Lansing: Just one more thing. Why did you tell him those things?
Sweet: What things?
Lansing: Where the bodies were. Where the machines were fighting.
Sweet: He asked.
Lansing: How did he—did he speak to you?
Sweet: Of course.
Lansing: With his voice?
Sweet: How else would he speak to me?
Lansing: Did he sound—was there anything distinctive about the way he spoke?
Sweet: Not really. I mean, his voice was a bit buzzy. But that’s just the suit, right? The microphone.
Lansing: Yes, of course. The microphone.
Sweet: I really have to be on my way, now. I have to, to . . .
Lansing: Follow the light?
Sweet: Yes.
Lansing: Follow it where, Caitlin?
Sweet: I don’t know. Wherever. I’ll know when I get outside.
Lansing: Uptown. Toward the aliens.
Sweet: You don’t really get it, do you Corporal? You don’t get it, because you don’t got it.
Lansing: Got what, Caitlin?
Sweet: This. In my eyes. On my hands. I can even feel it in my head, somehow, it’s growing but it’s not—not evil. It’s all good. That’s why you’ve got me in this cube, isn’t it? You don’t want to catch it.
MedTel Annotation: Halothane introduced into Quar. Cube 19:36
Lansing: We don’t really know what it is yet, ma’am. It just seems prudent to get all the facts before exposing ourselves.
Sweet: Well, then, you’ll never get anywhere, will you? You’ll never have all the facts until you know what it feels like. And you’ll never know what it feels like until you’re exposed. And you won’t expose yourself until you’ve got all the facts . . .
Lansing: Yes, ma’am.
Sweet: It’s just a funny little circle. You’re running around and around . . .
Lansing: Yes, ma’am. Would you like to see Emma now?
Sweet: . . . Emm . . .?
Lansing: Your daughter, ma’am. Would you like to see her?
Sweet: Oh, isn’t that nice . . .
Lansing: Ma’am?
Sweet: The screaming . . . stopped . . .
MedTel Annotation: Subject loses consciousness 19:37
Subject Disposition: Routine. Transferred to Trinity Center for culture/autopsy. Custody transferred 22:34 (S. M. Samenski receiving).
Notes & Comments: Subject presented mild physical symptoms of early infection (acidosis, mild vitreous turbidity) but no obvious signs of Rapture during initial processing (note, however, that her self-reported, almost unconscious movement toward centers of high Charybdis density is consistent with incipient Wanderlust). Rapid onset of more obvious behavioral changes was apparent during the course of this interview, a period of only 12 minutes; this is significantly faster than preliminary results led us to expect. Changes in speech patterns suggest elevated metabolism in the religious circuitry of the temporal lobe, but we are still awaiting Trinity’s galvanic-necropsy results.
Subject’s daughter (SWEET, EMMA, SUBJ. #430–10024-DR) showed no signs of infection at autopsy despite extended close proximity to infected subject post-infection. We have yet to encounter an instance of person-to-person transmission.
Flag D. Lockhart/L. Aiyeola/L. Lutterodt: Subject claims Prophet spoke to her, contradicting telemetry intercepts suggesting that his injuries had rendered him effectively mute. It is possible that Prophet’s injuries are not as severe as we’ve been led to believe; this also raises obvious information-management concerns, should Prophet engage in conversation with other civilians.
Motherhood issues. That’s what you guys live for, isn’t it?
Shrinks, of course. Neuromechanics. Psychiatrists. Therapists. What, you thought I didn’t know? You thought I didn’t have you pegged the moment you opened your mouth? I don’t care how many stripes you’re wearing, Roger; you ain’t no soldier. And who else would they send in to talk to a suit full of bad wiring?
Anyway, it’s what you guys live for. That and sexual dysfunction. They haven’t outfitted the N2 with a hydraulic dick, more’s the pity. I do have this rubberized nozzle rammed up my ass so I don’t soil the suit; I suppose that might come in handy for giggles as well as shits if you swing that way, which I don’t.
But yeah, I’ve racked up such a rep for killing things that it actually makes you suspicious when I take a moment to help out a mom and her little girl. Maybe you think there’s a bit of a weird vibe there and that’s all you need to go to town, right? Shrinks and mommy issues.
Okay, then. Let me tell you about my mother.
She was a cunt.
Not always, mind you. Not at first. She was never Parent of the Year material—bit on the judgmental side, that just goes with the whole Bible Belt mind-set—but at least she wasn’t a drunk or a methhead. Never hit me. Never forgot me on the luggage carousel. Perfectly decent woman, you know? No complaints, all while I was growing up.
Then the dementia hit, and holy fucking Christ.
She’d turn into a monster. Not full-time, not in the early stages anyway, but sometimes she’d just—snap. Turn into this rabid snarling animal. ’Course she was getting on by then, and times weren’t great generally. My folks lost most of their savings in the Double Dip, which meant they couldn’t replace those fancy antique plates we had after she threw them at me during one of her episodes. All we had left was that cheap plastic shit that would barely dent if you dropped it from orbit. And I wasn’t around much by then, for obvious reasons, so she started whaling on Dad instead. Poor bastard never fought back—some TwenCen bullshit about not supposed to hit a lady, he wouldn’t last a day in today’s armed forces let me tell you. I came home on furlough one weekend and he’d locked himself in the bathroom and she was stabbing at the door with a goddamn screwdriver. He was one big fucking bruise, all purple and yellow, this gentle old fart who never hurt anyone. I mean, he was seventy-five years old! And that was when I decided, enough. I gave the old cunt a choice between the police station and the psych ward. I never saw her again after I got her institutionalized. Not once.
But what really pissed me off was the way people kept making excuses for her.
Nobody saw a monster. All anybody saw was a victim of the disease. That’s why Dad never hit back, It’s not her fault, it’s the dementia. People would visit her in the home and she’d rant and spit and say all these vile things about Dad and everyone would just sadly shake their heads and say, “It’s the Alzheimer’s speaking, how can you cut her off like that, she’s your mother.”
But the thing was, they couldn’t have it both ways. If this was the disease, then it wasn’t my mother at all; my mother had died years ago, she died when the dementia undid all the circuits that made her what she was and rewired her into this vicious twisted body-snatcher thing made out of recycled meat. In which case I owed it nothing. And if she was my mother, well, then my mother was a rabid dog that needed to be put down if you ask me, and I didn’t owe that thing any special breaks, either.
No matter how you looked at it, I was off the hook. Switch the wiring, pimp the neurotransmitters, and mother turns into other. There’s nothing fixed about who or what we are, Roger. Even if it looks the same, it’s not. It’s all just wetware to be wiped, rewritten, rebooted. I learned that when I was just a kid, I learned that without any of your fancy degrees or candy-colored MRI readouts.