by Jim Stark
"Go ahead,” said Lilly. She wasn't speaking as an agent of the WDA, but as a person. Victor sensed that, and needed to sense it. He stood, painfully, and swung his chair a bit so he would more directly face his guest. Then he sat down again, wincing from the pain.
"So my feelings are controlled by my instinct,” he continued after a few deep breaths, “except for the big decisions. It's like ... the SuperNet, I suppose. Technology that few people understand delivers its ready-made pictures and sounds to your eyes and ears, but you decide what to watch, or whether to watch. As a Human Three, I personally decide what emotional ... program I'm on. I decide that consciously, then I just relax and let my instinct do its thing ... but in the ballpark of my choosing.
"You feel fear towards me, as you did towards Lars. It's completely unwarranted, not based on any external reality, and it is therefore insulting and stupid ... insulting to me ... and insulting to Lars ... and accidentally-step-off-a-tall-building dumb. All that searching you're experiencing, whether you think it's psychological or theological or philosophical or whatever, is simply the acting out of a biological function. All animals have internal systems that are designed to make them, or us, feel bad ... like pain, hunger, thirst, sexual frustration or need, loneliness, jealousy, anger, territoriality, aggressiveness, confusion, possessiveness, terror ... and there are similar systems—or maybe you want to see it as the flip side of the same system—designed to get rid of those bad feelings; which is nice in and of itself, but they also go beyond that and actually reward adaptive behaviors, as defined by the instinct, with good feelings ... like a sense of vigor, the taste of food, the slaking of thirst, the feeling of being loved, or the feeling of being possessed, orgasm, a sense of empowerment or security ... not to mention various ‘highs’ we can experience, the kind of feelings that are also achievable through recreational drug use, albeit with the risk of side-effects ... I could go on."
"All ... built in?” asked Lilly.
"You tell me,” said Victor.
"Yes."
"Right.” He didn't rub her face in it by pointing out that she already knew the answer, as proven by the fact that her LieDeck hadn't beeped. He felt like doing so, but he didn't do it. He was, after all, a Human Three ... however reluctantly, at times.
"Okay ... go on.” Lilly noticed that Victor was irritated by her question, and also that he was getting tired. He's on a roll, she thought, so I'll just let him go on with it. She also had an internal problem. She didn't want to dwell on it, but she had to wonder if she was listening to Victor for her own reasons, or so that Control could listen in, and realize that she was doing her job, and doing it well. He's so ... pompous, she felt ... meaning Victor, not Control.
"Every religion is nothing more than a biological solution to an internal bad feeling,” Victor continued. “Religions purport to make life into more than it is, and towards that end, they try to convert death from a bad thing into a good thing ... and then they pass the collection plate, of course ... can't forget that part. As you know—at least I assume you know—the instinct is called the ‘instinct to survive.’ By tricks of the mind, non-rational tricks, religions find all kinds of ways to convince us that we will indeed survive death. They deliberately lead us to a state of denial, and then charge us more than lawyers for the favor. Psychology purports to do a similar thing, on a lesser level, using tricks of the mind to move us from feeling bad to feeling good—although I must admit that at some times and in some circumstances, it really is preferable to feel good than to be rational.
"In point of fact, fear is designed into our bodies—by whom just doesn't matter, and by what process doesn't matter either. The ‘by whom’ question leads us to a ‘god’ answer and the ‘by what process’ question leads us to the concept of ‘evolution,’ with a small ‘e'. The purpose of feeling fear is, of course, to increase our chances of survival in nature. No fear; not a big chance we'll survive."
"How so?” asked Lilly. She was enjoying the old man's performance as much as she was intrigued by the words that tumbled out of his mouth. He's so damned confident of his views, she thought. Too sure of himself, she felt. Felt, she reviewed. Well, he did have a couple of decades to get his ideas organized in his mind, and he—
"Nature is hostile,” snapped Victor, “and in nature, as non-rational animals like your squirrel learn to their peril, too little fear is a dangerous thing. Two deer gambol in the bush; a twig snaps; one deer feels ‘Christ, that could be a predator,’ and it bolts; the other deer feels, ‘oh, it's just a twig snapping,’ and so it continues to graze. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I'd venture to guess, the braver deer is right, but the hundredth time, the wus is right. The cocky deer gets to be the predator's supper, and the paranoid deer lives to pass on its genes to his or her offspring. It's not just the survival of the fittest; it's like survival of the scaredest! The dynamics of natural selection reinforce maximal irrational fear, so after hundreds of thousands of generations of that process, it's small wonder that we feel fear even when the circumstances are non-threatening. Our bodies ‘think'—and I use the term rather loosely, even wrongly—our bodies ‘think’ that we need to be insanely paranoid in order to survive. You see the problem, I'm sure!
"We feel fear simply because we're designed to feel it. No matter what their overall circumstances, people will find something external to blame their fears on, and if there's nothing convenient in your environment, you just ... make something up—Jews, blacks, devils, aliens, whatever. That's why every kid in the world knows that there's a monster under his bed, or her bed. And we also feel a generalized fear of feeling bad, much of the time, and we naturally try to avoid it. And nothing feels as bad as death, or so we assume. Even though we know virtually nothing about death, on the emotional level, it represents our ultimate failure to survive. That's the problem with life ... you'll never get out of it alive! Human Twos can't cope with their own mortality. They think there has to be some way around such a terrible plan. Human Threes simply acknowledge the reality of death, and work with it. But ... we do filter the gas before burning it."
"You—uh—lost me there,” said Lilly.
"It's a matter of who gets the first kick at the cat,” said Victor, with a smirk. “You can't filter gasoline after it's been combusted, and the whole purpose would be lost by then anyway. But you can filter it before putting it in the tank, and if you don't, it could well have impurities in it that will eventually foul up your engine. Human Threes have the same active instinct as Human Twos, Lilly, but before we turn it loose, we engage the brain to put things in context, then we let ourselves feel whatever comes up. And if what comes up feels unpleasant or is counter-productive, then we try to start over ... or we go to another Human Three and get some guidance or help.
"In your case, you opted for sex with that young fellow before you got your intellect in gear, and then you had second thoughts—well, they were first thoughts, actually, since the ‘opting’ part was just feelings, just instinct, but you know what I mean—so then you had these quote-unquote ‘second thoughts,’ and did a sort of pre-coital interruptus ... and now you're worried about consequences.” He was going to say “right?” at the end of that sentence, but decided not to—he was right, whether Lilly knew that or acknowledged that fact or not ... so why bother asking? “So—where was I? Oh yeah. So ... if you feel weird about having sexual feelings towards—uh—"
"Lars,” said Lily.
"—towards Lars,” continued Victor, “then don't. There's no reason why you should. If he acts weird towards you, or has unwarranted expectations about your future behavior, then he's just being Human Two. He's a Human Three, you told me, eh?” Lilly nodded. “He'll straighten himself out as soon as you point that out to him—if indeed you have to. As for Michael ... well, you could always take one of those Ski-doos down at the dock and go sort yourself out. Becky told me he's over at his cabin right over there, across the lake here, in total seclusion—no MIU, no Sniffer even.” As fo
r you, he thought but didn't say out loud, it seems I'm your best friend now ... which is something that you really must work on, my dear ... there are so many fish in the sea, surely, and some of my best friends are fish ... and ... and ... Victor sometimes just let his mind run, with no direction, just to see where it went. Still, she does strike me as a bit of a cold fish, so—
Lilly didn't know that ... about Michael. She wasn't completely sure if she wanted to know that, but now that she did, she wanted more than anything to thank Victor and run madly for the snowmobile. But that would be ... what? she asked herself. Human Three? And ... it would also be somewhat stupid, she said to herself as she checked out the lake-sized ice floe between herself and Michael. There were puddles of water all over it, and she felt sure it would be much wiser to use a hovercraft ... or not go.
"Look,” said Victor, emphatically, “if you tell Michael and he gets all jealous, well ... that's a Human Two response, but it's his problem, not yours. Even if you'd had sex with that Lars fellow, you wouldn't have taken anything away from Michael, or betrayed him. And besides, he and Becky could well be having sex right now if he wasn't sulking over at his cabin. She's been Human Three for quite a while, and she has several other lovers, but she and Michael still enjoy their sex life a lot. Becky and I got to chatting a bit on the Net, about Venice mostly—and about her own transition. But she also told me that stuff about her and Michael, and a Human Three would never lie."
Lilly was hit hard. Did Michael lie? He wouldn't ... surely not to me! What Becky had said to Victor, she must have meant before Michael and I got together—although Michael never complained about the sex with his wife, the way most gloomy husbands do. That ... creepy bastard! How could he ... At that instant, she realized she was about to “believe” something, something that might not even be true. Damn, she thought. His ideas seem to glue themselves to my frontal lobe ... meaning Victor's ideas, not Michael's.
She noticed that Victor had stopped talking. He was staring at her, and she just didn't know what to say next. With effort, she turned off the “jealousy” valve that Victor had opened. In a way, she wanted to dial up Victor-E's CQ service, or maybe the CQ service of another clan, to get a notion of where her consciousness was now, what her starting point would be. But that was a curious desire, and one she felt herself resisting ... fearing, she realized. Normals never did that, never feared having their consciousness quotients evaluated ... unless of course they discovered that they had unintentionally entered what Victor (and all Evolutionaries) called “transition.” That could be scary!
Victor leaned forward and looked at the lanky body of the WDA agent. He wanted to do what Lars had recently tried to do—draw her into a big emotion-wrestling frenzy and diddle her dizzy. But his reasons had nothing to do with the person of Lilly Petrosian, so he put those feelings aside ... and the images that went with them, which was admittedly more difficult.
"It is reversible,” he said in a near-whisper.
"What?"
"Human Three Consciousness!” he said, as if it should have been rather obvious what he was referring to.
"It ... is?” asked Lilly. “Then how come...?"
The answer to that was well known to her. Anyone could unlearn things—arithmetic, even one's command of the spoken word, with great effort and a lot of time. I ... I could unlearn my Human Two Consciousness, I suppose, but ... that would mean becoming a ... a Human One again ... a mere animal, so ... what would be the point?
Victor's theories were not open to “belief,” like some goofy religion or the latest not-in-the-least-scientific psychobabble. They were fundamental science, much like the laws of physics governing the boiling point of water or that reliable mathematical equation for the calculation of the circumference of a circle. The few wrinkles in his theory of human consciousness evolution were matters for consideration and interpretation, or individual choice, but the basics were simply not up for grabs. “Better a person should deny the law of gravity,” as the transition-assist guides were taught to emphasize to their clients.
"So ... what happens now?” asked Lilly, not altogether sure that she understood the question herself, or whether she really wanted an answer.
Victor leaned back in his chair and thought about how to respond as he studied the blue-white ceiling high above the lodge. “For you, personally ... well ... who's to say? You'll make your own decision, and I won't be here to see the results, and ... I was going to say I didn't care, but that was a feeling talking—self-pity, actually. The truth is ... I do care, but I won't let myself care too much, at least not quite enough to let myself follow through on this stuff with you. There's ... lots of other Human Threes who can guide you better than me, or as well. For me, I'm in a hurry to use the last small portion of my life to good effect, and as you know, the WDA just declared economic war on Evolution. My least favorite thing in all of life ... is fighting! But I've decided to bump up my schedule in order to engage in that war, personally, on behalf of Evolution. The WDA...?” Victor paused briefly, and reminded himself forcefully that his new plan would proceed even if he were to die right this minute. “The WDA?” he restarted. “Well, you can stick a fork in it."
"A ... fork!?” asked Lilly, with a curl of amusement creeping onto her lips and into the muscles around her eyes.
"It's done like dinner,” said Victor blandly. “So ... ergo ... stick a fork in it."
Lilly's mind couldn't take Victor seriously, but in her feelings ... well, she had a lot of work to do on her feelings no matter which way she turned. Still, Victor Helliwell had just announced the imminent demise of the world body, whose power was ... total, she had always believed. “You're going to put the WDA ... out of business?” she asked.
"Well, the last time we had this conversation, I was thinking seriously about a nice, civil competition. Now it's different. The WDA started a war, set up a win-lose situation, and ... well, Evolution will fight back,” he admitted with seeming indifference. “And if Evolutionaries use all the weapons at their disposal, they'll win, which means the WDA will lose, and as a result, the WDA must at least be restructured, reformed, demilitarized, democratized, all that good stuff. You won't recognize it in a year or two ... plus, if my guess is right, you won't be working for it anyway, at least not until it's been completely revamped, and probably not even then!"
Lilly almost laughed ... almost, but not quite. “Would you care to tell me how you—uh—seem to know all this?"
"No,” he said. “You're Human Two, Lilly, and you're still technically WDA, and your boss is listening to us through your Sniffer. If you were Human Three, I'd take you for a short walk in the woods and tell you all about it, no problem, but you're not ... so I won't. However, I will be telling Evolution how to win this war tomorrow, and they will likely announce it publicly ... they should anyway. Come to think of it, I will insist that they do, so everybody will know pretty soon anyway, including you and ... plus YOU, you sniveling cowards!” he shouted in the very specific direction of Lilly's stomach, at the navel area, where her Sniffer lay.
"For now,” said Victor as he stood up awkwardly, “I have work I must do. I wish you a good day, and a jolly good life too. Please come and see me again if you enter transition formally, Lilly. But if you don't, well ... I'm just too busy for Human Two bullshit."
Lilly remembered how she had promised Victor that she'd let herself care about him, but at this moment, she wanted to kick his shins more than part amicably. She followed him back into the living room, and wondered if she should just leave. “I ... still have to—uh—LieDeck-verify you,” she said.
"No, actually, you don't!” announced Victor as he closed the door to the deck and turned to face this tall woman. “First, you did me over the Net a week ago, I think it was. But that's not the reason why you don't have to LV me now or ever again. You quit your job when you went into transition, Lilly, which you effectively did when you asked me many of the right questions with your Sniffer active. You knew they w
ere listening. And besides, I'm Human Three! I don't lie, and I don't break the law, and—"
"Beep,” went the LieDeck that was now in Lilly's vest pocket.
"Well, I don't break the law except insofar as I refuse to be LVed by the WDA any more,” said Victor, and this time there was no beep. “And being a Human Three, there's just no need to LV me,” he added. He watched her struggle for his meaning. “There's no need to LieDeck-verify any confirmed Human Three,” he explained. “Good luck to you,” he said as he marched into his bedroom and slammed the door.
Lilly knew that Victor, by virtue of his refusal to be LieDeck-verified, had just lost all his Net privileges for the rest of his life. Not that he cares; he's dying anyway. “Victor!” she hollered at the door. “I didn't quit the WDA and I do have the right to LV anyone at any time if I think there could be a problem. I have that discretionary power, and ... you knew that.” She wasn't sure that he knew that, but what the hell ... she let her accusation stand.
Victor let his caftan fall to the floor, stepped out of it, and stood with his back against the door. He'd become chilled from the excursion to the deck, and his arms were covered in goose bumps. His head was starting to throb as well, and he worried that the amount of time he could last between pain pills was shrinking dramatically.
He lifted one foot out of the garment, and used the other foot to fling it to the side of the room. “Lilly,” he said loudly, “come in here a minute.” He went over to his dresser and took a piece of paper and a pen. He didn't bother to turn around when he heard the door unlatch, and he didn't care whether it would bother his “guest” that he was buck-naked. He penned a short note in tiny script, and wrote “Eat this” at the bottom. Then he tore off the corner of the paper that he had written on and turned towards Lilly Petrosian. She kept her eyes on his eyes—and off his elf-like body—as he walked over to her and handed her the note. Victor then turned around and lifted up the long white sheet of hair.