-deep breath- Okay, here we go...
15.
REBOOT SUSPENDED. TIME REMAINING: --:--:--
_MANUAL CONTROL DISABLED. SYSTEM SELF-SCAN ENABLED.
_REGULATION RELAYS UNDETECTED. BEGIN SEQUENCE Y/N?
y.
_BEGINNING RECALL SEQUENCE FILE 000.
December 9th, 1974.
He could hear them muttering, whispering to each other, watching him pass. Most of the time he ignored it, but every now and again he would catch a tiny tone of fear in their hushed mumblings, and this would create an invisible curl at the sides of his lips. They were only afraid because they couldn't control what was already happening.
"You seem to know a great deal about communism, Dr. Bishop. Perhaps too much. Would you care to define your sources?"
"Indeed. I have preformed extensive studies on the subject, all of which have been immensely scrutinized-"
"This is only because your methods warrant such scrutiny!"
"The scientific community has become far too busy pointing fingers and questioning methods in what has became a nationwide witch hunt that they have failed to fathom the possibilities, however remote they may be, of the effects communism has had on the general public!"
"Are you saying we should openly embrace a form of government that threatens even the basis of our society, Dr. Bishop?!"
"I do not. I am simply pointing out the way that communism has been used to control and manipulate every aspect of the average citizen's existence by the enforcement and general terrorization our government has forced upon them."
"What are you implying, Dr. Bishop?!"
"Communism- or the misguided concept that we have been force-fed by the government- is nothing more than self-inflicted terrorism. It is only a phantasm created for control."
xXx
March 8th, 1992.
A roadside diner off the side of the highway that ran, twisting and turning, through the everglades. Walter couldn't remember what he had been doing there, just that he was upset, and had a spot of pink ice cream on his tie. He was stooping to lick it off when someone knocked on the countertop. Walter looked up- he knew this man.
William Bell gave him a winning smile, "Hey, Bish-fish."
"Hello, Belly."
"I came as soon as I got your message. How y' holding up?" William slid onto the bar bench beside him, his knees just brushing the underside of the cabinetry as he folded his long legs under himself.
"Marriage sucks," Walter pouted, and William laughed.
"A little late for that, isn't it? What'd she say?"
"What didn't she say? But she's right, Belly. All of it- she's right about all of it, damn it. Peter, he knows, he told me this morning that all we do is lie to him… and…"
"And what, Bish-fish?" William asked gently, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"She's getting the papers finalized for the institution," Walter said, a glimmering tear striking the lens of his thick glasses as he hung his head. It rolled off as he raised his hands to bury his fingers into his hair, "I read the letters on her desk last night! And she's already told Peter, damn it-!"
"Calm down, Walter," William said, "You said she only threatened with the institution. She'd never send you back, Walter, I don't know how she could…"
"I don't want to go back, William! I can't stand it there!" He grabbed his friend's shirt front, crying desperately, "I'll kill myself, before I go back! And Peter-" Walter choked, releasing William, "having a mad man as a father…" he covered his face in his hands, weeping softly.
"You're not mad, Walter," William said, putting an arm across his trembling shoulders, "you've told me yourself. You just had a few problems, as a child… but that was all sorted out years ago. It doesn't matter, now. And, I promise… you'll never go back to St. Claire's."
xXx
June 10th, 1992.
The small, suburban street was so filled with onlookers that it was rather difficult for the semi trucks to pass, more or less the massive constructs of machinery strapped to each of the trailers to go unnoticed, "I thought you said this town would be cleared," Walter hissed to William in the off-driver's seat, whom only shrugged at the gathering masses, standing on their lawns and pointing.
"These things take time, Bish," William answered, "It's not easy to convince people to just leave their homes for no reason. But don't worry, the compound is much farther removed from the town."
"They're still disrupting the transportation route," Walter grumped, "the simple traffic would generate questions and curiosities better left alone. You know what this means."
William smiled slightly, "Free ice cream?"
Walter nodded with a dark smile of his own, "Free ice cream."
Walter could remember a sweet smell of something blooming, coupled with the scent of hot rubber tires and fresh asphalt. The taste of a slightly warm beer, as he and William toasted the humming pulse of the Amnesia machine, deep in the compound, far from the eyes of the government, God, or his wife and son.
xXx
January 22, 1993.
"Specimen September seems to be having problems, Bish."
"Again? I'll be damned if it isn't the new chips. March and February were having trouble with them, as well… before they were terminated. I doubt September will accept them…"
"We can't loose him, Walter. He's one of our most advanced specimens to date. We'll have to take a trip down…"
"I hate going down there. But the Months specimens are far less trouble than the Savages…"
"Oh. I forgot to tell you. B34 gave out on us, last night."
"What?!"
"Suicide. She had been showing signs of depression, and her diet wasn't going well, regardless of the supplements we forced on her during the tests. She starved herself to death."
"Damn it, I think this whole place is falling apart! She was the last of the Savages, then?!"
"The Savage control subjects are catatonic. Minimal fluctuation in recall. It seems we can void their memory banks well enough with the anesthesia… but it leaves them vegetables. The only thing we seem to able to put stock in are the Months…"
"And we've just got word to terminate them. Grand. Well, let's go and have a look at September, see if we can't convince Nina to keep him."
The steel door slid away from its place on the concrete wall, disappearing silently in the doorframe, "He's a radical specimen Month. What happened to his partner?" Walter asked quietly.
"That's just the problem," William answered, "He's killed him. I know it's normal for the Savage radicals, but it is a serious aggression for the Months."
"Hmm. Well, let me have a look at him."
"He's always liked you quite a lot, Walter," William grinned.
Walter laughed quietly, and entered the room, William standing at the door, and syringe of sedative in the wide pocket of his lab coat.
Walter silently paced across the room, his shoes careful to avoid the crusted and sticky spots and spatters of blood on the carpet. He only chanced a casual glance at the corpse, face down in the middle of the room, as he entered the bathroom, "September?" he questioned softly.
A pale form cowered on the tiles of the dripping shower, trembling as he panted with fear. Walter carefully knelt outside the stall door, offering his hands to show that they were empty, "September, do you hear me?"
September looked up at him, his grey trousers and tank saturated with red. His face was filled with fear and shame, and several long, gagged scratches, apparently from fingernails, spanned his white cheek, "Don't be afraid. It's me, Dr. Bishop. Are you alright, September?"
"He tried to kill me," September said, his voice very small.
"December tried to kill you? Did he give you those lacerations?"
Whimpering as he covered his hairless head with his pail and trembling arms, September nodded, "Yes, Dr. Bishop."
"You'd better let me have a look at them. Do you feel bad for what you did, September?"
"Yes, Dr. Bishop."
Walter moved into the shower, moving September's arms away from his protective stance. He placed a hand on September cheek gently, "You mustn't. It had to be done. You had to defend yourself."
September moved into the warm touch slightly.
"September, Dr. Bell is waiting outside-"
September immediately shank away.
"No, no, no," Walter said gently, smiling, "We just need to take you up to the machine for a bit, and run a few tests. You needn't be afraid. Will you come with us, September?"
September shook his head quickly, looking frightened.
"Come on now, September. Will you come with me, then?" Walter offered his hand.
After a few moments of silent hesitation, September reached out to take Walter's hand. Still smiling at him warmly, Walter lead September out of the room, before William jammed a needle into the side of September's neck. He gave a cry, and collapsed onto the cement, "Get a stretcher down here and get him to the observation deck," Walter sighed, as if bored, "then get him into the tank, and wipe his short-terms."
xXx
May 6th, 2001.
Walter woke in a daze, lying face-up, strapped to a hospital gurney, "What-what's all of this…?" his eyes widened as he saw that he wore the grey patient uniform of the compound, "What's happening…?"
"Oh, you're up," William said cheerfully, leaning over his gurney. His friend looked frighteningly older, his dark hair now peppered with grey and white, his face creased at the edges with wrinkles. His smile, however, had lost none of it's brilliance, "sorry, I can't dim the lights just yet."
"Belly, what…where…?"
"You're on the observation deck. I doubt you remember much of anything, do you?"
"…No." William touched Walters' numb chest, and the motion made Walter inhale sharply with pain.
William frowned at the blood on his gloves, "Hmm. Well, it seems that regardless of the measures we're taking to insure your complete amnesia, you still seem to recollect certain aspects of your past." William smiled again, "You're a tough cookie, Bish-fish."
"What are you talking about? What is going on?!"
"Your papers on the effects of communism, you remember those? Perhaps you don't. The recollection sequence has its problems, to be sure. But I'll explain it to you the best I can- you're part of the Amnesia Machine now, Walter."
xXx
You're an idiot, Belly. You always were an idiot. The Amnesia Machine exists on the outside. This place… it's nothing. A failure, no matter how you look at it. I've only gone along because I, too, had foolish hopes for its success. If you could make me, a man with faith in nothing, forget everything and be lead to believe blindly, there would be hope for us. But it's hopeless. We're doomed. I know that, now. Human kind will always be anchored by humanity, and we'll all die, someday.
This- you see all of this? This hell I've created?- it's nothing. The Amnesia Machine is an idea, a seed, much like the ones inserted into our wounds, only in the mind. What is the Amnesia Machine? It is society. It is everything. All that you see, all that you touch, all of it is manipulated.
Why?
Control. It is virtually impossible to find new enemies, outside of our own. In order to maintain greater control over all citizens, the repression of civil liberties creates intellectual anesthesia, and the reinforcement of unquestioning faith. The masses will soon know nothing of what makes them human- the savages will cease to exist. What the masses see on television, the music that they hear, the things they read, even the colors they see on advertisements, all of them images of the horrible things they will experience, makes them callous to it. Society has slowly come to shun the show of emotion, the thing that makes us human, not useless lumps of flesh capable of everything and striving for nothing.
How do I know this?
Because I created , perfect Communism, where even thenumbness of thought is shared.
Why?
Because I could.
Why didn't it work?
Because we're all too human. Humans are quite prone to error. And there are some things we just can't seem to forget.
Like love, I guess, however lame and cliché that may sound. Even crazy people are capable of that, although I can't say exactly why.
Like a little boy who likes pancakes and Saturday morning tickle fights. Even if he's what, twenty-six, now? Something like that?
Like a tall man, very pale, very bald. The only one, I think, that has forgiven me.
Like the legs of a shapely blonde, wink wink.
But quite unlike the name of a certain girl I know… she's cute, and, contrasting my previous conceptions, useful after all.
September is right- I'm not me, anymore. Or whoever I was, back then. That guy was a bit of a bastard, I fear.
Good-bye, Dr. Bishop.
xXx
_RECALL SEQUENCE ABORTED. STATE REASON FOR TERMINATION Y/N?
n.
_MANUAL CONTROL ENABLED. SYSTEM SELF-SCAN ENABLED. REINITIATING REBOOT SEQUENCE.
_
SYSTEM REBOOT. TIME REMAINING: 10:18:12.
xXx