He broke through the standard barriers, a roughly crafted personality that covered a mine of treasures. Searching through he passed through image to image seeing small glimpses of pain, joy and everything in between. He saw Agra's life, from his beginnings, he could access that store of knowledge Agra could not, or would not remember, those harsh memories of domestic abuse. He lingered on one especially interesting memory, in the scene was two girls and a teenager Agra, dark and lanky as he was today.
There the girls, both wore skimpy outfits, excessive amounts of make-up, the taller one had a horse-like face, she had two red blotches on her cheeks, cheap rouge by the look of it. The second smaller one was cute, a round face and large eyes, yet the same halter top and oddly alluring miniskirt. They were about the ages of 15 to 18, and looked happily at a very moody Agra.
"I told you I had the money, but I don't know, I'm scared really..." mumbled a downtrodden Agra, who had begun to unzip his pants slowly.
"Donna worry, we know how to take care of you" smiled the taller one, her wolf-like eyes lingered on the suitcase of money.
Agra suddenly jerked, twitched as he heard the click of a gun. His pants were halfway down, underwear still on, he stumbled forward just as the bullet passed over his shoulder. Then it went black. Theo was a bit shocked by the feeling, he was still in Agra's mind, and could still feel a certain sensation, but their was only darkness. The first feeling in this darkness was the cold grass, then the strain of muscle as he pulled himself up. Dripping Agra still could not see but heard a sound.
"Pretty quick, stupid teenagers, always want a good lay" cackled a hoarse voice, the taller one.
"Let's just finish him" said a smaller higher-pitched squeak.
Sounds of crushing grass, closer and louder, Agra was still on the floor arms in position to lift at a moment, but he was kicking off his jeans, slowly and silently.
Another click.
"Damn, I guess I'll have to use my back up"
Cloth shuffling, soft cotton brushing against a hard object. Fingernails scrabbling in the back pocket of denim clothing.
Finally Agra's vision returned, he picked himself up and jumped upon the girls. Theo could feel the anger, he could feel his rage at himself and the flesh beneath his hands. Agra shook and shook, arms flailing the girl's body until he threw her onto the floor. The girl was crying, tears distorting the red circles so now it dripped down in a dyed mess. The smaller one had stood by, watching horrified.
He wasn't thinking, adrenaline was in his blood, Theo nearly shook with excitement was it coursed up and down, making Agra invincible, he walked over in three strides what would take him normally five, his arm reached out and grabbed the girl, holding her up by the neck as her legs flailed. His hand trembled as he applied more and more pressure, his thumb going through the soft spot in the front of her neck, crushing it. He heard a snap and dropped her.
She wasn't dead though, she sputtered up blood through her mouth and sucked in air with a guttering sound like a vacuum with water. More blood spat out.
Once Agra was waken from the unfreezing process he looked a Theo kindly, eyes merry.
"See anything?" prompted a very revived Agra, from his frozen state, not knowing of his own crimes.
"Nope, nothing, you're ready to become an agent, a spic span clean mind, better than most of us" replied Theo in a comforting joke-ready voice, a fake smilel. He had learned to act as a college student, unfortunately that didn't pan out in the way of money.
"Yep, I knew it myself, just did this for my new job" said Agra, his euphoria seeping out of him in a flood.
He knew that Agra was fit for the job, it was the instinct he felt while inside Agra's head. His physique was no judgement on his capabilities, but that blood, he felt the adrenaline and killer instinct he knew he had in himself. Theo was a surveyor, allowed to slice into peoples subconcious and explore the areas of their mind. He worked for an agency that produced books, on the outside. On the inside it was a very profitable bounty hunting service, often one to set off a blood war of billions of credits with rival corporations.
He watched Agra step out the door, short and controlled steps, happy to be a librarian. Not a thought in Agra's head could possibly be linked with what Theo saw, Theo knew those memories were locked in poor little demented Agra. People had a way of shutting off memories, forgetting them forcefully, ignoring the past. Theo did it once, he had always been one to know the "What's in the past stays in the past" saying. He also knew with brain-slicing technology, that was hardly the case.
Theo himself walked out the door he had spent five hours watching a fast forwarded version of Agra's life, starting from his violent rages to his position right now, his intentions even. Theo, ever the narcissist had spent time at the end to see his impression on Agra, the feelings he received were those of eloquence, awe and admiration from Agra. For one of those five hours he spent re-watching that memory, his ego feeding upon it. He reminisced on this as he walked out of the door.
"Four Triangle Inc. bringing you information. Now a sister company to Leaf Book sellers owned by Mr. Shivercut" said a speaker as he walked out his building.
The slicing process was very meticulous, as there was no way to use a computer to translate human signals it was the obvious path to use another human brain as a translator. In order to slice someone they had to be at a complete calm, often requiring the freezing process in order to stop the conscious from confusing the slicer from his main object, to understand.
It was called slicing as often it would go into singularly only one "slice" of the brain, where the memories were stored. Memories were not singular plane pictures that you saw but did not feel, some slicers would disagree, but a very talented slicer could feel the same feelings as the subject, often emulating a personality or internal voice. Nowadays the need for brain verification was extreme, all politicians were scanned before getting into office, making it a very surprising couple of years during the introduction of "shivercutting" a slang word given by bohemian protesters.
Unlike most theories, shivercutting in no way could possibly affect a human, as it simply allowed another to choose and select memories at random, much like a computer would select a data file, the barriers on peoples minds were at best breakable within the first fifty seconds. Personality was easily bypassed as the inner feelings and thoughts were given from the individual to itself, allowing the slicers a very interesting honest gaze into their lifestyle. Before they discovered freezing could calm and slow down a body, many slicers were killed from over activity or spasms that would happen in both bodies as they identified another psyche within.
The depressed ones tore him up inside. They always tore him up, the ones who didn't know what they had done because they blocked out the memory or made it go away, he could always feel his heart die a little for each and every sad story. Theo was a surveyor and along with that job came the sorrows of every passing man, every abused emotionally disturbed psychopath looking for a quick pay for a quick murder.
Theo took the syringe, he was rich enough to buy the good stuff, it was a thick vile green color, but he heard it was the best.
And right before he injected it, he remembered one special memory to him, taken from a father who was down on his luck and looking for a job to feed his kids, wife already dead from a STD, a result of a midnight rape.
There was the memory, he saw it through the father's eyes, mouth, ears, and skin. He could see a little girl with brown curls sitting on a carpeted floor, in a drab white apartment room, sun just outside the window casting a shadow on the girls face.
"Hey daaad" said the little girl, a whine on her voice as she held her knees and rocked back and forth.
"What sweetheart? What is it" said the father, taking off his reading glasses and putting down a loan bill.
"I'm hoongrey" said the little girl, extending the syllables and pointing at her belly.
So the father stood up and went to make dinner in a small kitchen spaghetti, he heaped a small load onto a plate with a iron fork, and then the rest he heaped onto a larger plate with another fork. It wasn't much, the smaller portion about as big as Theo's fist, the larger not much better.
Then walking over he placed the larger plate of spaghetti in front of the girl, she smiled at him.
"Daddy why aren you ea'ing more?" inquired the little girl, not big on pronouncing her T's, slurring her childish speech.
"Daddy's not hungry dear"
That was hardly the truth, Theo could feel his own hunger, not even sated by this small amount of spaghetti, he still hungered, but the father pushed away the hunger and focused on his little girl.
She giggled when he looked at her, and goofily the father slurped up his noodles in a childish way, mimicking the little girl.
"Wanna hear a joke daddy?" lured the child, a devious grin on her face.
"Sure hon"
"Knock Knock"
The father at this moment felt as if he knew what the response would be.
"Who's there?"
"Who"
"Who who?"
"You sound like a owl", followed by the cutest laugh ever.
"You're the last human decency hon, the innocent child"
He quickly injected the venom.
And this was the last memory of the millionaire Theodore Shivercut, inventor and expert of mind-slicing.
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Submission Name: Warning: 3 Pages long
