“He’ll be out in a few.”
“As you know, we have made it clear that military personnel are not to administer field stimulants, primarily Buzz as they call it, to themselves.”
“I’m not in academy, doc.”
“Of course. But why do we give them ability to easily break that rule?”
“What do you mean?”
“They can use their control panel anytime to shoot up, completely bypassing any authority figure.”
“Yes, but the punishment is grave…”
“But it’s there. And you know it’s there for an experiment being conducted—”
“Yes… that. I have been debriefed.”
“Well then this specimen speaks for himself. The authority experiment passed on him even though he broke the rules, something we never even thought of as possible.”
“Elaborate.”
“Private Peter here has been reported to have administered Buzz multiple times on his own initiative. We found it peculiar that he was not indicted on criminal activity and investigated ourselves, even before he ended up here. He is resistant to Buzz—”
“Impossible. Doctor—”
“Please, let me finish Marshall… Somehow, some way, he is. He is the fluke in it all, but get this. Despite being resistant, being able to essentially phase between sobriety and Buzz induced high, he chose Buzz. He chose to follow our authority, the authority of the Party, of the State. By breaking the rules we laid down, he instead self-directed himself to stay aligned to our authority. He could have been our greatest threat, but instead stayed obedient, and our greatest servant. He broke the game, but chose to still follow the rules… it’s rather amazing.”
“He’s squirming.”
“He has been conscious and will remain so till the surgery near his skull is finished. I need to make sure I don’t damage any part of his brain.”
“It’s time?”
“Yes, take a seat.”
“Once this is done, he will go through a phase of psychosis, encountering mental breakdowns and buildups till he is regulated and completely under our control. The beta drugs afterwards are crucial in his psychological therapy for the implants to operate. He will require routine refills like he did before on the field.”
After a few more slices from the cold knife, and pressure build ups around my head, I enter a blank world. Blank like a paper sitting before a writer before they commit any words. This is also how I feel, or don’t: empty, vacant of anything.
The hill in the center forms, but the grass is brown and dry. The weeds on the top have completely withered away and turned black. And the petals from the beautiful roses in the middle have all fallen off, decomposing back into the mound around their collapsed stems. The naked lady sits crisscrossed in front of the dead plant. Her body looks healthy, her hair combed and clean, but it still drops down covering her face. She laughs quietly to herself, as her wrists, free from the vines, relax on her knees.
“Hello? Is anyone out there!”
“Ah, look Mind, he has caught us on our way out.”
“Pity, let us leave quickly Soul, before more harm can be done.”
“Wait! Stay please, I need you to help me.”
“Body, begging is useless. The fact we have stayed so long already shows how much you have corrupted me so far. I fear the other Souls won’t even accept me now.”
“Or I,” says Mind.
“Don’t go! I need your help! You’re a part of me, remember?”
“We were. We were, Body. Before you became a monster,” says Soul.
“Hey! Stay, please!”
Nothing.
“Where are you? Come back!”
Nothing.
“Please.”
I am on my cot. The room is dark as I look around still tied to the bed.
“Peee-teer.”
“Who’s there!”
“Oh Peee-teer.”
“St—stop! Who are you?”
“Oh Pee-ter, you don’t know?”
A horrible face appears on the ceiling above me. Scarred and twisted. The very essence of terror!
“Pee-ter, look at me.”
“Stop, leave me alone!” I try to turn away from the face.
“I said look at me!”
The face glides down to within a few centimeters of my face. The darkness of the room exemplifies, only showing the horrible face.
“LOOK AT ME!” it shrieks into my face.
“Stop!” I close my eyes to try and escape it. Something rips at my skin. A cold piercing pain! I feel my warm blood trickle down my neck. I open my eyes in panic and see it. It’s a gigantic black owl!
“NO! GET AWAY!”
The owl screeches and rips at me with its talons.
“Snap! I am sorry Snap! You weren’t supposed to die!”
I try to scream more but it grabs my tongue with its beak, and rips away at it. My body shakes uncontrollably as I fight the bonds. HELP! PLASE DON’T DO IT! LEAVE ME ALONE!
“Peee-teer.”
The owl is gone, and I see glowing eyes of a masked face in the corner of the room. It is connected to a slim shadowy body and prolonged twitching limbs.
“Peee-teer, why are you afraid?”
I can’t stop the tears, the fear of it. It is gripping me by the very essence of who I am. Eating away at me. “Please, ple—please, just leave me alone.”
“LOOK AT ME!” The monster glides on top of me and the cot. Its demented limbs shake me. “LOOK AT ME NOW, PETER!”
It grabs me by the cheeks. A heat sucking force in its fingertips as it turns my face to gaze into its.
The horror!
The mask on its head dissipates, and underneath it is a white expressionless face like a manikin. It then bends and molds around mine.
“Peee-teer.” I realize it’s my own mouth talking now.
A mirror angles over me revealing my face. It is the monster’s!
“Oh Pee-ter, why are you so surprised?” my lips say as I watch the monster talk to me.
“No Peter. Oh no, no, no, no. I am not the monster,” says the horrible creature through my lips. “I am not something else.”
“I am you.”
WINTER
He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
XXVII
Wake up.
Wake up now.
My eyes open. The room I’m resting in comes to focus.
“Morning,” says a nurse nearby.
The door opens, and others come in, all of them high ranking officials.
“Begin Oedipus Protocol now,” speaks one of the officials.
I close my eyes to utter darkness.
Remember, remember everything you’ve been taught. Do you remember who you are now?
I open my eyes. “Hello Chief Lucien.”
“Excellent, you have fully recovered. You took one nasty bullet to the back of the head fighting traitors at Khaf’Jadeed. You missed most of the liberation process sadly, suffering amnesia of events leading up till now. But let us make sure the amnesia only affected short term memory as believed.”
He sits down next to me. “Where were you born?”
“Los Angeles, South California State. I was raised in a Federal Orphanage.”
“Ah, not just any orphanage,” he corrects.
“Right, a Junior Party tenant and school facility.”
He smiles. “And what did you do once completion of preliminary schooling?”
“Joined the military, and became a Joint Party-Ranger operative.”
“And what were you doing here on Nova Terra?”