Redd Strings: The Hero of a Thousand Deaths
“He who stands lives; he who sits perishes.” – Māori proverb
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Medical machinery echoed in beeps. Besides the odd purr from a ventilation system, the Carlisle School trial rooms were coldly quiet. A faint but ceaseless humming noise bled down from the world above these underground concrete and bulletproof glass-encased domes.
Ryō had long ago tuned out this humming. After nearly eighteen years as a student-shaped prisoner of the CGP, the boy had become one with its empty droning frequency. Like all of his fellow students, Ryō had a rather normal childhood. He was found in a volcano––specifically, the volcanic center of Mt. Komagatake––and raised in a classified remote location by uniform-adorned officers of a black-wing military branch who dually isolated him from society.
So, pretty much your average Japanese-American immigrant story. But here at Carlisle School, this was the normal. The understood. The unquestioned.
“Okay, just about all set here…” Dr. Mitoma said more than asked. Once he finished securing an electrode to the boy's hairless neck, the man clapped his hands and took his seat, "All set. How’s it going today, Ryō?"
Wearing identical black-rimmed glasses, the pair sat across from one another like ghosts of each other's respective past and future. The boy delayed speaking. Watching paint dry intrigued him more than answering that question for the thousandth time did. So instead of answering, Ryō let his eyes trail the white cord tail of the electrode to its body: a high-tech mobile medical machine with a sleek monitor that sat between him and the doctor.
"Ryō?"
“Good.” The boy responded, albeit with the conviction of a dead DMV employee.
A beep instantly called Dr. Mitoma’s attention to the monitor.
“That was a lie.”
Ryō sighed and diverted his attention through the bulletproof glass divider. Inside the adjacent trial room, two CGP military attendants were struggling to gorilla-waddle a curious run-of-the-mill bedroom door with a heavy-looking cement base into the center of the dome.
“Are you upset about not being selected to graduate with the rest of your class?”
“No.”
Another beep.
“That was a lie.”
Ryō sighed again, gradually becoming more transfixed by what was going on inside the other room. With the two attendants gone, having finished up their grunt work, only the curious door remained to fill the empty space. What’s this all about?
“Are you upset about not being promoted to Vassal too?”
“No.” Another perfunctory response from Ryō.
And yet another beep.
“Looks like you’re lying again. Three lies is a lot for you, Ryō… I’m getting concerned here,” the doctor feigned worry convincingly enough to win over Siri.
Ryō wasn’t listening anyway. The ambiance around the boy had hushed into one droning buzz. He was staring eagerly at the entry door of the adjacent trial room, waiting. What was it he was waiting for, exactly?
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Her.
Ryō’s pupils dilated, honing in on the girl being wheeled inside. Emery.
Emery was an unconventional beauty, to say the least. Attractive in a strangely intimidating way, her eyebrows never unfurrowed from a growl. The girl had one gorgeous green eye and one soul-piercing blue eye, but Emery's most eye-catching trait was the same outfit she wore every day. Emery, by no choice of her own, donned the astronaut-meets-psych-ward-patient look. Squeezed inside a full-body suit of sheened white protective gear, her outfit also included one-inch dental buffers that prevented her from closing her mouth and biting her lip, tongue, or anything else for that matter.
To Ryō, she was exquisite. On cue, Emery hack-spat unsuccessfully at one of the attendants wheeling her in. The boy figured it was probably pretty difficult to spit when you can't close your mouth or purse your lips, but he admired her for trying.
“Alrighty, well, let’s just go ahead and dive into the questions your counselor gave me to ask you,” Dr. Mitoma sliced through the butter of Ryō’s rare joyous moment.
“Okay,” the boy responded with noted apathy.
Dr. Mitoma cleared his throat and reviewed a document loaded on the monitor screen, “Alrighty, first question is: how often do you get negative or intrusive thoughts? Rarely, one to two times per week, almost every day, or all the time?”
Ryō shrugged.
"Is it the same as last time?" Dr. Mitoma questioned him, banal. The man's roboticism made it pretty clear that the pair had been doing this whole schtick for a hot minute.
The doctor was met with a sigh and a reluctant––but affirmative––nod from the boy.
"Okidoke," Dr. Mitoma muttered to himself as he began to type, "So every day all the time..."
The doctor's reigned attention unwrapped the opportunity for Ryō's eyes to magnetize back into the adjacent room––
Emery was all alone, still strapped into her wheelchair but now equipped with some sort of blocky, futuristic bomb-squad glove. The death mitten completely engulfed her right hand. Behind the tinted glass of the researcher's safe room, an attendant hit the loudspeaker button.
The PA system crackled like choking thunder before an aseptic male voice rang out, "Okay Emery, we are going to begin the trial. You will feel a small prick, just remember our focus is only on the keyhole. The key word being focus here, thanks."
A roll of the eyes was Emery's response to the commands of her hidden ubiquitous keeper.
More crackling static, "Good enough."
Suddenly, the billboard-sized monitor hanging above the safe room shone to life. The image immediately loaded to a surgical camera's view of Emery's fingers from inside the glove.
One last crackle from the loudspeaker, "Initiating 0.05 millimeter prick in three, two, one..."
As the voice finished counting down, Ryō watched a tiny needle gradually dolly towards Emery's index finger from the large monitor. It pierced the first layer of her skin––then the second––slowly inserting itself deeper and deeper into the girl's flesh until the tiniest sliver of crimson blood trickled out from the impingement point of the needle.
"And how often do you think about death or dying?" Dr. Mitoma's voice bubbled in the background.
Ryō was too enthralled by what he was seeing to process the question asked of him. The stream of blood leaking from Emery's fingertip started to levitate in the air. Then, as if it had a consciousness of its own, the blood hovered out from the glove and wafted towards the keyhole on Door Island.
Woah. Ryō's heart raced. The look on Emery's face told him this endeavor took every ounce of her concentration and strength. He rooted for her deeply, inherently.
"All the time," Ryō uttered, mindless.
Silence culminated into a distinct bellowing; this was a high-pressure situation with a series of eyes waiting in anticipation. They all observed an incredible sight: the blood shifted and contorted into a scarlet key, nestling itself into the keyhole and instantly melting it.
Creak. The door let out a small cry as it was forced open.
The shadowed vignettes of the trial attendants celebrated, high-fived, and cheered from behind the tinted glass. Emery on the other hand appeared to be almost ashamed of her accomplishment, insulted by her own lack of resistance in being their circus monkey.
Just as Dr. Mitoma opened his mouth to speak, Ryō semi-consciously decided to elaborate on his answer.
"But not because I want to die. Because I'm terrified of dying. I think that's the reason Emery is so strong. She doesn't have even the slightest fear of death. Which I think is the same reason why I'm the only student who hasn't discovered their powers... how could I be powerful when I know I'm afraid of risking my life for... for anything."
Dr. Mitoma analyzed Ryō for a split moment then jotted down some notes, "Okidoke, so I'll just write down every day all the time."