I blessed the name of God and waited for Dr. Yeniknani to launch into his bedside manner.
“Have you looked at yourself?” he asked.
“No, not yet.” I’m never in a hurry to see my body after it’s been offended in any serious way. I do not find wounds particularly fascinating, especially when they are my own.
When I had my appendix taken out, I couldn’t look at myself below the navel for a month. Now, with my brain newly wired and my head shaved, I didn’t want to look in a mirror; that would make me think about what had been done, and why, and where all this might lead. If I were careful and clever, I might stay in that hospital bed, pleasantly sedated, for months or even years. It didn’t sound like so terrible a fate. Being a numb vegetable was preferable to being a numb corpse. I wondered how long I could malinger here before I was rudely dumped back on the Street. I was in no hurry, that’s for sure.
Dr. Yeniknani nodded absently. “Your … patron,” he said, choosing the word judiciously, “your patron specified that you were to be given the most comprehensive intracranial reticulation possible. That is why Dr. Lisan performed the surgery himself: Dr. Lisan is the finest neurosurgeon in the city, one of the most respected in the world. Quite a lot of what he has given you he invented or refined himself, and in your case Dr. Lisan has tried one or two new procedures that might be called … experimental.”
That didn’t soothe me, I didn’t care how great a surgeon Dr. Lisan might be. I am of the “better safe than sorry” school. I could be just as happy with a brain lacking one or two “experimental” talents, but one that didn’t run the risk of turning to tahini if I concentrated too long. But what the hell. I grinned a crooked, devil-may-care grin and realized that poking hot wires into unknown corners of my brain to see what happened was not much worse than gunning around the city in the back of Bill’s taxi. Maybe I did have some kind of death wish, after all. Or some kind of plain stupidity.
The doctor raised the lid of the tray-table beside my bed; there was a mirror under there, and he rolled the table so that I could see my reflection. I looked awful. I looked like I’d died and started off toward hell and then got lost, and now I was stuck nowhere at all, definitely not alive but not decently deceased, either. My beard was neatly trimmed, and I had shaved every day or someone had done it for me; but my skin was pale, an unhealthy color like smudged newsprint, and there were deep shadows under my eyes. I stared into the mirror for a long moment before I even noticed that my head was indeed bald, just a fine growth of fuzz covering my scalp like lichen clinging to a senseless stone. The implanted plug was invisible, hidden beneath protective layers of gelstrip bandages. I raised a tentative hand as if to touch the crown of my head, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I felt a strange, unpleasant tingling shoot up through my bowels, and I shuddered. My hand fell away and I looked at the doctor.
“When we take the gelstrips off,” he said, “you’ll notice that you have two plugs, one anterior and the second plug posterior.”
“Two?” I’d never heard of anyone with two plugs before.
“Yes. Dr. Lisan has given you twice the augmentation of a conventional corymbic implantation.”
That much capacity hooked into my brain was like putting a rocket engine on an oxcart; it would never fly. I closed my eyes feeling more than a little frightened. I started murmuring Al-Fatihah, the first surah of the noble Qur’ân, a comforting prayer that always comes to me at times like this. It is the Islamic equivalent of the Christian Lord’s Prayer. Then I opened my eyes and stared at my reflection. I was still afraid, but at least I had made my uncertainty known in heaven, and from here on I’d just accept everything as the will of Allah. “Does that mean I can chip in two different moddies at the same time, and be two people at once?”
Dr. Yeniknani frowned. “No, Mr. Audran, the second plug will accept only software add-ons, not a full personality module. You wouldn’t want to try two modules at once. You might end up with a pair of charred cerebral hemispheres and a backbrain that would be completely useless except as a paperweight. We have given you the augmentation as—” (he almost committed an indiscretion and mentioned a name) “your patron directed. A therapist will instruct you in the proper use of your corymbic implants. How you choose to employ them after you leave the hospital is, of course, your own affair. Just remember that you’re dealing directly with your central nervous system now. It isn’t a matter of taking a few pills and staggering around for a while until you recover your sobriety. If you do something ill-advised with your implants, it may well have permanent effects. Permanent, frightening effects.”
Okay, he had me sold. I did what Papa and everybody else wanted: my brain was wired. Good old Dr. Yeniknani had put the fear into me, though, and I told myself right there in the hospital bed that I’d never promised that I’d use the damn thing. I’d get out of the hospital as soon as I could, go home, forget about the implants, and go about my business as usual. It would be a cold day in Jiddah before I chipped in. Let the plugs sit there for decoration. When it came to Marîd Audran’s subskullular amplification, pal, the batteries had definitely not been included, and I intended to leave it that way. Zinging my little gray cells with chemicals now and then didn’t incapacitate them permanently, but I wasn’t going to sizzle them in any electric frying pan. Only so far can I be pushed, and then my inborn perversity asserts itself.
“So,” said Dr. Yeniknani more encouragingly, “with that mandatory warning out of the way, I suppose you’re looking forward to hearing about what your improved mind and body are capable of doing for you.”
“You bet,” I said, without enthusiasm.
“What do you know about the activities of the brain and the nervous system?”
I laughed. “About as much as any hustler from the Budayeen who can barely read and write his name. I know that the brain is in the head, I’ve heard that it’s a bad idea to let some thug spill it on the sidewalk. Beyond that, I don’t know much.” I did, truthfully, know some more, but I always hold something in reserve. It’s a good policy to be a little quicker, a little stronger, and a little smarter than everybody thinks you are.
“Well, then, the posterior corymbic implant is completely conventional. It will enable you to chip in a personality module. You know that the medical profession is not unanimous in its sanction of diese modules. Some of our colleagues feel that the potential for abuse far outweighs the benefits. Those benefits, actually, were very limited at first; the modules were produced on a limited basis as therapeutic aids for patients with certain severe neurological disturbances. However, the modules have been taken over by the popular media and are used for purposes grossly different from those their inventors originally intended.” He shrugged again. “It’s too late to do anything about that now, and those few who are outraged and would prohibit the modules’ use can barely get an audience for their views. So you will have access to the entire range of personality modules for sale to the public, modules that are extremely serviceable and can save a good deal of drudgery as well as those that many people might find offensive.” I thought immediately of Honey Pílar. “You can walk into any shop and become Salah ad-Din, a genuine hero, the great sultan who drove out the Crusaders; or become the mythical Sultan Shahryar, and entertain yourself with the beautiful storyteller and the entire Thousand Nights and a Night. Your posterior implant can also accommodate up to six software add-ons.”