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Long Ago
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eaten the industrial district, to the point that people already more often referred to the area by its name than anything else. It had cannibalized the plain stone factories rendered redundant by widespread adoption of replication arcana, transforming them into a vast assemblage of lecture halls, dorms, and the peripheral businesses that always spring up in the presence of students. Takeaways, echo game shops, and clothing stores abounded, and any place you stepped into, you could rest easy in the knowledge you were never more than a street away from somewhere giving out contraception.
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anything felt like they were just theatrics I was just performing to myself. Why hold yourself from doing anything? What was so great about trying to live like a healthy human being?
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great. I took a sip, I laughed a little to myself thinking of some nice memory. I stared at the long grass. In the darkness, I slowly lost all sense of time...
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library?" Her face contorted, but she quickly sighed, shaking her head. "Fuck it. Fuck it. Never mind that. Can you stand?"
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"What do you mean?" I asked. My body felt tense. My fingers dug into the well-cushioned seat.
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"At some point between two and three years following induction, the mind arrives at a... Well, let''s call it a ''settled'' state," the doctor explained, at that same wooden desk he''d been behind when we first met. He was smiling, but it was with that uncomfortable, practiced sympathy that you always see on the faces of medical professionals bearing bad news. "At this point, the sense of self, and of identity, become more or less equally static to that of the general population. Or if you''d prefer a more scientific explanation, the information originally stored on the induced pneuma has been more or less completely synchronized with the mundane brain - either replicated or, well, discarded."
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I was silent, staring dead ahead, my face frozen.
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"I understand this might be shocking to hear. Your sessions with our clinicians are private, even from me, but you might''ve been recently told you were still making progress." His eyes wandered down to the surface of the desk, even if his face didn''t otherwise move. Nervousness. "In most research, assimilation has been found to occur much more gracefully when the patient does not have cause for anxiety about the issue. It''s sort of like falling asleep-- The more you obsess about it, the less likely it is to happen. I won''t blame you if you feel angry or frustrated, but please understand that everything we''ve done with you here has been to facilitate that as much as possible. Even now, I believe them to have been for the best."
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"So," I said, my voice incredibly rigid. "We''re... Stopping treatment?"
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"Not entirely," he said. "I''m going to prescribe you a targeted neurodepressant, for if you experience any more pseudo-prosognostic attacks, or just any severe disassociation with your body in general. It can interfere with the assimilation process if used in our normal treatment plan, but it should help you to manage those symptoms going forward."
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"You mean, it''ll make me feel more like this is my body," I said.
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He hesitated briefly. "It will help you calm down," he said, trying to smile.
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The words felt like spit in my face. "You mean, you won''t try to actually change things any more, though," I inferred. "That everything else will stop."
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He exhaled softly, his tone gentle to the point it came across as insincere. "Yes, I think that would be the best course of action."
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"But, I... I mean, Utsushikome..." I looked down at my palms.
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"I want you to understand that this isn''t, in any way, your fault," he said. He leaned forward a bit, trying to transition into what was probably supposed to be a more relaxed, fatherly tone. "This isn''t something I''d normally say, but for patients in your position, who begin at a stage of total non-identification, it''s incredibly rare to even volunteer for this treatment at all. That you even did so showed, in my opinion, tremendous selflessness. And you followed all of the exercises perfectly and diligently, not even shying away from the more medicalized components of the plan. I couldn''t have asked for a more diligent patient."
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I shuddered. My body felt cold and hot at the same time.
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"I also don''t want you to feel that this has made you a failure," he went on, continuing the speech he''d probably planned. "Despite beginning with personal traits suggestive of a durable ego, you still managed to modestly raise your dissociation levels across the board, and even bring a handful of memories and traits to almost a state of full incorporation. Even if it doesn''t feel that way, you are Utsushikome of Fusai. Without a doubt."
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"No," I said, feeling revolted. "That isn''t true. How can you-- How can you say that? Treat her like she''s just some thoughts?" I shook my head sharply. One of my braids came untied, the hair falling to cover the side of my face. "You''re supposed to be a doctor. ''Always be with you'' platitudes are for fucking priests."
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Though he held his smile stiffly, the man fell silent for a moment. He''d obviously not had many conversations like this before, and it was not going remotely well.
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I didn''t process this at the time. I scratched at my scalp in neurotic anger, unable to look at him. "You told me... Told her, that this wouldn''t happen."
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"That''s not true," he said patiently. "I said that it was possible things could go wrong."
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"That''s not how you phrased it at all. You acted like it was nothing to worry about. Do you think I don''t remember?" I swallowed the air, feeling sick. "What am I supposed to do now?"
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He took a breath. "That''s up to you. Now that we''ve reached this point, if you feel unable or unwilling to continue with the life you have now, there are various ways we can try to help you. Alliance law means that you will always have the same fundamental identity from a legal perspective, but if you want to change your name and have a fresh start elsewhere, I can put you in touch with some special help to that effect. Or, if you feel uncomfortable with your body as it is now, there are several medical options available to pursue depending--"
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"I''d never do that to her," I said, holding my arms around my chest. "It isn''t right. It''s all sick. It''s sick."
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At this point, the man looked helplessly lost in the face of my reaction, his face flustered. He pushed forward nevertheless. "...or, if you''d prefer, you can continue on with your current identity. Or anything in between. You''re the one whose needs matter here. You are who you are now, and nothing you think best for yourself is inappropriate."
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"What about her family?" I said, looking back up at him. "Her friends?"
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"Beyond the requirements of secrecy pertaining to the broader situation, that''s between you and them," he said. "Again, this situation is incredibly unusual, and not at all your fault. You''re not obligated to anyone, emotionally or in terms of perceived sincerity."
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I was silent, breathing heavily.
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"Whatever it might feel like right now, I promise you that, even if they could know about this, your family and friends would still love and accept you. So long as you choose to be, you will always be the person they''ve always known." He seemed to seize on my less overtly hostile response to this idea, leaning forward a little with a quiet desperation. "In fact, if you want to walk out the door now and keep living the life you have been, to forget ever having come here in the first place, no one would think that immoral. If you''re financially secure and don''t want to be reminded of this, you don''t even have to claim the stipend. There''s a procedure in place for your documents to be completely removed from our records--"
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"I won''t accept this," I said quietly.
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He blinked. "I''m sorry?"
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"I said I won''t accept it!"
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natural beef, which you had to go out of your way and sometimes spend luxury debt to even obtain.
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Inner Sanctum First Floor | 11:57 AM | Third Day
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-fuck did we even bother rooting around for them, then?" she protested, looking around the area. "Okay, hands up: Who else couldn''t be bothered to put the life-saving device on their wrist? All morons please come forward."
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our lives, you little cunt," Zeno retorted.
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Right now. We''re going to check not only if you have them on, but if they''re configured properly."
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thing we''d seen in the hall or something else altogether, seemed more likely than not just as a matter of common sense. However, even this act would betray a great deal of information about their potential identity, not least of all that they were probably a human and not some abstract monster. It would also put them in danger; Mehit had been armed, and judging by the way she''d handled the pistol, she was far from inexperienced.
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This whole idea is crazy, the skeptical part of my brain said. You''re making way too many leaps to support a little girl literally shooting her own mom.
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It doesn''t even hold up to scrutiny on a factual level, it continued. Even if Lilith were working with the mastermind, they''d still have to have communicated this plan to her at some point after we bunkered down. All it does is kick the same problem to a different place while inserting another party and making everything more complicated.
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was true. Unless Balthazar''s claims about time literally repeating were to be believed... Something I wasn''t really prepared to accept as an actual basis for reasoning, visions or not... There was no way whoever was behind this could have anticipated this specific scenario. And in the unlikely circumstance that they were, why even bother with Lilith, instead of just telling their accomplice within our group directly?
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was no second accomplice, and Lilith had also been the one to kill Sacnicte. But that was impossible, surely. She''d never even gone near the hallway.
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Maybe the culprit communicated to Lilith in a way that only she could understand but Mehit wouldn''t, like tapping a coded message through the ceiling. If it were only the two of them, there wouldn''t be scrutiny in the way that would happen for our own group.
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It''s possible the culprit did contact Lilith over logic bridge, but just expected we wouldn''t check as closely since she was out of the way. We''d be looking for logic bridge usage centered around here, after all. Someone''s probably checked where the messages from the culprit were coming from at the same time, but would it be possible to miss something like that...?
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small comfort," Zeno was saying, as I tuned back into the conversation, apparently satisfied with their wrist inspections. "But yes: My opinion is that we should start taking decisive action against the most suspect."
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seemingly the only person in the building proper left unaccounted for, but it felt incredibly unlikely that they were both in on it. So assuming there really was an outsider accomplice and it wasn''t all some elaborate illusion, one of them had to be the guilty party, going up and down the stairs at the right moments.
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