“Like that. You reacted with the fear: pulse, blood pressure, adrenaline rush, isn’t it? Your AMPA receptors lit up like the trees of Christmas.”
“I don’t appreciate being made part of your demonstration,” Will said stiffly. Jennifer watched.
“But it demonstrates the issue, yes? However, more exists here. The AMPA receptors that created your fear response clear themselves rapidly after the fear is finished. The neural reaction is temporary. You did not stay afraid after you realized that the cannon was not real. And your NMDA receptors did not activate themselves. Those receptors are different. What it is that activates them is a fear response of the high and prolonged stress. And then the NMDA receptors bond the experiences together. The neural pathways created in this fashion are permanent.”
“What do you mean, ‘bond experiences together’?”
“Watch. Angelique, ça va. This is real-time recording.”
The laser cannon was replaced by a large transparent Y-energy cage outlined by thin black plastic struts. The cage held two white mice. At the far end, the shield collapsed and a cat wearing a bright red collar rushed in. The cat pounced on one of the mice, which let out an agonized squeal. The cat bit down. Blood spurted from the mouse, which screamed at such a high pitch that Jennifer’s ears hurt. With one paw the cat reached out and carelessly, almost nonchalantly, raked its extended claws across the back of the other mouse cowering in a transparent corner.
“Now,” Strukov said. “A week later.”
The same cage, with the same mouse. Its back showed fresh scars. The same cat entered, wearing the same bright red collar. The mouse immediately showed intense fear, both cowering and baring its teeth. Evidently a Y-energy shield invisibly divided the cage in two: the cat could not advance more than halfway toward the mouse, which continued to exhibit fear.
“Three months later,” Strukov said. Same mouse, the scars further healed. A hand entered from the top of the cage, holding a bright red leather collar. Immediately the mouse exhibited intense fear.
“Now, this is merely the Pavlov response, yes? The mouse associates the collar with the fear. This is the same as a man in the combat, who twenty-five years later hears a loud noise and throws himself flat on the ground. The experience of the loud noise and the deadly danger are bonded in his brain, and the amygdala is the place this happens. But now it becomes interesting. The mouse’s amygdalae have both been removed.”
Same mouse. The cat entered. The mouse looked up, saw the cat, went back to sniffing aimlessly at its cage. It wandered toward the cat, which immediately pounced and killed it.
Will said, “No amygdala, no fear.”
“No remembered fear,” Strukov said. “The instinctive fear is still able to be induced, as for example throwing the mouse from a great height and monitoring its bioresponses on the way down. The fear of the falling is instinctive. But the remembered fear depends on the NMDA receptors in the amygdalae. They lay down a permanent neural pathway, the same as some drugs of the street, which in turn permanently alters the reaction. The organism cannot not feel the fear at the proper stimulus. Angelique, ça va.”
The cluster of amygdala neurons reappeared. Now glowing lines connected various yellow and orange receptor sites.
“In addition,” Strukov said, “I am able to make the process go the other way. With the correct viral modifications to trigger, injected into the blood or the cerebrospinal fluid, the natural excitatory transmitters such as glutamate—among many others—can be turned into the excitotoxins. Thus, the fear pathways can be created even without a prior experience. Of course, they are not memory-specific, since there has existed no memory. There is no input from the hippocampus. But the fear pathways are permanent, because they do not depend on the molecules remaining in the brain. The Cell Cleaner can come along two minutes after injection, but voilà! The NMDA pathways have already been forged.
“Also, the metabolic process that changes the neural structure is marvelously complex, and so the variations possible are marvelously varied. I am able to create the permanent reactions for the fairly specific fears, if the basic instinctual response is genetically encoded. Angelique, ça va.”
Another real-time recording; Jennifer could tell from the quality of the holo. An Arab teenage boy, not genemod for appearance: pimply, gangly, shuffling his feet. He sat in a small nondescript room, playing a game on a holo-terminal. Strukov entered the room and pressed a wall button. An entire wall dissolved, opening the room to a garden with an inviting stream and tall date palms. The boy turned ashen. His breathing raced and his chest rose and fell. In panic he whirled away from the garden and pushed his face against the opposite wall, trembling and moaning. “No no no no…”
“The agoraphobia,” Strukov said.
“Permanent?” Will asked.
“Probably. Unless he undertakes either the intense personal behavior modification or the corrective pharmacology. Which his Cell Cleaner will of course destroy unless it renews itself constantly. One will need either another genemod virus or many, many patches each week.”
“How hard would that be to create?”
Strukov shrugged. “For whom? For the usual doctors? Impossible. For a good research facility of the medicine? Difficult, but not impossible. For your granddaughter Miranda Sharifi and her SuperSleepless? Who can tell? Angelique, ça va.”
The display showed a young girl, eleven or twelve, not Arab, with uncombed hair and skinny arms. With her was a woman in her sixties, who sat placidly reading. The girl roamed restlessly around the room, touching the walls, windows, terminal, toys, but stopping to use nothing. Every few seconds she touched the woman, as if reassuring herself that the other was still there. Her face, ungenemod but pretty, crinkled in constant anxiety.
“The fear of the abandonment,” Strukov said with satisfaction. “She cannot bear to be alone by herself. Watch.”
The older woman rose from her chair, laid down her book, and said, “Nathalie, je vais à la cabinet de toilette.”
“Non, non, Émilie—s’il vous plaît!”
“Une minute, seulement, chérie.”
“Non! Vous ne sortez pas!”
The girl clutched desperately at Émilie. Gently the woman unwrapped her clinging arms. Nathalie threw her arms round Émilie’s legs, starting to cry. Émilie detached herself and went into a bathroom, closing and locking the door. Nathalie burst into loud sobbing and curled into the fetal position on the floor. Jennifer glimpsed the girl’s face. It was a mask of anxiety and fear.
After a few moments Émilie came out of the bathroom. Nathalie crawled over to her and again threw her arms around the older woman’s knees.
Strukov said, “The fear of being alone.”
Will said, “Does she have to be with this particular person?”
“But no,” Strukov said, smiling. “She is exactly the same with anyone in the room. She is comfortable and free of the anxiety only when the room holds many people, and all appear prepared to stay for many hours. Then, and only then, the fear of the abandonment is eased. Angelique, ça va—but this one you have already seen, isn’t it? You have decided against this.”
An American Liver town in early falclass="underline" trees blazed with color. Three ragged people stood close together on an empty nanopaved road. From their contorted faces and waving arms, they were arguing fiercely. One man shoved the other. The woman stalked away, shouting at them both over her shoulder, into a nearby woods. There was a close-up of her shocked face as two holosuited men grabbed her and forced her into a small aircar.