上帝之眼

作者：[加] 彼得·沃茨 (Peter Watts)
译者：张志鹏

我不是罪犯，我没有犯罪。

队伍前面，一个女人刚被截住。她三十几岁，咖啡色皮肤，戴着一顶娜圣莎牌贝雷帽，一双眼睛睁得大大的，显得天真而无辜。看情况她是服用了雌性荷尔蒙⁽¹⁾一种垂体神经激素，另具广泛的生理功能，如帮助克服社交场合中的羞涩感。，企图扰乱安检人员的判断。只消朱唇微启，媚眼轻抛，荷尔蒙激发的化学刺激就能绕过理性，直接把信息传递到安检员的脑干：这个人是朋友，不需要做机器检查……

但她大概忘了，这里所有的工作人员都是机器：分子水平的机器。安检员的大脑均经过微调改造，对口头辩护和化学气雾统统“免疫”。两位安检员带着她朝一扇白色的门走去，对她的抗议无动于衷。我告诉自己要硬下心肠，莫管他人瓦上霜——她到底是怎么想的，居然敢冒这种险？不管她在想什么，肯定不止想想那么简单——乘客是财路，航空公司不会因为脑子里有点坏念头就把人带走，至少目前还不会。她肯定做了什么，她肯定把那些想法付诸行动了。

离登机还有半小时。我前面至少还排着五十个守法公民，而安检还没开始。一个嗡嗡作响的箱子刚被搬到队伍前面，活像一只大张着嘴的螃蟹，全副武装，阴森地蛰伏在那里。一位安检员从它的影子里走出来，开始沿着队伍抽查。刚才那个女人是今天的第一只猎物，这让她很兴奋—— 一副小人得志的嘴脸。我告诉自己这是法制社会，没什么可担心的。我不是罪犯，我没有犯罪。这句话在脑海里盘旋，好像法庭上的自我辩护。

我不是罪犯，我没有犯罪。

但我知道，无论如何，那该死的机器照样会指控我。

队伍前面，神秘的检查箱亮了起来。从劣质音响里传出一个录好的女性声音，宣布登机安检开始。声音在候机厅里回荡，守卫懒散地抬起了头。安检时必须交出随身物品——时髦的坠饰、名贵的珠宝、便携式办公设备——完成检查后才能取回。安检设备会对大脑进行全面扫描，哪怕一对耳环都能造成严重干扰。接受过医学移植和汞补牙的人也不受欢迎，他们得另外排队，到特别的房间去，接受旧式的口头盘问和体腔检查。

广播在继续：乘坐西部喷气航空公司航班的各位旅客，大家好。在正式接受安检之前，请收听几点注意事项：患有癫痫、耳蜗功能障碍或格雷式综合征的旅客请主动向工作人员报告；拒绝接受扫描的旅客将丧失登机资格，且恕不退款；对因扫描可能引起的暂时性或其他神经方面的副作用，本公司概不负责；正式接受扫描之前，必须同意上述条款…… 说扫描有副作用，并非空穴来风。早些年，一些癫痫患者曾在扫描过程中出现轻度痉挛。更加让人匪夷所思的是一位大名鼎鼎、著作等身的牛津学者，这位坚定的无神论者，居然在希斯罗机场检查站变成了虔诚不渝的基督徒——尽管最终原因被归咎于他体内的肿瘤（两个月后还要了他的命）。还有一位圣保罗的老寡妇，去年简直成了媒体的宠儿，因为她从某法院检查站出来后，居然患上了跑鞋恋物癖。幸亏老太太宅心仁厚，没有选择对簿公堂，索尼公司因此省了一大笔赔偿金——不过有传言说，她决定撤诉前刚好又被SWank系统扫描过，但这一传言从未得到证实。

“目的地？”

就在我出神的当儿，安检员抽查到了我这里。她用一束生物测定激光扫过我的脸。我眨眨眼，试图驱散残留的视觉图像。

“目的地？”女安检员重复道。

“耶洛奈夫⁽²⁾加拿大西北地区首府。。”

她瞟了一眼手里的登记表。“出差还是旅行？”这种问题根本毫无意义，甚至不属于标准检查程序。自从有了SWank系统，这类琐碎盘问早就成了明日黄花。她之所以如此纠缠，无非是看我不顺眼罢了。她就是觉得我不对劲儿——究竟哪里不对，可能她自己也说不清。

“都不算。”我答道。

她突然抬起头来。不管之前她在怀疑什么，我的含糊其辞听上去都显得欲盖弥彰。“去参加葬礼。”我补充道。

她一言不发，径直走开了。

天父，我知道你不在我身边，童年时我就放弃了信仰。让其他人继续愚蠢地迷信吧，他们大可以继续卑贱地敬拜超自然力量，以此自我安慰和开脱；那些不敢面对黑暗现实的懦夫，也不妨继续用虚幻的往生来自我麻痹。我不需要这些虚无缥缈的概念。我知道自己只不过是在自言自语，但就是欲罢不能。

我突然好奇，不知道那机器能不能偷听到我们的谈话？在抨击Swank的问题上，就像从前对待哥白尼的日心说和克隆技术一样，梵蒂冈教廷毫不心慈手软。他们坚持，上帝造人的神圣法则不容干涉，自由意志不容侵犯，即使选择侵犯本身也是一种自由。

不过我注意到，通过技术手段对颞叶⁽³⁾大脑的一叶，位于额叶和顶叶的下方，枕叶的前方，与听觉、视觉、语言和记忆等功能有关。动手动脚，似乎并不被视为侵犯自由意志，而且已在某些领域开始流行。

天父，你谴责纯粹的罪念，一如谴责实际的罪行。还记得多年前，早已放弃信仰的我问你：那些未付诸行动的罪又当如何？如果你觊觎邻人的妻子，想象谋杀的快感，但只是纸上谈兵，将会怎样？你和蔼地看着我——或许眼神里还带着一份理解，一份我从不相信你能具有的深刻理解——然后却用超级漫画英雄似的口吻责备道：纵然只是在想象中行恶，在上帝眼里，也与实际犯罪无异。

耳中突然响起一声短促的钟鸣，我一下子想要立即来上一杯，比如苏格兰威士忌——让那木叶清香辗转萦绕在口齿间，实在是一大享受……我回过神四处望了望，果然看到一块广告牌正起劲地朝我辐射：皇冠威士忌。该死的垃圾广告！根据现行法律，向大脑植入商标属于违法行为。激发购物欲望无可厚非，但把大脑与商标强行绑定，那就侵犯了个人专属的“自由意志”。不过实际上，这么规定不过是做个姿态，安抚一下那些狂热的民权分子而已，就像植入广告前耳中响起的钟鸣音，提示你的大脑将要接受广告辐射，但根据法律，你的意志自由不会受到侵犯——有了这个提示音，广告商就不算违法。因为只要还能意识到大脑正被入侵，你就仍然有机会行使自由意志。

一位老人站在我前面，正在小声呜咽，而就在刚才，他似乎还一切正常。这种事时有发生：广告触发了错误的神经连接。如果要模拟高品质全景式感官刺激，SWank仍得借助头盔的帮助才行；而那些远程信号——比如广告辐射——的作用，与其说是“植入”，不如说是“触发”。据说诀窍在于控制嗅觉，一来，脑叶体积够大，便于远程定位；二来，脑叶结构相对简单，比起有数十亿神经细胞的视觉中枢，更容易远程操控。事实上，脑叶非常原始，和哺乳动物比起来，它更接近低等爬虫类生物的身体构造。研究人员耗资数百万，发现了一些普适通用的嗅觉-情绪反应，比如金银花的味道让人想起童年，松木的清香则会勾起关于圣诞节的回忆。通过触发特定的反应，科学家既能让我们喜欢诺曼·罗克威尔的风景画，也能让我们迷恋萨德侯爵的**。同样的道理，刺激特定的神经感受器，大脑就能自行产生垃圾广告。 然而对某些人来说，金银花唤回的童年里，可能母亲正在遭受家庭暴力；对另一些人而言，圣诞节也许正好是妹妹割腕自杀的忌日。

不过这种意外情况屈指可数。一千个人里，只会有一两个产生轻微不适情绪，真正触发痛苦体验的几率更是只有万分之一。然而即便如此，一些人还是觉得这个比例太高。另有一些人，想到这些机器除了声音和画面，甚至还能将欲望、观念和宗教信仰也植入大脑，不禁不寒而栗。不过，以可爱婴儿和性感女郎为卖点的传统广告，不是也在通过声像之类的刺激手段，愚弄我们的理性，直接向我们肉体灌输欲望吗？任何辩论或说理，都是货真价实的思想改造。阳春白雪的诗歌也好，下里巴人的宣传手册也罢，都像间谍程序一样，在试图侵入、篡改我们的价值观。上个月，“脑域”游戏公司有位宣传员在他们的论坛上辩解道：“我的程序需要SWank系统——利用声音改变大脑中的特定神经连接，才能在游戏里模拟出更加身临其境的体验。难道仅仅因为SWank能做到这一点，你就想取缔它？” 这种反对理由确实站不住脚，而且很容易导向荒唐结论。查禁SWank？那还不如把艺术创造和法庭辩护也拖进黑名单；干脆直接取缔言论自由，更是一劳永逸。

天父啊，我们都知道这是事实。哪怕只言片语，也足以让人潸然泪下。

队伍继续前移。我们依序走到嗡嗡响的机器面前，鱼贯而入，次第而出，检查效率高得简直不正常——仿佛在科技的洗礼下经历了一次重生，出来后，每个人都暂时变成了圣人。天父啊，高压缩超声波，这就是用来净化我们的“圣水”。几年前媒体对这项技术的炒作之声甚嚣尘上，即使高居天堂，你一定也注意到了，至少应该听说过教皇发布了谴责训令。本世纪初，索尼公司以开发游戏的名义将其注册为专利，随即又承诺，笨重昂贵的视听屏和电极将很快被轻巧便宜的集成盒取代，后者能在家庭环境中随时追踪人体位置，完全绕过传统的视觉和听觉，直接将模拟的感官体验植入大脑。（事实上这项技术直到今天仍未普及。植入信号也许确实以超声波为载体，但定位大脑却是通过追踪电磁辐射来实现的，而显然没几个人愿意让家里充满电磁辐射。）后来，该技术在医院、机场和主题公园里找到了用武之地，普及的梦想于是得以延续，直到收费终于降低到大众水平。天父，除此之外，各种衍生技术也大行其道：失聪者又能去听；失明者重获光明；那些经历过巨大感情创伤的人，甚至能删除所有痛苦的记忆——只要不停付费就行。

问题就出在这里：这些效应并不是持久的。高频声波尽管能激发或抑制神经突触的活性，却无法真正改变神经回路的物理结构。一旦外加信号消失，大脑就会回到原先的自然状态。这一特性，不但让服务供应商有利可图，也给法院省了不少麻烦。“内在自我的完整性”永远是敏感话题——假如坐个飞机都会让脑子被重新“烧录”，肯定会带来不少棘手的法律问题。

不过不得不承认，新技术带来了高效率。再也没有耗时费力的背景核对，再也没有侵犯隐私的“随机”审查，用来揪出“害群之马”的冗长盘问也成为了历史。短暂地经过颅磁场，再来一束高频声波——检查结束，“下一个。”仅仅一年前，检查完五十个人至少要好几个小时，而现在，不到一刻钟，我已经排进了前十。新技术带来的不光有方便快捷，更有安全保障，就像持续了整整一代人的俄罗斯轮盘赌结束后，剩下的那种如释重负的轻松感。 再也没有“9·11事件”，再也没有“里约热内卢暴动”；再也不用担心恐怖爆炸把建筑物夷为平地，或者脏弹①袭击城市带来疫病危机。当然，破坏分子永远存在，恐怖主义从不消停，这点毫无疑问。不过今天，他们的黑手只能伸向那些不受SWank系统保护的地方了。像这样的航班，环境友好，安保严密，任何乘客都是温顺无害的，就像我一样。谁能说不是呢？

要搁在从前，我可能会希望自己是个精神病人。那时检查制度还很宽松，机器只用来测试情绪反应：眼球快速扫视，或者皮肤伽伐尼⁽⁴⁾又称放射性炸弹，用于将放射性物质（主要是放射性颗粒）散布到空气中，造成相当于核放射性尘埃的污染。电流值。任何道德沦丧之徒都能面带笑容，脸不红心不跳地轻松过检。然而，SWank技术引领了一个全新的时代。在这个时代，科技的触角远远深入到事物表面之下：前额皮质活动、葡萄糖代谢，都在监控范围之内；谋杀犯、变态狂和潜在破坏分子被一网打尽。

当然，即使检查时被扣住了，也会被释放的，毕竟反社会倾向本身并不违法。见鬼，如果每一个问心有愧的人都要被剔除，那商务舱岂不是没人能坐了？

队伍里零星有几个儿童，大多有家长陪同，只有三个例外——两个男孩和一个女孩。他们长得真漂亮，但神情紧张，好像容易受惊的野生动物。年纪最大的孩子看起来不超过九岁，脖子上有块雀斑。

我不由自主地被他们吸引住了。

忽然之间，孩子们又能出去玩了。近几个月，公园里和广场上，常常能见到他们的身影，毫无防备，天真无邪，无比脆弱。SWank系统的存在仿佛给了父母们一个歇口气的机会。尽管还要过很久，它才能走出机场和政府办公楼，普及到孩子们日常玩耍的地方，但爸爸妈妈们已经等得不耐烦了，他们情愿在覆盖每个街角的闭路监视系统里寻找自我安慰，不管怎么说，那些摄像头在不停地摇摄、扫描，就好像有真人站在后面一样。可是，爸爸妈妈们甚至不愿意花上五分钟，上网搜一搜，看看在这个“监视社会”里，利用激光笔和拍摄死角制造监视漏洞是多么容易。 我们在恐惧中生活得太久了。如今，哪怕是虚假的安全感，人们都如此渴望；即使是尚未兑现的承诺，他们也会紧紧抓住不放。这并不新鲜。你聊什么郊区房价或者南极冰盖消融，爸爸妈妈们从来都是寅吃卯粮，赊账过日子的。

所以，如果他们的孩子真有什么不测，那也是咎由自取。

队伍继续向前。忽然间，轮到我了。

安检员挥手示意我过去。我上前一步，感觉像赴刑场。如果能避免走到这一步，如果能摆脱这种遭遇，如果能步行到西北居住区去，而不是让这肮脏的机器对我的大脑动手动脚的话……

有人在“螃蟹”的嘴巴处用喷漆印了两个黑字：暗影。我犹豫地看了安检员一眼。

“它能看透人心里的罪恶。”他邪恶地笑了笑，“进去吧。”

我不知道他究竟想说什么。

检测室的内壁微光闪闪，布满了细密的铜丝网。伴随着轻微的液压系统噪音，扫描头盔慢慢落下来。那么大个帽盔，戴在头上感觉却很轻。护目镜滑了下来，好像一副眼罩。我正置身于一个微型宇宙中，只有全知的上帝与我同在。头颅深处传来电流的嗡嗡声。

我什么坏事都没做，我一直奉公守法。也许我使劲儿想，上帝就能听到。为什么要扫描大脑？如果注定要事后涂改，何必还事先读取内容？因为大脑并非像复写本那么简单。每个个体都是独特的，有着独一无二的精致结构，想要修改，就必须了解原有的内容。然而，各种动机和意图纠缠在一起，汇成一股暧昧不清的信息洪流，从额叶皮层到扣带沟回，从下丘脑到屏状核，孳生蔓延，无穷无尽……更糟糕的是，这里面可没有发光二极管来标记邪恶思想，也不会有什么安妮斯顿神经元⁽⁵⁾意大利医生和动物学家伽伐尼（1737-1798），在研究蛙腿痉挛反应时发现了“动物电”，即俗称的伽伐尼电流。这一发现最终导致伏打电池的发明和电生理学的建立。
来提示“这人是爆炸狂”。于是，为了每一个人的安全，大脑必须接受全盘扫描——为了每一个人的安全。

检查我用的时间似乎格外长，比任何人都长。

队伍因此陷于停滞。

“好吧，”安保人员轻声说，“请你转过去，眼睛盯住这里。”

“我不是……”我说，“我从没……”

“以前没，现在也不会。至少从现在起九个小时内不会。”

“我从来没有把那些念头付诸行动。”我暴躁地说，显得有些孩子气，“一次也没有。”

“这我看得出来。”他答道，但我知道，自己根本是在对牛弹琴。

电流的嗡嗡声发生了细微的音调变化。好像有磁场和蚊子在脑子里嗡嗡作响。拜那因为价位过高而尚未在国内市场普及的技术所赐，我被改变了：一股渴望消弭于无形；那隐约的欲望，曾经如此根深蒂固，而现在我对它的全部了解仅限于它已经“消失”。

“搞定。现在即使让你负责看护两个托儿所和一个祭坛侍童合唱队，你也禁得住诱惑。”

眼罩升起，头盔撤去。负责人转过来盯着我，和周围的人一样，一脸鄙夷的神情。

“你们搞错了。”我轻声抗议道。

“事到如今还嘴硬？”

“我什么都没做。”

“我们也什么都没做。你那变态的大脑仍然能自由思考，你还是你。我们没侵犯你的宪法权利和天赐人格。你还跟以前一样，以后随时能到公园里去骗骗小孩子，只是暂时不会有这种冲动而已。”

“但我什么都没做。”我无法停止抗议。

“谁都可以这么说，等真做了，那就晚了。”他朝出口一甩头，“走吧，现在你清白了。”

我不是罪犯。我没有犯罪。但那又有什么分别？我的名字已经上了黑名单——仿佛一个迅速扩大的裂变反应，相关信息正被发送到一个又一个检查站。我仍然能通过后面的检查，但会处处受到监视。

也许不久以后，情况能有所改变。即使现在，社会道德标准也只是勉强承认“行”与“思”是两回事。标准再严格哪怕一丁点儿，全世界所有检查站都会把我拒之门外。但这仅仅是新启蒙运动的开端，最新的规则还尚未成形。所以，就目前而言，天父，我仍然能以自由之身站在这里，站在你褪去圣光的坟前，默默哀悼被迫交付的保释金。

天父，你一直那么仁慈宽厚，再十恶不赦的罪，你也会荡涤净化。而你要求的条件，不过是虔诚的忏悔。我们需要做的，就是接受你的爱。

当然，现在听起来，这话的利己主义意味远比以前浓。

现如今，即使是异 教徒，也有办法改过自新重新做人。虽然救赎者不是你，只是台机器，虽然这救赎的有效期很短，但话说回来，我想你的也一样。

而且你看，机器所带来的，远不止这种暂时性的赦罪。有的机器，如深源微波发射器，能通过高温汽化特定的生理结构，直接祛除人内心的邪恶。不过这种操作不是强制性的，至少目前如此。一些议员建议，应该先发制人，通过机器改造，使人民弃恶从善，相关立法草案已经被提交到国会。不过就现在而言，这一程序仍然严格遵循自愿原则。因为它会侵犯不可剥夺的本质自我，有些人称这种改造是变相谋杀，这也不无道理。

在安检员室，我不断重申，自己从未把那些念头付诸于行动。虽然这一点他们都能看得出来。

我从没有试图去除这些念头，我必须喜欢真正的我。

我想知道，那又有什么分别。

我想知道，我们谁的罪更大。

The Eyes of God
by Peter Watts

I am not a criminal. I have done nothing wrong.

They’ve just caught a woman at the front of the line, mocha-skinned, mid-thirties, eyes wide and innocent beneath the brim of her La Senza beret. She dosed herself with oxytocin from the sound of it, tried to subvert the meat in the system—a smile, a wink, that extra chemical nudge that bypasses logic and whispers right to the brainstem: This one’s a friend, no need to put her through the machines…

But I guess she forgot: we’re all machines here, tweaked and tuned and retrofitted down to the molecules. The guards have been immunized against argument and aerosols. They lead her away, indifferent to her protests. I try to follow their example, harden myself against whatever awaits her on the other side of the white door. What was she thinking, to try a stunt like that? Whatever hides in her head must be more than mere inclination. They don’t yank paying passengers for evil fantasies, not yet anyway, not yet. She must have done something. She must have acted.

Half an hour before the plane boards. There are at least fifty law-abiding citizens ahead of me and they haven’t started processing us yet. The buzz box looms dormant at the front of the line like a great armored crab, newly installed, mouth agape. One of the guards in its shadow starts working her way up the line, spot-checking some passengers, bypassing others, feeling lucky after the first catch of the day. In a just universe I would have nothing to fear from her. I’m not a criminal, I have done nothing wrong. The words cycle in my head like a defensive affirmation.

I am not a criminal. I have done nothing wrong.

But I know that fucking machine is going to tag me anyway.

At the head of the queue, the Chamber of Secrets lights up. A canned female voice announces the dawning of preboard security, echoing through the harsh acoustics of the terminal. The guards slouch to attention. We gave up everything to join this line: smart tags, jewelery, my pocket office, all confiscated until the far side of redemption. The buzz box needs a clear view into our heads; even an earring can throw it off. People with medical implants and antique mercury fillings aren’t welcome here. There’s a side queue for those types, a special room where old-fashioned interrogations and cavity searches are still the order of the day.

The omnipresent voice orders all Westjet passenger with epilepsy, cochlear dysfunction, or Gray’s Syndrome to identify themselves to Security prior to entering the scanner. Other passengers who do not wish to be scanned may opt to forfeit their passage. Westjet regrets that it cannot offer refunds in such cases. Westjet is not responsible for neurological side effects, temporary or otherwise, that may result from use of the scanner. Use of the scanner constitutes acceptance of these conditions.

There have been side effects. A few garden-variety epileptics had minor fits in the early days. A famous Oxford atheist—you remember, the guy who wrote all the books—caught a devout and abiding faith in the Christian God from a checkpoint at Heathrow, although some responsibility was ultimately laid at the feet of the pre-existing tumour that killed him two months later. One widowed grandmother from St. Paul’s was all over the news last year when she emerged from a courthouse buzz box with an insatiable sexual fetish for running shoes. That could have cost Sony a lot, if she hadn’t been a forgiving soul who chose not to litigate. Rumors that she’d used SWank just prior to making that decision were never confirmed.

“Destination?”

The guard arrives while I wasn’t looking. Her laser licks my face with biometric taste buds. I blink away the after-images.

“Destination,” she says again.

“Uh, Yellowknife.”

She scans her handpad. “Business or pleasure?” There’s no point to these questions; they’re not even according to script. SWank has taken us beyond the need for petty interrogation. She just doesn’t like the look of me, I bet. She just knows somehow, even if she can’t put her finger on it.

“Neither,” I say. She looks up sharply. Whatever her initial suspicions, my obvious evasiveness has cemented them. “I’m attending a funeral,” I explain.

She moves along without a word.

I know you’re not here, Father. I left my faith back in childhood. Let others hold to their feebleminded superstitions, let them run bleating to the supernatural for comfort and excuses. Let the cowardly and the weak-minded deny the darkness with the promise of some imagined afterlife. I have no need for invisible friends. I know I’m only talking to myself. If only I could stop.

I wonder if that machine will be able to eavesdrop on our conversation.

I stood with you at your trial, as you stood with me years before when I had no other friend in the world. I swore on your sacred book of fairy tales that you’d never touched me, not once in all those years. Were the others lying, I wonder? I don’t know. Judge not, I guess.

But you were judged, and found wanting. It wasn’t even newsworthy—child-fondling priests are more cliché than criminal these days, have been for years, and no one cares what happens in some dick-ass town up in the Territories anyway. If they’d quietly transferred you just one more time, if you’d managed to lay low just a little longer, it might not have even come to this. They could have fixed you.

Or not, now that I think of it. The Vatican came down on SWank like it had come down on cloning and the Copernican solar system before it. Mustn’t fuck with the way God built you. Mustn’t compromise free choice, no matter how freely you’d choose to do so.

I notice that doesn’t extend to tickling the temporal lobe, though. St. Michael’s just spent seven million equipping their nave for Rapture on demand.

Maybe suicide was the only option left to you; maybe all you could do was follow one sin with another. It’s not as though you had anything to lose; your own scriptures damn us as much for desire as for doing. I remember asking you years ago, although I’d long since thrown away my crutches: what about the sin not made manifest? What if you’ve coveted thy neighbor’s wife or warmed yourself with thoughts of murder, but kept it all inside? You looked at me kindly, and perhaps with far greater understanding than I ever gave you credit for, before condemning me with the words of an imaginary superhero. If you’ve done any of these things in your heart, you said, then you’ve done them in the eyes of God.

I feel a sudden brief chime between my ears. I could really use a drink about now; the woody aroma of a fine old scotch curling through my sinuses would really hit the spot. I glance around, spot the billboard that zapped me. Crown Royal. Fucking head spam. I give silent thanks for legal standards outlawing the implantation of brand names; they can stick cravings in my head, but hooking me on trademarks would cross some arbitrary threshold of free will. It’s a meaningless gesture, a sop to the civil-rights fanatics. Like the chime that preceded it: it tells me, the courts say, that I am still autonomous. As long as I know I’m being hacked, I’ve got a sporting chance to make my own decisions.

Two spots ahead of me, an old man sobs quietly. He seemed fine just a moment ago. Sometimes it happens. The ads trigger the wrong connections. SWank can’t lay down hi-def sensory panoramas without a helmet, these long-range hits don’t instil so much as evoke. Smell’s key, they say—primitive, lobes big enough for remote targeting, simpler to hack than the vast gigapixel arrays of the visual cortex. And so primal, so much closer to raw reptile. They spent millions finding the universal triggers. Honeysuckle reminds you of childhood; the scent of pine recalls Christmas. They can mood us up for Norman Rockwell or the Marquis de Sade, depending on the product. Nudge the right receptor neurons and the brain builds its own spam.

For some people, though, honeysuckle is what you smelled when your mother got the shit beaten out of her. For some, Christmas was when you found your sister with her wrists slashed open.

It doesn’t happen often. The ads provoke mild unease in one of a thousand of us, true distress in a tenth as many. Some thought even that price was too high. Others quailed at the spectre of machines instilling not just sights and sounds but desires, opinions, religious beliefs. But commercials featuring cute babies or sexy women also plant desire, use sight and sound to bypass the head and go for the gut. Every debate, every argument is an attempt to literally change someone’s mind, every poem and pamphlet a viral tool for the hacking of opinions. I’m doing it right now, some Mindscape™ flak argued last month on MacroNet. I’m trying to change your neural wiring using the sounds you’re hearing. You want to ban SWank just because it uses sounds you can’t?

The slope is just too slippery. Ban SWank and you might as well ban art as well as advocacy. You might as well ban free speech itself.

We both know the truth of it, Father. Even words can bring one to tears.

The line moves forward. We shuffle along with smooth, ominous efficiency, one after another disappearing briefly into the buzz box, reappearing on the far side, emerging reborn from a technological baptism that elevates us all to temporary sainthood. Compressed ultrasound, Father. That’s how they cleanse us. You probably saw the hype a few years back, even up there. You must have seen the papal bull condemning it, at least. Sony filed the original patent as a game interface, just after the turn of the century; soon, they told us, the eyephones and electrodes of yore would give way to affordable little boxes that tracked you around your living room, bypassed eyes and ears entirely, and planted five-dimensional sensory experience directly into your brain. (We’re still waiting for those, actually; the tweaks may be ultrasonic but the system keeps your brain in focus by tracking EM emissions, and not many consumers Faraday their homes.) In the meantime, hospitals and airports and theme parks keep the dream alive until the price comes down. And the spin-offs- Father, the spin-offs are everywhere. The deaf can hear. The blind can see. The post-traumatised have all their acid memories washed away, just as long as they keep paying the connection fee.

That’s the rub, of course. It doesn’t last; the high frequencies excite some synapses and put others to sleep, but they don’t actually change any of the preexisting circuitry. The brain eventually bounces back to normal once the signal stops. Which is not only profitable for those doling out the waves, but a lot less messy in the courts. There’s that whole integrity-of-the-self thing to worry about. Having your brain rewired every time you hopped a commuter flight might raise some pretty iffy legal issues.

Still. I’ve got to admit it speeds things up. No more time-consuming background checks, no more invasive “random” searches, no litany of questions designed to weed out the troublemakers in our midst. A dash of transcranial magnetism; a squirt of ultrasound; next. A year ago I’d have been standing in line for hours. Today I’ve been here scarcely fifteen minutes and I’m already in the top ten. And it’s more than mere convenience: it’s security, it’s safety, it’s a sigh of relief after a generation of Russian Roulette. No more Edmonton Infernos, no more Rio Insurrections, no more buildings slagged to glass or cities sickening in the aftermath of some dirty nuke. There are still saboteurs and terrorists loose in the world, of course. Always will be. But when they strike at all, they strike in places unprotected by SWanky McBuzz. Anyone who flies these friendly skies is as harmless as—as I am. Who can argue with results like that?

In the old days I could have wished I was a psychopath. They had it easy back then. The machines only looked for emotional responses: eye saccades, skin galvanism. Anyone without a conscience could stare them down with a wide smile and an empty heart. But SWank inspired a whole new generation. The tech looks under the surface now. Prefrontal cortex stuff, glucose metabolism. Now, fiends and perverts and would-be saboteurs all get caught in the same net.

Doesn’t mean they don’t let us go again, of course. It’s not as if sociopathy is against the law. Hell, if they screened out everyone with a broken conscience, Executive Class would be empty.

There are children scattered throughout the line. Most are accompanied by adults. Three are not: two boys and a girl. They are nervous and beautiful, like wild animals, easily startled. They are not used to being on their own. The oldest can’t be more than nine, and he has a freckle on the side of his neck.

I can’t stop watching him.

Suddenly children roam free again. For months now I’ve been seeing them in parks and plazas, unguarded, innocent, and so vulnerable, as though SWank has given parents everywhere an excuse to breathe. No matter that it’ll be years before it trickles out of airports and government buildings and into the places children play. Mommy and Daddy are tired of waiting, take what comfort they can in the cameras mounted on every street corner, panning and scanning for all the world as if real people stood behind them. Mommy and Daddy can’t be bothered to spend five minutes on the web, compiling their own predator’s handbook on the use of laser pointers and blind spots to punch holes in the surveillance society. Mommy and Daddy would rather just take all those bromides about “civil safety” on faith.

For so many years we’ve lived in fear. By now people are so desperate for any pretense of safety that they’ll cling to the promise of a future that hasn’t even arrived yet. Not that that’s anything new; whether you’re talking about a house in the suburbs or the browning of Antarctica, Mommy and Daddy have always lived on credit.

If something did happen to their kids, it would serve them right.

The line moves forward. Suddenly I’m at the front of it.

A man with Authority waves me in. I step forward as if to an execution. I do this for you, Father. I do this to pay my respects. I do this to dance on your grave. If I could have avoided this moment—if this cup could have passed from me, if I could have walked to the Northwest Territories rather than let this obscene technology into my head - Someone has spray-painted two words in stencilled black over the mouth of the machine: The Shadow. Delaying, I glance a question at the guard.

“It knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men,” he says. “Bwahaha. Let’s move it along.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

The walls of the booth glimmer with a tight weave of copper wire. The helmet descends from above with a soft hydraulic hiss; it sits too lightly on my head for such a massive device. The visor slides over my eyes like a blindfold. I am in a pocket universe, alone with my thoughts and an all-seeing God. Electricity hums deep in my head.

I’m innocent of any wrongdoing. I’ve never broken the law. Maybe God will see that if I think it hard enough. Why does it have to see anything, why does it have to read the palimpsest if it’s just going to scribble over it again? But brains don’t work like that. Each individual is individual, wired up in a unique and glorious tangle that must be read before it can be edited. And motivations, intents—these are endless, multiheaded things, twining and proliferating from frontal cortex to cingulate gyrus, from hypothalamus to claustrum. There’s no LED that lights up when your plans are nefarious, no Aniston Neuron for mad bombers. For the safety of everyone, they must read it all. For the safety of everyone.

I have been under this helmet for what seems like forever. Nobody else took this long.

The line is not moving forward.

“Well,” Security says softly. “Will you look at that.”

“I’m not,” I tell him. “I’ve never—”

“And you’re not about to. Not for the next nine hours, anyway.”

“I never acted on it.” I sound petulant, childish. “Not once.”

“I can see that,” he says, but I know we’re talking about different things.

The humming changes subtly in pitch. I can feel magnets and mosquitoes snapping in my head. I am changed by something not yet cheap enough for the home market: an ache evaporates, a dull longing so chronic I feel it now only in absentia.

“There. Now we could put you in charge of two Day Cares and a chorus of alter boys, and you wouldn’t even be tempted.”

The visor rises; the helmet floats away. Authority stares back at me from a gaggle of contempuous faces.

“This is wrong,” I say quietly.

“Is it now.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“We haven’t either. We haven’t locked down your pervert brain, we haven’t changed who you are. We’ve protected your precious constitutional rights and your God-given identity. You’re as free to diddle kiddies in the park as you ever were. You just won’t want to for a while.”

“But I haven’t done anything.” I can’t stop saying it.

“Nobody does, until they do.” He jerks his head towards Departure. “Get out of here. You’re cleared.”

I am not a criminal. I have done nothing wrong. But my name is on a list now, just the same. Word of my depravity races ahead of me, checkpoint after checkpoint, like a fission of dominoes. They’ll be watching, though they have to let me pass.

That could change before long. Even now, Community Standards barely recognize the difference between what we do and what we are; nudge them just a hair further and every border on the planet might close at my approach. But this is only the dawning of the new enlightenment, and the latest rules are not yet in place. For now, I am free to stand at your unconsecrated graveside, and mourn on my own recognizance.

You always were big on the power of forgiveness, Father. Seventy times seven, the most egregious sins washed away in the sight of the Lord. All it took, you insisted, was true penitence. All you had to do was accept His love.

Of course, it sounded a lot less self-serving back then.

But even the unbelievers get a clean slate now. My redeemer is a machine, and my salvation has an expiry date—but then again, I guess yours did too.

I wonder about the machine that programmed you, Father, that great glacial contraption of dogma and moving parts, clacking and iterating its way through two thousand years of bloody history. I can’t help but wonder at the way it rewired your synapses. Did it turn you into a predator, weigh you down with lunatic strictures that no sexual being could withstand, deny your very nature until you snapped? Or were you already malfunctioning when you embraced the church, hoping for some measure of strength you couldn’t find in yourself?

I knew you for years, Father. Even now, I tell myself I know you—and while you may have been twisted, you were never a coward. I refuse to believe that you opted for death because it was the easy way out. I choose to believe that in those last days you found the strength to rewrite your own programming, to turn your back on obsolete algorithms two millennia out of date and decide for yourself the difference between a mortal sin and an act of atonement.

You loathed yourself; you loathed the things you had done. And so, finally, you made absolutely certain you could never do them again. You acted.

You acted as I never could, though I’d pay so much smaller a price.

There is more than this temporary absolution, you see. We have machines now that can burn the evil right out of a man, deep-focus microwave emitters that vaporize the very pathways of depravity. No one can force them on you; not yet, anyway. Member’s bills wind through Parliament, legislative proposals that would see us preemptively reprogrammed for good instead of evil, but for now the procedure is strictly voluntary. It changes you, you see. It violates some inalienable essence of selfhood. Some call it a kind of suicide in its own right.

I kept telling the man at Security: I never acted on it. But he could see that for himself.

I never had it fixed. I must like what I am.

I wonder if that makes a difference.

I wonder which of us is more guilty.