Post by Kiddo on Apr 11, 2014 23:28:19 GMT -5
Soooooo. This was spurred by two things. While talking over the Sloth fic I did earlier the conversation turned to just how dark the entire situation of Sloth was. Sure, on the surface it's all fun and games and morphing potions, but once you dig deeper you realize you're talking about someone that is using violence and surveillance to enforce a dictatorship and engages in highly immoral biological experimentation on neopets. I mean, nightmare material, right there.
And the second thing was after the story was done, the idea of a truly crippled main character was mentioned in a review as something you don't see. I'd downplayed it in the fic because it was something that's not done and I wasn't certain how it'd turn out.
So then I was like... okay. Let's combine these two ideas. A truly evil Sloth and a character with a severe disability. And let's see just how dark this can go.
I still wound up toning it down quite a bit. This is nowhere near the level of violence I've been writing recently. I think something is wrong with me as a person.
Also: I CAN IGNORE WORDCOUNT AHAHAHAHHAHAHA.
(this entire thing was my weak attempt to avoid editing my original fiction because I hate editing)
And the second thing was after the story was done, the idea of a truly crippled main character was mentioned in a review as something you don't see. I'd downplayed it in the fic because it was something that's not done and I wasn't certain how it'd turn out.
So then I was like... okay. Let's combine these two ideas. A truly evil Sloth and a character with a severe disability. And let's see just how dark this can go.
I still wound up toning it down quite a bit. This is nowhere near the level of violence I've been writing recently. I think something is wrong with me as a person.
Also: I CAN IGNORE WORDCOUNT AHAHAHAHHAHAHA.
(this entire thing was my weak attempt to avoid editing my original fiction because I hate editing)
Some nights, I would wake gasping for breath, paralyzed by terror. Like my world had closed in around me and I was set adrift in the darkness of my bedroom, suffocating under the weight of a malevolence I couldn't put a name or a face to. Then I'd subside back into sleep, fitful, and wake in the morning and pretend that nothing had happened. It was oppressive, living there like that. I just couldn't acknowledge it, not to myself, not to anyone. I just existed some days.
You see, I used to work for Sloth as an engineer on Virtupets. I was competent enough to merit promotion until I reported directly to Dr. Sloth himself. I can't say I'm proud of taking that job, but I so desperately wanted to live on the space station and once I was there, I was trapped. I'm not certain if Sloth would have prevented me from leaving I'd wanted, but I couldn't have tried. I just couldn't have.
There were perks, granted. I had access to technology I'd never be able to touch back on Neopia's surface. There was excitement and while sometimes I cursed those moments, thinking I was going to die, I was never actually badly injured. Sloth, for all his disregard for the sanctity of life, was supremely competent and his military branch had no equal. Perhaps Meridell could have matched them on discipline and mettle, but swords are no match against blasters.
I think, if it were just us, we'd not have won in the end. If we didn't have the Space Faerie on our side.
But for all these questionable benefits, at the end of the day, I existed as a unwitting prisoner inside the metal hull of Virtupets. I understood, on some level, that there was surveillance and that my records – all of them – were an open book for Sloth. He controlled the station, he controlled its system, and he had access to everything. For most people it was not a problem. The cameras could be ignored and the security personnel were largely disinterested in the comings and goings of the majority of the inhabitants. But for us lucky few that had earned the attention of those higher up on the food chain – or even the focus of Dr. Sloth himself – the tone of the surveillance shifted.
I ignored the cameras. Like they didn't exist, even though I serviced the systems that fed them. It was all I could do, this sort of denial inside my own head.
Sometimes, however, the illusion came falling down around me, and I was reminded of where I was and just how little control I really had over my circumstances.
Let me tell you of one of those times. It is not a story I tell because I think it will amuse, but it is a story I tell because I need to.
There was an ebb and flow to the politics of the space station. On the high points, Sloth was in complete control and the rebellion was in hiding, their numbers reduced to only a handful of pockets that didn't dare venture from what little scraps of territory they retained. On the low points, there was open warfare in the passageways and Sloth dispatched his forces with a collected efficiency while his loyalists hunkered down and waited it out. The rebellion knew what would happen to them if they were captured. They'd be interrogated and then disposed of, either consigned to be one of Sloths many lab experiments or a quicker, cleaner, fate at the end of a blaster. Those of us under Sloth – we did not have that cold comfort of certainty. We waited and wondered, thinking that maybe this time, if this time the rebellion prevailed and Sloth fell – then what would become of us? Were we traitors? Whom did we betray?
If that question had been posed to me, I think my only answer was that I betrayed my conscience. And I paid for it in ways that can't be measured, not directly.
I am not a strong person. I never have been, but perhaps five years ago I was stricken even further. Adult onset. It took a year to even diagnose what was wrong with me, one horrible year of questions and tests and my two pets trailing along behind me. Frightened. None of us understood what was happening. I don't think I was in danger of my physical safety – for one thing, my lupe, Davis, was ferocious. He didn't speak, but he was a mutant and had the mass and teeth to ward off any that would do me harm. But that was not all. Sloth's surveillance was fixed on me once I grew ill, for he recognized the weak link for what it was, and would not have me falling into the hands of anyone that would take advantage of how much I knew about the space station's inner workings.
It was not uncommon, when I collapsed, my muscles no longer under my own control, for a security team to show up on the spot within minutes and carry me away. I'd come out of it, hours later, in one of the infirmaries within the secure perimeter. Sloth had layers of security, you see, and the innermost ring was where they transported me. Always. They wouldn't permit my pets to follow, not even with Davis baring his teeth at them, and I'd come out of it alone and shaking.
The worst of it was, I never lost consciousness. I think it would have been easier if I had. I wouldn't have to feel anything. I wouldn't have to remember.
Old wounds. I'm getting off-topic.
It was in the third year of my illness. This is how I measure things, the passage of time as dictated by the confines of my disease. Things were rough, but they hadn't yet gotten bad. That would come some months later. For now, life continued as it was, somewhat strained, granted, but I stayed close to the heart of Virtupets where it was safe and that was all. One day, I was absorbed in repairing one of the gravity generators – very tricky things – when Sloth found me. Normally he seemed to take delight in startling me, but since I was working on a potentially volatile piece of equipment, he made his presence known with a loud cough. I put down my tools and stood, turning to regard him.
“Sir?” I asked weakly.
“You're coming with me,” he said. “To my lab.”
“Is – something broken?”
“Yes. You. We're fixing this since your doctors are useless.”
It'd taken them a year to even diagnose it. They'd not yet figured out how to actually treat it and so I suffered under it, daily, an hour here and an hour there. Laying prone, shuddering violently. Sometimes I cried. It hurt.
“But – ”
“Don't make me have my soldiers escort you to the lab.”
I had little choice in the matter. If I had not gone peacefully, I'm certain Garoo or his soldiers would have made certain I made it to Sloth's lab, one way or another. I was shaking by the time we arrived, my feet turned inward as the muscles pulled tight and held that way. It hurt to walk and I was hunched inwards, my arms pulled tight against my chest. Sloth had his hand locked on my upper arm, fairly pulling me along with him, and I did my best to keep up, utterly miserable and humiliated. Sloth's lab was secured with an airlock, as he sometimes dealt with toxins inside, and keyed so that only he could enter. There were three rooms, each dedicated to a different project, and the one in the back had been mostly cleared, so that the counters and metal table in the middle were empty. He gave me a shove towards the table.
“I'm not letting you experiment on me,” I protested and Dr. Sloth turned his head to glare at me.
“Your illness has reached the point where it is inconveniencing me,” he said, very quietly. Sloth was always at his most dangerous when he got quiet. “My best engineer is unreliable. If there were an emergency, I could not send you to repair it because I couldn't be certain you wouldn't collapse for hours on end, unable to even move on your own power. This is unacceptable. Now. SIT DOWN and SHUT UP.”
That did it. I crumpled. My body twisted inwards, curling up, my chest pulling everything inwards and I felt tears fill my eyes. I wanted to fall away. To drift into darkness and not remember any of this. I felt weak, helpless, and vulnerable. Have you ever had a moment when you felt utterly exposed – all you were stripped bare and laid out for someone else to see? Have you ever felt that way in front of someone you could not trust? Someone that very well may do you harm?
I wake, still, in the night. Sometimes. I dream of being helpless.
Sloth left me there a moment and I could hear him getting into one of the drawers along the wall. He returned and stooped behind me and I could do nothing but lay there and let him put a needle along my arm. There was a bite of pain, then cold through my veins, and everything drifted out of focus and away. I recall being lifted, laid out on the table, and then nothing else, not until I woke in a bed in the infirmary.
I was informed by an attendant that I could return to my duties as soon as I felt capable of doing so. That Sloth had left a task list and I had been assigned a team of eight grundos to direct as I saw fit. My typical work load, in other words. It was hard to ask what Sloth had done to me. The gelert avoided meeting my eyes when she answered.
“There's nothing in your record,” she said.
“Is it – fixed?”
Despite the circumstances as to how, I couldn't help but hope.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
I wouldn't see the results of this until we hit the worst of those low points. The rebellion was waging outright war in the corridors and everyone was afraid. Sloth had pulled his forces back to that last ring of security, military and civilian alike. I was one of those key personnel and he sent Commander Garoo to retrieve me, in person. They came to my apartment, a detachment of five, and ordered that I gather my things and my pets and go with them.
“What's happening?” I asked and Garoo only scowled. He didn't like being questioned. Ever.
“Sloth's orders,” the blumaroo replied. “We're abandoning this sector and unless you want to stand trial before the rebellion, I suggest you hurry it up, human.”
There was a note of disdain in the word. Such was Garoo. His threat was duly noted, however, and I complied. I am a coward. I did not want to face the rebellion. I did not know what they would do with me. I chose the evil I knew because that was also what safety I could secure for myself.
I'm sure you're wondering, at this point, what happened when Sloth finally did fall. Those records are sealed. The proceedings are not something I care to recall. My amnesty was given grudgingly.
I was taken, Miriane and Davis with me, through the corridors of Virtupets. There was an odd tension to the air and I was put in the middle of the group of soldiers. It was apparent that Garoo feared an ambush and I was afraid as well. The lights were on emergency power by this point, as the fighting had damaged a number of the generators, and Sloth's forces couldn't establish enough of a hold to send out engineers like myself to repair them. It sent the entire station into a state of constant twilight and I'd already lost track of my sense of time, trapped in this half-world with no sun or moon to measure the hours. It was almost a relief when we reached the checkpoint that admitted us to Sloth's secure sector. They had power. They had lights.
My relief was short-lived. As soon as the blast doors were sealed behind us, Garoo gave the order to have my pets removed into confinement.
“What!?” I protested, lunging for the first of the blumaroo soldiers that was trying to grab Miriane.
The pteri was backing away, into a corner, and Davis moved to cover her. The soldier I was accosting just grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. I was quick to freeze in place, my shoulder and elbow sending pain stabbing through my chest.
“Okay,” I gasped. “I won't fight. I'm good. But – what?!”
“Any civilian with inadequate security clearances to be here is being confined,” Garoo said, speaking slowly as if I were an idiot. “You should be glad we permitted you to bring the pets at all.”
It sounded as if I weren't being singled out in this. I exhaled and forced myself to relax. Already, I could feel the stress and fear turning my muscles against myself and drawing them tight.
“Boss,” Miriane said warily from behind Davis's bulk, “I'm okay with this. Honest. We'll be fine – but you gotta call Davis off.”
She didn't want to cause a scene. She, like I, knew it was hopeless to fight back. I still felt my stomach twist with guilt when I ordered Davis down, however, and the lupe just stared at me as the soldiers closed in and clipped a lead around his neck. He didn't fight back, astonishing, considering the circumstances of his mutation. Just let them lead him away and Miriane followed in his wake. She looked back once. Davis did not. I just stood there, freed from the soldier's pin, and watched them go. I didn't hear Sloth approaching, not until a hand fell heavy on my shoulder.
Startled, I twisted to look up into Sloth's baleful glare. His expressions were difficult to read sometimes, I think it was on account of his red eyes, but if I had to guess I would say he looked... determined. Not angry, like I'd expect considering his station was being taken apart by rebels, but rather, I saw resolve. He knew exactly what he was going to do and nothing was going to stop him. The fact he was seeking me out – well, it was enough to make me wonder if I should have taken my chances with the rebellion.
As if I'd be allowed to do so. Garoo would have made sure I was brought back even if he had to handcuff and carry me there.
“You're with me,” he said. “Come.”
I followed, and with trepidation, not knowing where he was leading me. I did not protest, even though I was shivering with fear. I remembered how casually he'd put me under at his lab, without a warning, without permission. Like I was a curiosity and nothing more. My freedom here was questionable.
“Do you understand why this conflict has been so difficult for me to resolve?” he asked as we walked.
I mutely shook my head no. He gave a soft huff of derision.
“It's not knowing who is part of the rebellion. All of you humans and neopets live here, on my station, and any of you might be against me. And there are critical functions I need performed so I am forced to trust those I can and hope that I'm correct. My surveillance, while extensive, is not perfect and even them I'm assuming the people reviewing the logs are both loyal to myself and competent. Since I am dealing with neopets and humans, I often get only one of the two, and sometimes neither. Never both.”
“I'm hardly incompetent,” I said, feeling some need to defend myself.
“You're a cripple,” he snapped. “That is it's own variety of problem.”
Something broke. I stopped walking, my hands curling into fists, my body shaking.
“I am not worthless,” I gasped, my voice lined with hate.
It was dangerous to force a confrontation with Sloth. Very dangerous. Yet – I had no choice. Not on this. For all I'd compromised on, this was not something I could tolerate. Sloth merely turned, eyes narrowing at my tone, and stared down at me impassively.
“I didn't say worthless,” he said quietly.
Then he turned away from me and resumed walking. Stunned, I remained behind a moment, but hurried to catch up when he started speaking again. Sloth was rarely in the mood to share his plans and as terrified as I was at being included in this conversation, I was fascinated.
“So the question on how to weed out the loyalists from the rebels remains my largest problem,” he continued. “The current fighting has done a lot of that already. As the rebellion seems to grow closer to winning, their forces have swelled. The people that were undecided have picked a side, either mine, or theirs. For the people that have picked the rebellion – well, while power is cut, I've kept the cameras running with the emergency supply. They can be reviewed at my leisure and the people we identify dealt with.”
“You're not losing,” I said, realization sinking in. “This – all this - you're not really as hard-pressed as they think you are.”
“Of course not. I have three units waiting on a ship exterior to the station and at my command they'll enter through one of the airlocks in rebellion territory and split their forces into two. From there, I can annihilate one half, and then focus in on the other. I've picked a highly defensible location to wedge my troops in at.”
Courage and pluck can only go so far. At the end of the day, it really boiled down to superior tactics and having the high ground. Sloth had both. I felt my stomach twist into knots at the thought of what was going to happen here.
“Now, the traitors inside the ranks are a different problem,” Sloth continued. “They remain here because the rebellion needs intelligence. I've been... providing them with some. Do you remember when I brought you to my lab?”
“I do,” I murmured. I did not understand where he was going with this.
“My expertise is with neopets. I know their biology better than they do and have used that knowledge to create my morphing potions, as well as other... weapons. However, in my obsession, I've neglected the other aspect of Neopia. Humans. Oh, I knew the basics, certainly, but I didn't understand how you functioned well enough to manipulate it to my advantage.”
He was talking in past tense. How long had I been unconscious? I wrapped my arms around my stomach.
“Then I get this – disaster – of a human on my hands. So I pulled your medical records and studied them and when that was exhausted, I brought you to my lab. And I used my technology to see what yours could not. Where the brain was malfunctioning. How it was malfunctioning. And what chemicals were involved in the process and how to recreate their effect.”
“What?” I gasped, horrified. “Are you saying-”
“I can duplicate the paralysis, yes, even in a subject that lacks the genetic mutation that you have.”
We'd come to a sealed door and Sloth led the way through. There were humans gathered inside, all the various owners that worked for Sloth. I thought there were perhaps thirty of us, most of them uneasy, and soldiers lined the walls of the empty room. Watching. I felt conspicuous, standing so close to Sloth, but no one seemed to pay me special attention. They knew what my rank was here. They knew me.
“But why?” I whispered as Sloth studied his assembled employees. I kept my voice low.
“Because I needed to know where the traitors in my own ranks were.”
I turned around, slowly. He had his hand poised on a portable computer in his palm and was keying something in.
“I've been poisoning the water,” he said quietly. “This station is a closed system. I can do that. For weeks now, building up concentrations of a particular substance in every human in the station. It only needs to be activated... through the air.”
“Closed system,” I said, finally realizing what was happening here. “You're going to poison us.”
“Only the humans. You're the key to it. There's roughly three neopets to every human here and their alliances tend to align with their owners. I find which of you are traitors, the pets will follow. The drug will take a few minutes to circulate through the vents. When it does, it'll react with what's already built up in your systems, and every human will drop into paralysis. You already know what that feels like. Now, so will they. Well...”
He smiled.
“Every human that hasn't been taking the antidote that was conveniently stolen by the rebellion.”
So only those loyal to him would collapse. The rest would remain standing. Hesitantly, I glanced around the room. There were a couple humans walking in our direction, finally working up the nerve to approach in person and ask what was going on and why we were being kept here. I wanted to shrink into the background and vanish.
“The rebellion thinks it's a weapon,” Sloth murmured, “to decimate their forces and allow me to launch a counter-attack. They think, when I launch this weapon, that is when they'll strike. They're wrong. This – all of this – isn't a war. It's a test. And my forces are standing by, waiting to kill any human that doesn't fall.”
“You said... kill...”
He'd always captured people, before. Oh, there were certainly casualties, but on the whole Sloth preferred to take people alive. I wasn't certain if that was preferable, honestly. Sloth allowed himself a cold smile.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Kill. I'm done playing games. I capture because I want to interrogate, but in this case, I will know plenty through my own devices. It's time to thin their ranks.”
I was the first to drop. My sickness made me more susceptible, perhaps, or it was simply the stress of the situation that triggered my disease on its own. I was starting to feel heavy. Like my muscles couldn't support my own weight. My knees buckled and I slid to the ground, crumpled over on myself, my eyes going unfocused finally I fell onto my side and went still. I couldn't feel my fingers. Sloth was standing close to me, watching the room. I heard cries of alarm from the other humans, then a few more buckled and fell, shivering in terror, unable to understand what was happening.
And the ones that didn't fall? Some of them had smuggled weapons in, but the room was too crowded with non-combatants, and they hesitated. Sloth's forces did not. I closed my eyes but it was not enough to block out what was happening and I lay there, helpless, my chest seized up with sobs that wouldn't come, just remained there pent-up inside me, boiling over into hysteria. Sloth's soldiers were efficient, the only mercy in all of this. The human rebels with weapons were quickly dispatched and the rest surrendered. There were perhaps only five left and they dropped to their knees, hands up near their heads.
They were not spared. Sloth was no longer interested in prisoners. I could hear some of them begging, in those last frantic seconds when they realized they were going to die right then and there. It changed nothing.
“I can get away with this,” Sloth said coldly and I wasn't certain he was still talking entirely to me, “because I'm being selective. If I'd killed every human on this station – and the thought has crossed my mind before – then Neopia would unite against me. I'm left alone because this is my station and what happens here is my concern and they don't want to get involved in something so desperate, something that isn't their problem. To kill all of you would be an atrocity they could not ignore, however. This? This is merely war.”
He sounded amused.
“Funny how you humans justify these things to yourselves. The paralysis will wear off in thirty minutes. Now, if you excuse me, I have a counter-attack to launch.”
He left me there. He left all of us, and the soldiers milled about, seeing to the removal of the bodies. Us, the loyalists, they left alone. I heard some of us crying, but most were silent, trapped inside ourselves, with the stink of blood heavy in the air.
It took a few days for Sloth to regain total control of the space station once more. The surviving humans in his employ were released, our pets returned to us, and I was able to return home. I did not speak to my pets about what had happened and Miriane did not press. I think she sensed that something terrible had happened, or perhaps she'd heard rumors as to what I'd witnessed. I closeted myself in my room and fought with my own body, pushed to the breaking point and it seemed my disease ran rampant in my muscles. I'd lay there, twisted on my bed, crying out in helpless frustration until Davis crawled onto the bed with me and lay by my side. I curled around him and shuddered and he didn't leave me.
I returned to work eight days after the massacre. Sloth was in his lab and I went there first, and he admitted me without question. This in itself was unusual, but I suspected that I now had privileges that other humans wouldn’t. He'd brought me here before and now I didn't fear it as I once had.
“Sloth,” I said evenly, “I resign.”
He didn't seem surprised. I wondered how many of the other humans had made this exact same announcement. He'd have a lot of vacancies in his staff to fill and likely whoever he got to replace them would be too terrified to ever join the rebellion, lest they wind up on their knees with a gun at the back of their head.
“Before you do that,” he replied demurely, “I'd like to ask you something.”
I stiffened and didn't reply. He took that as permission.
“Have your doctors on Neopia figured out a treatment for your disorder?”
“What does that have to do with my resignation?” I asked tightly.
“I'm asking,” he said, “because I have.”'
I froze. My stomach twisted together as I put together the pieces – how this would play out – and realized that he'd seen this coming. He'd known what I would do and found how he would counter it. I felt my nails bite into the palms of my hands.
“I need someone I can control,” he said coldly. “Someone that can touch my most critical of systems and underspend them – not just repair here and there, but actually know how they can be manipulated – and someone that I do not have to worry about their loyalty, not today, not ever.”
He picked up a bottle from the counter. There were a number of small, white pills inside and my eyes tracked it, despite myself.
“Do you still want to resign?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “With all my heart.”
“But you're not going to.”
I dropped my head and closed my eyes and did not move. I didn't have to answer. I heard him move closer and reluctantly, I opened my eyes and Sloth stood there before me, holding out the bottle with one hand. I reached up and took it, my fingers shaking. I felt like I was betraying someone, but I wasn't certain who. My fellow humans? Myself?
I could have refused. I could have walked away and struggled with my disease. But I wasn’t strong enough. I was crippled both inside and out and I felt like I was only half-alive, stumbling through the day, and here – the devil was offering me a way out – and I took it.
There was nothing more to say. I walked away, carrying the bottle. When it ran out, I'd just have to ask for more, and this was how Sloth would keep my loyalty. I wondered what holds he had on the other critical personnel in his employ, or perhaps I was simply an exception due to my engineering knowledge and the rest could go free. Sloth stopped me at the door with a word.
“Girl,” he said and I froze, waiting.
“If you'd been one of them,” he continued, “I'd not have killed you. Not immediately. There's too much yet to learn, so I'd take you apart, strip you down to nerves and muscles until I knew everything of what makes up a human. Keep that in mind, if you ever think of betraying me.”
“Yes sir,” I whispered. “But remember that everyone has a breaking point and if you involve me in something like this again, I might just find where mine is.”
Then, closing my eyes, my muscles trembling, I walked out and away. It was an effort to keep my back straight and my shoulders square, but I managed it. I would not let him see me break.
You see, I used to work for Sloth as an engineer on Virtupets. I was competent enough to merit promotion until I reported directly to Dr. Sloth himself. I can't say I'm proud of taking that job, but I so desperately wanted to live on the space station and once I was there, I was trapped. I'm not certain if Sloth would have prevented me from leaving I'd wanted, but I couldn't have tried. I just couldn't have.
There were perks, granted. I had access to technology I'd never be able to touch back on Neopia's surface. There was excitement and while sometimes I cursed those moments, thinking I was going to die, I was never actually badly injured. Sloth, for all his disregard for the sanctity of life, was supremely competent and his military branch had no equal. Perhaps Meridell could have matched them on discipline and mettle, but swords are no match against blasters.
I think, if it were just us, we'd not have won in the end. If we didn't have the Space Faerie on our side.
But for all these questionable benefits, at the end of the day, I existed as a unwitting prisoner inside the metal hull of Virtupets. I understood, on some level, that there was surveillance and that my records – all of them – were an open book for Sloth. He controlled the station, he controlled its system, and he had access to everything. For most people it was not a problem. The cameras could be ignored and the security personnel were largely disinterested in the comings and goings of the majority of the inhabitants. But for us lucky few that had earned the attention of those higher up on the food chain – or even the focus of Dr. Sloth himself – the tone of the surveillance shifted.
I ignored the cameras. Like they didn't exist, even though I serviced the systems that fed them. It was all I could do, this sort of denial inside my own head.
Sometimes, however, the illusion came falling down around me, and I was reminded of where I was and just how little control I really had over my circumstances.
Let me tell you of one of those times. It is not a story I tell because I think it will amuse, but it is a story I tell because I need to.
There was an ebb and flow to the politics of the space station. On the high points, Sloth was in complete control and the rebellion was in hiding, their numbers reduced to only a handful of pockets that didn't dare venture from what little scraps of territory they retained. On the low points, there was open warfare in the passageways and Sloth dispatched his forces with a collected efficiency while his loyalists hunkered down and waited it out. The rebellion knew what would happen to them if they were captured. They'd be interrogated and then disposed of, either consigned to be one of Sloths many lab experiments or a quicker, cleaner, fate at the end of a blaster. Those of us under Sloth – we did not have that cold comfort of certainty. We waited and wondered, thinking that maybe this time, if this time the rebellion prevailed and Sloth fell – then what would become of us? Were we traitors? Whom did we betray?
If that question had been posed to me, I think my only answer was that I betrayed my conscience. And I paid for it in ways that can't be measured, not directly.
I am not a strong person. I never have been, but perhaps five years ago I was stricken even further. Adult onset. It took a year to even diagnose what was wrong with me, one horrible year of questions and tests and my two pets trailing along behind me. Frightened. None of us understood what was happening. I don't think I was in danger of my physical safety – for one thing, my lupe, Davis, was ferocious. He didn't speak, but he was a mutant and had the mass and teeth to ward off any that would do me harm. But that was not all. Sloth's surveillance was fixed on me once I grew ill, for he recognized the weak link for what it was, and would not have me falling into the hands of anyone that would take advantage of how much I knew about the space station's inner workings.
It was not uncommon, when I collapsed, my muscles no longer under my own control, for a security team to show up on the spot within minutes and carry me away. I'd come out of it, hours later, in one of the infirmaries within the secure perimeter. Sloth had layers of security, you see, and the innermost ring was where they transported me. Always. They wouldn't permit my pets to follow, not even with Davis baring his teeth at them, and I'd come out of it alone and shaking.
The worst of it was, I never lost consciousness. I think it would have been easier if I had. I wouldn't have to feel anything. I wouldn't have to remember.
Old wounds. I'm getting off-topic.
It was in the third year of my illness. This is how I measure things, the passage of time as dictated by the confines of my disease. Things were rough, but they hadn't yet gotten bad. That would come some months later. For now, life continued as it was, somewhat strained, granted, but I stayed close to the heart of Virtupets where it was safe and that was all. One day, I was absorbed in repairing one of the gravity generators – very tricky things – when Sloth found me. Normally he seemed to take delight in startling me, but since I was working on a potentially volatile piece of equipment, he made his presence known with a loud cough. I put down my tools and stood, turning to regard him.
“Sir?” I asked weakly.
“You're coming with me,” he said. “To my lab.”
“Is – something broken?”
“Yes. You. We're fixing this since your doctors are useless.”
It'd taken them a year to even diagnose it. They'd not yet figured out how to actually treat it and so I suffered under it, daily, an hour here and an hour there. Laying prone, shuddering violently. Sometimes I cried. It hurt.
“But – ”
“Don't make me have my soldiers escort you to the lab.”
I had little choice in the matter. If I had not gone peacefully, I'm certain Garoo or his soldiers would have made certain I made it to Sloth's lab, one way or another. I was shaking by the time we arrived, my feet turned inward as the muscles pulled tight and held that way. It hurt to walk and I was hunched inwards, my arms pulled tight against my chest. Sloth had his hand locked on my upper arm, fairly pulling me along with him, and I did my best to keep up, utterly miserable and humiliated. Sloth's lab was secured with an airlock, as he sometimes dealt with toxins inside, and keyed so that only he could enter. There were three rooms, each dedicated to a different project, and the one in the back had been mostly cleared, so that the counters and metal table in the middle were empty. He gave me a shove towards the table.
“I'm not letting you experiment on me,” I protested and Dr. Sloth turned his head to glare at me.
“Your illness has reached the point where it is inconveniencing me,” he said, very quietly. Sloth was always at his most dangerous when he got quiet. “My best engineer is unreliable. If there were an emergency, I could not send you to repair it because I couldn't be certain you wouldn't collapse for hours on end, unable to even move on your own power. This is unacceptable. Now. SIT DOWN and SHUT UP.”
That did it. I crumpled. My body twisted inwards, curling up, my chest pulling everything inwards and I felt tears fill my eyes. I wanted to fall away. To drift into darkness and not remember any of this. I felt weak, helpless, and vulnerable. Have you ever had a moment when you felt utterly exposed – all you were stripped bare and laid out for someone else to see? Have you ever felt that way in front of someone you could not trust? Someone that very well may do you harm?
I wake, still, in the night. Sometimes. I dream of being helpless.
Sloth left me there a moment and I could hear him getting into one of the drawers along the wall. He returned and stooped behind me and I could do nothing but lay there and let him put a needle along my arm. There was a bite of pain, then cold through my veins, and everything drifted out of focus and away. I recall being lifted, laid out on the table, and then nothing else, not until I woke in a bed in the infirmary.
I was informed by an attendant that I could return to my duties as soon as I felt capable of doing so. That Sloth had left a task list and I had been assigned a team of eight grundos to direct as I saw fit. My typical work load, in other words. It was hard to ask what Sloth had done to me. The gelert avoided meeting my eyes when she answered.
“There's nothing in your record,” she said.
“Is it – fixed?”
Despite the circumstances as to how, I couldn't help but hope.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
I wouldn't see the results of this until we hit the worst of those low points. The rebellion was waging outright war in the corridors and everyone was afraid. Sloth had pulled his forces back to that last ring of security, military and civilian alike. I was one of those key personnel and he sent Commander Garoo to retrieve me, in person. They came to my apartment, a detachment of five, and ordered that I gather my things and my pets and go with them.
“What's happening?” I asked and Garoo only scowled. He didn't like being questioned. Ever.
“Sloth's orders,” the blumaroo replied. “We're abandoning this sector and unless you want to stand trial before the rebellion, I suggest you hurry it up, human.”
There was a note of disdain in the word. Such was Garoo. His threat was duly noted, however, and I complied. I am a coward. I did not want to face the rebellion. I did not know what they would do with me. I chose the evil I knew because that was also what safety I could secure for myself.
I'm sure you're wondering, at this point, what happened when Sloth finally did fall. Those records are sealed. The proceedings are not something I care to recall. My amnesty was given grudgingly.
I was taken, Miriane and Davis with me, through the corridors of Virtupets. There was an odd tension to the air and I was put in the middle of the group of soldiers. It was apparent that Garoo feared an ambush and I was afraid as well. The lights were on emergency power by this point, as the fighting had damaged a number of the generators, and Sloth's forces couldn't establish enough of a hold to send out engineers like myself to repair them. It sent the entire station into a state of constant twilight and I'd already lost track of my sense of time, trapped in this half-world with no sun or moon to measure the hours. It was almost a relief when we reached the checkpoint that admitted us to Sloth's secure sector. They had power. They had lights.
My relief was short-lived. As soon as the blast doors were sealed behind us, Garoo gave the order to have my pets removed into confinement.
“What!?” I protested, lunging for the first of the blumaroo soldiers that was trying to grab Miriane.
The pteri was backing away, into a corner, and Davis moved to cover her. The soldier I was accosting just grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. I was quick to freeze in place, my shoulder and elbow sending pain stabbing through my chest.
“Okay,” I gasped. “I won't fight. I'm good. But – what?!”
“Any civilian with inadequate security clearances to be here is being confined,” Garoo said, speaking slowly as if I were an idiot. “You should be glad we permitted you to bring the pets at all.”
It sounded as if I weren't being singled out in this. I exhaled and forced myself to relax. Already, I could feel the stress and fear turning my muscles against myself and drawing them tight.
“Boss,” Miriane said warily from behind Davis's bulk, “I'm okay with this. Honest. We'll be fine – but you gotta call Davis off.”
She didn't want to cause a scene. She, like I, knew it was hopeless to fight back. I still felt my stomach twist with guilt when I ordered Davis down, however, and the lupe just stared at me as the soldiers closed in and clipped a lead around his neck. He didn't fight back, astonishing, considering the circumstances of his mutation. Just let them lead him away and Miriane followed in his wake. She looked back once. Davis did not. I just stood there, freed from the soldier's pin, and watched them go. I didn't hear Sloth approaching, not until a hand fell heavy on my shoulder.
Startled, I twisted to look up into Sloth's baleful glare. His expressions were difficult to read sometimes, I think it was on account of his red eyes, but if I had to guess I would say he looked... determined. Not angry, like I'd expect considering his station was being taken apart by rebels, but rather, I saw resolve. He knew exactly what he was going to do and nothing was going to stop him. The fact he was seeking me out – well, it was enough to make me wonder if I should have taken my chances with the rebellion.
As if I'd be allowed to do so. Garoo would have made sure I was brought back even if he had to handcuff and carry me there.
“You're with me,” he said. “Come.”
I followed, and with trepidation, not knowing where he was leading me. I did not protest, even though I was shivering with fear. I remembered how casually he'd put me under at his lab, without a warning, without permission. Like I was a curiosity and nothing more. My freedom here was questionable.
“Do you understand why this conflict has been so difficult for me to resolve?” he asked as we walked.
I mutely shook my head no. He gave a soft huff of derision.
“It's not knowing who is part of the rebellion. All of you humans and neopets live here, on my station, and any of you might be against me. And there are critical functions I need performed so I am forced to trust those I can and hope that I'm correct. My surveillance, while extensive, is not perfect and even them I'm assuming the people reviewing the logs are both loyal to myself and competent. Since I am dealing with neopets and humans, I often get only one of the two, and sometimes neither. Never both.”
“I'm hardly incompetent,” I said, feeling some need to defend myself.
“You're a cripple,” he snapped. “That is it's own variety of problem.”
Something broke. I stopped walking, my hands curling into fists, my body shaking.
“I am not worthless,” I gasped, my voice lined with hate.
It was dangerous to force a confrontation with Sloth. Very dangerous. Yet – I had no choice. Not on this. For all I'd compromised on, this was not something I could tolerate. Sloth merely turned, eyes narrowing at my tone, and stared down at me impassively.
“I didn't say worthless,” he said quietly.
Then he turned away from me and resumed walking. Stunned, I remained behind a moment, but hurried to catch up when he started speaking again. Sloth was rarely in the mood to share his plans and as terrified as I was at being included in this conversation, I was fascinated.
“So the question on how to weed out the loyalists from the rebels remains my largest problem,” he continued. “The current fighting has done a lot of that already. As the rebellion seems to grow closer to winning, their forces have swelled. The people that were undecided have picked a side, either mine, or theirs. For the people that have picked the rebellion – well, while power is cut, I've kept the cameras running with the emergency supply. They can be reviewed at my leisure and the people we identify dealt with.”
“You're not losing,” I said, realization sinking in. “This – all this - you're not really as hard-pressed as they think you are.”
“Of course not. I have three units waiting on a ship exterior to the station and at my command they'll enter through one of the airlocks in rebellion territory and split their forces into two. From there, I can annihilate one half, and then focus in on the other. I've picked a highly defensible location to wedge my troops in at.”
Courage and pluck can only go so far. At the end of the day, it really boiled down to superior tactics and having the high ground. Sloth had both. I felt my stomach twist into knots at the thought of what was going to happen here.
“Now, the traitors inside the ranks are a different problem,” Sloth continued. “They remain here because the rebellion needs intelligence. I've been... providing them with some. Do you remember when I brought you to my lab?”
“I do,” I murmured. I did not understand where he was going with this.
“My expertise is with neopets. I know their biology better than they do and have used that knowledge to create my morphing potions, as well as other... weapons. However, in my obsession, I've neglected the other aspect of Neopia. Humans. Oh, I knew the basics, certainly, but I didn't understand how you functioned well enough to manipulate it to my advantage.”
He was talking in past tense. How long had I been unconscious? I wrapped my arms around my stomach.
“Then I get this – disaster – of a human on my hands. So I pulled your medical records and studied them and when that was exhausted, I brought you to my lab. And I used my technology to see what yours could not. Where the brain was malfunctioning. How it was malfunctioning. And what chemicals were involved in the process and how to recreate their effect.”
“What?” I gasped, horrified. “Are you saying-”
“I can duplicate the paralysis, yes, even in a subject that lacks the genetic mutation that you have.”
We'd come to a sealed door and Sloth led the way through. There were humans gathered inside, all the various owners that worked for Sloth. I thought there were perhaps thirty of us, most of them uneasy, and soldiers lined the walls of the empty room. Watching. I felt conspicuous, standing so close to Sloth, but no one seemed to pay me special attention. They knew what my rank was here. They knew me.
“But why?” I whispered as Sloth studied his assembled employees. I kept my voice low.
“Because I needed to know where the traitors in my own ranks were.”
I turned around, slowly. He had his hand poised on a portable computer in his palm and was keying something in.
“I've been poisoning the water,” he said quietly. “This station is a closed system. I can do that. For weeks now, building up concentrations of a particular substance in every human in the station. It only needs to be activated... through the air.”
“Closed system,” I said, finally realizing what was happening here. “You're going to poison us.”
“Only the humans. You're the key to it. There's roughly three neopets to every human here and their alliances tend to align with their owners. I find which of you are traitors, the pets will follow. The drug will take a few minutes to circulate through the vents. When it does, it'll react with what's already built up in your systems, and every human will drop into paralysis. You already know what that feels like. Now, so will they. Well...”
He smiled.
“Every human that hasn't been taking the antidote that was conveniently stolen by the rebellion.”
So only those loyal to him would collapse. The rest would remain standing. Hesitantly, I glanced around the room. There were a couple humans walking in our direction, finally working up the nerve to approach in person and ask what was going on and why we were being kept here. I wanted to shrink into the background and vanish.
“The rebellion thinks it's a weapon,” Sloth murmured, “to decimate their forces and allow me to launch a counter-attack. They think, when I launch this weapon, that is when they'll strike. They're wrong. This – all of this – isn't a war. It's a test. And my forces are standing by, waiting to kill any human that doesn't fall.”
“You said... kill...”
He'd always captured people, before. Oh, there were certainly casualties, but on the whole Sloth preferred to take people alive. I wasn't certain if that was preferable, honestly. Sloth allowed himself a cold smile.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Kill. I'm done playing games. I capture because I want to interrogate, but in this case, I will know plenty through my own devices. It's time to thin their ranks.”
I was the first to drop. My sickness made me more susceptible, perhaps, or it was simply the stress of the situation that triggered my disease on its own. I was starting to feel heavy. Like my muscles couldn't support my own weight. My knees buckled and I slid to the ground, crumpled over on myself, my eyes going unfocused finally I fell onto my side and went still. I couldn't feel my fingers. Sloth was standing close to me, watching the room. I heard cries of alarm from the other humans, then a few more buckled and fell, shivering in terror, unable to understand what was happening.
And the ones that didn't fall? Some of them had smuggled weapons in, but the room was too crowded with non-combatants, and they hesitated. Sloth's forces did not. I closed my eyes but it was not enough to block out what was happening and I lay there, helpless, my chest seized up with sobs that wouldn't come, just remained there pent-up inside me, boiling over into hysteria. Sloth's soldiers were efficient, the only mercy in all of this. The human rebels with weapons were quickly dispatched and the rest surrendered. There were perhaps only five left and they dropped to their knees, hands up near their heads.
They were not spared. Sloth was no longer interested in prisoners. I could hear some of them begging, in those last frantic seconds when they realized they were going to die right then and there. It changed nothing.
“I can get away with this,” Sloth said coldly and I wasn't certain he was still talking entirely to me, “because I'm being selective. If I'd killed every human on this station – and the thought has crossed my mind before – then Neopia would unite against me. I'm left alone because this is my station and what happens here is my concern and they don't want to get involved in something so desperate, something that isn't their problem. To kill all of you would be an atrocity they could not ignore, however. This? This is merely war.”
He sounded amused.
“Funny how you humans justify these things to yourselves. The paralysis will wear off in thirty minutes. Now, if you excuse me, I have a counter-attack to launch.”
He left me there. He left all of us, and the soldiers milled about, seeing to the removal of the bodies. Us, the loyalists, they left alone. I heard some of us crying, but most were silent, trapped inside ourselves, with the stink of blood heavy in the air.
It took a few days for Sloth to regain total control of the space station once more. The surviving humans in his employ were released, our pets returned to us, and I was able to return home. I did not speak to my pets about what had happened and Miriane did not press. I think she sensed that something terrible had happened, or perhaps she'd heard rumors as to what I'd witnessed. I closeted myself in my room and fought with my own body, pushed to the breaking point and it seemed my disease ran rampant in my muscles. I'd lay there, twisted on my bed, crying out in helpless frustration until Davis crawled onto the bed with me and lay by my side. I curled around him and shuddered and he didn't leave me.
I returned to work eight days after the massacre. Sloth was in his lab and I went there first, and he admitted me without question. This in itself was unusual, but I suspected that I now had privileges that other humans wouldn’t. He'd brought me here before and now I didn't fear it as I once had.
“Sloth,” I said evenly, “I resign.”
He didn't seem surprised. I wondered how many of the other humans had made this exact same announcement. He'd have a lot of vacancies in his staff to fill and likely whoever he got to replace them would be too terrified to ever join the rebellion, lest they wind up on their knees with a gun at the back of their head.
“Before you do that,” he replied demurely, “I'd like to ask you something.”
I stiffened and didn't reply. He took that as permission.
“Have your doctors on Neopia figured out a treatment for your disorder?”
“What does that have to do with my resignation?” I asked tightly.
“I'm asking,” he said, “because I have.”'
I froze. My stomach twisted together as I put together the pieces – how this would play out – and realized that he'd seen this coming. He'd known what I would do and found how he would counter it. I felt my nails bite into the palms of my hands.
“I need someone I can control,” he said coldly. “Someone that can touch my most critical of systems and underspend them – not just repair here and there, but actually know how they can be manipulated – and someone that I do not have to worry about their loyalty, not today, not ever.”
He picked up a bottle from the counter. There were a number of small, white pills inside and my eyes tracked it, despite myself.
“Do you still want to resign?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “With all my heart.”
“But you're not going to.”
I dropped my head and closed my eyes and did not move. I didn't have to answer. I heard him move closer and reluctantly, I opened my eyes and Sloth stood there before me, holding out the bottle with one hand. I reached up and took it, my fingers shaking. I felt like I was betraying someone, but I wasn't certain who. My fellow humans? Myself?
I could have refused. I could have walked away and struggled with my disease. But I wasn’t strong enough. I was crippled both inside and out and I felt like I was only half-alive, stumbling through the day, and here – the devil was offering me a way out – and I took it.
There was nothing more to say. I walked away, carrying the bottle. When it ran out, I'd just have to ask for more, and this was how Sloth would keep my loyalty. I wondered what holds he had on the other critical personnel in his employ, or perhaps I was simply an exception due to my engineering knowledge and the rest could go free. Sloth stopped me at the door with a word.
“Girl,” he said and I froze, waiting.
“If you'd been one of them,” he continued, “I'd not have killed you. Not immediately. There's too much yet to learn, so I'd take you apart, strip you down to nerves and muscles until I knew everything of what makes up a human. Keep that in mind, if you ever think of betraying me.”
“Yes sir,” I whispered. “But remember that everyone has a breaking point and if you involve me in something like this again, I might just find where mine is.”
Then, closing my eyes, my muscles trembling, I walked out and away. It was an effort to keep my back straight and my shoulders square, but I managed it. I would not let him see me break.
