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by Mars |
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Softcore
In the beginning, as with most such diseases, there
were only scattered, anecdotal reports.
I recall seeing one in the Annals and another in the Journal
of Applied Medicine. Each
described a young and otherwise healthy patient whose life force gradually
and for no apparent reason began to weaken.
On the surface nothing appeared different, and yet beneath there
was a steady and unequivocal recession of vitality.
The beat of the heart became more distant, the brain waves flatter,
the neuromuscular potentials less distinct. It was as though a blanket
had been placed around these patients, dampening their vital signs.
One investigatgor likened it to a shell (Parkinson: personal communication)
which over time grew in thickness to envelope whatever living material
was left inside. Some called the shell prison; others, protection. These
were the metaphors of our ignorance.
The early reports emphasized the extreme lassitude and inanitation
with which these patients were afflicted. Initially, they were thought
to be incapable of performing the simplest tasks of daily life, but
late,r it was founded that they were merely uninterested. Such matters
as speaking, dressing and washing seemed beyond their awareness or concern.
It was felt by some that they were suffering from a deep depression
or some othe rsevere psychological aberration, butthis view was discounted
by extensive psychiatric evaluation, the results of which were entirely
normal. They were not mentally ill, it was clear. And yet there was
somethign that made them different, that progressively encased their
spirits and caused them to recede further and further from humanity.
It has since become apparent that many others—thousands, millions—are
affected. In most, the blunting of life force remains at an early stage.
With effort they are capable of carrying on the routine demands of life.
It is true that relationships have tended to suffer, and the birth rate
has dropped precipitously. But so, also, has the crime rate, as these
people have become less motivated to interact in any way—violent
or otherwise—with others.
Surprisingly, they vast majority of these lesser advanced cases remain
quite able to work. Their jobs (data entry, information retrieval, assembly,
technoservice) are perfectly suited to their condition. Indeed, it has
recently been suggested that these patients' lack of motivation is somehow
causally related to the boredom inherent in their work. Provocative
as this argument appears, it has yet to be substantiated. Statistical
analyses are pending.
As a physician, I have been both disturbed and intrigued by this
new illness. Like many others I have given thought to its origin and
cause. When a thing is unknown, theories abound, and up until recently
my own were no less imaginative than others. But three days ago I made
a startling discovery.
It was occasioned, as is so much in the life of a doctor, by the
visit of a patient. She did not come on her own, but was brought by
one of her coworkers, who had noted a progressive change in her behavior
over the past several months. Whereas before she had been lively and
vivacious, now she seemed, in her friend's words, blunted.
"Like she doesn't care," she said. "Or doesn't seem
to care."
I nodded thoughtfully and turned to the patient. She was young and
had all the physical attributes that pass for beauty. And yet, as I
looked at her, I could not help but think that this was a person who
had been sucked dry of life. Her face was flat, her eyes dull, her hair
drab and lusterless. When I spoke to her, she answered in a voice so
weak that I thought she might have a disease of the larynx. Her words
were muffled, her sentences short and barely intelligible. I found myself
having to strain not merely to hear but to understand.
During the interview I recorded our words directly into the PC I
kept on my desk. Once or twice she turned in its direction, stirred,
it seemed, by the faint clicking of the keys. It occurred to me that
they might hold for her some meaning, but if they did, it was one that
did not penetrate very deeply, for in a few moments the pasty and indifferent
look returned to her face. Partway through the history I replaced the
ontologic disc with a fresh one, carelessly leaving the filled O-disc
on the desktop. When I had finished, I asked her to have a seat on the
examining table. I had to repeat the request a second time before she
stood up. She crossed the room mutely, her movement, like her facial
expression, spare and detached. There seemed to be a palpable disassembling
between inner and outer life.
As I expected, the examination was unremarkable. The only positive
finding, hardly one of note, was a small bald patch of skin on the scalp.
It was partially obscured by her greasy hair, and I parted the strands
to look closer. Covering the pale spot was a fine silvery scale. It
seemed nothing more than a mild dermititis, but my habits are such that
I routinely took a scraping. As I was leaving the room to examine it
under the microscope, I clumsily caught my foot in a fray of the carpet.
The glass slide slipped from my hand, spilling skin and solvent on the
O-disc I had left on the desk. I swore under my breath and wiped the
disc clean, hoping its valuable data had not been damaged. I took another
scraping, being more careful this time.
The bald patch turned out to be what I thought it was, and I prescribed
an anti-inflammatory cream. I
gave my instructions and asked if she understood. Ever so slowly she turned her head, gazing
at me as though from a tremendous distance. I had the odd sensation
of seeing her through many layers of hazy glass.
It was an unsettling experience.At length, unable to arouse her further, I called
her friend in. She asked what
I had found. When I told her,
she sighed.
"I was hoping it was something else."
I nodded. Simple depression,
even a brain tumor seemed preferable.
"Don't you have something to give her, Doctor? Anything..."
"I'm sorry. We have
no treatment for this. We don't
even know the cause."
"Then I just have to wait?" She was angry. "And
watch while she fades?"
"Don't lose hope," I said lamely. "No one knows what the future might bring."
She led her friend, who seemed both unconcerned and uninvolved, out,
and I was left to my own thoughts.
They were angry too, frustrated and sad. A disease that struck indiscriminately, for which we knew neither
cause nor treatment: it was
enough to make a man cry.
Fortunately, she was my last patient of the day. I had no great desire to see others. As I prepared to leave, I noticed the O-disc
on the desk. It was still somewhat
moist, and in an act more of desperation than inspiration I put it in
the office incubator in the hopes that it might dry overnight. Then I went home.
The next morning I took it out and put it in the PC's drive. When I booted the computer, nothing happened,
and I cursed myself for not having made a backup copy. In the middle of trying to get something—anything—
to appear on the screen, I was called away to the hospital. One of my older patients, an alcoholic, had
swallowed a boxful of alcohol swabs. It was more than an hour before
I got back to the office, and I hurried into my white coat to begin
seeing patients. Then I caught sight of the computer screen.
It was full of writing, most of it complex program commands and equations.
The lines were scrolling up and off the screen at a rapid rate.
I somehow managed to get the printer working, and I tore off
the first page when it was completed.
It was covered with formulae, which I recognized (after considerable
scrutiny) to be the mathematical descriptions of biological phenomena. I understood only the rudiments, but here, in numerical symbology
was hormonal secretion, blood flow through the heart, neuronal activity,
ion fluxes across membranes. This
was information that had been under study for decades in laboratories
throughout the world. As far
as I could tell, what I held in my hand represented the most sophisticated
and accurate descriptions of such processes yet.
How had they entered my pitiful little desktop computer? I thought immediately of the disc but was reluctant
to remove it for fear that I would be unable to retrieve its information.
So instead, I let it run, watching in awe as the secret equations
of the human body scrolled endlessly up the screen.
I didn't want to miss anything, but by then my waiting room was full
of patients. Begrudgingly I
saw them, using another room so that I could hurry back between visits
to see what new data had appeared.
It seemed inexhaustible, and when lunchtime came I called out
for a sandwich in order to remain with my machine. Just
as I took the first bite, the scrolling stopped.
I caught my breath. A
moment later words appeared on the screen.
* I'm here. I'm not dead.
*
I stared, afraid to chew.
* I'm alive. My name is Susan
Kunitz. I'm twenty-four. My parents live in Milwaukee, and I have a
brother in the Navy. I don't
understand what is happening. Why
does everyone seem so far away? *
I said something out loud, swallowed the bite of sandwich and repeated
it.
* Try to communicate. *
I spoke again.
* Try harder. *
Then I understood. I typed
my name on the keyboard. I told
her I was a doctor. I asked
questions.
She knew everything there seemed to know about Susan Kunitz, sharing
intimate memories as well as deep felt emotions. What she described had far more detail and
texture that I could ever have put on the disc myself. And yet when it came to the source of this
knowledge, its nature and location, she had no understanding at all.
Nor did I, though it occurred to me that there must be some connection
with her disease. At length
I suggested we terminate our interaction.
I was growing tired, but also I wanted to check the disc. She agreed with little hesitation. This surprised me, for I would have expected
her to be concerned, as I was, that something might happen to the disc. I realize now that on some level she probably
knew that it was only a replica of her true self.
After taking care to copy its contents, I gingerly removed the O-disc
from its slot. I held it to
the light. It looked no different
than others I had seen, but under the microscope I saw what the naked
eye could not. A thin layer of cells covered the disc. I recalled my spill the day before. A thought occurred to me. With growing excitement I rushed across the
street to the hospital's electron microscopy lab.
Two hours later I had it. In
the nucleus of each cell lay the tiny metallic particles of the disc.
They had inserted themselves into the chromosomal material, not
in some random array but in clear-cut patterns.
In each cell it was the same:
bits of computer memory linked to strands of DNA, hardware to
software, machine life to human.
Over the next few days I called in others with Susan Kunitz's disease,
and in each the results were the same. Bits of computer memory studded their DNA. A shell of information, of bioelectromagnetic
data surrounded the soft core of their being, and their body processes
scrolled graphically before my eyes.
They were like snails, I thought, bizarre, mutant snails without
even a hole through which to poke their heads.
I pitied them enormously, until it occurred to me that perhaps
such pity was premature. Maybe
these shell people, melding as they did computer life to human, represented
a new stage of man. On the surface
they seemed so miserable and inept, but perhaps this was only the biased
view of a lesser form of life. Perhaps
it is we and not they who suffer, we who sit in the shadow of their
evolution. It was an unnerving thought: we now the chimps of the planet. I am not sure that it is true, but neither
am I sure that it is not. A
part of me, a frightened and courageous part, hopes to find out.
by Michael Blumlein
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