The treatment had begun over 11 months ago and Dr. Josef Engele could see the futileness of it’s implementation now. The beginnings of the director’s descent into psychosis were slow and barely noticeable. A compulsive need for order manifested in arranging objects, personal, schedules even until it "feels right" (a reason why he refused to take on a secretary to keep track of things) might have been alerting. Unscheduled excursions with the company’s flagship to rather distant parts of the sector, such as Bretonia and Liberty without any specific reason might have risen a brow as well. Retreating into his office area for several days with surveillance disabled, receiving noone and rejecting incoming communication would under normal circumstances arise suspicion, only that it didn’t. All that was only realized much later.
While for an average employee living and working under The Core’s supervision constituted a conscious relinquishment of ones privacy as well as certain naturally born rights in favor of a generous paycheck and the conviction of being part of the vanguard of innovation, being head of AP Manufacturing meant enjoying a blank check from both High Command and the company’s benefactors at Interspace Commerce in virtually all imaginable aspects. Naturally such trivial things like conduct of questionable ethics or backdoor deals with sketchy elements are a welcome part of APM’s unspoken agenda, encouraged through exitus acta probat, yet the notion of individual privacy is a rare luxury reserved for only the highest in hierarchy. Hence McKinsey’s unbound secrecy laid fertile grounds for illness to spring.
Engele stood in a spacious, brightly lit office, with one wall completely covered in transparent panels overseeing a park designed like an XVII century’s Earth French garden – perfectly symmetrical and perfectly tended. Outside a young nurse in OSC uniform walked leisurely pushing a wheelchair. In the chair sat a man who looked as if he were in his 40’s, dressed in a spotless tailored suit the colour of deep navy and a black collarless shirt. His head was tilted slightly to one side, mouth expressionless, eyes blank. The doctor sighed and a profound feeling came over him. Not that he was sorry for the great man who’s brilliant mind suddenly went dark – empathy was a notion he could never quite grasp. It was more like pity over a precious resource that had gone to waist, needless and illogical. He once revered the man who was now being walked through the gardens of the luxurious mental asylum. It was director McKinsey himself who brought him into the fold, out from an underfunded, tedious research program at the New Berlin Science Institute, into the position of lead bio-tech scientist at Alabama Shipyard and later on Nauru, with nearly unlimited funding, a supply of specimen and subjects at the snip of his fingers and an uncommonly flexible approach towards ethics. The latter of which had been like a heavy chain worn beyond ones sentence finally broken. That was another thing he felt still today – gratitude, for only thanks to the director recognizing the young scientist’s talents did he accomplish so many wonderful things and gained insight into awe inspiring new prospects for mankind. After all it is the aspiration towards a greater good that is his calling.
It was around the time when Guildmistress Emna Loyola went missing in mysteries circumstances that High Command started noticing some of McKinseys peculiar decisions. Frankly, it was not the decisions themselves that were alarming at first but the tremendous expenses that followed. Using a fake Neuralnet identity, the director had placed a battleship’s worth of bounty on a man he suspected of having been involved in some way with Loyola’s disappearance. While none had questioned the director setting up a private investigation into the matter, parallel to the efforts taken by the assigned divisions of The Core’s military arm, it’s merits however were based on a rather sketchy hint provided by Forlorn Hope that lead to a certain John Silverstone who may or may not have had information about the Guildmistresses whereabouts. Allocation of the funds was masked brilliantly using the retrofit program of the APM Merchant Fleet to accommodate DT-Fuel outsourced to Kruger Minerals as smoke cover. As relations between the Rheinland corporation and The Core temporarily soured on grounds of a slight misunderstanding which immediately froze all joint endeavors, the money flow into the project’s account continued.
There were other thing as well. In his growing paranoia and fear of administrative takeover by Interspace Commerce, the major shareholder of APM, McKinsey had Alabama Shipyard rigged with nuclear devices with disabled safeties, marked as backup power and connected to the station’s secondary power grind. Those devices could be set to overcharge in a matter of minutes and turn the structure to a brief supernova virtually at the push of a button. Personal assigned to implement this upgrade were shortly after recalled to H+ for an overhaul of their service issued implants. Afterwards they didn’t appear to have any recollection about the task whatsoever.
At this thought Engele’s mouth turned a genuine smile – he himself designed and carried out the procedure as part of his study on callothomy, a way of disintegrating the corpus callosum either fully or partially from either brain hemisphere using electromagnetic fields. His aim of course had been to temper with the subject’s memory, however there were some interesting side effects noted post factum, mobility impairment of various degree being the most prominent one. But that’s a whole different story.
Shortly after the director’s peculiar conduct was discovered, pieces of what was once thought as idiosyncrasies of a powerful man on whose shoulders rested the overwhelming bulk of the Edge World’s economy, fell into place. Martin McKinsey, CEO of AP Manufacturing had cracked. As the history of The Core has shown times over, in many ways it was to be expected. The actions that followed were methodical and swift. The official version was that he had stepped down quietly due to health concerns, which had actually been a sugarcoated version of the facts. Sedated and closely guarded (not for the sake of security per se, but rather to keep it under wraps) the former chair of the company was shipped off to Rheinland where he could be kept close watch over and his appearance would not turn heads.
Dr. Engele collected himself. He turned away from the outside view and sat down by a large wooden desk, Across sat a women in a plain white sleeved gown with only a discrete OSC logo embroidered on the cuff. She might have been nearing to passing her prime, but her aura of authority and professional confidence was enticing, at least to him.
- So far the patient does not seem to respond to any of the applied treatments. – she said. Naturally, we are only at the beginning of a long term rehabilitation program, the means of which being on the subtle end of the spectrum for now.
- I understand. – Engele replied. – Is his present catatonic state the result of the treatments?
- No. At lest not as far as we can tell. – she gave a short glance outside, at the nurse and the man in the wheelchair. – The patient – she continued – had retreated into himself so to speak and is since his arrival non responsive.
- I see. Why have you summoned me then? I could have simply received a report over the Neuralnet.
- I have asked you here – her look slightly hardened – because you have been assigned by the client as the patient’s legal representative and as such you are in power of making certain decisions. As outlined in the contract, if the treatments do not yield significant results after 12 months you can discontinue the therapy and terminate the indenture with OSC to date. We are required by law to ask whether you want to proceed or regain custody of the patient to explore other possibilities.
- No – replied Engele, surprised and suddenly a bit angered. But he relaxed quickly, certainly the women could not know that for his superordinates the aim of this measure was to elegantly discard the broken employee, not to actually make him better. Failure of therapy was an expected, well calculated investment. He gathered himself. – No, we wish to continue the treatments in the scope and form seen fit by your specialists. The client has absolute confidence in your abilities. – he paused, to give what he would say next a sense of gravitas, or so he thought. – Should the efforts prove ineffectual after another 12 months, further treatments are to be refrained from. However the contract is to continue, with the extent of the services reduced to hospice care.
The OSC women took a hand terminal out of her desk and enlarged the view. The image floated up and hang suspended over the desk facing Dr. Engele. She went on – Of course, I will have a proper amendment to the contract drawn and sent to you. In the meantime you will be able to follow the progress of the therapy through this report card.
Engele looked at the floating form. It listed diagnosis, recommended treatments, comments from physicians and therapists for reference and other data, comprehensible perhaps to only the most hardheaded bureaucratic wonk. He scrolled up to view patient’s personal information.
Name: Alfred Strauss
Origin: Rheinland, Stuttgart
Client: CMI Ltd. organized under the laws of Imperium Omicronis
He stopped, leaned back in the chair and contemplated a new realization. This is what the image of a man is reduced to, he thought – one day you are the embodiment of economic potency and the other day you are a fake record in the medical files of a rich man’s lunatic asylum. He tried out how this realization felt. To his surprise, he felt nothing.