It is fascinating, in its way. It is like watching almost-patterns in a chaotic system. Like watching molecules break apart and re-form as a solutions balance shifts this way and that. I keep feeling that I almost understand it, and then something happens I did not anticipate. I do not know how they can participate and keep track of it at the same time.
Gradually I am able to notice that everyone pauses if Simon speaks and lets him into the conversation. He does not interrupt often, but no one interrupts him. One of my teachers said that the person who is speaking indicates who he expects to speak next by glancing at them. At that time I usually could not tell where someone was looking unless they looked there a long time. Now I can follow most glances. Simon glances at different people. Max and Susan always glance first at Simon, giving him priority. Tom glances at Simon about half the time. Lucia glances at Simon about a third of the time. Simon does not always speak again when someone glances at him; that person then glances at someone else.
But it is so fast: how can they see it all? And why does Tom glance at Simon some of the time and not the rest of the time? What tells him when to glance at Simon?
I realize that Marjory is watching me and feel my face and neck go hot. The voices of the others blur; my vision clouds. I want to hide in the shadows, but there are no shadows. I look down. I listen for her voice, but she is not talking much.
Then they start on equipment: steel blades versus composites, old steel versus new steel. Everyone seems to prefer steel, but Simon talks about a recent formal match he saw in which composite blades had a chip in the grip to emit a steel-like sound when the blades touched. It was weird, he says.
Then he says he has to go and stands up. Tom stands up, too, and Max. I stand up. Simon shakes Tom’s hand and says, “It was fun — thanks for the invitation.”
Tom says, “Anytime.”
Max puts out his hand and says, “Thanks for coming; it was an honor.”
Simon shakes his hand and says, “Anytime.”
I do not know whether to put out my hand or not, but Simon quickly offers his so I shake it even though I do not like to shake hands — it seems so pointless — and then he says, “Thanks, Lou; I enjoyed it.”
“Anytime,” I say. There is a moment’s tension in the room, and I am worried that I said something inappropriate — even though I was copying Tom and Max — and then Simon taps my arm with his finger.
“I hope you change your mind about tournaments,” he says. “It was a pleasure.”
“Thank you,” I say.
While Simon goes out the door, Max says, “I have to leave, too,” and Susan uncoils from the floor. It is time to leave. I look around; all the faces look friendly, but I thought Don’s face looked friendly. If one of them is angry with me, how would I know?
On Thursday we have the first of the medical briefings where we have been able to ask the doctors questions. There are two doctors, Dr. Ransome, with the curly gray hair, and Dr. Handsel, who has straight dark hair that looks as if it had been glued onto his head.
“It is reversible?” Linda asks.
“Well… no. Whatever it does, it does.”
“So if we don’t like it, we can’t go back to being our normal selves?”
Our selves are not normal to start with, but I do not say that aloud. Linda knows it as well as I do. She is making a joke.
“Er… no, you can’t. Probably. But I don’t see why—”
“I’d want to?” Cameron says. His face is tense. “I like who I am now. I do not know if I will like who I become.”
“It shouldn’t be that different,” Dr. Ransome says.
But every difference is a difference. I am not the same person as before Don began to stalk me. Not only what he did but meeting those police officers has changed me. I know about something I didn’t know before, and knowledge changes people. I raise my hand.
“Yes, Lou,” Dr. Ransome says.
“I do not understand how it can not change us,” I say. “If it normalizes our sensory processing, that will change the rate and kind of data input, and that will change our perceptions, and our processing—”
“Yes, but you — your personality — will be the same, or much the same. You will like the same things; you will react the same—”
“Then what’s the change for?” Linda asks. She sounds angry; I know she is more worried than angry. “They tell us they want us to change, to not need the supports we need — but if we do not need them, then that means our likes and dislikes have changed… doesn’t it?”
“I’ve spent so much time learning to tolerate overload,” Dale says. “What if that means I suddenly don’t pick up on things I should?” His left eye flickers, ticcing wildly.
“We don’t think any of that will happen,” the doctor says again. “The primatologists found only positive changes in social interaction—”
“I’m not a fucking chimp!” Dale slams his hand down on the table. For a moment his left eye stays open; then it starts ticcing again.
The doctor looks shocked. Why should he be surprised that Dale is upset? Would he like to have his behavior presumed on the basis of a primatologist’s studies of chimpanzees? Or is this something normals do? Do they see themselves as just like other primates? I can’t believe that.
“No one’s suggesting you are,” the doctor says, in a slightly disapproving voice. “It’s just that… they’re the best model we have. And they had recognizable personalities after treatment, with only the social deficits changed…”
All the chimps in the world now live in protected environments, zoos, or research establishments. Once they lived wild, in the forests of Africa. I wonder if the autistic-like chimpanzees would have been that way in the wild or if the stress of living as prisoners has changed them.
A slide lights up the screen. “This is the normal brain’s activity pattern when picking a known face from a photograph of several faces,” he says. There is a gray outline of a brain, with little glowing green spots. Thanks to my reading, I recognize some of the locations… no, I recognize the slide. It is illustration l6-43.d, from chapter 16 of Brain Functionality. “And here—” The slide changes. “This is the autistic brain’s activity pattern during the same task.” Another gray outline with little glowing green spots. Illustration 16-43.C from the same chapter.
I try to remember the captions in the book. I do not think that the text said the first was normal brain activity when picking a known face from a photographed group. I think it was normal brain activity when viewing a familiar face. A composite of… yes, I remember. Nine healthy male volunteers recruited from college students according to a protocol approved by the human ethics research committee…
Another slide is already showing. Another gray outline, another set of colored splotches, these blue. The doctor’s voice drones on. This is another slide I recognize. I struggle to remember what the book said and hear what he is saying, but I cannot. The words are tangling.
I raise my hand. He stops and says, “Yes, Lou?”
“Can we have a copy of this, to look at later? It is hard to take in all at once.”
He frowns. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lou. This is still proprietary — very confidential. If you want to know more, you can ask me or your counselor questions and you can look at the slides again, though” — he chuckles — “I don’t think they’ll mean much since you’re not a neurologist.”
“I’ve read some,” I say.
“Really…” His voice softens to a drawl. “What have you read, Lou?”
“Some books,” I say. Suddenly I do not want to tell him what book I have been reading, and I do not know why.