Cop 'Til You Drop
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In the world of law enforcement, things aren't perfect. There are corrupt cops wherever you go, and the MIB isn't exempt. The following took place back in the 70's and these days there's a lot less crime among us. It's mostly just petty theft and smuggling, and even most of that is just from the Time Tourists.
When dealing with advanced technology, especially time travel, extraordinary crimes require extraordinary punishment. There's this one punishment that can happen. It only happened once, because sometimes when you make an example out of someone, it keeps the others in line. Plus this was before there was Empathy Training. It's referred to as "Cop 'Til You Drop".
There was this guy that had been committing a bunch of crimes. Not just theft and smuggling stuff through time, but things like murder and rape. Theft of other's work like best sellers and hit songs. Spending all kinds of money and causing ripples, which in itself is bad, but it caused deaths too. He had been wreaking havoc.
He went into the future and had cybernetics implanted. He had joined the military there and got them. There was also a brain implant that wasn't military which had wifi and cell. Everyone thought it was dumb because he was residing in the 70's and they didn't have that stuff yet. It had FM radio though. He got himself hooked on drugs and wasn't using good judgement, but that's no excuse.
In certain situations, instead of locking you up or executing you, you lose your right to free will. It's wasteful to let someone who's basically sentenced to life just rot in a prison cell somewhere consuming resources and not giving anything back. So they're MADE to clean up their mess.
Basically the worse the mess you make, the worse it's going to be for you if you screw up.
What happened to him was he was implanted and had his brain hijacked. It can force you to move around like a puppet. Pretty much total control of the body minus things like digestion and whatnot. It was a more low tech chip. Not quite in its infancy, but there was still enough room to kill two birds with one stone and use the opportunity to conduct some more research.
He had hypnosis done to him too. There was negative reinforcement conditioning as well. He was made to surgically remove most of the cybernetics himself without anesthesia. Basically everything he could reach except his extra brain implants.
When the process started he was "easily" compelled to do work with the hypnosis. Then the negative reinforcement conditioning kicked in when that started being less effective. That included being fitted with what was basically a shock collar.
They kept him awake and working longer than he should have been, putting in 16 hour days and letting him sleep for 8, then straight back to work again. This went on for a few months, and when the hypnosis and conditioning started to become less effective, it was pretty much crunch time and he was put into "drop mode".
They began giving him drugs. They started with Dextroamphetamine at first, but people thought he had a little too much of a spring in his step. They thought that was too good for him and just started giving him street meth. He was basically kept awake from that point on and when he couldn't stay
awake any longer even with amphetamine and other stimulants his brain hijack implant was activated.
While he was in this state he was forced to be awake the whole time while his body was made to keep working. His cognitive ability declined and his impulse control decreased, but the implant kept him from doing anything stupid. He would twitch and start getting "glitches". This progressed into full blown seizures.
I saw him after months and months of this had gone by and people who are kept awake get dark circles under their eyes, but his were pitch black looking. Almost like someone wiped tar under his eyes. He looked so fatigued it seemed like he was asleep as he walked and he drooled sometimes. Towards the end of his life it looked like he had severe Parkinson's too, but even then it looked like he was too tired to tremor.
They would have people meet him to see what happens when people screw up like this. He would almost always just say "I'm a cautionary tale," if he was even able to speak at all. Before he died his speech was almost completely broken up and he couldn't even finish the sentence at times.
He was urinating blood, had kidney stones, rhabdomyolysis, there was a buildup of toxins in his body, and he was pretty much saturated with them. The amount of stress hormones he was producing made him smell bad even though he had still been bathing regularly. He had no fingerprints left. His hands were severely calloused. His fingernails were missing from all the manual labor.
His toenails were gone too from being on his feet and running around constantly. He'd need bigger shoes since he feet and ankles would get swollen. One time after a particularly long shift, he had to get them cut off. Nobody wanted to get him new ones and he wasn't getting paid for his work so he could get some either.
They didn't want him walking around barefoot though and some people hated him so much they didn't want him contaminating the floor with his filth. A particularly kind woman brought him a pair. He said they were the most comfortable he had ever worn and thanked her. You want to have pity on him, but you just can't.
You weren't supposed to conversate with him or keep him company, but you could ask him work related questions. You were supposed to just let him work, but if you needed a hand with some heavy lifting, he was there to help. Sometimes people or kids would offer him some candy or something to make his day a little better since he looked so miserable, but he would politely decline. He would just say "Please don't pity me."
After he cleaned up his mess he had been doing a lot of work that would normally require hazard pay. It was the kind of stuff even the thrill seeker boys didn't want to touch. The kind of things that you might get brain damage from and you would normally send someone in with a protective suit.
Radioactive and carcinogenic environments. Bomb disposal and things that you might normally send a robot in to do. Some things they sent him in just to see if it would finally kill him, but none of them actually did. By the end of his life, he was twitching and seizing so much they just had him mopping floors.
They tried having him do things like working in a cafeteria, but they put a stop to that because people kept complaining they didn't want him handling their food. They tried having him do other work, but after a while people just didn't want him around them. Part of it was because of his smell, the other part was because they hated him for his crimes.
His criminality made everyone else look bad. How could the public trust us if there were guys like him working for us? People would spit on him as they walked by. He was also getting constant verbal abuse during all this. Parents would bring up their children just to insult him. He would just take it and usually say "I deserve that." Sometimes people would just go up to yell at him for some cathartic release.
He lost the right to his name too and it was stricken from the record along with all of his accomplishments. If people were going to do name calling, they were encouraged to not decide on just one so he would be known by that.
People wanted to beat on him, but getting physical with people in anger is strongly discouraged. That didn't stop people from smacking the back of his head as they walked by when they thought no one was looking. Spitting was discouraged too, mostly because they wanted to get as much work out of him as possible and didn't want him catching anything. His health was so bad by the end of his life they seriously thought a cold might kill him.
He was being fed well to keep him going, but that angered some people. They thought anything other than bread and water was more than he deserved. He had low body fat and a lot of muscle breakdown from overexertion and he was thin looking. He still had some muscle tone, but he wasn't allowed to sleep and his body was unable to recover. He more than likely had sore muscles constantly.
He hadn't been getting much sun either. Many people commented he looked like a zombie in his stupor. At times he would be shambling around hunched over and dragging his feet. When you get a sense of him, you felt "walking death" and a feeling of real life horror. Even though he was being implant controlled at this point, his body was breaking down and physically unable to maintain itself.
It was like he was wilting. Taking in his appearance and smell as a whole, this also ostracized him from everyone. People actively avoided him even more and would avert their eyes. He was made to cut his own hair and shave which he was becoming increasingly worse at and it wasn't helping. As mentally impaired as he was, he was still conscious of all of this the entire time. He was surreal to look at, and at times his appearance was startling.
His life came to an end not with a bang, but a whimper. One day while mopping floors, he just collapsed and started seizing until he finally died. He would get basic medical care to keep him going, but his seizures were becoming such a regular occurrence that the medical team started taking their time. It's possible this might be why he died this time. They just left him there to seize in the dirty mop water. Like "oh, there he goes again" with an eye roll.
The autopsy revealed he had at least one stroke. It seems like the brain chip kept him moving because nobody noticed any stroke symptoms. His heart had necrosis and scar tissue on it as if he had several heart attacks. It was amazing it kept beating as long as it did. The entire ordeal must have been extremely painful. Generally speaking, it was like his body had been slowly disintegrating.
The whole thing was documented and there was some new information learned about the body regarding sleep deprivation and extreme fatigue. Nobody had been run into the ground like that until they died before. There were little tidbits learned here and there about computer-brain interfaces that may help stroke victims one day.
He was a lot different before this all started. He used to walk around with a stupid grin on his face all the time. He'd eat sunflower seeds and spit the shells everywhere, even indoors. He'd light up cigarettes in non-smoking areas and even blow smoke in kid's faces. He was disrespecting people constantly and groping women who were in committed relationships right in front of their partner. The power went to his head.
Things like lobotomization were considered, but most people felt this just wasn't enough. A big reason they went forward with this is because he was still physically capable and had some knowledge and experience that was put to use before his mental faculties went downhill.
They had him doing some advisory work on dangerous missions to get as much knowledge out of him as they could before he lost it all. There were some "apprentices" that would soak up as much of his experience as possible. He wasn't ever allowed to handle a gun or any other weapons though and was sent back as soon as they didn't need him.
His downfall was hard to watch, but people needed to see this. Sometimes someone has to be made an example of. There's zero tolerance for the kinds of crimes he committed. There are indeed fates worse than death. If prison isn't a deterrent for some people, this most certainly is.
