Horror and the Face in the Mirror

Posted on Sun 30th Apr, 2017 @ 7:12pm by Commander Paul Graves PsyD

420 words; about a 2 minute read

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Personal Log

Well, I have found out why Col. Drake was so distracted at the meeting with the protesters earlier this evening.

It seems that, 20 or so years in the past, someone was using a section of Vanguard as a test laboratory. According to Commander Hunt, the goal appears to have been to create a combat unit similar to a Borg maniple, with a collective mind. Presumably this course of research failed, because whoever ran it abandoned not only the line of research but also the test subjects themselves. Hunt describes the hidden lab as looking like a morgue. I can only imagine.

It requires not just an arrogant bastard but also a callous one to treat other human beings as if they are mere refuse, to be swept behind a door and forgotten. The idea that something like that has been tucked away somewhere below-decks is enough to make me retch if I allow myself to think about it too much. I think of all the times I have gone to the Promenade since coming here, of how I've enjoyed myself in Tivoli Gardens in the evenings, and all that time, people have been--may have been?--suffering, while I had no idea.

Yet again, I had no idea, just as I had none about Rhys. Part of me feels like such an idiot. Part of me is numb with horror.

I tell myself that, of course I had no idea; the many thousands of minds I encounter every day on this station overpowered the weaker, hidden ones, like white noise. It doesn't matter; I irrationally can't forgive myself, can't accept any sort of excuse. In some ways it's just like Rhys. What kind of bloody-damned empath can I call myself when my best friend committed suicide, and I was completely unaware of his unhappiness? And, for these wretched captives hidden away behind a wall for almost two decades--to imagine telling them, "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you were there!" feels grossly inadequate.

I've got to stop wallowing in this. This situation is not about me and my past; it's about these victims and my friends and colleagues who know about them. So, time for me to get my head out of my arse and figure out a way to help people--particularly Drake--deal with this.

That said, a bottle of stiff Aldebaran whiskey and someone to share it with would not go amiss right about now.

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