“I didn’t think the FDA had cleared any nanotech testing on humans yet,” Louise said.
“It hasn’t,” Jim said. “The stupid government would rather make us twiddle our thumbs with animals than give us access to a decent group of subjects. It’s not like it would be hard to find subjects, and everyone knows we won’t be able to make real progress until we do. Yet the government won’t even lift a finger to help. Do you have any idea how many prisoners would jump at the chance to risk one of our tests in exchange for an early release?”
Louise looked furious. “What if the tests go wrong? And even if the tests were to work out, what about the prisoners’ rights? Wouldn’t that kind of offer amount to coercion?”
“Sure,” Jim said, “the tests could go badly. Some of the prisoners might die; I acknowledge that risk. It’s not like we’re talking about the cream of the crop of humanity here, Louise.” He took a sip of his drink. “As for it being coercion, maybe, in some cases, it would be. In most cases, though, I think the prisoners would truly volunteer happily. More importantly, though, so what if it is coercion? For Christ’s sake, they’re prisoners; it’s not like they didn’t earn whatever happens to them.”
I saw the fight brewing and though I was on Louise’s side I didn’t want to sit through it. “Louise, what is your research in?” I asked.
She glared at Jim but took the opportunity to change the subject. “I’m investigating possible uses of a type of math known as negative probabilities—it’s primarily German, never really caught on here—in algorithms to mimic human vision. I’m working with a couple of people in the computer science department and a cognitive scientist in the psych department, and we think we’re onto some pretty exciting stuff. Take our work, add it to some of the recent advances in direct neural feeds, and we might really be able to feed visual pattern data even to people without optic nerves so they could effectively see.”
Jim shook his head. “Why use your giant machines to feed that data down some wire into a dead nerve, when with just a little slack from the government we could learn what it would take to make nano-machines that could rebuild all the missing parts, from the nerve on out? The ability to make that kind of repair doesn’t have to be far off, you know.”
Jim and Louise went back and forth for a while, until Louise said, “We’ve been talking about our work, Matt. What have you been up to? Are you still working with the same people?”
I looked her in the eyes as I spoke, hoping to see . . . I don’t know what, maybe some sign that my having left would be important to her, or that she’d be interested in trying again. “No. I left a couple of years ago. A friend of mine and I opened a gym together, and we do odd jobs to make a little extra money.” I didn’t see whatever it was I was seeking, but I couldn’t tell if that was because it wasn’t there or because I looked away too quickly, embarrassed at lying to them but not willing to tell the truth, not there, not yet.
“That sounds like fun,” she said.
Despite her words, Louise’s body language convinced me she felt I was a total failure. Or maybe it was all inside me, maybe I just felt like a total failure simply because I wouldn’t tell her everything I did. I couldn’t tell the difference, couldn’t separate the words she said from the way I expected her to feel about them.
The lunch ran out of steam quickly after that. Jim asked if he could come by and shoot some hoops and grab a workout some time, and I said sure and gave him my number. Louise said she’d keep in touch, and I knew she wouldn’t.
When I got back to the gym I worked the squat rack until my legs were shaking and I felt the old rush of cleansing anger as all the mess-ups and dumb choices of the past seven years washed away in the purifying red haze. I did set after set until I couldn’t do any more and I felt like I was going to throw up, and then I just sat on the floor, wishing things were different but not having a clue how to make the wishes come true. I’d made the choices I’d made, and I could go only forward, not back. Looking forward, I couldn’t see how or even why Louise and I could be together again, but still I missed her and wondered over and over what my life might have been if I had stayed.