Элизабет Бир - Machine

It buzzed over, excited and seemingly happy to see me, isinglass wings a blur. The cheerful blue light on its gravity control belt blinked, though the hab wasn’t producing much more than a third of a g. It was, I supposed, a sensible precaution, the way things had been going around here.

I reflexively put a hand on my own belt.

Friend Dr. Jens! The wind of its hovering stirred my hair. It tilted from side to side, like a bird cocking its head first one way, then the other, in order to examine me. I’m pleased to see you appearing more well!

“I’m pleased to be feeling better.” Self-restraint is not my most defining characteristic, but I managed to hold in the next thing that wanted to burst from my tongue, which was What are you doing here?

After a moment’s consideration, I went with a less potentially offensive construction. “What brings you to the prison ward?”

It zipped back and then forward on a horizontal plane, ending with its bulbous eyes and insectile mouthparts only centimeters from my nose. Long experience lent me the composure to stand still and not take it amiss: this was Rilriltok expressing nearly unbearable excitement. Nevertheless, my amygdala was momentarily convinced that I was about to be eaten by a giant bug. It responded by dumping a lot of adrenaline into my system.

Whatever. It seemed likely I might need the stuff soon, so uncomfortable as it was, I decided to hang on to it.

I’ve been doing brain scans! Brain scans, and going over some other things! Look!

Almost before I could accept the connection, it was downloading a giant bolus of information into my fox. Quarantine protocols lifted or no, this seemed like dubious practice under the current situation, but it was too late for me to complain about hygiene now.

And then I was too busy being interested in the data it was showing me to worry.

I had firewalls in place anyway. I was sure it would be fine.

“What’s that?”

I was experiencing Calliope Jones’s post-repair brain. I’d seen scans before, but the earlier ones had not been resolved to this level of detail. I wasn’t a neurologist or a cryonicist, but even a trauma doc like me could distinguish the pattern of remaining damage against healthy tissue. It was slowly being repaired, but the healthy tissue would take time to grow.

The injured portions of her brain looked like empty space, like a lightless nebula occluding the stars behind.

I wondered if the brain damage accounted for Calliope’s apparently questionable executive function. “I’m impressed by how well she’s compensated.”

It’s not just that, said Rilriltok. Look here.

I followed its attention as it guided me through the scan. Some big centralized injuries, fluid-filled sinuses that shouldn’t be there. Well, not that big—but generally speaking any hole in your brain is surplus to requirements.

I think she had a fox, friend Jens. I think she had it removed surgically .

I stared at Rilriltok through the images projected on the screen of my mind. I probably looked like I’d been electrically stunned. “She’s a modern person.”

She pretty much has to be. You realize, I assume, that this means that what she believes… well, it could have been managed. She isn’t necessarily lying, or hypocritical. Her breakdown and actions since the escape… Somebody might have managed her memories to make that all seem reasonable.

Of course it did. I’d speculated as much. Being confronted with the proof was still a little shattering.

Throughout history, certain doctors have done terrible things. It’s still never nice to be reminded.

But! Had she volunteered for this?

Still want to talk to her?

“Even more than before.”

I went in to see Calliope alone. I had some vague hope, I suppose, that she might be feeling grateful after I pried her out of her can opener carapace. At least she looked up when I came in. Her eyes focused, alert and oriented, and she looked wary but didn’t otherwise seem unhappy with my presence.

Unfortunately, it had been necessary to restrain her to the bed. Soft restraints, and she had some latitude of movement. But not enough to make herself really comfortable.

“Hi.” I sat down in the chair beside her.

At my conversational tone, the wariness deepened. “Hello, Dr. Jens.”

“Are you going to make me sorry I rescued you?”

She flinched. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We didn’t plan for anyone to come to harm.”

“ ‘We’?”

“It was just supposed to be an inconvenience. A… what’s the opposite of a diversion? When you want to draw attention to something?”

“You overestimated the bystanders,” I said coldly. “And underestimated the element of surprise. You knew where you were coming? You made this plan? You intentionally fooled us into believing you were a crew member on Big Rock Candy Mountain ?”

Her face clouded. Not with anger, but with confusion. Cognitive load. “I—”

The lost look she gave me reminded me of Helen. Or of somebody with brain damage struggling to make sense of inputs that did not match the filters their damaged comprehension supplied.

People in those circumstances make up stories. Conflations. They build narratives to make things make sense. To make whatever they’re thinking of doing seem normal.

They must be perfectly normal. The circumstances are what’s odd.

Her silence lengthened. “What is your name?” I asked, very gently.

“Calliope Anne Jones.”

“All right then.” I caught myself steepling my fingers and made myself stop. Open body language. No evidence that I didn’t believe her. “When and where were you born?”

She gave me all the right answers, all the same answers. Until I got to, “You said ‘we’ earlier. Who is ‘we,’ in this context?”

Then she froze. I saw her eyes seek upward, looking for the answer—or perhaps constructing it. I wouldn’t be able to tell unless I looked at her brain function. Actually, I wouldn’t be able to tell at all: neurology, as I mentioned, isn’t my specialty.

“What do you know?” she asked sharply. “You’re the one walking around with a box in your head. How many people are in there? How do you even know what you think?”

Something I had said had put her on the defensive, provoking this attack. It was sideways and irrational, referred aggression. But revealing nonetheless.

I said, “Rightminding, appropriately used, makes me more myself. Not somebody else. Me, but less reactive. Less… whatever I was programmed to be and more what I choose to be.” Then I said, “I don’t think it was used appropriately on you.”

“I…”

I waited. She strained against her bonds, as if she wanted to put her hand against her temple. As if her head hurt. As if it would not stop hurting. She looked down at her hands and laughed. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

I reached out, gently, giving her time to refuse the contact or consent to it, and I stroked her hair. She leaned into the touch with a sigh that was half whimper.

It’s not so much that doctors who develop crushes on their patients are idiots. It’s natural to form an emotional bond with people when you are in a caregiving relationship with them. The ones who act on it are idiots, and unethical to boot.

But I wasn’t going to act on it.

I know I should have tuned it out. Shut it down. Turned off the hormonal responses that filled me up with feel-good neurotransmitters. But it had been so long since I was attracted to anyone that I desperately wanted to feel it for a little while. And it might help me work with her.