The Vestigial Heart

by Carme Torras

  * * *

  Yesterday Silvana left CraftER outraged: it’s not that they’ve got that idiot by the balls, it’s that he hasn’t got any left. As if the entrance device and the robot weren’t enough, his bastard boss has him monitored at all times. That’s when he’s at work; when he’s outside, they erase his memory and that’s that. And, as for her, she might have gotten riled up afterward, but she’d given herself over to them as well, and now she can’t remember any of what she saw or felt while she was handling material related to the project. The feeling is disturbing. She can recall all the tiniest details of the cubicle, she can see Leo inviting her to sit down, coming closer to her, examining his own hand, but when it comes to remembering what it was all about she is met with an impenetrable blank space. Complete amnesia must be enough to drive a person crazy. From later references she knows she didn’t get as far as injecting Celia’s signals into her brain; because, one thing’s for certain, what’s missing has been so cleanly removed that she can reproduce moment by moment everything they talked about before and after turning on the booth. What a terrible dissociation; now she can understand why the boy hardly ever leaves the cubicle. How could someone accept such draconian working conditions? She hadn’t expected the pro-techno world to get worse since Jul’s time.

  As the hours go by, however, her indignation recedes and she starts to regret having burned that bridge so drastically. Now she has no idea how she’ll work things out with Celia. Despite having gone over it again and again, she can’t think of a way to explain that she won’t be going with her to the interview. She’d promised her, and the ring hasn’t helped Silvana break that promise. Every time she puts it on she feels more at ease in her role as mother, and during today’s session her eyes filled with tears when she heard that the girl felt like a prisoner in this strange world where she can’t even move around freely like she used to. “You encouraged me to walk home from school on my own, remember? And you gave me errands to run, and I could surprise you by coming back with a little present for you or a friend,” she told her, casually turning her into that closest confidant. “Now, though, I can’t move an inch if it’s not in an aero’car, and, of course, with ROBbie.” In the moment, Silvana hadn’t even noticed that defense of the ComU’s theories, and she’s only pleased now as she relives it: “It’s not that I’m complaining about having him, he’s an excellent toy, but having him watching over me all the time is a real pain in the neck.” She remembers it well, how she called it a toy, and Silvana wasn’t quick enough to tell her that’s all that high-flying engineer does: make toys! And poisoned ones, too.

  She has to admit that it’s not only Celia who’d gotten excited about Leo. She had too. And the apparition of that unibrowed prison guard destroyed her excitement in an instant. She’d imagined herself discovering all kinds of feelings with him by her side, some thanks to the machine, and others, thanks to his explosive mix of inventiveness, technological knowledge, enthusiasm, and candidness, all the things that made him so attractive. He was promising … so promising! But it was a mirage, he’s a mere appendage of the inner workings of the company. It seems impossible that, with her long experience, she hadn’t spotted it earlier.

  The little girl, of course, sees things differently. “That’s all I’m looking forward to these next few days: Wednesday’s interview,” she confessed with sparkling eyes. It was like a glimmer of paradise in the desolate panorama that was bringing her down, where “everything’s already set in stone, what I’ll do today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the next day; I can’t even look forward to the holidays,” she said, holding back the tears, “because there aren’t any.” After that, who would dare refuse her the one incentive she has, the element of uncertainty that could be saving her from such a dark future? Her mother wouldn’t, of course … She would have given her life for the kid, Silvana’s sure of it. She could feel the girl deep inside of herself, short of breath and with her heart beating wildly, and then she could no longer tell Celia apart from the mother, or the mother from herself. The three of them merged together in one breath. It was strange, pleasant … to feel so physically united to another body only by talking. It’s almost uncomfortable to remember it.

  It was like being hypnotized: she was acting out another person’s wishes, she conversed with new pauses, a different code, transformed by the way Celia was speaking to her. She liked it, that as the girl opened up to her, she also became someone else. The strength of the power of suggestion, it seems unreal … we believe we are one solid I, immutable, but really we are what we are addressed as. The poor girl poured her heart out; she feels so misunderstood by Lu, and she’d found an opportunity to let it all out: “There must be something better than living locked up in this house with someone who only wants me so she can pet me when she feels like it and ignore me the rest of the time.” Celia was hoping for an offer to stay at the ComU, and the ring was pushing Silvana to offer it, but luckily she stopped herself in time. As bad as she felt about leaving the girl at the mercy of that airhead, for now it’s in Silvana’s best interest that the woman accompany Celia to the interview. Not even under the spell of the ring does she resign herself to going back into those bloodsuckers’ den.

  Boosted by such a close rapport, they hadn’t needed to talk about Xis—as if they’d made a tacit pact not to mention her—for Silvana to detect her presence in Celia’s every gesture, every thought. She can’t get her out of her head and the pain won’t be cured by a visit to the bioengineer. The poor boy has no idea. It’s Silvana who has to take the reins and free the girl from her torment; she’s capable of it and she won’t stop until she finds the solution. She’ll bring it up today, without naming names, at the clinical cases session this afternoon. She’s sure she’ll get some new idea out of it.

  * * *

  Instead of preparing for the meeting with the Doctor, Leo spends his time shut in the sensory booth. He’s injected the signals many times and yet he still hasn’t had enough, even though he hates repetition. Now that he’s over the initial suffering, the anxiety has become a drug, where each dose has a new aftertaste. It’s as if his organism had been primed during the recording, and now rather than the effort wearing him out or unsettling his vital signs like it did at the start, it stimulates him instead. To understand. His visual field has been broadened by having to look upward, like Celia did, and also by trying to situate himself up there to get a better perspective. The double vision has him enraptured. The final challenge is to pass from one to the other at will, and he’s almost mastered it. He feels powerful.

  It’s a shame ROBco brings him back down to earth in an instant by forwarding him an urgent connection with the Doctor. Tomorrow he wants everything, understood? The last prototype with the booth included as an extension, and also those signals he’s been working with recently, that, from what he’s seen, are highly creative and very interesting. It makes no difference when Leo explains that the booth has nothing to do with the prosthesis, but with the transmutation project he presented at the New Year’s convention, and that CraftER refused to finance. The Doctor pretends not to understand and, when Leo insists, he reminds him that only he decides when and how the projects are finished, as well as the fate of the research … and of his employees, he adds, the last words loaded with meaning. The most dismal images of brains worked to the point of insanity, which his colleagues used to torment him with, have come back to him more vivid than ever.

  He really is at the mercy of that tyrant, Silvana was so right. It’s not enough just working for him, he’s had to take over his whole person. Even with the non-retroactive contract, he’ll have to hand over the booth, of course, who knows what might happen if he refuses. At least this way he can be sure that he’ll still be needed; if he rebels, though, the old man might decide to make him disappear and no one would miss him. He used to go out to play chess, to the health club, to go on walks with Bet, but the comfort of the cubicle has made him more and more reclusive. All the l
oose ends are tied and there’s no escape. The only contact with the outside world he has planned is Wednesday’s interview with Celia. They’d just cancel it, that’s all.

  Without really thinking about it, he leaves the cubicle and activates the connector that Silvana had given him. He wants to say sorry for violating her trust, to admit that he’d acted like a newbie, to tell her that her visit opened his eyes and that Celia’s signals have definitively changed him … but the connection is refused again and again. No explanation. She must be furious and not want to have anything to do with him. How could he be so idiotic and not react right away? He hopes that she’ll at least accompany the girl to the interview, but he has to make sure of it. He’ll keep on trying to make the connection.

  * * *

  It wasn’t at all easy for Silvana to expose Celia’s case to the clinical session without revealing any details about where it came from or where the events took place. Sebastian watched her curiously, convinced that the patient hadn’t been registered. Not even Silvana really knew where the need to hide it came from, but she never doubted it had to be that way. Separating her life into closed compartments is giving her an unexpected freedom … and she doesn’t want to risk losing that. She’ll be better off not exposing herself to anyone who regulates outings; especially now, if she’s going to have to do what they’ve recommended.

  She’d dismissed the idea from the start: subjecting the girl to uncontrolled stimulation, without refining which organs she would need to touch and why, it’s the ultimate abomination for the masseuse, but coming out of Sebastian’s mouth it sounded convincing. “You’re talking about an involuntary death witnessed by a very young and inexperienced subject, who feels partially responsible—one of the most profound shocks that the human brain can ever suffer,” he evaluated gravely. “Palpations won’t even cross the first line of defense, first the fortifications must be broken down with an equally forceful impact, and then we can work miracles to repair the damage. Right now the priority is to reach the devastated territory.” In the heat of the moment, she opposed this virulently: she would never act upon such delicate material blindly. But when she carefully weighed the details of what she would have to do, she began to find advantages.

  Following strict behaviorist criteria for reliving traumatic situations, but in a pleasant way in order to neutralize negative emotions, the girl would have to sneak back into CraftER without her companion—who could be Silvana herself—being harmed in any way. It would be incredible to trick the security system again and confront the bioengineer together. It would be worth it just to see his face.

  She’s already branching off down unnecessary pathways. She must think about Celia, nothing else. But what could be better for the girl than to retrace the steps she took on that fateful day, and, instead of failing miserably, triumphantly achieving her aim of being discovered and welcomed by the boy. A double dose of reinforcement in one journey! And while they’re at it, the problem of the interview will be solved. She won’t have to break her promise, or bend over backward to jump through CraftER’s hoops. The transgression involved in going in at the wrong time will allow her to accompany the girl while maintaining her dignity. Now all that’s left is for Celia to agree to it.

  * * *

  He’s come back from the meeting with the Doctor in a dreadful state. He’d thought he was a star, but his dream was killed in no time. It was hardly worth surrendering and handing over not only the prosthesis with the signals, but also the booth just like he’d been ordered to: he’s been fired anyway and his transmutation invention will be finished by someone else. He’s been robbed, but this is a high-level theft, and he’ll never be able to prove it. At least, in return, he doesn’t have to worry about his physical integrity. He’ll receive the same treatment as all those who have gone before him: guaranteed survival for his whole life at the price of not remembering anything, only that at one time he worked for CraftER. There’s no hope of being able to decipher the code and recover his memory: that man is so twisted that he’s used his own brain signals as an encryption base … a non-transferrable, indecipherable, unrepeatable base, linked more intrinsically to himself than any other code. As soon as Leo leaves the cubicle, all his accumulated knowledge and experience from in here will be ripped away forever.

  He rues the day that, during that recording-free meeting, he made a pact with the powerful and egocentric president, blinded by inventions that, whatever way you look at them, are devices for enslavement through and through. What would it be otherwise, the timeout device? A way of renting brains and having them available, an extension of the Doctor’s own inventive and thinking power. Leo’s eyes open wide like saucers: the prosthesis he’s been after for so long is me, and all the poor wretches who came before me and are still to come; we do his work for him, we are his extension, we form part of him! He’s really frightened. He has to escape … but where can he hide from the powerful tentacles of that cyber-tyrant? Despite their immense differences, all that comes to mind is the ComU. At least the Doctor won’t have spies there.

  He needs to find a way to make Silvana listen to him, ROBco will help. And, through her, contact Celia. He’s learned so much from the little girl, he must say thank you before he forgets everything. It’s chilling. He’ll be trapped in an alien world, just like Celia is trapped in a century that’s not her own. There must be a way out … for both of them, and he’ll find it, even if he has to push his brain to exhaustion and work the prosthesis into the ground. He can’t waste even a second, because he only has a couple of days before he has to leave the cubicle, him an amnesiac and the robot downgraded.

  * * *

  Silvana receives notification of a new connection attempt by Leo, this time through the ComU’s distribution hub. Who knows what’s happened to make him so insistent, precisely when she can’t reply if she wants to maintain her transgressive plan. And she wants to. She was hard-pressed to convince Celia. “Are you sure my mom … I mean, you … would approve?” she asked her, almost forgetting their pact with the ring. It was really difficult to overcome the maternal fear she felt deep in her stomach and answer yes, it couldn’t hurt and, on the contrary, it would do her good if everything went according to plan. As a masseuse she truly believes it, but as a mother she’s not fully convinced. Luckily, she’s already taken the ring off. She discreetly looks at her hand and places it on Celia’s shoulder. What a lovely girl, docile and brave, she thinks, looking at her out of the corner of her eye while she helps her into the aero’car that will take them to CraftER. Hopefully nothing will happen to them and Sebastian knows what he’s talking about.

  30

  4:30 p.m. – Time to initiate the tactile alarm. I enter the bedroom and observe that Dr. Craft is not in bed. He has cut his nap short again. When I finally manage to apply the new sequence of stretches and rubs, it will already be obsolete. It has been a week since I last practiced it and the experience index tells me that my PROP’s tastes evolve much more quickly. I activate the alert: I will try to convince him that his sleep must be monitored in order to correctly adjust the provision of soporifics.

  4:32 p.m. – I go to the study and find him glued to the dueling table. He has done nothing else for days. He has suffered a series of defeats and will not stop until he makes up for it. I carefully move closer: I must avoid him beginning to shout and entering the reproach dynamic, which only yields penalizations. I silently stop in front of him and wait for him to raise his head and address me.

  4:33 p.m. – I try to decipher what he is looking at with so much concentration: flashing lights announce a worldwide emergency, and two human figures with their ROBs have to flee to a safe place, but they only have one two-seater aero’car. Alert: he has stood up so abruptly that he has almost embedded himself in my thorax. Luckily my ultrareflexes allowed me to avoid it. With a PROP like this you must always have them activated and on maximum power, and not take your eyes off him for a second. He looks annoyed.

  “Just
what I needed: now Hug 4’Tune has modernized things and swapped suggestive anachronistic motives for insipid modern day pyrotechnics.”

  4:35 p.m. – I verify that he is not talking to me … he has been doing that a lot lately, talking to himself, while he continues to be engrossed in the riddle.

  4:36 p.m. – I deduce from the icons that, with the ROBs as pilots, the journey will take one and two minutes respectively, whereas with the humans as pilots it would take them ten and twenty minutes each. I read: how can they transport everyone, in the least possible time, given that the slowest on board always has to pilot? It is simpler than I anticipated: it would be solved with a single simulation. But I cannot interrupt.

  “If they were four monks, like before, it would be easy: the two slowest would sacrifice themselves for the others and that’s that! But modernity has imposed itself. It’s all so far-fetched … every day this dumbass becomes a worse inventor and takes advantage of the damn restrictions even more: why would it ever be the slowest who had to pilot?”

  4:37 p.m. – I could put forward a hypothesis: the slowest, the human, would disintegrate at higher speeds; or I could suggest ways to approach the question. But I must not intervene if he does not ask me to.

  “Let’s be realistic about it, the biggest bastard would take his ROB and fly off. Everything’s easier when you’re dealing with bastards. Logical and predictable people. Each one looks out for himself and everyone knows what to expect. Not like with that Mar’10, you never know what he’s going to come up with next. If it weren’t for the fuckups with the public register and the non-retroactive contract, we might even have gotten along, and I wouldn’t have to do without him now. A bunch of wimps, that’s what the company lawyers are these days.

  4:38 p.m. – He is getting more and more distracted and in the end he will get angry for having taken so long.