28
Nikolas Hurn's Psychiatric Journal
Entry 1
How long it took just to hold this pen. It might even be a sweet victory, thinking of how far I've come. But nothing is light anymore, and that, dear doctor, who should have let me die, is the reason for this journal, isn't it? To make sure I am not mad for all my struggles, all my loss.
Of course I am mad, doctor. Perhaps it is lucky they told me of my family when I could still not speak. I knew they were dead. And hearing it again I screamed again, inside my head, until they sedated me. I am insane and fuming and boiling over in my madness, and yet I am lucid, as you have seen in our conversations, and so I see little reason for such trivialities as this journal.
Entry 2
Right now, as I write this, the top of my skull is open to the air. They have sawed it off in some attempt to insert a series of new parts that, despite agreeing to their “installation,” I don't fully understand yet. It's a bizarre feeling, not feeling anything, even though I know what is happening to me. There are people whose faces I have never seen, installing hardware I haven't seen, into a part of my body I have never seen.
Since that night—I will not speak of it yet—my body has not worked like it once did. I suppose you know this, doctor. I was on this bed so long that my muscles atrophied. Before I was a police officer. I would have pitted my fitness against anyone's. That bullet damaged something—I am not an expert, but I know that I am expending twice the effort with half the accuracy when I write this now. I still cannot walk. I can barely raise my arms above my shoulders.
The doctors have expressed an optimism to me that I find both incredulous and patronizing. Have your love taken from you. Have your legs and arms taken from you. Be a prisoner in your own body. Force yourself to crawl like a slug up a salted path, and get picked at by the sharp beaks of conniving birds. Don't move or think about anything other than what tragedy has befallen you, the undeserving pain inflicted on you. Then try to evaluate my mind. I have done these things, passed these tests, and everyday I learn more about my new self.
I learn by reflecting on my old self.
I was above all a dutiful father and, as often as I could, an unselfish husband, and also an officer of the law. I worked for a unit responsible for policing changing urban systems. I was a peacekeeper for immigrant areas—a cop on the beat in an area without a strong police force. I often worked purely as an intelligence gatherer, undercover or in plain-clothes.
Nothing is clear to me now except that I will never be that person again. I cannot tell you what I will do because I do not know how I feel. All feeling seems to have been drained from me. Perhaps it is their doing as well. I knew myself. I was not quick to anger, nor a violent person.
But I fear the day I truly wake from this sleep.
Entry 3
Today I met my “benefactor” for the first time.
He is a man not much older than me, but he carries himself like one accustomed to making difficult decisions. His hair is just greying, and he is nothing if not serious. I woke from another intermittent sleep to find him waiting in the chair beside my bed. I do not know how long he'd been waiting. He was inarguably a patient man because, however long it had been, he still waited for me to speak first.
You should have let me die with my family. That is what I told him. I said this to him. Or something of the same meaning. My words are not important in this case. Already, only hours after, they are slipping from my memory. But his words, I believe, I will always remember. I will write them, not for you, doctor, but for myself. Because they mark the beginning of my new life, one of a different purpose, and, though I have so far to go, and cannot even walk yet, writing his words will declare my new constitution.
This is what he said to me:
The world has done you a grand disservice, but I will never feel any guilt for saving you. Not if you choose to follow a new path, with me. I will enable and facilitate this transformation, this new way—you need only give yourself to the idea of it. Safety through strength is scoffed at by so many bleeding hearts, even as they lay dying, feeling as you must have felt, watching helplessly. Some say it isn't possible, that it isn't practical to exercise such control over the chaos of our society.
You have the power to prove them wrong, and with me create a safe nation, where tragedies like yours cannot happen. You can be the greatest weapon for safety and security and . . . if at the end of your road, you still want it, you will have the power to take revenge. I shall not stop you.
No matter your desire, my doctors will put you back together again. You may one day be able to forget your family and their murders.
‘’But the path by my side will be one more fraught with moral difficulty and pain. But above all, purpose. We can make you more than simply healthy and stable again. We can make you the envy of the six million dollar man, a true angel among mortals. You have a week to think over my proposal. By then repairs to your body and brain will be completed, and you will be ready for more . . . superfluous augmentation. I will return to hear your answer then.''
I believe he knows what I will chose, but he did not wait for me to say a thing. He simply left as if he did not care about my response. I can see that he is a man with plans, rooted deep like the foundations of an enormous and ancient tree. I'm sure they are designs on power, something I cannot now judge. He seems already to have so much.
I do know one thing, doctor. A feeling that charges to the forefront of my battling thoughts, stronger than the rest of the tumult: I cannot ever feel so powerless again.
Entry 4
A week ago, he came back to me to tell me what my answer means, for me and for him.
I am to be bed ridden for another two months while his doctors and engineers inspect and augment my body. The process began yesterday, with frightening force. Before they began, the doctors could not or would not tell me what it would be like, but now I know. The pain is unbelievable—I am thankful that I am under most the time. Even in spite of the sedatives I have been given, the pain fights through the anesthesia will incredible tenacity, so bad I scream myself back into consciousness.
The pain is monstrous but I am grateful for it. I am living through a trial out of myth and legend. I am becoming a warrior of the fold, fire-tested by the pain. I'm told the doctors will soon begin attaching circuits and measures to my bones and nerves, and as they do the pain will intensify. Then they will complete the circuit with my brain and the pain with intensify. Then, they tell me, it will disappear completely. I will have the power to turn it off, if I wish.
But why should I, doctor? Such pain only distracts me from my pitiful weakness and those I lost. Melissa, my lovely wife. She was a prayer given and taken away. James, my son. A boy who would have grown up to be a better man that his father. I could already see it in him. Flora, my baby child. A flower robbed of her whole life. How much memory of her father did she have? I can talk about them now, doctor, because I am in pain, and when I get the chance, I will turn it up. Perhaps that way, I can forget that which is more painful, until I have revenged it.
Entry 5
As you can see, no doubt, I am blind for the time being. My eyes are the latest victims of the regime of changes that will transform me. The whole world is dark within the bandages, but I should have them off soon. The doctors tell me within two days. From what Dr. Sorensem and Dr. Campbell tell me. My new eyes will allow me to do even more. Seeing in a whole new spectrum, multiple spectrums.
Yes, doctor. I am beginning to get excited. Two months have turned into three beneath the knife and still I cannot walk, but with these new eyes I will have proof of my new self—not just vague and so far unverifiable specifications and abilities. Proof that I am more than a tortured laboratory experiment. Dr. Sorensem says my eyes will be my new interface, the beginning of my training on how to use this new body he is building for me.
It is strange to have you here dictating. Yes, manning the machine. Do you think I am strange for wanting to write shorthand like I normally do? Anyway . . .
Yes, I am still thinking of my revenge, doctor. Dreaming of it in a cloudy way. The waiting has not slowed my sense of purpose. It has taught me patience.
Yes, as tired as a blind bed-ridden man can be, doctor. My waking life resembles sleep. And my sleep is full of strange dreams. Am I a sane man? I appreciate that. I have often wondered what standard you use to judge me. After all, how many others like me are there? Bellick says none, yet. That I will be alone at first. I hope you continue to see me as just what I am, doctor.
Entry 6
The days are longer now, even during winter. That has been the most noticeable difference for me. Months of this connection and I still haven't learned how to sleep again, not like I did. I must admit that now I truly don't miss it anymore. Now I sleep an hour or two a night, usually in the day time, and I am free to use the rest of my time training, integrating myself to this new vessel.
If I may, doctor, I would like to explain myself, since this is our final evaluation. I know now that the purpose of these sessions was never really to evaluate, only to lend an ear. This I learned only recently from the Big Man. Now, though it is time for me to be honest. My life has been destroyed on what seems like a whim, little reason, only mindless, senseless violence and, that, I can never forget. Nor can I forget the people, nor the circumstances behind it all. The shambles of my life give me strength, and I will not forget them. The Big Man has his plans, and in the great machine of these plans I am but a tool, a powerful tool. A tool made for this purpose: to make the world safe, that I may alone know the want of revenge.
I am to be head of a team, once volunteers can be found. Until then, revenge will be my lone duty. Enforcing laws for a safer world. What, doctor, would you do differently?
Jay released his white knuckled hand from the chair and sought desperately for another entry. There were plenty of files beyond his understanding, spec files, medical files, charts, and timelines overflowing with medical jargon, but no more journal entries. There were only six. After reading them, he felt so close to this man—closer, more saddened and terrified.
He copied the full contents of the folder over to a storage drive and then repeated the process with another. Reading this had made him uneasy, and he felt the need to talk with one of the boys. He put the drives in his pockets and made to leave. Walking slowly, he checked the time. It was 2:34 in the afternoon.
Trying to ignore the furtive analytics of Ms. Omid's stare, as well as Piper's barely veiled distaste, he made his way back to the front, up the wood and brick stairs to the Cyberdistrict on his way back to the flat.