The Vestigial Heart

by Carme Torras

  “Workload accepted. Any additional criteria for candidate selection?”

  “It’s crucial to avoid statistical normality. Perhaps it would be wise to include a mentally ill person within such a rich universe, but mainly people without prejudices, not confined by any rules, people who hate routine and are averse to repetition. Keep in mind that a creative spark not only depends on individual factors, but is also fostered by shock: between cultures, environments, traditions. Look for people who, for whatever reason, have been transplanted to a different environment. They say that a genius is a person who moves forward, that looks and lives beyond their time.”

  “Consultation: Do I have to search on the web or do you want me to travel to some data warehouses?”

  “Start with the web. If later on I need to send you …” Suddenly, a thought leaps into his mind. “Can you save everything on the screens now to the absolute memory?”

  “Denied: It is prohibited, I thought you knew.”

  “Can you save it in a perennial storage device, then, or even in a compatible peripheral?”

  “Denied: Information belonging to CraftER cannot be copied to foreign storage devices. Why do you want it?”

  Instinctively, Leo looks up to the surveillance cameras, without realizing that the movement, along with ROBco’s words, sets off the possible incident alarm.

  Just ten minutes later, a virtual image of the Doctor is plonked down before him.

  “Hello, Leo. Is everything ready for the demo of the preliminary version of the prosthesis tomorrow?”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Craft.” He tries to hide his surprise at a visit that was not drawn up in the control schedule. “Not the demo, but I’ve got the mechanism diagram finished. Would you like to see it?”

  “Don’t bother showing me pipe dreams, I want results. Development by layers and a demo for each layer. I made that clear enough, didn’t I?”

  “Yes sir, but I can’t add content without having the overall scheme ready.”

  “And I can’t wait for you to finish the project before I decide if you’re worth anything to me or not.”

  “But incremental design is slower, and often produces a patchy final product.”

  “Cut the spiel. The others have already sent me prototypes; limited ones, of course, but still of some use to me.”

  “Others? You mean there are other people working on this project?”

  “What did you think? That you’re the chosen one, the golden boy?”

  He’ll always be naive. If Bet were here, she’d tear him apart. He’ll never tell her about this.

  “Fire me, if you want.” He builds up some courage. “I know if you take a look at the overall design you won’t demand useless demos that could slow down the production of a decent prosthesis.”

  “You’re so proud of your design that you intend to sneak it out of CraftER, I see.”

  Leo feels blood rushing to his face, and lowers his eyes, away from the screen.

  “It was a passing thought, you must have seen it wasn’t premeditated.”

  “That’s what’s saved your skin. I don’t care if you break the rules, creative minds are like that, what I cannot tolerate is you wasting time on this bullshit. Get it into your head that it’s impossible: the timeout device is one of the projects I directed personally.”

  On the screen, the arrow formed by the Doctor’s eyebrows appears blurred and doesn’t seem as threatening as in person. Just like his words, which seem to come out agreeably: he even recognized that Leo has a creative mind, the highest compliment you could imagine coming from Dr. Craft’s mouth. People really are unpredictable; he’s caught out, and then, as part of his telling off, he’s pummeled with praise. He’s been left in such a vulnerable state that, without realizing, he’s already agreed to have a demo ready for the next control meeting, ten days from now.

  The sensible thing would be to get down to work straightaway and cancel his outing, but Bet would never forgive him. She’s already enough of a pain in the neck with her insistence that he’s deliberately keeping the project a secret from her. It’ll be difficult to make her understand that, outside of CraftER, it’s not that he doesn’t want to explain it to her, it’s that he can’t remember what he does when he’s in there. With some exceptions, of course, he hopes to at least be able to keep her happy by telling her about the everyday details; the Doctor had assured him that the amnesia would be limited to the project.

  He’s never been so aware of himself as when he crosses the threshold of his cubicle. He does it very slowly, apprehensively, blind and deaf to everything around him, because his eyes are closed and he’s listening to his insides. He watches over every little feeling, every tiny beating of his restless pulse. He’s afraid his head will explode, that he will be unable to hold his train of thought, that he won’t recognize himself … he’s not entirely sure what he should be afraid of, where he should focus his suspicions. And then he’s already on the other side, without noticing anything strange, and now he looks down at his legs, his feet, he feels his arms, searching for external signs of a change he was unable to recognize under his skin.

  Only when he searches his mind for the details of what he has been developing does he find an impenetrable empty space and is able to confirm that the Doctor hasn’t tricked him. Oh the irony, the emptiness that worried him so much is now a relief and, feeling more relaxed, he heads for the platform where ROBco is waiting with the aero’car.

  It’s a spectacular two-seater, worthy of CraftER, stylish on the outside and spacious on the inside, with cavities to fit their respective ROBs; Bet will be delighted.

  He was right, when he picks her up, Leo has the privilege of witnessing the biggest smile he’s ever seen on her face, and he momentarily questions his intention to cut their outing short in order to return to his demo. Tightly squeezing both her hands, he helps her into the front seat so that, face to face, they can plan their time together. It’s what they’ve always done, the secret to their successful relationship: deciding in that moment and in light of their current mood, without being held to a preestablished script dictating what they should do.

  “Are you feeling desire today?” They always start with this, as it affects everything else.

  “This morning I was at 6.7, but I think it’s dropped. You?”

  “Nothing remarkable. Let’s forget about going to the health club, agreed?”

  “Yes, yes, I’d prefer to make the most of this wonderful vehicle. What is it capable of?”

  “No idea, ROBco flies it.”

  “Information: I have been in charge of it for ninety-five minutes, I have only mastered the basic controls.”

  “Ohh …” Bet doesn’t hide her disappointment, rather she exaggerates it.

  “What if we go for a short flight today and save all the experienced piloting tricks for next time? I promise that ROBco will dedicate himself to it one hundred percent.”

  “But I feel like doing it today. And isn’t your ROB tied up with the top secret project?”

  “Don’t be so acerbic.”

  “I’m only telling you what I think and what I feel, that’s what we agreed, right?”

  “Okay, so I will too”—she’s handed it to him on a silver platter—“the president has just assigned me a demo and I’m in a hurry to get back.”

  “Couldn’t you have told me that before?”

  “You would have erased me from your contact list indefinitely.”

  “Well I will if you don’t tell me what your project is about.”

  “I don’t know, when I left they made me pass through a device that erases my memory.”

  “Don’t mess with me, Leonix, this is our big joint project.” Rather than being angry, her expression is serious, as if she doubted the sanity of her partner.

  “Joint?” Stunned by an expansive wave of doubt, he mechanically repeats the final word. The panic provoked by the effects of timeout becomes confused with the fact that he has no idea
which project she’s talking to him about.

  “Don’t look at me like that! You’re scaring me. Our project, don’t you remember? Or have they erased that too? It’s about selective memory loss.” As she sees her words are bringing him back to normal she continues, “You baptized it the ‘happiness app,’ is that ringing any bells?” She moves closer to stare at him, somewhere between amused and alarmed. “By adjusting the filter between what we remember and what we forget, we would be able to create a fortunate past for ourselves. You even talked about taking it further and introducing fictitious, very pleasing memories …”

  “Yes, of course I remember.” He was so frightened by the ghost of the forgotten that it hadn’t even crossed his mind that she might have been referring to that other project. What a weight off his shoulders: he knows everything they’ve said about the app by heart; and more, he also has the details he’s been polishing on his own. “But that’s got nothing to do with CraftER’s protection system.”

  “Hasn’t it? Didn’t you say they’ve erased certain things from your memory?”

  “If you put it like that, then yes, but the principle is totally different. They can erase it because they’ve saved it in a special way, with an encryption base. Our app is much more ambitious: it has to be able to erase things without any control over the recording process; past events, for example.”

  “You mean you haven’t given them our designs?”

  “Of course not, sweetheart, it’s a different project, it was developed before they hired me.”

  “How can you be sure that’s not the part of your memory they erased?”

  “Because, when I started, they demonstrated the security mechanism to me.”

  “Maybe they’ve gone one step further than us and they know how to introduce fictitious memories.”

  “Why do you always have to be so suspicious? What’s it going to be: that they’ve gone a step further or that they’ve copied us?”

  “You see? I worry about you and you get angry. Such an intrusive protection system must be illegal. There’s one at MascotER too, but it doesn’t put the rights of employees at risk.”

  “How would you know how they work on exclusive projects!”

  “That’s it, the great genius has to speak up.”

  “Well yes, you know what, I prefer to move forward than to be stuck in a rut. All this reticence stops you achieving anything. Look”—he glances outside—“we’ve ended up staying here, we haven’t even had a little run round the block.”

  “It wasn’t our day today, that’s all.” She gets up, determined to get out of the aero’car. “You were in a hurry, there’s nothing more to talk about. Just tell me beforehand next time, and we’ll just cancel.”

  Leo, ever the gentleman, again takes her by the hands to help her out, but whereas before her smile made him question his will, now nothing can take his mind off throwing himself wholeheartedly into the demo.

  14

  It’s been a long time since Silvana last left the ComU, a couple of years or more, so it’s no surprise that everything’s changed almost beyond recognition. Luckily, Sebastian has registered the visit as a service of the Center so she’s been assigned a driver, otherwise she would almost certainly have gotten lost. In the past you could count on one hand the number of buildings in which you could fly around in an aero’car—the general hospital, multistory parking lots and not much else—but now flying outdoors is the exception to the rule. Maybe it’s for the best, the brightness bothers her, she’s not used to it anymore. Of course, with a ceiling overhead the feeling of entrapment is heightened, with so many vehicles and landing platforms that it’s claustrophobic.

  It was right under her nose all the time but she hadn’t realized that the buildings grew in layers, adding on residents until they took on the form of these half-mile blocks. If they’re shocking for her, imagine how shocked the poor little girl must be. She’s confident that she’ll meet her today, despite not having been able to set up anything concrete with the mother. Most of all she must remember that she’s been hired as a therapist; her personal interest in the potential archaic feelings of the girl will have to stay hidden, she can’t show it at any point during the interview.

  As she’d guessed, the home is located in a well-to-do neighborhood, and the entrance the driver points out to her is one of the nicest ones around: on a high level with a private platform. Once Silvana has connected with the owner’s ROB, she receives free license to dock there and, if she wants, she can leave the aero’car parked there until it’s time to leave.

  She’s not in the habit of visiting people at home and feels a little unsure of herself as she walks up to the house, not knowing how to greet the smartly dressed client waiting at the door. But Lu, before Silvana has reached her, is already going back into the house and beckoning for her to follow. Most of the walls are yellow and the furniture is so dazzling that it’s like being back outside again. Worse still, the suspended armchairs they sit down in are the same color, and they’re so hard to look at she has to find some kind of neutral space where she can rest her eyes, which she finds between her feet.

  The obvious nervousness Lu demonstrates while she explains her daughter’s eccentricities puts her at ease: she doesn’t need to worry about the impression she might be making, she’s clearly not making one. It’s hard enough for this woman to string a sentence together, let alone pay attention to someone else at the same time. She begins to think they might as well have exchanged information over the net, and that it’ll only have been worth coming if in the end she gets to meet Celia.

  As soon as she gets a chance to ask, she finds out that the school is nearby, and that the girl will be coming home in less than half an hour. She can wait for her, if she wants, or she can connect with the monitoring circuit reserved for parents and observe what she’s doing right now. Silvana hesitates for an instant. She should decline the offer without a second thought: she’s denounced technology that violates privacy so many times, for how it undermines the privacy of the weakest among us; if someone from the ComU were to catch her spying, she would die of shame. But the opportunity is too tempting to refuse so she justifies her decision by telling herself that observing a spontaneous situation will help her diagnose the problem and, at the end of the day, it’ll be for Celia’s own good.

  A few minutes later ROBul informs them that, as the girl isn’t showing up on any of the static cameras, they’ve sent a SEEKer to look for her. Lu can’t believe it, after she had insisted that Celia try to be like the others and slip under the radar. Her teacher had warned Lu that if she didn’t adapt soon she would have to change schools. It occurs to Silvana that if you want to slip under the radar, what better way than hiding from the cameras, but she doesn’t say anything, convinced that Lu wouldn’t take it well, and maybe wouldn’t even understand. Gratuitous humor wasn’t exactly widespread in the pro-techno community.

  Finally the SEEKer sends them some images of Celia. She’s in a large space that Lu identifies as the socialization classroom. She has a wide-awake expression and light brown, very straight hair tied back in a ponytail, and looks just like she expected. The only difference is that she hadn’t imagined her with freckles, you don’t see faces like that anymore; strangely it gives her a touch of mischief, as if the freckles made her brighter, smarter. Next to her, also sitting on the floor, a girl with short, curly blonde hair is hugging her knees, and appears to be crying.

  “Oh no, we’re going to end up fighting again,” Lu exclaims, for once forgetting about her airs and graces. “Who knows what she’ll have said to that little angel.”

  “Can we hear what they’re saying?”

  “No, no. It would violate the rights of the child, you should know that,” she says, giving her a suspicious look.

  “Sorry, but I don’t understand: the images are public but the sounds are private?”

  “Come on! Who said anything about it being public?” She seems to be outraged, it must be a h
ot-button issue. “Parents have a right to check on the physical integrity of their children at any time, that’s all. If someone breaks that rule, with lip-reading programs or any other tricks, their connection to the circuit is cut off forever.” She pauses to catch her breath. “So tell me … what experience do you have as a therapist with unfrozen children?”

  “Hardly any have been unfrozen at this age, I guess you know that. The experienced therapists have worked with babies and can’t get a handle on this case. They’ve assigned it to me precisely because I’m a specialist in the emotions of the past”—she’s already said too much—“and I’ll be able to do more than a normal therapist. I sent you my credentials, did you get them?”

  “Yes, but I assumed you’d dealt with cases like my daughter’s.”

  “Look, the girls are standing up.” Silvana hasn’t taken her eyes off the monitor the whole time. “What lovely hair.”

  Lu’s face tightens:

  “She just had to let it down, didn’t she … No, in the end they’ll make me cut it.”

  It’s almost like Celia has heard her, just then she gathers her hair and fastens it back with a turban.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Do you think she’s avoiding standing out behaving like that? I’m starting to see the experience you’ve had with girls this age.”

  “Celia must be different in a lot of ways … I didn’t know hair was so important,” she says with contempt.

  “Think about it, it’s the first thing you noticed.”

  Like a boomerang, her assault has come right back at her with total innocence. Instinctively, she changes the subject: