Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 I have to admit that seeing hundred of people shuffling single-file with a
blank dead look on their eyes was pretty goddamn unsettling.  Talby had
triggered a binaural sound recording that blared on through every intercom
and PA system on the ship.  The fat balding middle aged deviant was playing
pied piper, leading every fat waddling youngster and shambling geriatric to
a fate too grim to contemplate.  A scene like this would give any rational
ethical freedom-loving humanist pause.  At that moment I was none of those
things.  Not at all.  No matter how much I fought it, I was never above any
of this.  No moral high ground.  Not even from the start.  Not from the
first light knock on my front door.  I was in too deep since the beginning.

   To be continued...