Eternal Life is Boring

After the stomping of footsteps receded, Shion and Chizuru began prepping for their interrogation. While Shion laid out her instruments on an empty space in the shelving, Chizuru tied the surgeon's hands and legs with strips of fabric she found in a bin and removed his surgical mask confirming he was in fact Kaizen Yamashita. The man's breath appeared slow and shallow, and Chizuru couldn't help but wonder what exactly was in the syringe that Shion used to bring him down.

As the two prepared, Chizuru voiced her concerns about Dr. Yamashita's cries being heard through the door. Shion reassured her that the type of metal door that was used in most biolock doors was impervious to sound due to its thickness and air-tight seal. To demonstrate this, Shion picked up the Dr. and dropped him straight on his back, knocking the wind out of him and causing the man to scream in pain. No footsteps were heard nor any pounding on the door. Dr. Yamashita let out a few more confused screams before Shion approached him and crushed a piece of the metal shelving right in front of the delirious man's eyes.

"If you don't shut your damned mouth and calm the hell down one of your fingers will be next. Do you read me?" demanded Shion. Since fingers to a surgeon were everything, Dr. Yamashita was immediately silent. The man knew who he was dealing with almost immediately.

 Chizuru led the interrogation this time, because she could tell that if Shion had to hit the man at all that she was still so angry she would likely kill him before they got the info they needed. 

"State your full name for me. We already know but we want to know that you are cooperating with us before we get started,” commanded Chizuru.

The man forced out air between his gritted teeth and replied, "I am Kaizen Yamashita. Lead surgeon, creator of the neurolink, and the Adam chip."

Shion paced at the front of the room. The mere presence of this man infuriated her. The calm and smug look on his face after he seemingly accepted his fate was both irritating and perplexing to Shion. Without seeing what this man was truly afraid of, it would be difficult for the pair to psychologically torture him into giving up valuable information.

Shion took a deep breath before addressing the Dr., "I would thank you for your cooperation, but if I'm being honest, I hate your guts. It's taking everything that I have not to kill you right now."

The Dr. lifted his head, "You must be Shion. You are quite famous among cult members and us researchers...That means the other one must be Chizuru. Am I right?"

Shion removed her mask, "Yes it's me, Shion. Now tell me how the hell do you know about us?"

"Ms. Tanaka or should I say soon to be Mrs. Yamamoto, I have watched you since the start of your career. A woman who can tear people apart with her bare hands is impressive, and likely to have superior genetics which we have yet to map or understand fully. Plus you are durable, you would make the perfect test subject and maybe even an ally. Ms. Chizuru, we have had an eye on you for the last couple years now on suspicion of defecting due to your frequent extended disappearances. Now to answer, how did we gather all that information? We have spies of our own, as I'm sure you guessed. I'd be willing to tell you everything you want to know if you just untie my hands. I don't plan on running, but these restraints are rather abrasive.”

"How do you expect us to trust you?" Chizuru asked with her characteristic earnest tone.

Dr. Yamashita answered nonchalantly, "That's an easy one. After being alive several times for the last 120 years, I'm bored. Ready to call it quits. A man who isn't afraid to die has no reason to run from death right? Also, I would rather spend my final moments comfortably than being tortured anyways.”

Shion and Chizuru both studied the man's face for any signs of malice or ingenuity but found none. Chizuru pulled out her knife and cut the strips of fabric binding Yamashita's wrists.

"I'll tell you everything, but only if you let me start from the beginning. What do you say?"

Shion and Chizuru gave each other incredulous looks about the man's cooperation. Both answered, "Yes."

The middle-aged Dr. wiped sweat from his brow and his reddish blonde goatee then from his light blue eyes. He gripped tightly onto his scrubs before beginning, "My career with the Nazis all started with my research in brain stimulation and mapping of the brain's ability to be stimulated to achieve auditory and visual sensations without the presence of actual sounds or images. I did this by mapping the amount of electricity needed in each area of the brain in rabbits first to elicit a physical response. By the end of the study I would program two rabbits to do a grand walz together. In human subjects, to be sure the electrodes were in the correct position, patients remained with open brains while we began to stimulate the visual and auditory cortex with precisely placed electrodes. 

Several brains were burned beyond survival but generally over time as we fine tuned our process, they began to see and hear the things we wanted. After some programming with AI and from the data we collected from our experiments, the first neurolink was developed but it was far less complex than those of today.  The kicker was calibrating it to fit each person's brain reactivity. Once that was figured out again through human trials, we found a way to allow neurolinks to communicate with each other. I was about 40 in my first life when the modern neurolink began being used widely in the military.

 Now to my surprise I got the request from the party to show up to a lab where my brain was copied so I could be reborn when I died. After 15 more years I died for the first time and in that same year I was reborn into a teenager. 

My second life was just miserable, filled with repetition, and lacked any excitement whatsoever. I struggled to accomplish anything like my famous invention despite the death of thousands more test subjects. I was alone, no partner, and no love. All I had was my work but it wasn't progressing the way I wanted it to. By the time I was 40 I had drunken myself to death. 

My third life was more of the same until I was approached by a group of men who had desires to unlock and understand more about DNA expression. Their goal was to isolate super human genes from those who possessed impressive and unexplainable talents. 

Adam's super strength caught their eye almost immediately and they began working on a plan to capture him so they could study his genetic make-up and his brain. At least in the beginning that was the goal. Soon the project changed and became focused on manipulation and control, so essentially, power and greed. They wanted to take over the Nazi party and oust Hitler so they could shape the world into their own version of perfection.

 I was asked to develop a chip that allowed us to control the actions of people and make them into obedient pawns. Their tongues were cut out to limit communication and their head tattooed due to the founder's desire to mislead the public about our project and inspire fear.

Eventually I was able to create such a chip, but it wasn't perfect, people could resist commands, especially the ADAMs which were developed using the Nietzsche Protocol itself. Feist and Tanaka remedied that issue by chemically inducing a state of psychosis and confusion which eliminated most resistance. Now that the perfect vessels were created gene modification commenced, but it only worked on individuals who had intense motivation to accomplish something. If the genes were forced to be expressed people would turn into grotesque creatures.

This perplexing case caused obsession from a few members of the group who began mass producing ADAMs. When they were created without memories, the Adams could not express the superhuman strength genes at all. When memories were retained strength increased tremendously. So the question came up as to how memory and emotions affect gene expression. When given back memories and fooled to believe his family was endangered, the Adams fully expressed their genes and became virtually unstoppable if not for our handicaps of the chips and the hallucinogens. 

Still though, when the gene was isolated and transplanted into another subject, it would not activate no matter what the circumstances even when implanted in someone with similar traits. This led our two leaders to become further obsessed with trying to crack the code while I was drowning in monotonous surgeries and trials. 

Our biologic engineer, Tojo or the one you know as Leary, determined the need for a biological relative who had the gene to truly unlock its powers. 

There was a rumor that Adam had somehow been able to father a child, so we started searching for it. We found a few potential candidates over the years but still have not located the child. Why would I be telling you all this? The truth is that I don't want to be brought back again. I'm done. I can't live this way anymore, I do not have purpose any longer.

Now you guys should have enough info to get somewhere at least. If you get rid of the leaders, you should be able to stop them from taking over Japan and finding out how to give themselves that super human gene. All I ask is that you do not let them bring me back after you kill me this time. And before you ask no, you cannot remove the chips without killing the host, but you can reprogram them to stop overriding host decisions. Take my neurolink and have someone decode it for the answers.

I'll give you one last piece of information before I call it quits. Sometimes people that we think are dead have not actually died but instead are wearing someone else's face. Find the bishop and you should be able to get answers as to what that means."

In a flash, Dr. Yamashita shoved a small capsule in his mouth that he had been hiding in his palm and began to convulse. Cyanide. 

"What a strange man. He gives us all this info and just kills himself," remarked Chizuru.

"I've heard the prospect of eternity can be daunting. In fact, even the idea of being alone for just one lifetime is incredibly depressing let alone three,” replied Shion while gathering her tools.

"Now let's get the hell out of here and get our last guy," Shion demanded, grabbing Chizuru's hand and giving it a loving, gentle squeeze. The two shared a quick kiss before moving to the door to continue their mission.