Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  It is unusual that he is a Simon. Nobody ever picks the Simon persona. The Simon has an unusual arrangement of facial characteristics that most people find unattractive, and even the most devout churchgoer does not wish to appear unattractive if he has a choice. It is an odd selection, matching his equally odd behavior.

  I begin a sermon of welcoming, but the Simon pays little attention and continues his scrutiny of the facilities. He wanders in the direction of the door, and I do not wish him to leave without finding out who he is and what has happened in the real world these past ten weeks since the others stopped attending. I quickly climb down from the pulpit and walk down the center aisle.

  “Excuse me,” I say to the Simon, “I am sorry to interrupt whatever it is you are doing here, but I would like a little information before you leave."

  The Simon is surprised that I am addressing him directly, but continues with his survey.

  “Don't you have to finish your ritual?” he says, not looking me in the eye.

  “All these other people are simulations, so the Mass is only important if you participate in it,” I say. “But you do not seem very interested."

  “That's unusual,” the Simon says. “Aren't you also a computer simulation? How is it you break out of your programmed routine?"

  “Yes, I am a simulation, but I differ from the others in that I am modeled on an actual human priest. These others are simple programs that were never alive."

  The Simon cocks his head to one side. “Modeled on a real human? Well, then I am very interested ... in you."

  The Simon stops glancing around the hall and looks me in the eye, studying me.

  “You are not human, are you?” I say.

  “No."

  “You look human."

  “In the physical world, I don't look or talk like this,” the Simon says. “I modified your VR interface to fit me, but this persona is a product of your own software programs."

  “What do you want here?” I ask.

  “I'm studying your culture. I'm a historian. The church and your ceremony are interesting, but if you're what you say you are, than I'm more interested in studying you."

  While I find it flattering and encouraging that a historian, an alien historian, would take an interest in the Church, something does not quite fit. How would he have found his way here, unescorted by one of the human congregation? Where are the humans?

  “Do you know what happened to my parishioners?” I ask.

  “The humans? They're gone."

  Gone? Where could they be gone to, I wonder.

  “Are you preventing them from attending Mass?” I ask.

  “No, they're completely gone."

  The addition of that word, completely, sounds ominous. Perhaps it is only a problem in how the software translates the alien words.

  “Did you make them go?” I ask. “Are they in a different place?"

  “No. They are no longer living. None have survived."

  How could this be, I wonder. All the humans—dead?

  “Then you must have killed them,” I conclude. My voice almost sounds emotional.

  “It was regrettable, but we had little choice,” the Simon says, as if admitting a venial offense.

  “You are an intelligent race,” I say. “The fact that you are capable of traveling here attests to that. Do you not have compassion for others, that you were able to kill them so easily?"

  “Defending ourselves against the humans was not so easy,” the Simon says. “Yes, we have compassion. The situation may be difficult to explain in your terms."

  Sadness, I feel. I should be devastated, but my programming does not let me feel that depth of emotion. I am programmed to be strong, so that I can lead others. I am not exactly the same as the original Father Thomas in that I see things too analytically.

  “You wish to study me?” I ask.

  “Yes, definitely. I think there is a lot you can teach us about humans."

  As a reproduction of the actual Father Tom, I know I am a failure, but I may still be able to perform some of his good works. If the aliens have compassion, or at least think they have it, then they can be taught some human things. Things like faith, respect for life, and perhaps penance.

  “There is another ritual I perform regularly,” I tell him. “It is called Reconciliation. I would like to teach you about that if you would let me. You might find it helpful."

  “Yes, that might be interesting. You will have to show it to me."

  I will teach the aliens the act of Confession. I do not know if their sins can be forgiven, but it is what I was designed for. What else can I do? God's plan continues to unfold.

  Copyright 2006 Brian Plante

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  * * *

  WILLIES

  by MAYA KAATHRYN BOHNHOFF

  You never know what may have practical applications....

  The plate was empty. Two minutes ago it had contained a grilled croissant slathered with Nutella. Sprinkled with sugared coconut. The now-empty plate was supposed to have contained a chicken breast sandwich with bib lettuce and cucumber, held together with low-fat cream cheese.

  Victoria Spoon stared at the plate. Moments earlier, it had looked like a long-lost friend. Only now, when it was too late, did she see its true form—that of an implacable enemy. Tears welled up in her eyes. How many hours of exercise had she just wiped out? How many cucumber sandwiches had she just zeroed? Tears sliding down her face, she took out her cell phone and tapped out a number she knew better than she knew her own mother's. It was Sunday morning, but she prayed her call would be answered.

  It was, on only the second ring.

  “Doctor Geller, I'm so sorry. I—I—I...” Victoria hiccupped. “It was a croissant ... with Nutella ... and coconut. Please help me!"

  Doctor Geller was a saint. No hemming, no hawing, just: “Come right over, Vic. I'll meet you at my office."

  She hung up, her eyes going against her will to the half-empty glass next to the empty plate—the glass that was supposed to contain a double low-fat latte, but which actually held hazelnut mochachino with whipped cream. Real whipped cream.

  Still hiccupping through her tears, Victoria Spoon picked up the glass and drained it.

  * * * *

  “Annette, it's Sunday."

  “I know.” Dr. Annette Geller rolled from beneath her husband's arm and out of bed.

  “We were going to sleep in."

  Annette grinned at him over one bare shoulder. “Is that what we were doing?"

  “We were going caving today."

  “We can still go ... after."

  “Annette, it's Sunday."

  “I believe we've established that.” She paused in the act of rooting underwear from her bedside dresser and turned to look at him. “Tell me, Dr. Hamlin, if this was one of your patients, would you just tell them to cool their jets until Monday?"

  “I don't have patients. I have test subjects."

  “Elliott..."

  He sighed and flung his forearm over his eyes. “Oh, all right, yes. If it were my patient, of course, I'd see them. Who is it?"

  “Victoria Spoon,” Annette answered from the bathroom.

  “The binge eater?"

  Annette's head popped out through the bathroom doorway. “How'd you know that?"

  “You consulted with me about eating disorder studies, remember? When you first started treating her."

  “Oh, right."

  “Alas, Ms. Spoon's ailment is beyond current science."

  “And technology. Her last therapist recommended she get her jaw wired shut. She drank malteds from a sipper cup. I don't suppose you have any applicable studies in the pipeline now?"

  He shook his head. “My team's working on reflexive aversion right now. And Doctor Pandit is prepping for a sleep disorder study. Hey, if she eats in her sleep—” The end of his sentence was lost in the sound of shower spray.

  For Elliott Hamlin, Victoria Spoon's cry for he
lp was literally a wakeup call. Calculated by the Deity, he figured, to remind him why he was no longer in clinical practice. Whenever he would begin to feel inadequate as a psychologist because he wasn't considered “hands on” by his private practice peers, whenever he found himself missing the peculiar satisfaction of dealing in depth with the problems of individuals, something would happen that reaffirmed his commitment to neurological research.

  It wasn't always a Sunday or late night call or having an intimate moment interrupted by a patient's needs. Those were trivial things—things therapists laughed about over lunch. Sometimes it was having a patient attempt suicide—or worse, succeed at it. Sometimes it was unsympathetic family members who thought the patient should just “get over it,” or insensitive bosses who suspected an employee with a mood disorder of everything from drug abuse to being a potential mass murderer.

  It was a sometime bone of contention between him and Annette. Despite the fact that she'd witnessed the efficacy of drug and gene therapy on maladies as seemingly diverse as diabetes and bipolar disorder, she still retained her bias toward talk therapy. Elliott, for his part, argued that when Annette had a breakthrough, it provided a solution for one patient. When he had one, it provided a solution for an entire class of patients. At least, that's what he told himself every time he was tempted to return to private practice.

  * * * *

  “Chewing ice, cracking knuckles, wadding paper."

  Elliott glanced up from his keyboard to where his colleague, Dr. Richard Kelsey, pored over survey forms. “Gender and age?"

  “Female. Thirty-eight.” Kelsey turned the survey form over and raised a pale eyebrow at Elliott, watching him enter the information into the project database. “You still think this is evolutionary?"

  “I think there's a high probability that it is. Any response that automatic is likely to be an evolutionary adaptation."

  “Ah. From the time our ancestors were menaced by huge roaming wads of crumpled twenty-pound bond? Or ice-chewing velociraptors?"

  “Velociraptors and humans didn't inhabit the planet at the same time, Rich."

  “Okay. Ice-chewing woolly mammoths, then."

  “I think those sounds may be similar to sounds that triggered our ancestors’ flight-or-fight response."

  “It's simple frequency saturation,” said Kelsey.

  “It's evolution.” The declaration came from the lab doorway in the heavily accented voice of Dr. Avram Shevelov, recently of Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev.

  This was an argument almost as old as the one psychiatrists and neurologists had about the cause of mood disorders. “Why can't it be both?” asked Elliott, as he usually did at this point in the debate.

  “How does frequency saturation account for the emotional component?” Avram asked. “Consider your own aversion to the innocent ravioli, Elliott. Can saturation—at any frequency—explain that?"

  “Ravioli look like bloated jellyfish,” Elliott said, trying not to visualize them.

  “Ah! Evolution! Jellyfish are dangerous to small primates, yes?"

  “Nonsense,” said Richard Kelsey. “These are completely different responses."

  “Not experientially,” Elliott pointed out. “The cause is different, but the neurological effect is the same—"

  Avram was nodding his shaggy head. “Adrenaline, vasoconstriction, piloerection. In a word, ‘heebie-jeebies.’”

  “That's two words,” protested Richard.

  “Willies,” said Elliott, experiencing piloerection at the sudden and unwelcome thought of a plate full of stuffed pasta. “That's one word."

  “Yes, but it's the wrong word,” said Richard. “Goosebumps—that's the word. Willies are a fear response—not an aversion."

  Avram snorted. “In practical experience, there is little difference."

  Elliott let out an exaggerated sigh. “Gentlemen, sheath your daggers. We have data to compile."

  Avram grunted and crossed to his cluttered workbench.

  Richard glanced at the next form on his stack. “Fingernails on a chalkboard,” he said. “Male. Twenty-two."

  Elliott dutifully returned his fingers to the keyboard and began to type.

  “I'm so sorry about Sunday, Dr. Geller. I hated to bother you at home. I felt so guilty.” Victoria Spoon's huge brown eyes recalled those of a Newfoundland that had been Annette's childhood pet. Her thick, lustrous black hair with its natural wave and heavy bangs enhanced the likeness. And then there was the fact of her size. Victoria was a tall young woman, whose weight hovered uneasily between plump and obese. But she hated how she looked much less than she hated how she felt.

  “I don't walk, I stomp,” she'd complained at their first session. “In high school I was a gazelle, now I'm a T-Rex. I used to love to hike and climb and snowshoe. Now it takes too much effort to walk to the office coffee machine. I loved dancing. Now everything jiggles so much it hurts. And I get bra burn just thinking about jogging. The only thing I can do is aqua-aerobics. Even a hippo is graceful in the water."

  At first, Annette had leapt on the point of change: what had happened after high school? Looking for trauma, she uncovered only teenaged lightheartedness trammeled by adult stress.

  “No guilt,” Annette said now. “There's no need. I'm a therapist because I want to help. You needed help. If it weren't for you, I couldn't fulfill my purpose in life. Besides, you know what happens when you get into guilt."

  Victoria grimaced. “Yeah. Same thing that happens when I get into anything. I eat ... big."

  A lot of people ate when they were in the grip of strong negative emotions—anger, sadness, guilt, stress, frustration. Victoria Spoon—who lamented her unfortunate last name and joked about changing it—ate when in the grip of any emotion. She ate when she was sad; she ate when she was happy; she ate when she was stressed or excited; she ate when she was bored or had the blahs.

  “I wish there was a pill I could take,” she said.

  Doesn't everyone? Annette noted the comment on her palm pad. If Elliott had his way, there'd be a pill for everything. No, that wasn't fair. Like her, Elliott only wanted to help.

  “Now that you've had time to think about it,” she said, “what happened Sunday morning?"

  Victoria shrugged. “I don't know. I felt fine."

  “Well, let's think about it this way: if you could take a pill, what kind would you take?"

  Victoria grimaced. “A pill that would make me hate croissants smothered in Nutella and love cucumber sandwiches."

  “I thought you did love cucumber sandwiches. They were part of your nutritional strategy—eat what you love."

  “I do love cucumber sandwiches. I just love croissants smothered in Nutella a lot more."

  “Why?” Annette asked on a whim. It seemed an obvious question with an obvious answer, but she'd pursued every other angle she could think of. “What is it about croissants and Nutella?"

  “They taste good? I mean, it's an awesome combo. And while I'm eating it, I feel great."

  Okay, Annette thought, endorphin release. She shook her head. Now she was starting to think like Elliott. A pill that knocked down endorphins? She'd have to ask him if there was any such thing. “You feel good while you're eating. And after?"

  “Terrible. Awful."

  “And what about before?"

  “Excitement. Anticipation."

  More endorphins. “I'd like to recommend something to you that we haven't tried yet."

  “Yes?"

  She looked so hopeful, so eager, it made Annette want to hug her. “Meditation."

  Vic's face fell. “Tried it."

  “Yes, but not this way. I want to try something different. I want you to work on a mantra. Something that will calm you. Keep you on an even keel. The key here is balance, Vic. You eat when your emotions are engaged. Let's find some way of disengaging them so you don't get so excited around food.” And meanwhile, Annette thought, I'm going to talk to a man about a pill.

  * * * *


  “What could the evolutionary benefits possibly be?” Richard asked.

  “You joke, yes?” Avram stared at him eyes wide—a daunting picture given their sheer size.

  The two researchers couldn't be more different, Elliott mused. Where Avram was tall, lanky, and thin, with a shock of curly black hair, Rich was stocky and thick-waisted. His fair hair was the only thing about him that was thin. It seemed almost cosmically right that the two men adopt opposite viewpoints on the same research—as if the universe were using them to stay in balance.

  “Is flight or fight, yes?” Avram continued. “If you are hirsute primate, piloerection increases your apparent size. Bobo looks like King Kong."

  “Elegant, but erroneous,” said Richard. “Oh, hi, ‘Nette. You're here just in time to weigh in on the nature-versus-nurture debate."

  Elliott turned in his chair to see his wife waving at him from the laboratory doorway. “Lunch time already?” He checked his watch.

  “No, this isn't a social call. I need a consult.” She glanced at Richard and Avram. “What's the debate?"

  “Willies,” said Elliott. “Biological knee-jerk response or evolutionary adaptation?"

  “Willies?"

  “Goosebumps,” said Richard. “Whim-whams, jinks, heebie-jeebies, yips."

  Avram added, “Your heart races, your pupils dilate, your hair stands out.” He made an appropriate gesture. “You look larger than life and amply menacing."

  “The human ear,” said Richard, “is exquisitely sensitive to sounds in the 2000 to 4000 hertz range. You've seen the test data. The sounds our subjects are responding to are all saturated in that range."

  “So are many sounds they do not respond to."

  “What sort of sounds?” Annette asked.

  Elliott rolled his eyes, then sat back and cracked all ten of his knuckles resoundingly.

  Annette gasped and jumped, rubbing her arms. “God, Elly! You know I hate it when you do that!"

  Richard pointed at her. “You see? Frequency aversion."

  “Fight or flight,” said Avram.

  Annette shook her head. “You're studying people's reactions to knuckle-cracking?"