Michael Crichton - The Terminal Man

Finally he called for the dog tag. Benson would have to wear this dog tag for as long as he had the atomic charging unit in his body. The tag warned that the person had an atomic pacemaker, and gave a telephone number. Ross knew that the number was a listing which played a recorded message twenty-four hours a day. The recording gave detailed technical information about the charging unit, and warned that bullet wounds, automobile accidents, fires, and other damage could release the plutonium, which was a powerful alpha-particle emitter. It gave special instructions to physicians, coroners, and morticians, and warned particularly against cremation of the body, unless the charger was first removed.

Ellis inserted the charging unit into the small subdermal pocket he had made in the chest wall. He sewed tissue layers around it to fix it in place. Then he turned his attention to the postage-stamp-sized electronic computer.

Ross looked up at the viewing gallery and saw the wizard twins, Gerhard and Richards, watching intently. Ellis checked the packet under the magnifying glass, then gave it to a scrubbed technician, who hooked the little computer into the main hospital computer.

To Ross, the computer was the most remarkable part of the entire system. Since she had joined the NPS three years before, she had seen the computer shrink from a prototype as large as a briefcase to the present tiny model, which looked small in the palm of a hand yet contained all the elements of the original bulky unit.

This tiny size made subdermal implantation possible. The patient was free to move about, take showers, do anything he wanted. Much better than the old units, where the charger was clipped to a patient's belt and wires dangled down all over.

She looked at the computer screens which flashed

"OPERATIVE MONITORS INTERRUPTED FOR ELECTRONICS CHECK." On one screen, a blown-up circuit diagram appeared. The computer checked each pathway and component independently. It took four-millionths of a second for each check; the entire process was completed in two seconds. The computer flashed

"ELECTRONIC CHECK NEGATIVE." A moment later, brain views reappeared. The computer had gone back to monitoring the operation.

"Well," Ellis said, "let's hook him up." He painstakingly attached the forty fine wire leads from the two electrode arrays to the plastic unit. Then he fitted the wires down along the neck, tucked the plastic under the skin, and called for sutures. The elapsed-time clock read one hour and twelve minutes.

Morris wheeled Benson into the recovery room, a long, low-ceilinged room where patients were brought immediately after operation. The NPS had a special section of the rec room, as did cardiac patients and burns patients. But the NPS section, with its cluster of electronic equipment, had never been used before. Benson was the first case.

Benson looked pale but otherwise fine; his head and neck were heavily bandaged. Morris supervised his transfer from the rolling stretcher to the permanent bed. Across the room, Ellis was telephoning in his operative note. If you dialed extension 1104, you got a transcribing machine. The dictated message would later be typed up by a secretary and inserted in Benson's record.

Ellis's voice droned on in the background. "… centimeter incisions were made over the right temporal region, and 2-millimeter burr holes drilled with a K-7 drill. Implantation of Briggs electrodes carried out with computer assistance on the LIMBIC Program. Honey, that's spelled in capital letter, L-I-M-B-I-C. Program. X-ray placement of electrodes determined with computer review as within established limits. Electrodes sealed with Tyler fivation caps and seven-oh-grade dental sealer. Transmission wires- "

"What do you want on him?" the rec-room nurse asked.

"Vital signs Q five minutes for the first hour, Q fifteen for the second, Q thirty for the third, hourly thereafter. If he's stable, you can move him up to the floor in six hours."

The nurse nodded, making notes. Morris sat down by the bedside to write a short operative note:

Short operative note on Harold F. Benson

Pre-op dx: psychomotor (temporal lobe) epilepsy

Post-op dx: same

Procedure: implantation of twin Briggs electrode arrays into right temporal lobe with subdermal placing of computer and plutonium charging unit.

Pre-op meds:

phenobarbital 500 mg

one hr. prior to

atropine 60 mg procedure

Anaesthesia: lidocaine (1/1000) epinephrine locally

Estimated blood loss: 250 cc

Fluid replacement: 200 cc D5/W Operative duration: 1 hr. 12 min. Post-op condition: good

As he finished the note, he heard Ross say to the nurse,

"Start him on phenobarb as soon as he's awake." She sounded angry.

He looked up at her. "Something the matter?"

"No," she said.

"You seem angry."

"Are you picking a fight with me?"

"No," he said, "of course- "

"Just make sure he gets his phenobarb. We want to keep him sedated until we can interface him."

And she stormed out of the room. Morris watched her go, then glanced over at Ellis, who was still dictating but had been watching. Ellis shrugged.

"What's the matter with her?" the nurse asked.

"Probably just tired," Morris said. He adjusted the monitoring equipment on the shelf above Benson's head. He turned it on and waited until it warmed up. Then he placed the temporary induction unit around Benson's taped shoulder.

During the operation, all the wires had been hooked up, but they were not working now. Before that happened, Benson had to be "interfaced." This meant determining which of the forty electrodes would stop an epileptic seizure, and locking in the appropriate switches on the subdermal computer.

Because the computer was under the skin, the locking in would be accomplished by an induction unit, which worked through the skin. But the interfacing couldn't be done until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the equipment monitored Benson's brainwave activity. The screens above the bed glowed a bright green, and showed the white tracing of his EEG. The pattern was normal for alpha rhythms slowing from sedation.

Benson opened his eyes and looked at Morris.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Sleepy," he said. "Is it beginning soon?"

"It's over," Morris said.

Benson nodded, not at all surprised, and closed his eyes.

A rad-lab technician came in and checked for leakage from the plutonium with a Geiger counter. There was none. Morris slipped the dog tag around Benson's neck. The nurse picked it up curiously, read it, and frowned.

Ellis came over. "Time for breakfast?"

"Yes," Morris said. "Time for breakfast."

They left the room together.

The trouble was he didn't really like the sound of his voice. His voice was rough and grating, and his enunciation was poor. McPherson preferred to see the words in his mind, as if they had been written. He pressed the microphone button on the dictation machine. "Roman numeral three. Philosophical Implications."

III. Philosophical Implications.

He paused and looked around his office. The large model of the brain sat at the corner of his desk. Shelves of journals along one wall. And the TV monitor. On the screen now he was watching the playback of the morning's operation. The sound was turned off, the milky images silent. Ellis was drilling holes in Benson's head. McPherson watched and began to dictate.

This procedure represents the first direct link between a human brain and a computer. The link is permanent. Now of course, any man sitting at a computer console and interacting with the computer by pressing buttons can be said to be linked.

Too stuffy, he thought. He ran the tape back and made changes. Now, a man sitting at a computer console and interacting with the computer by pressing buttons is linked to the computer. But that link is not direct. And the link is not permanent. Therefore, this operative procedure represents something rather different. How is one to think about it?