov entered Customs to get the needed stamps for the two US passports. The Spokesman and his trainee signed a series of certificates to formally declare Tiffany's entry into the country as a prisoner. Then they went to the luggage claim area and picked up Kim's two suitcases. Since they were not police officers, they had to return to Danube City by trolley.
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By the time Kim and Vladim Dukov appeared in the hospital with Tiffany's paperwork, Kim's client was in a large hospital room with a large group of medical students. Kim realized from the noises coming from the room that Tiffany already was suffering from full-scale withdrawal. She screamed and ranted as she endured bouts of extreme paranoia and delusions. When Kim entered the room, she saw Tiffany naked on a hospital bed, with several students trying to control her by holding her arms and legs. Other students and doctors were standing near the door frantically taking notes and thumbing through reports or papers downloaded from the Internet. Tiffany was the first real case of methamphetamine withdrawal any of them had directly witnessed, which presented them with a real learning opportunity.
Kim winced at seeing Tiffany going through her personal hell. The Danubians believed in treating drug withdrawal cold-turkey, so there were no sedatives, just multiple hands holding her down. A couple of the medical students who spoke English were trying to communicate with her, but were making little headway.
Kim grimly watched for about an hour. After a protracted struggle, Tiffany finally calmed down, as her keepers nervously checked her vital signs and consulted their notes. Kim realized her client was about to crash again. She asked the old head doctor for his evaluation of Tiffany's condition. He responded by handing her a copy of the results of the medical tests. Tiffany had tested positive for high levels of methamphetamine in her body. She also had tested positive for heroin, as well as trace amounts of cocaine, marijuana, and valium. She later would need to be treated for Chlamydia and amoebas, as well as have some serious cavities in several of her teeth filled. He commented:
"There's quite a bit that's wrong with her, but fortunately it looks like we can fix all of it and she'll lead a normal life. Well, a normal life for a criminal, anyhow. She's not damaged beyond repair, and you should give thanks to the Ancients that you managed to get her treatment when you did."
The doctor handed over some additional papers and signature forms, along with Tiffany's mini-skirt, G-string, and t-shirt. Kim took the clothes, not really sure what to do with them. As a condition of her impending sentence, Tiffany would not be allowed to get dressed again until she was 55 years old.
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There wasn't much more Kim could do for Tiffany that night, so she spent the evening with Sergekt. He chose not to go to the airport when he found out about Tiffany, knowing that Kim needed to focus her energies on her new client. Kim, hugely relieved that Tiffany was safely undergoing withdrawal in a supervised situation, finally decided to go home and change, then call Sergekt.
Sergekt and Kim greeted each other in the proper manner of an average engaged couple, using correct protocol. Sergekt kissed Kim's hand and then she kissed his. They did not hug, because hugging was something done in private. Criminals hugged in public and no one said anything about that, but Kim and Sergekt no longer were criminals. They were free citizens, and with freedom also came responsibilities and protocol. They would be a serious couple determined to be strict and upright in their behavior, and exercise "proper values" at all times.
Precisely because Kim and Sergekt had suffered so many humiliations and indignities as criminals, they were fixated with achieving respectability from the people around them, which was a common obsession among recently released offenders in Upper Danubia. Ex-criminals tended to over-compensate for their sentences with proper protocol and formal behavior during the first several months after their collars were off, an obsession that usually faded after while. Kim and Sergekt were in the first stages of their lives as free citizens, which meant reasserting their dignity was still very much on their minds.
As the long summer afternoon slowly faded into dusk, Kimberly Lee and Sergekt Dolkiv walked down the streets of Danube City. It was the very first time in their lives they were downtown together as normal citizens, not criminals. Kim had changed into a light sun-dress, while Sergket was wearing a loose-fitting traditional shirt and modern cargo pants. Kim was wearing the three engagement items Sergekt had given her the previous fall, which she would be expected to wear on a daily basis for the rest of her life, unless she was at the beach or exercising.
Kim talked about her trip to the U.S. and her feelings about having extracted Tiffany from her death spiral.
"It's strange how it all happened. In school she was the leader of our group. She was real popular and always got everyone to do what she wanted. You never argued with Tiffany, because if you did, she knew how to put you in your place. But, you wanted to please her, because she was a lot of fun to be around. She had real charisma and people really liked her. But now, she's...just emptied out, maybe like a glass of wine that got tipped over. There's nothing there, except her addictions and a bunch of self-pity. Everything she was in high school, the way she got people to like her, the fun, it's gone. I'm confident the path of her life is to recover, but she won't be the same. I don't know whether to feel good about that or not."
They walked in silence for a while, along the river in the twilight of the European summer. Kim continued.
"She learned a very hard lesson in Frankfurt, when I cleaned out her purse and started bossing her around. I'm not her friend anymore. I'm her Spokeswoman and she's my client. I'll run her life, and she'll have to do what I tell her. She'll have to get on her knees when she greets me and ask my permission if she wants to do anything. If she disobeys me I'll ask Officer Vladik Dukov to switch her. That's going to be hard, because I still have some pictures of us, back when we were in high school, when it was her telling me what to do. But, with her addictions, I don't see how it can be any other way."
