7.
18 months ago.

They call it the copper.

You have to inject it every few days, which can leave embarrassing traces. They told us
to try shooting up between the webs of your toes. Most people don’t look there.

When I signed up to defend my country, I don’t remember this being in the brochure.

It’s supposed to be a vaccine against the IA’s ‘red horse’ bio-weapon. Apparently all the
Higher Ups are on it—the Board of Directors at Cedocore and Halli-Bech, Vox Chairman,
POTUS, the NEC Synod. I guess I should feel honored.

Trouble is, the vaccine is still in alpha. There are side effects.

Physically, the first hour after you shoot up your skin gets unbelievably sensitive. The
glands at the back of your mouth keep squeezing out the taste of batteries, and when
you spit, you spit orange. Orange tears, too. Orange snot when you have a cold.

The mental effects are a little harder to deal with.

You don’t want to go out … big open spaces feel … exposed. It feels better to be close
to walls. You like the lights dim.

I came back to my apartment one night after a double shift, flicked on the kitchen light,
saw the cockroaches running for the baseboards. That’s me, now, if I have a choice.

Sometimes I get a laugh imagining what a Board meeting at Halli-Bech must be like.
A big table in some conference room with nobody exactly sitting at it: twenty chairs
pushed back against the wall. Twenty old white guys in sunglasses. Nobody meeting
anybody else’s eyes. Silverfish in pin-striped suits.

The copper makes you paranoid, too. Or maybe that’s the job. After a few months,
it’s hard to tell the two apart.

8 -> … fear of …

7.
18 months ago.

They call it the copper.

You have to inject it every few days, which can leave embarrassing traces. They told us
to try shooting up between the webs of your toes. Most people don’t look there.

When I signed up to defend my country, I don’t remember this being in the brochure.

It’s supposed to be a vaccine against the IA’s ‘red horse’ bio-weapon. Apparently all the
Higher Ups are on it—the Board of Directors at Cedocore and Halli-Bech, Vox Chairman,
POTUS, the NEC Synod. I guess I should feel honored.

Trouble is, the vaccine is still in alpha. There are side effects.

Physically, the first hour after you shoot up your skin gets unbelievably sensitive. The
glands at the back of your mouth keep squeezing out the taste of batteries, and when
you spit, you spit orange. Orange tears, too. Orange snot when you have a cold.

The mental effects are a little harder to deal with.

You don’t want to go out … big open spaces feel … exposed. It feels better to be close
to walls. You like the lights dim.

I came back to my apartment one night after a double shift, flicked on the kitchen light,
saw the cockroaches running for the baseboards. That’s me, now, if I have a choice.

Sometimes I get a laugh imagining what a Board meeting at Halli-Bech must be like.
A big table in some conference room with nobody exactly sitting at it: twenty chairs
pushed back against the wall. Twenty old white guys in sunglasses. Nobody meeting
anybody else’s eyes. Silverfish in pin-striped suits.

The copper makes you paranoid, too. Or maybe that’s the job. After a few months,
it’s hard to tell the two apart.

8 -> … fear of …