moving straight ahead, you knew it all
Grif tapped the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray, blew the smoke out through his nostrils, and settled a little more into his chair. He'd been sitting there for a couple of hours, in the base's living room -- his living room, as far as he was concerned, even if the base itself still technically belonged to the UNSC -- mentally taking one approach or another to the question that weighed upon him. The pack from which the cigarette had come, which sat on the end-table next to the chair alongside the ashtray and the Zippo lighter Elizabeth had gotten for him in Spain, was about half-empty, but given that he'd started the pack three weeks ago, he figured he was doing pretty well on keeping his consumption low. (Lower, in any case, than his alcohol consumption, as the level of whiskey in the bottle next to the ashtray made plain.)
The matter on his mind was, ultimately, his mind itself. He hated to use the words "progressive" or "degenerative," but the truth of things was that he'd had several years now to get used to his augmentation-related memory loss, and yet he instead found himself becoming increasingly distracted and frustrated by it. The degree to which it preoccupied him was itself becoming a concern to him... and to Command as well, apparently. During his recent visit to an Undisclosed ONI Base for a follow-up examination in the wake of the Killgrave incident, his handlers (for, indeed, Agents McBride and Holbrook had finally dealt with him a sufficient percentage of the time to be officially stuck with the job) confronted him with the records (publicly posted to his journal, and thus fair game) of his conversations with others in the Nexus about it. It turned out that, in the centuries of SPARTANs that followed after him, there were a number of cases of this phenomenon, and they had worked out the cause and an effective treatment... if he wanted it.
Ultimately, they'd left whether or not he'd receive the treatment up to him. They understood that, having been put in the Army and subjected to SPARTAN-II against his will, he had a certain wariness of military medicine and would probably have had it even if he had made it through with no side effects. The fact that it would not be a cure for the memory loss itself, but merely an alleviation of the secondary side effects, was somewhat suspiciously convenient, and the complicatedness of the explanation they'd had to give made him somewhat suspicious of just what they'd be doing to him. (They tried making him feel better by suggesting that poking around in a brain shouldn't be a snap decision, but that stopped when he pointed out how he hadn't been allowed the decision at all with the brain-poking that'd caused his problems in the first place.)
And so here he was, considering his options. He'd put out a call to the Nexus, and been reasonably surprised and pleased to have gotten good advice without excessive bullshit. As he looked the answers over again, he thought back to something Holbrook had said in the course of their discussion, just before they let him leave:
"I think I know what bothers you most. It's not, 'What if the doctors fuck it up?' It's, 'What's in it for them if the doctors get it right?' That's not what this is about. We're not looking to make you a better soldier. We already know, from you and the other cases of this on file, that the stresses of a fight keep the problem from cropping up. This is about making you a less miserable person in the times when you're not being a soldier. This is compensation, for how our predecessors fucked you over. Think it over, let us know what you think, no rush."
He stubbed out the cigarette and looked over to the large display mounted on the wall. The display flickered to life, and he began composing a message.
United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 14561-81684/7G-227
Encryption Code: Orange
Public Key: file/odm-dg/
From: Private Dexter Grif, UNSC Army (service number [REDACTED])
To: Agent [REDACTED] Holbrook, ONI Section [REDACTED] (service number [REDACTED])
Subject: Brain Surgery
/start file/
Okay, I'm interested, but I need some stuff from you guys before I can be totally comfortable about this. (Yes, I know, gift horses and all that, but don't try and tell me you wouldn't want the same if it was you in the barrel here.)
--Grif
/end file/
The matter on his mind was, ultimately, his mind itself. He hated to use the words "progressive" or "degenerative," but the truth of things was that he'd had several years now to get used to his augmentation-related memory loss, and yet he instead found himself becoming increasingly distracted and frustrated by it. The degree to which it preoccupied him was itself becoming a concern to him... and to Command as well, apparently. During his recent visit to an Undisclosed ONI Base for a follow-up examination in the wake of the Killgrave incident, his handlers (for, indeed, Agents McBride and Holbrook had finally dealt with him a sufficient percentage of the time to be officially stuck with the job) confronted him with the records (publicly posted to his journal, and thus fair game) of his conversations with others in the Nexus about it. It turned out that, in the centuries of SPARTANs that followed after him, there were a number of cases of this phenomenon, and they had worked out the cause and an effective treatment... if he wanted it.
Ultimately, they'd left whether or not he'd receive the treatment up to him. They understood that, having been put in the Army and subjected to SPARTAN-II against his will, he had a certain wariness of military medicine and would probably have had it even if he had made it through with no side effects. The fact that it would not be a cure for the memory loss itself, but merely an alleviation of the secondary side effects, was somewhat suspiciously convenient, and the complicatedness of the explanation they'd had to give made him somewhat suspicious of just what they'd be doing to him. (They tried making him feel better by suggesting that poking around in a brain shouldn't be a snap decision, but that stopped when he pointed out how he hadn't been allowed the decision at all with the brain-poking that'd caused his problems in the first place.)
And so here he was, considering his options. He'd put out a call to the Nexus, and been reasonably surprised and pleased to have gotten good advice without excessive bullshit. As he looked the answers over again, he thought back to something Holbrook had said in the course of their discussion, just before they let him leave:
"I think I know what bothers you most. It's not, 'What if the doctors fuck it up?' It's, 'What's in it for them if the doctors get it right?' That's not what this is about. We're not looking to make you a better soldier. We already know, from you and the other cases of this on file, that the stresses of a fight keep the problem from cropping up. This is about making you a less miserable person in the times when you're not being a soldier. This is compensation, for how our predecessors fucked you over. Think it over, let us know what you think, no rush."
He stubbed out the cigarette and looked over to the large display mounted on the wall. The display flickered to life, and he began composing a message.
United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 14561-81684/7G-227
Encryption Code: Orange
Public Key: file/odm-dg/
From: Private Dexter Grif, UNSC Army (service number [REDACTED])
To: Agent [REDACTED] Holbrook, ONI Section [REDACTED] (service number [REDACTED])
Subject: Brain Surgery
/start file/
Okay, I'm interested, but I need some stuff from you guys before I can be totally comfortable about this. (Yes, I know, gift horses and all that, but don't try and tell me you wouldn't want the same if it was you in the barrel here.)
- Full documentation on what needs to be done and why, and clearance to discuss it with a non-UNSC doctor, either in the Nexus or local to our universe. (It can't all still be classified, can it? I mean, there've got to be SPARTANs who retired and needed civilian medical care over the centuries, right?)
- Really basic layman's-terms version of said documentation. (I know you tried to explain it, but come on, you know that I only made it through high school and a couple of remote-learning business courses. I need really small words.)
- Contact info and clearance to discuss this with anyone else who's been through this who might still be alive.
- Files on the doctors who'd be doing the work on me, and clearance to discuss those records with a non-UNSC doctor.
--Grif
/end file/