Interlude

After 8 days at a work do in Vegas and coming back to my daughter being up all night vomiting, twice, I'm not really feeling up to writing right now!  Just re-read the last one and I don't like it.  I thought it was OK at the time, but obviously I need some sleep.

So, I shall resume in a day or so when I've had some rest.

Day 3664

Looking back, it's obvious that the booster was working, although perhaps not quite well enough.  I can remember snatches of my time in the caves.  Not that I want to.  I'm still haunted by Lara's face as she pulled the trigger.

I stare at the goop on my plate.  We know a lot more now about what they did to people and how to mitigate it to some extent.  I'm unusual, thanks to the booster, of course.  Do they have to make it so much like brains?  The others don't seem to mind.  The others don't seem to mind much if I'm honest.  Like I said, I'm different.

After the war, when we'd finally won, they didn't really know what to do with us.  Most of us had technically been enemy combatants, but none of us had been so willingly so nobody with any sense held it against us.  There was a lot of talk about looking to reverse the effects of the conscription treatment and re-integrate us back into society.  Their tech seemed to overlay the original brain, like a new layer of the cerebrum.  Conceivably, if it could be stripped out without destroying what's underneath you'd be back to how you were before.  Nobody really knew if the original personality was still in there or would reemerge if the technology was stripped out, but they were hopeful, we'd won after all, we could do anything.  The unfortunate truth though is that after ten years we still don't understand enough about their technology to do anything like that.  That's not to say we haven't learned anything, several companies have made a killing taking and adapting small parts of the technology underlying the conscription process.

For the moment, though we're in a kind of limbo.  It wasn't like we could just return to our normal lives.  Besides, nobody wants to spend too much time with enhanced humans who if they get hungry may decide that your brain is on the menu.

I poke listlessly at my goop.  Better get it over with.  I hastily shovel in as much as I can and swallow.  It's enough to keep me going.  It's enough to keep me thinking.  That's all I've got.

Day 13

The room.

Again.

We start to eat and I remember.  The pocket.  The brains.

The brains that were in there are useless.  I quickly get rid of them on the floor and scrape up some fresh ones.  I must remember.

We return to the machine.  I must remember.  This time I separate from the group and pass through an arch.  The arch is part of a security system.  I don't know how I know.  Beyond the arch is a chamber, it looks rough, unfinished.  There are boxes.  A storeroom.  I'm here for a box.  My body knows which one.  I'm hungry.  I remember.  I eat from my pocket.   It's not enough.  It will never be enough.

I hear a voice and I stop.

"I don't have any more.  I'm sorry."

I can't see anyone.  Then something shifts in front of me and I see a woman's face.  She's crying.  I eat the last of the brains in my pocket.

"You need more.  I'm so, so sorry."

She looks at me.  I wait.  I eat.  My body wants to take the crate, but I don't let it.  She sobs and puts her hand to her head.  There's something small and black in her hand.   It makes a soft buzzing noise and she falls down.  There's a smell.  A delicious smell.  Brains.

I stumble over to her and kneel.  There's a hole in her head and I can't stop myself.  I start to pull at the broken edges.  Inside there are brains.   I'm hungry. I eat.  It's different.

I start to remember why I'm here.  I know the woman.  She's in my team, the only other one of us who made it this far.  She's lying dead, wrapped in her heavily modified Grumman NG27 Meta Cloak.  She's...  She's my lover.  I've eaten her brains.  They were delicious.

I'm starting to remember.  Why I'm here.  What I need to do.  I kneel a while longer and stare at her.  I should hide her body, but there's something I need to do first.  I don't want to, but I must.  I crack her head open fully and scoop out what's left.  I put it in the pocket of my black worksuit.  The synthetic goop they give us must be missing something vital that I need to think clearly.  It must be deliberate, we don't need to think to build.  Her brain, Lara's brain, has everything.  Lara's brain.  I've eaten Lara's brain.  I can't process that right now, there's no time.  I force myself to continue.

I know why I'm here.  I don't know how much longer I'll be conscious, so I need to hurry.  I check Lara's body.  All the booster is gone.  How long have we been here?  I don't remember being given any.  Should I?  I thought I would.  Maybe there's something, a voice, but I'm not sure.  Have I tried already?  I don't know.  I'm still alive, if that's what you call it, if was able to try before and failed I obviously didn't get caught.

I wrap Lara back up in her cloak and she disappears from view.  There's a little blood on the floor, but I can't do anything about it.  The Sig cauterised the wound, but I made a mess digging through her skull.  I try not to think about that.  I want to bring the weapon, but I leave it with her.  I can't take it back in there, much as I'd like to.  That was one of the first things we learned.  I put her body behind some other crates, then pick up my own.  They'll find her.  They always do.  They found the others.

I head back to the arch with my crate.  There's no outward sign of the security system embedded within, but I know it's there.  We were the elite, the brightest and the best.  It should have been impossible to keep us out.  We lost almost the whole team finding out just how wrong we were about that.  None of our supposedly state of the art penetration tech was any use at all.  I realise with a jolt that I can't remember their names.  I can't remember my own.  It doesn't matter.  Nothing matters any more except stopping them.

A small part of me knows I'm obviously not even close to being normal, even after eating Lara's brain, if I was I'd be lying on the floor screaming instead of heading back in there.  For that at least, I'm almost grateful for what they did to me.  Almost.

We were desperate at the end, Lara and I, desperate enough to try this.  How long did she wait for me alone in that room before deciding she had to take it even further?  Did she get some intel from outside that pushed her to the point where she'd do anything?  It's possible, it was bad enough out there before and it's hardly going to have got better.  Did she even know that her brain would give me what I needed, or was she just hoping?

I'll never know what she was thinking, what drove her to this point, all I can do is try and finish what we started.

I walk through.

Day 12

We're in the room again.

Everything is just like before.  I'm hungry.  I need to remember.  I can't.  I can't.

We eat.  Then I remember.  My pocket.  I eat as much as I can and I scrape some of the spilled brains from the floor to slip into a pocket.  When we are finished, I wait.  I've done better this time, I'm less hungry.  I can think more clearly.  It's important to think clearly.  I don't know why.

I allow my body to walk me into the bright corridor and out through the door.  We're on a walkway above a vast hall.  There are other doors opening on other levels.  Other people in black shuffle out of them.  My companions and I head to a machine.  We're building it or fixing it.  I don't know what it does, but my body knows what to do.  I let it work while I watch.

My body is quick and precise.  It's not like when we're eating.  I fetch tools and make adjustments.  I don't know how my body knows what to do.  The machine is large and there are many machines in the hall.  There are many people.  I'm getting hungrier.

There is something I should do.  It's getting harder to think.  There was something.  Something.  Hungry.  Some...

Day 11

I'm back in the room.  I've been here before.  I'm hungry.

Everyone waits, then there's the buzzer, then the chute, then the brains.  I'm expecting it.  I'm ready.  I still don't know why I'm here.

When the second buzzer goes, I eat.  Quickly.  It's important to eat as much as I can.  I don't know why.  I am more coordinated than my companions and I don't drop any.

When we finish, again I copy what the others are doing and scrape at the trough.  Then we line up and exit through the shower.  I can see the light ahead.  I'm hungry, but less than before.

We approach the light, I can see clearly now.  My companions look wrong. They look grey, vacant...  They look dead.  Am I dead?  Can I be dead if I'm thinking?  I don't know.

We are in a bright featureless corridor.  We are all wearing black jumpsuits with large pockets.  That's important to remember.  I don't know why.

There's another door.  I'm hungry.  I must remember.  I'm hungry.  Hungry.  I...

Day 10

"I'm so sorry, this is the last one.  We thought you'd be further along by this stage.  You were supposed to be...  I'm sorry..."

I'm in a room.  Hungry.  I've been here before.  The trough is empty.  The floor is clean.  It's not been filled yet.  The room is silent.   I and my companions are standing.  Waiting.  There's a sound, a new one... A buzzer.  From the gloom near the ceiling a chute slowly descends.  The precious brains spill out into the trough.  I want to eat, but nobody else moves.  They all stay silent.  Why are they not eating?  The hunger pulls at me, but I don't want to stand out.  Why don't I want to stand out?

The buzzer sounds again and the chute withdraws.  I can feel a groan welling up inside me, my jaw starts to clench and relax like I'm eating the air.  I can't stand it, I have to eat.  Why aren't they eating?  I must eat!  Suddenly the room bursts into life as everyone, including me, lurches towards the trough and starts to feed.  There's no discernible signal.  I am temporarily distracted from my hunger, wondering about what just happened.  I discover my hands are still feeding me without conscious control.

This time I drop hardly any of my brains onto the floor.  I'm still hungry.   The trough is now empty, I pretend to scrape at it like the others.  I still want to fit in.  Just like before suddenly everyone stops and steps back from the trough.  I do too.  I don't know if I could disobey, I don't try.

We line up and walk out of the room into a corridor.  Something sluices down from the ceiling.  It's a shower.  We step out into another corridor and we are dry.  We are wearing some kind of dark clothing which seems to repel the watery brains.

What am I doing?  I'm walking in a corridor.  I can see a light up ahead.  I'm hungry.  What am I doing.  I can see...  I...

Day 9

I'm back in the dimly lit room, standing by the trough.  I can remember I've been here before, feeding, but I can't remember when.  It's progress though.  Progress towards what?

This time I don't stop eating.  The brains are delicious and this time I do a better job of getting them into my mouth.  I'm so hungry.  I keep eating, but it doesn't help.  I'm still hungry.  Always hungry.  I look around me as best I can while I keep pushing handfuls of brains into my mouth.  What am I looking for?  I don't know.

The room is barely lit by a single light high above us.  The walls are blank, grey...  Concrete.  The floor is the same, but has channels cut into it.  In the centre is a grating.  A drain.  I can just make out a hose carelessly coiled in one corner.

The trough empties, but my companions keep scraping at it.  The noise level in the room rises.  So hungry.  I start to groan.  I try to stop, to keep lucid a little longer.  I must...

"Brains!"