Chapter Nineteen

Mr. Aldrin comes into our building. He knocks on my door and says, “Please come out; I want to talk to you in the gym.” My stomach knots up. I hear him knocking on the others’ doors. They come out, Linda and Bailey and Chuy and Eric and all, and we file into the gym, all with tight faces. It is big enough to hold all of us. I try not to worry, but I can feel myself starting to sweat. Are they going to start the treatment right away? No matter what we decide?

“This is complicated,” Mr. Aldrin says. “Other people are going to explain it to you again, but I want to tell you right away.” He looks excited and not as sad as he did a few days ago. “You remember that I said at the beginning I thought it was wrong for them to try to force you to take the treatment? When I called you on the phone?”

I remember that, and I remember that he did not do anything to help us and later told us we should agree for our own good.

“The company has decided that Mr. Crenshaw acted wrongly,” Mr. Aldrin says. “They want you to know that your jobs are completely safe, whatever you decide. You can stay just as you are, and you can work here, with the same supports you have now.”

I have to close my eyes; it is too much to bear. Against the dark lids dancing shapes form, bright-colored and glowing with joy. I do not have to do this. If they are not going to do the treatment, I do not even have to decide if I want it or not.

“What about Cameron?” Bailey asks.

Mr. Aldrin shakes his head. “I understand that he has already begun the treatment,” he says. “I don’t think they can stop at this point. But he will be fully compensated—”

I think this is a silly thing to say. How can you compensate someone for changing his brain?

“Now for the rest of you,” Mr. Aldrin says, “if you want the treatment, of course it will still be available, as promised.”

It was not promised but threatened. I do not say this.

“You will receive full pay for the duration of treatment and rehab, and you will continue to receive any pay raises or promotions that you would have received otherwise; your seniority will not be affected. The company’s legal department is in contact with the Legal Aid organization familiar with your Center, and representatives of both will be available to explain the legal aspects to you and help you with any legal paperwork that’s necessary. For instance, if you choose to participate you will need to make arrangements to have bills paid directly out of your accounts, and so on.”

“So… it’s completely voluntary? Really voluntary?” Linda asks, looking down.

“Yes. Completely.”

“I do not understand the reason Mr. Crenshaw would change his mind,” she says.

“It wasn’t exactly Mr. Crenshaw,” Mr. Aldrin says. “Someone—people—higher up decided Mr. Crenshaw had made a mistake.”

“What will happen to Mr. Crenshaw?” Dale asks.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Aldrin says. “I am not supposed to talk to anyone about what might happen, and they didn’t tell me anyway.”

I think that if Mr. Crenshaw works for this company he will find a way to cause us trouble. If the company can turn around so far in this direction, it could always turn back the other way, with a different person in charge, just as a car can go any direction depending on the driver.

“Your meeting this afternoon with the medical team will also be attended by representatives of our legal department and Legal Aid,” Mr. Aldrin says. “And probably a few other people as well. You will not have to make a decision right away, though.” He smiles suddenly, and it is a complete smile, mouth and eyes and cheeks and forehead, all the lines working the same way to show that he is really happy and more relaxed. “I’m very relieved,” he says. “I’m happy for you.”

This is another expression that makes no literal sense. I can be happy or sad or angry or scared, but I cannot have a feeling that someone else should have instead of that person having it. Mr. Aldrin cannot really be happy for me; I have to be happy for myself, or it isn’t real. Unless he means that he is happy because he thinks we will be happier if we are not feeling forced into treatment and “I’m happy for you” means “I’m happy because of circumstances that benefit you.”

Mr. Aldrin’s beeper goes off, and he excuses himself. A moment later he puts his head back into the gym and says, “I have to go—see you this afternoon.”

is at the door when we arrive, and other men and women in suits are inside the room, milling around the table. This one also has wood paneling that does not look as fake and a green carpet. The chairs are the same kind, but the fabric on the padding is dull gold with green flecks shaped like little daisies. At the front is a big table, with groups of chairs to either side, and a big viewscreen hanging on the wall. There are two stacks of folders on the table. One has five folders, and the other has enough for each of us to have one.

As before, we take our seats, and the others slowly take theirs. Dr. Ransome I know; Dr. Handsel is not here. There is another doctor, an older woman; she has a name tag with L. Hendricks on it. She is the one who stands up first. She tells us her name is Hendricks; she tells us she is heading the research team and that she wants only willing participants. She sits down. A man in a dark suit stands up and tells us his name is Godfrey Arakeen, an attorney from the company’s legal division, and we have nothing to worry about.

I am not worried yet.

He talks about the regulations that govern hiring and firing of handicapped employees. I did not know that the company got a tax credit for hiring us, dependent on the percentage of disabled workers by division and specialty. He makes it seem that our value to the company is that we are a tax credit, not the work we do. He says that Mr. Crenshaw should have informed us of our right to talk to a company ombudsman. I do not know what an ombudsman is, but Mr. Arakeen is already explaining the word. He introduces another man in a suit; Mr. Vanagli, it sounds like. I am not sure how to spell his name, and it is not easy to hear all the sounds in it. Mr. Vanagli says if we have any concerns about anything at work we should come talk to him.

His eyes are closer together than Mr. Arakeen’s eyes, and the pattern on his tie is distracting, gold and blue in little diamond shapes arranged like steps going up or down. I do not think I could tell him about my concerns. He does not stay, anyway, but leaves after telling us to come to him anytime in office hours.

Then a woman in a dark suit tells us that she is the lawyer from Legal Aid who normally works with our Center and that she is there to protect our rights. Her name is Sharon Beasley. Her name makes me think of weasels, but she has a broad, friendly face that does not look like a weasel at all. Her hair is soft and curly and hangs down to her shoulders. It is not as shiny as Marjory’s hair. She has on earrings with four concentric circles; each one has a different-colored piece of glass in it: blue, red, green, purple. She tells us that Mr. Arakeen is there to protect the company and that although she has no doubt of his honesty and sincerity—I see Mr. Arakeen shift in his seat and his mouth tighten, as if he is getting angry—still we need to have someone on our side, and she is that person.

“We need to make clear what the situation is now, regarding you and this research protocol,” Mr. Arakeen says, when she sits down again. “One of your group has already begun the procedure; the rest of you have been promised a chance at this experimental treatment.” I think again that it was a threat, not a promise, but I do not interrupt. “The company stands by that promise, so that any of you who decide to take part in the experimental protocol can do so. You will receive full pay, but not the stipend for research subjects, if you choose to do so. You will be considered as employed at another site, with the employment being participation in this research. The company is prepared to cover all medical expenses arising from the treatment, even though this would not normally be covered by your health care policy.” He pauses and nods to Mr. Aldrin. “Pete, why don’t you hand out those folders now.”

The folders each have a name on the cover, on a little sticker, and another little sticker that says:

“As you’ll see,” Mr. Arakeen says: “these folders describe in detail what the company is prepared to do for you, whether you choose to participate in this research or not.” He turns and hands one to Ms. Beasley. She opens hers quickly and starts reading. I open mine.

“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.

“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.”

Dale does not slow down; he walks on by without saying a word.

Mr. Crenshaw’s head turns like a robot’s and then swings back. He glares at me. “Lou! What is going on here?”

I want to know what he is doing with a box in his hands, with a security guard escort, but I am not rude enough to ask. Mr. Aldrin said we did not have to worry about Mr. Crenshaw anymore, so I do not have to answer him when he is rude to me. “I have a lot of work to do, Mr. Crenshaw,” I say. His hands jerk, as if he wants to drop the box and reach out to me, but he does not, and I am past him, following Dale.

When we are back in our own building, Dale speaks. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” he says. And louder, “YES, YES, YES!”

“I am not bad,” Linda says. “I am not bad person.”

“You are not a bad person,” I agree.

Her eyes fill with tears. “It is bad to be autistic person. It is bad to be angry to be autistic person. It is bad to want not be—not want be—autistic person. All bad ways. No right way.”

“It is stupid,” Chuy says. “Tell us to want to be normal, and then tell us to love ourselves as we are. If people want to change it means they do not like something about how they are now. That other—impossible.”

Dale is smiling, a wide, tight smile I have not seen him use before. “When someone says something impossible, someone is wrong.”

“Yes,” I say. “It is a mistake.”

“Mistake,” Dale says. “And mistake to believe impossible wrong.”

“Yes,” I say. I can feel myself tensing up, afraid Dale will start talking about religion.

“So if normal people tell us to do something impossible, then we do not have to think everything normal people say is true.”

“Not all lies,” Linda says.

“Not all lies does not mean all true,” Dale says.

That is obvious, but I had not thought before that it was really impossible for people to want to change and at the same time be happy with who they were before the change. I do not think any of us thought that way until Chuy and Dale said it.

“I started thinking at your place,” Dale said. “I could not say it all then. But that helped.”

“If it goes wrong,” Eric said, “it will be even more expensive for them to take care of… what happens. If it lasts longer.”

“I do not know how Cameron is doing,” Linda says.

“He wanted to be first,” Chuy says.

“It would be better if we could go one at a time and see what happens to the others,” Eric says.

“The speed of dark would be slower,” I say. They look at me. I remember that I have not told them about the speed of dark and the speed of light. “The speed of light in a vacuum is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second,” I say.

“I know that,” Dale says.

“What I wonder,” Linda says, “is, since things fall faster as they get nearer the ground and that is gravity, does light go faster near a lot of gravity, like a black hole?”

I never knew Linda was interested in the speed of light at all. “I do not know,” I say. “But the books do not say anything about the speed of dark. Some people told me it does not have a speed, that it is just not light, where light is not, but I think it had to get there.”

They are all silent a moment. Dale says, “If LifeTime can make time longer for us, maybe something can make light faster.”

Chuy says, “Cameron wanted to be first. Cameron will be normal first. That is faster than us.”

Eric says, “I am going to the gym.” He turns away.

Lindas face has tightened, a ridged furrow on her forehead. “Light has a speed. Dark should have a speed. Opposites share everything but direction.”

I do not understand that. I wait.

“Positive and negative numbers are alike except for direction,” Linda goes on, slowly. “Large and small are both size, but in different directions. To and from mean the same path, but in different directions. So light and dark are opposite, but alike just in the same direction.” She throws her arms out suddenly. “What I like about astronomy,” she says. “So much out there, so many stars, so many distances. Everything from nothing to everything, altogether.”

I did not know Linda liked astronomy. She has always seemed the most remote of us, the most autistic. I know what she means, though. I also like the series from small to large, from near to far, from the photon of light that enters my eye, closer than close, to where it came from, light-years away across the universe.

“I like stars,” she says. “I want—I wanted—to work with stars. They said no. They said, ‘Your mind does not work the right way. Only a few people can do that.’ I knew it was math. I knew I was good in math, but I had to take adaptive math even though I always made hundreds, and when I finally got into the good classes they said it was too late. At college they said take applied math and study computers. There are jobs in computers. They said astronomy was not practical. If I live longer, it will not be too late anymore.”