Pieces Part Nineteen
May. 2nd, 2006 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
measured_wordsAhh, don't give up on me yet! I am still one Piece behind, but I'll make things up in the next week or so, I hope. And then maybe I can even go back to a regular update schedule 9although I'll not I never actually promised such a thing - it just seemed to happen that way ;) In any case, I at least have an idea of a few things to write for the next installments, which is a boon. If anyone is curious, my word count for this sucker is up to 28781, page count is 58. Yup - longer than the thesis. Average installment length is just over 1500 words, which pleases me as that is just where I want it. I hope I can keep it up! In any case, I hope my readers enjoy this section. Comments, questions, criticisms, etc, always welcome :)
Other Pieces
I now have two things that I have purposefully gone to collect, but haven't looked at – my magazine, and the files on Anna and Danny from Victor Brown. I have framed the some of the pictures Anna gave me, but I keep rearranging their placement. I can't find anything that satisfies me, or anywhere where they don't seem jarringly out of place. Maybe it is the pictures themselves that are jarring. Maybe I'm not ready for them, either.
Meanwhile, I have been following the same pattern for my days. I wake up early, and go running. I come home, and shower, and spend the morning assimilating the news from various sources – papers, television, the internet. There is still a lot for me to get caught up on. I have a fairly good grasp of where things are at the moment, but retracing how they got to this point is more difficult. My afternoons are more varied. I go to the gym four days a week for various classes (mostly aerobics ad strength training) or to work on weights. I tried Alita's yoga class, but she is very immersed in the spiritual and philosophical aspects, and I wasn't comfortable. Other days, or with my remaining time, I might run more basic errands, or drive around the city some. My evenings are reserved for Anna if she calls or is expecting me to, or else are spent in further reading.
There are still some days where it is difficult for me to find motivation to do much at all. If I can go for my run I'll usually be alright. The endorphins carry me through to the next part of my routine, and by then it is easier just to follow through. The evenings are generally difficult no matter what happens, and it is often easier just sleep through them. I don't generally dream on those nights, either. Though these days are becoming less frequent, I'm not sure what to do to make them stop entirely. Even without them, the disconnect is still there between me and everything else. I can't ever seem to break past it for long. I am apparently afraid of some of the tools I have given myself. Maybe Brown was right, and I am just not ready.
I don't trust myself to know, and I don't trust anyone else to tell me. The only recourse I can see is to continually test and push my limits. I am going to look at the files on my family. It is important – something the overly rational part of my mind can accept more easily. My computer is already on, as I was reading some news sites and political commentary blogs before lunch. I load the memory card from Brown.
The files are organized by date, department, and agent number ranging from what may be my earliest, forgotten report about her brother to the month after my return. They are not in a format recognized by any of the word processing programs I have loaded. There is, however, a readme.txt, and something that may be an encryption key. After scanning the key for viruses and other hidden programs, I load the text file.
It is short, and explains how to use the key to open these files – a program Brown wrote himself. It also repeats the same cautions he made to me in person. I wonder how I would have reacted to reading my own earliest report here first. Would I have believed it? I open it first.
I don't remember writing this, but I certainly did. I still remember the dream better than the events themselves, but this confirms things. The 'report' is hardly formal, as I was still a fairly raw recruit at that point. My understanding of exactly what I was being recruited into was fairly shaky, in retrospect. We were encouraged to come forward with our most mundane problems, and this was clearly not mundane to me. I emailed my immediate superior with the basics from Adam's letter. It is strange to think that such a naïve correspondence could become such a restricted document.
More interesting than my own brief report are the chains it traveled upwards. I read the response I received from Dr. Eaton: Relax, we'll look into this for you. Meanwhile he forwarded it on to his superior, whose number I am unfamiliar with. "Please advise."
Three forwards later, I find a decision from A-673-922, Elinore Fusaro, a regional administrator. She apparently had the right contacts both to procure information from the North West about Anna's family history and the lycanthropes in the area, and also among the Progenitors. This is the inception of the project. There are meeting minutes, authorization forms, more e-mails. It isn't *all* here, but enough of it. They arranged for me to volunteer for this, to agree to let them manipulate my life completely and never ask why… To betray a family that didn't even yet exist. Of course they presented it differently. This I do remember.
Usually agents are discouraged from having many outside relations, but they wanted to an official study to judge the effects such relationships had on performance as well as the ability of conditioning and training to manage such a lifestyle. I was already very committed to Anna, and had worried what we would do after school. This seemed perfect. They would find her a job, and I could get assigned to the same region. In fact, they sent her back out west, to Seattle. Too perfect. In order to participate, I had to give them access to family medical records and have Anna agree to yearly medical exams. These happened through her work, initially, and were free, as was all our healthcare. Along with these and other conditions, I couldn't tell Anna, of course.
It wasn't even a dummy project – it was just a convenient way of monitoring us all, and collecting other genetic information as well, I'm sure. I've read enough for now.
It all makes sense, and falls into place. I know the exact date when they buried the memory of Anna bringing me Adam's letter. I wonder if she ever mentioned it again, or if those incidents were just erased as well. It would have been very complicated for them to manage that, however, and I presume that for whatever reason, she let it go. Maybe they wiped her as well. I didn't see any records of it, but there are gaps in Brown's information.
I wish I could believe this was over. And I wish that, for all of Brown's concern, I felt something other than satisfaction at having answered some of my questions about how this all started. I should be angry, or upset in some manner, shouldn't I? The most I can manage is vague apprehension at how I will ever explain this all to Anna, if I resolve to do so.
Other Pieces
I now have two things that I have purposefully gone to collect, but haven't looked at – my magazine, and the files on Anna and Danny from Victor Brown. I have framed the some of the pictures Anna gave me, but I keep rearranging their placement. I can't find anything that satisfies me, or anywhere where they don't seem jarringly out of place. Maybe it is the pictures themselves that are jarring. Maybe I'm not ready for them, either.
Meanwhile, I have been following the same pattern for my days. I wake up early, and go running. I come home, and shower, and spend the morning assimilating the news from various sources – papers, television, the internet. There is still a lot for me to get caught up on. I have a fairly good grasp of where things are at the moment, but retracing how they got to this point is more difficult. My afternoons are more varied. I go to the gym four days a week for various classes (mostly aerobics ad strength training) or to work on weights. I tried Alita's yoga class, but she is very immersed in the spiritual and philosophical aspects, and I wasn't comfortable. Other days, or with my remaining time, I might run more basic errands, or drive around the city some. My evenings are reserved for Anna if she calls or is expecting me to, or else are spent in further reading.
There are still some days where it is difficult for me to find motivation to do much at all. If I can go for my run I'll usually be alright. The endorphins carry me through to the next part of my routine, and by then it is easier just to follow through. The evenings are generally difficult no matter what happens, and it is often easier just sleep through them. I don't generally dream on those nights, either. Though these days are becoming less frequent, I'm not sure what to do to make them stop entirely. Even without them, the disconnect is still there between me and everything else. I can't ever seem to break past it for long. I am apparently afraid of some of the tools I have given myself. Maybe Brown was right, and I am just not ready.
I don't trust myself to know, and I don't trust anyone else to tell me. The only recourse I can see is to continually test and push my limits. I am going to look at the files on my family. It is important – something the overly rational part of my mind can accept more easily. My computer is already on, as I was reading some news sites and political commentary blogs before lunch. I load the memory card from Brown.
The files are organized by date, department, and agent number ranging from what may be my earliest, forgotten report about her brother to the month after my return. They are not in a format recognized by any of the word processing programs I have loaded. There is, however, a readme.txt, and something that may be an encryption key. After scanning the key for viruses and other hidden programs, I load the text file.
It is short, and explains how to use the key to open these files – a program Brown wrote himself. It also repeats the same cautions he made to me in person. I wonder how I would have reacted to reading my own earliest report here first. Would I have believed it? I open it first.
I don't remember writing this, but I certainly did. I still remember the dream better than the events themselves, but this confirms things. The 'report' is hardly formal, as I was still a fairly raw recruit at that point. My understanding of exactly what I was being recruited into was fairly shaky, in retrospect. We were encouraged to come forward with our most mundane problems, and this was clearly not mundane to me. I emailed my immediate superior with the basics from Adam's letter. It is strange to think that such a naïve correspondence could become such a restricted document.
More interesting than my own brief report are the chains it traveled upwards. I read the response I received from Dr. Eaton: Relax, we'll look into this for you. Meanwhile he forwarded it on to his superior, whose number I am unfamiliar with. "Please advise."
Three forwards later, I find a decision from A-673-922, Elinore Fusaro, a regional administrator. She apparently had the right contacts both to procure information from the North West about Anna's family history and the lycanthropes in the area, and also among the Progenitors. This is the inception of the project. There are meeting minutes, authorization forms, more e-mails. It isn't *all* here, but enough of it. They arranged for me to volunteer for this, to agree to let them manipulate my life completely and never ask why… To betray a family that didn't even yet exist. Of course they presented it differently. This I do remember.
Usually agents are discouraged from having many outside relations, but they wanted to an official study to judge the effects such relationships had on performance as well as the ability of conditioning and training to manage such a lifestyle. I was already very committed to Anna, and had worried what we would do after school. This seemed perfect. They would find her a job, and I could get assigned to the same region. In fact, they sent her back out west, to Seattle. Too perfect. In order to participate, I had to give them access to family medical records and have Anna agree to yearly medical exams. These happened through her work, initially, and were free, as was all our healthcare. Along with these and other conditions, I couldn't tell Anna, of course.
It wasn't even a dummy project – it was just a convenient way of monitoring us all, and collecting other genetic information as well, I'm sure. I've read enough for now.
It all makes sense, and falls into place. I know the exact date when they buried the memory of Anna bringing me Adam's letter. I wonder if she ever mentioned it again, or if those incidents were just erased as well. It would have been very complicated for them to manage that, however, and I presume that for whatever reason, she let it go. Maybe they wiped her as well. I didn't see any records of it, but there are gaps in Brown's information.
I wish I could believe this was over. And I wish that, for all of Brown's concern, I felt something other than satisfaction at having answered some of my questions about how this all started. I should be angry, or upset in some manner, shouldn't I? The most I can manage is vague apprehension at how I will ever explain this all to Anna, if I resolve to do so.
