Where Questions lead Us
Dec 13, 2021 0:46:28 GMT -5
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ntsheep, Officer Genious, and 2 more like this
Post by wali on Dec 13, 2021 0:46:28 GMT -5
She leaned back against the damp cavern wall, wincing, and felt the cold slowly creep through her overalls and into her bones. Some sparse light filtered in through the wide entrance, a few feet away, but it was barely enough to make out the shape of another miner passing her by - heavy boots dragging over muddy, uneven rock. The man paid her no mind, and walked out into the rain. Endless rain. Not a day that had seen the clouds parting, in the two months since she got here. Just another tunnel rat, down on her luck. There was no shortage of these on Ghevian Shoals. People at the end of their road.. and rain. The only two things this place seemed to have in abundance.
The truth of it was, that few had made the trip here willingly. Some were running from the law, some from debts they wouldn't be able to settle in a lifetime.. and a handful were trying to hide from demons they could not hope to escape - veterans who had seen -and done- things that left them adrift, unable to connect to anything. The memories embedded in their skulls like shards of glass, cutting ever deeper, until tossing and turning at night became screams, then begging, then sobbing.
Among the lost of Ghevian Shoals, one could truly disappear; vanish in ways beyond being invisible in the darkness of an abandoned tunnel. Not a head was raised in the bleak habitat units, no questions asked. The work was draining, but simple. A short instruction by one of the foremen, the scrawled number of a bunk on a small piece of paper, and another worker faded away - first from prying eyes elsewhere in the quadrant, then from memory.. and eventually altogether. No one here was young. But no one got old, either.
Amae was an exception to the rule. She smiled mirthlessly at the thought of all the trouble she'd gone to, in order to pad that fake name with an identity no one had cared to look into, even at the most superficial level. By now, she could hardly recall the details herself. It didn't matter anymore. She was where she wanted to be. The end of her road. Forgotten. Even the name she had been given at birth would never find its way into the Hall of Memories, where her work was meticulously recorded - accessible to only a handful of Clan Zenrin's leading scientists and Augurs.
In another life, she had been born on an unremarkable faction holding, to unremarkable parents. She had grown up as sheltered as one could hope, after the Great Exodus, and aspired to an entirely unremarkable career in the medical administration; motivated by a genuine desire to make a positive contribution to the small community, despite run-down equipment and somewhat unreliable transports of medical supplies from more advanced orbital facilities.
In her second year at the academy, she attended a lecture on 'The effects of environmental conditions on neuro-degenerative diseases'. The aging professor was almost a caricature of mediocrity - from the way he dressed, to his listless jokes on technicalities, to his slow speech patterns without a hint of dialect. Most of the students had been so bored, they'd probably forgotten the man, along with most of his observations, the moment they walked out of the building.
Had she not stayed behind for a follow-up question regarding the immune-modulating properties of Valhydride, she, too, could have forgotten him. She would have never taken on the role of his research assistant. She would have never seen the cracks in the carefully curated mask, which allowed him to pass as human.
In all the years that followed, she never heard him raise his voice. But when it came to closed meetings, and the funding of his research projects came under scrutiny, the facade began melting away just enough for council bureaucrats to understand there were worlds beyond their understanding. Worlds of terror, worlds of dread, worlds of pain so complete and all-encompassing that quiet words offering relief turned into unmistakable screams.
Since its inception, the term 'Zenrin Mindneedling' had turned proverbial. Very few people cared to acquire a deeper understanding of what was widely assumed to be a form of antiquated torture, involving some type of heated needles.
As a matter of fact, needles were not required. The combination of viral agents and toxic compounds responsible for the rapid degeneration of myelin sheaths, and the subsequent targeted immune response against neurons, could be administered orally - with the only drawback being a delayed and less uniform onset of symptoms.
During interrogation, direct injections of small doses into the extremeties were preferable, as the procedure guaranteed a gradual disintegration of the nervous system in the subject, with vital organs typically remaining sufficiently intact to allow for complete neurological atrophy.
As such, none of the people involved in this type of questioning enjoyed the act of prodding a captive with glowing metal, or otherwise mistreating them. Nothing a human could do to another compared to the suffering a body was capable of inflicting on itself. It was enough to set the gears in motion - and watch as the inevitable played out. Time after time again.
From what felt like small pin-pricks, hours after the first injection, to searing pain slowly creeping up the subject's arms and legs, like flesh-eating bugs winding their way upwards under the skin. Depending on the individual's reaction and initial dosage, this stage could last for up to two days, making sleep impossible and wearing down psychological resilience in the process. Then came the convulsions - stripping away whatever hope of agency someone may have been holding on to. No form of conditioning could prepare an operative for the numbness that followed. The absence of any neuronal activity in the extremeties, paired with phantom pain. Most ended up pleading for death long before they reached stage four symptoms, but a calm voice kept assuring them, over and over, that the only way to cut the process short was to provide information.
In reality, no such mercy existed, for any of them. Stage five symptoms resembled a rapidly progressing dementia, and any piece of information provided prior could then be used to trigger memories. Often, incoherent babbling as a response to a prompt could be enough to verify it had been part of a real memory with emotional significance, and the subject had been telling the truth.
Time after time again.
She closed her eyes, and pulled a small, non-descript plastic bottle out of her pocket. She weighed it in her hand. How could two small pills be so heavy? Components safely separated.. 'safely'.. she snorted. She could still see the small tremors of her former colleagues, who had been handling the toxins over years. Despite all the precautions, despite the best care.. there was a toll. There was always a toll, but it was not always visible. The mines had taught her that, and the mines had taught her that she had run as far as she could. It wasn't far enough. Could never be far enough.
She opened the plastic bottle, and poured the pills into her hand. The symptoms wouldn't be as uniform. But it would have to do.
The truth of it was, that few had made the trip here willingly. Some were running from the law, some from debts they wouldn't be able to settle in a lifetime.. and a handful were trying to hide from demons they could not hope to escape - veterans who had seen -and done- things that left them adrift, unable to connect to anything. The memories embedded in their skulls like shards of glass, cutting ever deeper, until tossing and turning at night became screams, then begging, then sobbing.
Among the lost of Ghevian Shoals, one could truly disappear; vanish in ways beyond being invisible in the darkness of an abandoned tunnel. Not a head was raised in the bleak habitat units, no questions asked. The work was draining, but simple. A short instruction by one of the foremen, the scrawled number of a bunk on a small piece of paper, and another worker faded away - first from prying eyes elsewhere in the quadrant, then from memory.. and eventually altogether. No one here was young. But no one got old, either.
Amae was an exception to the rule. She smiled mirthlessly at the thought of all the trouble she'd gone to, in order to pad that fake name with an identity no one had cared to look into, even at the most superficial level. By now, she could hardly recall the details herself. It didn't matter anymore. She was where she wanted to be. The end of her road. Forgotten. Even the name she had been given at birth would never find its way into the Hall of Memories, where her work was meticulously recorded - accessible to only a handful of Clan Zenrin's leading scientists and Augurs.
In another life, she had been born on an unremarkable faction holding, to unremarkable parents. She had grown up as sheltered as one could hope, after the Great Exodus, and aspired to an entirely unremarkable career in the medical administration; motivated by a genuine desire to make a positive contribution to the small community, despite run-down equipment and somewhat unreliable transports of medical supplies from more advanced orbital facilities.
In her second year at the academy, she attended a lecture on 'The effects of environmental conditions on neuro-degenerative diseases'. The aging professor was almost a caricature of mediocrity - from the way he dressed, to his listless jokes on technicalities, to his slow speech patterns without a hint of dialect. Most of the students had been so bored, they'd probably forgotten the man, along with most of his observations, the moment they walked out of the building.
Had she not stayed behind for a follow-up question regarding the immune-modulating properties of Valhydride, she, too, could have forgotten him. She would have never taken on the role of his research assistant. She would have never seen the cracks in the carefully curated mask, which allowed him to pass as human.
In all the years that followed, she never heard him raise his voice. But when it came to closed meetings, and the funding of his research projects came under scrutiny, the facade began melting away just enough for council bureaucrats to understand there were worlds beyond their understanding. Worlds of terror, worlds of dread, worlds of pain so complete and all-encompassing that quiet words offering relief turned into unmistakable screams.
Since its inception, the term 'Zenrin Mindneedling' had turned proverbial. Very few people cared to acquire a deeper understanding of what was widely assumed to be a form of antiquated torture, involving some type of heated needles.
As a matter of fact, needles were not required. The combination of viral agents and toxic compounds responsible for the rapid degeneration of myelin sheaths, and the subsequent targeted immune response against neurons, could be administered orally - with the only drawback being a delayed and less uniform onset of symptoms.
During interrogation, direct injections of small doses into the extremeties were preferable, as the procedure guaranteed a gradual disintegration of the nervous system in the subject, with vital organs typically remaining sufficiently intact to allow for complete neurological atrophy.
As such, none of the people involved in this type of questioning enjoyed the act of prodding a captive with glowing metal, or otherwise mistreating them. Nothing a human could do to another compared to the suffering a body was capable of inflicting on itself. It was enough to set the gears in motion - and watch as the inevitable played out. Time after time again.
From what felt like small pin-pricks, hours after the first injection, to searing pain slowly creeping up the subject's arms and legs, like flesh-eating bugs winding their way upwards under the skin. Depending on the individual's reaction and initial dosage, this stage could last for up to two days, making sleep impossible and wearing down psychological resilience in the process. Then came the convulsions - stripping away whatever hope of agency someone may have been holding on to. No form of conditioning could prepare an operative for the numbness that followed. The absence of any neuronal activity in the extremeties, paired with phantom pain. Most ended up pleading for death long before they reached stage four symptoms, but a calm voice kept assuring them, over and over, that the only way to cut the process short was to provide information.
In reality, no such mercy existed, for any of them. Stage five symptoms resembled a rapidly progressing dementia, and any piece of information provided prior could then be used to trigger memories. Often, incoherent babbling as a response to a prompt could be enough to verify it had been part of a real memory with emotional significance, and the subject had been telling the truth.
Time after time again.
She closed her eyes, and pulled a small, non-descript plastic bottle out of her pocket. She weighed it in her hand. How could two small pills be so heavy? Components safely separated.. 'safely'.. she snorted. She could still see the small tremors of her former colleagues, who had been handling the toxins over years. Despite all the precautions, despite the best care.. there was a toll. There was always a toll, but it was not always visible. The mines had taught her that, and the mines had taught her that she had run as far as she could. It wasn't far enough. Could never be far enough.
She opened the plastic bottle, and poured the pills into her hand. The symptoms wouldn't be as uniform. But it would have to do.
