George Effinger - When Gravity Fails

Nikki. “My friend,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry and my throat tight.

“The one who was murdered,” said the doctor.

“Yes.”

“That happened almost three weeks ago. You don’t remember anything since?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Then you don’t recall meeting me before today? Our conversations?” The dark cloudwall was rushing up to blot me out, and I figured now was a good time for it, too. I hated these gaps in my consciousness. They’re a nuisance, even the the twelve-hour holes; a three-week slice missing from my mental pie was more trouble than I wanted to deal with. I just didn’t have the energy to work up a decent panic. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I just don’t remember.”

The doctor nodded. “My name is Dr. Yeniknani. I assisted your surgeon, Dr. Lisan. In the last several days you’ve gradually recovered some self-awareness. If, however, you’ve lost the content of our talks, it is very important that we discuss that information again.”

I just wanted to go back to sleep. I rubbed my eyes with a weary hand. “And if you do explain it all to me again, I’ll probably forget it and you’ll just have to do it all over tomorrow or the next day.”

Dr. Yeniknani shrugged. “That is possibly so, but you have nothing else to occupy your time, and I am paid well enough that I am more than willing to do what must be done.” He gave me a broad smile to let me know he was joking — these fierce types have to do that or you’d never guess; the doctor looked like he ought to be shouldering a rifle in some mountain ambush rather than wielding clipboards and tongue depressors, but that’s just my shallow mind making stereotypes. It keeps me amused. The doctor showed me his huge, crooked, yellow teeth again and said, “Besides, I have an overwhelming love for mankind. It is the will of Allah that I should begin to end all human suffering by having this same uninteresting interview with you each day until you at last remember it. It is for us to do these things; it is for Allah to understand them.” He shrugged again. He was very expressive, for a Turk.

I blessed the name of God and waited for Dr. Yeniknani to launch into his bedside manner.

“Have you looked at yourself?” he asked.

“No, not yet.” I’m never in a hurry to see my body after it’s been offended in any serious way. I do not find wounds particularly fascinating, especially when they are my own.

When I had my appendix taken out, I couldn’t look at myself below the navel for a month. Now, with my brain newly wired and my head shaved, I didn’t want to look in a mirror; that would make me think about what had been done, and why, and where all this might lead. If I were careful and clever, I might stay in that hospital bed, pleasantly sedated, for months or even years. It didn’t sound like so terrible a fate. Being a numb vegetable was preferable to being a numb corpse. I wondered how long I could malinger here before I was rudely dumped back on the Street. I was in no hurry, that’s for sure.

Dr. Yeniknani nodded absently. “Your … patron ,” he said, choosing the word judiciously, “your patron specified that you were to be given the most comprehensive intracranial reticulation possible. That is why Dr. Lisan performed the surgery himself: Dr. Lisan is the finest neurosurgeon in the city, one of the most respected in the world. Quite a lot of what he has given you he invented or refined himself, and in your case Dr. Lisan has tried one or two new procedures that might be called … experimental.”

That didn’t soothe me, I didn’t care how great a surgeon Dr. Lisan might be. I am of the “better safe than sorry” school. I could be just as happy with a brain lacking one or two “experimental” talents, but one that didn’t run the risk of turning to tahini if I concentrated too long. But what the hell. I grinned a crooked, devil-may-care grin and realized that poking hot wires into unknown corners of my brain to see what happened was not much worse than gunning around the city in the back of Bill’s taxi. Maybe I did have some kind of death wish, after all. Or some kind of plain stupidity.

The doctor raised the lid of the tray-table beside my bed; there was a mirror under there, and he rolled the table so that I could see my reflection. I looked awful. I looked like I’d died and started off toward hell and then got lost, and now I was stuck nowhere at all, definitely not alive but not decently deceased, either. My beard was neatly trimmed, and I had shaved every day or someone had done it for me; but my skin was pale, an unhealthy color like smudged newsprint, and there were deep shadows under my eyes. I stared into the mirror for a long moment before I even noticed that my head was indeed bald, just a fine growth of fuzz covering my scalp like lichen clinging to a senseless stone. The implanted plug was invisible, hidden beneath protective layers of gelstrip bandages. I raised a tentative hand as if to touch the crown of my head, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I felt a strange, unpleasant tingling shoot up through my bowels, and I shuddered. My hand fell away and I looked at the doctor.

“When we take the gelstrips off,” he said, “you’ll notice that you have two plugs, one anterior and the second plug posterior.”

“Two?” I’d never heard of anyone with two plugs before.

“Yes. Dr. Lisan has given you twice the augmentation of a conventional corymbic implantation.”

That much capacity hooked into my brain was like putting a rocket engine on an oxcart; it would never fly. I closed my eyes feeling more than a little frightened. I started murmuring Al-Fatihah, the first surah of the noble Qur’ân, a comforting prayer that always comes to me at times like this. It is the Islamic equivalent of the Christian Lord’s Prayer. Then I opened my eyes and stared at my reflection. I was still afraid, but at least I had made my uncertainty known in heaven, and from here on I’d just accept everything as the will of Allah. “Does that mean I can chip in two different moddies at the same time, and be two people at once?”

Dr. Yeniknani frowned. “No, Mr. Audran, the second plug will accept only software add-ons, not a full personality module. You wouldn’t want to try two modules at once. You might end up with a pair of charred cerebral hemispheres and a backbrain that would be completely useless except as a paperweight. We have given you the augmentation as—” (he almost committed an indiscretion and mentioned a name) “your patron directed. A therapist will instruct you in the proper use of your corymbic implants. How you choose to employ them after you leave the hospital is, of course, your own affair. Just remember that you’re dealing directly with your central nervous system now. It isn’t a matter of taking a few pills and staggering around for a while until you recover your sobriety. If you do something ill-advised with your implants, it may well have permanent effects. Permanent, frightening effects.”

Okay, he had me sold. I did what Papa and everybody else wanted: my brain was wired. Good old Dr. Yeniknani had put the fear into me, though, and I told myself right there in the hospital bed that I’d never promised that I’d use the damn thing. I’d get out of the hospital as soon as I could, go home, forget about the implants, and go about my business as usual. It would be a cold day in Jiddah before I chipped in. Let the plugs sit there for decoration. When it came to Marîd Audran’s subskullular amplification, pal, the batteries had definitely not been included, and I intended to leave it that way. Zinging my little gray cells with chemicals now and then didn’t incapacitate them permanently, but I wasn’t going to sizzle them in any electric frying pan. Only so far can I be pushed, and then my inborn perversity asserts itself.