Elizabeth Moon - The Speed of Dark

Hi Jim. Hi Sally. Hi Amber.

Jim say get up. Hi Jim. Jim smile. Jim happy I say Hi Jim. Get up, go to bathroom, use toilet, take off clothes, go in shower. Reach for wheel thing. Jim say Good for you and shut door. Turn wheel thing. Water. Soap. Water. Feel good. All feel good. Open door. Jim smile. Jim happy I take shower by self. Jim hold towel. Take towel. Rub all over. Dry. Dry feel good. Wet feel good. Morning feel good.

Put on clothes, walk to breakfast. Sit at table with Sally. Hi Sally. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Hi Sally. Look around Sally say. Look around. More tables. Other people. Know Sally. Know Amber. Know Jim. Not know other people. Sally ask Are you hungry. Say yes. Sally smile. Sally happy I say yes. Bowl. Food in bowl cereal. Sweet on top is fruit. Eat sweet on top, eat cereal, say Good, good. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Good. Happy because Sally happy. Happy because sweet is good.

Amber say time to go. Hi Amber. Amber smile. Amber happy I say Hi Amber. Amber walk to working room. I walk to working room. Amber say sit there. I sit there. Table in front. Amber sit other side. Amber say time to play game. Amber put thing on table. What is this, Amber ask. It is blue. I say blue. Amber say That is color, what is thing? I want to touch. Amber say no touch, just look. Thing is funny shape, wrinkly. Blue. I sad. Not know is not good, no good for you, no sweet, no shiny pretty.

Don’t be upset, Amber say. Okay, okay. Amber touch Amber box. Then say You can touch. I touch. It is part of clothes. It is shirt. It is too small for me. Too small. Amber laugh. Good for you, here sweet, it is a shirt and it is way too small for you. Shirt for doll. Amber take shirt for doll and put down another thing. Also funny shape, wrinkly black. Not touch, just look. If wrinkly blue thing shirt for doll, wrinkly black thing something for doll? Amber touch. Thing lies flatter. Two things stick out bottom, one thing at top. Pants. I say Pants for doll. Amber makes big smile. Good for you, really good. Sweet thing for you. Touches Amber box.

Lunchtime. Lunch is food in day between breakfast and supper. Hi Sally. It looks good Sally. Sally is happy I say that. Food is gooey between bread slices and fruit and water to drink. Food feels good in mouth. This is good Sally. Sally is happy I say that. Sally smile. More Good for you and good for you. Like Sally. Sally nice.

After lunch is Amber and crawl on floor follow line, or stand on floor one foot up then other foot up. Amber crawl too. Amber stand on one foot, fall over. Laugh. Laugh feel good like shaking all over. Amber laugh. More good for you. Like Amber.

After crawl on floor is more game on table. Amber put things on table. Not know names. No names, Amber say. See this: Amber touches black thing. Find another one, Amber say. Look at things. One other thing same. Touch. Amber smile. Good for you. Amber put black thing and white thing together. Do like that, Amber say. Scary. Not know. Okay, okay, Amber say. Okay to not know. Amber not smile. Not okay. Find black thing. Look. Find white thing. Put together. Amber smile now. Good for you.

Amber put three things togetuer. Do like that, Amber say. I look. One thing is black, one is white with black place, one is red with yellow place. Look. Put down black thing. Find white thing with black place, put down. Then find red with yellow place, put down. Amber touch Amber box. Then Amber touch Amber things: red in middle, Amber say. Look. Did wrong. Red on end. Move. Good for you, Amber say. Really good work. Happy. Like make Amber happy. Good happy together.

Other people come. One in white coat, see before, not know name except Doctor. One man in sweater with many colors and tan pants.

Amber say Hi Doctor to one in white coat. Doctor talk to Amber, say This is friend of his, on the list. Amber look at me, then at other man. Man look at me. Not look happy, even with smile.

Man say Hi Lou I’m Tom.

Hi, Tom, I say. He does not say Good for you. You are doctor, I say.

Not a medical doctor, Tom say. Not know what not a medical doctor means.

Amber say Tom is on your list, for visiting. You knew him before.

Before what? Tom not look happy. Tom look very sad.

Not know Tom, I say. Look at Amber. Is wrong to not know Tom?

Have you forgotten everything from before? Tom ask.

Before what? Question bothers me. What I know is now. Jim, Sally, Amber, Doctor, where is bedroom, where is bathroom, where is place to eat, where is workroom.

It’s okay, Amber says. We’ll explain later. It’s okay. You’re doing fine.

Better go now, says Doctor. Tom and Doctor turn away.

Before WHAT?

Amber puts down another row and says Do what I did.

“I told you it was too soon,” Dr. Hendricks said, once they were back in the corridor. “I told you he wouldn’t remember you.”

Tom Fennell glanced back through the one-way window. Lou — or what had been Lou — smiled at the therapist who was working with him and picked up a block to add to the pattern he was copying. Grief and rage washed over Torn at the memory of Lou’s blank look, the meaningless little smile that had gone with, “Hi, Tom.”

“It would only distress him to try to explain things now,” Hendricks said. “He couldn’t possibly understand.”

Tom found his voice again, though it didn’t sound like his own. “You — do you have the slightest idea what you’ve done?” He held himself still with great effort; he wanted to strangle this person who had destroyed his friend.

“Yes. He’s really doing well.” Hendricks sounded indecently happy with herself. “Last week he couldn’t do what he’s doing now.”

Doing well. Sitting there copying block patterns was not Tom’s definition of doing well. Not when he remembered Lou’s startling abilities. “But… but pattern analysis and pattern generation was his special gift—”

“There have been profound changes in the structure of his brain,” Dr. Hendricks said. “Changes are still going on. It’s as if his brain reversed in age, became an infant brain again in some ways. Great plasticity, great adaptive ability.”

Her smug tone grated on him; she clearly had no doubts about what she had done. “How long is this going to take?” he asked.

Hendricks did not shrug, but the pause might have been one. “We do not know. We thought — we hoped, perhaps I should say — that with the combination of genetic and nanotechnology, with accelerated neural growth, the recovery phase would be shorter, more like that seen in the animal model. The human brain is, however, immeasurably more complex—”

“You should have known that going in,” Tom said. He didn’t care that his tone was accusatory. He wondered how the others were doing, tried to remember how many there’d been. Only two other men had been in the room, working with other therapists. Were the others all right or not? He didn’t even know their names.

“Yes.” Her mild acceptance irritated him even more.

“What were you thinking—”

“To help. Only to help. Look—” She pointed at the window and Tom looked.

The man with Lou’s face — but not his expression — set aside the completed pattern and looked up with a smile to the therapist across the table. She spoke — Tom could not hear the words through the glass, but he could see Lou’s reaction, a relaxed laugh and a slight shake of the head. It was so unlike Lou, so strangely normal, that Tom felt his breath come short.

“His social interactions are already more normal. He’s easily motivated by social cues; he enjoys being with people. A very pleasant personality, even though still infantile at this point. His sensory processing seems to have normalized; his preferred range of temperatures, textures, flavors, and so on is now within normal limits. His language use improves daily. We’ve been lowering the doses of anxiolytics as function improves.”