Existence (38 page)

Phos prices are up and you can trade whatever you find for zep rides or driz, when we get back to our big dome-home.

30.

THE AVENUE WITHIN

The
shunt
caused a strange kind of agony. The worst since the zeppelin explosion left her body a roasted shell.

Even the word itself felt painful, in a way, because it was misleading. Like other journalists of a new generation, Tor disliked the mushy inexactitude of earlier correspondents—their propensity for oversimplification and loosey-juicy metaphor. To be precise then, the “shunt” that doctors and technicians were installing into her brain was not a single tube or wire. It consisted of more than ten thousand separate pathways that started out as tiny holes, drilled into her skull.

From there, minuscule, trail-blazing automatons probed inward, proceeding cautiously. Minimizing damage to fragile axons, dendrites, and neural clusters, where calcium ions surged and electro-chemical potentials flared, all contributing to the vast standing wave of composite human consciousness. Skirting all of that, as much as possible, the microscopic machines instead navigated their way inward via giant astrocyte cells, using them as fatty corridors, while each little crawler tugged a slender fiber behind it, until the final destination—some well-mapped center of communication, vision, or motor control—lay just ahead.

Tor appreciated the lack of pain receptors inside a human brain. Or so assured the doctors, in tinny voices that crackled down the remnants of her auditory system—those portions that had not been seared away by the zeppelin explosion. In fact, the creeping nano-robots should not trigger any conspicuous reaction at all, as they made their way to preplanned positions in the visual cortex, the cerebellum, the anterior cingulate, the left temporal lobe … and a host of other crucial nexi, scattered through Tor’s intricately folded cerebrum. That is, not until they were ready to start their real work—probing and testing, mapping old connections and creating new ones that might—possibly—let her see again, and hear and speak after a fashion.

And perhaps … science willing … even move and walk and …

But it seemed better not to dwell too much on hope. So instead, Tor clinically envisioned what was going on inside her head. Imagination perceived the machine incursion as a benign army of penetrating needles—or invading mites—crawling inexorably inward, forcing their way past all barriers of decency, into a sanctum that had once been ultimately private. Or, as private as anything could be, in this modern world.

Then, upon arriving at its destined station, each little robot began
poking
! Jabbing and zapping the tips of selected dendrites, sometimes achieving nothing, or else triggering instantaneous reactions—a speck of “light” … a twinge of her left big toe … the smell of roasted pine nuts … a sudden hankering to see, once again, her girlhood pet retriever, Daffy.

Reacting with disorientation, even nausea, Tor soon felt warm countercurrents flow—undoubtedly drugs meant to keep her body calm and mind alert—as the doctors began to make demands upon her, asking about each sensorimotor effect.

Irritated by their yattering, for a brief time she considered withholding cooperation. But that impulse didn’t last.
As if they would let me refuse
. Anyway, to do so—in order to tell them off—Tor would have to speak, to make her wishes understood by some means other than tooth-taps in Morse code. Till then, she would be ruled incompetent, a ward of the state and of her company’s insurance plan, lacking any legal right to make them all bug off!

So, Tor clicked her canines and bicuspids, in order to answer simple questions—such as identifying “left” and “right,” “up” and “down,” when bright smudges began to appear, triggered by probes that stimulated different parts of her visual cortex. And soon, what had started as gross blobs began resolving into ever smaller pixel-like points, or slender rays, or slanting bars that crossed from one side to another … as some computer gradually learned the cipher of her own, unique way of seeing.

Everyone’s different, I hear. Our inner images map onto the same reality as other people see—the same streetlights and billboards and such. Each of us claims to perceive identical surroundings. We all call the sky “blue.” And yet, the actual experience of sight—the “qualia”—is said to be peculiar to each person. Our brains are not logically planned. They evolve—every one of us, in that sense, becoming her own species.

Tor realized she was reciting, as if for her vraudience! Parsing clear sentences, even though there was—so far—no subvocal transceiver to convey her words around the world. Or even across the room. It seemed that habit, sometimes a dear friend, was drawing her back into the role of reporter and
raconteur.
And, even without a public to appreciate it—she still deemed it good, a source of pleasure and pride, to shape rounded sentences. To
describe
what was happening—that offered her a glimmering sense of power, amid utter powerlessness.

Part of me survived, whole. Maybe the best part.

Not that Tor was ever entirely alone. There were the human specialists and computer-voiced aidviser programs hired by MediaCorp to take care of their superstar. And, ensuring that she never felt abandoned in the darkness, there was the voice of the mob—the smart-mob she had called up, aboard the
Spirit of Chula Vista.
It never left her side … though individual members came and went. Whenever the hospital allowed it, during frequent breaks and visitor hours, that composite voice returned to keep Tor company, to read to her, or else keep her up with current events.

What would I have done, if there had been deeper brain damage?
she wondered. Injury that prevented the reception and “hearing” of auditory input, for example? The voices in her head kept her sane. They were her link to the real world.

And so, between medical sessions, when her tooth ached from tapping a million yes and no answers—helping identify the scattered and minute segments of her rebuilding brain—she was also fed a steady description of each day’s news. Naturally, that included the planetary fascination with a stone from interstellar space—the Livingstone Object. But there were also reports on a hard-pressed search for the zeppelin saboteurs. Those who murdered poor Warren and left her in this state, encased in a life-sustaining cocoon.

Tor’s direct recollections of that episode were a bit murky—trauma often prevented the firm anchoring of memories of some shattering event. She did remember Warren as a set of clipped impressions … along with images of a
cathedral
filled with tall, colored columns that bulged and throbbed menacingly. No doubt, some of it was just a visual reconstruction, based on things she had been told—about her own valorous actions.

In fact, the earliest clear image to take shape within her visual cortex—the first one consisting of more than simple geometric forms—rippled and finally resolved into a wavering headline from the top-ranked MediaCorp virpaper,
The Guardian.
It showed a grainy, wavering, animated image that had to be a zeppelin, wounded, with a gaping, burned area smoldering along its top. A battered ship, but still proud and eager for the sky. Below, one could make out specks that were evidently passengers, spilling down escape slides and dispersing to safety.

Well, the picture’s not as historically dramatic as the Hindenburg documentary. Still, it’s quite a sight.

There was something else, next to that brief animation. Without eyes to physically turn, it took some effort for Tor to divert her cone of attention toward what lay to the right … and another few seconds of concentration before it clarified and meaning sank in. Then, abruptly, she recognized a picture of her own face.

Or, what used to be my face. I’ll never see it in a mirror again. Nor will anybody else.
Strangely, none of that seemed important, right now. Not compared to something much simpler.

The picture’s caption swam into focus, and then stayed there, clear as day.

H
ERO
W
HO
S
AVED
H
UNDREDS.

A sense of joy filled Tor, briefly.

I can read!

Not all patients who regained vision in this way recovered their full suite of abilities. It was one thing to stimulate an array of pixel dots to form images. It was quite another to connect them to
meaning.
That required countless faculties and crucial subskills, resident in widely dispersed parts of the brain. Weaving together all that vast complexity, artificially, was still far beyond the reach of science. For that, you required an essentially intact brain.

Hence, her feeling of almost overwhelming relief. She had both recognized a face and deciphered a string of letters, first try! Tor laboriously tapped out the news, sharing this milestone.

Even if I get nothing else back, I’ll be able to read books. And I will probably be able to write, too.

I’m not dead. I can contribute.

I’m still worth something.

*   *   *

Then it was back to work. Tor even began to enjoy the process a bit, plumbing intricacies of her own nervous system, helping to guide an inside-out self-examination, unlike anything her ancestors could have imagined, picking at the bits and pieces of a mechanism that nearly everybody took for granted—the most complex machine ever known.

To her surprise, it also meant reliving memories that flared suddenly, as the ignition spark from one probe briefly relit a particular bright autumn day, when she was six years old, sneaking up behind her brother with a water balloon dripping in both hands, only to have her footsteps betrayed by the crackling of dying kudzu leaves—a moment that came rushing back in such rich detail that it felt intensely real. Certainly more real than this muffled, drug-benumbed existence. For a minute or two, it
almost
seemed as if that little girl was the real Tor—or Dorothy Povlovich. Perhaps all she had to do was concentrate on just the right happy thought in order to wake fully into that moment, and leave this nightmare …

… another probe kicked in. Attempting to find one of Tor’s muscle-control centers, it instead set off a sad emotion from adolescence, unassociated with any facts, or events, or images, but glowering like a cloud, still fresh, for a minute or so of passionately miserable regret—before the probe moved on and found its proper target site.

Later, there erupted from some memory cache the sudden recollection of a treasured keepsake that she had lost, long ago, its forgotten location now suddenly rediscovered.
I could tell Mom. She could find the keychain. Forgive that I misplaced it. Only … she wouldn’t care at all. Not with her daughter in a place like this.

It made Tor realize—if this kept up, perhaps she might have visitors. Not to her ravaged body, which could not see or speak, but in
here,
to the mind that lingered on. It should be possible, via virspace, to make a pleasant room, an animated version of herself that could talk, or seem to, driven by her coded thoughts. She still had family, a brother, some friends. And Wesley might even come—though why should he? Tor found it implausible, given how shallow he had been, before that ill-fated zep voyage.

Probably not. Still, she rehearsed some things that she might say—to ease his embarrassment, or to make it easier … or angry words to express her disappointment, if he never came.

Mostly, she thought about such things to help pass time, as the process of establishing the shunt went on and on. It was all so transfixing and boring, so mesmerizing and painful, she almost failed to understand, when the doctors asked for her full attention.

The quality of sound had improved.

Tor, we think your subvocal pathways should work now. Could you try to speak?

She wondered, in the passive stillness.

Speak? What are they talking about? With a mouth that’s wired shut, a lipless, skeletal grimace … how am I supposed to do that?

Of course, subvocal inputs had been standard nearly all her life. You pretend to be
about to
say something. Sensors on the jaw and throat track nerve impulses, turning them into words via the virtual realm, without requiring any labor by the physical larynx, nor by the tongue to fashion phonemes. Most users emitted only faint grunts, and Tor never even did that. But always, there used to be the physical sensations of a real tongue, a real voice box that would
almost start
to make real sounds.

Now, without feedback from those organs, she must imagine, envision, and pretend well enough to cause the same nerves to—

A strange,
blatting
sensation startled Tor. It seemed to reverberate inside her skull, down auditory pathways that she used to associate with ears. Recovering from surprise, she tried again—and was rewarded with another “sound,” this one seeming guttural and low in tone.
They’re taking my efforts and routing them back to me … so I can “hear” my own voice production attempts. So I can start the process of correcting.

After a few more tries, she managed to remember, or else re-create, how to send signals. Commands that used to form the simplest sounds. The crudity felt embarrassing, and she almost stopped. But sheer obstinacy prevailed.
I can do this!

Bit by bit, the sounds improved.

Eventually, she managed to craft a message—

“H-h-hi … d-docsss…”

Naturally, they were lavish with praise and positive reinforcement. Indeed, it felt satisfying to be helpful, to make progress. To be an essential member of a team, once again. All of that—and the prospect of no more Morse tooth-tappings—helped to mollify Tor’s sense of being patronized, patted on the head, with no choice in whatever came next.

Soon, I’ll be able to assert myself. Declare my autonomy. Get judged competent to make decisions. And maybe—if I wish—stop all this.