Slant
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Jonathan's eyes fill with tears. "We were making love," he says quietly.
The doctor seems to find this unexceptionable.
"Chloe was acting very sexy. She used . . . language . . . I thought she was
really turned on. But she was just breaking down, wasn't she?"
"I'm sorry," the doctor says. "I don't think it's possible to know. Maybe
/
SLANT 145
"How could I?" Jonathan says. "Was it my fault?"
"I don't see how it could be," the doctor says. "Unless you had been badgering
her to engage in behavior she found offensive."
Jonathan tries to absorb this for a few seconds. His face flushes. "She has
been.., stiff, less interested in me. I try to change that. Make myself...
better. For her. Suggestions. But I did not," he swallows, "badger her."
The doctor is silent, offering no reassurances. Jonathan realizes he has given
the doctor a possible explanation for what triggered his wife's fallback, kVhat
if he is misremembering his own behavior to protect a guilty conscience?
The doctor looks down and shrugs. "I can't judge a domestic situation,"
she says, "but you're not describing behavior that doesn't take place between
millions of couples every day, with no adverse consequences... None like
these, I mean." A troubled expression briefly flits over her calm features. "I
sense you might blame yourself whatever the final diagnosis is, and that may
not be appropriate for your own health. I can't tell you this officially, but this
hospital has been seeing a lot of fallback cases recently, covering the spectrum
of therapies . .. Often involving failure of implanted monitors."
"Fallbacks . . . You mean, the implants are defective?"
"We don't know. I offer this just to keep you from brooding yourself into
your own breakdown. If her implant had functioned properly, this would probably
have never happened."
Jonathan feels sudden acid in his throat, and his skin heats. "Something
wrong with a product, or a procedure?" This he can deal with professionally.
This he can encompass.
"XYTe really don't know. Please don't jump to conclusions."
Jonathan realizes the doctor is uncomfortable, and well she should be. She
is caught between defending her profession and perhaps her own actions, and
acknowledging what might be a major problem. He feels at once personal
relief and a kind of awed anger.
"Where can I find out more about this?" Jonathan asks.
"We're consulting her original therapist," the doctor says. "That might be
a good place to begin."
MUL TIWA Y BRANCHES
BROAD ACCESS FIBE (TEXT AND CHAT, with LIVE VID AND AVATARS): THE SPUN SUGAR
SHOW (Trish Hing, Today's MOD:)
ONE OF MANY (GENERIC AVATAR): Can anyone join this tangle?
MOD (VID FACE OF FELICIA HANG OVER TIGER BODY): Sure, why not--
146
GREG BEAR
ONE OF MANY: That doesn't matter. I'm logged blank and I prefer it that way--somebody
will try to sell me something. I just wanted to
MOD: Sure, go ahead--have your say. It's a free country.
ONE OF MANY: Well, actually, I don't think it is. I tell you what my grind is--they just want me to sit down and suck up what they do and pay money for it. They are trying to discourage all the new fibe posts and public channels, and they have so many ways of making all the little people pay, while limiting access to
MOD: What do you mean, Mr. Blank?
ONE OF MANY: I can't get anybody to come to my fibe hive and hang. I have all
this work I've done, I think it's very good stuff and so do my friends, and I can't
get any of the reviews to post it. I say the reviews are paid for by the Big Sharks
and they discourage posts by us little minnows. How can an artist make a living
when nobody swims by?
MOD: So you think you're being discriminated against by the big companies
which control all we see and hear.
ONE OF MANY: Sure. And it may even go beyond them--the government.
MOD: The government is against you?
ONE OF MANY: Sure. Everybody knows they regulate the ribes and satlinks and
they're in up to their checksums with the money power. They say it's for the
common good. I sure as hell know better.
e
MOD: So you want to make a living from posting your work on the ribes or sat-links,
but nobody squirts you any money to download or even take a taste,
hmm?
ONE OF MANY: Not enough. And I think they're actively discouraging repeats for
little guys like me.
MOD: They being the big intratainment industry folks or the government.
ONE OF MANY: Yeah. They're trying to conserve flow for the big industry posts
and links.
MOD: Well, why don't you post your address here and let's see if we can't up
your hit rate.
ONE OF MANY: Nice try, but I know the kind of audience this place gets. Everybody
would try to get me to sample their fibe hive.
MOD: Isn't that the way it works?
................. ,. ----.A A I;..;.n ; I'm encnclinn my monev at other hives.
/ SLANT 147
MOD: We all have to eat, my friend. Maybe you don't understand the process.
(Now please, while we're exclusive with this fellow, don't build up your anger and
carbonize him when you get on... I can just feel your pressure building!)
ONE OF MANY: I just know it doesn't work.
MOD: So, let me try to psi your case here. You work at home--you've been out
of everything but the dole for quite a few years. You haven't advanced your education
in some time--you're afraid of going in to therapy your attitudes and get a
good working joy-buzz--and maybe your boy/girlfriend isn't as pretty as the
folks on the Yox. You'd really like to live on the Yox and you know you deserve
it. But you can't afford more than say ten hours a week of second-grade Yox,
not even the top new stuff, and the rest of the time you're alone with your unhappy
situation, and you've been hoping you could finance an upgrade by selling
your own work.
ONE OF MANY: Are you in their pay, too?
MOD: I wish, no such. But wait, I'm not done yet. I'm at the helm today; you can
apply for the post tomorrow. You have no skills off the ribes, or on, that anybody
really wants to pay for, so your last refuge is the dole. You're one of the disAffected,
my friend. Join the crowd. I really sympathize.
ONE OF MANY: Wait, this is
MOD: If you don't post your stats and address, how can we check my psi?
You're drawing a blank, and you expect rational discourse? Let us know whether
I'm right and post your stats.
ONE OF MANY: Fuck you.
MOD: Ah, more reasoned discourse. Fucking is an act of friendship and love and
trust, Mr. Blank. You must come from the old school that believes it's penetrative
domination and reducing the other to chattel slavery, hence a term of opprobrium.
But maybe I shouldn't use such big words. I bet you haven't used your
sensemaker on an unfamiliar word in ever so long. Ah, Mr. Blank has logged off.
Okay. It's open, gang. Does anybody have anything interesting to talk about?
The Sea Foam 2 sits on the ocean waters of the sound, not far from the ancient
and revered Pike Place Market. The cab drops Martin and he pays his ninety
dollars and steps out on the concrete and asphalt of the old Alaskan Way,
lovingly reconstructed from the mammoth quake of'14, with antique turtle
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GREG BEAR
Short green trolleys clang along their brick-encased rails below the rise to the
market. Westward spreads the sound, blue-gray under scattered clouds and
dazzling curtains of sun.
The tourist crowd is light today but the line before the Sea Foam 2 is already
long. Sun glints from the clusters of huge liquid-filled bubbles rising above
the slurping waterfront. Within the bubbles, grotesque horrors of the sea live
their suspended lives, most real, a few, wonderful robots perhaps even smarter
than the creatures they are meant to depict.
"My name is Burke. I'm supposed to meet Miz Dana Carrilund," he tells
the live, real maitre d' at the front. The maitre d' knows well enough to
recognize these names from the list, and guides him under the sparkling shimmers
of the piled, sea-filled bubbles to a table by the broad side window looking
out, unobstructed, over the sound. Carrilund is waiting. Shadows pass over her
as they shake hands. Unable to restrain himself, Martin flinches and looks up:
a shark turns in its bubble, dappled like a fawn. It is swimming upside down,
he realizes. Is it supposed to do that?
"How nice to finally meet you," Carrilund says. She is severe at first appearance,
hair almost white and cut short, square-faced and solid but pleasingly
shaped. Her arms resting on the paper menu appear strong, and she asks him
if he drinks this early.
"Not often," Martin says.
"Nor I. But they have a grand cocktail here--they call it a Sea Daisy. Shall
we--just to loosen up?"
She smiles pleasantly, so he nods and murmurs, "Sure. What the hell."
Martin knows people--he prides himself on understanding their smallest
s
,uhaviors, and being able to fit those behaviors into overall impressions of
rpassing accuracy. Dana Carrilund knows humans perhaps as well as he does,
but in a different way and to different ends--not to improve their mental
health, as such, but to fit them better into larger schemes. She betrays very
few of her own needs in the process, and her behaviors are as studied as those
of an actor, though not necessarily false. Not necessarily.
Right now, Carrilund wishes Martin to believe she is impressed by him.
And not so oddly, Martin is himself impressed. Carrilund appears to be very
integrated, mentally robust, and a specimen of physical health.
The drinks are served. Flower-like tangles of half-frozen, half-gelatinized
fruit juice seep into a surround of vodka. The rim of the globular glass is caked
with microcapsules of salt, sugar, and vinegar, which dissolve unpredictably
against the tongue--and it is all served very cold.
Martin sips and finds it delicious. "I hope you don't need all my mental
faculties this morning," he says.
"If we keep ourselves to one drink, we'll do fine," Carrilund says. "What I
need now is to get a more accurate picture of Martin Burke, the man."
/ SLANT 149
"You've been through some rough times," Carrilund observes. "Quite a few
shifts in your career track."
"Open history," Martin says.
"Yes, and no," Carrilund says. "You've never been very open about your
involvement in the Goldsmith case."
"Ah." Martin smiles grimly. "How thorough are we going to be this morning?''
"Tolerably friendly and only tolerably thorough. I'm more concerned about
your part in developing the tools of effective deep therapy. You were a brilliant
pioneer. You caused upsets that derailed your career. And now--you're a quiet,
respectable professional with a narrow focus."
"So far, so true," Martin says.
"You have no intention of ever getting involved in anything that could
bring more trouble."
"Not if I can help it."
Carrilund orders her breakfast, and the waiter takes Martin's order next.
Later, he does not remember what he ordered; he feels an unease he has become
all too familiar with in his career, contemplating another stroll through a lion's
cage--a stroll he can never seem to convince himself is not worth the risk.
"You consulted on a research project three years ago for a group working
out of Washington, the New Federalist Market Alliance. They're associated
with another group, called the Aristos."
"Yes," Martin says. "It was a small contract. Lasted only two weeks."
"I presume what you told them is confidential."
"Not really. They wanted my thoughts on the future of a society without
effective deep-tissue mental therapy. They're a very conservative organization."
Carrilund precisely reveals her distaste. "What did you think of them?"
"Polite and well-dressed," Martin says, smiling.
"Fascists?"
"No. Class elitists. They take their Federalism seriously."
"They also believe in the genetic superiority of a moneyed class.., am I
right?" Carrilund asks.
Martin nods. "So I've heard."
Carrilund shows her distaste. "Their Jesus wears a longsuit and has a perfect
long-term investment plan."
"I provided them what they asked for, and that was that," Martin says.
Carrilund seems to steel herself for some unpleasantness. "What did you
tell them, in outline?"
"I told them our society had reached a point where effective therapy is a
necessity. Remove the effects of therapy in today's culture, and you'll begin a
long decline into anarchy."
"Why?"
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GREG BEAR
speed engine. Well, about a century and a half ago, the stresses became too
great, overall, resulting in increasing populations of thymically unbalanced
individuals. Not crazy people, necessarily--just deeply unhappy people."
"The work loads became too great?"
"Nor exactly. This is more difficult to convey--the stresses, perhaps not
coincidentally, seemed perfectly designed to cause nagging, even debilitating
thymic problems. The mental equivalents of baseball elbow or housework
knee--on a huge scale. Without effective therapy, widely available and used,
we wouldn't be able to support the dataflow economy we have today."
Carrilund seems interested in clarifying this point. "By therapy, you mean
specifically deep tissue therapy--thymic balancing, pathic correction, neuronal
supplement and repair. Chemicotropic adjustment and psychosocial microsurgery
on the neural level. Implanted monitors for continuing adjustment."
"Better minds for a better world," Martin says. "I've never been ashamed
of my part in all this."
"You have no reason to be ashamed," Carrilund says hastily. "You've played
an integral role in a magnificent accomplishment. And you've done quite
well recently with implant monitor designs. You're a major player in a
big industry."
"Thank you."
"And, as you say, a necessary one. What did this organization do with what
you told them?"
"I presume they went home and kept quiet about it," Martin says. "They've
long been opposed to therapy on ethical and religious gr
ounds. The necessity
of error and sin in God's plan, I suppose. Free will. I didn't give them much
{they would find useful. No political wedge, so to speak." Martin looks down
I his fingers, twisted on the tabletop. He untwists them. "I got the impression
they were hoping I'd tell them it could all be dispensed with."
"I see," Carrilund says. She puts her finger to her lips--not an affectation,
Martin judges, but a genuine sign of deep thought. The breakfast arrives and
he eats without paying any attention to the food. He cannot help feeling that
the lion's cage is just down the road.
"Mr. Burke, you know I'm in charge of the healthcare of fburteen million
employees in the Corridor and along Southcoast."
"Yes."
"Something statistically impossible is happening," she says. She continues
to eat, relaxed and polite, as if they are having a purely social breakfast. "A
mental meltdown. The wave is just beginning to build, but from what we're
seeing so far, I think you're right about the consequences."
Martin stops eating and squints at the ocean, then up at the masses of water
suspended over them.
"Are you free this afternoon?" Carrilund asks.
/ SLANT 151
need to see." Her smile is assuring, positive. Why, then, does Martin feel a
familiar sensation of loss, of sinking and drowning?
"For once," Martin muses, "I'd like to be on the side of the angels."