I'm trying.
Dr. Agon tells me there's a lot riding on me being "successful." He envisions an army of me. An army of Robert Maxwells. But only if I'm not a fuckup. I can't afford to be a fuckup.
I'm not sure if what happened at Procyon was a fuckup. He won't tell me.
There's a colony at Procyon, but it hasn't been doing well recently. Some of the colonists started defying Alliance authority, refusing to follow orders in terms of what buildings and resources to prioritize. They aren't allowed to do that. They're under Earth's jurisdiction no matter how far away they are.
Thirty of them seized the local power plant, which was operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. They took hostages. I was sent in with a small team to bust them out and dislodge the rebels. They were called "rebels" but they were just other humans. Alliance citizens. Still people. But the moment they turned violent on the rightful military of our people, I guess that was it. There's no amnesty.
I don't remember everything. It happened fast, and it's like my brain just checked out at some point. My cybernetics are supposed to record everything whether I'm technically cognizant or not. If they recorded anything for this, it was locked away from me accessing it. The only thing I remember next is standing in a sea of bodies. My CO is clutching at my leg, blood pouring out of his mouth. Gurgling. He's trying to talk. I don't know what he's saying. Without thinking, I just lift my rifle and shoot him between the eyes. He was dead already.
And then I just "switched off" again, I guess. A patrol came by a couple weeks later and found me. Only me. Dr. Agon tried to hide it from me. I only found out later. It wasn't just that I killed the rebels and my own squad got wiped out. I apparently marched into the main settlement and just... killed everybody.
They covered it up. One thing about having offworld colonies is that news travels slowly and hardly anyone has the resources to corroborate a story about another planet. If the President of the Alliance says a freak magnetic storm caused the power plant at the Procyon colony to go critical, and it killed everyone there, then who can prove otherwise? Nobody in the military was going to talk. The only other people who knew were government officials, plus Dr. Agon and his research team. He wasn't going to risk anything, either.
I'm trying so hard.
He told me not to worry about it. Even once I found out what really happened, he said I did exactly what I was supposed to do. The entire colony was compromised, he said. It had to be "subdued." I "subdued" it, all right.
Dozens of people, maybe hundreds, had to craft an elaborate lie to protect me. It would've been all over for Dr. Agon's cybernetics program if the world had found out. A rogue cyborg that wiped out a colony? I was worried people would come for me and kill me. I wouldn't have blamed them. I still wouldn't have liked it. And I was a coward, so I didn't go straight to the process or anything. I mean, I was only 18. I barely knew anything. I'd been through so much already. I felt like it was totally unfair for me to be in this situation. It wasn't my fault. It was Dr. Agon's fault for making me like this. Or that's what I told myself.
I'm trying to be better.
What am I, really? Am I a human being? A human being doesn't do what I do, does it?
Dr. Agon told me the cybernetics program was being expanded. I didn't have any more "incidents" after he "corrected" my programming. It feels weird to be talked about as having "programming." I suppose we all do have that, between genetics and memory, but it's not the same as computer code, is it? You can't punch a couple numbers into someone's DNA and control their behavior. But he could do just about anything short of remote control me.
One thing that came out of the Procyon incident was that no one as far gone as me was allowed to be cybernetically augmented. They decided that the amount of stuff wired into my brain affected how I acted too much, and it wasn't a risk they were willing to take with anyone else. Dr. Agon talked them out of having me "deactivated." He never told me that. He didn't want me to know anything like that was happening.
I'm trying to be good.
The new "models" are people getting things like stronger arms, stronger legs. Making soldiers who don't get tired so quickly. Robots and automation can only do so much. At some point, the best thing to do is just make people better, right? Construction workers can get a lot more done if they're stronger all over. Lots of police signed up for vision and hearing enhancements, and some wanted their legs augmented. Dr. Agon could do reflexes, too. You could react faster than any unaltered human.
It did cause some problems, though. If you were augmented in any way, you were banned from sports competitions. I guess that was only fair. But then unaugmented people started complaining that it was unfair for jobs, too. If you're on a job and the guy next to you has extra-strong arms and you don't, should he get paid more? After all, he can do more work. Plus, he's probably paying off the loan for the cybernetics in the first place. He needs the money.
But regular people didn't see it that way. They saw the forming of a class divide. They felt themselves being left behind. I get that.
I'm trying to get more rest.
I'm so tired all the time. Dr. Agon keeps sending me on these missions. Go in, do something, get out. He doesn't send me with a squad anymore. It's too risky. I overheard him calling me "the right tool for the job." It makes sense that he sees me that way. That's all I am, isn't it? A tool to be wielded. A weapon, if I'm being honest. It's not like I'm sent in to help people. I'm sent to kill.
I'm just so tired. I don't feel much of anything when I do this stuff anymore. But for some reason, I feel really tired. I don't know why.
I'm trying to be kinder to myself.
It seems silly to say. I don't even know how to be kinder to myself, other than remembering I'm doing what I'm ordered to do by the lawful government of all humanity. Plus, don't the Oolians keep an eye on things? If we were doing anything particularly awful, they would step in and tell us to stop, wouldn't they? None of this is my fault, is it?
I'm trying to tell myself I deserve it.
I deserve to be happy. Or whatever I can have that's close to that. I don't know if "happy" is a real thing for me. Not without June. Not without my parents. I don't even know where my brother is these days. Maybe he gave up on me. Maybe he learned what I am and decided I was dead to him. I don't think I deserve that. I deserve good things, don't I?
Don't I?