When Gravity Fails

by George Alec Effinger

  Okay, he had me sold. I did what Papa and everybody else wanted: my brain was wired. Good old Dr. Yeniknani had put the fear into me, though, and I told myself right there in the hospital bed that I’d never promised that I’d use the damn thing. I’d get out of the hospital as soon as I could, go home, forget about the implants, and go about my business as usual. It would be a cold day in Jiddah before I chipped in. Let the plugs sit there for decoration. When it came to Marîd Audran’s subskullular amplification, pal, the batteries had definitely not been included, and I intended to leave it that way. Zinging my little gray cells with chemicals now and then didn’t incapacitate them permanently, but I wasn’t going to sizzle them in any electric frying pan. Only so far can I be pushed, and then my inborn perversity asserts itself.

  “So,” said Dr. Yeniknani more encouragingly, “with that mandatory warning out of the way, I suppose you’re looking forward to hearing about what your improved mind and body are capable of doing for you.”

  “You bet,” I said, without enthusiasm.

  “What do you know about the activities of the brain and the nervous system?”

  I laughed. “About as much as any hustler from the Budayeen who can barely read and write his name. I know that the brain is in the head, I’ve heard that it’s a bad idea to let some thug spill it on the sidewalk. Beyond that, I don’t know much.” I did, truthfully, know some more, but I always hold something in reserve. It’s a good policy to be a little quicker, a little stronger, and a little smarter than everybody thinks you are.

  “Well, then, the posterior corymbic implant is completely conventional. It will enable you to chip in a personality module. You know that the medical profession is not unanimous in its sanction of these modules. Some of our colleagues feel that the potential for abuse far outweighs the benefits. Those benefits, actually, were very limited at first; the modules were produced on a limited basis as therapeutic aids for patients with certain severe neurological disturbances. However, the modules have been taken over by the popular media and are used for purposes grossly different from those their inventors originally intended.” He shrugged again. “It’s too late to do anything about that now, and those few who are outraged and would prohibit the modules’ use can barely get an audience for their views. So you will have access to the entire range of personality modules for sale to the public, modules that are extremely serviceable and can save a good deal of drudgery as well as those that many people might find offensive.” I thought immediately of Honey Pílar. “You can walk into any shop and become Salâh ad-Dîn, a genuine hero, the great sultan who drove out the Crusaders; or become the mythical Sultan Shahryar, and entertain yourself with the beautiful storyteller and the entire Thousand Nights and a Night. Your posterior implant can also accommodate up to six software add-ons.”

  “That’s just the same kind of implant all my friends have,” I said. “What about the experimental advantages you mentioned? How dangerous will they be to chip in?”

  The doctor smiled briefly. “That’s difficult to say, Mr. Audran; they are, after all, experimental. They’ve been tested on many animal subjects and just a few human volunteers. The results have been satisfactory, but not unanimously. A lot will depend on you, if Allah pleases. Let me explain by first describing the sort of controls we’re talking about. Personality modules alter your consciousness, and make you believe temporarily that you are someone else. The add-ons feed directly into your short-term memory, and give you an instant knowledge of any subject; that vanishes when you remove the chip. The add-ons you can use with the anterior implant affect several other, more specialized diencephalic structures.” He took a black felt-tip pen and sketched a rough map of the brain. “First, we have inserted an extremely thin silver, plastic-sheathed wire into your thalamus. The wire is less than a thousandth of an inch in diameter, too delicate to be manipulated by hand. This wire will connect your reticular system to a unique add-on we will provide you; it will enable you to damp out the neural network that catalogs sensory detail. If, for instance, it is vital for you to concentrate, you may choose to block out disturbing visual, audible, tactile, and other signals.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I can see how that may come in handy,” I said.

  Dr. Yeniknani smiled. “It is only a tenth part of what we have given you—there are other wires, to other areas. Near the thalamus, in the center of your brain, is the hypothalamus. This organ is small, but it has many varied and vital functions. You will be able to control, augment, or override most of them. For example, you may decide to ignore hunger, if you wish; using the proper add-on, you will feel no hunger at all, however long you fast. You will have the same control over thirst and the sensation of pain. You may consciously regulate your body temperature, blood pressure, and the state of sexual arousal. Perhaps most usefully, you will be able to suppress fatigue.”

  I just sat and looked at him, wide-eyed, as if he had unwrapped for me a fabulous treasure or a real wishing-lamp. But Dr. Yeniknani was no enslaved djinn. What he offered was not magic, but as far as I was concerned it might as well have been: I didn’t even know if I entirely believed him, except that I tended to believe fierce Turks in positions of authority. I humor them, at least, so I let him continue.

  “You will find it simpler to learn new skills and information. Of course, you will have electronic add-ons to feed these things into your short-term memory; but if you want to transfer them permanently to your long-term memory, your hippocampus and other associated areas have been circuited for this. If you need to, you may alter your circadian and lunar clocks. You’ll be able to fall asleep when you wish, and awaken automatically according to the chips you’re using. The circuit to your pituitary will give you indirect control over your other endocrines, such as your thyroid and adrenal glands. Your therapist will go into more detail about just how you can take advantage of these functions. As you see, you may devote total attention to your tasks, without needing to interrupt them quite so often for the normal bodily necessities. Now, of course, one can’t go indefinitely without sleep or taking in water or emptying one’s bladder; but if you choose, you may dismiss the insistent and increasingly unpleasant warning signs.”

  “My patron doesn’t want me distracted,” I said dryly.

  Dr. Yeniknani sighed. “No, he doesn’t. Not by anything.”

  “Is there anything more?”

  He chewed his lip for a moment. “Yes, but your therapist will cover all of it, and we’ll give you the usual brochures and booklets. I may say that you’ll be able to control your limbic system, which influences your emotions. That is one of Dr. Lisân’s new developments.”

  “I’ll be able to choose my feelings? Like I was choosing what clothes to wear?”

  “To some extent. Also, in wiring these areas of the brain, we were often able to affect more than one function at one location. For instance, as a positive bonus, your system will be able to burn alcohol more efficiently, quicker than the standard ounce an hour. If you choose.” He gave me a brief, knowing look, because of course a good Muslim does not drink alcohol; he must have been aware that I wasn’t the most devout person in the city. Yet the subject was still a delicate one between two relative strangers.

  “My patron will be pleased by that, too, I’m sure. Fine. I can’t wait. I’ll be a force for good among the unrighteous and corrupt.”

  “Inshallah,” said the doctor. “As God wills.”

  “Praise Allah,” I said, humbled by his honest faith.

  “There is still one thing more, and then I wish to give you a personal word, a little of my own philosophy. The first thing is that as you must know, the brain—the hypothalamus, actually—has a pleasure center that can be electrically stimulated.”

  I took a deep breath. “Yes, I’ve heard about that. The effect is supposed to be absolutely overwhelming.”

  “Animals and people who have leads into that area and are permitted to stimulate the pleasure center often forget everything else�
�food, water, every other need and drive. They may continue exciting the pleasure center to the point of death.” His eyes narrowed. “Your pleasure center has not been wired. Your patron felt it would have been too great a temptation for you, and you have more to accomplish than spending the rest of your life in some dream heaven.”

  I didn’t know if I felt glad about that news or not. I didn’t want to waste away as the result of some never-ending mental orgasm; but if the choice was between that or going up against two savage, mad assassins, I think, in a moment of weakness, I might pick exquisite pleasure that didn’t fade or pall. It might take a little getting used to, but I’m sure I would get the hang of it.

  “Near the pleasure center,” said Dr. Yeniknani, “there is an area that causes rage and ferociously aggressive behavior. It is also a punishment center. When it is stimulated, subjects experience torment as great as the ecstasy of the pleasure center. This area was wired. Your sponsor felt that this might prove useful in your undertaking for him, and it gives him a measure of influence over you.” He said this in a clearly disapproving tone of voice. I wasn’t crazy about the news, either. “If you choose to use it to your advantage, you can become a raging, unstoppable creature of destruction.” He stopped, evidently not liking how Friedlander Bey had exploited the neurosurgical art.

  “My . . . patron gave this all a lot of thought, didn’t he?” I said sardonically.

  “Yes, I suppose he did. And so should you.” Then the doctor did an unusual thing: he reached over and put his hand on my arm; it was a sudden change in the formal atmosphere of our talk. “Mr. Audran,” he said solemnly, looking directly into my eyes, “I have a rather good idea of why you had this surgery.”

  “Uh huh,” I said, curious, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “In the name of the Prophet, may peace be on his name and blessings, you need not fear death.”

  That rocked me. “Well,” I said, “I don’t think about it very much, I guess. Anyway, the implants aren’t that dangerous, are they? I admit that I was afraid they’d roast my wits if something went wrong, but I didn’t think they could kill me.”

  “No, you don’t understand. When you leave the hospital, when you are in that situation for which you underwent this augmentation, you need not be afraid. The great English shâ’ir, Wilyam al-Shaykh Sebîr, in his splendid play, King Henry the Fourth, Part II, says, ‘We owe God a death . . . and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next.’ So you see, death comes to us all. Death is inescapable. Death is desirable as our passage to paradise, may Allah be praised. So do what you must, Mr. Audran, and do not be hindered by an undue fear of death in your search for justice.”

  Wonderful: my doctor was some kind of Sufi mystic or something. I just stared at him, unable to think of a damn thing to say. He squeezed my arm and stood up. “With your permission,” he said.

  I gestured vaguely. “May your day be prosperous,” I said.

  “Peace be on you.”

  “And on you be peace,” I replied. Then Dr. Yeniknani left my room. Jo-Mama would get a big kick out of this story. I couldn’t wait to hear the way she’d tell it.

  Just after the doctor went out, the young male nurse returned with an injection. “Oh,” I said, starting to tell him that earlier I hadn’t meant that I wanted a shot; I had only wanted to ask him a few questions.

  “Roll over,” said the man briskly. “Which side?”

  I jiggled a little in bed, feeling the soreness in each hip, deciding that both were pretty painful. “Can you give it to me someplace else? My arm?”

  “Can’t give it to you in your arm. I can give it to you in your leg, though.” He pulled back the sheet, swabbed the front of my thigh about halfway down, toward the knee, and jabbed me. He gave the leg another quick swipe with the gauze, capped the syringe, and turned away without a word. I wasn’t one of his favorite patients, I could see that.

  I wanted to say something to him, to let him know that I wasn’t the self-indulgent, vice-ridden, swinish person he thought I was. Before I could speak a word, though, before he’d even reached the door to my room, my head began to swirl and I was sinking down into the familiar warm embrace of numbness. My last thought, before I lost consciousness, was that I had never had so much fun in my life.

  13

  I did not expect to have many visitors while I was in the hospital. I’d told everyone that I appreciated their concern but that it was no big deal, and that I’d rather be left in peace until I felt better. The response I usually got, carefully considered and tactfully phrased, was that nobody was planning to visit me, anyway. I said, “Good.” The real reason I didn’t want people coming to look at me was that I could imagine the aftereffects of major brain surgery. The visitors sit on the foot of your bed, you know, and tell you how great you look, and how quickly you’ll feel all better, and how everybody misses you, and—if you can’t fall asleep fast enough—all about their old operations. I didn’t need any of that. I wanted to be left alone to enjoy the final, straggling, time-released molecules of etorphin planted in a bubble in my brain. Sure, I was prepared to play a stoic and courageous sufferer for a few minutes every day, but I didn’t have to. My friends were as good as their word: I didn’t have a single, goddamn visitor, not until the last day, just before I was discharged. All that time, no one came to see me, no one even called or sent a card or a crummy plant. Believe me, I’ve got all that written down in my book of memories.

  I saw Dr. Yeniknani every day, and he made sure to point out at least once each visit that there were worse things to fear than death. He kept dwelling on it; he was the most morbid doctor I’ve ever known. His attempt to calm my fearful spirit had absolutely the wrong effect. He should have stuck with his professional resources: pills. They—I mean the kind I got in the hospital, made by real pharmaceutical houses and all—are very dependable and can make me forget about death and suffering and anything else just like that.

  So as the next few days passed, I realized that I had a clear idea of how vital my well-being was to the tranquility of the Budayeen: I could have died and been buried inside a brand-new mosque in Mecca or some Egyptian pyramid thrown together in my honor, and nobody would even know about it. Some friends! The question arises: Why did I even entertain the notion of sticking my own neck out for their well-being? I asked myself that over and over, and the answer was always: Because who else did I have? Triste, non? The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.

  The end of Ramadân came, and the festival that marks the close of the holy month. I was sorry I was still in the hospital, because the festival, Îd el-Fitr, is one of my favorite times of the year. I always celebrate the end of the fast with towers of ataïf, pancakes dipped in syrup and sprinkled with orange-blossom water, layered with heavy cream, and covered with chopped almonds. Instead, this year I took some farewell shots of Sonneine, while some religious authority in the city was declaring that he’d sighted the new crescent moon, the new month had begun, and life could now return to normal.

  I went to sleep. I woke up early the next morning, when the blood nurse came around for his daily libation. Everyone else’s life may have gone back to normal, but mine was permanently doglegged in a direction I could not yet imagine. My loins were girded, and now I was needed on the field of battle. Unfurl the banners, O my sons, we will come down like a wolf on the fold. I come not to send peace, but a sword.

  Breakfast came and went. We had our little bath. I called for a shot of Sonneine; I always liked to take one after all the heavy work of the morning was finished, while I had a couple of hours before lunch. A drifty little nap, then a tray of food: good stuffed grape leaves; hamûd; skewered kofta on rice, perfumed with onions, coriander, and allspice. Prayer is better than sleep, and food is better than drugs . . . sometimes. After lunch, another shot and a second nap. I was awakened by Ali, the older, disapproving nurse. He shook my shoulder. “Mr.
Audran,” he murmured.

  Oh no, I thought, they want more blood. I tried to force myself back to sleep.

  “You have a visitor, Mr. Audran.”

  “A visitor?” Surely there had been some mistake. After all, I was dead, laid to rest on some mountaintop. All I had to do now was wait for the grave robbers. Could it be that they were here already? I didn’t even feel stiff, yet. They wouldn’t even let me get cold in the tomb, the bastards. Ramses II was shown more respect, I’ll bet. Haroun al-Raschîd. Prince Saalih ibn Abdul-Wahîd ibn Saud. Everybody but me. I struggled up to a sitting position.

  “O clever one, you are looking well.” Hassan’s fat face was resting in its shabby business smile, the unctuous look that even the stupidest tourist could spot as too deceitful by half.

  “It is as God pleases,” I said groggily.

  “Yes, praise Allah. Very soon you will be wholly recovered, inshallah.”

  I didn’t bother to respond. I was just glad he wasn’t sitting on the foot of my bed.

  “You must know, my nephew, that the entire Budayeen is desolate without your presence to light our weary lives.”

  “So I understand,” I said. “From the flood of cards and letters. From the crowds of friends that mob the hospital corridors day and night, anxious to see me or just hear word of my condition. From all your many little thoughtfulnesses that have made my stay here bearable. I cannot thank you enough.”

  “No thanks are necessary—”

  “—for a duty. I know, Hassan. Anything else?”