looking at her in the full three dimensions, probably recording her and
analyzing her every movement with computer psych analyzers. She had never felt
so exposed or humiliated in her entire life, and she hated them for it and hated
her father for ordering this. Just a laboratory animal, that’s all she was to
him. The imperial ducks were the most pampered and protected of pets—until it
came time for the formal dinner. The difference, the only difference, here was
that the ducks didn’t—couldn’t—know their fate as she did. It was a difference
that would be of no relevance to her father, she knew.
She was fed in a little while. The starkness and absolute soundproofing of the
cell had already made her lose all track of time. They used two female matrons,
one to serve and the other to stand guard with a nasty-looking baton that, Song
Ching was warned, gave a nasty but temporary shock and left no marks. The meal
was a large bowl of extremely gummy white rice topped with some light soy sauce
and a few lumps that pretended to be vegetables. She was not given chopsticks,
another indignity, and had to eat with her hands. She ate very little of the
first meal, and it was then taken away, and she was left alone for what seemed
like an eternity. Within a very few feedings, though, she was eating quite well
and even anticipating the next meal, not only because she felt as if she were
starving but also because no matter how nasty and terse the guards were, it was
some interruption, some human company.
After a while she had no idea how long she had been there or whether or not her
system was being disrupted by irregular feedings, but after a while the cell and
the routine became her only reality; her old life and family already seemed far
away.
When the door opened the next time, she thought it was for another meal, which
seemed overdue. She was starved, but it was not for feeding. They stood her up,
gave her a hospital gown to wear, then placed the handcuffs and ankle restraints
on her and led her out. She still felt distant, in a daze, not really able to do
more than go along with her captors.
She was given a thorough physical exam by both human doctors and machines, and
she understood now why she’d left a meal out. They injected tracers, then placed
her in small chambers for analysis. Then it was back to the cell and mealtime.
They repeated everything several times, at least twice after a meal to compare
some results with others, but it was always back to the cell.
Finally satisfied, they took her to a small room and had her lie on what seemed
to be a giant bed of cotton. Her head was covered with some kind of scanner, a
top was brought down, and then they began doing odd things. Her nipples and
other arousal spots were gently stimulated. Various areas received pressure,
some uncomfortably, some not, and at one point she felt as if someone had stuck
a pin in her behind. Later, humans would be there with some of the same
unpleasant stimuli, and she resisted a bit and tried to avoid the needles, the
pressure pads, and the rest. Finally she was bathed and then taken down to the
place she dreaded most, which was simply referred to as the surgery.
When she and her guards arrived, though, the previous project or whatever it was
was still going on, and they had to stand and watch. There was not a lot to see;
two young boys, it appeared, were strapped on cots while technicians monitored
them. Song Ching looked around and found much familiar in the surgery. There was
medical equipment, of course, but the computer interfaces were the same as
Center standards. Center stage, as it were, was a set of the latest mindprint
machines. If I could get loose in here, even for five minutes, I might escape
this thing, she thought wistfully.
If I may humbly ask, she whispered to the chief guard, who are those boys,
and what have they done?
The guard surprised her by answering. They are the children of a tech cult. The
only survivors. They are being mined of all they know, and then they will be
sent to Melchior. Be happy, little flower, that you are not in their place
instead of your own.
Melchior. She had heard of it in her father’s business. The prison from which
none returned, under the control not of Master System but of the Earth Council,
which included her father. Rebels, deviants, and political prisoners were sent
there, it was said, for unauthorized medical experimentation. A chamber of
horrors, she knew, but a chamber of horrors not on Earth but in space, inside
one of the asteroids. In space…
We can’t wait all day, one of her guards snapped. Let’s just log her in and
leave her. These doctors always keep their own schedules.
The leader nodded, and she was taken to a comfortable chair, not unlike one in a
barbershop, and her regular restraints removed. They then logged her in to the
security computer.
Subject Priority one nine seven seven, the guard said to the computer board.
Log in and secure in Chair Two subject only to Doctor Wang’s or the master
security code.
Acknowledged, the computer responded in a crisp, human-sounding, but
expressionless voice. Clamps came out from the chair as the guards held her in
position, securing her arms, legs, chest, and neck.
The doctor will be in to see you when he’s ready, little flower, the guard
told her. Just sit and relax and watch the show. And with that, they left her.
She turned her head as much as she could to watch the technicians across the
room with the two boys. She wished they would go before the doctor got here.
This was perhaps the only chance she would ever have, and she was anxious not to
miss it, although she had no real plan.
A small, thin man with a gray wispy goatee entered, stopped, and looked at the
technicians. Leave that for now. They aren’t going anywhere, he told them. I
have much more important work to do. They can be read out on automatic, and I’ll
call you when it’s done.
As you wish, honorable doctor, responded one technician. After checking their
boards, they left as well.
Wang came over to her and gave her a friendly smile. Hello, there. I realize
that this has been most distressing to you, but it should be very many more days
until you are rid of us. I am Doctor Wang, Chief of Psychosurgery here. It is an
honor to work on someone like you.
She stared at him. He was treating this as if it were a skinned knee or a broken
arm. You are my murderer. I do not find it at all amusing, she said coldly.
No, my dear, I am no murderer, although you are not the first to make that sort
of comment. I’m no butcher like those two will face on Melchior. I am an artist,
you might say. I take people like yourself who are a danger to themselves and
their families, and I create out of them people who will live full, happy,
productive lives. My media are your body and your mind, but what is created will
come from you, not from me. I only give some instructions here and there and
nudge it in a positive direction.
I am not insane! You are not curing someone who is sick! You are destroying
someone who is well and far more productive than your results could ever be.
Well, I don’t know about that. Insanity, you see, has always been what the
ruling culture said it was. In many places advocating that the Earth is round or
that it moves about the sun would be absolute evidence of insanity. To be sane
is not to be correct but to fit in with one’s dominant cultural patterns. You
are not insane by Center’s lights, but you no longer can be allowed here. You
are going into areas dangerous to everyone, and you cannot possibly be stopped
without treatment like this, anyway, which would make you valueless here. Thus,
you must be rendered sane according to the culture of the people.
He was behind her now, adjusting equipment that came down on either side of her
head and touched both her arms.
We could have the computers do all of this, with no human intervention, Wang
told her, but then it would be destruction, since everyone would come out
according to a set of machine statistics. We cannot, however, involve the Master
System here until quite late in the exercise since, quite frankly, there is too
much in your head that we would rather not have Master System know about.
Nothing in here, for example, is directly connected to Master System. It gets
the results we wish to report, not what really happens. I’m certain you know
that game by now.
Yes, she responded sourly. No direct connection. Everything was perfect except
she couldn’t do a thing about it!
All right, now let’s take a good look at you. There was a click, and in front
of her formed a hologram of an amorphous mass.
That is the part of the brain we deal with first, he told her. That’s you
there. Let me make some adjustments.
The image changed as parts of it were eliminated and smaller parts enlarged
until there was just a skeletal outline of a single small area in orange
outline. In the bottom were a tremendous number of holes, a few of which were
filled with solids of many colors in the shapes of jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Countless thousands of neural receptors are inside your brain, he told her,
all of which are now being monitored by the computer. We are visualizing only a
cross section of the basics, but what we see here can tell us what is happening
elsewhere. For example, you have high hormonal levels, but your psychosexual
level is quite low, meaning that you don’t think of physical sex as very
important to you. Now, that energy has to go somewhere, so it goes into
aggression, a drive to work or achieve, that sort of thing. It’s all
interrelated, and it shows up quite clearly on my monitor here. You—your
conscious self— are actually the result of matching your biochemistry to your
memories and experiences. We are far less free than we believe. The brain’s
biochemistry creates much of our personality, our limitations, our interests,
and our inclinations. Before we can ever deal with memory, we must deal with the
biochemistry, those receptors. To do it any other way would not give us you to
compare things with. It would be hit or miss, trial and error.
She stared at the hologram in horrified fascination. You are saying we are
nothing but machines. That what I see is my Master System, my core program,
which was determined by my genes.
In a way, yes. However, all biological creatures have a multiplicity of sensors
and an even more complex set of social and cultural interactions. Key to it all
are the receptors for pain and pleasure. In normal cases we would not have to
eliminate your expertise in computers, for example. By reorienting, by blocking
certain receptors from that work stimulus, and creating unpleasant sensations
when it is invoked by the brain, while giving a different activity, such as
weaving, an interrelationship with the old pleasure center, we can create
someone who knows all about computers but is not the slightest bit interested in
them and finds them obnoxious but to whom sitting at a loom would be pure
delight. In ancient times some of this could be forced by deprivation and
conditioning, but it was brutal, unsure, and sloppy at best. This cuts out the
middleman, as it were, and ensures permanency and perfection.
This—this is what you do?
Primarily. Everything is subject to the cranial biochemistry. We can make you
cry and feel miserable when you are happy and laugh hysterically at the funeral
of your best friend. Even humor and tragedy are found here. It is like opium.
The experience is so pleasurable that nothing else is possible except sustaining
the experience. Opium drops pleasure modules in the receptors. It is, however, a
foreign substance and is eventually expelled as such by the body, but the
experience lingers so much that you wish only to find more. That is addiction.