Chapter Text
Into my darkened cell comes a shaft of painful light. I don’t even shield my eyes anymore, the sting is a kind of stimulus that I can appreciate.
This is how it always starts.
The beam of light comes from the drawn viewing slot on my cell door. The narrow eye slot crashes open and the brief rectangle of light that illuminates my dark cell is quickly replaced by a shadowed figure.
“Wakey wakey mon cher,” comes the voice beyond the door.
I push myself up to a sitting position on my cot.
“Is it already time?” I ask. The door opens wide, blinding me with light. My hand hits my face when a large garment bag is thrown at me by my jailer. As I blink and my eyes adjust I see the Tetra Line logo printed cleanly across the cream bag. Mustang chuckles as he watches me unzip the bag and examine the contents. After wearing nothing other than my prison jumpsuit since the last time they carted me out, I can’t help but rub my hand over the expensive silk used in the lining of the suit. It’s red, ruby and embroidered with golden thread around the button holes. The lining is a paisley pattern, glinting in the harsh overhead light. When I rub my the lapel between my thumb and forefinger I close my eyes and try to extend the moment, blocking out to the best of my ability the indignity set before me.
“Oui it tis time once more for you to play your part mon Panacea!”
Mustang’s voice, after so long in the quiet of the rehab facility cell, booms painfully in my ears.
“What season does this make?”
“Why, ave you lost track of days already Panacea? It tis the show-stopping seventh season! The most perfectumont yet!”
You say that every season I think to myself as I strip off the jumpsuit. I have to peel it off in some places where the sweat has made it cling to my exposed body like a second skin. My body is weak and my bones crack as I extend and bend them to fit into the suit. Clearly Mustang anticipated this issue and added a few extra inches around the torso and added some precise padding. Combined, these clever tailoring tricks cover the fact that I’ve become more gaunt since my time in isolation.
By the time the army of camera operators and editors get done with me, I’ll look like my old self across every screen in the Ark. If anyone in the executive viewing box questions my appearance in person I’m sure that one of my handlers will have a quick line about a new workout routine or diet to ease any concern. After all, to the outside world I’ve been living a life of secluded luxury.
I click my heels down into the freshly polished dress shoes and with a beleaguered sigh I step into the hallway where my escort awaits.
Mustang’s vicious grin with studded shark teeth staring down at me in his red and black suit.
“Now there is our handsome hero. Are we ready to put on a happy face for all the pretty cameras?” Mustang asks, dropping his embellished accent. I glare at him, not hiding an ounce of my resentment and contempt for him. The air is thick with him, not just his rank cologne du jour, but the weight of his megalomania.
“Yes sir,” I salute, mocking him with the pageant of my former rank, my former occupation, the tragedy of who I once was. It’s a bitter charade that hurts me, but when I see him sneer, I know that it hurts him, somewhere deep deep down.
Ether and Mana stand on either side of him, unable to meet my gaze. Mana wobbles where she stands. I’ve noticed that she is getting sloppier, the drinking is getting worse to be certain. I’ve also notice that they don’t let her stick me with the needle anymore.
Ether approaches and takes hold of my arm, I don’t fight, there’s no point anymore. She takes a syringe from her lab coat and jabs it into my bicep, straight through my suit. It bites and I suck air through my teeth to abate the pain. I open my eyes after wincing and stare straight into Ether’s face. That usual pathetic conflict is in her eyes even as she pushes down the plunger. The rush of the drugs blurs the edges of my vision, and I can at least languor for a moment in the stupefying qualities.
I’m jolted back to semi-awareness when Mustang’s open palm slaps hard against my back. His hand rests there, then glides up to my shoulder, and he bends down to whisper in my ear. The sinister edge to his voice slithers deep into my ear, and coils around my drug infused brain.
“Atta boy,” he growls. Then, springing back and clapping his hands together he starts moving down the hallway.
“Let’s go out there and make this the best Derby yet!” He shouts as he walks.
I follow behind him, as if an invisible string tethers me to him. Ether and Mana follow close behind, ready to help me along if my wobbling legs give out.
I shut my eyes as I walk, and make a stupid pointless wish.
I hope its the last.
***
I’m escorted through the facility to the back of one of Mustang’s limousine. He pushes my head down and forces me in. I crawl into the far end of the lounge seating, leaning my head against the glass, and staring at the wall of the garage. Mustang is boisterous, talking loudly on the phone while sampling from the expensive champagne. Real champagne, pillaged from the surface. I can’t begin to fathom how expensive a thing could be, or how he could throw it so carelessly from the narrow mouth of the crystal flute with every wild gesticulation.
At long last the engine revs, and we begin moving. I glue my eyes to the furthest corner of the window. I wait with equal parts dread and fascination as we rise out of the garage and onto the streets, to see what has changed, to see how deep the sickness has spread.
This sicknesses name: The Derby.
A death race for the deathless Nikke.
It’s written on every billboard and emblazoned on every digital high-rise. There isn’t a single inch of the Ark that hasn’t been taken with the fever of their so called “bloodless” blood sport. Those Nikke that enter the race are racing for the one thing that they want most in the world; Vapaus. Freedom from the NIMPH and the ability to transcend being warrior slaves. Over the past three years, it has become the Ark’s number one source of entertainment, the spectacle that all of the human denizens of the underground metropolis clamor for every year.
It makes me sick.
The stink of it is everywhere in the Ark. While ads for the Big three abound, they are dwarfed by the Derby’s advertisements. Winners are shown twenty feet tall in their winning race-gear, advertising sports drinks which they themselves never would have drank. Iconic moments from seasons past become cultural touchstones, colors, and clothing, fashion set by what the racers wear each season. You see it in the children roller blading down the street or the Nikke’s who sport the roller blades as a means of transportation. Music that plays on the radio are premiered at the races, the most popular artists singing their souls away for a thirty second spot on the broadcast of any given race or even recap. Crowds gather out the doors of bars and restaurants with screens to watch communally, place bests, talk about their favorite racers. Fan clubs sprout for favorites, showing more love to the Nikke’s as they fight each other for entertainment than they ever did when those same Nikke were defending the citizens’ very lives on the surface.
For my part I am compelled to bear witness. For what little time that I have out of the facility I take in everything I can. I track the growth of it. Each time I’m taking out the Derby grows exponentially. I’m eager to see now, how after the bombast of the previous seasons finale, the effect of its power. Even now I can’t help but wonder how did it get this bad this fast? I can still remember the first race, the sizable turnout but still comparable to any other Tetra Line entertainment extravaganza. That changed though, the magic of what happens not just during the seasons but in between them. The corporate work and propaganda machine that turned what at first had been rightly chastised as a horrific spectacle to become the Ark’s coliseum. To those on the outside the change likely felt gradual, imperceptible, the natural outcome of discovering a cure for NIMPH and the necessity of harnessing its power towards the central governments own ends.
It all began after we went public with the discovery of Vapaus, against Enikk’s wishes. We thought we’d discovered the key to Nikke liberation, but we were naive to think that we would ever reach that goal outright and upfront.
Once the Nikke’s new about a potential source of their liberation they attempted to rebel in what few ways their programming allowed them to. Ultimately all fruitless, but still, the Nikke liberation movement gained steam with this revelation. After all, if it were the case that Nikke really could be freed from servitude they have to fight. Equally dense on the other side of the issue are the conservatives, the frigid old guard who want Nikke to stay exactly as they are, and wouldn’t consider a Nikke human no matter what.
Just as we were gaining traction, raising the flag of Nikke liberation across the Ark, calamity struck. After a surface operation I went in for a routine report to my superiors, except I wasn’t my by the usual group of advisers but rather a cadre of guards who quickly subdued and secreted me away. I was effectively disappeared by the Central Government. The danger of having Nikke free themselves from the control of their NIMPHs was too great, so I had to be kept cloistered as the living breathing font of Vapaus. I don’t know when it happened, or how fast after I’d been locked away, but one day in my prison sentence I received word that Mustang came up with a brilliant idea, and that they’d need me to participate: willingly or otherwise.
Turning the corner off the side streets from the rehabilitation center, we make our way towards and eventually turn onto Royal Road. I watch as the lines of people, the congestion in the streets, how everyone moves in one direction, the citizens of the Ark all called as if by some siren song, towards the Coin Rush, and the opening race. Though, as we get closer. I hear beneath the music, the trembling rise of shouting and chanting. A slight relief passes over me, and I can at least sigh find solace in that the protesters are still here too. Pushing myself up I scan the crowds faces, the sturdy, loyal few who band together in clumps near the gates of the exterior racetrack, monitored closely by Tetra security details.
They wear shirts, printed by hand at home with their slogans: END THE DERBY. NIKKE RIGHTS. DOWN WITH THE DECADENT ARK. NIKKE LIBERATION NOW.
Then of course, the signs that hurt the most: DON’T BELIEVE TRAITOR COMMANDER.
When the first season of the Derby began, they also aired the cover story as to where I had gone. They claimed that after my years of distinguished service and my necessity to the effort as a vapaus creator, I’d been offered early retirement and a gracious luxurious penthouse by the central government. Stories of my playboy antics in the interim spread like wildfire. They doctored photos and videos, paid for actors to claim they’d witnessed me out in public or at some private event or other, fairly easy to do when most of the attendees were Central Government officials to begin with. My disappearance became my escape, my great betrayal of the cause which I’d devoted my life to. Now they wheel me out to prove I’m alive, but only during the Derby, in the high control environments. They may as well have me locked inside a cage for all the cameras to see.
All that to say is that I not only understand but I love that the protesters hate me. I hate me too.
I scan the protester crowd, looking and looking, becoming more anxious until, finally, I see them. Rapi, Anis, and Neon, arm in arm at the barricade, holding up their signs and proffering pamphlets to the guests on their way to the race. I catch sight of them as we are driving through the VIP security barricade, so I only catch their faces for a moment, but it’s enough for me to know that they’re safe, that they’re fighting on even with me gone.
I turn and look at Mustang, I think back to when they first told me about the Derby, about the part that they expected me to play in it.
“You will play along Mon cher, because if you don’t, we will mind wipe all of your beloved Nikke friends, starting with your beloved Counters squad.”
Once upon a time I was a Commander. I was THE Commander. Well on my way to showing the people of the Ark that the Nikke were just as human as them NIPMH or no NIMPH. Now I’m just meat. Locked up tight in the deepest darkest isolation cell of the so-called rehabilitation center. They can’t kill me of course, that would cause too much of a scandal. The official story is that I’m the one who came up with the Derby. I spend my days in private seclusion, in some luxury tower. The truth is that they drug me and put me out. They can’t kill me, they need the vapaus because the vapuas is a valuable asset, its something to covet, to control. They just need me to behave, which, tormented all the while, I do.
I see myself reflected in Mustang’s mirrored lenses, his glittering white smile like those of a predator animal who knows its prey is caught. I have to hope that there is a life beyond the Derby, a life beyond being the meat puppet of MMR and the Central Government. Each Derby season that passes that feels farther and farther from the truth. Honestly, most of the time I hardly know up from down anymore. I sometimes see the protesters, they hate me most of all, seeing me as the great betrayer of Nikke kind for going along with this.
Finally, we reach the end of the barricade and reach the red carpet to the event, stretching into the VIP area of the Coin rush which oversees the opening night of the race. Mustang lays one of his heavy, crushing hands on my shoulders.
“Ready?” he asks.
I look away from his sickening face, “let’s get this over with.”
“Showtime,” Mustang says, opening the door and pushing me out to the roar of the crowd, and my vision explodes with the flashing lights of cameras, and the machine-gun staccato of their shutters going off.