Chapter 35: Conditioning
After a rather mortifying conversation about the Ecclesiarchy's policies and perspectives on sex and sexuality, where Sister Victoria seemed insistent to remind me that whatever your interests may be, faith and service always came before anything else, she handed me a leaflet on the Ecclesiarchy's sanctioned guide on sex. Victoria told me I was a very sensible and healthy male and it'd be a shame if I spoiled that by, as she said, 'indulging in irregular sexual activities.'
I still had no idea if she meant unhealthy or heretical sexual acts. I imagined this leaflet told me where the Imperium, or at least the Ecclesiarchy, drew the line between sex that was allowed and sex that got a little too…chaotic for upstanding men and women.
Sister Victoria then told me to head off to the next set of tests.
"Aren't you administering them?" I said, a little disappointed. I didn't want to leave her. She seemed to be the sweetest person I'd met here so far, not to the mention the prettiest. I wanted to drag this out as long as possible.
"I'm a Hospitaller. My expertise is physical in nature. The next tests are psychological. My understanding of that field is rather limited, I'm afraid," she said gently. She bent over to bundle up my clothes into a neat little plastic bag, which she sealed up and handed to me.
"You can't get dressed, however, so you'll have to bear the cold," she smirked, "and whatever tests they have for you. The Emperor Protects."
"The Emperor Protects," I repeated. Sister Victoria smiled. She did have a sweet smile.
"It'll be the first door on your left," she told me, lifting me to my feet and handing me my clothes in a sealed plastic bag.
"Keep your faith, praise the Emperor, and follow his teachings. It is as He wills," she intoned, closing her eyes.
"I'll make sure to follow the example he laid out," I said diplomatically. Sister Victoria nodded.
"Yes, if more men did that, the fire of the Imperium would be beyond question," she said. She stared at me for a moment before raising an eyebrow.
"They're waiting for you, you know," she said, giving me a little push out the door, shoving some extra files on top of my bag.
"Be sure to present these when they ask for them, and not a moment before," she said sternly, as she closed the curtain behind me. Covering myself as best I could with the bag, I hastily trotted down the aisle and around the corner to the door, which was closed. Trying the handle, I found it opened rather smoothly into a very bare waiting room, which had a metal bench running around each wall. There was another sealed door on the other side, guarded by a navy bondsman.
They paid me no attention as I sat down on the cold bench, wincing. I put the bag in my lap to cover myself, and then sat there.
How long was I expected to wait?
Looking around the room, there wasn't much to occupy myself with. Nothing, really. I noticed, with a sense of ominous unease, that there was no handle on either door, so I was trapped in here. There were four cameras on the roof, two fixed on each door, and two fixed on the benches. One was looking right at me. I stared into the lens for several moments before I remembered I had been given a leaflet to read over.
It was a rather dense leaflet, it turned out. More like a small book. It was thirty pages long and covered such topics as 'Healthy expressions of lust,' 'Procreation, the number one way to provide for the Imperium!' and 'Top 10 signs you may be a disgusting deviant!'
I decided it'd best to read this when I didn't have so much scrutiny on me. I didn't want to start laughing at official Ecclesiarchy material. So I decided to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Was I meant to be doing something?
I was just about to ask the bondsman what was going on when Prassus stepped into the room, similarly naked, clutching his bag in front of him like a shield. He seemed relieved to see me, but eyed the bondsman warily.
"You here to? Anyone else been in?"
"Not that I'm aware of. I think I'm the first," I said. I noticed that Prassus seemed rather pale, or as pale as he could be. It was hard to tell. He certainly seemed a little, upset. Not at all the upbeat person he usually is.
"How did it go?" I asked him slowly. I noticed the camera had panned to watch him as well. Prassus made his way over to me, sitting down a little further away from me then he usually did. He didn't look me in the eye.
"It went…well," he said after a while. Clearly, it did not go well.
"Did you have the uh…a…rather good-looking woman do the tests?" I asked him, trying to get him to focus on the more light-hearted side of things.
"Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, very pretty," he muttered. Gee, I guess he must've been really embarrassed. I didn't think Practica had any cultural aversion to nudity, at least none more then normal, since no one seemed especially prudish. Had he found out he had a condition or something?
"Is everything ok?" I asked. "Did the tests find anything wrong?"
"Wrong? No, nothings wrong. That's crazy talk. Why would you say that?" He said. I noticed he had a red booklet with him, like mine. Except mine was green. What was his?
"Did you get a booklet to?" I said. Prassus gave a furtive glance at his booklet and quickly tucked it under his bag so I couldn't see it. Ok, he really didn't want me to find out what was going on.
"Don't worry, it's ok. I'm sure its nothing to worry about. Whatever it is, its fine," I reassured him. Prassus looked at me, then nodded, as if he didn't think I was being sincere.
"Yeah, fine. It's fine. I'm fine, why would you think otherwise?"
I was about to tell him my experience when the door opened, and a man dressed in a black uniform stepped out. He looked at me and ordered me to enter. I shot Prassus and apologetic look and did as I was told. My heart was bounding in my chest. Why was I so nervous?
Then I realised I had every reason to be nervous. This was the Imperium, and this was a mental evaluation, conducted by a man in a black uniform in a dimly lit room. It was…very reminiscent of something out of 1984.
"Sit," the man told me, closing the door behind me. This room was small, entirely grey, save for one light in the middle of the roof. A table with some rather nasty looking apparatus sat in the middle of the room. There were a dozen cameras in the roof, most of which were looking at me. I set my stuff done next to the chair and sat down. I shivered in the cold. Across from me sat two people, one man and one woman, both in the same nondescript black uniform. The man had a buzzcut, the women short hair with a ponytail. Silver studs lined their collars. They had no insignia of any kind. Behind them stood a man in a padded grey suit clutching a shotgun in his hand. His face was hidden behind a red helmet which had no visible visor. He, to, had no insignia on him.
This unsettled me greatly. So far, I'd been able to place everyone or everything I'd seen. I recognised the symbols, the colours, the designs, and even if I didn't know the specifics of their names, I at least knew who or what they were. But these people…I hadn't the faintest clue. They had nothing to give away any sign of who they were meant to be.
"You are private Sent, correct?" The man said. He had no emotion in his voice. Neither of them had introduced themselves yet.
"Correct," I said. I didn't want to say anything more then what they asked.
"You are from Practica?"
"Yes," I said smoothly. Neither of them reacted.
"You have been here one week," he continued.
"That's what I've been told," I said. The man paused to look at me for several moments before he continued.
"Your papers, please," he demanded. I reached down to pick up my files and hand them to him. He took them in one hand and handed them to his colleague.
"Put your hand on this device," he said, sliding a boxy contraption with a smooth metal plate on top of it. I reluctantly did as I was told.
"Answer the questions when I give them to you, nothing more," he told me. I nodded.
"You are told to charge across a field into an enemy gunline that has killed every charge before it. Do you do it?"
No, I thought.
"If I was ordered to do it, I would," I lied. The machine hummed. Neither of them reacted.
"Your squad has captured several human prisoners. They beg you not to kill them. Your sergeant orders you to do it. Do you do it?"
No, I thought again.
"Yes." The machine hummed.
"Your sergeant orders you to shoot a fellow soldier for insurrection. Do you do it?"
"Do I know if the soldier is guilty?" I asked. The women tilted her head.
"He is accused by your sergeant. Is that not enough?"
"If I know he's guilty, I'll do it," I lied. The machine hummed.
"You're not fooling anyone," the man said at last, taking my hand off the machine. The women leaned over the table to inject me in the arm. I winced, then recoiled when I felt the drugs enter my system. Everything suddenly felt…off. Like I was drunk, or at least tipsy. I felt rather sleepy, yet talkative at the same time. I leant back. I didn't feel so concerned anymore, even though a part of me knew that was because I'd just been drugged. I felt like explaining that, for some reason. Why?
In the back of my mind, panic set in.
Truth serum. They'd just injected my with truth serum. Oh, shit. I slowly started to realise I couldn't lie even if I wanted to. This wasn't good. I was only partially aware of them strapping my hands to another machine and tying my feet to the chair. They then lowering a sort of goggles over my head which forced me to keep my eyes opened. A screen lit up in front of me.
Oh, fuck, what was this? This was some clockwork orange bullshit!
They put the metal pad under my hands once more, then started showing me images. First o pleasant things, like meadows, forests, sunsets, but then it started to get…weird. Unsettling. Disturbing.
The first disturbing image was of a dog, a puppy, on its side, with its stomach split upon and entrails spread across the floor. The look on its face made it clear it was still alive. I recoiled as much I could, but my hands were clamped in place, and I could not look away.
"That's disgusting," I said. The man leaned forward.
"Describe how it makes you feel," he said.
"Terrible. Upset. Sick," I said. The machine made no sound. Both black clad spooks nodded.
The next image was infinitely better, a nice sunset over the ocean.
"That's nice," I said breezily. He asked me to describe what I felt.
"Relaxed. Gentle. Safe."
Next image. A man and a woman kissing. The man asked me what I thought when I saw this.
"It's nice. Normal. They seem happy," I said. My interrogators nodded. Next image.
A city besieged. Deranged soldiers running through the streets, waving banners with symbols I immediately knew must be Chaotic in nature. Citizens lay in the streets, being tortured in ways to terrible to contemplate. What did this make me feel?
"Anger. Hatred. I want to stop them. They're killing innocent people," I said. Next image.
A woman giving birth, a bit too graphic for my tastes.
"Uncomfortable. More then I want to see," I said. Next image.
A priest smiling as he delivered a sermon in a packed cathedral.
"Its fascinating to see these buildings. They're very well designed," I said. The interrogators looked between themselves. They seemed to say something to each other with a glance, but they made no comment. Next image.
A Tyranid warrior looming over a horde of Termagants. They looked a lot more ferocious and deadly in pictures then they did in the art, if that were possible. They certainly seemed a lot more intimidating when they were real…
"Interesting. I've always wanted to see what a real Tyranid looks like," my addled brain said. I was aware of how stupid it was to say something like that, but there was no way I could stop myself from speaking. The machine hummed, which drew a perplexed look from the interrogators. They took my hand off it, changed images, and tried again.
This time it was a picture of Orks, bellowing and screaming.
"That's about what I expected from the Orks," I murmured. I realised I had said less then I was going to. A warm sensation, like a fire, burnt within me. It felt familiar, for some reason. My blood pumped in my ears. My heart beat. I could feel a tingling sensation all over. The machine hummed again.
"Curse it, its spirit is acting up," the man said, taking my hand off it. The woman shook her head.
"He's clearly throwing it off. The serum must be conflicting with his body. He's speaking nonsense," she said, taking out the needle again.
NO, I thought, please no, don't do that. My eyes watered from the strain of keeping them open so long. I was growing increasingly aware of what I was saying and thinking. Damn it, I'd said some really suspicious stuff. Who says they want to see a Tyranid, and how was I even meant to know what they are!?
"Perhaps," the man mused, taking the goggles off me. I blinked ferociously, my eyes filling with tears. Wincing, I rubbed them clear. The fire within me throbbed.
"Answer these questions, and do nothing but answer these questions," he told me.
"You and your squad find a piece of alien technology. You hide it from your sergeant and do not report it to your Commissar. You inspect it in your barracks alone. What do you do with it?"
"Get rid of it. Alien technology is dangerous, and cannot be trusted," I said, finally regaining some control of my mouth. The tingling sensation had spread to my lips. Neither interrogator said anything.
"One of your squad mates says he is going to desert in the night. He's going to take several friends with him and wants you to join him. What do you do?"
"Persuade him to stay," I said. Shit, that wasn't what they wanted to here. The look they gave each other confirmed that.
"Who would be the most likely person in your squad to do such a thing?"
I paused. If I didn't speak, I wouldn't condemn anyone. I didn't want to speak ill of anyone, especially not behind their backs like this. I didn't want to rat anyone out. But the serum was still in me. Whatever was making it wear out so fast wasn't enough to keep me from speaking altogether.
"…Desmond," I said reluctantly. Neither of them reacted.
"And who is the least likely to do such a thing?"
"Egeers," I said instantly. That wasn't the serum, that was my genuine answer, or so I thought. I knew he'd never do anything against the Imperium.
"Would you say you're a pious man," the woman asked. I blinked. No, I would not.
"Not as pious as I could be," I said slowly. I could feel that fire, that strength, entering my mind, granting my clarity. I felt that I could see clearly now. It was strange, like a veil lifted from my eyes.
"What makes you say that?"
"I don't think I believe as strongly as others," I said clearly. They leaned over, staring at me intensely.
"Why?"
"I'm not a priest," I said simply. I didn't know what I was saying, but a part of me knew that these were the right words to say.
"I'm not a priest, but I am not without faith. I do not believe in the greater mysteries because I do not think of them, I think only of my service and my duty. The Emperor has given me a path and I must walk it," I said simply. They nodded slowly, then spoke the four most terrifying words I'd ever heard.
"Bring in the Psyker."