Mappa Mundi (21 page)

Nostromo
returned then with the requested information about the Pad and its place on Earth. Jude took the address and looked at it with despair and exhaustion.

Fort Detrick, Maryland.

A military base? He thought he was going out of his mind. She would never have gone there herself. She must be a prisoner. But the army? Who? Why? Why not a military prison? Hell, why not simple police custody? He'd thought the thing was a federal matter.

He groaned and put his head in his hands. This was so much bigger and uglier than he could have dreamed.

Natalie reviewed Bobby X's case for the last time as she drank her coffee. Bobby was a forty-eight-year-old builder who had fallen off a three-storey roof whilst trying to fix some tiles up there after one very bad January gale. Once the swelling of his brain had abated the problem he'd been left with was readily definable.

She watched one of his examinations on her Pad screen as he struggled with explanations. They showed him simple pictures on a video.

A chair was a chair but a dog …

“It's a brown, moving thing, textured, like a carpet? It makes noises—” Bobby paused, mouth working, plaintively, as he fought for a likely explanation “—from its motor.”

A cooked carrot on a dinner plate was okay for eating, but a raw one …

“Is it, um … it's a spike, with feathers at one end. I … are they a rudder? No, a wing? You know, like for a propeller?”

They faced him, just once, with a mirror. Looking at himself Bobby cried out with terror at the moving waxy forms so horribly arranged there. Natalie wasn't sure that some part of him didn't recognize himself—in fact, she thought that this was what made that experience so particularly revolting. Whatever he felt about his meaning-gap in relation to other things it must have been ten times
worse to realize that he was falling through the cracks in his understanding of himself.

Her readings, taken this morning, showed that his regrown neurons were fully functional. Restoring Bobby's old meanings to him was the second stage of development. It would demand, and prove, that their theories about the ability of the software to adapt to an individual mind were correct. Her work with Selfware had made this possible, and she was looking forward to giving Glover at the Ministry a tart letter when it proved to be the linchpin of their success.

Following on from Guskov's acclamation of the valid cross-referencing between the physical action and a mental event, this experiment would pave the way for the production of many other programs that would tailor themselves to fit the brains and minds in question. It required constant feedback analysis, which had so far tied it to lab experimentation only—where they were able to use the processing power of the basic expert-systems machines. If it worked in Bobby's case, with the feedback loops tracked and passed by the internal NervePath on its own, that meant it would only be a matter of time before the whole technology was fully miniaturized and mobile. Considering what she'd read on Jude's disk, however, they might be a bit late on the mobile … she shook her head.

Her Pad sent her a reminder that she was due to collect Bobby and take him through now. She left her half-finished drink and nudged Dan, who was engrossed in an upside-down copy of
Chat
magazine.

“Come on, you.”

As they reached the door she added, “What's up with you, anyway?”

“I've got a headache,” he mumbled. “I'm going to get something from the dispensary.”

“Is that all?”

“What d'you mean?” But he couldn't meet her gaze. He let his fringe hide his eyes.

“Later,” she assured him, pointing her finger at his chest and prodding. “I mean it.”

Dan sloped off and Natalie had to take the other direction. She wondered if he'd disposed of the remains of his stash by eating it. It wouldn't be the first time he ended up in casualty. He was getting to be a real liability, and because she'd been so lax with him until now it was likely that she was going to have to pay when he finally made a costly mistake.
Just don't let it be today.

She opened the door to Bobby's room.

“Hello, it's Natalie.”

Bobby had his feet up on a heated rest. He put the magazine he was holding down and left his hand on it as he put it aside, taking comfort from it as he turned to focus carefully on the Pad she held in front of her. Natalie felt cruel, forcing him to confront what was difficult for him, but he had the long-term patient's air of resignation and patience by now—he expected no more.

“Hello.” He was polite. The nurses had combed his hair and put him into a neat outfit of trousers and shirt. His face showed uneven shaving where they had hastily gone through the motions.

“I've come to take you through,” she said, maintaining a bright and positive tone. “Ready?”

“All right, doctor.” He smiled at the Pad, she wasn't sure why. It seemed that although he couldn't recognize her he was aware of her nervousness and was trying, even from his terrible position, to put her at ease.

As they arrived in the Therapy Suite the screens in the control room lit up with a living map of Bobby's mind. Natalie saw them display the damaged area as a silent, white zone. On the edges of its borders neurons fired, trying to break the barrier of silence, but the NervePath that saturated his synapses held fast to the new cells, and allowed no signals to pass.

She knew from experience in working with patients who had
received regeneration treatment that the fresh tissues could have found new routes that worked, or created substitutes by themselves, but that was an uncertain, lengthy business. This way, it was hoped, recovery to a near-original state could be achieved. She set the chair in position and put its brake on.

Bobby grinned. “I've been wondering what the hell you guys all look like after all this time.”

“Well, don't hold your breath,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Some of us are no oil paintings. I'll see you later, okay? Nurse Charlton is here to fit your VR sets. Remember the drill?”

“Yes. ‘Bye.” He was smiling in anticipation as she left.

Natalie put on a show face for the cameras and went into the Control Room. Dan arrived and glanced over nervously at Bill. She tried to get his attention but he seemed to be avoiding her. He busied himself with the test runs on her father's station.

Glancing up to the observation gallery she saw the Ministry's cameramen take up positions. Inside the Therapy Suite all was quiet, except for the faint tweets of Bill whistling. Natalie was watching Dan's tight shoulders flex with discomfort as he unplugged and reconnected the last wires, working under her father's directions coming through his earpiece from the USA, when she realized Bill's ditty was the “Marseillaise.”
Bit premature
, she thought, turning back to her own part of the task.

She wondered, as she assessed the initial readings of the external equipment synchronizing with Bobby's NervePath, if Jude was in a good mood. He'd be nearly home by now. What would he do with the file and the program information? The only good thing about being locked in the Clinic was that until this was done she wouldn't be arrested or taken for a long walk off a short pier.

Bill's whistling cut short—the treatment had begun.

Natalie watched the readouts, spelling out the progression, the changes. The white zone sparkled with life, like fireflies winking at her
as neurons signalled furiously, trying to forge a path through virgin territory.

Ten minutes passed. To Natalie it seemed much more like ten hours; the central heating's relentless eighteen degrees coupled with her anxiety made her feel breathless as she listened to Bobby's blithe confidence in his answers to the test questions. The Map of his working thoughts flickered and shaded itself in a kaleidoscope of hues. With her practised eye she watched him fighting with his own fear, his worry that it wasn't working, and the strange and unprompted effects that the activity in his new area was creating. She was glad she didn't have to live through it.

On the opposite wall the pictures that Bobby was seeing were displayed. It was a safari expedition, culled from a popular documentary on world wildlife.

“No,” Bobby was saying. “It's a kind of a mottled tube with a thinner sausage at the end. A fishing float? No, a draught excluder.”

The leopard in the VR simulation hauled itself up a tree and vanished among the leaves.

“Shit,” she heard Dan mutter. He was stiffly rebuked by Calum barking, over the intercom, “Time out. Let's review for a moment!”

They pored over the instruments and the settings for the strength of the connection charges. Differences in Bobby's reactions should have been more immediate than this, and they all knew it. For the watching Ministry officials Natalie gave an impromptu explanation. “This is a recognized stage in the testing. We're pausing to assess and recalibrate the strength of the neuron boosters in the NervePath. It will only take a moment or two.” Well, it was nearly true.

She inserted a time stamp in the therapy log and watched Bill make minute, fussy adjustments on his console. On screen in front of her an idle shuffling took place in Bobby's language comprehension centres. Dan had just caught her eye, and was trying to say something, when a sharp cry of fear shot through the connecting door.

It was accompanied by a sudden pink blurt on Natalie's monitor, like a small shell exploding.

As they all watched, paralysed with shock, Bobby spasmed, kicked over his wheelchair, and crashed heavily onto the floor, groping around him blindly. He was trying to get up and wrestle with the VR hood at the same time; Nurse Charlton was attempting to hold him still, pinning his arms to his sides to prevent him hurting himself or ruining the equipment.

“Quickly! I can't hold him!” she shouted.

Natalie dashed around the clumsy block of her station, guts turning to lead inside her, and was in time to see Bobby's face as he tugged off the thick head-cover. He was white and startled, sweating profusely, and red where the tapes had waxed his hairs off, yet smiling, teeth bared with a kind of hysterical glee.

“Doctors, I presume?” he said in a weak voice, trying to maintain his glib humour through the shock. He gave up and sank back down to the carpet, shaking. “Shit!”

“Are you all right?” Dan was plaster white.

He and Bill staggered together as they helped Bobby back into the seat, right way up. Through the video link her father was simply staring at Bobby with astonishment and the beginnings of a frown. The Ministry cameramen leaned closer, trying to catch it all on their headcams.

“There was a lion. A great bloody big bastard,” Bobby explained, panting weakly. “Teeth and … big eyes. Claws like, like knives. I thought he was going to spring at me.”

“Maybe filling the programme with predators wasn't such a great idea,” Natalie said, not for the first time.

Her father's smug response was expected.

“We thought they'd be sharper triggers to the system.” But his long, muttered, and redundant justification was cut off by Bobby peering excitedly around him and into their faces.

“Which is which?” he asked. “I must thank you. It's marvellous. Marvellous what you've done.” Then he caught sight of her. “Doctor Natalie!” he cried. “There you are. There you are at last!” His eyes were filling with tears as he looked at her. “No oil painting!”

“Thanks.” She patted his arm, unable to stop herself grinning like a fool. “Remind me not to call you for an opinion next time.”

“Bill!” Calum grunted from the intercom as they collected themselves. “Let's go for a test on the effectiveness of the purge.”

Bill twitched in annoyance, but did as he was told. Natalie watched him go, wondering at his sudden change of demeanour. But then she caught Dan grinning at her and such was the euphoria she grinned back, his sins forgiven. By the time they had completed their tearful recovery of Bobby and sent him to his room the tension that had been so oppressive had turned around completely. Dan was whistling the “Marseillaise” himself as he switched down the gear and back in the offices her father was laughing as he went over the details with Glover and his other observers via the livelink.

“Yes. As agreed,” Bill was saying. “When the restorations are complete to ninety percent effectiveness, the system is closed down. NervePath deactivates at specific, preset values.”

Glover walked across to her and offered his hand, “Congratulations, Doctor. A triumph. You must be delighted.”

Natalie knew he wasn't only talking about the experiment here, but her code that had contributed to it. “I think it's a perfect start,” she said, but her hand pumped his with the enthusiasm she hadn't let show in her voice. “I hope it's just the beginning of a whole new series of treatments for damaged or disrupted cases.”

“And possibly, in time, it may have applications for ordinary people,” he said.

“Or the military,” she said and promptly cursed herself. “For treating trauma in the field,” she added hastily.

“Yes.” He smiled and looked genuinely pleased.

She couldn't keep up her iron facework much longer, but she didn't have to.

Her Pad signalled incoming mail. Excusing herself, she moved to the window and leaned against the radiator there to check it.

It was from Jude.

She's gone
, it read.
Will be in touch. L. J.

L?

Natalie glanced up to see if anyone had noticed her face redden or her sudden change of mood but they were all still involved in mutual back-patting. She looked down. Gone?