Mama Pain

Mama Pain is dead.

I don’t know what to think about that.

Part of me doesn’t believe it. How could she be dead? She’s Mama Pain. She IS.

I remember after I’d Awakened, twelve years old, strapped to my bed while Mama Pain ran test after test, probing my mind again and again, making incision after incision to see if I was really aware of my self or just a more stable gestalt mind. Every day for a month, and her never satisfied with the results, always determined to make me be Everyone again, or to make sure I wouldn’t be Everyone again.

I remember pain.

I remember my room. I had to be shielded or else I’d read everyone’s minds every second of every day. I remember session after session with Mama Pain, and every session another corner of my Awareness seared away with psychic coals until aside from my self I could only be the people I was looking at. She beamed with pride, then. For a moment. She was proud of me. I know she was.

I remember Doctor Soren, and his training. Gentle. Kind. I always wanted to work with him. He protected me. He protected all of us.

Except Aimi. She never needed to be protected from Mama Pain. Mama Pain always loved her better than me. She wasn’t defective. She wasn’t broken.

I remember all the years I spent following orders. Being them. Being who they made me. I remember being on the outside, never included by Malicious, Sever, Stitch, Nero, or Aimi. I remember my first mission. I remember my second mission. My third. My fourth. My fifth. Seeing the life fade from Typhon’s eyes.

I remember Moses.

I feared for my life. I feared for my mind. I feared for my soul, if there is such a thing as a soul. I thought I’d lose those things if I came Home. I thought I’d lose my freedom if I came home. That I’d wake up after a session with Mama Pain and discover that I was no longer who I have always been. And yet... and yet... I wanted something more than this, this hollow reunion. I wanted closure. I wanted to know that I wasn’t a mistake. That I wasn’t defective. I wanted to know that Mama Pain loved me.

I wanted to rescue Kiyoshi.

I had to rescue Kiyoshi. I had to rescue him for Una. I had to rescue him for Kiyoshi. I had to rescue him because Moses thought it was the right thing to do. I don’t understand what that means, but it feels... right, to do this ‘right thing to do.’

They’re my family.

I wonder if she had any contingencies in place for this eventuality. I would have, if I were in her place. I can think of a dozen things she could have arranged. Did she?

Who knows? It doesn’t matter. She was never really my mother. Biomade don’t have mothers or fathers. We’re made to be better than that. We have outgrown the old obsolete concepts of filial obligations.

Mama Pain is dead.

I won’t cry.

I won’t cry.

I won’t.

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That night, just after her conversation with Una, Kiyoshi, and Mozukai, in the house of Kiyoshi’s friend, locked away in her room, burying her face in the pillow in an attempt to make sure that no one else can hear, Rei cries herself to sleep. Her tears are long and bitter; Mama Pain is dead.