C/p'd from original on
Chatsubo.
YC 312, Ashab VIII-Moon 10 - Theology Council Tribunal.She was happy.
He didn't know what happiness was.
Sihsa wasn't in the best of moods. He knew someone's head was going to roll for this sort of thing being allowed to happen on this station. He'd prefer it not be that of his lovely assistant, who had brought him the news. But, such is the lot in life of a messenger.
"What can you tell me about it?"
"True Amarrian male, aged three-hundred and fifty-six. Genetically ID'd as one Lord Kinlas Terab, Terab Estate Holder, Ashab IV. Became an Imperial Navy capsuleer in YC 107. Missing since YC 112. Found on-station here in a private residential level, leased for two centuries in 112. Paid in full up front. Lease ran out yesterday, no contact with the purchaser since the time of contracting. Landholder went in today, found the scene."
"Accounts used?"
"Tried tracing it. Routs through a half dozen Khanid banks, then into the CFU, and then through the GIB, whose owner there apparently never existed."
"....How long has he been there?"
"We... don't know. There's not much left of him. Bone structure's fine, all of the muscles in the upper and lower extremeties are completely atrophied though. Can't move his head, his hands, legs, anything. Won't be talking to us, either. Survived on an IV nutrient drip."
"How long?"
"...If I had to guess, I'd say it could very well be up to the entirety of those two centuries the lease has been active, sir. We did, also, take two slaves in for questioning, who had been functioning as his... 'caretakers', I guess, though it makes me sick to call them that. They'll be terminated after the Council's inquisitors are done with them."
YC 262."Brain activity is at a minimum, Mistress. Vitals are still fine other than that. I... don't think there's much going on up there, anymore."
He hadn't had a thought in years. Just blankness. He couldn't register the presence of the people who came in, like clockwork, twice a day. Sometimes they'd change the IV, and he'd be stabbed with a new needle somewhere else. Didn't even feel it anymore.
So quiet. Time passed so slowly here.
YC 212."Change out the slaves. These two are much too old to properly handle it anymore. Make sure the new ones can't speak. Don't really care how you do it, just they can not be able to speak a sound around him."
He'd had to have a lung replaced ten years ago. They hadn't bothered to give him any anesthesia. Not as if he could scream anyway. It kept hurting for so long, that terrible feeling of the knives and lasers cutting through him. All he could do was stare up, at that perfectly clean, off-white ceiling, as they ripped him open.
He hated them for what they were doing to him, for the pain he was going through. But even more than that, he hated
himself, for being
grateful to them for giving him something to feel, to focus on, to let himself know he was still alive.
YC 162.He had noticed something. Little things, they were starting to slip. He was having trouble remembering things. The smell of his wife's perfume. The color of his daughter's hair. Birthdays were starting to go. He wasn't sure how old he was anymore.
Names.... names, names names what is my name, wait, no no no! No sounds, no screams, so loud in his mind, but there and there only, his lips forever unwilling to let the words take physical form.
"He's been doing alright so far, Mistress. Brain activity has lessened some since the start. Muscles are pretty weak, obviously, but all the major organs are still functioning. Those w'll have to start replacing those in a decade. Maybe two."
"That's fine. Do what you have to in order to keep him alive."
"Always and forever, Mistress."
YC 112.She sat down on the side of the bed. A smile crept across her features. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand.
"Hello, Kin. You might notice you can't move your eyes. Or talk. Or, well, do much of anything. You can, I'll bet, feel that needle in your hand, though. It is feeding you some nutrients to keep you alive. It's also giving you a little dose of some neural inhibitors, which will suppress all of your outgoing nervous system's activity. Do you know what that means?"
She knew he couldn't answer. He kept looking up at the ceiling. He hated the whiteness of it. If the bitch was going to off him, she could at least do it in a decent looking room.
"What you're experiencing right now is that oh-so-lovely thing you learned about in the Academy. I've artificially replicated a mindlock, just for you."
The word sent a proverbial shiver down his spine and a stab of cold into his heart. He tried so hard to look at her and move, and he hated her in that moment more than anything in existence.
"You were always so concerned and obsessed with being immortal. Didn't seem like you cared much for your wife, your family, your home anymore. Or even me, for that matter."
She stabbed the catheter into him with little care for his discomfort, which while extremely prevalent in his mind during the excruciating ordeal of the insertion, was completely unrepresented in his passive facial features.
"Something you'll find out over the next two hundred years: Immortality's not all it's cracked up to be."
Eventually, even those, the last words he'd ever hear and understand, would fade from memory. All that remained ahead was this off-white ceiling, and the torturous persistence of his body and all that would entail in keeping it functioning.
P.S. Thanks to Mizhara for all the helpful input, and the rest of you feel free to add your comments on the story as well!
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Topic: Immortality's not all it's cracked up to be. (Read 1354 times)