Slant (29 page)

"We've been told by experts that we're better than National Defense."

If he had one tenth this power, Martin believes he could advance the science of human social systems by decades... But he is merely a peon in the corporate scale of things, a rogue scientist not part of the team.

"What about the data displays here? Who gets access to them?"

"Top execs and key employees only, on a need-to-know basis confirmed by our own oversight board. The data is used for a number of purposes, but we couldn't connect the data to any individual even if it were a matter of life and death."

"I see. You've never used the data to do research?"

Carrilund gives him a sidewise look and narrows her eyes in amusement. "We have an INDA and a staff of fourteen advocates who decide what we use

this data for. They've never okayed research for its own sake."

"Pity," Martin says.

"Um," Carrilund says, with a small smile. "This is also the only room where

we can access the data. It's large enough to accommodate about thirty people." "All of the execs at once, if need be."

"Exactly." Carrilund requests two seats. They rise from the polished black

178 GREG BEAR takes the seat beside him. He watches her movements with more than profes sional interest; the combination of power and healthy grace, with the dignity

of her middle years, is a distraction from his focus. A wistful voice at the back

of his awareness asks if Carol, his former wife, wears this such grace and power

now, as well.

"Before our meeting with the board and other experts, I want you to see

what we've been seeing for the past two months. Can you read sociometrics?

We use standard icons and indicators."

"I presume I can, then."

Carrilund leans her head back. Projectors around the room have focused on

them and now provide triangulated feeds of light and sound to their eyes and

ears. The room takes on the empty graded blue of a cloudless desert sky; a null

hum surrounds them. The feeds override any other images or sound at first,

and for a disorienting moment, surveying the floating console of controls above

his hands and the disorienting void, Martin feels as if he is about to enter the

country of someone's mind, a journey he has not made in four years . . .

Then Carrilund's voice comes through clearly, rooting him. "Remember,

our clients have volunteered to be part of this," she says.

His vague sensation of weightless nausea goes away. "I would have agreed,

if I were them."

"Mr. Burke, we need your mind free and clear. We do not need freewheeling

moral judgment."

"Of course," Martin says with some irritation.

"You've gone upcountry in the mind of an individual. We're riding the

flow of the river upcountry into the simulated heart of a community. I'm sure

eou appreciate this opportunity."

Martin wonders if she is being patronizing, but it doesn't matter. This is

indeed like standing on the beach of a new sea, and his qualms and flashbacks

quickly fade. "I'm ready," he says.

"The community has a puzzling and possibly dangerous fever," Carrilund

says. "Let me show you what we've learned."

The blue changes to grass green. A plain extends to infinity. Bushes and

trees grow up from the plain. They become a thin forest, with canopy and

undergrowth. He touches the virtual controls here, there, and with some non-

tactile fumbling, he acquaints himself with its basics.

"This is the threshold," Carrilund says. Her voice sounds directly in his

right ear; she seems to be speaking softly, breathlessly. The effect is seduc tive. "We'll start with charts and graphs and stay until we get a sense of

scale and some detail. Then we'll venture a little deeper. All the trees and

bushes here--"

"Personal event graphs--Smithfield Tri-chromas, with each growth repre senting a thousand clients," Martin says. : -. A;c,c fi,:,lA (-n he rnatted now if you wish."

/ SLANT 179

and female, and other--sexual transforms, he presumes--and then sexual orientation. This display recognizes fifteen orientations, some of them maladaptive and usually therapied in Western culture--disapproved of even in this liberal age--which of course calls up questions of survey accuracy and the honesty of reporting individuals. With some shock, he sees that the numbers of individuals matching these "outlaw" orientations is much higher than the figures he is familiar with. "The sexual orientation stats are based on survey results cross-correlated with entertainment-seeking patterns and have a maximum reliability in the more extreme sub-fields oabout eighty percent," Carrilund says. She has slaved her display to his explorations, he realizes she sees what he sees, and is good at guessing how he might react, what he is thinking. Then why bring me here at all. I'm supposed to offer some surprises, "The numbers showing possible deviant behavior are way up," he says. "Pedophiles, supermales, omniphilia with destructive context... Much higher numbers than I'd expect." "And they're on the rise. Some of the numbers are nearing what we would expect in society without effective therapies. Figures haven't been this high since 2012. An obvious danger sign, don't you think?" "Hm," Martin says. The display changes to softly shifting patches of rainbow color, like a tart sorbet between courses of a rich meal. "I'd like you to see a constellation of dendritic charts for diagnostic toilet evaluations." "All right," Martin says, grinning despite himself. "About a third of our clients have diagnostic toilets. Generally upper four percent in earnings. A greater percentage of naturals and high naturals; generally, they're therapied for thymic rather than pathic imbalances." New charts appear on a deep midnight ground like wildly radiating stars. Carrilund highlights three of the stars clustered near the center. "Working outward to current date, these are reports beginning two weeks ago of diseases or infections within client households." Martin points with one finger to bring up numerical statistics. Of the four million households surveyed, infections have been detected in more than forty percent. And the supposed infections change with time, beginning with warts in skin sloughs from shower and bath gray water (diagnostic toilets almost always interpret the entire household sewer system) and leading to a virtual epidemic of bronchial and nasal infections. "What about medical reports?" Martin asks. Carrilund brings up these stats as simple bar charts laid over the dendritic stars. They show no increases in hospital visits or medical arbeiter attendance to treat such illnesses, which is what Martin would expect, knowing that nearly all viral outbreaks are easily controlled by medical monitors found in most of

180 GREG BEAR

"The toilets are giving us false reports day after day," Carrilund concludes. "Even when checked and reset." Martin thinks this over, mind racing. "But you've told me... You're concerned about mental therapy fallbacks." "Use your controls and bring up charts of our therapied clients in this population. Now match them with the households whose diagnostic toilets are acting up." With some fumbling and false starts, Martin makes the correlations. "Sorry," he says after a couple of minutes. "There. Households with therapied members are the source of all false disease reports." "I wanted you to see for yourself. That took us two hours to find last week, when we decided to run neural data searches. The trend is consistent." Martin rubs his cheek with one finger. "I'll need stats for thymic disturbances in the overall client list..." He finds the display. "Up twelve percent, but only previously therapied people show the increase. What about pathic imbalances and criminal behavior?" Carrilund keys in an entirely new display. "Remember, this is professional... You've signed strict nondisclosure." "I remember," Martin says softly. "We've had a twenty-five percent increase in arrests for social disturbances and other misdemeanors, and a five percent increase in felonies, mostly assaults and rapes, but a few murders, as well. It's been Worker Inc policy not to employ individuals with a record of violent crimes, even when they've been therapied... We leave those folks to the rehab temp agencies. So if our hypothesis is correct, that we're seeing an epidemic of fallbacks, we would expect e our greatest increase to be in thymic disorders. And it is." "What about the misdemeanors--do you have pull-outs for category?" "Here's the breakdown." The display rises before them like a sun cut into pie wedges. Martin examines the icons and captions for more details, punching his finger at the virtual display, poking empty air. "You have ten thousand twelve hundred and three cases of disturbing the peace, social misbehavior requiring PD action, in the past week," Martin says, stroking his cheek more rapidly. He frowns. Details on selected cases come up. "Public displays of nudity. Blatant racial insults. Let's get away from criminal behavior for a moment and look into complaints of unprofessional actions. How many referrals for client misbehavior have come back to this office?" Carrilund finds him the right folio within the display and the charts and figures for these incidents appear. They take him some time to sort through. He is most interested in the sudden increase of incidents of expressed racism in the work place--evidence perhaps of bigotry, the old devil of genetically o,A ,-,dr,,rllv rnixd rotulations. Most forms of racism are now regarded as

/ SLANT 181

Workers Inc seems to be experiencing levels of racist behavior not seen since the teens and twenties. Irrational and pernicious. And outbursts of public obscenity-- "Any ideas?" she asks. "Can we get national figures here?" "No," Carrilund says. "But I've been authorized to let you know that these figures are remarkably uniform for North America, including Mexico." "Workers Inc has a problem with politeness, it seems." Carrilund chuckles ruefully. "That puts it mildly." "There seems to be focused antisocial activity in your clients... But what in hell do diagnostic toilets have to do with this?" He shakes his head. He asks for the display to cease for a moment and he turns to look at Carrilund. "Is it possible we're seeing the results of some unknown disease agent? Something not in the medical database? Microbial infections have been known to produce thymic imbalances. Production of natural antivirals to fight infection has been shown to produce depression in some people." "It's possible," Carrilund says, "but if so, it will have to be non-viral, nonbacterial, non-protist and non-mycotic, and even fall outside the range of prions." She's certainly up on this. Maybe she came out of the medical disciplines. "Something going wrong in the equipment itself?" "The equipment is fine." Martin finds the problem oddly exhilarating. "I noticed some charts on sexual harassment and domestic and sex-related abuse--" He pauses. "Let's skip that for the moment. I wouldn't expect fallback to produce immediate increases in these areas." "But they have," Carrilund says. "Couples who have gone in for mutual therapy in domestic abuse cases--mostly supermale territorial aggression--and have been free of incidents for years, are coming back to their therapists in alarming numbers. We don't have statistics available through this center yet--members of some of the families and partner units work for different temp agencies. We're trying to draw information from other agencies, but so far that doesn't seem workable. We guess that such incidents have more than doubled." "My God," Martin murmurs. "If your members are arrested, do you track news reports?" "Of course," Carrilund says. "All that information has to be included in their employment prospectuses, by federal law." She makes a sour face. "We hate to do it, but the Raphkind amendments to our charter force us to." "Can you show me vids on the more serious cases? I'd like to see facial expressions, body language." "I think I can bring that in. Let me ask the INDA." It takes ten seconds, but the display returns with a simple text list of news

182 GREG BEAR out two. The first is a flat vid of a well-dressed male, age thirty to thirty-five, standing on a street corner. He is shouting at passersby, singling out the few transforms for intense verbal abuse. The incident has been captured by a small flying news sniffer. It slowly circles the man. Martin notes the cocky angle of the man's head, his small, steady, confident smile. He seems to think what he is doing is not only enjoyable, but beneficial. He appears surprised and offended when a large black male accompanying a small, delicate transform female threatens him with a raised fist and starts shouting him down. "This client received therapy for a minor thymic imbalance when he was twenty-two, thirteen years ago," Carrilund says. "Depressive tendencies and eating disorders." "He's beyond that now," Martin observes. "Second vid." This vid, also from a sniffer, shows a small, middle-aged woman--about his age, Martin guesses--in a public plaza inside one of the larger towers. She is pulling up her dress and masturbating. Her delighted expression is that of a little girl revealing some lovely surprise to her friends. Two female mall security guards take her by the arms and the vid ends. "Therapied ten years ago for fear of public places," Carrilund explains. Martin sighs. The list returns and Martin clears the display. He leans toward Carrilund. "The fusing of public misbehavior, shouting obscenities, uncharacteristic racism, that's very interesting. Unfiltered antisocial inspirations. All of it could be linked to difficulties in the Tourette organon." "We haven't thought of that," she says. e Good. Maybe I can of Jr something useful after all.

"I've seen these expressions before, in my student days. You understand the

Tourette organon?"

"I know it's been intensely studied," Carrilund says. "I'm not up on the

latest."

"The original syndrome was discovered by a Frenchman, Georges Gilles de

la Tourette. It was characterized by involuntary tics and movements and by

coprolalia--uncontrolled speaking of obscenity, dirty talk. In 2013, another

Frenchman, Francois Cormier, extended the name to describe the actions of a

continuum of brain functions in the limbic system. He called them the 'imps