Geneva Dislightening

Torture Rots the Soul of the Torturer

Greg Carbaugh lives in a society at war against dislightenors—those who attack their enemies with chemical and biological weapons. Like all people in his society, Greg fears and opposes those attacks. But unlike others, Greg blames those attacks on the leaders of his society, the Democracy. He tirelessly points out that the chemical and biological attacks known as dislightenments never occurred before the Democracy launched its own attacks against other countries.

His fellow citizens’ blind acceptance of unending war exasperates Greg, and he futilely writes letters to the editor trying to awaken their sense of practicality if not morality. But editors just use the letters as bait to attract war supporters who denounce Greg’s positions as unpatriotic. Less hostile opponents call him an idealist. No one seriously considers his positions because no successful person in the Democracy promotes such positions. As a result, Greg is doomed to irrelevancy in political discourse and mediocrity in the occupational world. He’s so unsuccessful, he barely gets a reciprocal hello from the attractive teacher in his neighboring condo.

If the rest of society ignores Greg, his entreaties for peace do attract the attention of one person—an agent of the Security Administration. Special Agent Dexter Neumattix shocks Greg one morning with a visit intended to make him think he’s suspected of disloyalty. But Neumattix knows full well Greg’s loyalty to the founding principles of the Democracy. It is, in fact, Greg’s loyalty to those principles and to those of the Geneva Conventions that makes him so attractive to Neumattix. For Neumattix is a violator of those principles, and though he may be without conscience, he knows his soul is rotting from the inhumane treatment he metes out to dislightenors. Greg’s purity is Neumattix’ last chance to hold onto his soul.

Under the pretense of helping him differentiate peace activists from supporters of the enemy, Neumattix has Greg examine emails and other writings of suspects. But that’s only a start, and Neumattix really wants Greg to witness abuse and thereby lower his own standards of humane treatment so that they encompass Neumattix’ behavior.

Greg unexpectedly reaps a financial windfall when the Security Administration seizes the assets of a cell of dislightenors. He also unexpectedly learns that the pervasive surveillance of the Security Administration can be employed to leverage personal relationships. As a result, the attractive teacher who previously shunned him, soon welcomes his advances and admires his status. Greg is torn about his methods, but his longing for the attractive teacher overwhelms his conscience.

With his conscience thus compromised for his romantic needs, Greg then learns the depravity of Neumattix’ methods. Even in his compromised state, Greg cannot stomach the abuse of dislightenors, much less the abuse of innocent suspects swept up in a dragnet. But his conscience has suffered enough to blur his moral focus, and he feels he’s become an actor in the fight against dislightenors. Conflicted, part of him wants to actively support that fight, and part of him wants to leave the Security Administration. But he fears losing his just acquired lover if he leaves. At the same time, he fears losing his soul if he doesn’t.