Will Bates' Excellent Cogwheel
Will Bates' excellent cogwheel. …………… So, to sum it up, that's how it is.
Will Bates' drug has taken over Karen's body. It's forcing her to do high-level intellectual labor for 20 hours a day. Even though Karen herself doesn't want it.
Lying in bed all day watching Feastagram shorts. Working odd jobs as a waitress at a local diner. Hanging out with deadbeat friends, drinking and smoking weed to ignore reality—that was the life Karen chose. Sure, anyone could see it wasn't healthy, but at least it was her choice.
But the current Karen? She's living what anyone would call a successful life. Running a top law firm in Washington, pulling off dramatic courtroom reversals as a lawyer, buried in so much work she has to pull all-nighters past midnight.
Yet every single line on that shining resume? None of it is something Karen wanted. They kidnapped a worthless NEET rotting on a filthy mattress, injected her with drugs, and turned her into a lawyer by force.
In the end, Will Bates turned a useless bum into a competent professional citizen. I don't know the details, but isn't that worth praising?
[Eh...]
The glasses-wearing nerd crossed his arms.
[But the person herself, Karen, wants to die. She's hoping someone will save her.]
Hmm. That's a pretty bad side effect, yeah. But look at the results—they're not so bad. Someone who was slowly melting away her life on a mattress, smoking weed, has become a top-tier lawyer. Her income, social status, health—all improved.
[But even those results aren't what Karen wanted.]
Hmm, this glasses-wearing nerd is extra sharp with his rebuttals today.
Anyway, one thing's for sure. If you're stripped of the freedom to eat snacks, watch shorts, roll around in bed doing nothing, and forced to work 20 hours a day by someone else's will? That'd be pure hell.
A life dragged around by someone else's whims for 20 hours every day. Even the right to laze in bed taken away. Spending the whole day rolling around in bed doing jack shit is one of my favorite activities. If someone stole that time from me and made me read law textbooks instead, even I'd want to die.
Not that I can die, of course.
Oh dear. Will Bates really is an evil bastard. Stealing humans' freedom to read comics, play games, roll in bed, do nothing. Turning alcoholic, weed-addicted thugs into high-earning elites with bright futures on a whim.
Grinding up their emotions, freedom, and fun—what's left? A ton of money, the social status of a famous successful lawyer, a body way healthier than her junkie days, a winning life, and a shining future. That's it.
Now I get the bitter, conflicting emotions Karen feels every night. The essence of it is: This forced elite life is so agonizing I want to die. Give me back my real self, not this fake one.
I sat by the sleeping Karen's head, lost in thought. What to do?
If I thread my hair through her veins and suck out every bit of the drug, Karen could break free from Microgenics' control.
But—what happens to Karen without the drug? She'd probably revert to her trailer park days. Scrolling shorts on her mattress, smoking weed, waitressing, slowly crumbling away.
Is that the right answer? The trailer park Karen wasn't happy either.
Yeah. The emotions I felt in her memories weren't true happiness. The giggles while high on weed were dried-out and hollow. Honestly, it was more like avoiding facing her ruined life.
A life of slow destruction, or a life forcibly made competent at the cost of horrific suffering. Borrowing Cheon Jung-sa's words—both are shit, but which is less shitty?
Ughhhhh. This is a really, really tough call.
It's the first dilemma like this since I became this body.
[Will Bates made a judgment, though.]
The glasses-wearing nerd muttered.
[NEET thug Karen was useless. Lawyer Karen is useful. So he dosed her and changed her. On a small scale, for Karen's sake. On a big scale, for society as a whole.]
Urgh. This is all Will Bates' fault. Making me wrestle with this tough dilemma.
I recalled what Will Bates had told me before. His plan to delete unnecessary emotions from 8 billion humans and rearrange everyone into efficient cogwheels.
Karen's like a prototype for that plan. Outwardly flawless, a model professional elite. But it's all forcibly created by drugs, and the person herself is in such agony she'd rather die.
Ah, wait a sec. What if everyone in this city went through something similar to Karen?
[...Maybe.]
The glasses-wearing nerd muttered with a serious face.
Hmm. I'll think about that later. Right now, I can't decide what to do with Karen.
As I was deep in thought, the sleeping Karen tossed, and her body bumped into my dress.
"—!"
Karen's eyes snapped open. Before my reflection even formed in her pupils, she yanked open the nightstand drawer with beast-like reflexes.
Click.
The black pistol's muzzle was aimed right at my forehead.
Uh. This is a bit of a pickle.
……………
Hmm, am I about to take a bullet to the head? It's been a while since I got attacked. Especially shot—probably the second time since becoming this body.
The first was those soldiers' railgun rifles. The bullets sank into me like tar in a swamp.
A pistol should be weaker than that, right?
Beyond the gun barrel, Karen's eyes were rapidly assessing the situation. Just seconds after waking, her pupils were already sharply focused. Not a lawyer thing—probably vigilance ingrained from her trailer park days.
Impressive awakening speed, anyway.
Her gaze then swept me from head to toe.
"...A little girl?"
Karen's trigger finger relaxed slightly. Well, yeah—waking up to find an unrealistically cute Outer God Girl Sensor sitting by your bed? Feels like a dream.
[Saying it out loud yourself is a bit...]
The glasses-wearing nerd made a slightly disgusted face.
Hey now. I've never said it out loud. Out loud.
Karen slowly lowered the gun. She shoved it back into the nightstand drawer, threw off the covers, and sat on the edge of the bed.
She rubbed her forehead with her fingers and took a deep breath. Now fully awake, she turned to me and spoke.
"Where are your parents?"
Parents? The only mom-like thing is outside this universe, and she cut me loose and dumped me here.
—Can't say that, so I shrugged.
"...Do you have a Microgenics citizen ID?"
No such thing. I shook my head.
Karen's face darkened noticeably at my gesture. A small, stifled mutter slipped from her lips.
"Too clean to be an orphan... And this city doesn't even have orphans or homeless to begin with."
Hmm, no orphans or homeless? Got it.
In Washington, where everyone spins like cogwheels under Microgenics' control, a neglected kid just can't exist.
After furrowing her brow for a while, Karen asked cautiously.
"...Do you have somewhere to go? One of Microgenics' facilities?"
Hmm. Planning to head to Microgenics HQ later. See Will Bates' face too. I nodded.
Karen's pupils shook at my nod.
"An orphan raised in a Microgenics facility..."
Ah, the emotional flavor shifted. Anger. Anger directed at others.
What's got her so mad?
[She probably thinks you're an orphan who escaped an experimental facility. Since Karen herself was dragged from the trailer park by force, she's connecting the dots.]
Karen stared at me for a long time, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. She set it in front of me.
"You're in the same boat as me."
Her voice carried deep empathy.
Oh no. Big misunderstanding. But no way to correct it—what can ya do?
"I won't report you to the authorities. Stay as long as you want, then go."
Karen sat back on the bed.
"They'll track you anyway if they're after you."
Resignation filled that last line, spreading cold in my mouth like ice water. She knows what Microgenics' tracking is like. I don't, so an explanation would be nice.
Karen turned off the light and slipped under the covers. She was breathing evenly in under a minute. Probably the Model Citizen Maintenance Agent effect. Forced sleep like flipping a switch.
I sipped the water from the glass while watching her sleeping back. Cool and refreshing.
Anyway, I scored a temporary place to crash. Good outcome.
So I ended up staying at Karen's house all day.
But. Karen's place has no comics or games. There's a TV, but nothing worth watching. Mostly just news channels.
Bored out of my mind, my routine became sneaking out to wander the city while she was at work.
Meanwhile, the drug eating away at Karen's body. I wrestled with that one a lot.
[Don't remove it all at once!]
The glasses-wearing nerd and the doctor-robed nerd both yelled at me.
[You can pull out the forced work drive components. But wiping the antidepressants too will let Karen's original mental state flood back unfiltered.]
The doctor-robed nerd drew a graph on a blackboard. Vertical axis: serotonin levels. Horizontal: time. The moment the drug's removed, the graph plummets like a cliff.
[Worst case, self-harm or suicide impulses hit her consciousness unchecked. That's seriously dangerous.]
Ughhh. Can't have that. She's the friend I finally made in Washington.
So I found a compromise. At dawn while Karen slept, I slipped nanometer-thick strands of hair into her veins. Sucked out the forced work drive components, left the antidepressants.
Kept the safety net, but cut the chains turning her into a work machine.
This should be fine, right?
After that, what happened to Karen—
Ah, it's about time for her to get off work.
I headed to her law firm right on schedule. The door opened, and Karen stepped out. Briefcase in hand, blonde hair neatly tied, sharp suit on point.
Our eyes met. She dashed across the street toward me.