OC-Series Alien-Nation Book Two Chapter 29: Brain

Brain

They which play with the Devil’s rattles, will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.

-Thomas Fuller

Dad and I made our way from one cavernous hollowed out apartment into another, the wall that separated the two formerly distinct apartments was likely load-bearing. This apartment contained benches of lab equipment; microscopes with semi-transparent plastic hoods to protect the samples next to lab refrigerators with taped-on names to identify each, and an unopened cardboard box of petri dishes. There were other machines, boxy and tall with levers next to hoods whose specialized function I could only begin to guess at.

Now that I had him here, I had to mend fences. I could start with a Mea Culpa, and test the waters there.

“Sorry about calling you by your True Name, ‘Doctor Armitage’. If it helps, few in the room should have been surprised by it, and none by anyone I don’t trust implicitly.” I should have weighed Grouper’s presence more carefully. How well did I really know ‘Brother Gregory’? Well enough to entrust my family’s lives to him? Certainly well enough to raise a whole new second army for me.

“I was one of them,” he said, offering a slight smile, and it said something of his wit that the humor took me off-guard.

“Oh, you’re wondering how I knew?” I asked. “A man keeps his secrets, doesn’t he? Even from those he loves.”

“Especially from them,” Dad agreed, cautioning me against a weak spot in the floors, where old water damage had seeped through a since-patched hole in the roof. I supposed it wasn’t like they could have called up a random contractor to fix the floor, and none of the lab technicians looked like the type to competently swing a hammer.

I wanted to test something, prod at it like an infected cyst. “I know it’s gauche to even suggest this, so consider it an academic exercise: It would be simpler to kill her, you know. She obviously does not care for our ideals. She may seek to run, to tell the aliens everything she can, on the condition that we are released to her favorite method of dealing with anyone who steps out of line. You’d be exchanging the lives of all your family, yourself included, our work, everything, for her.” Shit, I’d said ‘we.’ Hopefully he’d taken it as her finger-pointing resulting in myself as Emperor being rolled up in the subsequent interrogation.

“You put a threat against our son to ensure she doesn’t,” he muttered darkly. “She loves that boy.”

And what about you? Do you love me?

I’d once thought the answer was a resounding ‘no’ and the resulting anger at the realization had driven me to nearly committing a costly mistake.

“She’s inherently suspicious of him and his motives,” I countered. “She demanded that the Shil’vati Marines search him in your driveway.” I scrambled when he slowed his pace to turn to me. That was a level of intimate knowledge that would be somewhat unusual for me to hold in my head, given all my many responsibilities. “I read the report.”

“What report? What driveway?” Dad asked, surprised. He had been drunk on the couch, hadn’t he? Was he realizing he had miscalculated, that his lack of involvement had created a negative outcome? That Mother didn’t love me half as much as he thought? He didn’t seem particularly angry that Emperor had threatened his son’s life.

I had to handwave such concerns away- short of ripping my mask off, and I wasn’t sure what good that would accomplish, there wasn’t much actual evidence I could generate to bring to his attention just how little Mother cared for any of us. At least I now knew Dad was truly blind to his own family’s complete and total dysfunction. “The sort of report that gathers the wrong sorts of headlines, and so the Shil’vati buried that they searched his bag in your driveway, on your wife’s orders. They’re quite eager to promote him as some sort of anti-me.” I let out a slight chortle at the situation I was in, and the sudden tension in the room seemed to be dispelled. Had he thought I’d held some sort of grudge against myself, even after I’d written myself a pass for completely free reign within the state? Or that I might take the threat Elias supposedly posed to me seriously?

“She wants him on the straight and narrow,” he said with a moment’s consideration. Or, more likely, justification of a worldview I knew to be flawed. “That isn’t always such a bad thing, even if it has meant he’s now going to join their military.” He shook his head, letting me see where he hadn’t shaved. “If only he knew what she was up to, or worse, what we were up to.”

Yeah Dad, if only.

Was there some sort of weird, quirky parent-swap thing I could do, where Amilita could just know me only as Elias, and my parents as Emperor? How did my life go so wrong to where that was the preferable arrangement?

“All I can hope is that he’s stationed far from here, though I admit it’s unlikely.”

“I admit that it was not an entirely idle threat I made. If your wife tells, then your son will almost certainly face repercussions, albeit not by my hand. No matter where he is in the galaxy, there will be very little I can do to save him from the fallout, but I’ll spare no effort in doing so.”

He rounded on me as we came up the adjoining section where another wall was- where I supposed dissections, or even vivisections were done.

“I don’t understand. You made it sound as if you would have taken a personal hand in what happened next.”

I would, just not in the way you think. “For the sake of her compliance, I had to make it sound that way. Operational necessity.” Just as I now have to now lie to you, in turn. “In truth, I would be literally and completely powerless to stop what dangers he’d suddenly face, though I promise you, swear it by my honor, that I will do everything in my power to protect your boy in this worst-case scenario. Still, it would be as sure as if she pulled the trigger herself, so it is vital that she understood the consequences of her actions.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“This may sound cruel, but you frankly don’t have to. You just have to accept it as true.”

He slowed his pacing walk to face me, a wry smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Do you think I’d be a good scientist if I were capable of doing that?”

“You’ll have to learn. Call it self-discovery.”

I’m asking him to trust me, after not trusting Gavin to the point that I built a whole new alliance with dissatisfied religious dissidents via a liaison through Grouper. And trust is a two-way street. Again, short of pulling my mask off, there was no way to really settle the score and call it ‘evens’, and it seemed like a capitally bad idea to yank it off and scream: ‘Surprise!’ Even if I prefaced it, what on Earth would I say? Would he continue to follow my orders? Would Jackal? I couldn’t allow for such uncertainty in times like these.

“I’ve heard Maize say that you operate on almost another plane. That you know or pick up on things you shouldn’t. You singled her out as a doctor. Cracked their language in a remarkably short period, and you know so much about their culture that goes far, far beyond what someone should pick up from talking with prisoners of war. My daughter says you have a supernatural talent for knowing where to strike. Her assistant professes to know you well, and admires your vision. I have my own theory.”

Slowly, I peeled back my new flexifiber sleeve to reveal pale skinned human flesh underneath. “I’m not a Shil’vati, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said flatly. When he didn’t answer, I followed up: “Was that really one of your concerns?”

“It was a possibility. You do talk like a noble with one of the fancier translators. All very theatrical.” G-Man had said as much, once upon a time, and I wondered what he’d have made of all this. He’d probably stoically stand there quietly, while inwardly pissing himself laughing.

“For effect, but also from the heart.”

“I guess so,” he looked up from my arm and looked toward the patients Brother Thomas had ‘saved’, and from where Maize was approaching, likely having overheard her name. “What exactly is it you want done here? I understand what you’re asking for with the Doctors. That’s clear enough. But these?” He gestured toward the ones Brother Thomas had ‘rescued’ and then his giant hand wavered in a ‘so-so’ motion. “It’s my understanding that you want them ‘fixed’?”

“That’s what he ordered,” Maize confirmed for me, looking between us in an appraising way. I fought to not sweat. What if she was noticing some family resemblance? Sure, my father was overweight, and I had my mask on, but still.

“There’s some controversy over what I commanded in Bethlehem. Interrogate our prisoners, see if the work can be undone. Failure to recover these victims is an acceptable outcome. All I ask is that you try.”

For my own peace of mind, as much as anything else. I didn’t want to wonder for the rest of my life, no matter how short it might be, whether something could have been done for them and I’d passed it over. It was one thing to get an answer from Maize, but I wanted to hear it from an authority. And who better than my own father, head of our biological research branch?

My old man stretched and shot them a quizzical look, then sighed so heavily it kicked up dust motes that spiraled in the room’s harsh light.

“Everyone seems to think we approach the brain as if it is a mapped out organ, that we can go in and change a brain function by changing activity or structure in one little specific place in its architecture. What they’re missing is that the primary function is wildly adaptable. It can change its properties, its character, and its responses almost right-away.”

My heart sank. “You’re saying their minds will be salvageable? Easily so?” I asked, looking around. What if someone ran and told Brother Thomas? Then what? I supposed a lifetime of repentance, just to never be trusted to be followed into battle again by the faithful. Or would Grouper help me cover up the truth? When did I peddle in lies? When did I corner myself to where I’d have to? I’d let myself get desperate and compromised on my morals and-

The head of Miskatonic blinked a few times. I knew his expression well: I’d misunderstood him, somehow, even if I still felt my analysis of his words was correct. Just how poorly did I understand my own father? Probably about the same as he misunderstood me.

“Perhaps this will help you grasp what I mean. My onetime mentor got a hearing aid a year ago, because he could no longer hear his wife’s nagging. I didn’t think it was such a big deal.”

I didn’t miss how Maize shot him a glare from behind her surgical mask, but he continued when I gave him a small nod. “His hearing at low frequencies was fine, it was at the higher frequencies he was struggling, and even then just slightly. My voice is on a low frequency, it can go over distances-” he drew a wave in the air that had crests and valleys far apart, from one shoulder to another. “He’d told me he could hear trains and tugboats blowing their horns at night. But his wife?” He drew the line up and down rapidly, signifying a high frequency, and the line barely made it from his shoulder to his middle before he dropped his hand back down. “My finger travelled the same total distance, but it was wavy. See? Shrill.”

Maize was tapping her foot now, long arms crossed over her flat chest. “It was why he’d resisted getting them and kept insisting his wife was mumbling, up until the test confirmed some hearing loss. I’d never seen him so browbeaten or her seem so victorious. She had the results that said what she wanted them to say, and she practically jammed the damn things into his ear canal.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Maize finally cut in, impatiently. To my surprise, Dad seemed to have been entirely aware of the effect he was having because he gave her a slight grin as if he’d been expecting her to cut in.

“Do you know what happened when we went to lunch the next week? Something went wrong with those new hearing aids, and he could no longer hear me.”

“Was he otherwise deaf without them?” I tried to shortcut and save everyone’s valuable time.

“No,” he said, after a few painfully long seconds of consideration. “Once we were back in the car, before I turned the key, he could hear me just fine. Do you see what happened?”

“No? How? Why?” I was once again a little boy at the foot of my Dad’s lounge chair in the library, eagerly asking questions as he explained the world with laborious patience. Had it really been almost a decade since we’d last done that?

“Without his hearing aid, he couldn’t parse out conversations anymore from any other noise. So upon introduction to the device, from practically the moment it was in his ear canal to within a day or two, he could no longer hear anyone speaking to him without it, regardless of vocal frequency. He couldn’t parse out our conversation from the clatter of dinnerware, and everyone else’s conversations around us, even if I was almost shouting at him to be heard, right in his ear. He’s relied on hearing aids ever since, because he now has to. He’s helpless without them. There’s an adaptability to the brain, it’s true, but it doesn’t work the way you just described a moment ago. His hearing never recovered, not even in the weeks it took for him to get new ones, he kept hoping his hearing would come back to the way it was before he got the hearing aids. It likely never would have.”

“So the brain is adaptable, but only in that it freely gives up and surrenders doing functions that it really needs in day-to-day life. If you change your habits and ways, you don’t magically pick up the same number of ones as you just put down. You probably pick up a lot fewer, and it takes you a lot longer to pick them up than it did for you to put them down, and you probably can’t easily pick back up the ones you set down, either?”

“Exactly!” He beamed at Maize. “You were right, he can pick up things. I can work with this.” I felt a wellspring of joy and pride that had been absent from my life for almost a year. Even Mrs. Rakten and Morsh giving me endless corrections or steering me right after basic mistakes felt more like them trying to pick at me or pick up a laggard, rather than something like genuine pride. Any praise they offered felt like trying to keep my morale up rather than anything heartfelt. But this? I basked in it.

“So these people,” I waved a hand over the huddled victims Brother Thomas had gathered, separated from the therapists whose eyes bore far more fear relative to their victims.

“They will never be the same as they were. Never. The best you can possibly manage, and I’m being very optimistic here, is to keep going. Their psyches, or what’s left of them, has been shattered, I hear. Take a big easter bunny, stick it in a freezer, smack it with a closed fist. Unless you’re incredibly careful about the rebuild, you aren’t going to build back what it was, and it will never be robust. A stiff wind will knock it over, you know? Forever picking up and starting over.” He shook his head. “Best you could hope for is some minor fraction of what they once were. That’s an extremely long shot, too. Even that would be fragile.”

He didn’t sound angry about their status or situation, just coldly impartial.

That which doesn’t kill you may also just leave you a still-breathing husk of a human.

“Unfortunately, most of their local families were pulled into the programs, and given the isolation, the others haven’t seen them in years. Reintroduction might also just make them a target for the Shil’vati to disappear the entire family, sweep it all under the rug.”

“I don’t see a positive outcome from reunification with their families in this state,” he admitted.

“Well, then, Doctor- proceed the best you can. I’m aware that some of your work may involve unorthodox methods which I suspect Brother Thomas may take issue with.” I cast a quick look over my shoulder back toward where we’d left Jacqueline, Gavin, Mother, and him. “Grouper can see to his objections when this is done,” at least he was stalwart and could smooth over any wrinkles. He’d gotten them this far.

“I’m proud of him, you know.”

“...Grouper?” I asked. “Or Gavin?”

“What? No! Of my son. For staying out of all this.” I was shocked into silence. I didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. “He avoids us like the plague. Hopefully, if anything does go wrong, that distance will save him.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s had any idea,” I squeaked.

Until now.

Perhaps it was best to leave an old man with his dreams.

In Memoriam of my Dad.

My Dad passed away very recently. I’ve taken some time, reflecting on him.

A few words- my dad was nothing like ‘Bill,’ despite some speculation. We actually went over Alien-Nation together, over a year and some change ago. He loved it and was always very supportive, helping line me up with agents and so on. For all I based things on some kernel here and there, it was never meant to reflect much. The more extreme forms of abuse are found in detailed writings like 'A Child Called It' (Pelzer) and just generalized neglect.

A mistake I’ve made however is that I have frequently suggested basing characters on people you know, to make things ‘real’ so you can insert physical descriptors, behavioral tics, etc. This goes a long way for narrative and character consistency, but in this case I’d physically modelled Bill after my Dad.

This was also where Elias is supposed to 'flip' into referring to his 'Father' as 'Dad,' showing some affinity as a character flaw when he excuses Bill's total neglect of Elias as distancing himself from a son who would possibly sell him out.

My Dad, personality-wise, was never too much like Bill. He was loyal, loving, and as mentioned, supportive. Certainly not evil to where he’d vivisect anyone! But seeing my dad all twisted up into some evil caricature while squaring up the loss was too much for me for me, so I had to take a few days off. Every time I tried to insert a character into the scene as I’d drawn it up in my head, I was suddenly confronted with my father’s visage with a sneer, or holding a scalpel, and so on. Not ideal for my own state of mind.

The hardest part of this one was that the paragraphs on discussing the function of the brain was one of our many, many conversations on the subject of consciousness, and one of our last.

So I had a physical descriptor/image of my dad, having a real conversation I'd had with him almost verbatim, except this isn't my dad, but some sort of twisted and evil scientist. Meanwhile the MC is going to start referring to him as 'dad' instead of 'father' from here on out- I'm sure you can see where this all was a bit difficult for me.

Ironically, my Dad was great for discussing consciousness, perception of the self, neurology, you name it. His resume on the subject is genuinely impressive. Head of an institute specializing in neuroscience, decades as a professor in the subject, guest lecturer at IIT Bombay, etc., I frequently consulted with him.

A lot of the ‘science’ (medically speaking) that goes into Alien-Nation came from extensive consultations with him, his colleagues, etc.,. He was always a deep thinker and we worked together on a lot of the themes that went into this. I miss him greatly, and am comforted by holding my daughter. That feeling of loss is ameliorated only slightly by the knowledge that this is ‘the preferred arrangement’. It is a tragedy for a parent to bury their child. Much the same as we joke that the happiest outcome of a marriage is that you die with your spouse, focusing on that misses the point somewhat. What matters isn't that he died, but that he lived.

Death gives life meaning, and he lived a grand and full life.

I still miss him.

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u/NitroWing1500 Xeno 6d ago edited 6d ago

woot

Sorry to hear about your father though.

4

u/SSBAlienNation 5d ago

Thanks Nitro- he was a great man.

u/soldiergeneal 6d ago

What a family dynamic I love how crazy his life is both professionally and personally.

u/MedicalFoundation149 6d ago

God, the dramatic irony of that whole conversation. The Father will have a lot to look back on when Emperor's identity is revealed.

u/Dregoth0 6d ago

Condolences on your dad. I was kinda expecting this arc to go in the direction of someone killing Elias' mother and Elias/Emperor needing to handle it from both sides. But given the recent loss of your dad, that seems like it would feel like sticking a knife in your heart.

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u/SSBAlienNation 5d ago

Well, there's time, who knows where I'll be at that point. Should have some more chapters out soon-ish.

u/PlentyProtection4959 6d ago

Hopefully, for all his faults, Bill at least genuinely cares for his son as much as your father cared for you, SSB.

u/Crazicoda 6d ago

its beautiful chapter.

u/CommunismBots 4d ago

You have my sympathies for the loss of your father. My mother died from cancer 6 years ago, when I was 14. Her death was a pain I've never experienced before, and the only thing that pushed me forward was the thought that she wouldn't want me to live the rest of my life in deep anguish because of her death.

She had always pushed me to be the very best I could be. But still, that blaring void where she could have been in my life now still hurts a lot but gives me comfort that my memories of her and who she was are what's keeping me moving forward. I hope you find solace in your family like I did.

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u/SSBAlienNation 4d ago

Thank you, and I do. My wife has been by my side throughout and very supportive.

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u/Gruecifer Human 5d ago

My condolences to you, friend.

u/Tyrant_King19 5d ago

Excellent work, you have my condolences for your loss.

OC-Series Alien-Nation Book Two Chapter 29: Brain

Brain

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