No Cure

No Cure

3172421:

                Returned to the ‘Comrade’s Laboratory’. Moss is still here; doesn’t seem to have aged. Test subject stored in one of the cells while I double check certain details with Moss. Unfortunately she ‘still hasn’t written a manual’.

                Island is too distant to bring all Thrath here, so a transportable cure is necessary. Acquisition of additional test subjects is possible, but likely not needed. Transport of first test subject was initially difficult, but quickly fell into quiet acceptance (likely due to lack of hate towards me). If it wasn’t for how candidly she talks about wanting to torture ‘non-Thrath’ she’d be an ordinary girl. She has picked up the habit of saying ‘except you’.

                Subject has yet to meet Moss. May react negatively, but Moss’s unique creation may prevent her from qualifying as ‘human’. Also, differences from regular humans (immortality, primarily) may also affect the subject’s judgement.

3172424:

                Subject was introduced to Moss today. Pretended (poorly) to not find her disgusting. Lied when questioned, but was easily tricked into revealing true intentions. Subject is a child so not surprising. Moss finds subject to be ‘cute’, despite threats and rude behaviour.

                I am now confident that the ‘alteration machine’ is capable of removing the ‘Thrathness’ of the subject, so long as the ‘Thrathness’ is a trait in this world (like hair colour, height, and so on). Previous observations indicate that ‘Thrathness’ is a trait – occurs roughly half the time when only one parent is Thrath, and has a low (less than one percent) chance of ‘skipping’ a generation.

                The mechanism for exhibiting ‘Thrathness’ may reveal several interesting details about this world, however the machine will likely be unable to study the traits it identifies. Cross comparison with stored data of several prior subjects (not mine) and Moss should allow location and alteration of ‘Thrathness’, according to theory.

3172431:

                Conversation and tutelage with Moss complete. Subject has been given an initial scan, the machine is currently occupied with identification and analysis of each trait the girl possesses. Should be complete by tomorrow.

                Subject seems happy, so long as they are kept away from Moss. I’ve tricked her into thinking that Moss left for the village below, a trip that the subject knows would kill her (due to the harsh environment around the lab). She’s unable to tell that her food is being prepared by Moss.

3172448:

                Analysis and cross-comparison has been completed. Subject has many traits different from Moss – this is likely because Moss has dark green hair, pale brown eyes and light skin whereas the subject has blonde hair, green eyes and slightly red brown skin. Amongst the many physiological differences.

                I’m regretting not bringing a sample from a native from the area along – they would be far closer to the subject despite not being Thrath. Alternatively, a Thrath of a different ethnicity would also suffice.

                There is, however, one very good candidate for ‘Thrathness’. The subject possesses a trait that Moss has nothing even broadly similar – and it is not present in any of the stored data either (aside: I really do wonder why there are no pictures or anything of prior subjects). A quick projection says that this trait affects mental development or capability – ‘something in the brain’, more or less. It also interacts with several other traits.

                So, it’s first up for investigation.

3172460:

                Confirmation that the unusual trait is related to ‘Thrathness’ came quickly – I suppressed it in the subject and she immediately began screaming at herself. However, there are additional traits – the first handles identifying Thrath, and several linked parts control the hate and possibly other parts. These are all tightly linked, ensuring that all or none are inherited.

                Suppressing all parts of the trait caused the subject to feel ‘weird’, then entirely lose control of her body. This was not just conscious control; her organs also ceased activity. It seems as if fully suppressing the Thrath traits requires careful alteration of those they interact with (likely to undo whatever abnormalities being Thrath introduces).

3172469:

                Progress has been slow, but the subject was successfully suppressed without any worrying signs today. Unfortunately, this success required very careful alteration and manipulation of many of the subject’s traits. Because of this, I fear creation of a cure might not be possible – it needs to be very, very specific to the subject. And bringing all the Thrath here to cure one by one is not viable; even with mastery of the device each individual would take at least a week to cure.

                On that note, significant additional work is required to ensure survival of the subject. Simulations of the intended alterations to remove and change the traits of the subject show death within six months in the best case scenario. The worst case revealed a (corrected) issue that could result in death during even short term suppression through extreme brain damage.

3172477:

                Subject was left under suppression for the last two days. She was initially put off by her inability to detect her own ‘Thrathness’, but quickly adapted. She refused to believe that she was no longer Thrath, instead insisting that I had only stopped her from telling ‘who she had to kill’.

                I pointed out to her that she should be feeling like killing any non-Thrath humans, but she indicated that she could no longer sense ‘Thrath or non-Thrath’. Somehow she is able to tell that she would be unable to detect a normal human; this is probably why she could not tell that at the time she was an ordinary human.

3172503:

                Subject was ‘cured’ today through alterations. To prevent the subject from continuing with her assumptions about having only her ability to differentiate Thrath from other humans removed, Moss was brought into the room after the subject was restrained and gagged.

                Her hatred and anger at my deception was quite… Disturbing to see on her young face. The first set of alterations I made removed her desire to kill and destroy ordinary humans. With her ability to know that she was ‘Thrath’ and Moss still intact she realised immediately what I had done. Despite her attempts, she was unable to regain the hate and quickly became quite stressed.

                Her own ‘Thrathness’ was removed next. She was unable to muster hate for herself, but did look down in fear. The disgust that had characterised her scream the first time her ‘Thrathness’ was supressed was not there, though.

                Finally, her ability to tell Thrath from normal humans was removed, and the various secondary alterations took place as necessary. Of all the parts of ‘Thrathness’, that one would have been nice to keep. A non-Thrath who could finger Thrath would be very handy to all who live in fear of them, but it was too tightly connected to the rest of the traits (and I am no master of this machine).

                Moss left, and the subject was released. I watched her until she fell asleep to ensure she didn’t do anything drastic. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to be heading down that worrying path – she cried a lot, but mostly because she feels she isn’t one of the ‘superior’ Thrath; because she’s now ‘filth’.

3172508:

                Subject is now fine, more or less. She exhibits no signs of being Thrath, and with her unreasoning hatred gone has quickly become close to Moss. The subject will stay here when I leave, although likely move to the village after a few years.

                Unfortunately, despite my successful curing of the subject, my final conclusions are grim. It is not possible to cure the Thrath except with drastic alterations. A few dozen well-trained individuals, each utilising a machine similar to the one here could potentially ‘fix’ them all, if the Thrath could be somehow corralled.

However, there are few things similar to this machine that I have seen – and none anywhere near as useful. It, like me, is not from this world. I suspect it is one of a kind. Bringing large numbers of Thrath to it would run the risk of them taking control of it (unthinkable) and also be pointless – more Thrath are born each year than the machine could cure.

I had hoped that the serums the machine is capable of making would serve to mass produce a cure, but there are two problems. Firstly, each cure needs to be very carefully adjusted to work with many of the traits each individual possesses – meaning the machine must be used to analyse a sample of each of them (scarcely better than bringing the Thrath here anyway).

Secondly, the serums are only capable of making minor adjustments – they cannot properly force rewiring of a brain or large-scale physiological alterations (at least, not to my knowledge – I suspect it is possible, but would run a very high risk of horrible death).

Finally, there is a limit to how much each serum can change. How many ‘traits’ can be altered, more or less. This limit is blown out of the water by the extent of the alterations I made to the subject. The second issue’s possible solution also likely falls foul of this.

Thus, I conclude that there is no cure for the Thrath. Education of those living in areas with Thrath populations and extermination of any Thrath I can identify seems to be the only answer.

It’s kind of sad. Apart from the strange desire to completely destroy any non-Thrath in horrible ways they are completely human. They are very strange for a bioweapon.