Seymour scoffs pointedly at the doctor’s remark, but he does not react to it in any way beyond a stiff straightening of his glasses. He scratches his head awkwardly while the doctor continues to silently scrutinize him, making his skin crawl from unease until he snaps, and declares defensively, if only to break the uncomfortable hush –
“W-well, if you’re going to give me another psych-check, you should know that I’m still on death row.”
“Yes, I know. But it’s customary for any new inmates incarcerated here to have a psychoanalytic screening, despite the length of their sentence. I must follow procedure.”
“But is it procedure to come to the inmate’s cell personally?”
“Well, no, but the guards said you weren’t allowed to leave your room under any circumstances..”
“I see. Is it also procedure to be armed while interviewing too?”
O’Tiggs consciously fingers the concealed revolver hanging in its holster on his shoulder, and says quietly –
“The guards wouldn’t let me enter without being armed. … So, can we begin?”
“… I suppose.”
“Alright then. … So, let’s see. I’ve received your lineage report from the PRIME, if you’ll just give me a moment.”
The doctor flips a page over on his notepad, and taps his pen loudly against it a few times, reading the contents with his wrinkled brow furrowed, while his insipid blue eyes dart rapidly from line to line. Finally, he looks up at Seymour with a cogitating expression, and begins frankly –
“According to this, your full name is Seymour Franklin Moreau. You were born August 21, 2220, in Oskan District, Dystas TerraDome, to Franklin James Moreau and Erin Carrie Ihno, both registered with the eXo PRIME, and have two siblings, Adrian Dante Moreau and Samantha Isabel Moreau. Is this information correct?”
Seymour mulls over his options carefully under the doctor’s watchful eye, deciding whether or not to answer or to try and steal the doctor’s gun surreptitiously, but ultimately concludes to respond without violence for now.
“Yes..”
“Good. You’re finally able to accept these facts, unlike before..”
“Mm..”
The doctor flips a few more pages over on his notebook, his bespectacled gaze hardening the further down he reads, until he ultimately says without looking up from his pad –
“Now then, I’ve reviewed your medical report from when you first entered the eXo PRIME fifteen years ago, and I’ve noticed something peculiar. It says here on your physical description that you have black hair.”
“Yes.”
“Now as I recall, upon your first incarceration at this facility, your hair was orangey-yellow.”
“… So?”
“Well, it seems that you do a lot of physical altering. At first I was convinced that it has something to do with the virus derived from the Magnus Microsporidia fungus, which Mikael Valkyrie reported you were infected with sixteen years ago, but I was informed that the possibility of that seems unlikely.”
“Huhhh.. Yes, that’s right, doctor.”
“So now, if it has nothing to do with the Magni virus, why is your hair white?”
“… Is it relevant?”
“Oh yes. It’s important to understand the subject’s medical background in order to fully understand his mental milieu.”
Seymour twirls a strand of his white hair around his finger thoughtfully, and, admitting defeat, he says flatly –
“… Well, if you must know.. My DNA is poisoned. I did it to myself. One of the side-effects was losing my hair pigmentation.”
“Why would you do that?”
Seymour smirks bitterly, and with his eyes fixed dangerously on the doctor’s watery blue ones, declares stoically –
“… Well, I’m a wanted man, as you should know, Doctor.. The PRIME was able to trace me through their genetic profile scanners just like everyone else. So, in order to elude their trackers who were bound to be hunting me, I synthesized a variant of the SIN toxin, and grafted it onto my chromosomal structure. It made me genetically undetectable, but unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated the prospect of mutation, and thus it eliminated my ability to produce melanin, and severely weakened my muscle tissue. My hair was orange because of the gradual melanin degradation.”
The doctor nods slowly, enraptured by Seymour’s curt explanation, and utters quietly, his pen poised stiffly above his notepad –
“Interesting. So that explains the strange readings we got before.. Were there any other side-effects?”
“Just one. Weakening of my mental constitution caused by the toxin’s mutation, coupled with the shock of the events preceding it, left me susceptible to severe dissociative amnesia.”
“Ahh.. That explains your past behavior here at this facility. Interesting how you can diagnose your own disorders, yet we were unable.”
“You and the others left me here to rot, Doctor. What use did a dying man have to you?”
O’Tiggs scratches his head somewhat shyly, shrinking under Seymour’s condescending glare, and clears his throat pointedly before continuing.
“Yes, so.. Ahem.. If you were in such horrid shape, what made you remember all of this?”
“… It was.. external sources...”
“Such as?”
“Many things..”
Seymour glances down furtively at the black strips of torn fabric hiding his twisted brands with a sick flash of fear, but maintains his composure into front of the old physician, and utters baldly –
“None of which I’ll explain to you.”
“I see. Ahem, now then.. Let’s see.. I’d like very much for you to tell me about your sister Samantha. How do you feel about her?”
Seymour turns his gaze to the blank concrete wall distractedly, his mind turning back to his last encounter with his sister. Without looking at the doctor, who continues to watch him intently, he says distantly –
“Sam... It’s hard to say… While I certainly do care about her, I know that she probably despises me for the way I treated her.”
“How did you treat her?”
“I tortured her. I experimented on her, and forced her to aid me. I threatened her with death many times, because I refused to make her a disposed drone like the others...”
“A drone? How did you do that?”
“… With something I invented called DAmIn-8, or Disciplinal Automaton Injection.”
“Never heard of it. What is it?”
Rolling his eyes impatiently, Seymour asks irritably –
“… Do I really have to explain it?”
“Please do.”
“Tch, fine… Let’s see… How did I write it..? Oh, right. It’s an injection of nanoscopic synapse manipulation nanomachines that halt impulse neurons in the frontal lobe, and seize control of advanced motor skills, speech, and the ability of independent thought through triggering of specific electrical responses via a sixty-thousand mile long carbon nanotube that anchors itself in the injection point and spreads itself throughout the circulatory system by utilizing the body’s natural blood flow. The nanobots are triggered to release and activate certain synapses upon induction of a specific verbal command frequency. Namely, mine.”
The doctor stares at him in confusion for a moment or two, and then regains himself with a small shake of his wrinkled head.
“Um.. What?”
“Well, to put it simply, it causes total control of the mind, without any of the messy side-effects that come with chip implantation or operant conditioning.”
“Oh.”
Still looking completely lost, O’Tiggs nonetheless pushes on in his questioning valiantly.
“But why would you need to do that to anybody?”
“… I had my reasons.. But you wouldn’t understand, even if I told you everything.”
“Hm.. Well, I can tell from your actions and speech that you’re a very intelligent man. But, you seem to be quite lacking in morality.”
“True. I lost my morality long ago.”
The doctor takes a moment to jot down a long line of words on his notepad, while Seymour watches him intently, and after a short instance of silence, the doctor raises his head, and says succinctly –
“So, moving on.. What about your brother Adrian? Can you tell me about him?”
Seymour opens his mouth to respond, but finds his throat blocked by a furious knot. He shakes his head wearily, an embittered smile stretched humorlessly across his pale face, and utters bluntly –
“Heh.. What’s there to say? He hates me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. End of story.”
“I see. Why does he hate you?”
“… I don’t know. I never asked him about it. We’ve barely spoken a word to eachother since.. I think it’s been about eighteen years now. All I know is that he hates me with every last cell in his body, and I doubt there’s anything I can do to change his mind.”
“Hm…”
Once again, the doctor falls into silence, speedily jotting down notes on his pad before asking curiously –
“Now then, can you tell me about your parents?”
“… My parents?”
Seymour flops down onto the cold concrete floor offhandedly, and stares at the dreary ceiling contemplatively, his hands resting under his head, the unbidden knot in his throat tightening the more he tries to recall. After a time, he sighs with a small, self-deprecating chuckle, and declares quietly –
“Well, again, there’s not much to say. I wasn’t really too close to them, particularly my father. I hated him..”
“Because why?”
Gritting his teeth angrily, his patience already far past the breaking point, Seymour keeps his irate gaze fixed at the ceiling of his cell, and says in a voice drowned by bitterness –
“He was… He was a covert agent for the PRIME.. and he spent most of his time behind enemy lines, so he wasn’t around at all when I was little.. All I really remember about my parents is that they were always yelling at eachother…”
“Hm.. Tell me more..”
“Well.. My mother died right after giving birth to Sam, and I heard that dad was killed by… somebody.. Somebody on a battlefield about fifteen years ago…”
“Interesting..”
Once again, a silence falls upon the gloomy cell as the doctor continues to take notes. While he writes, Seymour feels the hot lump in his throat throb painfully at the mention of his father, but he chokes it back just as O’Tiggs says stoically –
“Now then, I think I understand your familial situation.. Can you explain to me why you joined the eXo PRIME?”
“.. Please, just go away.”
“Seymour, this will go much faster if you cooperate.”
Sitting back up so he can stare square into the doctor’s wrinkled, somewhat amused visage, Seymour bites back the retort loaded onto his tongue, and forces himself to explain –
“… I didn’t really have much choice. I was sort of forced into service.”
“Why’s that?”
Sighing wearily, Seymour knows that he could be using this time to escape, rather than explicating his life story to the desiccated doctor sitting before him, but his eyes drift to the doctor’s revolver sitting innocently in its holster, and he forces himself to continue.
“… If you must know... It was seventeen years ago. … I was like most other kids at the time; living in the cracks of The Aozora War, which was still raging on under the TerraDomes.”
“Yes, I recall that very well.”
“Anyway.. I.. I was abducted by some Aozora soldiers who raided my school when I was eight years old, along with the rest of the children and teachers in the building at the time. … They killed most of the abducted kids right away, but those they kept alive were forced to fight for the Aozora, and most of the initial survivors were killed in battle with the eXo PRIME. I was one of the very few survivors of the battles. I tried to escape after a year of forced service with a member of the Aozora; one I’d actually called my friend.”
“You had a friend in the Aozora Alliance?”
“Well… I thought she was my friend.. But, the night we agreed to escape together, she never showed… By that time, the eXo PRIME was moving in on the hideout, and because of my ‘disposition’, I was accused of conveying secrets to the PRIME, and I was branded a PRIME spy. … I was just.. in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. Nevertheless, they locked me up and tortured me, until the PRIME soldiers raided their base, detained the Aozora soldiers, and freed me.”
“And then?”
Seymour taps his fingers on his knee edgily, having never talked about himself at length before, but resumes his elucidation reluctantly, his throat dried from emotion and thirst –
“Well, I had no home to go to. No parents. No relatives. So, I had no choice but to join the PRIME… And since then, well, I’d been with the PRIME, until I deserted my position, and left Santuc to enact the diffusion process.”
At the mention of the diffusion, O’Tiggs’ face suddenly tightens, and his grip on his pen becomes so forceful, his knuckles begin to steadily turn white. With a sickeningly false smile, the doctor exclaims through his crooked teeth –
“Ah yes. The diffusion… So now you say you did do it.”
“Yes, well, like I said, when you last interviewed me, I was not in my right mind. I couldn’t remember doing it, let alone anything else, as I’m sure you recall.”
“Mm.. So then, did you enact this “diffusion process” for revenge against the Aozora Alliance?”
“No. Not exactly..”
“Then I want very much to know you why you decided to do that.”
“Decided? Heh.. Heheh.. That’s cute.”
The doctor taps the point of his pen against his pad agitatedly as he says darkly –
“.. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mock me, Mr. Moreau.”
“Then please stop being so funny.”
The doctor frowns at Seymour, and he meets his gaze seriously, smiling slightly in spite of himself. Abandoning all professionalism, the doctor says in a wheezy voice –
“This isn’t a joke, Seymour! I want you to tell me why you would willingly murder over nine billion people! What purpose could there’ve been to enact such an inhuman deed of evil?”
“… I thought we already established that I have no system of morals.”
“But this isn’t about morals! What you’ve done goes beyond all rational human thought!
It’s almost like you’re-”
The doctor stops himself suddenly, his face sweaty and pale, and Seymour says to him quizzically, furtively glancing at him out of the corner of his eye –
“Inhuman? .. Is that what you were going to say?”
“So.. You’re saying you’re not human?”
“… Ah.. heh.. heheh…”
Feeling genuinely amused by the doctor’s harried visage, though his heart burns with mortification, Seymour laughs out loud, his voice reverberating loudly off of the lifeless concrete walls, and after quieting himself down, he stares seriously into the doctor’s disturbed façade, and declares plainly –
“You spoke of evil. I don’t believe in evil or good, Doctor. Nor do I care about your judgment of my actions. What’s done is done.”
“Well, what would a man like you care about?”
“I don’t have the ability to care for anything anymore. Not with all my heart, anyway. Anything I claim to care about.. well.. it’s most likely only a façade.”
“And why is this? Because you believe that you aren’t human?”
Seymour chuckles quietly a few more times, though all humor has been sucked out of him while sickly shame creeps through his veins, and he settles for vagueness as he exclaims –
“… Let’s just say you’re not far off, Doctor. But I won’t divulge that to someone like you.”
“I see.”
O’Tiggs has hastily scribbled notes within his notepad throughout thei
r heated conversation. Now, looking up from his pad, he continues to scan Seymour curiously, and spots the tattered shreds of black fabric tied around Seymour’s forearms. Trying to regain his composure, the doctor asks calmly, though the ire is still burning in his grayish eyes –
“Uh, don’t mind me asking, but why have you tied those around your arms?”
Seymour flinches nervously at the doctor’s inquisition, and utters defensively –
“… I do mind your asking.”
“Are you trying to hide something?”
“No.”
“Please. I think I’ve interviewed enough criminals to know when they’re lying. What are you hiding?”
“It’s not important. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“I’ll leave you once you show me what’s under the cloth.”
“… Fine.”
Seymour angrily grabs the black strips of fabric upon his arms, and unties them slowly; revealing his long, eerie black brands.
“… Happy?”
“Interesting… I’ve never seen markings like these before.. Did you apply them yourself?”
“No.”
“Did the Aozora soldiers burn them onto your skin during your incarceration?”
“No.”
“Then, tell me.. Where did you acquire them?”
Tightening his grip on the strips of fabric in his hand nervously, Seymour glances down at his brands with an ineffable feeling of self-loathing, and utters dismissively –
“… I don’t remember..”
“Well, they’re quite intriguing.. You’re sure you don’t remember?”
“I-uh.. No. I don’t remember anything.”
“Well, what about the one on your neck?”
Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story Page 4
