Back And Forth Ch. 1

Ch. 1: Clean Slate (Tabula Rasa)


Awake.

Eat.

Work.

Eat again.

Work.

Eat.

Work.

Sleep.

Evening passed, and morning came.

Awake.

Eat.

Work.

Eat again.

Work.

Eat.

Work.

Sleep.

His eyes opened again. It was another day. Time to work again.

But first, eat. It was necessary.

Eat.

Work.

What did he do? It didn't matter. He just did. Sometimes it was menial tasks. Sometimes it was performance enhancement. Sometimes it was physical labour. All things were the same to him.

Eat again. It was necessary.

Work.

He put the same effort into everything. Exactly the same effort. Enough to meet demands, but spread out so that he could keep performing to meet demands all the way through the work period until the end. Burning out at the start would make him inefficient.

Efficiency was everything.

Eat again.

Work. Why waste the time?

Sleep.

Evening passed, and morning came.

Awake.

Which morning? He didn't know. He had no need to know. All days were the same, and that was fine. It didn't matter. What mattered was being efficient, and following orders.

Eat.

Work.

And the purple lights. The ones that soothed him so. They were important too. So very important...

How long had he been asleep for? He didn't know. The lights seemed to do that to him. What he did know, though, with renewed intent, was that he needed to follow his masters' instructions.

Because thinking was hard.

Following orders was easy.

Work.

One of his Commander's assistants, who must also be obeyed, had taken him aside along with several others during the session of physical improvement that day. They had been told that as well as the battle techniques they had been learning recently, the ones in that group were of particular species that could use other types of attacks. The Exploud, for example. The Chatot. Himself, a Kricketune. Sound could be a weapon, could be made into a way to harm enemies.

They took in everything the Machamp said and nodded. It would help them perform better for the good of their organisation. Which was central to everything. Everything they did was for the good of the organisation they lived and breathed to serve.

Their organisation had a strange name. What does 'Extinction' mean, anyway?

It didn't matter.

Training sound into a weapon was important.

Eat.

Work.

He trained sound, like he had been ordered to. He performed to a necessary and satisfactory level. That was good. The masters would approve of this. No other response was needed, from anyone. Whether or not he could perform as demanded was all that mattered.

Following orders was much easier than thinking independently, a fact drilled back into him every time he saw those lights.

Eat.

Work.

Sleep.

What day was this now?

He had no idea. He couldn't remember what the Sun looked like, although it must exist somewhere.

Eat, work.

Sometimes, people would be selected. They would go on 'missions'. 'Raids'. 'Captures'. It was an honour be selected - a chance to be efficient and effective in a real situation. They could win their masters' approval by their performance there, a prize worth more than anything they knew of. Sometimes they'd come back with blood all over them, but that's ok because apparently no actual people were harmed on any of these.

He hadn't been selected for any missions. This disturbed him. Was he not effective enough?!

He would have to train to remedy this. Including sound.

Eat. Back to work.

Eat again.

Work.

And sometimes, they would return from a mission with a captive. Or several. They were all Pokemon species like them. Many of them were crying. Why? Didn't matter. Many of the captives died in the end, which at least stopped them crying.

From what the masters said - and therefore, the fact was that - they didn't deserve any better. This made sense. Why give them what they were not entitled to? If that was what was to be done, it must be done.

Work.

Some of the captives went down to the laboratories, to be 'improved'. Why were they complaining as they were taken away? Improving was vital. Anyone who didn't want to improve had something very, very wrong with them, like not having seen the lights in a long time.

Some lucky members of 'Pokextinction' got taken away to the laboratories as well sometimes. The ones that came back had new and strange powers, powers that made them even more effective. Most of them didn't come back, but that was ok because they were forgotten about pretty quickly, usually within minutes.

He might have missed a chance to eat or sleep at some point. He might not have. It didn't matter, so long as he was doing. He might have worked all through the night and morning again. It happened, especially when the masters forgot to tell them to stop.

Work.

Eat.

Work again.

It might have been days later when a memory rose up in his brain, like a primordial bubble. It was when a mission had come back (which he had not been chosen for either! What was he doing wrong?!) and he had seen the superior pushing a figure ahead of them. The figure had been shouting, and the superior - because they were superior - had sneered and stabbed him in the side with a claw. The figure had collapsed, then rose slowly with a whimper and a pained hiss. The superior had pushed him onwards, out of sight. Suitable treatment, all things considered.

The figure and the superior had both been Absols.

Now why did that matter?

It didn't.

He continued working.

Time wound on. He was aware that he had slept, multiple times, since that strange thought. He had improved. He had carried out labour. He had met his masters' demands. That was all he needed to know.

Sound had become an effective weapon. However, it was not perfect. This must be remedied. His normal moves were strong, and effective - his stalk-like arms had become powerfully cutting scythes, when used right. He was an effective fighter, and warrior - he could stand, his head up, just like all the other Bug types in his base. Every single one of them. In the crowd of which, he was just a face.

Evening passed, and morning came.

At one point, the memory had come back to him. Strange. The one they had captured - 'Pokeuman', he remembered the word being used - had been inferior.

Why?

He just was.

Oh... ok. This answer satisfied him, and he re-began his work.

It could have been minutes or weeks later when he thought: Then why was the master's assistant superior?

They just were.

Oh... ok.

He needed to improve. He still could better serve his masters' purposes. Achieving that was important, very important.

It was considerably later when the thought returned to him, and the train of thought went something like this:

The Pokextinctionist had been intrinsically better than the Pokeuman.

Yes.

And the Pokeuman was intrinsically worse than the Pokextinctionist.

Yes.

But... they had been the same.

But the Extinctionist had been better, the comforting voice in his head told him, the purple-eyed one that sounded like authority.

But... they had been the same.

How could one of them be intrinsically - 'adj. belonging to a thing by its very nature' - worse than the other when they were both the same?

They just are, the voice ordered. He accepted this for an indeterminate period, but he was aware of something else. The physical enhancement instructors had told them, with regard to their movesets, that to truly embrace something and apply it effectively, you had to understand it. In all of its complexities and depths. The more thorough the understanding, the better effect it could be put to.

This issue was clearly a matter of principle. Therefore, if he fully understood it, if he worked out every single part of it, he could embrace it fully. And use it effectively. And embracement of the masters' principles was extremely important, one of the most important things there was.

So understanding fully was extremely important.

How could they be better or worse when they were the same?

They are on the wrong side. They do not deserve better.

This made sense. So what about their side made them wrong? After all, if he knew the fallacies of the enemy he could fully appreciate his masters' truths, since his masters were faultless in all they did.

They are impure. They are filthy creatures. They are little more than animals. And useless animals are put down for their own good.

But...

Thinking was difficult. Very difficult. He felt like just giving up. It would be a lot easy to stop thinking and go back to whatever they told him to do. But when he had fallen and struggled at first when he had been at the base, being improved, he had been hauled to his feet and told that only hard effort would suffice in pushing past boundaries. These boundaries he faced now could not be overcome without effort.

But, he reasoned slowly, the two were the same species. If the Pokeuman was inferior because he was an animal, why was the Extinctionist better when they were the same kind of animal? They were both intelligent beings, that much was clear.

We are better because we are on this side.

And this side is better... Because of why again?

It just is.

We are intrinsically better.

Yes.

How could one be intrinsically better when they were the same?

They are on the wrong side.

Why is their side wrong?

They are a collection of the impure.

Why is our side better if it composes of the same species?

It just is.

Intrinsically.

Yes. Don't question!

But only by questioning could he overcome this boundary. It was to achieve his masters' purpose, no matter how hard it was.

How are we intrinsically better if we are the same?

They are on the wrong side.

But...

It was only after at least seven, possibly twenty cycles of repetition that he realised: he knew what this was. He realised what was happening.

It was a circular argument.

Which was a reasoning flaw.

His masters had made a flaw. Their reasoning could not support itself.

No! the voice in his head roared silently. The masters have never made a flaw or error! They are faultless in all they do!

But it was sitting before him, clear as day.

And then he remembered what one of the masters' assistants had told them. They had said that 'Pokeumans are liars. They claim that their cause is good because they are good. Not only are they factually wrong, they cannot even support their own case.' But now the same thing lay before him. The masters had done the same thing as the Pokeumans had.

The masters had been wrong.

The voice in his head was clamouring for him to forget it all and go back, and it was very tempting, but he could not stop now. He felt more confused than ever. To return now would be to return with insufficient understanding, which was equivalent to not being perfectly effective. He would return later, he knew, once this mystery had been solved and he could embrace principle fully.

The masters had been wrong.

This unnerved him. It cast a shadow over everything he knew. All through the day, he did his work, but there was an odd haze cast over it. Or was it removed from it? Either way, it was frightening.

What else could they have been wrong about?

Nothing!

But - purely a thought exercise, good for cognitive improvement - what if the Pokeumans were not as wicked and impure as they had been told? What if the masters had got that wrong?

What if they were killing innocent people?

If they were not as evil, if they were innocent, then... that made them good. Innocents are the ones who haven't done anything wrong.

He knew the two sides had greatly different, directly opposing philosophies, even without the reinforcement he had received to that extent. So if the ideals of the good ones clashed with theirs...

Then Pokextinction were the bad ones.

What does Extinction mean?

But this is not so! the voice of the lights roared at him. Oh... ok. But to satisfy curiosity - no question should be left unanswered - he found out what 'extinction' meant.

It meant 'to put an end to or bring to an end; suppression, abolition, annihilation'. If you wiped out a species of animal, that was a misfortune.

But if you did it to people, to your own kind, to those just like you, it was a crime. It made you a monster.

Those just like you...

He clasped his head. He was only lucky this pain didn't strike him during a work period - it was shortly before they bedded down for the night. There was no-one else around him in his sleeping room. His head hurt. Not the pain of thinking, something new. A great pressure was building inside his head, and it couldn't get out.

Killing those just like you...

Was evil. If he had killed another member of Pokextinction, he knew by witnessing it happen that the superiors would not hesitate to kill him too. Killing those like you was wrong.

But the Pokeumans... were just like them.

He had never heard report of unprovoked killing of Pokextinctionists by Pokeumans. He had heard many, gleeful reports on unprovoked killing of Pokeumans by Pokextinction.

The voice of the lights called for him to accept that they were just different - intrinsically - but he knew the masters had been wrong before. They could be wrong here.

They... They were wrong here.

His head felt like it was going to burst like a balloon.

The masters- The heads of Pokextinction were wrong. They were the ones killing their own kind. They were the ones committing the acts that they would condemn. They weren't just lying, they were hypocrites.

This was a revelation. A great, enormous, life-changing one, and like all great revelations it was truly apocalyptic.

His head was pounding like a heartbeat. He moaned, gasped, pawed at his head for a way to relieve the pressure. Everything he knew, everything he could remember, was crumbling around him. The masters had been wrong, and had done wrong. Nothing he knew could stand any longer. He saw its foundations, and they were built on lies. The pain in his head was traumatic now. Was he about to die?!

With all he had ever known falling apart on all sides, he pushed onwards to distant territory. Away from what he once thought.

The voice of the lights was getting very faint now.

If Pokextinction were the ones at fault, the ones committing the crimes, the evil ones-

Then the Pokeumans were in the right. And had been so all along.

This simple concept utterly countered everything he knew. Had ever known. And, straining against the pull of a black hole of its own logic, everything he had ever known fell under this assault, with a terrible, echoing crash.

Master X was wrong.

Scott's eyes flew open with shock. For a minute they stared into nothingness, vacant, but then as conscious light shone within they focused desperately. He blinked, scanning his surroundings feverishly. The clarity he felt, the sheer level of awareness, the chaotic and undirected thoughts that crowded into his head was terrifying. There were no more restraints. Only after being bound in cotton wool and pink fog that stopped the mind and dulled the senses for an eternity can one appreciate the nature and clarity of freedom, in all of its incredible horror. He had no-one who could guide him. No-one who could give him purpose. He was free. It was the end of the world.

Or was it the beginning? Was there a way to tell the difference?

It was as if he was seeing everything for the first time. In a single glance he took in the room he was lying in, because there was only a single glance's worth of room. To call it Spartan would be insulting a proud warrior race. But to Scott, it was high-definition 3D. To really see things, not just note their continued existence, was a sensory overload. Scott sat in shock, staring at his room, eventually examining his Kricketune body with the same rapture, looking at his scythe-like arms as if he'd never seen them before. Which, in any depth, he hadn't.

It took a long time - how much time? No-one knows, not even he who was there - to bring his mind under control. His own control. He had to control his own thoughts now. It was like being thrown at a supercomputer and being told to make it perform every single function it had without even knowing what they were. But at the forefront of his mind, at the very centre of the new collection of everything he knew, was the simple truth - Pokextinction were evil. They killed their own kind and then lied about it to their slaves. And he was in their base. He was not acceptable to them, and Scott knew that unacceptable things in Pokextinction would not suffer to live.

He had to get out. Now.