The Turing Option

3 February 10, 202

Benicoff, gowned and masked, stretchable boots pulled over his shoes, pressed his back to the green tiles of the wall of the operating room and tried to make himself invisible. There were two large lights on ceiling tracks that one of the nurses moved about and focused until the resident surgeon approved their positioning. On the table sterile blue sheets had been draped tentlike over Brian’s still figure. Only his head was exposed, projecting beyond the end of the table and held immovably by the pointed steel spokes of the head holder. There were three of them, screwed through the skin of his scalp and anchored firmly in the bone below. The bandages that covered the two bullet wounds were stark white in contrast to his orange skull, shaved smooth and painted with disinfectant.

Snaresbrook looked relaxed, efficient. Discussing the approaching operation with the anesthesiologist and the nurses, then supervising the careful placement of the projector. “Here is where I am going to work,” she said, tapping the hologram screen. “And this is where you are going to cut.”

She touched the outlined area that she had hiked onto the plate, checking once again that the opening would be large enough to reveal the entire area of injury, large enough for her to work within. Nodding with satisfaction, she projected the holograph onto Brian’s skull and watched while the resident painted the lines on the skin, following those of the image, matching it exactly. When he was finished more drapes were attached to the surrounding skin until only the area of the operation remained. Snaresbrook went out to scrub: the resident began the hour-long procedure to open the skull.

Luckily Benicoff had seen enough other surgical procedures not to be put off. He was still amazed at all the force that is needed to penetrate the tough skin, muscle and bone that armor the brain. First a scalpel was used to cut through to the bone; the scalp, spreading apart as it was severed, was then sewn to the surrounding cloth. After the bleeding arteries were sealed shut with an electric cautery it was time to penetrate the bone.

The resident drilled holes by hand, with a polished metal brace and bit. Bits of skull, like wood shavings, were cleared away by the nurse. It was hard work and the surgeon was sweating, had to lean back so that the perspiration could be dabbed from his forehead. Once the holes were through the bone he enlarged them with a different tool. The final step was to use the motorized craniotome, fitted with a bone-cutting extension, to connect the holes. After this had been done he worked the flat metal flap elevator between skull and brain to slowly pry up and free the piece of skull; a nurse wrapped the piece of bone in cloth and put it into an antibiotic solution.

Now Snaresbrook could begin. She entered the O.R., her scrubbed-clean hands held up at eye level, poked her arms through the sleeves of the sterile gown, slipped on the rubber gloves. The instrument table was rolled into position, the tools on it carefully laid out by the scrub nurse. The scalpels, retractors, needles, nerve hook, dozens of scissors and tweezers, all the battery of equipment needed for the penetration of the brain itself.

“Dural scissors,” Snaresbrook said, holding out her hand, then bent to cut open the outer covering of the brain. Once it had been exposed to the air, automatic sprays kept it moist.

Benicoff, standing against the wall, could not see the details now; was just as glad. It was the final stage that mattered, when they rolled over the odd-looking machine that was now pushed back against the wall. A metal box, with a screen, controls and a keyboard, as well as two shining arms that rose from the top. These ended in multibranching fingers that grew smaller and smaller in diameter, each tipped with a glistening fuzziness. This was caused by the fact that the sixteen thousand microscopic fingertips at the branching ends of the instrument were actually too small to be seen by the human eye. The multibranching manipulator had been developing for only a decade. Unpowered now, the fingers hung in limp bundles like a metallic weeping willow.

It took the surgeon two hours, working with the large microscope, scalpels and cautery, to clean the track of destruction, a slow and precise debridement of the lesion left by the bullet.

“Now we repair,” she said, straightening up and pointing to the manipulator. Like everything else in the O.R. it was on wheels; it was pushed into position. When it was switched on, the fingers stirred and rose, descended again under her control into the brain of its designer.

Snaresbrook’s skin was gray and there were black smears of fatigue under her eyes. She sipped her coffee and sighed.

“I admire your stamina, Doctor,” Benicoff said. “My feet hurt just from standing there and watching. Do all brain operations last that long?”

“Most of them. But this one was particularly difficult because I had to insert and fix those microchips into place. It was like combining surgery with solving a jigsaw puzzle, since every one of those PNEPs had a different shape in order to perfectly contact the surface of brain.”

“I saw that. What do they do?”

“They are PNEP film chips — programmable neural electron pathway devices. I have applied them to every injured surface of his brain. They will make connections to the cutoff nerve fibers that end at those surfaces, that control the regrowth of Brian’s nerves. They have been under development for years and have been thoroughly tested in animals. These chips have also been wonderfully effective in repairing human spinal injuries. But until now they have never been used inside human brains, except in a few small experiments. I would certainly not be using them if there were any good alternative.”

“What will happen next?”

“The chips are coated with living embryonic human nerve cells. What they should do is grow and provide physical connections from the end of each of the severed nerves to at least one of the quantum transistor gates on the surface of the PNEP. That process of growth should already have started, and will continue for the next few days.”

“As soon as those new nerve fibers grow in, I’ll start to program the PNEP chips. Each chip has enough switching capacity to take every nerve signal that comes in from any part of the brain and route it out along an appropriate nerve fiber that goes to another location in the brain.”

“But how could you know exactly where to send it?”

“That is precisely the problem. We will be dealing with several hundred million different nerves — and we don’t know now where any of them should go. The first stage will be to follow Brian’s brain’s anatomy. This should give us a crudely approximate map of where most of those fibers should go. Not enough to support fine-grained thought but enough, I hope, to restore a minimal level of functional recovery, despite all the errors in wiring. For example, if the motor area of his brain sends a signal to move, then some muscle should move, if not the right one. So we’ll have a response that later could be relearned or retrained. I have implanted a connector in Brian’s skin, just about here.” Erin touched the back of her neck just above her collar. “The computer communicates by inserting the microscopic ends of fiber-optic cables that communicate with each of the PNEP chips inside. Then we can use the external computer to do the search — to find opposite areas relating to the same memories or concepts. Once these are found, the computer can send signals to establish electronic pathways inside, between the appropriate PNEPs. Each separate chip is like an old-fashioned telephone exchange where one phone was plugged through a board to another phone. I’ll start using the neural telephone exchange inside Brian’s brain to reestablish the severed connections.”

Ben took a deep breath. “That’s it, then. You’ll restore all of his memory!”

“Hardly. There will be memories, skills and abilities that will be lost forever. Really all I hope to do is restore enough so Brian may be able to relearn what is now gone. An incredible amount of work is needed. To understand the complexity of the brain, you must realize that there are many times more genes involved in growing the structure of the brain than in any other organ.”

“I appreciate that. Do you believe that the personality, the person we know as Brian, is still alive?”

“I believe so. During the operation I saw his limbs move through the drapes, a familiar movement that reminded me of the way we move when we are dreaming. A dream! What could that half-ruined brain possibly dream about?’’

Darkness…

Timeless darkness, warm darkness.

Sensation. Memory.

Memory. Awareness. Presence. Around and around and around. Going nowhere, relating to nothing else, an endless loop.

Darkness. Where? The closet. Safety was in the darkness of the closet. Refuge of a child. No light. Just sound. The memory repeated itself, over and over.

Sound? Voices. Voices he knew. Voices he hated. And a new one. A strange one. An accent like on telly. Not Irish. American, he recognized that. Americans, they came to the village. To the pub. Took pictures. One took a picture of him. Gave him a golden twenty pence. Spent it on sweets. Ate them all. Americans.

Here? In this house. Curiosity took his hand to the knob on the closet door. He held it, turned it and opened it slowly. The voices were louder now, clear. Shouting even, that would be his uncle Seamus.

“A bloody sodding nerve to come here! Nerves of brass, you blackguard. Come here right to the house where she died and all. Bloody nerve—”

“There is no need to shout, Mr. Ryan. I told you why I came. This.”

That was the new voice. American. Not really American. As Irish as everyone, but sometimes American. This was too unusual to miss. Brian forgot his anger at being sent to his room so early, forgot his tantrum that had sent him to the closet, into the darkness to bite his knuckles and cry where no one could see or hear him.

On tiptoes he crossed the tiny room, the wood cold on his bare feet, warm on the rag rug by the door. Five years old, he could look out through the keyhole now without standing on a book. Pressed his eye close.

“This letter came a few weeks back.” The man with the accent had red hair, freckles. He looked angry as he waved the piece of paper. “And there’s the postmark on the envelope. Right here, Tara, this village. Do you want to know what it says?”

“Get out,” the heavy, phlegmy voice rumbled, followed by a deep cough. His grandfather. Still smoked twenty a day. “Can you not understand the simple words — you’re not wanted here.”

The newcomer slumped back, sighed. “I know that, Mr. Ryan, and I don’t wish to argue with you. I just want to know if these allegations are true. This person, whoever it was, has written that Eileen is dead—”

“True enough, by God — and you killed her!” Uncle Seamus was losing his temper. Brian wondered if he would hit this man the same way he hit him.

“That would be difficult since I haven’t seen Eileen in over five years.”

“But you saw her once too often, you twisting sonofabitch. Got her with child, ran out, left her here with her shame. And her bastard.”

“That’s not quite true — nor is it relevant.”

“Get away with your fancy words!”

“No, not until I’ve seen the boy.”

“I’ll see you in hell first!”

There was a scrape and crash as a chair went over. Brian clutched the doorknob. He knew that word well enough. Bastard. That was him, that’s what the boys called him. What had this to do with the man in the parlor? He did not know; he had to find out. He would be beaten if he did. It didn’t matter. He turned the knob and pushed.

The door flew back and crashed against the wall and he stood in the doorway. Everything stopped. There was Grandfer on the couch, torn gray sweater, the cigarette end in his lips sending a curl of smoke into his half-closed eye. Uncle Seamus, fists clenched, the fallen chair behind him, his face red and exploding.

And the newcomer. Tall, well dressed, suit and tie. His shoes were black and shiny. He looked down at the boy, his face twisted with strong emotions.

“Hello, Brian,” he said, ever so quietly.

“Watch out!” Brian shouted.

Too late. His uncle’s fist, hard from years in the mine, caught the man high on the face, knocked him to the floor. Brian thought at first that it was going to be one of those fights, like on Saturday night outside the pub, but it wasn’t going to be like that, not this time. The newcomer touched his hand to his cheek, looked at the blood, climbed to his feet.

“All right, Seamus, maybe I deserved that. But just that once. Put your fists down, man, and show some intelligence. I’ve seen the boy and he’s seen me. What’s done is done. It’s his future I care about — not the past.”

“Look at the two of them,” Grandfer muttered, holding back a cough. “Alike as two pennies, the red hair and all.” His temper changed abruptly and he waved his arms, sparks flying from his cigarette. “Get back into your room, boy! Nothing here for you to see — nothing here for you to hear.

Inside before you feel my hand.”

Incomplete, disjointed, adrift in time. Memories, long forgotten, disconnected. Surrounded and separated by blackness. Why was it still dark? Paddy Delaney. His father.

Like slides in a cinema, flickering and quick, too quick to see what was happening. The blackness. The slides, suddenly clear again.

A loud roaring, the window before him bigger than any window he had seen before, bigger even than a shop window. He clutched tightly at the man’s hand. Frightened, it was all so strange.

“That’s our plane,” Patrick Delaney said. “The big green one there with the bump on top.”

“747-8100. I seen a pitcher in the paper. Can we go into it now?”

“Very soon — as soon as they call it. We’ll be the first ones aboard.”

“And I’m not gonna go back to Tara?”

“Only if you want to.”

“No. I hate them.” He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Looked up at the tall man at his side. “You knew my mother?”

“I knew her very well. I wanted to marry her but — there were reasons we couldn’t get married. When you are older you will understand.”

“But — you’re my father?”

“Yes, Brian, I am your father.”

He had asked the question many times before, never really sure that he would really get the right answer. Now, here, in the airport with the big green plane before them, he believed it at last. And with the belief something seemed to swell up and burst inside him and tears welled out and ran down his face.

“I never, never want to go back.”

His father was on his knees, holding him so tightly that he could barely breathe — but that was all right. Everything was all right. He smiled and tasted the salt tears, smiling and crying at the same time and unable to stop.