Well, just last week I lived through forty years that never happened. Before that it was loss of linguistic ability and coordination, plus, you know, the impulse to kill people. Before that....
[He hesitates. He doesn't like to talk about the big one before that. The memory of being an old man more than half out of his wits may be what's fresh and raw, but there's something about torture that sticks with a guy.
Stephen's feed switches over to video for a few moments to show his arm where he's pulled up the sleeve. Scars from old, deep lacerations mark out the muscles and tendons like drawings on an anatomy model. A prophet's eye symbol was carved into the flesh of each segment, and the marks continue down onto his hand and up under his clothing. The video cuts out again abruptly.]
Brainwashing. Some of us were compelled to do...things...to the other half. There was...that was active interference, though; there's someone or something that was able to hijack the network and introduce a new program.
cw references to torture, scarring, lacerations; reference to dementia
[He hesitates. He doesn't like to talk about the big one before that. The memory of being an old man more than half out of his wits may be what's fresh and raw, but there's something about torture that sticks with a guy.
Stephen's feed switches over to video for a few moments to show his arm where he's pulled up the sleeve. Scars from old, deep lacerations mark out the muscles and tendons like drawings on an anatomy model. A prophet's eye symbol was carved into the flesh of each segment, and the marks continue down onto his hand and up under his clothing. The video cuts out again abruptly.]
Brainwashing. Some of us were compelled to do...things...to the other half. There was...that was active interference, though; there's someone or something that was able to hijack the network and introduce a new program.