“But autistic is who I am,” Chuy says. “I do not know how to be someone else, someone who is not. I have to start over, a baby, and grow up again, to be someone else.”
“Well, not exactly,” the doctor says. “Many of the neurons aren’t affected, only a few at a time, so you have that past to draw on. Of course there is some relearning, some rehabilitation, to be done — that’s in the consent package; your personal counselor will explain it to you — but it’s all covered by the company. You don’t have to pay for any of it.”
“Lifetime,” Dale says.
“I beg your pardon?” the doctor says.
“If I have to start over, I want more time to be that other person. To live.” Dale is the oldest of us, ten years older than I am. He does not look old. His hair is still all dark, and thick on top. “I want LifeTime,” he says, and I realize that he is not just talking about something lasting a lifetime but about the commercial antiaging treatment LifeTime.
“But… but that’s absurd,” Mr. Arakeen says, before the doctors can say anything. “It would add… a lot of money to the expense of the project.” He glances at the other company people sitting to one side at the front of the room. None of them look at him.
Dale closes his eyes tightly; I can see the lid of the left eye flickering even so. “If this relearning takes longer than you think. Years even. I want to have time to live as a normal person. As many years as I have lived autistic. More.” He pauses, his face squeezing together with effort. “It will be more data,” he says. “Longer follow-up.” His face relaxes and he opens his eyes. “Add LifeTime and I do it. No LifeTime, I go away.”
I glance around. Everyone is staring at Dale, even Linda. Cameron might do something like this, but not Dale. He has already changed. I know I have already changed. We are autistic, but we change. Maybe we do not need the treatment, even to change more, even to be — not just seem — normal.
But as I think about that and how long it might take, paragraphs from the book come back to me. “No,” I say. Dale turns and looks at me. His face is immobile. “It is not a good idea,” I say. “This treatment does things to the neurons and so does LifeTime. This one is experimental; nobody knows if it will work at all.”
“We know it works,” Dr. Hendricks puts in. “It’s just—”
“You don’t know for sure how it works on humans,” I say, interrupting her even though interrupting is rude. She interrupted me first.
“That is why you need us, or people like us. It is not a good idea to do both. In science, you change one variable at a time.”
Mr. Arakeen looks relieved; Dale says nothing, but his eyelids droop. I do not know what he is thinking. I know how I feel, shaky inside.
“I want to live longer,” Linda says. Her hand flings out as if it had a life of its own. “I want to live longer and not change.”
“I do not know if I want to live longer or not,” I say. The words come slowly but even Dr. Hendricks does not interrupt. “What if I become someone I don’t like and am stuck living longer like that? First I want to know who I would be, before I can decide about living longer.”
Dale nods slowly.
“I think we should decide on the basis of this treatment alone. They are not trying to force us. We can think about it.”
“But— but—” Mr. Arakeen seems caught on the word, jerking it out, then makes a twisting movement with his head and goes on. “You’re saying you will think… How long will that take?”
“As long as they want,” Ms. Beasley says. “You’ve already got one subject undergoing treatment; it would be prudent to space them out anyway, see how it goes.”
“I don’t say I’ll do it,” Chuy says. “But I would think about it more… more in favor… if LifeTime is part of it. Maybe not at the same time, but later.”
“I will think about it,” Linda says. She is pale and her eyes are moving around the way they do before she shuts down, but she says it. “I will think about it, and living longer would make it better, but I do not really want it.”
“Me, either,” Eric says. “I do not want someone changing my brain. Criminals have their brains changed and I am not a criminal. Autistic is different, not bad. It is not wrong to be different. Sometimes it is hard, but it is not wrong.”
I do not say anything. I am not sure what I want to say. It is too fast. How can I decide? How can I choose to be someone else I do not know and cannot predict. Change comes anyway, but it is not my fault if I did not choose it.
“I want it,” Bailey says. He squeezes his eyes shut and speaks that way, with his eyes shut and his voice very tense. “It is this to exchange for that — for Mr. Crenshaw threatening us and the risk it has of not working and making things worse. It is this I need to make a balance.”
I look at Dr. Hendricks and Dr. Ransome; they are whispering to each other, moving their hands. I think they are already thinking how the two treatments might interact.
“It is too dangerous,” Dr. Ransome says, looking up. “We can’t possibly do them at the same time.” He glances at me. “Lou was right. Even if you get a life extension treatment later, it can’t be done at the same time.”
Linda shrugs and looks down. Her shoulders are tense; her hands are fisted in her lap. I think she will not take the treatment without the promise of longer life. If I do it and she does not, we may not see each other again. I feel strange about that; she was in this unit before I was. I have seen her every working day for years.
“I will talk to the board about this,” Mr. Arakeen says, more calmly. “We’ll have to get more legal and medical advice. But if I understand you, some of you are demanding life extension treatment as part of the package, at some time in the future, as a condition of participation, is that right?”
“Yes,” Bailey says. Linda nods.
Mr. Arakeen stands there, his body swaying a little as he shifts from foot to foot. The light catches on his name tag, moving with his motion. One button on his coat disappears and reappears behind the podium as he rocks back and forth. Finally he stops and gives a sharp nod.
“All right. I will ask the board. I think they will say no, but I will ask them.”
“Keep in mind,” Ms. Beasley says, “that these employees have not agreed to the procedure, only to think about it.”
“All right.” Mr. Arakeen nods and then twists his neck again. “But I expect you all to keep your word. Really think about it.”
“I do not lie,” Dale says. “Do not lie to me.” He gets up, unfolding a bit stiffly as he does. “Come on,” he says to the rest of us. “Work to do.”
None of them say anything, not the lawyers nor the doctors, nor Mr. Aldrin. Slowly, we get up; I feel uncertain, almost shaky. Is it all right to just walk away? But when I am moving, walking, I start to feel better. Stronger. I am scared, but I am also happy. I feel lighter, as if gravity were less.
Out in the corridor, we turn left to go to the elevators. When we get to the place where the hall widens out for the elevators, Mr. Crenshaw is standing there, holding a cardboard box in both hands. It is full of things, but I can’t see all of them. Balanced on top is a pair of running shoes, an expensive brand I remember seeing in the sporting goods catalog. I wonder how fast Mr. Crenshaw runs. Two men in the light-blue shirts of company security stand beside him, one on each side. His eyes widen when he sees us.
“What are you doing here?” he says to Dale, who is slightly ahead of the rest of us. He turns toward him, taking a step, and the two men in uniform put their hands on his arms. He stops. “You’re supposed to be in G-Twenty-eight until four P.M.; this isn’t even the right building.”