“Those are sensory nerves,” said Michaels eagerly. “Since the brain is ironically insensitive to its own state, we’ve joined Katherine’s peripheral sensory nerves up to electrodes so that she can tell us which sections of her brain are functioning at any given moment. We’ve constructed a feedback system for the brain.”
“You mean this preparation communicates with you?” Philips was genuinely surprised.
“Of course. That’s the beauty of this whole setup. We’ve used the human brain to study itself. I’ll show you.”
Outside of Katherine Collins’ cylinder but in line with her eyes was a unit that resembled a computer terminal. It had a large upright screen and a keyboard, which was electrically attached to a unit within the cylinder as well as to a central computer on the side of the room. Michaels keyed a question into the unit and it flashed onto the screen. How are you feeling, Katherine?
The question vanished and in its place came: Fine, I’m eager to start work. Please stimulate me.
Michaels smiled and looked at Martin. “This girl can’t get enough. That’s why she’s been so good.”
“What did she mean, ‘stimulate me’?”
“We planted an electrode in her pleasure center. That’s how we reward her and encourage her to cooperate. When we stimulate her she has the sensation of one hundred orgasms. It must be sensational because she wants it constantly.”
Michaels typed into the unit: “Only once, Katherine. You must be patient.” Then he pushed a red button on the side of the keyboard. Philips could see Katherine’s body arch slightly and shudder.
“You know,” said Michaels, “it’s been shown now that the reward system of the brain is the most powerful motivating force, even greater than self-preservation. We’ve even found a way to incorporate that principle in our newest processor. It makes the machines function more efficiently.”
“Who ever conceived of all this?” asked Philips not sure he believed everything he was seeing.
“No one person can take credit or blame,” said Michaels. “It all happened in stages. One thing led to another. But the two people most responsible are you and I.”
“Me,” said Martin. He looked like he’d been slapped.
“Yes,” said Michaels. “You know I’ve always been interested in artificial intelligence; that’s why I was interested in working with you initially. The problems you presented about reading X rays crystallized the whole central issue called ‘pattern recognition.’ Humans could recognize patterns, but the most sophisticated computers had inordinate difficulty. By your careful analysis of the methodology you used to evaluate X rays, you and I isolated the logical steps that had to be solved electronically if we were to duplicate your function. It sounds complicated, but it isn’t. We needed to know certain things about how a human brain recognizes familiar objects. I teamed up with some physiologists interested in neuroscience and we initiated a very modest study using radioactive deoxy-glucose, which could be injected into patients who were then subjected to a specific pattern. We used the E charts frequently used by Ophthalmology. The radioactive glucose analog then made microscopic lesions in the subjects’ brains by killing the cells that had been involved in recognizing and associating the E pattern. Then it was just a matter of mapping those lesions to determine how the brain functioned. The technique of selective destruction had been used for research on animal brains for years. The difference was that, using it on humans, we learned so much so quickly that it spurred us on to greater efforts.”
“Why young women?” asked Martin. The nightmare was becoming a reality.
“Purely because of ease. We needed a population of healthy subjects who we could call back whenever we needed them. The Gynecology population suited our purpose. They ask very little about what’s being done to them, and by merely altering the Pap smear report, we could get them to return as often as necessary. My wife has been in charge of the university’s GYN clinic for years. She selected the patients and then injected the radioactive material in their bloodstream when she drew blood for their routine laboratory work. It was very easy.” Martin had a sudden vision of the severe, black-haired woman in the GYN clinic. He had trouble associating her with Michaels, but then he realized that was far more believable than everything else he’d seen.