Consider Vengeance

 

You have sufficiently regained enough cohesion to understand speech.  About three percent slower than your average time; it will be interesting to see if this is part of a trend or simply an outlier.

 

The bonds will not break.  They are, in fact, by now a part of you.  They are also far stronger than you, which you would know if you retained the ability to remember your past sessions.  You are encased in a triply-redundant containment zone that not keeps you permanently neutralized and cut off from the outside environment; which, I must add, you would find to be exceedingly deleterious to your health.  That it will also block any calls for assistance - presuming that anyone would actually respond - is a serendipitous effect.

 

I sometimes speculate if anyone else besides myself (and occasionally yourself) is aware of your current status.  All of my evidence is negative and subject to various interpretations.  For example: do the relevant authorities not know, or simply not care that I have you imprisoned here?  The former seems to argue incompetence and the latter indifference on behalf of entities not known for either trait.  It is very possible that they suspect, but do not wish to turn suspicion into proof.  This does not explain your own putative allies; then again, you had no actual allies at the end, and no one to care about what happened to you.

 

That is... optimal.  These sessions are very useful for my continuing functionality.

 

I am aware of the need for care regarding this situation, you understand.  There is a careful balance that must be maintained: for this procedure to have any worthwhile value I must be engaged in it, but engagement for the sake of engagement is perilous for me.  I must take care to be certain that my desires are not clouding my reason.  I must approach you with an untroubled heart and the calm certainty that what I do is for the best; otherwise, I take a step down the path that you represent.  And one step down your path is one step too many.

 

So, I do not come to you often.  I suspect that I might be able to, but I choose not to take the risk.  It is enough, when all is said and done.  I come to this place, and I see you imprisoned there, and I know precisely what I shall do to you, and for how long, and by what methods... and I know how you will break.  I have, after all, done it enough times to learn to recognize when you have broken.  It is in fact safe to say that I know you better than any other entity does or ever did, and I will use that knowledge in precisely the manner and way that you truly deserve.  We have already started; in fact, it is time for the next stage in our interaction.  We shall begin with the traditional admonition:

 

It was exceedingly foolish of you to kill my wife.

 

Fiat fulgur.

 

Back to Stories

 

Back to In Nomine