001 on Gilmore

A mind is a complicated thing. It is not a book to be read at one's leisure or even a room to be walked through. I would compare it more to a snow globe, in which each and every grain of fake snow is another thought, always moving and changing with the slightest disturbance. Unlike the snow globe, the mind is always moving, even in sleep, even in nothingness. I woke up three hours before 002, 003 and 004 when they pulled us from Cold Sleep. I felt their minds from across the room as they slept. Even in the depths of their chemically-induced comas, they dreamed. Small, quiet, whispering dreams that they forgot on waking and could only reclaim with my help.

I try not to interfere though. As powerful as I am, I lack real practice and the consequences of trying to alter the mind of another could be disastrous. I don't even know if a mind really can change.

Dr Gilmore changed, or at least that's what I'm seeing in his memories. At first, the work he did on the others meant very little to him. He didn't ask where the subjects came from; they were just lumps of human clay, waiting to be moulded into something new. He told himself he was helping them. After all, who wouldn'twant to be a superhuman?

We were frozen when he found out the truth. He learned our names, read our histories; he saw the footage of our first disastrous bid for freedom. The way he remembers it, the realisation of what he had done hit him like a physical blow, like heartburn, like toothache. A cold, gnawing fear settled on him and there it remains, even after forty years.

That's the thing. He's afraid of us. Afraid of what he did to us. He's afraid that we'll want revenge on him for it all. Sometimes he just wants to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. Some of the others would appreciate the gesture, but he doesn't know that. They understand better than he thinks they do. Probably, his nightmares would stop if he talked about them to the others more. I don't mean to see the nightmares, but, to put it in terms you'd understand, it's like trying not to listen to a person when they're screaming in your ear. He dreams of light and dark, locked doors, of faceless bodies and disembodied voices, always telling him the same 6 words. "You're going to do great things."

That's what his University Professor told him at the end of his first year. The exam results proclaimed Isaac Gilmore – at the time just a stuttering seventeen-year-old nobody in cheap clothes, only at university through the charity of others – as an unrivalled genius. He went from strength to strength, grasping even the most outlandish and complicated of theories with speed and ease. His final thesis left qualified scientists with decades of experience awestruck. It was no real surprise that Black Ghost pounced on him, really. They knew how to manipulate him like no-one else; feeding his natural curiosity as a scientist and his pride as a power-starved genius until he was begging at their feet to spearhead the Cyborg Soldier Initiative. And, scientifically at least, the project grew exponentially under his avid leadership. He lost himself in the project and didn't even realise that he had become an essential part in the creation of atrocities.

He doesn't try to justify himself to the team, though. He doesn't tell them about his past, or his intentions. He believes that trying to gain sympathy from any of them would somehow cheapen the suffering they have all already been through. When asked about his past, he makes a point of never revealing anything other than the most superficial of details.

"When were your born?"

"8th May 1929."

"Did you have any siblings?"

"None."

"Did your father fight in the War?"

"Yes."

I do often wonder if I should try and intervene more. I can feel Gilmore's fear and guilt as if they were my own. But, where do I even begin? Just telling him Talk to them, tell them what you want to say and let it out wouldn't work. Hearing the right thing isn't the same as realising it. If I told him to, he wouldn't listen. It would just make him feel worse. It's not just him either; it's the same for all of them. I can feel a thousand little fears, pains and annoyances in each of them, all biting at once like individual flakes of snow in a blizzard. I can see each and every one of them, clear as day, and I know that if I really wanted to I could just use this power to fix them. But can it really be called "healing" if I'm forcing their minds to repair themselves? Would it be just as detrimental to the good parts if I fixed the bad parts? If I took away 002's anger at his parents and mistrust of others, would I also take away his determination and drive to succeed? If I soothed 003's homesickness, would I deaden her compassion and empathy? If I convinced 004 once and for all that he is still human, would he give in to fear? If 005 felt like he could go home again, would he stay with us all? If I told 006 that the rest of the team don't need to be mothered, would he still work as hard to help them? If I made 007 accept that it's ok to feel more alive here and now than ever before in his life, would he lose his connection to the past? If I took away 008's fear, would he still fight as hard to protect the others? If 009's past didn't still hurt him, would he try to fight to save his enemies from destruction? The more I look, the more I see just how every single thought, memory and feeling in a person's head is connected. Memories of home, however painful, allow people to want to make others feel safe and at home. The search for one's humanity gives strength to go on. A painful past gives one the ability to see one's enemies as more than just a danger.

It does hurt though, to see Dr Gilmore in this much pain. While his pain does drive him to keep going for us all, it isn't doing him any other good. He's been carrying this same guilt for twenty years, feeling it every day. It gave him the courage to orchestrate the escape plan, but it also wears him down a little more every day. One day, however far down the line, he will break. If he survives to see the end of Black Ghost, I don't know if he'll know what to do with himself. Whether as employers, tyrants, captors or pursuers, they have been a major part of his life for the longest time. They have shaped him just as he has shaped us. And, although he cant even admit it to himself, I know that the smallest of small parts of him misses the past too. Before he found out the truth, he was happy. He was doing what he loved with an unlimited budget and complete control of the work he was doing, so long as he kept producing more cyborgs. He created marvels and defied every known law of mechanics. He flourished under the encouragement and endorsement of the Black Ghost superiors and any previous doubts about his own worth were banished. If it wouldn't take him away from us and restore him as potentially our single greatest foe, I would just take the painful memories away for good and let him be as happy as he was back then. But, as with us all, his fear gives him strength, his guilt gives him determination and his pain gives him compassion. I have to believe that he'll be strong enough to endure when everything comes to an end.