several years. From that association had come Form Q, and programs like George and Martha, and new psychosurgical techniques, and psychodex.
Psychodex was relatively simple. It was a test that took straightforward answers to psychological questions and manipulated the answers according to complex mathematical formulations. As the data were fed into the computer, Ross watched the screen glow with row after row of calculations.
She ignored them; the numbers, she knew, were just the computer’s scratch pad, the intermediate steps that it went through before arriving at a final answer. She smiled, thinking of how Gerhard would explain it—rotation of thirty by thirty matrices in space, deriving factors, making them orthogonal, then weighting them. It all sounded complicated and scientific, and she didn’t really understand any of it.
She had discovered long ago that you could use a computer without understanding how it worked. Just as you could use an automobile, a vacuum cleaner—or your own brain.
The screen flashed “ CALCULATIONS ENDED. CALL DISPLAY SEQUENCE .”
She punched in the display sequence for three-space scoring. The computer informed her that three spaces accounted for eighty-one percent of variance. On the screen she saw a three-dimensional image of a mountain with a sharp peak. She stared at it a moment, then picked up the telephone and paged McPherson.
McPherson frowned at the screen. Ellis looked over his shoulder. Ross said, “Is it clear?”
SERIAL PSYCHODEX SCORE REPRESENTATIONS SHOWING
INCREASED ELEVATION (PSYCHOTIC MENTATION)
“Perfectly,” McPherson said. “When was it done?”
“Today,” she said.
McPherson sighed. “You’re not going to quit without a battle, are you?”
Instead of answering, she punched buttons and called up a second mountain peak, much lower. “Here’s the last one previously.”
“On this scoring, the elevation is—”
“Psychotic mentation,” she said.
“So he’s much more pronounced now,” McPherson said. “Much more than even a month ago.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You think he was screwing around with the test?”
She shook her head. She punched in the four previous tests, in succession. The trend was clear: on each test the mountain peak got higher and sharper.
“Well, then,” McPherson said, “he’s definitely getting worse. I gather you still think we shouldn’t operate.”
“More than ever,” she said. “He’s unquestionably psychotic, and if you start putting wires in his head—”
“I know,” McPherson said. “I know what you’re saying.”
“—he’s going to feel that he’s been turned into a machine,” she said.
McPherson turned to Ellis. “Do you suppose we can knock this elevation down with thorazine?” Thorazine was a major tranquilizer. With some psychotics, it helped them to think more clearly.
“I think it’s worth a try.”
McPherson nodded. “I do, too. Janet?”
She stared at the screen and didn’t reply. It was odd how these tests worked. The mountain peaks were anabstraction, a mathematical representation of an emotional state. They weren’t a real characteristic of a person, like fingers or toes, or height or weight.
“Janet? What do you think?” McPherson repeated.
“I think,” she said, “that you’re both committed to this operation.”
“And you still disapprove?”
“I don’t ‘disapprove.’ I think it’s unwise for Benson.”
“What do you think about using thorazine?” McPherson persisted.
“It’s a gamble.”
“A gamble not worth taking.”
“Maybe it’s worth it, and maybe it’s not. But it’s a gamble.”
McPherson nodded and turned to Ellis. “Do you still want to do him?”
“Yes,” Ellis said, staring at the screen. “I still want to do him.”
7
A S ALWAYS , M ORRIS FOUND IT STRANGE TO play tennis on the hospital court. The hospital buildings looming high above him always made him feel slightly guilty—all those rows of windows, all
Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Celine Parrenas Shimizu, Mireille Miller-Young