(( The following was written by Cait Nathair and published here with permission ))
[The Cells]
Peering into her cell, I cannot help but feel. .
.perturbed by the fact that I am confronting a shadow of myself. Is she the
passenger or the conductor? Which part of me did Thal Vadam extract during the
assault? How can this pathetic and lowly little creature really be me?
I stand there in the crisp and orderly sanctum that is my laboratory. Since Fein's expiration I've found myself quite engrossed in his works, complete and otherwise. When we were one, we were the creature that was going to be the turning point of his slighted career. Truly, he was a brilliant human and in the capture of Cait Vadam I am afforded the opportunity to complete it. . .advance it.
Look at her. Curled up in a corner like a wounded animal. Her nanites have already repaired what I've done so far, but the dark blood has matted her pale hair to head and crusted to her supple flesh. Her surgical scrubs are pasted to her skin in a thick line down her back. I smirk as I clasp my hands behind my back and reach out into her mind, the communicative tendrils of my consciousness slipping around it in a chokehold of an embrace. I've held the winning hand the entire time and she knows it now.
"Your nerves?" I bend at the waist towards the window, my glasses sliding down my nose just a little. I have no requirement for them, I've only kept them for appearance. We have no use for human compulsions or emotions, but interactions with them are important and I like to keep some of my ties from my human life. Better not to raise flags by altering my appearance much more, so the glasses stayed.
"Hnnnn. . ." She stirs and stiffly sits up, her shaky hands lifting to her head as she winces against my intrusion. She then glares up at the bay window where I leer in at her. "G-go away." She growls as her head rolls back against the cold steel wall. "Go back to the lies of your maker and leave me be."
"Very well, Vadam. If that's how you want today's meals served. . ." I straighten and smile in at her. "Nerves and bones." I turn and start to walk away, but she clears her throat which makes me stop. I turn my head slightly to indicate that I'm listening.
"Why?" They always have to ask their captors this. Stupid fucking humans. I laugh and look down the hall in front of me.
"Ask your fiance." I head off down the hall, order the drones to bring her out and get changed into something more appropriate.
I stand there in the crisp and orderly sanctum that is my laboratory. Since Fein's expiration I've found myself quite engrossed in his works, complete and otherwise. When we were one, we were the creature that was going to be the turning point of his slighted career. Truly, he was a brilliant human and in the capture of Cait Vadam I am afforded the opportunity to complete it. . .advance it.
Look at her. Curled up in a corner like a wounded animal. Her nanites have already repaired what I've done so far, but the dark blood has matted her pale hair to head and crusted to her supple flesh. Her surgical scrubs are pasted to her skin in a thick line down her back. I smirk as I clasp my hands behind my back and reach out into her mind, the communicative tendrils of my consciousness slipping around it in a chokehold of an embrace. I've held the winning hand the entire time and she knows it now.
"Your nerves?" I bend at the waist towards the window, my glasses sliding down my nose just a little. I have no requirement for them, I've only kept them for appearance. We have no use for human compulsions or emotions, but interactions with them are important and I like to keep some of my ties from my human life. Better not to raise flags by altering my appearance much more, so the glasses stayed.
"Hnnnn. . ." She stirs and stiffly sits up, her shaky hands lifting to her head as she winces against my intrusion. She then glares up at the bay window where I leer in at her. "G-go away." She growls as her head rolls back against the cold steel wall. "Go back to the lies of your maker and leave me be."
"Very well, Vadam. If that's how you want today's meals served. . ." I straighten and smile in at her. "Nerves and bones." I turn and start to walk away, but she clears her throat which makes me stop. I turn my head slightly to indicate that I'm listening.
"Why?" They always have to ask their captors this. Stupid fucking humans. I laugh and look down the hall in front of me.
"Ask your fiance." I head off down the hall, order the drones to bring her out and get changed into something more appropriate.
[The Table]
My sacrificial lamb.
My fingers trail up her bare forearm and I'm reminded for a brief moment what it's like to be human, that connection that's made when you touch another being. It's a brief flash like our sockets are connecting and my hand retreats while I try not to frown in utter disgust. I grab the apron that hangs on a hook on the wall nearby that attends our every meeting in the operating theater.
These affairs are always dismal for my patients, but for me they're vaguely fulfilling. It awakens something within me that I never knew before, some dark creature that's always hungry with a most peculiar appetite. My brain thirsts for the completion and expansion of Feins work, but my friend craves the power over my helpless little lambs. She is like a lion that lurks within the matrix of my consciousness, prowling restlessly until the drones have them bound and gagged.
I don my gloves, look fondly over my tools and I've fallen from grace.
We are a pragmatic species, but there's no other way to describe it. . .
I take my scalpel into my skilled hands and I'm Father's fallen angel.
I approach her, and the humor has left my face. I'm a ravenous predator that's about to put her through pain beyond your wildest imagination in the name of science. In reality, it goes much deeper. So much deeper.
"You jeopardized us." The drones start bringing tables and bins towards me as I take my place at her side. "Your existence threatens my own being. I am the original Cait. I am Cait Nathair, I am original being who carried our DNA, our whole infomorph still lies within the Collective. You are just a fractured copy." I take her palm, hold it open while I slice into it. I take my index finger and jam it into the pooling blood and press it hard against her forehead as I lean into her horrified face. For the first time since my assimilation, I actually feel something. . .more.
"You...are...NOTHING! NO ONE!" I hiss into her face. "You can't even lift a firearm without flinching! You can't kill! You are the worst kind of human! You're lucky to have me fixing you. You'd better be praying to whatever deity it is you ilk pray to, because if I'm successful you will make even Father proud, but today? Today you will die, tomorrow you will die. You will die every single day you are in my care until you can wear a mask and keep the damned thing on!" I snap my fingers, cords come up from the floor and connect to her podjacks. The monitors come to life, and I feel a sick grin crossing my lips. Who am I?
"And death shall never come quick, my dearest. . ." My scalpel digs into her flesh at her shoulder and drags down her arm to her wrist. Dark blood quickly oozes out, flowing out onto my table. I rip the surgical gown off of her. "It shall never be painless. . ." I drag it now down the center of her body from clavicle to pubis. My eyes widen as blood wells up and starts to trickle down her sides in thin rivulets. I stab the scalpel into her wounded palm, and snap, look up to the drone who brings me a tray.
It's only now that I become aware of the sounds around me. My drone children buzzing around me as they prepare the clone bay for my new lamb, the sobbing whimpers of my bleeding sacrifice on the cold, steel table below. The gentle scrape of the needles shifting on the surgical platter as I take it into my hands. My mind buzzing with plans, ideas, timers. . .a high.
This is my carefully orchestrated symphony from which I feed a darkness in my matrix.
In the name of science I fall from synthetic grace.
My fingers trail up her bare forearm and I'm reminded for a brief moment what it's like to be human, that connection that's made when you touch another being. It's a brief flash like our sockets are connecting and my hand retreats while I try not to frown in utter disgust. I grab the apron that hangs on a hook on the wall nearby that attends our every meeting in the operating theater.
These affairs are always dismal for my patients, but for me they're vaguely fulfilling. It awakens something within me that I never knew before, some dark creature that's always hungry with a most peculiar appetite. My brain thirsts for the completion and expansion of Feins work, but my friend craves the power over my helpless little lambs. She is like a lion that lurks within the matrix of my consciousness, prowling restlessly until the drones have them bound and gagged.
I don my gloves, look fondly over my tools and I've fallen from grace.
We are a pragmatic species, but there's no other way to describe it. . .
I take my scalpel into my skilled hands and I'm Father's fallen angel.
I approach her, and the humor has left my face. I'm a ravenous predator that's about to put her through pain beyond your wildest imagination in the name of science. In reality, it goes much deeper. So much deeper.
"You jeopardized us." The drones start bringing tables and bins towards me as I take my place at her side. "Your existence threatens my own being. I am the original Cait. I am Cait Nathair, I am original being who carried our DNA, our whole infomorph still lies within the Collective. You are just a fractured copy." I take her palm, hold it open while I slice into it. I take my index finger and jam it into the pooling blood and press it hard against her forehead as I lean into her horrified face. For the first time since my assimilation, I actually feel something. . .more.
"You...are...NOTHING! NO ONE!" I hiss into her face. "You can't even lift a firearm without flinching! You can't kill! You are the worst kind of human! You're lucky to have me fixing you. You'd better be praying to whatever deity it is you ilk pray to, because if I'm successful you will make even Father proud, but today? Today you will die, tomorrow you will die. You will die every single day you are in my care until you can wear a mask and keep the damned thing on!" I snap my fingers, cords come up from the floor and connect to her podjacks. The monitors come to life, and I feel a sick grin crossing my lips. Who am I?
"And death shall never come quick, my dearest. . ." My scalpel digs into her flesh at her shoulder and drags down her arm to her wrist. Dark blood quickly oozes out, flowing out onto my table. I rip the surgical gown off of her. "It shall never be painless. . ." I drag it now down the center of her body from clavicle to pubis. My eyes widen as blood wells up and starts to trickle down her sides in thin rivulets. I stab the scalpel into her wounded palm, and snap, look up to the drone who brings me a tray.
It's only now that I become aware of the sounds around me. My drone children buzzing around me as they prepare the clone bay for my new lamb, the sobbing whimpers of my bleeding sacrifice on the cold, steel table below. The gentle scrape of the needles shifting on the surgical platter as I take it into my hands. My mind buzzing with plans, ideas, timers. . .a high.
This is my carefully orchestrated symphony from which I feed a darkness in my matrix.
In the name of science I fall from synthetic grace.
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