I awoke yet again. This time seated in a pod with glass all around me. I could tell by the position that I was in that they were letting me naturally come to my senses. I decided to take my time this time. The fact that I wasn't being viewed by many nor smelling the familiar scent of gun oil near my face told me that they had agreed to Allen Story's proposal. I thought to myself that it was the most logical option and though I was afraid of the painful death this process may cause, I was beyond sick of being stabbed in the neck. With that I reached up to massage the multiple sore spots near my jugular vein. As I did, the movement must have alerted the overseer to my conscious status. He stepped into view of the glass and touched the button on the intercom outside the pod.
"I want you to know something, Graves. You have caused a lot of trouble for me. I narrowly avoided civil unrest this early in the game all because Allen Story fell on his sword for you. It is to be expected to have some sort of uprising eventually but absolute control is critical as you are acclimating your vault to the new ways. You are a symbol of resistance. It frustrates me to no end that disposing of you was this difficult. My way is supposed to be the only way to sustain survival here in this vault. Immediately, you showing up without the required indenture undermines my ability to dictate my vault in an adequate manner. There is one positive. At least now I know that I will have to be careful not to display what could be perceived as hubris to my people. I suppose other vaults are not awarded the luxury of dry run at civil unrest. The people are sheep and I am their Sheppard. The power rests in my hands whether your life support will fail while you're in cryo-stasis. It appears to my people that they won this "vote." I truly didn't need to speak to you before I follow through with putting you on ice for the next 5 decades if I choose to keep you alive. I just thought it may give me some sort of sense of dominance over you. Something that will truly help a man realize his weakness is to embrace it, and adjust accordingly. In the meantime, I'm still trying to take solace in the fact that you will be sent out to the wasteland to die when you are released. I will be able to review the footage again and again from the data collect from the eye-bot. I feel as though I owe you an apology for one thing. I hate you. I have no reason to hate you. In fact, I respect you. We could have had great conversation, you and I, Almost resembling a friendship. You jeopardized my absolute power here. For that, my immaturity will not allow me to forgive you. I truly hope that this will be enough for me. I am not allowing you to receive your allowance of med-x before beginning the cryo process. You will feel it freeze your blood from the inside. As I watch your agony, I am hoping for both of our sakes that I will feel vindicated. Do you know that many years ago, in coal mines, a single caged canary was used to test if oxygen levels were acceptable to breathe due to the carbon monoxide and such. If the canary began to suffocate or even die, the miners were queued to leave the space expeditiously. You are my little Canary, nothing more. Once you're dead and gone, the history logs will illustrate you a hero. The truth will always remain, that you were nothing more than my disposable insignificant little pet. Goodnight Canary. Dream of the pain you've endured." said the overseer.
"If I ever get a hold of you, overseer 52, you're going to beg me to kill you. I will look you deeply in the eye and sincerely smile and tell you no as I slowly and painfully remove pieces of you and feed them to you." I growled calmly.
The overseer smiled as he attentively listened and slowly depressed the initiate button. He took pleasure as my convicted growl became more and more labored as the chemical began to freeze my blood starting from my feet. I never broke eye contact. I am sure he wanted to watch me scream and howl in pain but a fire of white-hot hate kept me from obliging him.
"I'm… Going…. To… Make… You… BEG!..." I labored.
As the freezing chemical and fog of hyper-freezing air worked up to my waste, my genitals sent signals of the most unimaginable pain to my brain. I could no longer fight the urge to howl. I tilted my head back, pursed my eyes shut, opened my mouth widely and howled up to the heavens to release the pain. As my face became flush with all the hot blood I had left, I felt my vocal cords freeze as my howl was cut short. Within seconds of this realization, I was no longer able to think.