electric language of my brain.
My legs hurt all the time. It seemed likely this was a side effect of jamming needles in there every day, but it had started before that. It was like phantom pain. I resisted this notion because it was so stupid. Physiological pain I could be on board for. Even something neurological. Neurology was the science of nerves. It was chemical reactions youcould point to. Psychology, though, was the science of fairy tales. It was like explaining volcanoes with stories of angry gods and expelled half-sons and revenge and betrayal. I did not believe in psychological pain.
But I needed sleep. So one night I took a pair of legs to bed. They were early, lightweight models, really just poles, which we’d used for prototyping and since discarded. I set them beside my bunk and turned out the light. Later, when I woke with my nonexistent muscles screaming, I dragged the legs onto the bed, shoved my thighs into the sockets, grabbed the feet, and manually flexed those crude blocks of plastic up and down. I got this idea from a paper on treating phantom pain by using mirrors to form optical illusions, which convinced the patient’s brain that the limb was still there. You see why I was skeptical of the whole area. As I flexed, I felt nonexistent muscles unlock and pseudo-blood begin to flow. I waggled the plastic. It was just as well no one could see this. “Ahhh,” I said.
FINALLY ALPHA’S legs stopped catching fire. I sat in them and took a wary step. They moved smoothly, the whine of the servomagnetics almost inaudible. The floor did not break. Nothing popped or smoked. I walked to the wall. It was not a smooth ride but I was unfamiliar with the equipment. I rotated and walked back to the center. I raised a leg. I did not overbalance. I did not fall out. I flexed the foot. It was cloven. It actually looked more like a hoof. I lowered it and raised the other leg. Still upright. I looked around and saw a lot of happy faces. I smiled, too, because this was progress.
NEXT CAME the nerve interface. I spent more time on this than anything else. When I had an idea for something mechanical,I could usually tell someone else to go make it happen. But reading nerves was personal. It was like trying to sift raindrops from a thunderstorm only I could see. I passed days in Lab 1 with thirty-eight wires dangling from my thighs, trying to read my thoughts. It was a funny way to get to know myself. For example, when I thought about wiggling my big toe, my waves spiked at 42.912 gigahertz, but so too if I imagined country music. I wouldn’t have thought those were similar. But then I thought about toe-tapping and maybe they were. Either way, it was important to figure this kind of thing out before I wore the legs outside and someone put on Kenny Rogers.
Once we had a basic neurological landscape, I practiced moving in software. We loaded leg wireframes into the computer and I tried to control them with my mind. At first they wouldn’t respond. Then they jerked and twitched and tried to walk in three directions at once. Mistake by mistake, I crawled toward something practical. By the end of each six-hour session, I felt dazed and unsure where I was. I wheeled along the corridor and saw the whole world as lines and vertices. I dreamed I was a wireframe, made of green light.
MY ASSISTANTS began wearing chunky glasses. They looked ridiculous. The lenses were milky, like the opposite of sunglasses. By the end of the week, half of Gamma had them. I didn’t pay much attention because I assumed this was some kind of young-person fashion trend, but when I arrived in Lab 1 for a date with Mirka and her needles, she pulled on a pair, and I had to ask.
“They are Z-specs,” said Mirka. She seemed surprised I didn’t know, although behind the glasses it was hard to tell. “You have not tried them?”
I shook my head. Mirka pulled off her set. There was a component I hadn’t noticed before: two wires terminating in flat
My legs hurt all the time. It seemed likely this was a side effect of jamming needles in there every day, but it had started before that. It was like phantom pain. I resisted this notion because it was so stupid. Physiological pain I could be on board for. Even something neurological. Neurology was the science of nerves. It was chemical reactions youcould point to. Psychology, though, was the science of fairy tales. It was like explaining volcanoes with stories of angry gods and expelled half-sons and revenge and betrayal. I did not believe in psychological pain.
But I needed sleep. So one night I took a pair of legs to bed. They were early, lightweight models, really just poles, which we’d used for prototyping and since discarded. I set them beside my bunk and turned out the light. Later, when I woke with my nonexistent muscles screaming, I dragged the legs onto the bed, shoved my thighs into the sockets, grabbed the feet, and manually flexed those crude blocks of plastic up and down. I got this idea from a paper on treating phantom pain by using mirrors to form optical illusions, which convinced the patient’s brain that the limb was still there. You see why I was skeptical of the whole area. As I flexed, I felt nonexistent muscles unlock and pseudo-blood begin to flow. I waggled the plastic. It was just as well no one could see this. “Ahhh,” I said.
FINALLY ALPHA’S legs stopped catching fire. I sat in them and took a wary step. They moved smoothly, the whine of the servomagnetics almost inaudible. The floor did not break. Nothing popped or smoked. I walked to the wall. It was not a smooth ride but I was unfamiliar with the equipment. I rotated and walked back to the center. I raised a leg. I did not overbalance. I did not fall out. I flexed the foot. It was cloven. It actually looked more like a hoof. I lowered it and raised the other leg. Still upright. I looked around and saw a lot of happy faces. I smiled, too, because this was progress.
NEXT CAME the nerve interface. I spent more time on this than anything else. When I had an idea for something mechanical,I could usually tell someone else to go make it happen. But reading nerves was personal. It was like trying to sift raindrops from a thunderstorm only I could see. I passed days in Lab 1 with thirty-eight wires dangling from my thighs, trying to read my thoughts. It was a funny way to get to know myself. For example, when I thought about wiggling my big toe, my waves spiked at 42.912 gigahertz, but so too if I imagined country music. I wouldn’t have thought those were similar. But then I thought about toe-tapping and maybe they were. Either way, it was important to figure this kind of thing out before I wore the legs outside and someone put on Kenny Rogers.
Once we had a basic neurological landscape, I practiced moving in software. We loaded leg wireframes into the computer and I tried to control them with my mind. At first they wouldn’t respond. Then they jerked and twitched and tried to walk in three directions at once. Mistake by mistake, I crawled toward something practical. By the end of each six-hour session, I felt dazed and unsure where I was. I wheeled along the corridor and saw the whole world as lines and vertices. I dreamed I was a wireframe, made of green light.
MY ASSISTANTS began wearing chunky glasses. They looked ridiculous. The lenses were milky, like the opposite of sunglasses. By the end of the week, half of Gamma had them. I didn’t pay much attention because I assumed this was some kind of young-person fashion trend, but when I arrived in Lab 1 for a date with Mirka and her needles, she pulled on a pair, and I had to ask.
“They are Z-specs,” said Mirka. She seemed surprised I didn’t know, although behind the glasses it was hard to tell. “You have not tried them?”
I shook my head. Mirka pulled off her set. There was a component I hadn’t noticed before: two wires terminating in flat
Similar Books
