So the goaclass="underline" create machines capable of not just imitating human levels of consciousness, but of encapsulating it, and to eventually upload that consciousness onto a machine.
Colonel Byrne had made it clear that he was going to be the first one to be scanned, and even though Heston wasn’t clear on the colonel’s involvement with Plyotech, everyone in the division assumed he was part of the DARPA contract with Plyotech and they didn’t question his involvement.
Heston found nothing objectionable or unethical about the colonel’s goal, but the process of getting to that point was questionable. Whenever science is forging into new territory, things tend to get a little fuzzy around the moral edges. It’s always been that way.
Heston told himself that over and over as his questions mounted and his reservations grew: it was just the nature of the business, the outgrowth of cutting-edge research. But that didn’t serve well to quiet his questions or his reservations.
He met Calista Hendrix at the elevator.
“Good morning, ma’am.”
“Mornin’.” She flipped her hair back and joined him in the hall. He’d never seen her here in the morning before, but she looked as stunning as ever. “Did they do the scans on that guy yet?”
“Patient 175-4?”
She looked a little annoyed by the protocol of not referring to the patients by name. “Yeah.”
“Dr. Malhotra is with him now. I don’t believe he has gotten started with the fMRI. As far as I know he’s still prepping the patient.”
He led Calista to the room.
The paralyzed man was lying motionless on the gurney. His eyes were closed. Tubes ran into and out of his body.
Dr. Malhotra smiled broadly when he saw Miss Hendrix enter the room. “Good morning, Calista.”
“Hey.” She walked over and grazed a finger gently across Thad’s cheek. “So, he’s ready?”
“He is. I’m sure Colonel Byrne has explained to you that any movement gets in the way while we’re doing the brain scans. It’s much easier to work with patients when there’s no extraneous movement.”
She stated the obvious. “Easier than just asking him to lie still.”
“From my experience, yes. Much easier.”
“And so, he’ll never wake up?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Technically then, so he’s a vegetable?”
“Well”—he gave a small chuckle that made Heston uncomfortable—“it looks like that, but in his case he’s perfectly aware of what’s going on. We’ve simply induced a condition known as locked-in syndrome.” A pause. “Actually, you did. With that injection you gave him last month.”
Heston felt a terrible chill run through him.
Induced?
They induced locked-in syndrome?
No. This is not what you signed up for, this is—
“That what it sounds like?” Calista said.
Dr. Malhotra patted Thad Becker’s arm. “The patient remains alert and aware but is unable to communicate in any way with the outside world. A few years ago there was study on persistent vegetative states, ones in which it was assumed the people had no cognitive awareness of their surroundings.”
But he told you this patient was in a coma. Why is he telling you this now? Just because she’s here? Could that be—
“And you’re saying they do?” she asked.
“Yes, or at least those people in the study did. While doing fMRI brain scans of the patients, the doctors asked them to think of playing a tennis match, and the researchers found that the same areas of the brain lit up as when people typically think about, or play, tennis.”
She considered that. “So how long had they been lying there like that? Longer than this guy?”
Heston already knew the answer to that; all of this had come up in his interview for the position.
Dr. Malhotra answered her. “Oh, yes. In one case the patient had been in that state for over twelve years.”
“So that guy was aware of his condition but couldn’t communicate in any way with the outside world, not in twelve years?”
Dr. Malhotra looked toward Heston and indicated for him to answer the question for him. “Yes,” Heston said softly. “The researchers asked him yes or no questions to see which parts of his brain lit up.”
“And they could tell by his brain activity what his reply was?”
Heston nodded. “They asked one patient if he was in pain. He said — well, thought — no.” As he stared at the man lying before them, it struck him that this man was listening to everything they were saying.
“I’ll bet they asked him if he wanted to die, if he wanted them to kill him.”
“Actually,” Dr. Malhotra responded, “asking that question would have put the researchers in a somewhat delicate situation. Wouldn’t it, Mr. Dembski?”
“Yes.”
“How’s that?” Calista asked.
Once again the doctor looked toward Heston to answer her. “Well…” He really did not want to be talking about this. “If the patient expressed a desire to die, the doctors could not legally kill him, but if the patient was in a persistent vegetative state and unable to express any desires at all, they could remove his feeding tube, let him die a natural death.”
“By starving him.”
Heston was about to say, “Yes,” when Dr. Malhotra cut in ahead of him: “Well, we typically don’t put that fine a point on it. Under the law it’s a legally acceptable treatment alternative.”
Starving = a treatment alternative.
Talk about doublespeak. Orwell would have been proud of that one.
Calista bent and studied the patient’s emotionless face. “So, let me get this straight. If they’re not suffering you can let them die, and if they’re trapped in, like, this mental prison for months or even years, you can’t?”
“Well”—the trace of a smile flickered across Dr. Malhotra’s face—“down here we can do as we deem necessary for the advancement of medical and scientific research. But yes. Life is valuable. The laws are in place to affirm that principle and protect that.”
Is that how you affirm and protect life? By sentencing the innocent to the most terrifying sentence of solitary confinement imaginable?
“Huh,” she muttered. “That’s wild.”
Heston couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be suffering from locked-in syndrome: trying to scream, listening to the nurses go about their job every day, lying for hours, weeks, years like that, left alone only with your thoughts, no way to move, to communicate, to show emotion, to show love. Every day waking only to find that you’re not dead yet, that you’re still unable to kill yourself and not even able to ask someone to do it for you.
It truly was the worst kind of prison he could think of.
“So.” She rubbed her hand softly through Thad’s hair. “How long are you going to keep him like this?”
“As long as it takes,” Dr. Malhotra replied. “A month. A year. A decade. People have survived in this state for over twenty years.”
And when Heston heard those words, he knew he was not going to let that happen. He made a decision that would undoubtedly cost him his job and, if the rumors were right about Colonel Byrne, might end up costing him even more than that.
But this wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right what they were doing here.
Dr. Malhotra leaned down toward Thad’s ear and said to him, “I know you can hear me, Mr. Becker. I just want you to know that I’m going to do all I can to keep you alive. Be assured that every breath you take will be helping the advancement of science.”
“Right now, though, there’s no way to wake him up?” Calista asked.
“No.”