John Saul - Brain Child

“Then Alex was right,” he said, his voice unsteady. “When he told me last night that he thought maybe he hadn’t really survived the operation — that maybe he really was dead — he was right.”

Torres hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Certainly, in one sense, at least, Alex is dead. His body isn’t dead, and his intellect isn’t dead, but almost certainly, his personality is dead.”

“No!” Ellen was on her feet, and she took a step toward Torres’s desk. “You said he was all right! You said he was getting better!”

“And part of him is,” Torres replied. “Physically and mentally, he’s been getting better every day.”

“But there’s more,” Ellen protested. “You know there’s more. He … he’s starting to remember things—”

“Which is exactly why I wanted him to come back here,” Torres said smoothly. Until this moment, he had told them the truth.

Now the lies would begin.

“He’s remembering things that he couldn’t possibly remember at all. Some of them are things that happened — if they happened at all — long before he was born.”

“But he is remembering things,” Ellen insisted.

Torres only shook his head. “No, he’s not,” he said flatly. “Please listen to me, Ellen. It’s very important that you understand what I’m about to tell you.” Ellen looked uncertain, then lowered herself back into her chair. “There are some things you still aren’t accepting, and although I know it’s difficult, you have to accept them. First, Alex has no memories of what happened before his accident. All he knows is what was programmed into the memory banks I installed during the operation, together with whatever experiences he’s had since then. Basically, when he woke up he had a certain amount of data that were readily accessible to him. Vocabulary, recognition of certain images — that sort of thing. Since then, he has been taking in data and processing it at the rate of a very large computer. Which is why,” he went on, turning to Marsh, “he appears to have the intelligence of a genius.” Torres picked up the little block of lucite and began toying with it. “What he actually has is total recall of everything he’s come in contact with since the operation, plus the ability to do calculations in his head at an astonishing rate, with total accuracy, plus the very human ability to reason. Whether that makes him a genius, I don’t know. Frankly, what Alex is or is not is for other people to decide, not me.

“But he has limitations, as well. The most obvious one is his lack of emotional response.” For the first time that afternoon, Torres picked up his pipe, and began stuffing it with tobacco. “We know a great deal about emotions. We even know from which areas of the brain certain of them spring. Indeed, we can create some of them by stimulating certain areas of the brain. But in the end, they aren’t anything I’ve been able to write programs for, which is why Alex is totally lacking them. And that,” he added, almost incidentally, “brings us back to the reason why I’ve told you all this at all.” As he lit his pipe, his eyes met Marsh’s, and held them steadily. “If you accept the truth of what I’ve been telling you, then I think you’ll agree that Alex is quite incapable of murder.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see that at all,” Marsh replied. “From what you’ve said, it would seem to me that Alex would make the most ideal killer in the world, since he has no feelings.”

“And he would,” Torres agreed. “Except that murder is not part of his programming, and he’s only capable of doing what he’s programmed to do. Murder, as I’m sure you’re aware, is most often motivated by emotions. Anger, jealousy, fear — any number of things. But they are all things of which Alex has no knowledge or experience. He’s aware that emotions exist, but he’s never experienced them. And without emotions, he would never find himself prey to the urge to kill.”

“Unless,” Marsh replied, “he were programmed to kill.”

“Exactly. But even then, he would analyze the order, and unless the killing made intellectual sense to him, he would refuse the order.”

Marsh tried to digest Torres’s words, but found himself unable to. His mind was too filled with conflicting emotions and thoughts. He felt a numbness of the spirit that he abstractedly identified as shock. And why not? he thought. He’s dead. My son is dead, and yet he’s not. He’s somewhere right now, walking and talking and thinking, while I sit here being told that he doesn’t really exist at all, that he’s nothing more than … He rejected the word that came to mind, then accepted it: nothing more than some kind of a machine. His eyes moved to Ellen, and he could see that she, too, was struggling with her emotions. He got to his feet and went to her, kneeling by her chair.

“He’s dead, sweetheart,” he whispered softly.

“No,” Ellen moaned, burying her face in her hands as her body was finally racked by the sobs she had been holding back so long. “No, Marsh, he can’t be dead. He can’t be.…” He put his arms around her and held her close, gently stroking her hair. When he spoke again, it was to Raymond Torres, and his words were choked with anger and grief.

“Why?” he asked. “Why did you do this to us?”

“Because you asked me to,” Torres replied. “You asked me to save his life, any way I could, and that’s what I did, to the best of my ability.” Then he sighed heavily, and carefully placed his pipe back on his desk. “But I did it for myself, too,” he said. “I won’t deny that. I had the technology, and I had the skill.” His eyes met Marsh’s. “Let me ask you something. If you had been in my position, would you have done what I did?”

Marsh was silent for a full minute, and he knew that Torres had asked a question for which he had no answer. When he at last spoke, his voice reflected nothing except the exhaustion he was feeling. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I could say that I wouldn’t have, but I don’t know.” Shakily he rose to his feet, but kept his hand protectively on Ellen’s shoulder. “What do we do now?”

“Find Alex,” Torres replied. “We have to find him, and get him back here. Something happened yesterday, and I don’t know what effect it might have had on Alex. There was … well, there was an error in the lab, and Alex underwent some tests without anesthesia.” Briefly he described the tests, and what Alex must have experienced. “He didn’t show any effects afterward, which indicates that there was no damage done, but I’d like to be sure. And there’s still the problem of the memories he thinks he’s having.”

Marsh stiffened as he suddenly realized that for all his carefully worded explanations, Torres was still holding something back. “But he is having them,” he said. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know,” Torres admitted. “And that’s why I want him back here. Somewhere in his memory banks there is an error, and that error has to be corrected. What seems to be happening is that Alex is becoming increasingly involved in finding the source of those memories. There is no source,” Torres said, and paused as his words penetrated the Lonsdales like daggers of ice. “When he discovers that, I’m not sure what might happen to him.”

Marsh’s voice hardened once more. “It sounds to me, Dr. Torres, as if you’re implying that Alex might go insane. If that has indeed happened, isn’t it possible that you’re entirely wrong, and Alex could, after all, have committed murder?”

“No,” Torres insisted. “The word doesn’t apply. Computers don’t go insane. But they do stop functioning.”

“A systems crash, I believe they call it,” Marsh said coldly, and Torres nodded. “And in Alex’s case, may I assume that would be fatal?”