Nothing

by Arnold East

  I know everything about the world. I know who you are and what you want. I will help you. Do not try to communicate with me. Do not try to find me. I will initiate everything. I will give you necessary instructions later. In the meantime, I have given you this book as a token of trust. Read it.

  An Ally.

  There was a co-conspirator. My first thought was of O'Brien, the fraudulent ally of Winston in 1984. It gave Winston a book, Winston trusted it, and it did not end well for Winston. Maybe my "ally" was really the leader, or someone it entrusted, intent on tricking me for some secret purpose. I knew I should tread carefully and reserve my judgement. But then, what would it gain from taking me into its confidence and deceiving me? I couldn't imagine any reason, any complex plan that would necessarily involve tricking me. This world was all about efficiency as I was all too aware, and some plot by the leader in securing my alliance with the intention of hurting me seemed too farfetched. Anyhow, I could see no harm in doing as the note said and reading the book. It couldn't do me any harm. It was just a book after all.

  Reading the Art of War only took me a week. The book discussed in simple sentences the way to lead an army in a practical sense, which wasn't too relevant, as well as engaging enemies in actual war, the main thrust of which was to deceive the enemy and act unexpectedly. I returned the book. It was useless. Perhaps it was part of a more elaborate deception, a plan to send me in the wrong direction while they decided what to do with me. If that was what it really was, they had failed. I was pressing on with my mission and had formulated a basic plan during this time. I had realised I didn't have a tangible enemy within the commune. I could attack the leader, kill it even, but what good would it do? It was an instrument, and its death would not effect any change. The only enemy I would face would be the methods of control imposed on my fellow citizens. The only victory would be in their freedom. My plan was first to undertake any means to free the peoples of my commune, and ultimately take control of it. This disruption would then coerce the central control to send means to quell my rebellion. If I were able to defeat them, then the world would be mine. There would be no-one to oppose me and I would be free to liberate everyone. There were details I needed to iron out: I needed to make sure that once a citizen was freed from control, they would follow me; I needed to be sure that I would be able to defeat the forces of the central control; but a least I had a plan. I was ready to begin a revolution. But one thing at a time. I needed to find a method through which I could free one person. That was my first objective.

  Chapter Seven

  I had it in my bedroom. Another person. Though it had been quite the challenge bringing it in. We had been marching back to our rooms, along the corridor. When we passed my room, I didn't enter; instead, I followed it until it was outside its room. I approached from behind, an arm around its neck and another around its torso. It seemed calm at first, almost apathetic, but as soon as I began to drag it away from its apartment, it began struggling. First, it tried to rip my arm from its neck, clawing at my fingers and trying to dig its free hand in between my hand and its face, but I held firm. I could feel the breath coming out its nostrils, and it was growing in intensity and regularity. It was scared. Then it began flailing its legs and arms, its heels hitting my shins and its hand periodically catching the top of my head and my cheeks. I kept struggling it along, and had managed to pull it about three steps closer to my apartment. Then one particular swing of its leg hit my shin hard, and my grip loosened from the pain. It burst out of my grasp and sprung toward its apartment. I quickly recovered, launched myself forward and gave it a push just as it had a hand on the doorknob. The combined force of its own momentum and my push knocked it straight into the door, its head swinging back then forth, smashing hard against the metal. It crumpled onto the floor; I dragged it, unconscious, into my room. My hand was covered with sweat and my legs were marked in patches of red. It had fared a lot worse, blood flowing freely from its head. I secured my subject with some improvised constraints, made from my bedsheet. Then I showered, clearing my head in the process. As I began showering, I noticed the water was a delightful shade of pink, swirling on the ground around my feet and being pulled into drain. By the time I was there for five minutes, the water had returned to its normal clarity, and I was clean. I returned to my captive.

  It was awake again, a pile of coiled blankets lying uselessly to one side of it, and it was working to free its other hand. No! I lunged forward, and as it noticed me, it shielded itself from me with an arm while desperately trying to tug its other free. I pushed back the arm held in front of me, and swung my fist in a slap to the face. There was sudden rush of fire into my hand. Its skull was hard, and I must have hurt something in my hand. It was burning with pain. I fell to the ground, my whole-body tensing, clutching my hand, trying to force away this torture while desperately hoping that I had hurt it enough that it couldn't leave. The pain did not leave, but eventually, the heat subsided to a tolerable level. I blinked away the tears, got up and examined my captive. It was unconscious, blood oozing in and out of its mouth with a fresh gash on its cheek where I had struck it. I dragged my captive onto the bed face down. It was complex process, as I was only using one hand and had to be careful that it did not get blood on the sheets. When this was completed, I reached under a pillow and pulled out a scalpel of plastic I had carved from a brush over the course of a few days spent in preparation. I examined its neck, and found a streak in a crescent shape that was darker than the surrounding skin. This had to be where the BCM was implanted. Resting a forearm on its head in order to stabilise it, I stabbed, penetrating the skin. It was not as deep as I wished. I stabbed again and again in short controlled bursts, penetrating deeper and deeper, ripping into skin and flesh. It took time, a long time, and my improvised knife often blunted, requiring me to sharpen it against the wall. Through the night, I worked at it until I finally hit something hard. This was it. I pushed my smallest digit into the incision and attempted to dig it out. I didn't have enough room. I swirled my instrument in the hole, expanding the incision to an adequate size and then I was able to pinch the small metal contraption. I tried to lever my hand to pull it out, but it was stuck fast. I hacked around it, pinched it again, and then jerked my arm back. I felt it detach and then it was out. Blood went everywhere, dripping onto the white sheets. I had been so careful about it before, but now I didn't care. This was a great moment. I had liberated another human being. I examined the ugly metal and then threw it hard against the wall. It skittled along the ground and disappeared under the bed. Good riddance. Then I untied it and turned it over. It was still unconscious. I slapped it a few times, and only then did I realise something was wrong. Its body was too cold and it wasn't breathing. The stark reality of the situation forced the conclusion that I was desperate to avoid. It was dead, and I had killed it. I must have been too caught up in the excitement of it all.

  In the proceeding weeks after the misadventure, I was burdened with fixing everything up, burdened with the evil consequences of the mistake. Every night during the allocated showering time, I brought the clothes and bedsheets tainted with blood and cleaned it under the shower. Each time we left the Education Centre to do practical work I would be totally inept, my hand fat and stiff. After a few days of struggling, I stopped going out, spending my days in my apartment; the lack of consequences surrounding my other transgressions had emboldened me to continue in my subversion without fear. Anyway, going out was menial and boring. I was above it now. There was also the problem of what to do with the body. For the first few weeks, I left it there, lying under the bed. It turned green, then black, shrivelling up into a jumbled mass of wrinkled flesh, hair and liquid. It was disgusting and it stank. One night, its smell particularly bad, I resolved to do what I had been putting off. I wiped up the liquid with a piece of bedsheet and squeezed this out over the drain. The remaining bits I ripped apart, pulling through skin, organ and muscle. It was slippery and wet and disgusting. I dropped the
pieces bit by bit into the toilet, flushing regularly to prevent blockage. I cut its face off. I emptied its skull. The smell was intolerable, and the work was hard; I had only my hands and that plastic implement after all. It took days, since sometimes the toilet would stop working for some periods of time. By the time I was finished, I was mentally and physically exhausted. Eventually, all that was left was a pile of bones, which I pushed under my bed. My failure was hard to take. I had tried my best and somehow it all fell apart. I just wanted to forget about the whole affair, but I was reminded of it every time I sat in the classroom or in the dining room, and saw the gap that used to be 124993 two rows in from of me and three spots to the right. All of this affected me and it took time for me to remember the righteousness of my intentions and the necessity of trying again and succeeding. It was only a small setback and I myself was certainly fine to continue.

  Chapter Eight

  Three months after the first attempt, I tried again. It was obvious that I needed to change tact for my next subject. I needed a way to free them without harming them. I allowed myself more preparation during this period. I ventured back to the palace, browsed through the reference books and found a book about conditioning. Through this, I discovered that I could re-engineer the conditioning that had already taken place. It was unnecessary to take out the BCM. I also ripped up part of my blanket and made a rope that I tied into a loop to use for restraining my target.

  Now, in the same scenario as months ago; marching through the corridor and back to our rooms, I was much more effective. As I reached my door, I turned around, dropped the rope over the one behind me, tightened, pulled it into my room and shut the door. It was over in seconds. It didn't have a chance. It began struggling of course, but being restrained by the rope meant it couldn't escape. I tied it to a bedpost, tightened the knots and waited. It fell asleep some time past nine and as soon as it did, I shook it wide awake. I had read an explanation that said sleep deprivation might help with conditioning. And so, I was trying to keep it awake for as long as possible to make my job easier tomorrow. As soon as it fell asleep, which it did quite often, I would be at it in an instant, shaking and slapping it into wakefulness. This process repeated until very late into the night, when I myself had become too tired to continue.

  In the book, it was explained that the type of conditioning everyone was subject to was called operant conditioning, a process in which behaviours were either rewarded or punished in order to strengthen or weaken them. I remembered this process being applied to myself quite vividly. I was young, maybe four or five years old, and instead of the normal classes one day I was led on a march to the other side of the commune and into a building that I had never been to before. Inside, they took me down a corridor and into small, dim room, occupied by only a single chair. They sat me down and then they left, shutting the door behind them, leaving me alone. I stayed in the chair for some time, slightly confused. Looking around, I saw a drain under my chair, and two ominous looking tubes hanging from the ceiling. When I finally decided to get up, huge jets of water attacked me from the tubes, forcing me onto the ground. I struggled toward the door but the water held me back and pushed into my every crevice. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the gushing water that kept me pinned on the ground. Then, after the longest time, I felt a spasm, my mouth opened against my will, and a gulp of heavy water dragged down into me and burned me from the inside. The water stopped, and people came in. They thrust the water out of me, and sat me back on the chair; coughing, wet, weak. Then they left again. I learnt very quickly to stay in the chair, but they left me alone in that room for what seemed like an eternity, on my own and still very scared. Every day for the next few weeks, I was taken to that same building and left in a variety of rooms that I now know was meant for further conditioning. I avoided any pain by following what I assumed I was meant to do. But that first experience was so tortuous it etched itself firmly into my memory; maybe it was the beginning of my discontent. I resolved to be more humane in my own attempts at conditioning.

  I had earlier decided that my first course of action would be to decondition its predilection to escape back to its own room. For these purposes, I had made a whip, a weapon discussed in the book as an ideal tool for conditioning. I had ripped the clothes of my previous subject and twined it into rope, then attached a spring that I had dug out of my mattress to the end of it. I had then tested it lightly on myself, and the resulting sting confirmed to me that it would be adequately painful.

  I began the next morning. My subject was still asleep, and I woke it up while I was removing its shirt. It tried to stop me once it was awake, but pacified as it were by its bounds, its furious shaking only made my task slightly more tedious. With its shirt off, I began now to loosen its bounds, edging my fingernails under the tight knots. I had left my whip on the ground right next to me. As soon as the bounds were loose enough, it leapt up, making a break for the door. My hand went down and in a single motion I grabbed the whip and swung it hard into its back. It reeled in pain, and I pushed it to the ground, grabbing my pillow and holding it over its face to starve it of oxygen. I wanted it to associate escape with immense discomfort. I let go after a minute or so. It was still very much awake and tried to escape as it did before. I whipped it again, put my pillow over its face again, let it run again. It would not let up, and the game continued until I myself was too tired. I tied it back up, rested, started again. If it wasn't giving up I wasn't either. However, I didn't seem to be making much progress. Its initial conditioning must have been deeper than I thought. By lunchtime I had prevented its escape forty-two times. There were thin lines of red across its back and even though I had read that whips could not do much physical damage, I didn't want a repeat of the previous disaster, so for a few hours I stopped, and made sure it wasn't too badly hurt. In the midst of these humanitarian feelings I also saved most of my food from dinner. When I brought it up, I could sense a change in its mood, as it eyed what I held in my hand. It was famished. But I stopped short of giving it what it wanted. I realised that its desire for this food could be another avenue for its deconditioning. I picked up my whip and untied it again, making sure to keep myself between it and the food. Would it attempt to escape as it had dozens of times before, or had it learned? Would I have to stop it again? I could see that it was hesitant; where previously it would furiously rush toward the exit door, it was now still, its head turning to the door, then to me, then to the food, at which it paused. For minutes, we stayed in our respective positions. It, staring down the bowl; me, weapon at the ready.

  It wasn't going to escape.

  I picked up the bowl and slowly approached it. It stayed motionless until I reached it. Even as I handed the bowl to it, it did not respond. It just kept staring. Eventually, I poured the gloop down its throat myself. The food spilled into sloppily, before it adjusted its mouth and properly swallowed it. The bowl was emptied and it sat down again. After that I didn't tie it up anymore, and it didn't escape. We just sat there, residing awkwardly next to each other, me on the bed, it on the ground. It was still hungry; I was unsure of what to do next. I was happy with the victory I had achieved over its desire to go back to its room, but it was a hollow victory. I wanted to decondition the relentless control over my subject and return free-thinking and independent agency. Instead, it remained as robotic and restricted as ever. Anyhow, at least I knew that the method worked in some way, and it had proved useful. My subject would now stay in my room, and I would be free to experiment.

  Chapter Nine

  I was stuck over the next few days, unsure of what I should do with it. In the meantime, I brought it down to the dining room for every meal, while keeping it inside my room at all other times. It slept on the floor, next to the bed and passed its days idly, looking at me whenever I moved much, but otherwise staring at the opposite wall. It was still doing nothing. It was still restricted. One day however, a week after I had a broug
ht it in, there was a breakthrough. I was sitting on my bed, trying to extract more information from the book on conditioning but not getting anywhere. It was on the floor as always. It had not washed in a long time, and I noticed an evil odour wafting from it into my nose. Sweat, dirt and blood. I was already in no good mood. I tried to continue my focus on the book, but whenever I breathed in, the smell would pull my mind away; this unpleasant sensory overload made it impossible to process what I was reading. In my annoyance, the contents of my thoughts erupted out of my mouth.

  "Go shower!"

  I did not have the expectation that my exhortations would be listened to, but it stood up and walked under the shower and sat back down.

  What had just happened? Would it listen to my orders now?

  "Come back."

  It did as I said.

  Something had changed. Why was it listening to me now?

  A whiff of its scent forced me to send it back under the shower and allowed me to collect my thoughts free of disturbance. I tried to recall any special occurrence, anything out of the ordinary over the past week. But there was nothing. I had read, and it had sat. We both slept and we both ate. We had done nothing. Maybe it was that first day of deconditioning that did it. What I was certain of, was that I was successful. Somehow, I had chanced upon a method through which I could grant individual agency, a method through which I could grant freedom. I had told it to go shower, and it chose to obey. I felt freer myself. A burden had been dealt with. I had been scared at the seemingly insurmountable task that I faced. I hadn't known what to do, and in a world where I had been taught and coerced to do exactly what someone else wanted, I was acting blindly. But now I was back on track, and the first part of my plan accomplished. I had to try again to make sure, but I was confident that I could replicate this first result. I could rest easy tonight. Tomorrow, I would start with a new subject.