Vivification

I never thought of myself as crazy. However it’s been said, by many reputable scholars mind you, that crazy people never know they’re crazy. Somehow self-awareness keeps one out of the loony bin and maybe that’s where I went wrong. I had always preferred the terms ‘edgy’ or ‘high strung’ as opposed ‘insane’ – it just had too negative a connotation attached. Then again, I might be crazy only because They tell me I’m crazy…no. We all know that’s not true. I can readily remember the first time I felt it. It crept up my spine, down from my brain and back up to the edges of my eyes, bleeding in like the cloudy ink of a sea squid roaming the wine-dark oceans of Intaki. Ever since she died… It was not a scary feeling so much as it was one of power. With it came a sense of strength, perhaps lust even, and wicked possibility. Maybe it was my youth, or some other demon inside, that made me think I could control it and bend it to my own will…there’s no telling. The idea seemed romantic at the time, yes romantic; a cold, composed and wry deviant on the outside while a fearsome beast waiting to be released on the inside. But that’s where I went wrong. I couldn’t control it. Only the drugs could. Blue Pills, Soothsayers, Crash all sent me to a wistful and blissful place, free and floating. Alcohol helped too…and women. Yes, yes the women. Silly, stupid…if you’d been more observant you wouldn’t be…here. A certain silver-haired and gorgeous Caldari once told me that drugs were for the weak…now maybe she’s right. Long and tense fingers rapped on the steel armrest of a hovering patients-chair. The rhythm less tapping echoed about the small, cold room. These were the sorts of thoughts that occupied the mind of Hekaton Keirez. His stay at Cham-Sara had been a pleasant one. It involved little besides free and legal drugs, sitting, tasteless food, testing, and all the holoreels he could watch. His eyes glazed over, deep in hazy thought, half watching the newsreel before him. It was only a few weeks old, speaking of matters which contained little importance to him. His eyes began to dart back and forth, the only part of his body that was moving. He didn’t need to look at anything but the screen; he knew the cold white room he currently sat in like the back of his pale hands, the marks and lines on which he’d counted many times before to entertain himself in solitude. Had he looked around there would not have been much to see apart from the bright, white lights, a few assorted pieces of white furniture, the assistants and doctors roaming about their days in white robes, and the few other ‘patients’ mucking about in their black patients garb. Black and white. That was another quandary that had plagued him for some time. Keirez had no interest in mirrors either. It wasn’t an abandonment of hygiene, of course, just this sickly lethargy that had crept in upon him slowly, its footsteps coinciding with every does of medication they gave him. Had he looked in the mirror he would scarcely recognize the face before him. His once vibrant, furious eyes had dimmed, bereft of their former livelihood. The face, once exuding the charm he’d used to wriggle out of countless jams, looked grayed and even sunken, shabby, unshaven, and grim. His long hair had gotten longer, keeping pace with the heavy bags that had spread under his eyes for the past six months. No, this was not the lively scoundrel some had known. This all changed shortly before the dissolution of his former company, the Vindication Angels, in one tragic evening that haunted him every day since. All I can remember is black lights, the face of the bartender, and her…the one with the glorious rack. Why can’t I remember? Of course, ten doses of Crash should have killed me. I should be thanking my good brain for the memory loss. That’s what makes it easy to believe Them when they tell me what I had done. Maybe it’s the Gallentean in me that craves the action and entertainment. It felt so right to be there, to cut loose and be who I longed to be. If nothing else it had been a hell of a haul from Cartel space to the Sovicou system and I had earned a lap dance or two…and the three bottles of wine. Good Sovicou, the playground of the Federation and my home away from home. Probably the reason I was discharged from the Navy, too. In any case, I expected it to be an escape from my demons – not a jump drive into the heart of them. Back his padded room, Keirez’s eyes remained fixed on the flickering holoscreen before him. Static. Lines. Now a new reel. Something more entertaining, he hoped. While in some circles it can be important or even hip to stay informed with the goings-on of Empire space, Keirez just wanted a good story and maybe a few explosions. Such was not the case. It was a documentary, a poorly made one, on some subspace creature near Ammatar space. Keirez didn’t care. Just as he was about to move on one of the huskier orderlies shoved him on the shoulders back into his chair. “Time for you treatment, Keirez,” he said, squeezing the words through a tight smirk on his lips. Keirez made a fake smile, “Why Nurse Chaz, I suddenly find myself curiously aroused…” The orderly’s face turned solemn, “Shut up you worthless nutter.” Keirez’s lips turned wry, “You certainly have a way with people.” I seem to remember, quite naturally, the aftermath. Two days later I awoke face down on a metal slab, my waist was strapped to it. The cell was dark with two small lights above each corner of the doorway. I felt groggy. I remember wanting to go back to sleep, despite the wailing pain in my head, the ringing in my ears, and the cold metal against my face, when some clowns in Federation uniforms barged in. The next thing I recall is sitting with a cigarette in my mouth, still bound very securely for some reason, with the Gallentean goon reading me my rights. I kept my eyes shut; it was easier on my brain and I had no care to look at this brute while enjoying a smoke. His voice sounded like an Amarrian preacher gargling chunks of hot asphalt. “…two counts of arson, public display of drunkenness, indecent exposure, public indecency…ten counts of assault, and two counts of manslaughter.” My eyes opened slowly. He looked like a copper – dark skinned, square jawed and short haired. Might as well have been a Caldari by the look of him. But all of this…how could I have done all of this? “Ever try Crash, Keirez? They say an overdose is something like falling asleep in the middle of space. It gets cold…very cold,” he spoke slowly and methodically, exacting every word, “But not you. You can imagine our surprise when we found you collapsed with 9 doses of the drug flowing through your bloodstream and a trail of chaos behind you. You must have very good insurance.” “Bullshit,” was my reply. This pig was taking me for a ride and I’d have kept denying it had he not flipped on a monitor across the room. I couldn’t understand it. No one likes a bit of violence more than me but this was stupendous. What I saw was a view from the security cameras of The Dancing Mendre club which had espied me, or at least a man who looked a great deal like me, raving, screaming, smashing bits of the bar, scaring the patrons and, ultimately, flipping a table over onto one of the dancers, crushing her beneath. Something snapped in me. The cigarette fell out of my mouth. How did it happen? More importantly how many times had it happened in the past, this reckless rage? I’d had…spells, you might say, in the past but…nothing like this. I sat there wishing I had just died then and come back a clone. The ‘treatment’ they had spoken of before is something like being in the pod of a very small frigate. The patient is submerged in a small tub full of some kind of breathable petroleum jelly mix, plugged up to god knows how many machines…and then you dance for Them. Psychology and its pseudo counterparts had come a long way in the Federation. Keirez had read, in the past, about ancient psychological treatment involving something like a sofa, a notepad, and a listening ear. That would have been Heaven in a tall glass compared to this. Keirez would have put a bullet between the eyes of the doctor who invented this; long thin probes implanted into the major nerve centers, probing memories and body chemicals, looking for an explanation…and a cure. The doctor attending tapped his fingers on a display and with a whoosh and a splat the mixture was drained and Keirez dumped on the floor, gagging and flailing. Soon his naked body was rinsed down and he was dumped in his small, padded cell with a change of clothes. He lay there for a while, just breathing, feeling too weak to do much else. With his last bit of strength he rolled on his side, coughed up more of the fluids, and fell asleep. It took ten of them to stop me. I remember that familiar feeling and then convulsing uncontrollably right there in the interrogation room. Before I could get up and do anything they were on me. One of the bigger ones knocked me out and the rest threw me in a stasis-suit, designed to physically suspend perps so they couldn’t move. Two hours later I was staring into the eyes of the same Inspector. He opened up what looked like a palm-sized NeoCom and held it in front of my face. “You didn’t let me get to the good stuff, Keirez.” If I’d had any energy left I might’ve gotten upset at his tone. “This is you, right?” All I could make out on the screen was a picture of me, a very dashing picture I might say, imposed next the Angel Cartel insignia. My few low-sec crimes were inscribed underneath. “Is that supposed to scare me? You know there are plenty more criminals out there with worse records and worse affiliations.” “I haven’t gotten to the best part,” the snide inspector let the smoke billow out of his smiling mouth, “We might not be able to pin you just for using Crash but we checked into your hotel room. We found 20 cubic meters of the stuff along with a few other…choice items. And, since you’re clearly too unstable for our normal penal centers we’ll come up with something…better.” The Federation and her bloody court system. As liberal as they were and as progressive as they want to be they’re just as corrupt as the worst criminal organizations in the farthest regions of Eve. A week later I was checked in to Cha-Sara Station; an orbital observation ward and hospital somewhere in Mannar space. A few hours after the treatment and he was back in front of his holoreel display. Hekaton Keirez was generally a well-spirited person. However he sat there, feeling numb, dejected, and all the other feelings a man can feel when most everything but hope is stripped from him. Somewhere inside he knew this would all pass. ‘It is always worst before the end’ or so his late father had said. There were no windows in this place – perhaps the most demoralizing piece of this sick puzzle – but he could still, in his minds eye, see the vast Black Ocean. It still called him, even in the midst of insanity and mind-altering chemicals he still heard it; his one true mistress. All the worse for his emotions, the newsreel in front of him shifted to a story on the ISGC Frigate Racing League and its current standings. He’d never taken part in the race but it was good money and even a bit of fun, or so he’d heard; one more piece to throw onto this stack of hate for Them and doubly so for his condition. Or perhaps not. He’d always felt there was a way to control himself, control this feeling that seemed to grow worse each day. The treatment obviously did nothing to help but maybe in time… He snapped out of this train of thought as the race rankings popped up on screen. Rho Dynamics was at the top; the dwindling corporation he’d been in contact with throughout his time in space. His interest sparked. However, the next image triggered something deep within Keirez, something that had lain dormant all these many months he’d spent locked up with no comfort, no company save his inner demons. It triggered all that hope and desire buried under hate and confusion, the wanderlust that so drove his life. The image was of a man and two women standing side by side in a winner’s circle of some space station near The Citadel. He somewhat recognized the first woman, the man he did not know, but the second woman, a Civire, silver-haired and gorgeous, made his eyes go wide. Not so much for the woman herself but all that she represented. The reporter’s voice trailed into his ears… “…Jamieson, representing Dragonstar Racing, is in second place at 380 points and is tied with Rho Dynamics racer Nakatre Read…” A wide smirk cracked his face - something that hadn’t happened in four months. Why hello, Boss Lady… Cleared for publication by: Ander