Anamnesis : Variable Case 341102

**Eleutherophobia**

(Eleutherophobia's awakening in two acts, since the forums can't handle the length. It was made about a month ago for [lol, super-secret information censored]. I hope you enjoy it!)

"You're going to get caught, ya' know."

"Don't worry, I disabled the alarm, it's no big deal." Heavy smoke hung under the bathroom's overbearing fluorescent lights, casting twisted shadows onto the walls. "Besides, if I do get caught and anyone asks what I did, I'll be able to tell them I was in the girl's bathroom with the Fara Yazin."

Consolidated district two-thirty consisted of two middle schools and Aloysius Mesta High School, he had been an explorer, or a war hero, or something. No one really remembered, so no one really bothered to ask. The school had been built a few years after the private school's funding had collapsed, a hefty grant from one of the Mesta sisters (who could scarcely pronounce Aloysius) cleared out the former homeless shelter and built the two-story monument to hypocritical foresight. The building's west side overlooked the crumbling aqueduct separating Richland from Westview, acidic saltwater spray had eaten away a substantial amount of limestone.

"You're such a pervert Rob. Why d'you have to smoke in here anyway?" Fara slowly ran a delicate finger across her puffy lower lip, removing too much of the modena gloss she had just applied. Sighing, she leaned uneasily onto the ledge, her skirt scarcely too high, fumbling through her overstuffed purse for the war paint once again.

"I'm much too attractive to be ratted out by a girl, duh," he giggled, a cancerous smog seeping through his teeth. "Oh, by the way, Pfeiffer needs a hand sorting the applications today, he asked me to stay after. I'll probably cut out by six-or-seven if you want to grab something t'eat." He took a long drag from the cigarette, vigilantly watching the golden-brown rust flake off of a dull faucet. "This place is really falling apart, the mirror's growing mold, and there hasn't been a lock on that last stall since I star-"

She pursed her lips, taking every necessary precaution to not make the same mistake twice. "Did UMC send anything back yet? I'm dying to know if I got in," accompanied adept hands flaring a limp collar and pulling a tie down three black buttons.

"Meet me at Peg's around seven and-"

"Done, just don't order any of that nasty cake this time." She pulled a sock up from her ankle and sauntered through the door, its hinges shrieking angrily at the unexpected movement. The room was sealed from variable case 341102, ruinous effects were negligible, and manifested solely as physical deterioration. No resynchronization was deemed necessary.

Peg's Diner had been built dilapidated. Every floorboard housed a family of overweight termites, every table was built with one homunculus leg, and every tuna sandwich was seasoned with e-coli. Peg had never once stepped foot in the restaurant, she was the illusory identity of the schizophrenic Vietnam veteran who had opened the diner a month prior to hanging himself, or shooting himself, or jumping off of a building. The cashier - Erica Something-or-other had found him suspended from the ceiling fan in a revealing red dress. The night manager - Stephen Whats-his-face had thrown up at the sight of the old man's viscous brains splattered all over a blonde wig. Crazy-muttering Frank had watched him flatten himself in the filthy alley behind the building, his deep scarlet lipstick staining the fissured concrete for weeks. Regardless of circumstance, he was intensely dead, and it failed to change a thing.

The six-fifteen train was unlucky, everyone knew it. Some guy in a suit had jumped in front of it a couple of years ago, back when it ran the only route between the south districts. Fara was alone in the diminutive station, the worst feeling comprehensible. The unsteady power fizzled, and the lights cracked on and off as she bought her ticket. The machine was terribly superannuated; most of the buttons failing to light, or stolen entirely. Greedy rust had begun to crawl up its left side, thankfully enough, someone had bothered to scribble in "Rust" and an arrow to alert the masses.

Sitting on the uninfected half of a bench, Fara twirled a finger around her flowing, nacarat locks, clicking her tongue at each uninvited split end she found. A surprised squeak escaped an overweight rat just before the train's whistle chimed, fragmenting the silence of the moldy, tile sarcophagus. Richland Metro had decided that it was unnecessary to replace the shattered forward lights of the train, it was a snake, indistinguishably making its way into a rabbit hole. Fara crossed her fingers, held her breath, and jumped into the car, stumbling for balance as the doors closed immediately behind her, because that's how you were supposed to get on the six-fifteen train. After all, it was unlucky, everyone knew it.

It had been raining for a month, and Westview's sewage system portrayed that unfortunate reality gorgeously. The three block trek to Peg's was peppered with rainy visions of a man in an apron drowning himself in a puddle, or a gentleman wearing thigh-high boots and halter top slitting his wrists, or neither of those. She stepped through the door at exactly seven-oh-four, and waited a sodden, hypothermic twenty minutes for her cohort to arrive under a shielding umbrella.

"You're all wet."

"You're late."

"I said seven-thirty, didn't I?"

"You said seven, didn't you?"

"I'm starving."

"I'm all wet."

Dinner was Peg's famous (not really) beef-burger with fries and two mugs of Peg's "world-class" coffee- tar heated to a vicious extent then mixed with curdled goat milk. Everyone in the room had an indistinct face, the walls were covered in static, and kept flashing into cerise brick. Fara's silverware kept switching arrangement, her napkin turning into a letter, a tax refund, a coupon for Tastee Wheat. Mold was crawling up the windows, every piece of metal tarnished, rust flaking off of the cash register. That didn't happen.

Dinner was Peg's international (not really) stir-fry with white rice and two mugs of Peg's "Italian delight" coffee- gelatinous mud served lukewarm with expired whipped-cream. "So, did you check my file for anything from UMC?" escorted a crooked, hopeful grin.

"Oh, that's right," patting down his pockets, he created two envelopes, both bearing the same college's insignia, "I figured you'd want to open them, so I just held them up to a light and read them."

Frantically, she ripped open both casings, unsuccessfully attempting to read the coupled letters simultaneously. She squinted, understanding each separately, but failing to comprehend their correlation. "Rob, when was this-" she checked the dates on both sheets of paper, "the third? This was sent almost a month ago."

The paneling that had covered the room's walls had been painted the same egg colour too many times to count, and was starting to curl again. Two men stood stationary, each in an impossibly black suit, a third, the same, was sitting at a table, reviewing files he already knew. 341102 was a liability, an unnecessary expenditure of resources. The simulation was programmed to re-synchronize itself in the event of-

"What's wrong?"

"I was accepted, they wanted to interview-"

"That's fantastic, congratulations!"

"Yesterday. The meeting was yesterday," she limply held up the second letter, fat, salty tears welling up in her eyes, "This one's application instructions for next year." A single tear beaded in the corner of her eye, slowly cresting at the swell of her cheek, and rolling down her chin.

"I...I'm so sorry. Hey, listen, we'll get some of your work together, and we'll call them tonight to reschedule. They'll understand, it just got...got lost in the mail, ya' know? These things happen, it's no big deal. We'll just...we'll just take care of it, okay?" He searched for more meaningful words, anything that would stop this moment from happening, make it all go away.

"I want to go home."

Her parents were out on business. Fara was broken; twin trails of mascara paving her pale cheeks. She lay on an overstuffed couch, the letters covering her face. Rob leaned forward in a recliner, gawking at his fingers, and every now and then, he would itch his nose, or look at the clock, or look to the left, or tap one shoe on the ground, just to make sure everything was still working right. Notebooks, paper, folders were strewn akimbo across the room, each bearing the same signature; Fara Kerrigan Yazin with adorable little hearts dotting the letter "i." Fara had given up childish delusions of royalty by age nine, and hopes of being a ballerina soon after. She was interested in psychology, infatuated with it.

The paint peeled around the door's peephole, the hallway trying to enter the room. The door flew off of its hinges, immediately replaced by itself. The couch was suddenly suede, leather, polyester, wool. The walls collapsed into the floor. The floor hit the ceiling. Never mind.

An immaculately polished dress shoe scissored through the air, coming to rest on a bolted door. The hinges cried, broke, two choleric men in identical suits stood stoic, bathed in an effluvium of dust. One held a hand to his ear as the other stepped into the room, oblivious, or unconcerned with the faded books under his feet. "Miss Yazin, we would like you to come with us." The man oozed jurisdiction, both did.

"Who the'll do you think you are? You can't just-"

"Mister Capa, I can assure you, we have sufficient liberty to be here. Unfortunately, we will need to take Miss Yazin with us for...questioning." The second entered, granting the room considerably more attention than it deserved. The first callously made his way towards Fara, who had ducked behind the couch, terrified, the moment the door had shattered.

"No, get away!" squeaked out of her mouth as the man harshly wrapped a frigid cuff around each of her immature hands. She frenetically clawed at his arms, grabbing at anything. Her finger traced backwards along "oh-five-point." Instinctively she grabbed the gun; hands still uncomfortably behind her back. Unfortunately, she had never held a firearm previous to this encounter. Luck, fate, chance disengaged the safety, and rounds began to climb excitedly out of the barrel. Each shot dug the handcuffs painfully into her wrists and bent her arms another way, the recoil overbearing for her delicate arms. Wood splintered, paper tore, and then a much more wet noise. The bullet ripped through the silk of his tie, shattering a plastic button and cleaved through cross-stitched cotton. Hair, sweat, skin, fat, muscle, bone, all fissured.

**Eleutherophobia**

She was roughly gagged and tightly blindfolded, and had gone outside at some point. That definitely happened, because her hair was still sopping wet. The car ride had been unbearably silent, maybe that was illusory. If it did happen, it was long, and the effulgent neon colours seeping through the thin cloth suggested that they were downtown. Whatever door they took led to somewhere impossibly bright. It had to have been a hallway; they were walking forever. Left, right, right, left, right, left. Then a door opened, and she was unable to see anything at all. Two more doors, they sounded severely heavy. The next few minutes dissipated.

"What's going on?" Her own words pulled her agonizingly back into existence. She could see again, though focusing was a challenge. The room was small, with stained egg-white paneling that seemed to be peeling to reveal more layers of the same shade. A single fluorescent light stabbed into her vision, pinning her under the scrutiny of the cell.

"Variable case three-four-one-one-oh-two, Fara Yazin," a blurry suit with an indistinguishable face sat across from her, "you've been quite a...destructive force." He rifled through case reports, feigning surprise at each. "You're...seventeen now, a composite ACT score of thirty-four, on the cross country team, yearbook club, and your county's spelling bee champion. It's a shame that you missed that letter." His voice was cold, calculating. "Miss Yazin, I'm going to make this as...easy for you as I can. You are here because we need your assistance," a latex glove rested firmly on the back of Fara's chair, "You've noticed the rust, the mold, haven't you? It's everywhere. The world seems to...to compress around you like a paper doll, doesn't it? Amusing enough, this is...not far from the truth." He opened a pillbox sitting on the table. Blue or red, night or day, lies or truth, there was the choice.

"I...I don't understand." Her eyes abruptly shot open as a barbed needle punctured her thyroid. A deep ruby gel clogged her throat as she choked repeatedly on her swollen tongue.

No longer holding a stable connection to the simulation, Fara Yazin excruciatingly woke up, drowning. A spasming hand clawed at the thick gel keeping her lungs painfully flattened. A solitary finger broke through, chased by an arm, shoulder, body. An upset gasp escaped from the girl, her icteric eyes burning. A muted squeak escaped her mouth as her foot slipped on the rounded, glabrous bottom of her pod, and she sunk back into the translucent mud. The cosmesis-solution flowed into her mouth, and tormentingly dried the saline from her eyes.

Suspended from the all-inclusive black above her, or supported by the encompassing grey below her came an impossible beast. A mechanized nurse, as it was, clasped tightly onto the seed vessel, several of its surgically precise hands unfolding. The first coarsely clenched the small girl's throat straining her trachea, raising her to a half-kneel above the tub. Another reached above her entirely bald head, aggressively attaching itself to the neural port she was coupled with. First a sharp counterclockwise jerk, then a smooth spin the other way, the long needle left her skull, the hole already beginning to hemorrhage. Her corneas shook violently, and thin blood trickled out of her nose. Dozens of smaller fingers approached the fragile body, brutally cleaving the intravenous drip syringes from her vessels. The nurse compassionately checked for vital signs, then removed all of its hands, letting the girl drop. Her left temple smashed against the wall of the pod, her eye tinged erubescent with blood.

The tower got hungry, and the pod's circular backing splintered, the viscous gel pulling Fara down an endless tunnel. She was emptied into a modest containment receptacle. She was raised onto an inverted conveyor belt by twin hooks tuck into the holes just under her shoulder blades. Suspended tortuously, she was moved to a remote neural jack. The needle whirred to life, and after a friendly chirp, vaulted into her skull. Blood spewed out of every natural hole in her head.

Ashen eyelids clamped tightly, an unsteady scream filling a transparent bubble. Peeling paint surrounded her again, culpable fluorescence blurring her half-vision. She was facing the door this time, chestnut brown in conspicuous contrast to rest of the room. Artificial squeaking opened the door, another sharply dressed businessman walking in, sitting down. Fara cautiously leaned forward in her seat, felling intensely nauseous. Her hair fell into her eyes; she had hair.
"No doubt you're confused," he paused for a moment, placing raven sunglasses on the table. "Obviously, one of these words is illusory, just a dream. Unfortunately for your comprehension, this is the dream world. This is a simulation, Miss Yazin. A synthetic domain pulled around you in order to maintain the integrity of our world. No doubt you have numerous competing questions regarding that assertion, but I can assure you, details will come eventually. The one I would like to address, perhaps the most prominent in your mind - why?" He rubbed a hand across his chin for a moment, pretending not to know how to word his next sentence. "You were a threat. Periodically, my associates will make an...error in regarding an individual's consequence. You were hardwired into this system incorrectly, once again, specifics are unnecessary, and as a result, proved detrimental to its stability time and time again. While it would have been considerably easier to cease your life-support servos, it became apparent that a detached signal could broadcast your projected self-image without its former...unpleasantness."

Bile blistered at the back of her throat as she took in every word. Unsuccessfully, she tried to rationalize the situation, hoping to disprove his allegations. Her left eye ached, generating no vision. It was real.

"The neurokinetic levels you exhibited while wired to the simulation caused calamitous abnormalities to manifest themselves in your immediate vicinity, even permanently damaging places that your frequently visited. Ironically enough, this same fluctuation is what saved your life, gave you a purpose." His voice was impossibly far away. Time grew unclear again. In the real world, dozens of hypodermic needles simultaneously drove past her skin, discharging neural depressants, muscle stimulants, substantive proteins. Her formerly sleek figure became disproportionately engorged her face became bloated, her chest and stomach swelled. She convulsed fortuitously, powerless to fight the intruders.

Virtually, she was roughly strapped to a frigid operating table. A program portraying a doctor lifelessly entered the room, nurse subroutines in tow. A tray of varying surgical tools was produced, another with what appeared to be individually-portioned hamburger meat. One of the nurses, a counterfeit smile plastered on her face, covered the girl's purple lip gloss with a gas-mask, extending it to her nostrils. Fara shrieked into the plastic as her eyes fell closed and she entered a cataleptic cocoon.

The dossier read that 341102 had been apprehended just shy of two years hence. After it had been established that more resources were being put towards restraining her injurious effects on the simulation than she was providing, she was removed from the dynatron facility, brought to a standalone containment center. After a reconnection she was kept on a steady regiment of nutrients, her projected self-image reconstructed, most necessary information imprinted onto her cerebrum, aggregate resocialization and sensory therapy executed. At the present time, the neural and physical damage inflicted on the patient was considered negligible. Two intricate butterfly tattoos, that was the mark, a humorous reference to her project epithet. The man's prominent brow furrowed, they were sending him a kid.

Fara was on the subway; the stinking cologne of an overweight actuary engulfed every sense, her coherence flaring to life. Lightly pink nineteen-year-old skin held a milky value, giving her an empyreal countenance. Save for the heart-shaped marking below her left eye, the skin was smooth, deficient of any imperfection or disfigurement. An adorable, impish nose pointed towards full dawn-tinted lips, just slightly too wide for her acute chin, hiding immaculately aligned teeth. Her hair failed to trickle down her shoulders, it was a flawlessly highlighted mangosteen coloured mess of calculatingly arranged styluses, none making it past the thin of her neck. Her shoulders rested atop extravagantly sybaritic proportions. Clearly not rebuilt as a soldier, her affected hourglass figure was squeezed into a Fiorenza Mileri leather dress and dark stockings, balancing on excessively long stiletto heels. Pink-painted fingernails clenched a wrinkled folder, the Tetragrammaton insignia stamped on its side. A muffled voice droned over the intercom as the train began to slow, reaching the Tabor Park station. The doors opened, Fara crossed her fingers, held her breath, and jumped out of the car, her foot nearly slipping off of a shoe. She failed to recollect why.

Angry rain slapped at her face, the machine-operated building, acting as a bluepill bank, was only a few hundred meters away. Two beige security guards nodded to the girl as she crossed the threshold into the building. "Robert Winchester's office is on the eighth floor, miss," droned an uninterested administrative assistant. Robert, that name sunk her heart for some reason. Making her way casually to the elevator allotted her more than a fair share of inquisitive glances. A lifeless buzz accompanied the illumination of floor eight's button. The pillbox was unreasonably clean, its mirrored ceiling freshly polished. Fara leaned against the back rail of the lift, deciding whether or not she would vomit from anxiousness.

An unattainably thin woman with a hairless head mirrored the girl as the doors opened. "Miss Yazin, yes? Hi, it's going to be a few minutes, but you're welcome to have a seat out here." The woman turned on her heel and disappeared through a door, leaving Fara alone in the hallway, in a staring contest with two oak doors defended by four identical gleaming suits of armour. She was terrified, neural inhibitors recognized this and fed depressants through her atrophied body accordingly, but the effect was delayed. Hundreds of scenarios played through her head, not a single one ending positively, she was frightened, apprehensive, freedom was uncomfortable, it itched at the rear of her eye. Eleutherophobia, a fear of freedom.

A sliding lock echoed through the hallway, ushering her into the office. Robert Winchester was a behemoth of a man, a silverback in a tailored suit. He marched slowly toward the girl, extending a weathered hand. She met his grasp, feebly. "Hmm...we'll need to work on that," he stated matter-of-factly, dropping his hand to his side. "So, I trust everything is in order, yes?"

Servo units kept Fara's heart rate sustained, childish tears already blurring her impaired vision. "Entirely, sir."

"I understand that you wish to aid the machine cause in this simulation, a rational choice. However, I'm curious as t'why." An ennuyé drawl filled his voice, the pressures of a thousand signatures weighing on his mind.

"The machines are our curators, our providers, the continued continuity of this simulation is of extreme importance. Preservation of a substantial connected populace is wholly necessary not only for the machine cause, but for the perpetuation of our species. The-"

"Good, I trust you've gone through the training logs, fully understand the code of conduct, the Tetragrammaton philosophy, et cetera."

"Entirely, Mister Winchester."

"Beachhead is entirely fine, Miss Yazin. Which reminds me, I did not receive a file regarding your pirate handle, what is it?"

"Eleutherophobia," instinctively jumped off of her lips, her eyes widening at dozens of assumed consequences. Stimulant dampening drugs shot into her temple, causing her eyelashes to flutter in both realities.

"Good, Ele-houth-ur-oh-foe-bee-uh. I believe that you will be a welcome addition to our ranks. You will be on my hovercraft - the Tetragrammaton Flagship Archon. You will retain an air or professionalism and dignity in all social situations, unless on assignment, your uniform is to be worn at all times. You are to maintain a military respect for all officers, members, and other machine organizations. All articles of the code of conduct are thoroughly enforced, and violation is ground for extreme punishment." The man gave her a sharp nod, and turned to his desk, suggesting that the interview had ended.

The girl's shadow chased her through the door, uninterrupted by a single seam in the carpet. The heavy doors closed behind her, breaking the stare of the butterfly stitched into her back with her employer. Fara reached the elevator, aching for its all-encompassing carapace. The doors closed, but she didn't depress the lobby's button. A weak stimulant shot up her wrist, making her synthetic hands quake. She was terrified, she always would be, but compliance was, and always would be mandatory.

Rolanthas