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Spectre: Shades of Grey
Chapter 9 A Comics Retcon Story |
Samira clung fiercely to her sanity. Knowing what was being done to her and the next likely steps would be in her new evolution didn't help at all. In fact that knowledge made things worse.
“Spectre.” She whispered while trying not to look at her newly cafe au lait skin, or the beautiful face that still showed shock whenever she looked into a mirror. “You destroyed me. But not completely. I'm going to survive this to spite you if nothing else.”
Oh, Samira hated. She hated her former co-workers, the doctors and scientists who had perfected her 'treatments, and the real, if alien nerve tissue the nanites had formed to give the chip planted at the base of her skull to replace the once fatal wire extrusions. But most of all, she hated The Spectre.
But she could show none of that at all. Not without pain so intense her mind would literally stop working when she was subjected to it.
The pleasure she was given through the same agency that delivered the pain was almost worse than the pain. And she knew all too well those induced good feelings were more addictive than the most invasive drug going in the illegal markets and on the streets.
She did stop and wonder if the other victims, the ones she had helped to train, had hated her old self with the intensity she directed at her present tormentors. The only conclusion she could reach was they had. But it had done them no more good that it did her.
I had been watching Samira's progress, and the people watching her go through it.
Truthfully, even given my rather nasty nature, I wondered if I had done the right thing by condemning that one to such a thing. I didn't like myself all that much for doing it, either.
But I'd already gained a wealth of information from that. The chips weren't reprogrammable as of yet, but the people working on them were gradually getting a solution to that. The current problem was that trying to reprogram the chips activated the automatic self destruct embedded in the things and none of them were quite sure why that couldn't be circumvented. But the subjects they attempted to do that with died. Painfully as a rule.
“Be strong, Samira.” I whispered while watching her doing her makeup in a large mirror purposefully designed to show her the body she now had.
“Be strong?” She had heard me and shook her head, briefly interrupting the decoration of her face. “You caused this to happen to me, is that another taunt?”
“Not exactly.” I appeared to her and shook my head. “You were, are, a means to an end. I once thought you richly deserved what is happening to you, but watching it, and feeling it, through you has changed my mind. No one deserves to go through that.”
“How would you know what I'm going through?” She questioned bitterly.
“I know,” I answered, “because I'm riding with you through every step that is taken. All of it. The pain, the pleasure, the self loathing, your physical transformation, and yes, the hatred.
“Hate me all you like.” I told her. “If that keeps you strong enough to hold to what self you have left I can deal with it. So long as it keeps you strong enough to endure the rest.”
“You can't possibly know what I'm going through.”
“Not from your exact perspective.” I admitted. “But as I said, I do feel what you do, see it, all of it.
“So tell me,” I questioned, “have you changed your mind about the agenda of this 'New Earth' conspiracy you are part of?”
New Earth. Hell on Earth, more like. The organization doing all this had plans that would end with most of humanity being subjugated to those damned chips one way or another. Plans were in place to use the chips on politicians, national leaders, business leaders. Without the physical changes their present subjects were subjected to, or replacing those people with some of their own changed to look like the people they had targeted.
Cleaning this up was going to be messy. Really messy.
Samira closed her eyes and I saw the tears trickling down her cheeks as she shook her head. “No one should be put through this.”
“Then be brave.” I softly told her. “What you go through is giving me, and others, the means to stop this thing.”
“They'll make me tell them.” She countered. “I can't keep anything from them, you should know that if you've been riding me through this.”
“Yes you can.” I gave her a smile and reached in to her mind. “And here is the way.”
“Why are you doing this?” She gave me a perplexed, disbelieving look once she had assimilated the 'safe private' place in her mind that I had given her. “You told me you wanted me to suffer, to know what my own victims had gone through. Why are you giving me this?”
“Vengeance can only go so far, Samira.” I answered. “You've suffered, now you know what others went through, could go through if your former associates are successful. I know I'm cruel, but even I have limits. If hating me helps you sustain what you have left of yourself, hate me. I deserve that.
“Get through this, with your mind and resolve intact,” I promised, “and I will give you the freedom you crave. No matter what form that freedom will take.”
“You really mean that.” She looked at me with something that was a mix of loathing and wonder. “You would actully do that?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “You have been through a Hell not many can imagine already, and will be going through more before this is finished. But you have my promise on this. Whatever release you wish when this is over, will be yours.
“Whether you believe it or not,” I gave her a sad looking over, “whether you truly repent or not, what you are going through deserves at least that.”
“What if I don't believe you?” She shot back. “You — YOU — are the reason I'm in this position now. Why should I think that you're doing anything other than holding out a hope that you'll snatch away from me when the time comes?”
“Your own belief doesn't have a thing to do with this right now.” I shrugged. “But I've given you my word, and I do keep that.”
“Go away.” She lowered her head into her hands and I could hear her trying to stop the sobs that threatened to force thier way out. “Just go away for now, please. I can't, I just can't let myself believe what you've told me right now.”
“Well, I can't blame you for that.” I agreed and did as she asked.
“You are learing, little one.” Tisiphone told me once I was back in my usual hovering spot.
“Learning what?” I questioned, not in the mood for metaphysical or philosophical discussions just then.
“That giving pain affects the giver as much as it does the victim. I do wish that my sisters and I had known that in times past.”
“I've always known that.” I shot back.
“Yes, and that, dear one,” she answered, “is why I chose you over others wishing revenge. But now you learn it as your victims do.”
“And that isn't fun, by the way.”
“Giving pain should never be 'fun'.” She countered. “Not once in my former existence, or that of my sisters, did we ever really take pleasure from inflicting pain. It is necessary at times, it is what we did, and what you now do. I learned too late, that such a thing should be tempered with compassion. My sisters never did learn that, and now they are gone.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked. “Are you using me to heal yourself, to learn what caring and compassion are?”
“Yes, little one,” she calmly affirmed. “I am.”
Now I ask you. Just how screwed up can life get? Or unlife, or afterlife, or whatever it is I'm doing right now.
I have a being that is almost a goddess learning from me when I'm just making things up as I go along.
I think I'll go home and lie down. I have a headache.
Comments
Ahhhhh, so that's the work-a-round for the bio metal poisoning
Ahhhhh, so that's the work-a-round for the bio metal poisoning
DON'T use the biometal, use nanites to create new, not quite normal but functional and bio-compatible biological nerve tissue.
Hum, WHY did they even try reprogramming? I assume it was NOT the good guys who tried but the bad guys. To see what would happen if someone tried to *cure* a transformee? IE see if they were vulnerable if a transformee was rescued? To reprogram one for a different mission or owner?
Hum, if the nanities and artificially built nerves are the key COULD a very clever person with the right tech program nanites to bypass the chip, rebuild the person as they were, or at least bypass the chip and undo some of the damage while fooling the old chip into thinking all is well? Then one could take their time figuring out how to safely disarm the self destruct. Catwoman, and possibly some of the other meta heroes/heroines, should have that ability and actually the nasty folks as well, or are very close to it, they don't realize they do. Until the DNA change problem is resolved the transformees will be stuck as the person they are but at least they could have full control of their minds and their free will restored.
Clearly these creeps can only make the old chips. They must not be able to build them without the self destruct, IE the machines/equipment/programming they stole ONLY can build them this way, too many safeguards built in. And they can't reverse engineer them as the chips self-destruct in the lab as well as in a person?
Nice Passover treat, Maggie.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
WORM Drive
The brain is a Write Once Read Many storage device. It is not intended to be rewritten. I'm afraid there may be no going back, the original data/memories/personality is gone. I suppose you could write something to reprogram them to a close approximation of what they used to be, but seems to me to akin to making a zombie (so to speak). In any case the result would not be the original person, just a facsimile.
. . . .
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until they speak.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
That's not exactly
That's not exactly true.
Memories are stored (they think) holographically, but the mind _does_ rewrite memories. Bad things become not so bad, and so forth.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Not necessarily
There's a fair amount of evidence to the contrary, actually. It isn't that a specific memory can be rewritten, but that access to it can be altered in such a way that it is interpreted differently. Much of our recall and association ability is based not on the original stored 'holographic' memories (which, btw, is actually something of an understatement, when you consider that memories can include all of our senses AND emotional state)... but on the means that each of these moments is accessible by our mind. This filing system, where critical elements are linked with similar (and sometimes dissimilar / contrasting) elements of other memories is what determines what we 'make' of new experiences... if your mind fails to associate new memories with anything else, it can quickly become lost or mislinked. More recent events are more 'vivid' purely out of the nature of being associated with many current things. As events become older in your mind, they are associated with fewer new events which dulls the connection to them. But if you find the right trigger, the moment can become just as bad (or good) even decades later.
Information
So, the slavery thing is just the experimental run of what the people behind this scheme are up to - their eventual aim a very sneaky form of world domination.
So, who's responsible for the scheme in the first place? Lex Luthor's usually the prime suspect when evil-doing is concerned, but would he stoop so low? If not him, then who else?
Meanwhile, Diana's offering release to Samira at the end of her transformation (presumably shortly after the auction - doing it beforehand would raise suspicions if the company hasn't been shut down by then), while Tisiphone's taking notes so she can intervene more effectively / safely (especially to her remaining sanity) when she next needs to do so directly, rather than via an intermediary. As if Diana / Deena's life wasn't complicated enough, to find her patron is learning from her...
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I have once read
That any conspiracy may be founded by the fanatics and consist of lunatics, but there will always be a rational mind behind it all.
However, I doubt Lex Luthor is behind the conspiracy, as it is. If anything, he will do whatever it will take to stomp it into the ground, ground the bones of those responsible to dust, and annihilate all traces of biochip technology. Lex is arrogant, Lex is power-hungry, and yet, Lex is in-your-face type. He wants to be known as the greatest human alive, as the planetary dictator, and beyond. And he wants to be recognised as such. And being a mere puppetteer behind the curtain is not up his valley.
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
having a goddess learn from a mortal
I'm not a "goddess" but I'm learning things too from this story. And how often can you say that about a piece of fiction?
Dorothycolleen
Spectre Shades of Grey Chapter 9
Too bad there isn't a meta who is immune to the chips.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Isn't there?
I mean, I can only guess about some of the other author's characters, but I'm reasonably certain that Jade, American Dream, and a certain Blue Bug might, for various reasons, might be immune (or at least, able to overcome) this process.
Someone else pointed out Diamond Lil's relative immunity to most things invasive, but I'll address that in the next chapter- which I'm working on, I swear I am!
And while the author doesn't need me to say this is a great story...this is a great story! ^_^
EDIT: That's not even counting "metahumans" who lack a physical body, like Secret, and of course, (part of the time at least), Spectre herself.
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause-of-effect...but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey...stuff.
Compassion and Vengeance
After being in a bit of a quandry for eight chapters over the punishments meted out by the Spectre, this chapter makes me feel more confident going forward. It's a relief to see that the spirit of vengeance is in someway tempered by compassion and humanity.
Thank you for another chapter of this interesting story.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I am not surprised at this turn of events
as it is rational. And Deena above all is rational for a spirit of vengeance.
As long as Samira truly repents then she may work out her karma in her future incarnations. However, she still deserves what has happened and her commutation will be that she will be given an out instead of having to live indefinitely until Spectre decides to release her. This is fair enough for this turn of the wheel and it is up to her to expatiate herself in her future turns.
Reading about it here makes, from Misty's story, Dorothy's ability to by sheer willpower give herself even the few moments to kill herself even that much more amazing. I would say that the ending to Misty's story must rank up there with among the most bitter of endings I have ever read in a dramatic story.
Kim
From the most devoted parent to the meanest Master...
Not once when I punished my children, did I get pleasure from it. Not once when I was punished by a Master did he smile while doing it. Those who are sadists are no true Master, especially not of themselves. They are but pathetic perverts.
Khadijah
Maggie!!!!!!! The coolest
Maggie!!!!!!! The coolest ending. Wow
I'm going to agree
with Cliff and say this was a very cool read. It's more than that really I love the intensity of the all the things that are happening in the story but more with the characters.
Bailey Summers
Thirded
I've been enjoying these stories a lot.
Actually, just this weekend I was watching a movie called the DC Showcase, which had several stories involving different characters. One of which was the Spectre. While I thought the video was cool, I was disturbed by the complete lack of compassion on the part of the character, especially towards criminals who could have been easily arrested and thrown in jail, and wouldn't have the means to escape said punishment. Instead he simply killed them in awesome, yet very unnecessary ways.
My basic thought while watching it was "This guy's got nothing on Diana!"
You actually made a character that tops the original, at least in my opinion. Good job!
Hmmm.
While I haven't watched this DC Showcase you mentioned, the way you put your reaction and opinion about their Spectre and Diana, makes me inclined to agree.
And it also got me thinking. If the Embodiment of Divine Wrath is having mercy on someone's soul, you can really feel just how horrible their situation is.
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
I love where you are taking
I love where you are taking this. For justice to truly be just, it must be tempered. keep up the good work.