by Project Itoh
Then, gradually, the heart. stops. beating.
Inside his body, WatchMe was blaring with emergency messages for the medical server. Even when it was all over, the medicules would keep racing about until they ran out of energy from furiously signaling that there didn’t seem to be enough oxygen getting to the brain. Seen from the outside, death was a very gradual process of cell decomposition. It took time. Death didn’t happen in an instant.
Miach once showed me a picture scroll from the twelfth century or so called the “Nine Faces Poem.”
It consisted of nine illustrations showing a woman who had died. Her body gradually changed color, became bloated, then began to rot. The scroll ended with various birds and animals coming to eat her. The pictures were real, raw. It was hard to imagine the thing had been drawn so long ago. I had no idea how Miach had gotten her hands on such obviously emotionally traumatic material. Though I assumed she was capable of pretty much anything that was illegal.
“At the time when this was written, death was everywhere,” Miach said. “It takes time for a person to die, lots of time. When we go to someone’s great-grandfather’s or great-grandmother’s funeral these days, they have that case for melting and sterilizing the body. But back then, they put the body in a coffin and put the whole thing in the ground. You’ve probably never even seen a coffin, have you?
“Even when they processed the bodies, they didn’t take them to a reduction center to have them converted into harmless goop, they actually burned them. When they said ‘dust to dust,’ they really meant it.”
The idea that human death comes with brain death is a pretty recent one. From the time when people started thinking that we were our brains.
The moment I stepped off the bird in Baghdad, a call came in from the local Helix Agency office. I opened the message in my call box and I was in a real-time AR feed. There were reports from the Italian police in a document list and feeds with chatter about an incident that had happened thirty minutes prior. More was coming in: evidence, witness statements, etc.
“Is this the work of our mastermind or masterminds?” Someone in AR asked. Stauffenberg was there. She shook her head and indicated to all of us that we should read the suicide note posted in evidence.
“He left a note?” someone else said, surprised. No one had left anything in the earlier wave of suicides, with the possible exception of Cian Reikado.
The suicide note was a simple affair.
That was all.
“This is a new development. We do not think our mastermind was involved,” Stauffenberg said.
I had to agree. This wasn’t the doing of whoever had sent that memorycel to Network 24. This was someone who had taken that news report seriously and decided to take their own life before the “mastermind” could take it for him. It wasn’t an entirely outrageous decision.
Stauffenberg asked about media coverage and was informed that at present the only people other than the family who knew about the suicide were the local Italian police, Interpol, and the Helix Inspection Agency. Still, they would probably only be able to keep it under wraps for a few days at most. After that, the Werther effect would sweep the globe.
That was why they were giving the media a gag order, to keep would-be Werthers from popping up. Incidentally, the Werther effect refers to multiple linked suicides after a widely publicized one. Why did I know this mostly useless fact? Because Miach Mihie had told me.
“See this?” Miach held up a book. “The Sorrows of Young Werther. This book killed a lot of people. Impressive, isn’t it?”
How does a book kill people, I asked her. “You mean someone hit them with it?”
So Miach explained the travails of jungen Werther to me. Apparently, the titular character loves this girl, but the girl is engaged to marry another man. Unable to bear unrequited love, our hero kills himself.
“Sounds like a pretty typical romantic love tragedy,” I said. “What does that have to do with lots of people dying?”
“Get this—people who identified with Werther, because, say, they were in a similar position, were influenced by the story to kill themselves. Then people heard about that and they killed themselves. The first copycat suicides! And all after a completely fictional character, though no doubt inspired by the author Goethe’s own experiences.”
Miach Mihie flashed her customary smile and thrust the book out in front of her. “Isn’t it cool? Words, books, fiction all have the power to kill.”
Useless information, rotting at the bottom of the world.
I knew these things, thanks to Miach.
If word of the suicide and the accompanying note got out, it was a sure thing that plenty of other people would follow suit. I wondered how many would choose suicide before we reached the time limit, and how many people would do as they were told and kill at least one other person. It occurred to me that there would be a lot of people unable to kill themselves or another person who would simply try to wait it out.
Either way, it was clear we were headed for another Maelstrom.
“Couldn’t we take everyone’s WatchMe off-line and cut the links to the health supervision servers?” someone suggested, but it was an impractical idea. WatchMe was tied into the global ID system. If a person took their WatchMe off-line, they couldn’t buy things, get on the train, or even get into their own home. It would be mass chaos.
“The world will fall into chaos,” grumbled one of the other Helix agents in the AR session. Then the weary-faced agents all began to talk at once, their words describing a grand list of what we would lose.
“All the admedistrative functions: hitch-homing, morality sessions, mutual aid, elder care. All will cease.”
“Our social system is based on the open exchange of information and unlimited trust in others within the admedistration and regional collectives. What will happen to that?”
“And our economic cycle is based on the assumption that people will live long, healthy lives.”
“Things will grind to a halt.”
“What’s to keep people from killing each other? From killing us?”
“If things keep going this way—”
“We’ll be back to the beginning of the twenty-first century, no—”
“There will be no morality at all! Another Maelstrom!”
“They’ve activated some kind of process in the brain. The question is, what?”
“Clearly, what we’ve seen is the forced introduction of artifical intent. What I’d like to know is who is doing this?”
“According to Senior Inspector Tuan Kirie’s report, there already exists a paper describing in detail the structures in the brain that express human will. The paper is a study by Russian neurologist Sergey Gorlukovich Yelensky on the feedback system of the midbrain.” Prime was speaking. “This paper details how to very accurately model the human psyche control system and has already influenced some practicing therapists. I believe our agent has some solid evidence related to this paper that will help us get to the core of our current dilemma.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not true,” I said. “I’m merely in a position to contact someone who I believe may have the kind of information that will lead us back to those responsible.”
“Well, whatever the case, the fact that you’re ahead of us in this investigation remains unchanged.”
One of the other agents spoke up. “If they understand that much a
bout human will, it’s possible they can in fact control it. Senior Inspector Kirie, shouldn’t you share any information you have with the rest of us?”
He spoke very gently. This was a discussion. No feathers were to be ruffled.
This was how it was done.
“At the present moment I have no solid information. The scraps I do have on hand would only needlessly confuse the investigation as a whole. I did not see the need to contact any other members of this agency.”
“I think that I should be the judge of what is solid and what is not,” Stauffenberg said, narrowing her eyes.
I gave a noncommittal nod and imagined how good it would feel to just give her the finger.
“That’s a symbol? What does it mean?” I asked, looking at Miach’s raised middle finger.
“It’s an ancient gesture. It means fuck you. That’s English, though the phrase isn’t even in use anymore, so it’s kind of hard to feel the impact it once had. Imagine all the worst things you could possibly say to someone to show how little you think of them. That’s fuck you.”
03
Gabrielle Étaín says: “We are a collection of desires, defined along a hyperbolic curve.”
Gabrielle Étaín says: “Even the pigeon and the monkey overestimate the value of that which is in front of them.”
Gabrielle Étaín says: “Even the pigeon and the monkey have a consciousness and a will. What makes our consciousnesses and our wills any more important?”
I was in my car, driving to meet Gabrielle Étaín.
The Tigris spread out to my right-hand side as I passed beneath an arch, massive and white like the rib bone of a dragon. The road sloped up toward the top level of the giant Dian Cécht medical industrial collective building that loomed like an ant mound over Baghdad, gradually giving me a better view of the landscape as I got closer. Eventually, I was high enough to look down on all of Baghdad. I sat back and let the Baghdad Central Traffic Guidance server lead me to Gabrielle Étaín’s lab.
The desert horizon shimmered in the heat.
The medical industrial collective zone in Baghdad lacked any of the advertising you saw in regular cities. In other words, the medical complex here was entirely self-sufficient. There was no need to sell AR advertising space. Looking at it, you could see how no one here needed the extra revenue. Still, for someone who had grown up with advertisements plastered on every visible surface, being in a place with none was somewhat disconcerting.
I saw a forest of pinkish evergreens and a lake. That would be the Dian Cécht park sector. I drove around the “naturally” modeled shore within the giant complex. The design group responsible for building the place had taken care to not make it feel like an anthill once you were inside the thing. The car took me up a gently curving slope to the floor above the lake. This was the uppermost level in the entire zone.
I stopped the car. The SEC Neuromedical Research Consortium offices thrust out like the bow of a boat, six hundred twenty meters up the side of the Dian Cécht. That would be the research and development sector, sitting out under the blazing sun. SEC was an acronym formed from the first letters of its founding admedistrations: Sukunabikona, Eugene, Crups.
I touched the door to give my ID and a receptionist came out to show me into the waiting room. The interior here reminded me of the PassengerBird: high ceilings and walls made of a white, plastic-like material, with red gelatin seats here and there, all unoccupied.
I sat down in one and waited until Gabrielle Étaín made her appearance. I heard her shoes squeak on the floor before I looked up. We shook hands, and she sat down with me on one of the red seats.
“When I heard a Helix agent was here to see me I thought it was a surprise inspection. Not that we are doing any research here to concern anyone at the WHO.”
She spoke softly and slowly, sitting with her back to a window that stretched the full length of the wall. The horizon behind her formed a straight line dividing sky from water. Several birds wheeled through the air.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. It was unintentional. I’m here to ask after a particular person and about certain neurological research. I have reason to believe you can help me on both points.”
“By all means.”
“First, the research. Are you familiar with a paper that lays out, in great detail, the feedback mechanisms in the midbrain?”
“Yelensky’s paper?”
“That’s the one,” I said, watching her face closely.
She moved her lips like she was rolling a candy around in her mouth, staring at me a moment before she said, “This is an inspection, then.”
I waved both hands in denial. “No, it’s not, really. All I’m asking for is information that we think can help with an ongoing investigation. Why do you think this is an inspection?”
“Because our neuromedical consortium is putting together a model of those very mechanisms you speak of.”
“Then, do you think you could explain the general gist of your research to me—just whatever’s been publicly announced.
I don’t mean to pry,” I said as gently as I could.
Étaín thought for several seconds before telling me that the consortium was researching the nature of value judgments within the human psyche.
“What sort of judgments?” I asked.
“Say, for instance, if I offered someone ten thousand credits now or a promise for twenty thousand credits a year from now, which would they choose?”
“The former, probably.”
“Indeed. And this is true not only of humans but also of primates such as chimpanzees, and birds such as pigeons and pheasants. Similar desire tendencies can be observed in other animals typically kept as pets, such as dogs and cats. This category of organisms overestimates the value of that which is right in front of it.”
“Is that something we evolved?”
“It’s part of our genetic programming. However, to find the same feature across so many varied species indicates that there is some reason this is a particularly easy feature for vertebrates to develop.”
“Well, isn’t it kind of obvious? If we don’t eat the thing sitting right in front of us, some other individual will come along and take it away. Individuals who sit around waiting for a future reward would die in such a world. Isn’t valuing the bird in hand just part of the survival of the fittest?”
“If you plot perceived value on a graph, with the horizontal axis as time and the present as zero, then you will see the line representing value curve sharply upward the closer it comes to the zero point, reaching its zenith as it hits the vertical axis. By comparison, value in the far future goes low quickly, changing hardly at all between a year and two years distant. A hyperbola. When humans and most living creatures consider the value of something, they tend to see its future value diminish hyperbolically.”
“In other words, our system of evaluation isn’t exponentially logical, it’s hyperbolically illogical.”
“Indeed. And because we possess a hyperbolic value system, we make illogical decisions and take precipitate actions. When a chance to profit presents itself clearly before our eyes, we erroneously believe its value to be much greater than it actually is. There is an ongoing survival game between the agents of short-term desire and long-term desire, and we call this game will. This is an important feature of the feedback mechanism that Yelensky’s model of human will does not consider—a model we are currently using our findings to perfect.”
I thought of my father. If you wanted to use the feedback mechanism to control human will, you would need a very detailed model of human value judgments in order to accurately predict how such control would function.
“Dr. Nuada Kirie wouldn’t be part of the project team, would he?”
“He is, that is, he was in the beginning. He is no longer with the consortium.”
“Was Dr. Kirie using this midbrain feedback web model for any other research?”
“Well…some of our researchers do take part in side projects, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about any of that.”
“How does knowing that the feedback web follows a hyperbolic curve change your view of human will compared to previous models?” I asked out of plain curiosity.
Étaín put a hand to her chin in thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose the revelation that human will is actually more of a battle royal between multiple desire agents within the brain has allowed us to prove that animals too possess a will.”
“In other words, animals aren’t just acting by their genetic programming or instinct?”
“Your language reveals a bias. What we call our ‘will’ or ‘soul’ is really just a collision between multiple genetically programmed elements. There is a test using pigeons where one button releases ten beans when it’s pressed and thirty beans when it’s pressed after waiting a certain amount of time. It turns out that there are pigeons who choose to wait for the thirty beans. Pigeons have the same range of choice allowed them by will under our model. In other words, the model allows us not only to understand human will but the very nature of consciousness, and put that knowledge to better use.”
“Such as?”
“Such as…pain,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“First, you have to understand the true nature of what I have been referring to as feedback. Any psychological effect that grabs the attention of the consciousness and leaves a strong impression is feedback. This is true under Yelensky’s model as well. The feedback need not be a reward or even anything beneficial.”
“All right. And?”
“The pain we feel the moment we prick our finger with a needle is nothing more than another agent trying to leave an impression and get selected. The hyperbolic time axis in this case is very short, making it easier for the pain to be chosen.”
I frowned. How could pain be chosen? “But you can’t accept or deny pain,” I said.
“Actually, you can. Surely you have heard stories of people who are so focused on some activity that they only realize their finger or arm has been cut off some seconds after the fact. This is because the pain competed with, yet failed to overcome, the hold that activity had on their consciousness.”