FUTURES NATURE|Vol 450|29 November 2007

Repeating the past

Peter Watts monsters, so easily killed! Immerse all your Not declarative ones, anyway.
senses in the slaughter! But procedural memory? That I can do.
What you did to your uncle’s grave was You were tired of playing with cartoons, The right frontal lobe, the hippocampus,
unforgivable. and the new model wouldn’t be out for so basic fear and anxiety responses. The rep-
Your mother blamed herself, as always. very long. You jumped at my third option. tile is easily awakened. And you didn’t need
You didn’t know what you were doing, she You know, your mother’s working on some- the details. No need to remember my baby
said. I could accept that when you traded thing like that. It’s medical, of course, but it sister face-down like a pile of sticks in the
the shofar I gave you for that eMotiv head- works the same way. She might even have mud. No need for the colour of the sky that
set, perhaps, or even when you befriended some sensory samplers loaded for testing day, as I stood frozen and fearful of some
those young toughs with the shaved heads purposes. real monster’s notice should I go to her.
and the filthy mouths. I would never have Maybe, if you promise not to tell, we could You didn’t need the actual lesson.
forgiven the swastika on your game pod but sneak you in … The moral would do.
you are my daughter’s son, not mine. Maybe Afterwards you sat up, confused, then

JACEY
it was only adolescent rebellion. How could disappointed, then resentful. “That was
you know, after all? How could any child nothing! It didn’t even work!” I needed
really know, here in 2017? Genocide is no machines to see into your head then.
far too monstrous a thing for history Senile old fart, doesn’t know half as much
books and grainy old photographs as he thinks. And as one day went by,
to convey. You were not there; you and another, I began to fear you
could never understand. were right.
We told ourselves you were But then came the retching
a good boy at heart, that it sounds from behind the bathroom
was ancient history to you, door. All those hours hidden away
abstract and unreal. Both of us in your room, your game pod
doctors, familiar with the sad abandoned in the living room.
stereotype of the self-loathing And then your mother came to
Jew, we talked ourselves into me, eyes brimming with worry:
treating you like some kind never seen you like this, she said.
of victim. And then the police Jumping at shadows. Not sleeping
brought you back from the cem- at night. This morning she found
etery and you looked at us with you throwing clothes into your back-
those dull, indifferent eyes, and I pack — they’re coming, they’re coming,
stopped making excuses. It wasn’t we gotta run — and when she asked who
just your uncle’s grave. You were spitting they were, you couldn’t tell her.
on six million others, and you knew, and it So here we are. You huddle in the cor-
meant nothing. ner, your eyes black begging holes that
Your mother cried for hours. Hadn’t Retired, yes, but I never gave up my priv- can’t stop moving, that see horrors in every
she shown you the old albums, the online ileges. Almost two decades since I closed shadow. Your fists bleed, nails gouging the
archives, the family tree with so many my practice but I still spend time in your palms. I remember, when I was your age.
branches hacked off mid-century? Hadn’t mother’s lab, lend a hand now and then. I cut myself to feel alive. Sometimes I still
we both tried to tell you the stories? I tried I still marvel at her passion to know how do. It never really stops.
to comfort her. An impossible task, I said, the mind works, how it keeps breaking. She Some day, your mother says, her
explaining Never Again to someone whose got that from me. I got it from Treblinka, machines will exorcise my demons. Doesn’t
only knowledge of murder is the score he when I was only half your age. I, too, grew she understand what a terrible mistake that
racks up playing Zombie Hunter all day … up driven to fix broken souls — but the would be? Doesn’t history, once forgotten,
And that was when I knew what to do. psychiatrist’s tools were such blunt things repeat? Didn’t even the worst president
I waited. A week, two, long enough to back then. Scalpels to open flesh, words in history admit that memories belong to
let you think I’d excused and forgiven as and drugs to open minds. Our techniques everyone?
I always have. But I knew your weak spot. had all the precision of a drunkard stomp- I say nothing to you. We know each
FUTURES

Nothing happens fast enough for you. ing on the floor, trying to move glasses on other now, so much deeper than words.
These miraculous toys of yours— elec- the bar with the vibrations of his boot. I have made you wise, grandson. I have
trodes that read the emotions, take orders These machines your mother has, shown you the world.
directly from the subconscious — they though! Transcranial superconductors, Now I will help you to live with it. ■
bore you now. You’ve seen the ads for deep-focus microwave emitters, Szpindel Peter Watts is a reformed marine biologist
Improved Reality™: sensation planted resonators! Specific pathways targeted, and failed gel-jock who is nevertheless
directly into the brain! Throw away the rewritten, erased completely! Their very adept at faking science, just so long as he
goggles and earphones and the gloves, names sound like incantations! can mix some characters and plot in
throw away the keys! Feel the breezes of I cannot use them as she can. I know among the numbers. His latest novel was
fantasy worlds against your skin, smell the only the basics. I can’t implant sights nominated for several prestigious awards,
smoke of battle, taste the blood of your toy or sounds, can’t create actual memories. winning none of them.
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