Messiah Chapter 2: Mission

Chapter 2: Mission

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: UA

Watson doesn’t need to eat or drink, he only lives on the tubes. Instead of blood flowing in his blood vessels and heart, Watson uses a life-sustaining liquid substitute.

Even so, we still need to get him to take some nutritious liquid through his mouth regularly to let his digestive system move a little. I take charge of that. I also need to help him deal with his excrement and massage his body and clean his skin regularly. It sounds hard, but it’s actually very relaxed because he eats food very rarely and hardly excretes anything. It is too easy to take care of him. He is not human at all. The filth of human beings is proof of the operation of life, otherwise, it feels more like cleaning a machine regularly.

Sometimes I wonder what Watson in his early twenties looked like in 2016 or so? A shy nerd? Or were you young and vigorous, and good at exaggerating in college speeches? What happened to him in 2018? Was he really crazy, or did he really encounter something mysterious? If the truth is the latter, how did he face them? Was it with fear, crying, or ecstasy over the unknown?

I’ve seen pictures of him in his thirties. At that time, his facial features were still pretty and upright, but his eyes were somewhat inanimate. He was more haggard than his peers. At first glance, he was the type who worked irregularly and lacked exercise. I’m not sure whether he was a special case or whether the people of that era were just not as healthy as the people now.

Now he was totally different on the hospital bed. If this picture was seen by people decades ago, maybe those people would have thought he was some kind of monster. In 2021, he really became a monster.

After taking care of him for a few days, I gradually felt that maybe he’s not an evil man. Of course, what he did was evil, but a “man who has done evil” and “evil man” are two different concepts in my opinion. When Pandora opened the box, she didn’t want to see the world full of evil, and Frankenstein didn’t want to see so many innocent lives fall when he awakened his creation.

Once, I gently stretched out each of Watson’s fingers and slowly wiped the seams and palms with a soft wet towel. I asked him, “Why do you like to cooperate with them?”

He had a comfortable, reassuring mood, and he enjoyed my care and touch. He said, “Do you want to ask me why I have to cooperate with them and help them deal with all kinds of problems since they are dying?”

That’s what I wanted to ask. It was not me who had the most “conversations” with Watson every day, but a group of researchers whose titles I don’t remember. They needed Watson’s knowledge and explanations. Watson was always patient and never resisted. I am afraid there’s a monitor in this room, so I’m always a little hesitant.

Watson knew he was right and said, “First of all, thank you for your consideration. Let me answer your question. First, I’m going to die. I want to help them while I’m still alive. I’m here to help them. “

I helped him clean his hands and arms and then wiped his torso with all kinds of life support devices. Then it was time for him to turn his lower body. Every time I did this, he would close his eyes. At first, I thought it was because he was too fragile, even this amount of exercise made him tired. After a few weeks, I realized that he was shy.

Even if he passes the time limit of his life and becomes a sharp monster, he will still be shy because he is being manipulated by another person.

He closed his eyes and continued to talk to me in his mind, “You can just talk to me without being worried about being monitored. Do you know that the more confidential a place is, the less video recording and surveillance equipment there are, these things may lead to serious leakage of secrets.”

After cleaning his body, I covered him with a thin quilt. In fact, this room is always at a constant temperature, so it’s never cold. The medical staff always forgot to cover him, exposing his ugly limbs to the air. I know that he likes to cover with his quilt, and whether he’s a human or a devil, he needs dignity.

My work’s going well. One day, as I left the isolation room, I met General Will, who came to check on the situation. He squinted at me, more relaxed than ever, and through this period of observation, I knew that this means that he was very satisfied with me.

I nodded to him, ready to rest. He stopped me. “By the way, another benefit has been approved. You’ll like it.”

“What?”

“You can get a few hours off for your service, on Christmas Eve every year. Remember, it’s hours on Christmas Eve, not Christmas day. We will send you out at that time. You can be free for a while within the specified time.”

I can imagine how they would send me out. Just like when you brought me here, blindfolded and earplugged. I have an indelible tracking ring on my body. They can track my position at any time without worrying about my escape. This benefit did surprise me a little, however, the other inmates who are not on parole do not get this kind of privileges.

While taking care of Watson, I told him about this. His lips moved a few times and he sighed, “Christmas? I haven’t heard that word for a long time. What month is it?”

“It’s only May, so it’s a long way off,” I said. “Did you celebrate Christmas before?”

“I was often too busy to celebrate, but I did when I was a kid…” He closed his eyes gently, immersed in the past. In the months I’ve been with him, I’ve learned to judge his emotions from the subtle expressions. Caregivers who take care of patients who are not able to take care of themselves are very good at this.

It was the first time he talked about himself, “When I was a kid, I loved Christmas because Christmas meant gifts. The atmosphere is very important. It’s hard for you to be happy when you are immersed in a bad atmosphere. In addition, during the Christmas holidays, the Christmas special of Dr. Mystery would be shown on TV. Until I was a teenager, I looked forward to this every year… “

“What is Dr. Mystery?” I asked.

His consciousness was silent for a moment, and his mood immediately became much more depressed, “Mr. Jones, do you not watch TV or use the Internet, or… are there no Dr. Mystery anymore?”

I didn’t know which show it was, I haven’t heard of it anyway. He thought, “I thought it would continue 150 years and 200 years in the future” and “Which director did it end with?” I felt a little upset and a little aggrieved, just like a child who was told to cancel the holiday.

I reached out and stroked his forehead. This was not the first time, every time his mood would be eased by my appeasement.

“Mn,” he thought, “even if I was still a normal human being, I’ll never want to see any science fiction stories.”

I understood what he meant. He personally experienced some changes (whether madness or reality) and witnessed terror that ordinary people could not understand. Compared with many science fiction stories, his experience may not be the most wonderful, but for him, it was real pain.

“Do you like the other stories?” I asked, “like the fantasy epics, like swords and magic, or love stories and detective stories.”

“I love them all.”

“Did you have time to read these before?”

“No, that’s why I like it. I don’t really see much of it.”

My hands were still on his skin, since contact with human skin will give him a sense of security. “How about if I read some for you once in a while?” I asked, “Do you want a book from your era or a best-seller now?”

“Any is fine, as long as you think it’s wonderful.”

I have an electronic terminal in my personal belongings. The device has been emasculated, the network and many functions have been censored. There are many stories stored in the device, including pure text and stereoscopic projection books, most of which I haven’t read.

The next day, I found a pure text story to read to him, his eyesight was not good, so it was hard to see the stereoscopic projection. As I studied, I controlled the device with one hand and held his hand with the other. When I read the tense part of the story, I could feel a slight tremor in my palm, because he would “hold” my hand. Even if he used a lot of strength, it was just that.

When selecting books, I paid attention to the length and tried to find different themes. The last one was reasoning and exploring, so this one will be a love novel. Later, one time, the story I chose might have been a little sweet or vulgar. My voice slowed down, and as I read, I looked at Watson, his eyes were closed, his dry lips slightly open, and his fingers clenched more and more tightly.

Suddenly, the monitoring equipment sounded a warning, within seconds, a group of medical staff rushed in. They began to plug Watson with all sorts of equipment and operations as if to rescue him.

Watson had been calm for months, and he hadn’t had an emergency. Even now, I couldn’t see the pain in his face, he was so weak that he couldn’t show any more intense signs.

To my surprise, the staff didn’t drive me out. Instead, they told me to approach and pointed something like an electrode at me.

“Come here and help him.” The doctor said. Before I could ask, I was hit in the head by that thing, or maybe it was a  ‘touch’, but the pain made me want to use the word “hit.”. It was really painful, like a shot in the head, but the pain passed in a flash and disappeared the next second. I touched my head without any scars.

The rescue of Watson continued, and I was pulled aside by another doctor. Later I learned that she was a doctoral student with a mentor. She took me to the lounge and sat down, pointing to my headband, “Are you controlling it now?”

I nodded, and she told me, “Keep it on first. Listen to me. Then you can decide whether to turn it on or off.”

She said they were really rescuing Watson. Watson’s physical frailty is beyond anyone’s imagination, and even violent mood swings can put him in danger. Emotions can lead to changes in heart rate, body temperature, and so on, which are trivial for a normal person, but his body can’t bear it.

The girl asked me what I had said to Watson before, and I told the truth about reading erotic novels. She said, “I can’t stand you.” and told me not to do it again. Watson is still a man, even though he is weak. Some reactions are unavoidable and may hurt him.

“What did you do to me just now?” I pointed to my head and asked her.

She said, “I was just about to tell you. What we did to you was to save Watson from suffering. Do you know that pain can kill people, even if it doesn’t bleed too much, a very severe pain can make a person die?”

I’ve heard of it. “We’re going to save Watson, and it’s going to be painful and his body has to be subdued with anesthesia,” she continued. “Pain may indirectly kill him, so we connected him to you so that he can’t feel his body for a while.”

I understood the first part, but the last part was hard to understand, “What do you mean? What is connection?”

She pointed to my headband, “You can turn it off now, and you’ll understand.”

I closed the headband. In an instant, familiar emotional words and sentences appeared in my mind one after another.

“Sorry, Mr. Jones…”

“Are you all right, Mr. Jones? I know that instrument. It’s very painful… “

“I’m sorry…”

“Mr. Jones, can you hear me?”

“Watson?” I tried to answer.

“You can hear me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, did I scare you? “

“No, it’s ok. I’m ok…”

Actually, I was not good at all. Normally, I can only feel him when I turn on the headband. Now, on the contrary, when I turn it on, there’s silence. After I switch it off, I can feel him talking in my mind.

“This is the connection,” said the doctoral student opposite. “The technology is provided by Dr. Watson. Simply put, it is to connect him, or anyone, with another person through an instrument so that his consciousness is trapped in another person’s body. The disadvantage of this method is that it’s like going to jail. It can only exist in your brain, but not in your body. And its effect is not permanent. Once the “host” falls asleep or loses consciousness in any way, the intruder’s consciousness is in danger of being destroyed. So, we need to get Watson’s body parameters to stabilize by tonight, and then we can disconnect him from you.”

“I see…” I said dryly, “In this way, he will lose his sense of that body, and he will safely pass through the rescue period?”

The girl nodded and continued to tell me all kinds of precautions. While she talked, Watson kept talking in my mind. I didn’t know which one to focus on.

After a while, the girl said she will go back to the isolation room, and continue to slowly treat and observe Watson’s body with her tutor. She told me not to go anywhere except for the rest area and my own room. I went back to my room, still holding the reading terminal in my hand, and the interface stayed on the half-read book. I asked Watson, “Do you want to continue?”

“Continue?”

“Keep reading the story.”

He gave no further answer. I could feel his embarrassment. This kind of novel is only suitable to read alone, it’s really strange to read it with others. But he didn’t resist, and had some vague expectations. God knows how long he hasn’t touched these things.

“Don’t laugh when I say something wrong,” I asked. “Are you completely in me? “

“What do you mean?”

“For example, can you see through my eyes?”

“Yes…. Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? That’s good. Why don’t we finish reading the book together so that I don’t have to read it out.”

We really started reading. At first, he was a little absent-minded, and then gradually, he was sometimes intoxicated, sometimes a little excited, but no matter how excited he was, it would not affect the body in the isolation room now.

I remembered there’s still a stereoscopic version of the book. I pressed the toggle button, and the scene in the book began to play automatically with the text. In fact, today I read this book for the first time. For a while, I almost forgot that there was another person in my mind. I was immersed in the perverted description and slowly reached to my legs.

It wasn’t until I grasped my penis that I suddenly realized that Watson was here. His consciousness shook sharply, and I was surprised to find that he could not only see what I saw but even feel what I felt.

This embarrassing discovery didn’t make me soft. My finger movements were more intense than ever before. The hot picture on the stereoscopic projection was a little fuzzy, what excited me more was not those images, but the intermittent and depressing groans in my mind. At first, Watson kept reminding me to stop, and then he said nothing. He couldn’t express anything. He could only let my consciousness fluctuate with what I did to myself.

After that, he and I didn’t talk for a long time. Dr. Watson is a smart guy who obviously knew that I did it on purpose, so he didn’t have to ask why.

I stood up to get a drink. As I took a few sips of my drink, Watson finally said, “What’s the smell?”

It turned out that he could feel my taste. “It’s just cheap effervescent tablets,” I said. “Grapefruit flavor, they’re available in the vending machines in the corridor of the base.Haven’t they given you a drink?”

“I don’t hydrate like this most of the time.” He said. The number of times he swallows with his mouth is really limited.

I asked, “There’s watermelon, sweet orange, rose. How about I give you a taste of it next time?”

“Next time?”

I just opened my mouth, but I didn’t think it was right, so I took out the pen and wrote on the handheld terminal instead. There is no monitoring equipment in the isolation room, which does not mean that there is no monitoring equipment in my room. The agreement I signed promised that there would not be any camera equipment installed in the private area, but monitoring equipment wasn’t mentioned.

What I wrote was, “Do you know how to enable this connected instrument?”

“I know. I designed this thing.” His consciousness answered me.

“It seems that the instrument is usually in the isolation room? You teach me how to use it, and we can continue to do this connection in the future.”

Watson froze for a few seconds. If he was a living person standing in front of me, it would be a gaping look.

I wrote, “I hope you are happy and I don’t mind sharing my body with you. I will be careful not to let myself lose consciousness, and I won’t fall asleep when you are ‘on board.’” Because I wrote too fast, a few words were a mess, I hope he can understand, “Of course, for the sake of safety, each time can be a little shorter.”

Watson still didn’t respond. After a while, I seemed to notice his trembling. His mood was neither sad nor happy, it was a soft, cautious feeling with bitterness, which was heartbreaking.

“Dr. Watson, are you crying? “

He immediately denied: “No. I haven’t cried for a long time,”

“And your answer is?”

He agreed. He would certainly like to, in my body, although still bound, he is freer than in his own body.

“Teach me something now?” This time, I didn’t write. I spoke directly. I was still afraid that someone would listen, so I deliberately made the question ambiguous.

Watson knew I meant ‘teach me to operate the instrument’. “It’s going to be slow,” he said. “If you like, you can find the operation mode and precautions from me, and input them into your own thinking directly. If there’s anything else you don’t understand, I’ll tell you about it later?”

“You… Can you send it to me like this?”

“In fact, ‘input’ is not accurate. I don’t have the initiative. I should say, ‘allow you to take things out of my mind.’ It’s very simple. I clear my mind and relax, and you focus on what you want to know, and then you can read it in my mind. Now I am in your mind. I am the object. If you practice, you can learn a lot from me.”

“So can they?” It suddenly occurred to me that researchers would also extract data directly from his brain, “They can connect you to a person’s brain, like now, and ask you anything?”

“Almost,” he said, “I don’t have to connect to the living being. They can use instruments to extract data and even graphs from my brain. The head ring you wear is similar to the one you wore in peacetime. The head ring is a simplified version of several functions castrated on the basis of that instrument.”

“You volunteered?”

“Yes. In fact, these are the things that I designed and participated in the first research and development phase – when I was still able to move.”

“Why?”

I mean…Why is Watson so submissive? Although I liked him very much, I never forgot that he is a criminal. I’ve seen a lot of criminals, including myself. Even if some people will truly repent, few will really care for law enforcement and authorities, let alone devote themselves to them.

“It’s part of my mission,” Watson replied.

I didn’t understand what he meant, but he stopped talking about it and began to urge me to learn how to operate the instrument. We really don’t have much time to waste. I wasn’t sure when someone would ask me to take him back to the isolation room.

According to what he said, I tried to calm down, empty my mind and focus on what I wanted to know. It’s hard, but I have a little experience; it’s sort of like a yoga meditation class, which I used to take when I was a nurse.

What moment and minute did I enter Watson’s consciousness? I couldn’t take the initiative to perceive this notion, just as people don’t know when they start to fall asleep.

Before I knew it, I was looking at him.

In the mirror, I saw a young man with short black hair, wearing half-frame glasses and shaving a little perfunctorily. After he left the bathroom, I couldn’t see his face. I could only feel him sitting in front of a thick laptop (laptops of their time were at least the thickness of a finger). At that time, his back was straight, the skin on his wrist and the back of his hands were shining healthily, and his long fingers were tapping on the keyboard alternately. They moved so beautifully as if almost playing the piano.

It’s over, and by the time I realize it, it’s over.

I began to see the knowledge I needed. The structure of the instrument, its basic principle, operation, the meaning of various displayed data, etc. It was a wonderful feeling.  I wasn’t “learning” them, but “remembering” them. It’s like they were already in my brain.

Suddenly, I saw a sentence: ‘Not yet.’

Before I had time to think about what it meant, a large number of fragments, pictures, and words poured in. It doesn’t take me too long to see them all.

We are not ready. I’m wrong. I’m too shallow.

Not yet. This technology… This gift, to the present human being, is the destruction, is the virulent, not the door which crosses the barrier.

People have crossed, are crossing, and will cross the long river. Three million years ago we were not equal to 20000 years ago, 4000 years ago we were not equal to us today, we still can not cross this river.

The moment of crossing the river will happen, but not now.

I was in a hurry. What I provided was not steps, but cliffs.

They give me knowledge. Knowledge is not equal to wisdom. I will remember this lesson.

Watson stood there, looking at a screen with a blank face. I heard a woman’s voice coming out of the screen with frightening numbers. The numbers were not the number of troops or the population of cities, but the number of dead.

What led to their death, it can’t be called a poison, it can’t be called a dangerous chemical. I heard someone call it a genetic weapon. Can that kill? Far more than that, if it’s released on a large scale, it can completely destroy the “human” race, with no bones left.

Watson went back to the computer, back to the lab. He busied himself with a frown until someone rushed in and pointed a gun at his head.

He was dressed in his researcher’s white coat and held down to the ground by armed special forces soldiers. In fact, they didn’t have to do this at all, Watson was no longer the straight young man just now; He looked morbid and haggard, like a body that’s had its soul drained.

It’s part of my mission.

Watson answers any question about motivation.