Eastern Standard Tribe

by Cory Doctorow

dart-gun,and a tazer. The tazer captured my attention, whipping horizontal lightning inthe spring breeze. The Tesla enema, they called it in London. Supposedlyclub-kids used them recreationally, but everyone I knew who'd been hit with onedescribed the experience as fundamentally and uniquely horrible.

  I slowly raised my hands. "I would like to pack a bag, and I would like to seedocumentary evidence of your authority. May I?" I kept my voice as calm as Icould, but it cracked on "May I?"

  The reader of the litany nodded slowly. "You tell us what you want packed andwe'll pack it. Once that's done, I'll show you the committal document, allright?"

  "Thank you," I said.

  They drove me through the Route 128 traffic in the sealed and padded compartmentin the back of their van. I was strapped in at the waist, and strapped over myshoulders with a padded harness that reminded me of a rollercoaster restraint.We made slow progress, jerking and changing lanes at regular intervals. Thetraffic signature of 128 was unmistakable.

  The intake doctor wanded me for contraband, drew fluids from my various parts,and made light chitchat with me along the way. It was the last time I saw him.Before I knew it, a beefy orderly had me by the arm and was leading me to myroom. He had a thick Eastern European accent, and he ran down the house rulesfor me in battered English. I tried to devote my attention to it, to forget theslack-eyed ward denizens I'd passed on my way in. I succeeded enough tounderstand the relationship of my legcuff, the door frame and the elevators. Theorderly fished in his smock and produced a hypo.

  "For sleepink," he said.

  Panic, suppressed since my arrival, welled up and burst over. "Wait!" I said."What about my things? I had a bag with me."

  "Talk to doctor in morning," he said, gesturing with the hypo, fitting it with aneedle-and-dosage cartridge and popping the sterile wrap off with a thumbswitch."Now, for sleepink." He advanced on me.

  I'd been telling myself that this was a chance to rest, to relax and gather mywits. Soon enough, I'd sort things out with the doctors and I'd be on my way.I'd argue my way out of it. But here came Boris Badinoff with his magic needle,and all reason fled. I scrambled back over the bed and pressed against thewindow.

  "It's barely three," I said, guessing at the time in the absence of my comm."I'm not tired. I'll go to sleep when I am."

  "For sleepink," he repeated, in a more soothing tone.

  "No, that's all right. I'm tired enough. Long night last night. I'll just liedown and nap now, all right? No need for needles, OK?"

  He grabbed my wrist. I tried to tug it out of his grasp, to squirm away. There'sa lot of good, old-fashioned dirty fighting in Tai Chi -- eye-gouging, groinpunches, hold-breaks and come-alongs -- and they all fled me. I thrashed like afish on a line as he ran the hypo over the crook of my elbow until thevein-sensing LED glowed white. He jabbed down with it and I felt a prick. For asecond, I thought that it hadn't taken effect -- I've done enough chemical sleepin my years with the Tribe that I've developed quite a tolerance for mostvarieties -- but then I felt that unmistakable heaviness in my eyelids, themelatonin crash that signalled the onslaught of merciless rest. I collapsed intobed.

  I spent the next day in a drugged stupor. I've become quite accustomed tofunctioning in a stupor over the years, but this was different. No caffeine, forstarters. They fed me and I had a meeting with a nice doctor who ran it down forme. I was here for observation pending a competency hearing in a week. I hadseven days to prove that I wasn't a danger to myself or others, and if I could,the judge would let me go.

  "It's like I'm a drug addict, huh?" I said to the doctor, who was used to nonsequiturs.

  "Sure, sure it is." He shifted in the hard chair opposite my bed, getting readyto go.

  "No, really, I'm not just running my mouth. It's like this: *I* don't think Ihave a problem here. I think that my way of conducting my life is perfectlyharmless. Like a speedfreak who thinks that she's just having a great time,being ultraproductive and coming out ahead of the game. But her friends, they'reconvinced she's destroying herself -- they see the danger she's putting herselfin, they see her health deteriorating. So they put her into rehab, kicking andscreaming, where she stays until she figures it out.

  "So, it's like I'm addicted to being nuts. I have a nonrational view of theworld around me. An *inaccurate* view. You are meant to be the objectiveobserver, to make such notes as are necessary to determine if I'm seeing thingsproperly, or through a haze of nutziness. For as long as I go on taking my drug-- shooting up my craziness -- you keep me here. Once I stop, once I accept theobjective truth of reality, you let me go. What then? Do I become a recoveringnutcase? Do I have to stand ever-vigilant against the siren song of craziness?"

  The doctor ran his hands through his long hair and bounced his knee up and down."You could put it that way, I guess."

  "So tell me, what's the next step? What is my optimum strategy for providingcompelling evidence of my repudiation of my worldview?"

  "Well, that's where the analogy breaks down. This isn't about anythingdemonstrable. There's no one thing we look for in making our diagnosis. It's acollection of things, a protocol for evaluating you. It doesn't happenovernight, either. You were committed on the basis of evidence that you had madethreats to your coworkers due to a belief that they were seeking to harm you."

  "Interesting. Can we try a little thought experiment, Doctor? Say that yourcoworkers really *were* seeking to harm you -- this is not without historicalprecedent, right? They're seeking to sabotage you because you've discovered someterrible treachery on their part, and they want to hush you up. So they provokea reaction from you and use it as the basis for an involuntary committal. Howwould you, as a medical professional, distinguish that scenario from one inwhich the patient is genuinely paranoid and delusional?"

  The doctor looked away. "It's in the protocol -- we find it there."

  "I see," I said, moving in for the kill. "I see. Where would I get moreinformation on the protocol? I'd like to research it before my hearing."

  "I'm sorry," the doctor said, "we don't provide access to medical texts to ourpatients."

  "Why not? How can I defend myself against a charge if I'm not made aware of themeans by which my defense is judged? That hardly seems fair."

  The doctor stood and smoothed his coat, turned his badge's lanyard so that hispicture faced outwards. "Art, you're not here to defend yourself. You're here sothat we can take a look at you and understand what's going on. If you have beenset up, we'll discover it --"

  "What's the ratio of real paranoids to people who've been set up, in yourexperience?"

  "I don't keep stats on that sort of thing --"

  "How many paranoids have been released because they were vindicated?"

  "I'd have to go through my case histories --"

  "Is it more than ten?"

  "No, I wouldn't think so --"

  "More than five?"

  "Art, I don't think --"

  "Have *any* paranoids ever been vindicated? Is this observation period anythingmore than a formality en route to committal? Come on, Doctor, just let me knowwhere I stand."

  "Art, we're on your side here. If you want to make this easy on yourself, thenyou should understand that. The nurse will be in with your lunch and your medsin a few minutes, then you'll be allowed out on the ward. I'll speak to youthere more, if you want."

  "Doctor, it's a simple question: Has anyone ever been admitted to this facilitybecause it was believed he had paranoid delusions, and later released because hewas indeed the center of a plot?"

  "Art, it's not appropriate for me to discuss other patients' histories --"

  "Don't you publish case studies? Don't those contain confidential informationdisguised with pseudonyms?"

  "That's not the point --"

  "What *is* the point? It seems to me that my optimal strategy here is torepudiate my belief that Fede and Linda are plotting against me -- *even* if Istill believe this to be true, even if it *is* true -- and profess a belief thatthey are my good
and concerned friends. In other words, if they are indeedplotting against me, I must profess to a delusional belief that they aren't, inorder to prove that I am not delusional."

  "I read *Catch-22* too, Art. That's not what this is about, but your attitudeisn't going to help you any here." The doctor scribbled on his comm briefly,tapped at some menus. I leaned across and stared at the screen.

  "That looks like a prescription,