Uncanny Shift
‘You do know that you didn’t die?’ Niti’s eyes are hidden by the screen glare of her Specs. Their inversed text is too small for me to read.
But that’s always how phenomenautical check-ups have been, expecting complete openness from us even as the therapists retreat. They remind me of nothing more than whelks, safe inside their shells as they slowly bore through those of their prey.
I look away to escape the Specs’ glare. On the street below a stream of students bow beneath umbrellas, now and then overtaken by the sprint of someone less prepared. Imagine that being your largest concern – to not get damp? To sufficiently absorb a string of facts to regurgitate, gannet-like, on to end-of-term exams? How simple that life must be. And if it weren’t for a twist of fate, I could have been one of them.
‘Katherine? You do know that, don’t you?’
I release the hand I’ve been chewing and make myself stare into the blankness of her Specs. And after a few seconds, it works – Niti glances away, brushing a loose strand of hair behind an ear. Grooming to break the tension – a lot of animals do this.
‘I got hit by a car,’ I say. ‘My internal organs were reduced to paste. What do you call that if not death?’
‘Shock is understandable. But that was the ResExtenda body, not yours.’
‘It was mine at the time.’
‘Temporarily.’
‘I died in it.’
One finger fidgets against another in her lap, the cut-glass rings as brutal as knuckle-dusters. I let my eyes unfocus on the tiny hole in the side of her nose that must contain a piercing when she’s not at work.
‘Let me get this clear,’ she says finally. ‘You’re saying that you’re dead?’
‘No. Not anything crazy. But being alive doesn’t change the fact that I died.’
‘The technical term is hurt. Would it help to think of it that way?’
It’s hard not to roll my eyes. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit of an understatement?’
‘ERT . . . Experienced ResExtenda Termination.’
‘Right.’ I force my lips into a smile. ShenCorp and their insatiable fetish for acronyms.
But now it’s my turn to look away. Can she see through my face to the thoughts skittering beneath? Because I did die. At least, the fox me. My fox life. Give it whatever euphemism you like but it doesn’t change what happened.
Of course, it always feels like a part of you has died when you leave a long-term Ressy forever. It’s less traumatic than being hit by a car, yes, but the loss – that creeping feeling that I’ve left something behind, that’s there with every Come Home. These innumerable incremental deaths.
‘If this makes you uncomfortable we don’t have to talk about it now.’
Her inflection makes it seem like a question but really it’s a statement – we should be talking about this. Niti always wants to talk about everything. To help me ‘self-narrate’. According to her, this will allow us to ‘encompass the experiences from each ResExtenda body under one story’ – one me. I wouldn’t mind that much if it weren’t the case that only her version of events is ever deemed correct, deemed healthy. If only we hadn’t somehow become a royal we.
‘So. How have we been doing otherwise? Settling back into work OK?’
‘Fine.’
‘Some more detail would be good.’
The tiredness starts to push behind my eyes.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘I’ve been thinking about eating my own shit.’
To do her credit, she doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.
‘Just the cecals. Good nutrition, you know. Or maybe a worm or two. Protein.’
But now her Specs are coming off, a pinch of fingers massaging the bridge of her nose. She looks more human without their glare; the brown of her skin is touched with grey.
‘I get it. I really do,’ she says eventually. ‘I don’t take any more pleasure in asking the same questions every session than you do in answering them. But I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. You were involved in a very serious incident and it’s my responsibility to ensure that you’re fit to work.’
Perhaps I’m not looking ‘understanding enough’ because after a pregnant look she continues.
‘You do know that I could send you home if I’m not fully satisfied, maybe even permanently.’
‘Sorry.’ Seeing her own exhaustion has left me embarrassed. It’s not Niti that’s the problem, she’s just trying to do her job too. ‘I was being stupid.’
‘So you haven’t been thinking about consuming faeces?’
‘No. Of course not.’
She puts her Specs back on with a shake of the head.
I squeeze my hands between my knees. ‘But you wouldn’t stop me working. Would you?’
‘If it was necessary for your health. Have you been having any nightmares? Flashbacks?’
‘No.’
Again, that look.
‘Sleeping like a baby,’ I say.
Of course, many babies sleep terribly. And everyone gets nightmares now and then.
My smile struggles under her scrutiny but, with a shake of the head, she moves us on to the IAT. I settle myself in front of the old monitor and position my fingers on the left and right keys.
The IAT has been the most ridiculous part of this whole exercise of bloated bureaucracy ever since they started employing it a couple of years back. Talking things through is one thing but the IAT is designed to ‘access the subject’s subconscious associations’, things I might not be aware of myself. Yet if there are such thoughts, I’m damned if I’d want ShenCorp to know about them.
Now that the eye tracker is satisfied that I’ve ‘read’ the questions, two words flash to the top of the screen: ‘Me’ to the left, ‘Not-me’ to the right. I flex my fingers, take a breath . . . and hit the spacebar. A picture of a fox appears on screen. I start to count in my head. 1. 2. 3. Hit the right key for ‘Not-me’.
In theory, the program processes the millisecond differences it takes the subject to respond at one end and spits their ‘implicit associations’ out the other. Well, fuck that. I make sure to take three seconds to reply every time. Not that I can be sure that a difference of milliseconds doesn’t come through. Perhaps it’s all nonsense but resistance, however ineffective, is the only thing that makes it bearable. Some days ShenCorp feels like a bottomless stomach that will consume anything of myself I give it. It’s not wrong to want to keep something back.
The picture of the fox disappears, replaced by the sharp face of a girl, little mouth pursed, frown pleated into the dome of her bald head – ‘Got a problem?’ I glare at the black pinpoint of the screen’s camera. Want grumpy pictures of me, well, here’s a grumpy picture. . . . and 3. Hit the right key.
The program walks me through more pictures of foxes and random fauna, more unflattering photos of my face, frown deepening with every snap. Then we’re on to other rounds – pictures of unblemished skin, followed by those with cuts, then cascades of random words. Good. Bad. Self. Theirs. Excellent. I. Happy. Depressed. Other.
As I hit the right button a red cross appears on the screen. Crap. The keys swapped round in the last batch, didn’t they? Right is ‘Me’. Left is ‘Not-me’. Right ‘Me’, left ‘Not’.
This test is enough to melt anyone’s mind. I’d bet good money it screws up people more than it helps. But of course I’m going to fuck up if I’m not concentrating. So, easy breaths. Now. 1. 2. 3 . . .
When the screen finally blacks out, I push my chair back and Niti comes over to touch her Specs to the port. As she puts them back on she shakes her head at the time.
‘You do know the idea is to answer as quickly as you can?’
She really is taking this seriously today.
I shrug and smile. For a second I think she’s going to make me do it again but we’re on a schedule and there’s still the plasticity tests to go.
Plasticity. Now this is where I really do start to sweat.
I perch on the edge of the seat under the Spinner. Today there’s the potter’s wheel drawn up in front of it. Most sessions it’s just tests with coloured blocks but Niti likes to mix it up – anything that requires somatospatial learning does the trick. I think she’s trying to make the test fun, ignorant of the fact that no phenomenaut will ever be able to enjoy this.
Still, as the dome of the helmet descends, I try to tell myself it’s just a hairdressing machine, which kind of works . . . until it pinches into my scalp and the magnets start to thrum. Fuck.
‘All ready to go,’ Niti says.
I slap a slab of clay onto the wheel. Even if I’d known it’d be this today, practising outside of work would do me no good. It’s not skill they’re looking for – pottery has sod all to do with Phenomenautism – the only thing they’re interested in is how efficiently my neurology adapts and there’s no practising for that, not to mention that it only gets worse with age. At nineteen I’m lucky to still be here. Freakishly so, considering how long most people last.
As the clay collapses into a pat-like mess for the second time, Niti touches my shoulder.
‘Try and relax.’
I’d prefer it if she told me how to throw a goddam pot.
When the test is finally finished the helmet releases me. My forehead feels tight from where it was clamped; I explore the dip with my fingertips. Niti notices me hovering.
‘You know it takes time to process. But I’m sure it will all be fine.’
‘Uhuh.’
She shoos with her fingers. ‘Go on. Go wash your hands.’
I scrub off the worst of the clay and retrieve my bag. Niti frowns as she steps ahead to open the door, probably still pissed off at me for saying I ate cecals, but as I make to leave, she takes my elbow.
‘I know this can’t be easy. On top of everything with your mother.’
Her grip remains firm as if awaiting a response but what can she possibly expect me to say to that?
‘If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me. You do know that?’
I nod, unable to meet her eyes as she finally steps aside and I can escape into the corridor.
The tests must have lasted longer than I thought, it’s already lunchtime when I reach the common room. A whole morning lost to the inane exercise.
Buckley is already eating with Si. There are a couple of the other tween phenomenauts flinging grapes at one another but their names escape me. I’d swear the phenomenauts here get younger every day.
Buckley smiles as he sees me, pushes out the bench opposite with a foot. ‘All OK?’
I dump my cheese pasty on the table. Out of the packet it looks greasy and unappetising.
‘Great.’
The flicker of his eyes says that he knows I’m bullshitting but he must gather that I don’t want to talk because he lets Si draw him back into whatever it is they’ve got going in their shared SpecSpace. From my perspective it comprises waving madly at the empty tabletop and making barricades out of cutlery.
I work the stodgy pasty through my teeth; the taste is as unpleasant as it looks. At least it’s pretty bland under my human nose – not like the scream of scent you get in a lot of Ressies. I had thought that I liked this flavour but perhaps they changed the recipe. Or my tastes have changed. Well, little matter. I’m used to eating foul things and it’s important that my Original Body gets enough fuel, so I distract myself from the flavour by watching Buckley and Si play.
Buckley and I haven’t messed about in SpecSpace for ages. We used to do it all the time when I was young. I mean, we still do occasionally, but it’s no use pretending that things haven’t changed. Of course, I’m not a kid any more, and it’s not like we’re not as close these days, if anything it’s the opposite, but sometimes I can’t help yearning for the simplicity of that earlier time.
Noticing me watch, Buckley looks up. He doesn’t say anything, or even smile, just holds my gaze until I excuse myself by taking another bite of pasty. From anyone else it’d be a classic form of dominance play but why would Buckley feel the need for that? It’s this that unnerves me, that sometimes I just don’t understand him.
Si tugs on Buckley’s arm, pointing to an invisible something in the Spec game. It’s odd that Si’s own neuro doesn’t spend much time with him. I always found Anisha friendly but maybe she doesn’t want to invest in a relationship that will likely be cut off in the not too distant future. Neuros were certainly closer to phenomenauts when I first started. They’ve probably learnt to hold back.
Tiring of their senseless flapping, I wave myself into their game and watch Si shoo multicoloured cows towards the line of cutlery with wriggling fingers. From the other direction, Buckley drives a milling mass of yowling cats by creating a wall with his hands. The resultant collision is beyond my understanding. Some of the cats swamp the cows in a whirlwind of claws, other cows stomp with sparkling hooves, but I’m not even sure that obliterating the enemy is the aim of the game; in a quieter part of the battlefield, one of Buckley’s cats naps on a cow’s back.
I wait for what looks like a suitable lull in the chaos. ‘Can I play?’
‘You can take over from me,’ Buckley says, but at that Si looks up like a startled deer.
‘Never mind.’ I return to picking apart my pasty, though I can’t pretend not to be bothered by Si’s dislike. Of course, Buckley sees it with his usual optimistic slant.
‘He’s in awe of you,’ he’d said when I raised it with him last.
‘In awe?’ But my laughter had choked off as I saw that he wasn’t joking.
‘You haven’t noticed? All the young phenomenauts are. You’ve been jumping for longer than anyone, almost certainly longer than most of them will.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. I was just blessed with an amazing brain – in terms of plasticity.’
His mouth had cringed into a smile. ‘so, nothing to do with bloody-mindedness?’
He’d accepted my punch without complaint.
The pasty sticks in my throat as I’m reminded again of my results being crunched through the supercomputers down in the basement, but it’ll be a few hours until I get the all-clear – or its opposite. Niti’s threats are one thing but if my plasticity isn’t good enough I’ll be out of the front door in a day. Regardless of the fact that I’ve been jumping for longer than anyone, they’re merciless when it comes to the results. And that’s the worst thing of all – despite Buckley’s jokes, the factor that matters the most in this job is out of my control.
As if sensing my train of thought, Buckley brushes my sleeve with the back of a hand. It’ll be OK.
I pull a face and bury it in my pasty but when the orange light blinks in my Specs, I almost poke myself in the face in my haste to open the email. Buckley flinches too. It’s not the results, but if Buckley’s worried, then being laid off must be a real possibility. God, why did I have to say that cecal nonsense to Niti? Today was not the day to get on her bad side.
At my silence, Buckley makes to stand.
‘Just a message from my dad,’ I say, still feeling weak.
‘Right. It’d be unlikely they finish processing before the end of the day.’
I stare at the remnants of my pasty, unable to face any more.
‘The write-up can wait until tomorrow,’ he says. ‘There’s somewhere I think we ought to go.’