*
When Seth Garland was five years old, his father lost his job. This was a rather remarkable occurrence in the People’s Interstellar Republic. Most occupations were funded at least partially by the government and this gave employees far-reaching protection from termination. A reliable, punctual hard worker was never laid off, even if his job had become redundant.
James Garland, however, had the misfortune of being in the wrong profession at the wrong time. He was a licensed Sensory Stimulation Specialist, commonly referred to as a “stimmer”, who owned his own business in the outskirts of New Incorporated Shanghai.
Stimmers were artists and craftsmen who dealt in personalized dreams and memories. They used advanced neural interfaces to create life-like experiences as an escape from the doldrums of modern life. James’s specialty was tranquil recreations of pre-industrial Earth. Clients would come into his office, take a mild tranquilizer, and he would take them on a peaceful journey through life before the existence of the steam engine.
Very few stimmers were as skilled as James Garland. He considered himself a master artist, a painter and musician who composed in the fragile medium of fleeting neural impulses. He took great pride in his work, often describing the bucolic scenes he created over dinner. It bored Seth at the time, but he always listened patiently because he knew it made his father happy.
One day, something changed. James didn’t come home happy. Instead, he was worried. PIR security agents visited him at his storefront and asked him several questions about stimming. They wanted to know if it could be used to implant memories into clients, or to brainwash them into particular actions.
According to James, dozens of other stimmers received similar visits from the PIR that day. None of them knew why the Republic was suddenly so interested in their niche business. They’d never cared about stimming before. It was harmless.
Except the PIR didn’t think it was harmless. A week after their visit to James’s storefront, the High Council passed the Brain Integrity Act of 4173, banning Sensory Stimulation.
They claimed that the Brain Integrity Act was a direct response to a recent freighter crash that killed fifty-one Republic citizens. The captain of the freighter in question was a habitual client of stimmers. One of his stimmers was apparently a well-known opponent of the PIR government who admitted, after interrogation, to planting the idea to destroy the freighter in his head.
Republic scientists recommended that anyone who wanted to experience tailored dreams should use Gnostin pills instead. Gnostins employed similar technology and created a similar effect. However, because they were manufactured by the PIR, there was no danger that they could be tampered with.
Of course, Gnostins were mass-produced while stimmers worked on the fly to manipulate the neural pathways of their clients. It wasn’t the same. Even Seth, who was only a child, knew that much. Stimming had existed for centuries. It was an art, a part of human culture, that the Republic had destroyed with one single vote.
James Garland was devastated. It wasn’t because he was out of work. His skills were still in demand and he was quickly offered a job designing Gnostins. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do. He’d spent his life learning how to manipulate the gossamer connections within the human mind. That was his art. That was his life. And they took it away from him.
The Garland family considered moving to another world, but the Republic acted quickly to outlaw stimming everywhere they could reach. They threatened to discontinue the trade routes to any planet that still licensed stimmers. Before long, stimming was essentially banned everywhere in the galaxy. Meanwhile, far more abhorrent acts were still allowed on the backwater planets without as much as a stern gaze from the PIR.
Seth’s father fell into a deep depression. He didn’t make any efforts to find another job. He didn’t want another job. Stimming was the only thing he’d ever done, and he’d done it all his life. Soon, he began disappearing for days at a time. He never told his family where he went or what he was doing. Seth tried to ask him, but James told him that it was for the best that he remain quiet.
Later that year, James Garland was arrested for violating the provisions of the Brain Integrity Act. He’d been performing sensory stimulations in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Incorporated New Shanghai. Because the BIA was amended into the Republic Galactic Security Edicts, the minimum punishment was ten years imprisonment. James was sent to the PIR incarceration center on Gammaron two weeks before Seth’s seventh birthday. Seth never saw him again.
Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars Page 4
