Newbie
Cipher fic! Is that a first in this community? Also a backstory fic. Also relatively long, and rated PG-13 for violence.
He was sure that he had it this time.
He had been absorbed with the problem all day. At lunch he put off eating until the last second in order to do his work, then shoved a whole sandwich into his mouth at once when the bell rang. He hid his research material between the covers of various textbooks so that he could read in class, and drew out diagrams when when he ought to have been taking notes on lecture. In math class, he very nearly got into trouble.
“Mr. Ein!”
Ein’s stout, bespectacled algebra teacher slammed his yardstick down on the boy’s desk. The notebook he had been sketching in jolted into the air at the impact and fell to the floor. Ein quickly snapped to attention, dropping the pencil and compass he had been working with and folding his hands neatly in front of him.
“Are you listening to me, or are you doodling again?” the professor rumbled.
Doodling. Ein concentrated on not rolling his eyes. That was the thing about teachers; they had heard so many complaints from students who claimed to have “better things to do than schoolwork” that it never occurred to them that it might sometimes be true.
“No sir. I was doing the example problems you put up on the board for us, sir.” He quickly turned his attention to said problems, anticipating the next question.
“I see. And did you finish any?”
“Yes, sir.” Ein closed his eyes and watched the numbers play across the backs of his lids.
“All right, then. What is the answer to number one?”
“X equals five. Y equals two. Z equals zero.” The boy opened his eyes again. “Am I right?”
The professor hastily flipped through the notes he had been reading from earlier. When he found what he was looking for he nodded curtly, then returned to the front of the room without another word. When he resumed lecturing, Ein resumed working.
That was the thing about school; one could not allow it to get in the way of one’s education.
* * *
On the way home, Ein stopped by the park to check on the traps he had set the day before. Everything he had just come up with would be useless if he could not test it properly. If the project failed, it would certainly not be the first time he had gotten all the way to the experimentation phase only to be disappointed.
At first it looked as though he were out of luck. The traps he had set by the rocks on one end of the park were all empty, as were the ones near the lake in the center. Then, at the base of the trunk of a beech tree, he found it: a disgruntled-looking pachirisu in a small transparent cube. The remains of a few nuts and berries had been shoved into one corner, and now the small furry creature with its tiny paws was scraping frantically at the plexiglass floor. When Ein approached it, it looked up and began chattering angrily at him. Without a word, he scooped up the cube and continued on his way.
* * *
Ein cleared his desk and set up his equipment. There were the tray, pins, and scalpel he had stolen from his biology class. That, he admitted to himself, might have been a little bit wrong. That was the sort of thing one could go to jail for, probably. But, he told himself, the science department would approve if they knew what he was using them for. Call it an extracurricular activity.
He laid his journal on the desk next to the tray and flipped it open to the diagram he had made earlier that day. Then he laid one of his reference books next to that and flipped it open to a corresponding diagram. At last, he pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves and stuffed a pair of plugs into his ears. Now came the hard part.
When he went to open the plexiglass cage, the pachirisu was ready for him. It leapt from the container and made for the nearby bed, hoping to hide among the junk accumulated beneath. But Ein was ready for it, too. He dove on it just as it was disappearing into the safety of darkness and wrapped his hands tightly around its plump little body. The pachirisu tried to shock him and bite his fingers, but his gloves protected him from both types of attacks.
After a bit of struggling, he managed to get the creature into the tray and pin it by its paws and by flaps of skin on its sides to the cork board lining. The dissection equipment had really been made for use on dead specimens, but Ein had found that this worked as well; pokémon attached to unyielding surfaces by sharp objects through their flesh tended to hold very, very still. The screaming was a bit of a downside, though. When he had tried this without earplugs, the loud, shrill, incessant noise had nearly driven Ein to puncture his own ear drums. Even now that he was wearing them, what got through made it difficult for him to concentrate.
But concentrate he did. Taking his scalpel in hand and consulting the diagrams, he carefully cut out a portion on the pachirisu’s skull. He jumped back a bit as the awful, ear-piercing noise grew even louder than it had already been. He cursed under his breath and hoped that his parents were at a remote enough part of the house that they would not hear. When after a few moments no one had come to interrupt him, he decided it was safe to continue.
Here was the moment of truth, then. Crossing his fingers with his free hand, he looked over his books once more, then made a small laceration in the exposed gray matter.
The noise stopped.
He sat back in his chair and removed his earplugs, then leaned forward again to examine the pachirisu. It was clearly still breathing. He passed his hand back and forth over its face, and its eyes followed him. It was still conscious. He undid the pins and watched a fluffy blue pokémon removed itself to the far corner of the desk and began to lick its wounds. It still had motor skills.
He had done it. Ein was too surprised even to celebrate.
Only now the damn thing was hemorrhaging and would probably expire soon, and he had neither the equipment nor the knowledge necessary to fix it. That was the thing about life; it was too damn fragile.
“At least you won’t suffer,” he told it.
And that was the point, was it not? No pain. He had surgically abolished pain.
True, the creature would die, but that was only because his methods were so crude. One could burn out that portion of the brain. One could, with enough precision, probably even rewire the neurons around it. And physical discomfort was only the first step; one could quite feasibly also eliminate sorrow and anger and hatred and fear.
Of course, one could do none of this with only high school equipment.
That was the thing about being sixteen; one had all of the time in the world, but not near enough patience.
He watched as the pachirisu bled and as its breathing gradually grew shallower. He wondered why no one had tried this before. For centuries, probably even for millennia, philosophers and spiritual leaders had tackled the problem of suffering. Pray more. Meditate more. Give more away to charity. Eat better. Hold fasts. Sleep better. Keep vigils. Love your work. Quit your job. Garner wealth. Renounce worldly possessions. All the solutions that had been proposed so far had been imperfect at best, and all because people had been coming at it from the wrong angle. All psychology could be reduced to anatomy. All aspects of the so-called “mind” were in fact mere illusions produced by the brain. Any question worth asking had an answer rooted firmly in the physical world.
Ein heard footsteps in the hall. “Sweetheart, dinner’s ready!” came his mothers voice.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Ein called back, then went to wash his hands.
On the corner of his desk, the pachirisu died quietly.
Not my favorite thing I've ever written, largely because of the point of view. The language is too stuffy, but I don't think it would have worked any other way.
And I swear to God I'm not always this depressing.
He was sure that he had it this time.
He had been absorbed with the problem all day. At lunch he put off eating until the last second in order to do his work, then shoved a whole sandwich into his mouth at once when the bell rang. He hid his research material between the covers of various textbooks so that he could read in class, and drew out diagrams when when he ought to have been taking notes on lecture. In math class, he very nearly got into trouble.
“Mr. Ein!”
Ein’s stout, bespectacled algebra teacher slammed his yardstick down on the boy’s desk. The notebook he had been sketching in jolted into the air at the impact and fell to the floor. Ein quickly snapped to attention, dropping the pencil and compass he had been working with and folding his hands neatly in front of him.
“Are you listening to me, or are you doodling again?” the professor rumbled.
Doodling. Ein concentrated on not rolling his eyes. That was the thing about teachers; they had heard so many complaints from students who claimed to have “better things to do than schoolwork” that it never occurred to them that it might sometimes be true.
“No sir. I was doing the example problems you put up on the board for us, sir.” He quickly turned his attention to said problems, anticipating the next question.
“I see. And did you finish any?”
“Yes, sir.” Ein closed his eyes and watched the numbers play across the backs of his lids.
“All right, then. What is the answer to number one?”
“X equals five. Y equals two. Z equals zero.” The boy opened his eyes again. “Am I right?”
The professor hastily flipped through the notes he had been reading from earlier. When he found what he was looking for he nodded curtly, then returned to the front of the room without another word. When he resumed lecturing, Ein resumed working.
That was the thing about school; one could not allow it to get in the way of one’s education.
* * *
On the way home, Ein stopped by the park to check on the traps he had set the day before. Everything he had just come up with would be useless if he could not test it properly. If the project failed, it would certainly not be the first time he had gotten all the way to the experimentation phase only to be disappointed.
At first it looked as though he were out of luck. The traps he had set by the rocks on one end of the park were all empty, as were the ones near the lake in the center. Then, at the base of the trunk of a beech tree, he found it: a disgruntled-looking pachirisu in a small transparent cube. The remains of a few nuts and berries had been shoved into one corner, and now the small furry creature with its tiny paws was scraping frantically at the plexiglass floor. When Ein approached it, it looked up and began chattering angrily at him. Without a word, he scooped up the cube and continued on his way.
* * *
Ein cleared his desk and set up his equipment. There were the tray, pins, and scalpel he had stolen from his biology class. That, he admitted to himself, might have been a little bit wrong. That was the sort of thing one could go to jail for, probably. But, he told himself, the science department would approve if they knew what he was using them for. Call it an extracurricular activity.
He laid his journal on the desk next to the tray and flipped it open to the diagram he had made earlier that day. Then he laid one of his reference books next to that and flipped it open to a corresponding diagram. At last, he pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves and stuffed a pair of plugs into his ears. Now came the hard part.
When he went to open the plexiglass cage, the pachirisu was ready for him. It leapt from the container and made for the nearby bed, hoping to hide among the junk accumulated beneath. But Ein was ready for it, too. He dove on it just as it was disappearing into the safety of darkness and wrapped his hands tightly around its plump little body. The pachirisu tried to shock him and bite his fingers, but his gloves protected him from both types of attacks.
After a bit of struggling, he managed to get the creature into the tray and pin it by its paws and by flaps of skin on its sides to the cork board lining. The dissection equipment had really been made for use on dead specimens, but Ein had found that this worked as well; pokémon attached to unyielding surfaces by sharp objects through their flesh tended to hold very, very still. The screaming was a bit of a downside, though. When he had tried this without earplugs, the loud, shrill, incessant noise had nearly driven Ein to puncture his own ear drums. Even now that he was wearing them, what got through made it difficult for him to concentrate.
But concentrate he did. Taking his scalpel in hand and consulting the diagrams, he carefully cut out a portion on the pachirisu’s skull. He jumped back a bit as the awful, ear-piercing noise grew even louder than it had already been. He cursed under his breath and hoped that his parents were at a remote enough part of the house that they would not hear. When after a few moments no one had come to interrupt him, he decided it was safe to continue.
Here was the moment of truth, then. Crossing his fingers with his free hand, he looked over his books once more, then made a small laceration in the exposed gray matter.
The noise stopped.
He sat back in his chair and removed his earplugs, then leaned forward again to examine the pachirisu. It was clearly still breathing. He passed his hand back and forth over its face, and its eyes followed him. It was still conscious. He undid the pins and watched a fluffy blue pokémon removed itself to the far corner of the desk and began to lick its wounds. It still had motor skills.
He had done it. Ein was too surprised even to celebrate.
Only now the damn thing was hemorrhaging and would probably expire soon, and he had neither the equipment nor the knowledge necessary to fix it. That was the thing about life; it was too damn fragile.
“At least you won’t suffer,” he told it.
And that was the point, was it not? No pain. He had surgically abolished pain.
True, the creature would die, but that was only because his methods were so crude. One could burn out that portion of the brain. One could, with enough precision, probably even rewire the neurons around it. And physical discomfort was only the first step; one could quite feasibly also eliminate sorrow and anger and hatred and fear.
Of course, one could do none of this with only high school equipment.
That was the thing about being sixteen; one had all of the time in the world, but not near enough patience.
He watched as the pachirisu bled and as its breathing gradually grew shallower. He wondered why no one had tried this before. For centuries, probably even for millennia, philosophers and spiritual leaders had tackled the problem of suffering. Pray more. Meditate more. Give more away to charity. Eat better. Hold fasts. Sleep better. Keep vigils. Love your work. Quit your job. Garner wealth. Renounce worldly possessions. All the solutions that had been proposed so far had been imperfect at best, and all because people had been coming at it from the wrong angle. All psychology could be reduced to anatomy. All aspects of the so-called “mind” were in fact mere illusions produced by the brain. Any question worth asking had an answer rooted firmly in the physical world.
Ein heard footsteps in the hall. “Sweetheart, dinner’s ready!” came his mothers voice.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Ein called back, then went to wash his hands.
On the corner of his desk, the pachirisu died quietly.
Not my favorite thing I've ever written, largely because of the point of view. The language is too stuffy, but I don't think it would have worked any other way.
And I swear to God I'm not always this depressing.