You have a lot to explain, Bower, as I said yesterday. I (re)wrote above some of what you erased just to show you I haven't forgotten it. I may have little memory of my life on Earth, but I'm not amnesiac about all that has passed through my mind since I first woke in this place.
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9.
My mind is so overflowing with questions for you, Bower, that the memory you are waiting for me to hand over to you is less pressing than the earlier ones—for all that it makes me sad and anxious. I don't think I could concentrate enough on it to actually write it down at this moment. But I'm willing to try—if you answer—to my satisfaction—just one question. Why have you been calling me a “capturer of memories"? Answer this, Bower, and I will write as you wish.
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10.
I don't know how you accomplished it, Bower, but the pressure to get rid of the memory by telling it is nearly unbearable. Are you satisfied?
She had been sunk into the deepest comfort of sleep. But the voice of her mother's rage ripped into that comfort, yanking it away from her just as violently as her mother's hands yanked the covers off the bed. “Up, up, both of you!” the voice ordered. She pried her gummy eyelids open and blinked against the light, so blinding, so naked. It must, she thought, be the middle of the night. Light in the middle of the night was unnatural; always it brought terror. She staggered from her bed and stood shivering as she watched her mother pull Jimmy out of his bed by the ear. Before he had even gotten his eyes open he was wailing, afraid of that voice, shrinking from the light and the cold. Her throat tightened. Please don't let him wet himself. Please, please, please. He's so little. He's so easily hurt.
The two of them stood huddled close but not touching as their mother started in. “After working ten hours in that hellhole, up to my elbows in blood and guts, bent over the line ‘til my back is about to break, my fingers numb to the bone, all I can think about is getting my hands free so I can scratch an itch on my face and getting into a hot tub to relax my shoulders and get the stench of that crap out of my nose. That's all I'm thinking about for ten solid hours, getting home and getting into the goddam tub. I even had a picture of it in my mind. It was all that kept me going. A picture of the bathroom as it was when I left for my shift. I remember what it was. Do you?” Their mother's eyes were like icy blue marbles, and her lips were trembling.
"I'm sorry, Mommy,” Jimmy began to sob. “I'm sorry we disappointed you."
Her whole body went rigid. Why couldn't he understand that that was only going to make her madder? He did it every time. And it never worked, never. She tried to put the sound of his fear away from her, tried not to hear it just as she tried hard not to stare at the wooden spoon in her mother's hand.
Her mother's face got angrier. “You, Ginny. You remember what the tub looked like when I left for work, don't you?"
"Yes, Mommy,” she whispered. “It was clean. Really really clean."
"And what does it look like now? Hmm?"
She bit her lip to try to stop it from trembling.
"It's filthy, is what it is,” her mother shouted. “It's all slimy and covered with white flakes and hair and god knows what else."
Jimmy began to howl.
"Shut it, little mister!” her mother snapped. “Or I'll give you something to cry about!"
Jimmy put his hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes tight.
"Do you little monsters think that I want to have to clean the goddam bathtub the first thing when I get home? Especially when my back is fucking killing me? Which of you was the last person to use the tub?” Their mother's glare turned on Jimmy. “It was you, wasn't it. You're such a goddam little pig.” The large hand holding the wooden spoon flew out, and Jimmy slammed back into the door. He ducked and held his hands before his face. “I'm sorry, Mommy!” he shrieked. “I'm really really really sorry. I promise I won't do it again!"
Jimmy never understood about rinsing out the tub. She had told him and told him and told him, but he always had such a good time playing in the tub that when he got out he couldn't believe it mattered. She always had to nag him and nag him and not let him go to bed before doing it. But last night she hadn't. She'd told him once and then thought to herself that that should have been enough, she'd thought why should she always have to tell him something he already knew? She always rinsed out the tub after her baths, whether she went first or second. Why couldn't he just do it. She knew she should have kept after him. She knew it would make her mother mad when she saw all that yucky stuff in the tub. Only she'd thought it would be in the morning, when they were already at school, and that Jimmy would get yelled at and maybe have to do extra chores, but not in this kind of trouble.
"It's my fault, Mommy,” she said. She braced herself for the blow she knew would be coming. “I used it last. I was the one who forgot."
The expected blow came, smack against her nose, first making her nose smart and then making her whole face ache as though she'd been crying for hours. “Don't lie to me! You think I don't have eyes in my head? There's red hair in that tub. Do you have red hair, little girl? And do you ever use Fun Time Bubbles in your bath?” She glared at Jimmy. “I told you and I told you and I told you. Didn't I tell you, little mister? When you use stuff that leaves scum in the tub, you rinse it out afterwards. Didn't I tell you? It's easy enough to do if you do it right away. But no. You're such a little pig, you. You couldn't be bothered. Self-centered little monster."
"Please, Mommy, he's too little. I should have remembered, when he took his bath second, to make him rinse it out afterwards. It's my fault, Mommy. I forgot. ‘Cause I was watching my show."
Her mother's eyes overflowed with tears. “Both of you selfish little monsters. I work in that hellhole ten hours a night. And all I ask is to have a hot bath when I get home. That's all I ask. By itself, it doesn't sound like much, does it?"
She saw that Jimmy had begun sucking his thumb and hoped her mother didn't notice.
Her mother shrieked. “Answer me, you little monsters!” And her mother darted forward and yanked on Jimmy's arm to pull his thumb out of his mouth, and Jimmy went flying out into the hall, where he bounced off the wall before falling onto the rug.
Her mother yelled at them some more and slapped Jimmy to make him stop crying. Afterwards, they both had spankings: Jimmy for the tub, and she for lying and not supervising Jimmy. They crouched on their beds, their pajama bottoms pulled down, and got the wooden spoon on their bare, exposed butts. First Jimmy, then her. And they all cried: Jimmy, she, and their mother, too. All crying and hurting. And then she and Jimmy had to go into the bathroom, where Jimmy cleaned the tub and she supervised.
And then it was over and she and Jimmy could go back to bed and could have the light off and the covers pulled up under their chins.
She hated spankings, really really hated them. One thing she knew. When she grew up and had kids, she would never treat them that way. No matter how bad they were, she wouldn't hit them or spank them or pull their hair. Mommy, she thought, must not realize just how mean she was being, and that being mean was wrong.
She listened to the water running into the tub for her mother's bath and went to sleep with tears still seeping from her eyes and her fingers jammed into her mouth. She knew it could have been worse—a lot worse. She was crying, she thought, because she was glad it was over and in the morning there'd be pancakes with syrup and sausage for breakfast. Her mother always made that kind of breakfast the morning after spankings.
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11.
Enough, Bower. I've had enough. Human beings may have always enslaved and mistreated one another, but it has never been the case that either the enslaved or the enslavers saw the condition of enslavement as so natural a human state as to be a matter for pride. Humans have always seen enslavement as a deprivation of human dignity, and any dignity accruing to the enslaved achieved in spite of enslavement. Those who h
ave insisted on enslaving others always claimed that those they enslaved weren't human at all. I'm telling you this, Bower, because you seem not to understand that whatever use you are making of me is bound to be met with resistance. Humans may live in enslavement, but every fiber of their being revolts against doing so.
Other species—perhaps your species, Bower?—may find enslavement so natural that there is neither shame nor degradation in it for the enslaved. That is hard for a human to imagine, but I suppose it might be possible. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because you know of cases of humans living mistreated or enslaved it is “natural."
Humans have always done things that aren't natural and sometimes claimed that they are. But then it is quintessentially human that little of human development has been in the least bit “natural.” Hence, our history of pain.
Do you understand what I'm saying, Bower?
Silence, eh. Just silence?
Well, think about it, Bower. Seriously, carefully, think about it.
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12.
In one thing, at least, you were correct, Bower. Remember your speaking of my “reconstructing a general memory” through the process of “capturing fragments of memory"? There's so much in my mind now to think about. For I “know” now about evil. And pain. And desire. And love. And joy. And, yes, oppression ... I have lost that blankness of mind I felt after I'd surrendered the immediacy of my first memory to you. I feel, Bower. Not, perhaps, what I would be feeling if mine were the consciousness of a whole lifetime of memories. (That, it seems, is beyond me.) But I am feeling as a response to my situation, isolated in this room with only machinery surrounding me. I know now that this is not a situation humans thrive in. I have “reconstructed” that much. Like enslavement, total solitude is not “natural” to the human being. Extreme things, only, can come from it. I hope you're thinking about all this, Bower. Because I certainly am.
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13.
You haven't answered my question, Bower. And so I, in turn, will not go into the other room to stand in the apparatus, no matter how tedious your requests for me to do so become. In fact, I insist that you answer other questions, too. I insist that you tell me why my body bears little resemblance to the ones I remember having in the first, second, and third memories. I insist that you tell me why my breasts in the third memory were so much fuller than in all my other memories, and the breasts I have now are so much smaller. I insist also that you tell me why I can't find any way to make sense of the differences in my hands in all my memories, and my hands as I see them now as my fingers work this keyboard. And I further insist that you tell me who or what you are, what this planet is that you say I've been brought to, who brought me, under what circumstances, and whether the people who brought me had anything to do with the destruction of my world. And there is more I want to know, Bower, for instance—
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14.
The reconstruction of my “general memory” is proceeding at a fantastic rate, Bower. Because of it, I have a word for describing the tactic you've used against me for the last three days. That word, Bower, is “lockout."
Do you have any “replacement” workers on hand, ready to take on my “job"? I wonder. I do indeed wonder.
Oh, I see. You don't like my using words to describe your tactics. Because I am too ignorant to understand the reasons for the conditions of my life here? I see, yes, indeed I do see!
All right, all right, Bower. I did, after all, make a tactical, conditional surrender, and so have the obligation to record a memory for you. I know you want the rest of the fourth one, but I'm afraid that's not in the cards. But I can give you a new one, Bower. Well, don't you sound surprised! You didn't think I had a new one? Why? Because I never mentioned it? (Now who is ignorant of their understanding of whom, I wonder?)
So. I yield another memory to you, who is so hungry for it:
She is a child, a girl. She has been sent to her room by a parent. She has nothing to read and no electronic gadgets in her room to entertain her. So she daydreams, and fantasizes, and traces her finger along the seams and textured ridges in her bedspread, making up stories about a vast network of underground caverns where humans live, linked by known corridors as well as by secret passages, almost infinite in the vastness of their extent. Every knob of fabric on her bedspread is a room. Her imagination is tickled and piqued. She loses herself in hours of fantasy. And she forgets, of course, that she is being punished, that she is a captive between four walls, lost as she is in the amusement of a complex, never-ending story involving dozens of characters—until she drops, finally, into deep, dreamless sleep.
When she awakens she finds herself alone in her room—with the door locked. She bangs on it, but no one comes. She shouts for her parents, but no one answers, not even to scold her. She is nowhere, she realizes. Either she and her room or else the world itself no longer exists. The little girl visualizes it clearly in her mind, she and her room, a small space bounded by four walls, a floor and a ceiling, hurtling through lightless vacuum. The little girl screams. She screams for her—
Goddam you, Bower, why did you interrupt? I thought you said you wanted this memory?
Oh really? How can you tell? But more to the point, where would I, bereft of experience, acquire the wherewithal to invent anything? If my memory is limited to the first four experiences I have so far recounted, how could I create this last one out of whole cloth?
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15.
At last. It has been so long since I've sat at this keyboard, my fingers hardly know how to apply themselves to the production of words on the screen.
Ridiculous, you say? Perhaps, Bower. Before I take your word for it, though, I'll want some clarification and elaboration of why such an idea is ridiculous. But you have not let me back into the workplace simply to argue semantics with me. You want to know my conditions for continuing with what you call “the memory work.” They are as follows:
(1) What I write here will not be edited or deleted—except by me.
(2) What I write is understood to serve not only your purposes (whatever they may be), but mine as well. In other words, I will enjoy access at will to both the keyboard and to what I have previously written, and will use this access for my own purposes.
(3) You will answer in good faith any and all questions I ask about the conditions of my captivity and the fate of my species.
(4) You will answer my questions not only orally, but as written input, so that I may review them on-screen as I wish.
Bower, you say you agree, but the words have not appeared on my screen.
Reply: We agree to your conditions.
Very well. Then I'll proceed with my questions. In the past few days and nights, I've learned the following: I'm unable, physically, to cry. I'm unable to smother. I'm unable to bruise myself. No matter how long I exercise, I never get short of breath or feel the slightest fatigue. And I dropped into unconsciousness when I tried to batter the wall with my hands and feet. As I noted previously, my present body is radically different from my body in memory, and my body in memory is different from memory to memory. I want you to account for not just the discrepancies, but also for such unusual characteristics that I've enumerated.
Reply: Your brain has been inserted into a synthetically-fabricated body with an extensive, but imperfect, degree of responsiveness.
Though I guessed it must be something like this, I'm having a powerful emotional response. (I do wish I could cry. I feel sure crying would help.) I need some time alone before continuing.
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16.
Alone? In one sense I'm always alone. But in the sense I meant above, never.
You've answered only one part of my question, Bower. Now account for why there is a discrepancy in the appearance of my body from memory to memory.
Reply: If you found my previous reply
distressing, shouldn't you consider withdrawing your question?
Don't trifle with me, Bower. Just answer the fucking question.
Reply: Only the first memory fragment was originally yours. All the other fragments have been taken from other brains. A vast number of memories have been imported into your brain; those fragments you capture, you experience intensely and immediately. Your recording them in words we call “memory work,” since if you did not put them into words, you would eventually lose them.
So it's all a lie, Bower, the sense I've been trying to make of who I am? Did you deliberately wipe my mind of its own memories to make room for others?
Reply: Your consciousness is a composite consciousness.
Fake body, fake mind?
Reply: We did not have to wipe your memories—your brain did that itself, presumably because of the trauma you experienced at “the End of the World,” as you call it.
A “composite human being.” My god, my god. Am I the only one? Am I the sole surviving representative of the human species?
Reply: No. You are not the only one. But you are the first to be revived to consciousness. The other brains are in cryogenic suspension, as yours was until just recently.
Oh, I get it. I'm a guinea pig, a test-run, to shake out all the bugs. But listen, Bower. I need other humans. And I need my own memories. Humans have never been “composites.” They have never shared minds. Human experience does not include telepathy, or a group mind, or anything remotely like what you've done to me. If you want to know what humans are, you will learn only one thing by doing this to me, namely that humans become insane when certain minimal social and physical conditions are not present. My god. “Composite human being.” The very idea is obscene.
Reply: “Obscene,” as we understand it, means, in the first instance, lewd, and, in the second instance, offensive or repulsive to the senses. In what way does the idea of a composite human being offend or repulse your senses?
Asimov's SF, Oct/Nov 2005 Page 12