I think the way this goes is, I'm supposed to say, I never
meant to hurt anyone. But in actual fact that's not true,
I did, I meant to hurt the guy we were after. However, I
also caused hurt to someone I wasn't supposed to and apparently
that's a bad thing. Does that make sense? Did it ever happen
to you? Ok, let me go back a while, just a couple of years,
well, three to be exact. You see what happened was; I was
working for the police at the time in the drug squad. It
was a good touch too, three squares a day, my own digs and
a partner who just couldn't do enough for me, she was real
nice and I kinda liked her a lot, even though she's the
reason I'm in the predicament I'm in now. But that's not
her fault, it's mine and we'll come to that later. In the
mean time, if you're still interested, I need to fill you
in on what happened. We were on a case in the south of Ireland;
we'd both been employed by the Garda Siochona for the same
amount of time, two years. But ours was an experimental
task force. Some bright spark had come up with an idea to
enhance the intelligence of certain officers and my name
was picked from a hat; can you believe that? From a hat!
What I might have thought of it didn't even come into the
equation, but that's the way things are going these days
and even if I'd been able to make some kind of protest,
I don't think that they would have listened. Anyway the
next thing I know I'm on this program they called "Upgrade."
The process of which is pretty painless as it happens, certainly
compared to some of the things I've been subjected to. What
they do is feed you with certain drugs, the names of which
are impossible for me to pronounce let alone understand
how they work and there's also a thing where they do what's
called genetic manipulation; don't ask me to go into that
one either.
All you really need to know is that they made me 'smarter',
filled my head with the experiences of countless officers
who were a lot like me and others who were very unlike me,
you know, the smart ones who control everything. I was given
the memories of drug busts from cops the length and breadth
of the country and beyond, they taught me languages, and
logic, taught me to reason things out and work on my own
initiative. All of this they said would make me a better
officer, a better instrument of the police in the increasing
problem of the drug culture. I learned to single out, at
airports, the most likely suspects and direct the attention
of the customs guys to them. I was trained above all to
catch and secure the arrest of anyone involved with smuggling
or selling drugs, this was my 'prime directive' my overriding
mission in all cases, and boy they banged on about that
non-stop, I even dreamed about that damned prime directive.
So, one day we're on this case and it all went wrong. Wrong
for them that is, not for me, as far as I was concerned
the whole thing went right. Ok I lost a partner, but that
happens. I have loads of memories of partners being lost,
and most of them shot.
The next thing I know I'm behind bars and everyone is arguing
about whose fault it is. One guy even took out a gun and
was going to shoot me there and then right through the bars!
I ran the whole thing back through my head, step by step
just like I was taught.
We went into the warehouse, there was Maginn, he was the
guy we'd been trying to catch from day one of the project
and he'd always given us the slip. We couldn't believe our
luck, at last we had him, the main guy, so my partner whispers
to me, "Mick!" that's my name, "you go around
the cat-walk and I'll see if I can get up behind him, she
gave me the signal to go around and off she went."
Through the melee of shouting and gun pointing, I'm trying
to tell the other officers this in the jail, but nobody's
listening to me! One of the technicians who worked on the
project is shouting, "He's trying to tell us what happened,
for God's sake give him a chance." But someone else
shouts,
"Shoot the freak, he's dangerous!"
I'm getting really scared and telling them about how when
we got up to Maginn, he saw us and grabbed my partner. How
they wrestled and she dropped her gun at my feet as I caught
up to them. Someone in the jail is shouting about how there
should be moral checks and balances in place and I'm trying
to tell them about how I'd picked up her gun and aimed it
at Maginn, who immediately hid behind my partner. "You
never fucking thought about the moral implications did you?"
someone else is shouting now at the technician, "You
just filled his head with drug busts!" I'm telling
them that my partner was shouting at me, "Shoot the
fucker!" and how well hidden he is behind her, and
there's that damned prime directive again, so I fire, and
watch the bullet burst through her midriff and into Maginn.
It's what they wanted. They trained me for it. Why are you
all so angry with me? I want to scream.
But I can't.
My vocal chords don't work like theirs.
I can only use sign language, or grunt.
No one's listening to me anyway.
I'm just a chimpanzee from the upgrade program!
What did I do wrong?
