Whumptober Day 31: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Prompt: "You can rest now."
Warning: Unethical medical procedures & the moral conundrum of euthanasia
Summary: There had always been a moral and ethical dilemma regarding what most would call a "Good Death". On one hand, those who existed in constant unending suffering should be given the right to mercy. On the other hand, justifying and controlling death itself in a society as flawed as theirs might lead to some rather dangerous consequences. It was never going to be an easy call to make, not in this life nor the next.
[I have literally been waiting all month just to write this series of ideas that I've had stuck in my brain for a while. This is it, the final piece of this painful little collection of drabbles. It's gonna be a pretty hard one.]
THIS STORY IS ALSO ON AO3
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Structure: The arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. A building or other object constructed from several parts. To construct or arrange according to a plan. To give a pattern or organization to something.
Order: The arrangement or disposition of people or things in relation to each other according to a particular sequence, pattern, or method. An authoritative command or instruction. To give an authoritative instruction to do something. To request something to be made, supplied, or served.
Authority: The power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. A person or organization having political or administrative power and control.
Obedience: The compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. The observance of a monastic rule.
PT-6922 was, by both design and definition, obedient. A unit brought to existence and service to perform a singular purpose. One that it had done efficiently and diligently for the last decade, with a rate of success that excelled over others of its kind. Unprecedentedly exemplary in the extermination for Jedi.
It made sense. According to the records of its past as a soldier of the GAR, it had slain a traitorous Jedi with little to no hesitation upon discovering his absolute corrupt nature. No law stood in the way of it completing its objective. Fit for the role of Purge Trooper. Jedi Hunter. Jedi Killer.
Fit for the 13th Sister's squadron of Force-Sensitive eradicators. Refitted and reprogrammed to her liking and needs.
There was a certain caveat to absolute obedience, and that was that it never equated to one's absolute loyalty. One could comply with the orders of their superiors and be obedient without being loyal to them. And lack of loyalty could be the end of obedience as a whole.
In the past PT-6922 had been both loyal and obedient until its loyalty had been crushed. Then retribution had been swiftly delivered.
These are memories it cannot access easily.
There are occasional flashes. Tiny grains that creep to the surface and whisper in the unit's receptors.
Sometimes it can almost visualize them. Put faces to voices and add a category to instances in a life that had been snuffed out with purpose, to recreate something of a more predatory, controlled and perfect nature.
It doesn't know what any of it means. It has no need for the triviality of answers. The remnants of its mind are a confusing labyrinth it dares not get lost in. No matter how alluring the prospect of navigating such a long winding maze. Of solving a problem without a solution.
Maze: A network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way. To be dazed and confused.
To plan a maze one must follow a simple set of steps:
Step 1: Draw a shape (usually a square) that which you'll use to create your maze out of.
Step 2: Draw another shape inside the initial one, usually the same shape as the first.
Step 3: Draw more and more of these identical shapes inside each other.
Step 4: Add variations to the initial shapes to begin creating unique pathways.
Step 5: Fill those in with defined lines.
Step 6: Highlight your route towards the exit.
Step 7: Add lines to close off routes other than the correct pathway.
There's something about pathways through shapes that seems awfully soothing. PT-6922 cannot explain (or even understand) why that is.
It is a ghost of a feeling that surges like an ache over the left side of its face. Sharp and faint. Phantom pain. When it sits there under the watch of a weary eyed unit, drawing on the wall like it has been instructed to, it often resorts to drawing a very specific shape that it divides into pathways.
Shape: The external form, contours, or outline of someone or something. A geometric figure such as a square, triangle, or rectangle. To give a particular shape or form to something. To take up a stance or set oneself to perform a particular action.
PT-6922 has an affinity for this particular word. Its definitions make the most sense in comparison to everything it is made to do. More sense than killing the Jedi it was programmed to prosecute (an activity it can no longer do, locked away in the clinic).
The way its hands comfortably form these maze-like Vs and lanceoloids, also shows some kind of attraction for the idea of a set of specific shapes.
It does not know what they are or what they mean, but it produces many of them. Enough to fill a wall.
The other unit observing it looks stressed the longer it watches. The much smaller ones sitting beside it, seem less nervous and more intrigued. Fascinated by PT-6922's behavior. Morbidly so.
"There's something there." The palest of the little ones whispers. It has long blond curls, skin as white as paper, and eyes like red apatite. It looks different but the same as the others. Perhaps a different model. Or a defect of production.
"Yes... But not enough." The one with a mohawk and infinitely sad eyes frowns, as it responds to the other in an unsure tone. There is something in those eyes that makes PT-6922 feel the urge to lunge. It cannot. The shackle around its foot will not allow it to reach the other units. "Feels like... When you turn something really fast and let go. Like how it seems like it'll keep moving forever, but it eventually stops..."
"That's..." The one in the hoverchair looks horrified. Its cropped hair is the most compliant to standards PT-6922 is sure should be followed to a T. It does not know why.
"Horrific? Abysmal? Abhorrent?" The one with the pilot's cap supplies drily. Mismatched colored eyes look everywhere but at Pt-6922. The discomfort in its posture is clear as crystal.
"Sad." The unit with poofy locks responds instead. It is more interested in the shapes Pt-6922 draws than the unit itself. Seeming to regard them with equal amounts of sadness and understanding. This one can see method to madness.
The largest of the units still looks ill at ease. Never once speaking up in the same way the smaller units had, instead just observing PT-6922's precise movements. There is a tattoo marking its left temple. Lines and a pair of surgical scissors.
It feels like it should mean something, but PT-6922 finds nothing there. The flashes come and go. Even if it experience them prior it sometimes cannot remember them at all.
Whatever the case it continues to draw on the wall. If it had the need to remember whatever it was, it would. The information was not important.
It doesn't acknowledge the way the other unit's face slowly becomes flustered. Or how tears begin to trail down it's cheeks. Doesn't look up from its task when the little ones are ushered away and the door to its cell closes behind all of them.
It just continues to draw the shapes.
-
"There's nothing I can do for him." Sponge doesn't need to look up at Mae to know her response is not going to be a positive one. They knew from the moment she'd brought the Purge Trooper into their clinic that she'd never take no for an answer.
They understand perfectly.
They didn't like giving up on a brother either. They especially didn't like the idea that nothing they tried might ever be able to fix any of the horrors committed against said brother.
But they had a duty to uphold.
And if they could chose mercy for a tormented soul, they would rather do it than cause any more pain. Dogma's suffering being prolonged for the benefit of their own guilty conscience, was not something they thought they'd ever be able to live with.
They just hoped Mae could understand that.
"There HAS to be something!" Predictably, tragically so, Mae is in denial. She'd put it in her head that she could save him after rescuing Dogma from Imperial control.
She couldn't see that there was nothing left to save.
"You said it yourself, he draws his own tattoo. He draws Tup's tear. He walks and does things like he used to, in that little order he always did his daily routine in..." Mae continued, one hand tugging at one of her dreadlocks, the one that was fraying slightly from constantly running around keeping busy instead of taking time for herself.
How long had it been since she'd last talked to anyone? Held her own daughter? Took a moment to be satisfied with any of the things she'd done?
How much of her was just running on fumes and grief alone?
"Amoeba can't sense anything." Sponge responded. "He's attuned to other's emotions more keenly than either of us could ever hope to understand... If Dogma was still in there, my little jetii'ika would know..."
"That's bantha-shit!" Mae hissed. "He still acts like Dogma! A little... A little subdued... But it has to mean something!"
"That THING is not Dogma." Sponge growled in frustration. Their nails dig into the cushion they've been holding onto since they'd sat down on the sofa. Threatening to rip it apart. "Its just a machine following the motions. Like turning a merry-go-round and letting go. It spins and spins and spins some more, because it was given direction. But eventually it'll stop. What little pathways they could copy into that clunky box will eventually be lost to time..."
"I can't just accept that! I can't just give up!" Mae protested furiously. Desperately. "Not when I've come this far!"
"This isn't about you!" Sponge slammed their hand on the coffee table. "This is about doing right by Dogma, for Force's sake! Keeping that thing around, chained to a wall, left to do the same thing over and over again... Left to exist and stagnate..."
It wasn't right. None of this was right. And yet at the same time...
There had always been a moral and ethical dilemma regarding what most would call a "Good Death".
On one hand, those who existed in constant unending suffering should be given the right to mercy. On the other hand, justifying and controlling death itself in a society as flawed as theirs might lead to some rather dangerous consequences.
It was never going to be an easy call to make, not in this life nor the next. Just as it wasn't easy to say goodbye.
Sponge finally looks up and Mae is crying. Just as they are. This isn't easy for either of them. Not when Dogma had been their friend and vod'ika. They both felt like they'd failed him.
But they could still make it right.
"I'm going to kill that froggy bitch for doing this to him..." Mae has to fight back laughter. She's despairing and the overflow of emotions is too much. She's always laughed when she was nervous. Even when she was crying her eyes out. It's a messy image.
"It was unnecessarily cruel..." Sponge conceded. They'd much rather hunt down the individual who'd decraniated their vod. Put them through the same kind of suffering they'd inflicted upon Dogma.
"Monsters, the lot of them..." Mae covered her face with her hands. So very very exhausted by all of this. "I'm so sick and tired of finding monsters that wear people's faces..."
-
PT-6922 is laying in an unusually comfortable cot. The sheets and blankets are nice and warm. The mattress is soft. The pillows plump and fluffy. They hold its form like an embrace.
Its armour and body glove has been stripped from it. In their place it wears very nice baby blue pajamas with little green frogs decorating them. A rather quaint choice of attire.
Its helmet has been removed to reveal the cybernetic processor that takes up the whole of where its skull used to be. What remains of fleshy surface is just below where its nose should be. The only identifying marker of what it had once been, being the very bottom edge of a once elaborate tattoo.
PT-6922 cannot move. This doesn't disturb it as much as it should. The cot is so very comfortable. The warmth of the sheets, blankets and pajamas is soothing.
There are several units all around it. Watching it. Most looking at it with such a terrible sorrow. There's the traitor as well. A smuggler. The person that had brought it here in the first place. The traitor looks sad as well. Resigned as well.
The unit with the tattoo on its temple approaches. It has a needle in hand. This should be alarming, and yet... PT-6922 can't bring itself to fight back. It just lays there and waits.
"You can rest now." The unit says with conviction, despite it's weepy eyes and shaky hands. "I'm sorry Dogma. Tup's waiting for you..."
The needle plunges into its rightful spot. Awareness melts away. PT-6922 fades.
Beyond the veil, two brothers embrace after many years of separation. At last there is peace.