“Now, if you choose not to participate, you will see — on page seven, paragraph one — that there will be no repercussions whatsoever on your terms of employment here. You will not lose your job; you will not lose seniority; you will not lose your special status. You will simply continue as you are, with the same necessary supportive work environment—”
I wonder about that. What if Mr. Crenshaw was right and there really are computers that can do what we do and do it better and faster? Someday the company could decide to change, even if they do not change now. Other people lose their jobs. Don had lost jobs. I could lose my job. It would not be easy to find another.
“Are you saying that we have a job for life?” Bailey asks.
Mr. Arakeen has a strange expression on his face. “I… did not say that,” he says.
“So if the company finds out we do not make enough money for them in a few years, we could still lose our jobs.”
“The situation could require reevaluation in light of later economic conditions, yes,” Mr. Arakeen says. “But we do not anticipate any such situation at this time.”
I wonder how long “at this time” will last. My parents lost their jobs in the economic upheavals of the early aughts, and my mother told me once that she had thought, in the late nineties, that they were set for life. Life throws curves, she said, and it’s your job to catch them anyway.
Ms. Beasley sits up straight. “I think a minimum period of safe employment might be specified,” she says. “In light of our clients’ concerns and the previous illegal threats of your manager.”
“Threats which higher management had no knowledge of,” Mr. Arakeen says. “I don’t see that we could be expected to—”
“Ten years,” she says.
Ten years is a long time, not a minimum time. Mr. Arakeen’s face reddens. “I don’t think—”
“So you are planning termination in the long term?” she asks.
“I didn’t say that,” he says. “But who can foresee what might happen? And ten years is far too long a period. No one could make a promise like that.”
“Seven,” she says.
“Four,” he says.
“Six.”
“Five.”
“Five with a good severance package,” she says.
His hands come up, palms forward. I do not know what this gesture means. “All right,” he says. “We can discuss the details later, can’t we?”
“Of course,” she says. She smiles at him with her lips, but her eyes are not smiling. She touches the hair on the left side of her neck, pats it, and pushes it back a little.
“Well, then,” Mr. Arakeen says. He turns his head one way and another, as if to ease his collar. “You are guaranteed employment under the same conditions, for at least five years, whether you choose to participate in the protocol or not.” He glances at Ms. Beasley, then looks at us again. “So you see, you do not lose by a decision either way, as far as your job security is concerned. It’s entirely up to you. You’ve all qualified medically for the protocol, however.”
He pauses, but no one says anything. I think about it. In five years, I will still be in my forties. It would be hard to find a job when I am over forty, but retirement would not start for a long time. He gives a short nod and goes on. “Now, we’ll give you a little time to review the material in your folders. As you can see, these folders are not to be removed from the building for legal reasons. Meanwhile, Ms. Beasley and I will confer on some of the legal details, but we’ll be here to answer your questions. After that, Dr. Hendricks and Dr. Ransome will continue with the planned medical briefing for today, though of course no decision will be expected from you today on whether or not to participate.”
I read the material in the folder. At the end is a sheet of paper with a space on it for my signature. It says that I have read and understood everything in the folder and that I have agreed not to talk about it to anyone outside the section except the ombudsman and the Center Legal Aid lawyer. I do not sign it yet.
Dr. Ransome gets up and again introduces Dr. Hendricks. She begins to tell us what we have already heard before. It is hard to pay attention because I know that part already. What I want to know comes later, when she starts talking about what will actually happen to our brains.
“Without enlarging your heads, we can’t just pack new neurons in,” she says. “We have to keep adjusting the number, so there is the right amount of neural tissue making the right connections. The brain does this itself, during normal maturation: you lose a lot of the neurons you started with, when they don’t make connections — and it would be chaos if they did.”
I raise my hand and she nods at me. “Adjust — does this mean that you take some tissue out, to make room for the new?”
“Not physically take out; it’s a biological mechanism, actually, resorption—”
Cego and Clinton described resorption during development: redundant neurons disappear, resorbed by the body, a process controlled by feedback control mechanisms using sensory data in part. As an intellectual model, it is fascinating; I was not upset to learn that so many of my neurons had disappeared when I knew that it happened to everyone. But if she is not quite saying what I think she is not quite saying, they are proposing to resorb some of the neurons I have now, as an adult. That is different. The neurons I have now all do something useful for me. I raise my hand again.
“Yes, Lou?” This time it is Dr. Ransome who speaks. His voice sounds a little tense. I think he thinks I ask too many questions.
“So… you are going to destroy some of our neurons to make room for the new growth?”
“Not exactly destroy,” he says. “It’s quite a complicated thing, Lou; I’m not sure you’ll understand.” Dr. Hendricks glances at him, then away.
“We aren’t stupid,” mutters Bailey.
“I know what resorption means,” Dale says. “It means that tissue goes away and is replaced by other tissue. My sister had cancer and they programmed her body to resorb the tumor. If you resorb neurons, they’re gone.”
“I suppose you could look at it that way,” Dr. Ransome says, looking more tense. He glares at me; he blames me for starting it, I think.
“But that’s right,” Dr. Hendricks says. She does not look tense but excited, like someone waiting to ride on a favorite carnival ride. “We resorb the neurons that have made bad connections and grow neurons which will make good connections.”
“Gone is gone,” Dale says. “That is the truth. Tell the truth.” He is getting upset; his eye is flickering very fast. “When some is gone, the right kind may not grow anyway.”
“No!” Linda says loudly. “No, no, no! Not my brain. Not taking apart. Not good, not good.” She puts her head down, refusing eye contact, refusing to listen.
“It is not taking anyone’s brain apart,” Dr. Hendricks says. “It is not like that at all… It is just adjustment — the new neural attachments grow, and nothing’s changed.”
“Except we aren’t autistic,” I say. “If it works right.”
“Exactly.” Now Dr. Hendrick smiles as if I had just said exactly the right thing. “You will be just as you are, but not autistic.”
“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.