Georgia On My Mind and Other Places

by Charles Sheffield

  “You will.”

  “Tom, it’s a very simple request. I want two things, and you can’t possibly object to the first one. I’d like the on-line patient care computer in my wheelchair hooked up to the main household computer. In fact, I’d like to slave the main computer to this one, so that I have an override from here if I ever need it. Would you do that for me?”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad. What’s the second one?”

  “Tom, you’re getting paranoid. How old are you, thirty-seven? You shouldn’t be suspecting everybody for another forty years.”

  “What’s the second one?”

  “Nothing terrible. I don’t want to die before my time, that’s all. You gave me an expert system, but it’s not expert enough. It uses the best existing know-how, but it lags behind the real edge. I don’t want that. If any new treatments are coming down the pike, I have to know about them—soon. I want my household computer hooked direct into the big centers and information systems—the Mayo, and Sloan-Kettering, and the Medline system at the National Institutes of Health. Not shared modems, either, I want dedicated lines. Then we’ll have a decent system. And anytime I want to browse through and look at new treatments or experimental drugs, I can do it here without bothering anybody.”

  Matlock stood up and stared down at the frail figure in the wheelchair. “Do you realize what that would take? This house would have to be defined as a full-fledged medical research facility. There would have to be a validation process, certification of staff, data-handling procedures, drug-handling procedures…”

  He paused. Miriam Greenwood had moved her chair forward and skimmed an envelope across the desk.

  “Open it, Tom, before you tell me it’s impossible.” She was wheezing, a rare sign of emotion. “My life is my life. My money is only my money. I’ll trade one for the other. That check is all for you. Take it, and tell me how much more it takes to deal with anyone else we need.”

  The rule had been established in the first few weeks: Miriam Greenwood did not want to talk to Matlock over the telephone. If he needed to communicate with her, he would come to the estate.

  He broke that rule once, early in the second year. It took ten impatient minutes of hard talk and threats to push the house staff into putting him through to her, and when the connection was at last made he insisted on a video channel. He wanted to see Greenwood, see how she reacted.

  “You lied to me,” he said, as soon as the TV was active.

  “Did I?” Her lined face was calm. It seemed his call was no surprise.

  “You know you did.” He shook his finger furiously at the camera. “When I arranged for your computer to be hooked into the information systems, our agreement was completely clear.”

  “Quite true. It was.”

  “Your medical facilities would be defined as a full research center, but you would get only information. No supplies. No screened labs—and no experimental drugs!”

  “That is correct. Are you resigning?”

  The cool question was like a splash of ice water. Matlock paused.

  “Because if you are,” went on the quiet voice, “I certainly can’t stop you. But I want to remind you what that will mean. Nine-tenths of your income. The home on St. Kitts. The ownership interest in the casino. Sylvia, too, unless my judgment is badly in error—yes, of course I know all about her and the apartment, just as I know how much you have in each of your bank accounts. Would you like to know what her background is? I suppose not—you’re too obsessed with her. But it’s not at all what she told you, Tom.”

  He shook his head in an abrupt shivering motion. “Experimental drugs, from all over the world. My signature splashed all over the applications, certifying their uses. If anything were to happen at the house, I’d be ruined. Totally ruined.”

  “It won’t happen.” The thin figure in the wheelchair sat up straighter, and her voice strengthened. “Now, Tommy Matlock, get all this in perspective. We spent a lot of time and money, you and I, making sure I have access to the latest information. Fine. But what good would that be, if the drugs I needed—urgently—were half a world away? We could get data in a fraction of a second, but I might have to wait days for drugs. That’s the exact opposite of an efficient health care system. I realized that we needed the drugs on hand here. Maybe we would never use them, but maybe they would save my life. Wasn’t that the purpose of everything we’ve been doing?”

  “They’re experimental drugs—dangerous drugs, with God knows what side effects. If Ronson were to start playing around with them—”

  “Which he won’t do.” As Miriam Greenwood leaned back, Matlock could see new catheters trailing from her lower body. How long was it since she had left that wheelchair, for any reason? Now that he looked closer, he saw the recent changes. Her arms were just bony sticks, and her head was supported by a padded brace. Her mouth was lipless, drawn back over prominent dentures.

  “Ronson won’t do anything wild,” she went on, “for the best possible reason. Today he has a large income—a very large income. But the hour that I die, so does the money supply. His contract is clear. He’s cut off that same minute, and out the door looking for another job. If anything can keep me alive, our good Doctor Ronson will do it.”

  She paused, then nodded her head as though listening to something. “In fact, Tommy, don’t you think it would be a good idea if you worked with me on the same basis? You’re not going to resign, are you?”

  The vacation home, the casino, Sylvia…Matlock did not speak.

  “So that’s all settled, then.” Miriam Greenwood smiled. “You’ll get more money, naturally…as long as I’m alive. We all want that, don’t we, more than anything. Let’s work on it, Tom. I’m nearly ninety-one now. Let’s try for a century, then we’ll worry how we go on to a hundred and five.”

  “It was a shock, Tommy, a nasty shock. And you know as well as I do, shocks could be very bad for me.”

  The toothless mouth was moving, but the harsh, metallic voice came from the synthesizer and voice enhancer on the back of the wheelchair. Matlock stared at Miriam Greenwood in annoyance. He had installed that system four months ago for emergency use, but now she employed it all the time in preference to normal speech.

  “I quite agree, we don’t want any sort of shock. But I still don’t know what happened. Your message didn’t give any details.” Matlock hid his irritation. He had dropped everything and headed for the house, the moment the urgent call reached the hospital. He had risked police pursuit and his own skin, pushing the Lamborghini up over a hundred and twenty on quiet parts of the road. And after all that—nothing! Miriam Greenwood appeared to be perfectly normal.

  “Of course I didn’t give details. It’s too important a problem to talk about over the telephone.” The frail figure was covered to the neck by a white sheet, but Greenwood’s hands were moving beneath it, fingering the controls in the arms of the wheelchair. She came rolling around the desk and stopped right by Matlock’s chair. “I thought we had taken care of everything, Tommy, I really did. And now I find there’s a terrible weakness in what we’ve done. Not your fault.” A clawlike hand emerged from the sheet, patted his arm in a conciliatory way, and retreated. “It’s my fault. I need your help.”

  “What happened?”

  “This afternoon, a little after one o’clock, I noticed one of the television screens had a problem with its colors.” The skeletal head nodded upward, to the array of monitors set along the interior wall. “I rang for one of the nurses on duty. There are always two of them, twenty-four hours a day, and they know the rule as well as we do: they must be here in the room with me, in less than thirty seconds. I waited—two whole minutes. Then I rang again. And still no one came, not for another five minutes. I could have been dying. I could have been dead!”

  “I’ll check into it at once.”

  “No need for that. I found out what happened from Ronson. The two nurses on duty were a man and a woman, and they were having an affair. When t
hey should have been on duty they had sneaked off to bed together, away where they couldn’t hear or see my signal.”

  “They should be fired.” There was real anger in Matlock’s voice. If Miriam Greenwood should die now, when his own cash flow needs were at a maximum…“I’ll talk to Dr. Ronson.”

  “I took care of it. They were gone hours ago. I can do most anything when I set my mind to it, and I’ve dismissed hundreds of servants in the past fifty years. Surely you didn’t imagine I’d drag you here for something I can do perfectly well myself? No, Tommy, I said I had a real problem, and I meant it.”

  She rolled the chair back around to the other side of the desk, to face him again. The old eyes and mouth were like cracks in a parchment face. It was another minute before she spoke again. Matlock had time to reflect on the fact that he was a servant, too, one who would be dismissed as casually as the nurses if he were no longer useful.

  “Your on-line patient care system,” went on Miriam Greenwood at last. “It takes care of anything that I need in the way of medication, and that’s fine. But it’s only one part of health care. Suppose something happens where I need help from a human? Cardiac arrest, or choking, or a fall? The best computer and telemetry in the world won’t do a thing for me. I’m right back where I started, totally dependent on help from nurses and doctors. We proved today that they’re as unreliable as ever. Seven minutes, before anyone came!”

  Matlock’s stomach rumbled. He had spent the whole lunch hour at the apartment, arguing with Sylvia. He was sure she was being unfaithful to him, but he had no proof. Now it was four-thirty, and he had not eaten since breakfast. “I agree, it’s unforgivable,” he said hurriedly. “But I don’t see how you can do anything about it. People are people. Even with the best staff in the world, there will be delays sometimes.”

  “Why?”

  As usual, Greenwood could floor him with a simple question. He stared at her.

  “If you’re paid to be here without delay,” she went on, “and paid handsomely, with that as your top priority, why should there be delays?”

  “It’s human nature. Someone may be in the middle of doing something else, and they think it’s important. So…” He shrugged.

  “I’m glad you agree with me.” The fingers were busy beneath the white sheet. “If we just let things slide along, it may happen again. Once I had that thought, I remembered something I found last week in a database search. It’s an extremely interesting line of research being carried out in Guangzhou, in southern China. Behind you.”

  Matlock swung around, to see a research abstract scrolling onto one of the display screens.

  “Do you know the work, Tommy?” said the metallic voice behind him.

  “Well enough to tell you it’s forbidden.”

  “In this country.”

  “Anywhere, outside China. Do you understand what it’s reporting?”

  “I think so. It’s telling how to control a human’s primary response, through a computer and a programmable implant. When the person takes the action approved by the computer, the implant provides a stimulus to the pleasure centers of the brain.”

  “In other words, a form of mind control. The Chinese have apparently been trying it in infantry training. Successfully, if this can be believed. It’s hard to imagine a more powerful stimulus to obey a command.”

  “Well?”

  Matlock swung back to face Miriam Greenwood. The ancient face was staring at him with strange intensity. “Well, what?”

  “Don’t you see, Tommy? It’s exactly what we need. We have the computer, right here. I control it. If the medical staff here at the house were all equipped with the right implants…”

  “That’s the craziest—” Matlock paused. “Mrs. Greenwood. I’ve learned a lot in these past two years, and I respect your brains more than you think. But don’t you see, you’d never in a million years get any of the staff members to agree to your putting a microcomputer in their heads. And as for—”

  “Save your breath.” The face carried a look of sly triumph. “Tommy, you just don’t understand money and people. I can explain it in very simple terms. First, I wouldn’t even attempt to affect anyone’s actions, unless those actions conflicted directly with care of my health. I have no interest otherwise in what they choose to do. Second, it’s for a limited time. I want to buy that sort of service for one year from the staff, at forty thousand dollars per person per month. At the end of that time, they can either sign up again—their choice, no pushing from me—or they’d be free to have the implant removed and leave.”

  “You’d never get anyone to agree. It would mean an illegal operation, with no—”

  “I already asked. Ronson agreed, and so did nine others. That’s more than enough volunteers to make it work…provided you will help. We don’t have the facilities or the skills to perform the operation. You have both.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t even want to discuss it. Don’t you understand, we’re not talking medical hand-slapping now—we’re talking jail sentences.”

  “No one who worked for me would ever go to jail. I may not know medicine, but I do know law.”

  “I don’t care. The answer is still no.”

  “Maybe it is, but don’t say it now. Drive back home, take your time, and then come and see me in a couple of days. Remember, my life might depend on prompt service, and nothing is more important to me. I’d hate to have to fire you. And if you help, naturally it would mean more money. A lot more.”

  Matlock shook his head and stood up. He was heading for the door when the final words came.

  “—and of course, there could be other benefits. Wouldn’t it be nice to put an implant in Sylvia, with just your finger on her pleasure button? I don’t think you’d find that difficult to arrange…with my help. Think about it, Tommy. Just think…”

  There was no reason for Sylvia’s trip to the big house, unless it was to show off his handiwork to Miriam Greenwood.

  As the Lamborghini approached the barred metal gates, Matlock noticed something new. Instead of a uniformed guard, a gray metal cabinet stood beside the fence. A camera turned to track the car’s progress, then a synthesized voice requested that both passengers advance to the machine and provide identification.

  He turned to Sylvia. “Don’t worry, it’s just Mrs. Greenwood. She’s been reducing the number of staff to make things more automated.”

  She reached out to touch his arm. The implant was programmable, with Sylvia’s default values set to produce pleasure when she looked at him, rather more when she touched him. The most powerful joys had been reserved for other situations, and Matlock could vary the overall level, from thrilling pleasure to a sensation which apparently made Sylvia unable to think or speak. In some ways, Matlock envied her. Nothing in his own life provided that much joy. Maybe someday, an implant of his own, under his own control…

  The inside of the house had changed also in the past three months. With a staff reduced from forty to ten, most routine functions had been delegated to the household computer. Identification checks were automatic, and a small mobile robot glided before them as they headed for Miriam Greenwood’s study. It ignored Matlock’s protest that he knew the way perfectly well.

  She was there, as always, in the wheelchair. Matlock had become so used to her that Sylvia’s gasp of dismay came as a surprise to him. For the first time in a year, he looked at Miriam Greenwood with an objective eye.

  She never bothered now with the gray woolen cap, and her skull showed veined and delicate, its few thin strands of white hair falling forward onto the lined forehead. With the regular use of the synthesizer, she no longer wore dentures. Her lower face had collapsed inward, wizened, hollow cheeks framing a pursed, sunken mouth. Fortunately, the white sheet covering her from neck to feet hid the worst features, along with IVs and catheters and waste bags.

  Matlock took Sylvia’s hand in his, and turned up the pleasure level a notch. She sighed, and moved to stand close to him.
/>
  “So this is Sylvia.” The voice box spoke softly, thoughtfully. “Welcome, my dear. You look very well.”

  “I feel well.” Sylvia sounded happy, but a little puzzled. “I feel wonderful.”

  “That is good to hear.” The frail head turned slowly from the woman to the man. “A handsome couple. Ah, Tommy, you won’t believe it, but I once possessed such soft charms myself.”

  “How is everything else going?” The question was perfunctory. Matlock was vaguely uneasy. He could increase Sylvia’s pleasure level, if he had to, until she was oblivious to Miriam Greenwood’s appearance or indeed to any of her surroundings, but he didn’t want to do so. That would spoil his own plans for systematic pleasure-probing with Sylvia, at another time and place.

  “I believe things are going extremely well.” The death’s-head smiled. “I would almost say, perfectly, but I know you do not like to hear that word.”

  Matlock came to full attention. “Problems?”

  “Not for anything that we have done so far. In a few minutes time, I would like to run a small experiment, so that you can see for yourself. But there is one other matter. Raw materials.”

  “We already took care of that. Ronson has every damned drug in the book, new and old.”

  “Drugs, yes. That is one form of raw material. But suppose that we had a different problem. Suppose that I suffered some organic failure. Suppose that we urgently needed a transplant, and nothing that closely matches my tissue type was available fast, and locally. That would be a real problem. I’ve already had Ronson do tissue-typing for me, and no one here at the house is even close to me.” A white hand crept out from under the sheet, and a finger moved up to rub the sunken temple. The forearm was festooned with sensors and IVs. “A bank, Tommy, that’s what we need. An organ bank, and a tissue bank.”

  Matlock thrust his hand into his pocket, and turned the setting of Sylvia’s unit up a random three or four notches. She shivered and gasped as the telemetered signal went to her implant, and sat down suddenly on the floor. But at least she was no longer listening.