Wednesday, 10 June 2015

part 2 of Readers - Science fiction attempt

Readers (continued, part 2) for first section see Readers part 1

I met Dickens outside the Cybersleep centre. He was shocked to see me and sounded different. His voice was unrecognizable. Sounding peculiar like an out of tune guitar with discordant notes and the volume not in control. It was his eyes that told me who he was, those green eyes with flecks of gold sprinkled around the cornea. I'd read somewhere it was an indication of a disease. Careful studies had found a gene responsible and precautions taken to screen out the anomaly. No such eyes had appeared for at least three decades. It was strangely heartening to see them again. Like being shown an ancient artifacts from the 21st century. Nostalgia swept over me and I answered warmly. 
“Dickens, I have not seen you for almost 50 years!”
He answered slowly struggling to articulate his h’s. 

“Forty eight years, it was at the middle age convention, do you remember?”

Dickens corrected me and then went on, his voice growing stronger and more certain with each minute,

“I took a deep sleep forty seven years ago. My health director indicated disease predictors required it,” he pointed to his eyes. “Woke up and had the treatment. Stupid thing really, they discovered how to deal with the disease 20 years earlier. I complained to the authorities but apparently being two decades out in such things is no longer considered incompetence. If the director had been out by three decades I would have had a substantial claim. Just my luck!”
  
He shook his hand warmly above my hand and I waved back. It had been the flu endemic of the 23rd century that had changed human interaction substantially. Apparently, humans used to actually shake hands with complete strangers. After 20 million were wiped out by a flu epidemic that spread purely by skin contact, handshakes were banned. Nowadays, it was an intricate business with different types to suit each occasion. Dickens had responded to my friendly wave palm down with a 10cm gap just above my own hand. Strangers involved a greeting with the opposite side hand wave. Readers never responded to a wave. They stood well back and scanned. The difficulty with advanced intuition is that you need time to read the intent. Readers had to scan you before responding and adopted to drop the wave for ethical considerations. Cherry, his wife was a reader and he never got used to her cold stare at visitors or new work colleagues.


Once he complained and she had answered,
 “We have to. If you don't read them the wave could be interpreted as an acquiescence.
The wave ceremony is a way of getting to know someone politely. As a reader we do it by reading, it takes us less time and avoid mistakes. It also warns others that they are being read. If I just waved I’d be pretending I wasn’t a reader. That would not be fair.”
Keats brought Dickens home for a meal and his wife Cherry had read him at the door. Dickens had stood with his palm down in a friendly invite and his wife Cherry had stared coldly back. A minute passed and in the awkward hand retreat, Dickens had blushed vivid red and then made his apologies and left. His wife explained it was more appropriate that he had left. But no matter how he pressed her she would not tell him what she’d read. She responded,
“It’s against our ethics you know that.”

I had argued,
“But I’ve known him for years, I need to know!”
The next day I tried to call Dickens but there was no response. I never knew what she had read but the next day I explained that my friend had disappeared. Sherry had nodded knowingly,

“I expected he would, it's one of the reasons people keep to themselves nowadays. They know readers are out there and their act will be discovered.”
 Angrily I told her,

”Do you know in Pacifica readers are banned”.

She nodded unruffled.

“That's one way to approach it. I view it differently. You may find it intrusive and unfair but it is also a protection for the wider community. Pacifica has had huge spikes in negative activity probably as a result of not allowing readers”.
  Keats felt annoyed,
  “Oh, come on, you can't play that card and take the credit for solving social ills. Claim that without your kind, everybody misbehaves!”

Cherry looked Keats in the eyes before responding,

“Apart from being prejudiced against readers Pacifica has the highest child abuse, domestic abuse, animal cruelty and an epidemic of elderly early death syndrome”.


Once euthanasia was legally allowed and the numbers of deaths of elderly went through the roof the term EEDS was coin to address the broad spectrum condition from those who are terminally ill and wanting released from their suffering, to those whose greedy beneficiaries no longer wanted to wait for their elderly relatives to die of natural causes. While legal measures had been put in place to prevent healthcare officials from benefiting from EEDS, a whole subculture of vultures had emerged. Befriending the old, the ill and the isolated in order to line their own pockets with an endgame of termination became endemic. The media exposé highlighting these unscrupulous activities resulted in the elderly and the infirmed fleeing Pacifica. For elderly protection in other nations, readers were employed routinely to screen social contacts and had unearthed an uncomfortable amount of close relatives with unsavoury mindsets. Abusers were rarely the stranger on the street as had once been feared but much more commonly the homegrown family member. One online wit had coined the phrase, ‘everyone everywhere does something’ and it had been the rallying cry of the main political group in Pacifica. Cleverly highlighting a recognition that everyone committed negative acts and judgement wasn't an appropriate response. Despite all this being in the pubic domain, Keats still felt he had to hold to his argument,
“You make it sound as if readers commit no wrong!” He snapped.
Sherry was becoming irritated.
“I didn't say that. Of course there are positive and negative readers!”

The Lindenbury affair clarified that once and for all. In Pacifica a certain Louise Lindenbury, a reader, had taken money to make incorrect readings for the unscrupulous.   It was the case that led to the banning of readers from the country. A mass program of oppression had resulted in huge amounts of reader refugees crossing out of Pacifica borders. The ripples had also infected neighbouring nation states and resulted in the law ‘Watchers need Watched’. This required readers to be subjected to weekly supervision by other readers. This safety supervision was called intrusive by the reader community who argued that the wider community, who routinely committed atrocious deeds, were not subjected to such investigations. However, in the aftermath of the Lindenbury affair refugee readers had not been in a position to complain. They had been happy to find sanctuary and accepted the edict.


Cleverly, the weekly sessions were designed that refugee readers were supervised by resident readers and vice versa. Each set was anxious to prove that their particular nation was more morally innocent than the other. So these weekly supervision sessions had become ridiculously intense and stressful as minute signs of corruption were hunted for. Keats was beginning to feel sorry that he had raised the whole affair. Cherry would be having her weekly interrogation and it made no sense to torment her with history. So he spoke apologetically,
“I liked him, Dickens was one of my oldest friends and it hurt to drive him off like that. We went back 50 years”.

Sherry nodded in sympathy,

“I know, I'm sorry, but there was a reason the doctor kept him in a cybersleep state for 50 years and had little to do with his health issue.”
Keats held her arm gently,

“I don't want to know but I expect you had valid reasons. It doesn't make it easy for me but I have to respect your reading”.
Sherry responded by hugging him and Keats added,
“Knowledge is a terrible burden but like sight, if you have it you can't go through life blindfold that would be intolerable too. I expect the maxim if there are 10 qualities and an individual nine bad then we should focus on the one good is difficult to sustain when you're a reader”.
This was said sympathetically. Sherry responded,

“Actually no, usually readers are constantly inspired by what they pick up from others. Goodness is much more common than you think. In fact during our early supervision, in the years after Lindenbury we were taught ‘look inward and find what should not be there!’

Keats was bemused and asked, 
“What did that entail!”

Cherry explained,

“Well, in terms of the old maxim it meant we should read ourselves and find not the good qualities but the bad and use the supervision to address it fully. A painful affair but deemed necessary given what had just happened.”
Keats nodded and asked,
“So why did it change?”
“Well, given the fact that readers were constantly coming across excellent ideals thoughts, actions and deeds in those they met daily, weekly exposing of their own faults became too toxic for some. There was an outbreak of suicides in case loads of over zealous supervision officials.”

Keats was horrified and enquired,

“But surely the reader supervisors would've picked up on the dangerous thoughts the new maxim was triggering and then changed their practice?”

Cherry nodded,

“Some moderated their approach immediately, many resigned on principle, but most did not pick up on the suicidal leanings in clients because it was only in the days after supervision when reflecting on their own failings that things went downhill.”

“How long before things changed.” Keats asked.

“Four years.” Cherry answered.

“What!” Keats was shocked and Cherry elaborated,
“There was a change in the maxim. ‘Look inward and find what should not be there, look outward and be inspired by what you find in others’.”
Keats was angry and exploded,

“And that changed what exactly? It seems a half assed adjustment after four years!”
Cherry answered calmly,
“Actually it was very transforming. The protection of ourselves grew out of the learning from others. Until that point we were in a judgment mode of others without knowing it. Being asked to look inward critically meant we applied a toxic judgment mindset to ourselves. Once, it became balanced with and appreciation of the good in those we met, readers found themselves on a continual path of transformation. Now, during supervision the focus is on reading if that positive progress is being made. Are lessons learned in interactions with others being applied? Do our deeds match new modes of thinking or lag behind.”
Keats could understand the difference this could make and pointed out,

“So the weekly supervision is not so bad.”

Cherry paused before responding,

“Well, it depends, there are a few old school readers still supervising and while using the new maximum cling to the old practices.”
Keats was aghast,

“What! You mean it still goes on, driving readers over the edge?”

Cherry answered calmly,

“It's very rare now, all readers trained in the last decade wouldn't dream of applying the old maxim. Even veteran readers are undergoing retraining to address issues they may have. There is the odd old school supervisor that sneak through the system like mine.”
Keats groaned, 
“Oh Cherry, I didn't realize that's what you faced each week!”
“It's not too bad, it's exhausting, but nowadays the reader can usually pick up on first maxim supervisors and make sure they protect themselves by applying the second maxim in practice during the week.”
Keats asked pointedly,

“But what about those that don't manage that?”

Cherry explained,

“We learned a lot from what went on before. Recently published papers have indicated that even under the old maxim the majority of readers behaved ethically in society. Provided they had enough social interaction with healthy individuals. Rogue readers, like Louise Lindenbury, tended to work in closed systems like prisons or mental institutions with very disturbed and psychotic inmates. Such environments it turns out are not suitable for readers. We need the fresh streams of normality to keep us from being polluted.”

“Doesn't everyone!” asked Keats,

“But you can't imagine what it's like to read your friend Dickens and know exactly what he's done and what he would like to do. Imagine being surrounded by such people every minute of the day. You lose your perspective and even the second Maxim is no help because there is little inspiration from others to find. No, in such environments readers can only be used to help determine sentences but only once in a lifetime.”

Keats asked,
“Have you ever been called in to do sentencing?”

“No and I hope I never will.” answered Cherry, “It’s the two things that every reader endures but never enjoys supervision and sentencing.”

Keats nodded and added, 
“It seems we almost live in different worlds, you and I. I never really understood before.”
Cherry laughed,

“Actually for me living in a world where you cannot pick up on what someone is thinking, seems terrifying. I could not survive in your shoes for a day I would feel vulnerable and ignorant.”
Keats laughed in response and grimaced,

“And I couldn't last one hour in your shoes. Seeing inside another’s head and knowing all the murky details would seem like a never ending nightmare.”

Sherry grinned and pointed out,


“Well, it seems, none of us are tested beyond all limits. Perhaps our greatest protection is being exactly who we are ending grateful for that! And being especially appreciative of the goodness we find in others.”

(to be continued)

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