machine if he decided he wanted to? Or did the job chip contain within it a governor that prevented such acts? If the opium was part of the conspiracy, part of the veil, how could he have the thoughts he was experiencing now?
He didn’t want to destroy the machine, couldn’t envision doing anything like that.
He studied his pipe, the graceful curvatures of the dark wood stem that circulated the narcotic through his body. A special variety of opium, part of the conspiracy?
He wanted to dash the pipe to the floor and stomp the addiction mechanism to pieces. Then he recalled something he had heard, about drugs inducing paranoia in certain people.
With one hand he slammed shut the door of the mnemonic machine, and through the dark yellow-tinted glass of the door saw the subject’s expression change from serenity to terror.
Gutan glanced at the electric clip pad on the countertop to his left, noted the subject’s name, Anna Salazar, and the required machine settings. He began to make the settings.
Mnemo’s wide instrument console had a thousand tiny dials, half as many miniature toggles and levers, and ninety-three buttons so small they had to be pressed with a metal pick that was kept on a narrow, lipped shelf. All controls were numbered without explanation as to function, but the job chip implanted in Gutan’s cerebrum gave a smattering of information. The dial he was turning now, Number 271, was a sensory deprivator, tied in with the gelatin on Salazar’s body and designed to free the logjam of current events that was suppressing old memories. Sensory stimulation would follow.
The gelatin covering Salazar’s body glowed pale red for an instant, indicating Sensory Deprivation engaged.
Professor Pelter referred to the gelatin as a “Variable Texture Suit,” an electrically conductive surface that could make a subject believe he was wearing any manner of clothing, touching any surface, tasting any type of food ever created, smelling any smell. Pelter had refined and identified more than 600,000 different smells, nearly 100,000 different sounds, thousands more textures, temperatures and tastes. His remarkable machine could simulate any of these sensory enhancers in infinite variety, carrying a subject back in his memory to lives long forgotten.
Gutan knew from his own experiences before this job that were legion. Sometimes as an adult he picked up the pungent aroma of shrubbery that was reminiscent of a yard he used to pass on the way to elementary school. Prison-system cooking aromas were like those of school cafeterias, and embalming fluid odors brought back days spent in the family funeral home. So Mnemo’s capabilities hadn’t surprised Gutan that much.
He lifted a small blue lever in a vertical channel on the console, until it reached the numeral “1.” A brief blue glow in the gelatin indicated Sensory Stimulation engaged, a phase-one injection. They were starting her out slowly, getting her used to the machine. It had to be easier on the body that way, and to this extent she seemed lucky. Automatic testing would follow, for dream images and recent memories, with subtle suggestions from the machine based upon information programmed into it about the subject’s life history.
When the government computer beeped twice, as it would in a few minutes, Gutan would set the stimulator lever on “2,” and so on. Then to other controls, bringing more power, and back the subject would go. In a sense, Gutan and the Feds monitoring the equipment went along for the ride. Even Pelter went along, for his one-of-a-kind machine still lived.
Another dial, Number 140, was a Climate Control setting, and this Gutan set on zero to begin, neutral. He wouldn’t have to reset it for this subject, since Mnemo’s built-in computer would take over when things really got rolling. If a subject was experiencing a life in ancient Afsornia, for example (as in the recent case of a dispatchee at San Felipe Penitentiary), the
He didn’t want to destroy the machine, couldn’t envision doing anything like that.
He studied his pipe, the graceful curvatures of the dark wood stem that circulated the narcotic through his body. A special variety of opium, part of the conspiracy?
He wanted to dash the pipe to the floor and stomp the addiction mechanism to pieces. Then he recalled something he had heard, about drugs inducing paranoia in certain people.
With one hand he slammed shut the door of the mnemonic machine, and through the dark yellow-tinted glass of the door saw the subject’s expression change from serenity to terror.
Gutan glanced at the electric clip pad on the countertop to his left, noted the subject’s name, Anna Salazar, and the required machine settings. He began to make the settings.
Mnemo’s wide instrument console had a thousand tiny dials, half as many miniature toggles and levers, and ninety-three buttons so small they had to be pressed with a metal pick that was kept on a narrow, lipped shelf. All controls were numbered without explanation as to function, but the job chip implanted in Gutan’s cerebrum gave a smattering of information. The dial he was turning now, Number 271, was a sensory deprivator, tied in with the gelatin on Salazar’s body and designed to free the logjam of current events that was suppressing old memories. Sensory stimulation would follow.
The gelatin covering Salazar’s body glowed pale red for an instant, indicating Sensory Deprivation engaged.
Professor Pelter referred to the gelatin as a “Variable Texture Suit,” an electrically conductive surface that could make a subject believe he was wearing any manner of clothing, touching any surface, tasting any type of food ever created, smelling any smell. Pelter had refined and identified more than 600,000 different smells, nearly 100,000 different sounds, thousands more textures, temperatures and tastes. His remarkable machine could simulate any of these sensory enhancers in infinite variety, carrying a subject back in his memory to lives long forgotten.
Gutan knew from his own experiences before this job that were legion. Sometimes as an adult he picked up the pungent aroma of shrubbery that was reminiscent of a yard he used to pass on the way to elementary school. Prison-system cooking aromas were like those of school cafeterias, and embalming fluid odors brought back days spent in the family funeral home. So Mnemo’s capabilities hadn’t surprised Gutan that much.
He lifted a small blue lever in a vertical channel on the console, until it reached the numeral “1.” A brief blue glow in the gelatin indicated Sensory Stimulation engaged, a phase-one injection. They were starting her out slowly, getting her used to the machine. It had to be easier on the body that way, and to this extent she seemed lucky. Automatic testing would follow, for dream images and recent memories, with subtle suggestions from the machine based upon information programmed into it about the subject’s life history.
When the government computer beeped twice, as it would in a few minutes, Gutan would set the stimulator lever on “2,” and so on. Then to other controls, bringing more power, and back the subject would go. In a sense, Gutan and the Feds monitoring the equipment went along for the ride. Even Pelter went along, for his one-of-a-kind machine still lived.
Another dial, Number 140, was a Climate Control setting, and this Gutan set on zero to begin, neutral. He wouldn’t have to reset it for this subject, since Mnemo’s built-in computer would take over when things really got rolling. If a subject was experiencing a life in ancient Afsornia, for example (as in the recent case of a dispatchee at San Felipe Penitentiary), the
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