The observation room was a perfect cube of non-reflective grey. It smelled of recycled air and the faint, antiseptic tang of whatever chemicals the Cognitive Immunology Division used to scrub its hallways of stray thoughts. Dr. Julian Croft sat at a bare metal table, his hands flat on the cool surface, focusing on the grain of the steel. He had been here for seventeen minutes, a duration he measured in the slow, steady thrum of the building’s life support. The Alpha-7 alert on his wrist-comm had been a leash-jerk, and he had obeyed, a trained animal returning to its cage.
The door hissed open, and Dr. Oran Kennet entered. Kennet was Croft’s handler, a specialist in the delicate art of Mnemonic Decoupling, and a man who moved with the unnerving stillness of a surgeon. His CI-Div uniform, a sterile white greatcoat, seemed to repel the room’s oppressive grey. He carried a single cup of black coffee, its bitter aroma a welcome intrusion into the sterile air. Without a word, Kennet slid the cup across the table. The ceramic made a soft, scraping sound on the metal. It stopped an inch from Croft’s fingers. The coffee was a simple, grounding sensory input, a tether to a world that wasn't actively trying to tear his mind apart. It was also a test.
Kennet sat opposite him, placing a thin data-slate on the table. He tapped the screen, and the log from Croft’s disastrous trip to the megastore bloomed into life. Croft didn’t need to see the screen; he had lived the data. He could feel the report as a phantom humiliation: heart rate spikes, galvanic skin response off the charts, the frantic flicker of his Somatic Sigils as he stood paralyzed between two brands of nutrient paste. A grown man, a scientist, brought to his knees by a choice between Nutri-Social and Sovereign Sustenance. Kennet’s face remained a practiced mask of non-judgment, his pale blue eyes scanning the telemetry with the detached interest of a mechanic checking engine diagnostics.
The neutrality was a threat. The Patriot-Primal parasite, the thing of cracked earth and barbed wire in his head, interpreted Kennet’s calm as the condescension of a high-level bureaucrat. An enemy of action. A hot spike of suspicion, indexed internally at a 30% increase, shot through Croft. His shoulders tightened, and his back straightened, a reflexive posture of defiance. His trust level for Kennet, a metric his own internal analyst tracked, dipped by 10%. He felt the urge to challenge him, to demand, to act.
Before the impulse could find his tongue, the counter-wave came. The Equity-Aggressor, a creature of oily tentacles and labyrinthine social theory, framed Kennet differently. He was a potential ally, a man of nuance trapped within the rigid, oppressive structures of the CI-Div. A fellow prisoner. The tension in Croft’s shoulders eased, a fraction of a millimeter. His alliance potential with Kennet ticked up by 15%. The war was constant. A twitch in the muscle, a flicker of the eye, a man arguing with himself without ever speaking a word.
Kennet looked up from the slate, his gaze direct. The data vanished from the screen.
— The system wants clean data. Certainty, — Kennet said, his voice a calm baritone that cut through the room’s hum.
— Independent thought is a statistical anomaly, Julian. The system doesn't like anomalies.
The words landed like stones in a silent pool. They were a direct challenge to the binary, either/or logic his parasites thrived on. For a breathtaking second, the internal noise ceased. A sliver of pure, unadulterated reason, the ghost of the Analyst that lived in his REM sleep, surfaced. It seized Kennet’s statement, logging it as a high-value axiom, a piece of code that might, with time, become a weapon. This was the heresy he’d been waiting for without knowing it.
— Be a rebel, Julian, — Kennet continued, a faint, weary line appearing at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a smile. It was the scar of an old, lost battle.
— It's the only way to stay sane.
The Patriot-Primal parasite internally scoffed at the advice. The word ‘rebel’ was a pejorative, a term for traitors and system-breakers. A wave of cognitive dissonance, a staggering 78% spike, washed through Croft, manifesting as a sharp pain behind his right eye. The advice was logged by his system, but the parasites refused to integrate it. It was a foreign body, an infection of a different kind.
Caught in the crossfire, Croft chose the only tactic that offered survival. Silence. He gave a slow, deliberate nod, a gesture he hoped conveyed understanding rather than the complete psychic paralysis he was experiencing. His own rational mind, what was left of it, had to actively inhibit the parasitic response to argue, to agree, to do anything other than simply receive the information. It was an act of will that left him feeling hollowed out.
The assessment was over. Kennet seemed satisfied, or at least, had gathered the data he required. He picked up a second device from the pocket of his greatcoat, a sealed, grey data-slate, heavier and thicker than the one that held Croft’s recent failures. He slid it across the table. It stopped next to the now-lukewarm coffee. The next assignment.
Croft looked at the slate, then at Kennet. There were no more words. He had been deemed marginally functional, a broken but still useful tool. He reached out and took the data-slate. Its surface was cool and smooth. The mission was formally active.
The cold slate held a test for a sanity he no longer owned.
