Electric Forest (21 page)

self-worshiping Narcissus beside the pool.

The only solution, given this batch of dismayingly complicated questions was, or so I assert, to invent a

reasonably plausible set of events, all of which would, in various ways, illuminate those aspects we had to learn about. In fact, to invent a play, then assemble a troupe to act it out from inception to climax. With, in the lead, one person the subject of C.T. who must completely believe what was happening,

and thus demonstrate, unvarnished, the answers to the questions.

The Outer-Worlds have displayed a primitive religious bias against the Conclave norm of pre-birth selection
match. Coupled to unfavorable conditions in many decentralized settlements on these worlds, random
conception has led to a high birth rate of deformed and crippled children. It now appears that it is these
unfortunates, grown to adulthood, who will be, and are, approached by the spy networks, and offered the
liberation of a physically sound body. Not many are likely to refuse. Furthermore, the minds are generally as
crippled as the bodies by the mid-twenties, for they are gracelessly treated by their peers, often actually
attacked, or at best, pilloried in more subtle fashion. Having developed in frustration, jealousy, bitterness and hatred, and given sudden physical liberty, followed by network training and an outlet, these impulses to
destruction could become extraordinarily and potentially ab-human.

Again, our sources of information lead us to the conclusion that in each case, a "mentor" will be used, a
single man or woman of powerful personality and sexual attraction, who will contact the subjects in the
initial stage, and remain with them thereafter in the capacity, literally, of a sort of evil genius, urging them
toward whatever goal the network has allocated them. We do not know positively what shape the training
will take, but we suspect the mentor will pass on to the subject a loathing of whomever he or she is to
supplant. There is also the chance that the mentor will be a specially hand-picked traitor from the Conclave,
someone who, for personal reasons, wishes to harm the simulated victim. The traitor, suffering himself from
a love-hate compulsion toward this victim, will work out his distractions upon the transfer subject who has
come to resemble the victim.

As you see, I describe the basic substance of the Magdala-Claudio-Christophine relationship. Indeed, it was

as close an imitation as one could foster. Claudio's mentoral sadism,

vacillation and neurasthenic insecurity were all extensions

of his position as the hate-love ridden traitor figure. The effect of his moods upon the subject was

startling-masochistic obedience offset by flashes of sinister rebellion. Insanity rubs off, it seems, in such a
dialogue
.

Seduction will also be an accepted ingredient in the relationship. The mentor will seduce the transfer subject
in order to bind the emotional cords more tightly. For obvious reasons, the subject's experience of sex will
be, as a crippled Out-Worlder, impoverished. Other parallels the element of intrigue, (Paul's deal with
Christophine, the recorder in the bracelet, etc.) the penetration of an alien zone, (Two Unit and Marine
Bleu) were introduced as specifically as possible. By use of the disastrous Two Unit C. T. Project, we
were also able to determine the subject's reaction, objectively, to her own condition. Whereas, in the final
sequence, (the revelation of Claudio's capsule) we postulate that we have unearthed the greatest emotive
lever that can be used against a subject. However, these points must so far remain moot.

To turn to the hypnotic technique of the experiment.

The format employed was that of mind-erase, coupled to the restorative of mnemonic recall. This is a

precarious gambit, additionally so because it had perforce to be interrupted, in my case, by a memory

implant the grisly childhood and adult memories of Magdala Cled. (Again, I owe a whole mind to others,
from whom one slip could have meant appalling loss to my mental process.) I was also endowed with
Magdala's hate-potential, her high and constant fear level, her inverted personality and sexually deprived

and wasted spirit. Last, but hardly least, knowledge of Indigo as a colony-development planet, Class Three,
the same as twenty or so Conclave planets on the same rung of the ladder. Doramel and Irlin are
responsible for the background details of Indigo. Again, praise seems inadequate. Uncountable touches
show their creative flair the seven-hundred vehicle car-park space at Sugar Beach for example, and the
dance floor sea-funnel in the restaurant. Or the dreadful cot-

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tene overalls of the City Processory. Everything designed as meticulously as the stage set which it had to
serve for; actual settings, and mentally "recollected" ones, like the M.C. church of Magdala's orphanage.
Crowd management, too, has called forth astonishing deeds. Recorded sound and holostetic effects have helped. About six hundred persons, to be deployed as a cast of thousands, is a stupendous barrier to scale. Paul has handled our "extras" with the finesse of the Tri-V director.

The last step over into the dark was my own brief experience of C.T.-three days in all. For, obviously, in
this instance, the deformed body of Magdala was the constructed doll into which I was C.T. oriented at the
start of the drama, and out of which I e
s
caped
,
not to a construct, but back into my own genuine skin. To
convince me thereafter that the human live body I existed in was an
androidous simulate
was no mean
feat on the part of the Antipholus team. Injections of eliminex, which temporarily takes over from the bodily
functions, were given to me during sleep, along with food concentrates, stimulants and other drugs

necessary to the deception. My drunk at Sugar Beach was induced by a high-alcohol preparation in my
drinks, while other apparently alcoholic beverages were non-intoxicant synthetics. My periodic drugged
sleeps were brought about by narrow-radius odorless gas. This was managed with exceptional finesse on
my return to the vacant bungalow after my sojourn in Two Unit. On this occasion, the gas capsule was in
the floor underlay and cracked when I trod on it. Such gas has no "hangover."

The requirement that I think Claudio had me robot-wired as a relay device was Paul's notion. He theorizes
that such mechanics will be used in the subject transfer bodies. What will occur should the subject learn of
it?

Everything, naturally, in this experiment was used to test a reaction, from my "mentor's" seduction of me to
the sight of Emilion in Two Unit. The ultimate test, demonstrably, was my confrontation with Christophine.

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Christophine deserves her own explanatory paragraphs. To begin with, the team's joint decision that I

become a simulate of my actual true life self. Under mind-erase, theoretically this had no relevance, since
all recollection of my original self was wiped away. (In fact, no names were altered, nor were any unfitting
bells rung.) However, just as the mentor's sadistic tendencies were emphasized deliberately to overbalance
the mentor-subject relationship, so a deeply subconscious link to Christophine my own self was used to
overbalance my reply to her. We calculate that, should there be a meeting between absolute doubles,
(different from twins of any known variety, where minor differences are always present) a psycho-physical
link will evolve. Self-love is neither fantasy nor vulgar joke. The totality of the "I," the inbuilt survival and
self-protective trait, is one of the most unshakable syndromes known to psycho-science. We are, if you like,
pre-programmed to put ourselves first in eight out of ten psycho-analytic situations. Exact doubles, until
now, have never been envisaged. To kill that way is a suicide committed while staring in a mirror. That
Christophine is truly myself, was a bonus turn of the screw on the enigma, which yielded unnerving data.
Even Christophine's betrayal of her did not sufficiently influence Magdala. It took the discovery that
Claudio was one of her own kind (the disclosure of the capsule) to overcome her prejudice. Claudio's death
was used to cement Magdala's emotional reversal, while the revelation of Christophine's villainy was a coda
to the elements of intrigue introduced before.

"Christophine" was, of course, an androidous-robot, controlled and directed from an area half a kilometer
west of the bungalow. Again, an extravagance, but we did not intend to risk a second C.T. subject in a
simulate of
my
body. My false confrontation was sufficient to cope with.

There remains a
resume
of props. To begin, the abundant use of holostets in the drama. There was a

reason for this, the spurious veracity of events to be propped up further by

a medley of external, frankly unreal, symbols. Maybe you know the Cassandran story of the gloie and the
dog. The dog determined to catch the gloie, who regularly stole poultry from the yard. But the gloie always
saw the dog coming and ran. So one night, the dog stuck up three bundles of feathers in the yard, and
dressed himself in a fourth. Along came the gloie and bit the first bunch of feathers no good. Then the
gloie bit the second; same thing. By now the gloie was wise. The feathers didn't move. Just then up strolled
the dog, covered in feathers. 'It moves," said the gloie, "ergo, it's a bird." The gloie accordingly ran at the
dog and that was the end of the gloie. The holostetic trees were sprinkled around the mise
n scene with a
similar subcutaneous intention. Even so, the analogy of the has not passed us by.

Additional props and fakes worth mentioning include the energy charge in Christophine's delectro, which
was obviously rigged, and the "genetic reprint" body of Christophine in the pillar at Claudio's house, which
was the androidous-robot subsequently used as the "real" Christophine in Marine Bleu. Claudio's
non-scientific lecture on C.T. was based on accurate data referring to a simulate construct. The
maintenance capsules and their contents were dummies, (Claudio is decidedly no simulate). Emilion at Two
Unit, both static and active, was a dummy, in the latter case on a Tri-V film. The fish caught at Sugar
Beach was a psycho-symbol of entrapment for Magdala, and was made of Plastase. The spin game in the Casino was rigged to gauge her feelings on winning and also at losing.

Marine Bleu itself is a pre-built station, due to house oceanic biological study-groups. Sugar Beach is a

pre-built hotel owned by the Danzig Corporation. All other goods, from paper books to autobuses, were the
loan of various E.C. government departments.

That hypnotic black-outs and wake-ups, complete with bridge "memories," were used on Magdala to save time, is clear from a close reading of the text. And such a blackout

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was used during C.T. of myself as Magdala from the crippled simulate back to my own body. The eliminex
lozenge which Claudio gave me in my "ugly" phase, was a placebo, designed merely to conceal from me that my current crippled body was the simulate and without bodily functions.

And one intriguing psychological detail. Magdala, as a simulate Christophine, exhibits an exotic variety and
self-aggrandizement amounting to distortion. Not only does she shut out all personalities, other than her own
and Claudio's, Paul when he becomes a menace and Christophine as an extension of self, she reduces the
striking good looks of others to "flavorless" (the actual word "flavorless" registers on the tel-tapes.) As for
the eyes of Val Valary, I would stress that they are of normal size and luster. It appears even our optical
process is colored by mental attitude.

The whole Antipholus Program was prepared, carried through, recorded and assessed by an ingenious and
honorable team. Without this team, the experiment would never have supplied the material which it has. Blow by blow analysis of the content is available via audio, optocon and tel-tape cipher. But for the
purposes of this sonogram, little more has to be said.

Since the completion of the experiment, we are able to
c
ounter the menace from the Outer Worlds with

some confidence. We have now as much
'live" experience of the simulate phenomena as they. And maybe

more.

For example, we know, without a doubt, the answer to that apocalyptic question that the subject can,
given certain circumstances, be primed to kill its own image.

And that is the question upon which all further questions hang.

As subject and protagonist, I can claim small credit, since my burden was unconscious and rested upon the
shoulders of others.