“Yes, ma’am.”
The Elder Wyrm gave a brusque nod, and the scientist walked to the head of the gurney and grasped the sides. “I’m afraid this is the last time we will see each other,” she said as he began pulling me away. “Apparently, the process of removing your memories is an involved procedure and will take time to fully complete. If you accept the process and do not fight it, it will be much easier for you.” She gave me an amused look as the scientist paused at a door, pulling it open. “Of course, I realize that would be like telling a fish not to swim. You do remind me of myself when I was your age, though that was a long, long time ago. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like, to be young.” Her smile widened, becoming almost wistful. “I must admit, I am looking forward to having another thousand years.”
Then the gurney was pushed through the frame, the door closed behind us and the Elder Wyrm was gone.
As the gurney rolled forward, I thrashed against the restraints, trying desperately to Shift, to summon the strength to ignore whatever drugs they’d stuck me with. But I felt nothing but a cold sluggishness within, and despair settled heavily in my chest, joining the anger and fear. A man waited in the room beyond, another scientist type in a long white lab coat, smiling at me as I was rolled forward. “Ah, here she is,” he exclaimed, peering at me through his glasses. “Ember Hill, what a pleasure it is to meet you. You must be terribly excited—after sixteen years, your true purpose is finally being fulfilled. To be the Elder Wyrm’s chosen vessel, what a tremendous honor.”
“Yeah, I don’t really see it like that,” I growled at him. He chuckled.
“Nonsense. This is what you were created for. Just think, if immortality can actually be achieved, what will that mean for both dragons and the entire human race? I, for one, am eager to see all my hard work finally come to fruition. Now then, let’s get a look at you.” The scientist pulled the stethoscope from around his neck and put it to my chest. “Hmm, heartbeat is abnormally fast,” he muttered, and I glared at him.
“Oh, really? I wonder why that is.” My voice shook, and I had to force myself to breathe calmly. “You’re just brainwashing and turning me into a zombie so that the Elder Wyrm can move into my head. Nothing evil there.”
“Brainwashing? Oh, no, no, no. This is nothing so crude.” The scientist put the stethoscope back around his neck and smiled at me fondly. “Brainwashing involves high levels of trauma, either physical or mental, to break down a subject’s personality, beliefs and sense of self so that they can be replaced with a new set of ideals. The process can take months, or longer, and the subject still retains who he is at his core. His memories have not been erased, merely suppressed.” He paused as two other scientists converged on me, tightening straps, pulling my eyelids down to shine a light into them, swabbing my skin with something that stung my nostrils. “What we are going to do is a complete mind wipe,” he went on when there was a lull in the ministrations. “We are going to extract your memories and all the emotion, knowledge and skills attached to them, so that your brain will be fully receptive to new memory, skills and personality. Think of it as erasing your computer’s hard drive, removing all files and data, destroying any harmful information or viruses it might’ve picked up and completely starting over.”
“And...what will happen to me?” I asked. I tried, once more, to Shift, to burst into my true form and burn my way out of this laboratory of horrors, but the dragon refused to stir. The scientist continued to smile and speak casually, as if he was explaining to a child why the needle wouldn’t hurt.
“Well, for the procedure at least, your memory will be electronically stored,” he replied, nodding to something off to the side of the gurney. I craned my neck around to see what looked like a large computer bank, with several men in white coats hovering around the screens. “We’ve had fairly good success with saving individual memories,” the scientist went on, “though eventually they do break down and are lost. But, ultimately, it will be up to the Elder Wyrm to decide what to do with yours. If she wants to keep you for later use or erase you completely.”
“So, you’re saying that me as an individual, everything that makes me who I am, will be destroyed. Gone forever.” The human regarded me serenely but didn’t answer, and my heart fluttered around my ribs like a panicked bird. I bared my teeth at him. “I hope you know that’s essentially murder. Isn’t there some sort of oath that condemns that? Do no harm? Don’t play God? Any of this ringing a bell?”
“Oh, my dear, I’m not a doctor. I’m a scientist.” The two other men returned and began sticking electrodes to my forehead, neck and arms, while the scientist watched them. “And even if I were, the Hippocratic oath only applies to humans. ‘I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.’ If we are going to quote passages at each other.”
He gave me a thin smile as his helpers finished their task and walked away, leaving me with about a dozen wires connecting my skull to the computer bank. “But you are a dragon,” the scientist continued. “In the decades I have spent among your kind, I have seen and come to accept certain things. You are not like us. Your minds are more like a computer than anything else—logical and calculating, capable of retaining massive amounts of information, able to recall the smallest fact across hundreds of years. You are truly a remarkable race, I will admit. But you are not human. And even if the Elder Wyrm was not expecting me to complete this procedure, I have worked on this project for too many years to stop now. Now, at last, we will see if immortality is really possible.”
Another scientist approached and handed him the first needle and syringe. “Well, we are almost ready to begin,” the head scientist stated, pressing the syringe so that a few drops of clear liquid squirted out the top. He nodded in satisfaction and looked down at me again. “I don’t know about you, but I am quite excited. Aren’t you just a little pleased to know you will be contributing to such a massive breakthrough? Just think of what this will mean for your entire race.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled, the most elegant thing I could come up with at the moment. He chuckled, shaking his head.