Silencing Reality - Chap 3

Chapter Three

She weeps into the painting, fingers curled into the crevices of ancient stone. It’s… a terrible thing to hear, this mourning. She cries inconsolably, heartache bleeding into the very air. I stand awkwardly in the face of her grief; what else can I do?
How do you comfort a woman whose love never even existed? There is no scapegoat; no speeches about better places or free spirits. She can’t bring flowers to a grave, or send up a prayer for his soul. Such things are only available to the once living. Her love, though real, has no corporeal form.
These things make me glad to have loved and lost.
It takes me a few minutes, but the retching sobs are too appalling to allow to continue. Besides, I’ve never been good with crying women. They make me uneasy.
I make sure to walk heavily as I cross over to her, in the hope that the loud noises will warn her of by approach, but I know it was useless before I rest my hand on her shoulder. She jumps with fright, whirling round and pressing back into the wall, eyes wide with alarm. I step back, raising my hands and keeping my eyes cautiously on hers.
The terror in her eyes is not completely based in the moment, I realise. My awakening her from the sorrow had drawn her back to the exact moment of loss. It takes a few seconds before realisation settles on her face, but the change is almost immediate.
She shoves me further away angrily, glaring at me as if I had been the one to deliver the news personally. Humiliation turns her cheeks fiery red, but she composes herself quickly, the blush the only clue to her real mood as she bends slightly and curves her lips into a smile.
“I’m sorry about that,” she grins, rolling her eyes in self-mockery. “That time of the month you know? Hormones all over the place!”
That… Was not something I ever needed to know.
Her grin widens as my own face flushes. It’s… near impossible to relate this crude, teasing woman to the broken shell that took her place only a few moments ago, but I find myself glad of the change.
However forced it is.
“So…” She says, walking over to the small end table beside the rich couch. “Where were we?” Picking up a bottle of water, she takes a quick drink before melodramatic remembrance lights up her face. “Ah yes! You were doing the whole speech about yaddi-yaddi-yadda, protected and cared for and all that crap, right?” Here she points at me, only waiting for my furious stutter before continuing. “And I was telling you where to stuff your speech, yes? Yup, that was it! I can’t imagine I’d have given any other answer after all. ‘Cause, really,” The put-upon edge to her frown annoys me, “Who actually believes that bull?”
“I… Beg your pardon!” My anger splutters out of me. I… Never in all my life! The insult! This little… Bitch! “That’s my damn job, you… you…” I only barely manage to restrain myself, but the flutter of enjoyment on her face says that she has already heard it.
“Yes?” She drawls, crooking a questioning eyebrow at me. “Was there something you wanted to say?”
I’ve never wanted to hit a woman so bad.
I reign myself in, close my eyes and take a deep breath, before releasing it in a rush of warm air. “367,” I revert to my training, my long years of practice, “If there is anything you find unsatisfactory about your arrangements please tell me now so that I can see about making your life here a little bit easier.” Here, I pause to allow for comments. She merely raises her other eyebrow and imperiously gestures for me to continue. “Very well. If there is nothing you need then we can jus…”
“Oils.”
I fumble the next part of my speech, surprised by her interruption. “What?”
“Oils,” she repeats, throwing brown hair off of her face and putting a finger to her lips in thought. “Oil paints. They don’t let me work with them. You need turpentine, you know? To dilute the paint? Water doesn’t work; obviously,” she rolls her eyes. “I think they’re worried I’ll drink it or something. Not suicidal though! Way round the proverbial bend but suicides never really been my kinda thing.” She takes another sip of water, then gazes at me in expectation.
I’m… not really sure how to deal with this one. It’s never exactly come up before. The typical restrictions on Renston’s Schizophrenics meant that something like this was never an issue. But… They’ve let her have watercolours. Perhaps…
No. Considering the removal of my E.S.P.A., I highly doubt turpentine will be allowed. To be frank, I’m surprised they’ve allowed her paint brushes.
“I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.”
It’s a lie. We both know it. She stares at me for a moment before sighing with frustration, walking over to collapse on the sofa in a fit of limbs.
I’m not taking it so calmly though. My insides are tangled with confusion. Every moment I expect something normal has been distorted with bizarre differences. Nothing about this situation has been normal. The Trojan system, the removal of my E.S.P.A., the paintings…
The patient. She’s… nothing like normal. She has strength, independent thought, the ability to live in the way other Renston victims simply can’t. There’s something deeper here, something about her, about everything here which is just… Wrong. In every way possible.
I’m a soldier. It’s all I’ve ever really been. And I’ll happily admit, I’m far better at taking orders than giving them, however well I may lead my men. The responsibility; that horrifying realisation that your choice, good as it seemed at the time, was wrong and men have died for your inadequacies. That… Was never something I handled well.
There was a solution though, for men like me. Men who could get other men to die for them yet couldn’t handle the strain of doing it. The E.S.P.A..
It was never just a device for knowledge and advance-warning, although that was an important part of its functions. The device was originally designed to reign in the minds of Post Traumatic Stress victims. It wasn’t long after the first few prototypes that the sheer extent of it’s abilities were revealed. The calming effect, the organisation it imposed on the wearer… such things were advantageous to almost all areas of the military.
Of course, they didn’t tell us this purpose at the time.
The basics were read out to the troops. Those in the lowest ranks were given the choice, but officers like myself were ordered to have one installed. We were informed of the devices ability to link up with each other and the internet highway from any place in the world. Information would be transmitted to the device, which would then translate the coding into neurological signals through a series of implants. Think of it like… having another voice in your head, they told us, phony smiles on their faces.
The military advantages were immediately obvious to everyone. Battle information and satellite images available the instant they were collected? You’d have to be an idiot to not see the benefits!
With the assurance of TrojanWare security systems shielding the connections from outside interference, over two thirds of the privates made the choice to have the full surgery. Of the other third, half chose to have the less invasive L.E.S.P.A. interface. For those without implants already, the smaller device worked mostly as a surface machine; a simple ear-phone like device attached to a few nodes that stuck to the skin behind the ear.
The full apparatus involved brain surgery. Microscopic filaments were threaded under the skin and then woven into neurones through the nodes of Ranvier. From here the filaments could induce action potentials that caused nerve impulses. This created the ability to somewhat control the mood of the person. Calmness could be forced upon the carrier immediately.
It… Didn’t work quite as planned.
We hadn’t known of this secondary effect. This method of turning us into the perfect soldier, the perfect leader. Remorseless in sending our men to battle, but still retaining our skills with strategy  and personal knowledge of how to fight.
But grief, however painful, is necessary. This artificial over-ride of our ability to grieve was devastating. Mental disorders within the military quadrupled within a month. The scientists who had created the device had believed that any returning anxiety, any depression or suicidal feelings would subsequently be controlled in the exact same way as the original loss.
They under-estimated the human mind.
Apathy can be just as toxic and murderous as sorrow. Self-harm became rife upon the ranks.
We just wanted… to feel.
The L.E.S.P.A. whispers a warning. Chill messages easing over the surface of my mind. Unlike my original E.S.P.A., it could only warn me of my depression, instead of smothering it.
They had to change them. All of them.
The scientists were tried as murderers.
Another whisper, and I realise that I’ve been stood staring at the back of a comfortable sofa for the past ten minutes, lost in memory and suppressed terror. Time’s up, I muse blankly, then blink as a water bottle is suddenly thrust into view. My fingers are at my belt, clasping the ghost of a handle.
“Time’s up,” 367 says slowly and carefully, echoing my own thoughts. A glance at her face reveals a tight, wary expression, eyes locked onto mine with uncanny perception.
She knows. To what extent, I’m not sure. But she knows where my mind was just now.
“Yes,” I murmur, hand releasing the imaginary frame of my gun. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
A cautious grin curves her lips, and she thrusts the bottle at me again, sloshing the water inside. “You look like you need it.”
A quick sip is surprisingly refreshing; the tang of copper in the back of my throat rinses away. When I hand the bottle back, 367 sweeps a cursory glance over me, then nods to herself.
“You’ll do,” she teases, grinning as if she had told an inside joke to a lifelong friend.
“I’ll have to,” I mumble, strangely reluctant to look at her. “Mason is outside the door.”
Luminescent orange washes over the steel gate to confirm my statement; the breathes of hydraulics rushing out just as the door begins to swing open.
My leave-taking is hardly spectacular. Mason cringes and flinches away when I walk past, the man vaguely reminding me of a sniffling rodent. 367 remains subdued, quietly watchful as I bow and recite my official goodbye.
It is only after the door had closed behind us, when Mason grudgingly refuses to speak to me on the way back, that I realise, in those last few minutes…
367 had almost seemed to care.

*

367 (she detested the title, but reluctantly admitted that she had long forgotten her true name) felt a small shiver of anticipation run through her as the captain left the room. Her plans, held silently in watchful suspense for many years, were finally beginning to unfurl. She could almost feel their waking stretches, the careful shake of sleep-drugged limbs as they stirred to awareness.
She had known something like this would happen. Their society was simply too attuned to appearances, too politically oriented for it not to happen.
Her position as tool had caused her some anxiety; would they allow such things to come close to her?
Apparently, her worry had been for naught. Her manipulations, her conniving, all of it was coming to fruition.
And this man was the trigger to everything.
“Finally,” she whispered, leaning against the bent arm of the man who meant everything to her. “Finally.”
She leant her head to the side, chin tilted up so her eyes rested on the closed ones of the painting.
“It’s time,” she murmured, smiling slightly. “It’s time.”
The small smile on his painted face agreed.