As though Plath had said nothing, Ophelia continued. “We all have this view of ourselves as a body and a mind. We think of our mind as a sort of thing outside ourselves, like a soul, a sort of essence of us. What it is, is a computer made out of synapses. A staggeringly sophisticated computer, but still in the end just a few pounds of slimy pink-and-gray tissue kept alive by oxygen and nitrogen carried there by superhighways of pumping blood.”
“You don’t believe in a soul?” Keats asked.
“I believe science is in this hand,” she held out her right, palm up, “and religion is in this hand.” She held out her left, but curled it to conceal the palm.
“I’ve seen too many MRIs of my brain to doubt that it’s just an organ,” Plath said.
“The greater surprise is the rest of the body,” Ophelia said. “We think of it as a body. A singular thing. Skin over organs and bones, but all of it ours. Human.” She shook her head slowly, dark brown eyes glowing. “We are not all human. We are closer to being an ecosystem. Like the rain forest. We are the home to thousands of life-forms. They live in us and on us. Like jaguars and frogs in the rain forest. In the human ecosystem there are viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites.
“And we, even our human parts, the things that are us, often appear as if they are separate living things: and they are. Each blood cell is alive, independent of the rest of the ecosystem, at least somewhat. You’ll understand when you see a cell splitting right beneath your feet. Or someday if you end up in an artery, God forbid, when you see antibodies—they’ll look no bigger than pieces of gravel to you—flying to attach to a bacteria.”
“Lovely,” Keats said.
“Actually, it is lovely. Your body is under constant attack from microscopic enemies, and your—”
“Tell them about the mites,” Wilkes said. They hadn’t heard her come back in. To Plath and Keats, in a conspiratorial tone, she said, “Ophelia loves the cells. Loves her some enzymes. But that’s not what will give you nightmares.”
Wilkes sat on the table of the MRI machine and crossed her legs. This would have afforded an uncomfortable view but for the fact that beneath her skirt Wilkes had on bright green tights. “Yeah, see, you don’t go down into the blood highway unless you have screwed up bad. If you do, say to escape from nanobots, find yourself a teeny, tiny capillary to drill in, because a vein or an artery? That’s like diving into a crazy rockslide or something. That’s an avalanche, there. And who knows when or if you get back out. But. But that’s not the daily meat.”
“She’s right,” Ophelia said. “We spend our time in eyes and ears, in the brain itself. In order to reach those targets we travel through hair, across faces, eyebrows, and eyelashes. And along the way—”
“It’s like crossing a desert drawn by Dr. Seuss or Salvador Dalí,” Wilkes interrupted. “Wrinkles and crevices and hairs the size of trees.”
“And parasites. The two you’ll encounter with some frequency are mites—dust mites and demodex. Dust mites are about the size of your biots, but taller. They’ll look quite large to you in m-sub. Micro-subjective. Demodex are smaller. They’ll look like alligators crawling.”
“Jesus. Are they dangerous?” Keats asked.
“Naw,” Wilkes said, and waved that suggestion off. “They eat dead skin cells. They aren’t lions. Or tigers. Or bears. Oh, my. Pretty fucking creepy, though.” The fact seemed to delight her.
“The thing you need to understand is that you are visiting what might as well be an alien planet.” Ophelia tried out an encouraging smile. It didn’t work. So she sighed. “Plath, you and Wilkes will go walkies around Keats’s face and eye, and maybe the ear.”
“I’m tired of ears,” Wilkes pouted.
“Keats, you and I will do a little of that, and then we’ll go all the way in.”
Plath said, “I don’t understand why I can’t be the one to take care of my own brain. Why is it everyone else’s job? Why does he have to do it?”
“Plath, think about it. If the aneurysm ever does rupture, as your brain is dying and you’re wracked with migraines, hallucinating in all probability, who is going to run your biots in to fix the leak?” She leaned forward and took Plath’s hand in hers, held it until Plath had forced herself to relax into the touch. “You’re important to us. You have resources we will need, when you’re able to access them. And this boy … this young man … is going to keep you alive.”
EIGHTEEN
Plath placed her finger in the open flower of the crèche.
It was the hand of God descending from the sky. Huge. Like someone stabbing a pink blimp into the pinkish soil of the culture medium.
She saw her finger, both small and large, both a part of her hand and a giant pillar disappearing up into the sky.
Both were in her head.
She gasped.
“Now make your biot move toward it,” Wilkes said.
“How?”
They sat in chairs next to each other. Two rickety chairs placed side by side but pointing in opposite directions so that Plath was face-to-face with Wilkes.
A similar setup on the other side of the MRI machine. Plath could see Keats’s eyes. Her destination. Insane.
“Think it,” Wilkes said with a shrug.
She thought it. And yes, she could see the dimpled spongy surface of the medium flowing by beneath her as she ran. Hah-hah! It worked.
“You don’t believe in a soul?” Keats asked.
“I believe science is in this hand,” she held out her right, palm up, “and religion is in this hand.” She held out her left, but curled it to conceal the palm.
“I’ve seen too many MRIs of my brain to doubt that it’s just an organ,” Plath said.
“The greater surprise is the rest of the body,” Ophelia said. “We think of it as a body. A singular thing. Skin over organs and bones, but all of it ours. Human.” She shook her head slowly, dark brown eyes glowing. “We are not all human. We are closer to being an ecosystem. Like the rain forest. We are the home to thousands of life-forms. They live in us and on us. Like jaguars and frogs in the rain forest. In the human ecosystem there are viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites.
“And we, even our human parts, the things that are us, often appear as if they are separate living things: and they are. Each blood cell is alive, independent of the rest of the ecosystem, at least somewhat. You’ll understand when you see a cell splitting right beneath your feet. Or someday if you end up in an artery, God forbid, when you see antibodies—they’ll look no bigger than pieces of gravel to you—flying to attach to a bacteria.”
“Lovely,” Keats said.
“Actually, it is lovely. Your body is under constant attack from microscopic enemies, and your—”
“Tell them about the mites,” Wilkes said. They hadn’t heard her come back in. To Plath and Keats, in a conspiratorial tone, she said, “Ophelia loves the cells. Loves her some enzymes. But that’s not what will give you nightmares.”
Wilkes sat on the table of the MRI machine and crossed her legs. This would have afforded an uncomfortable view but for the fact that beneath her skirt Wilkes had on bright green tights. “Yeah, see, you don’t go down into the blood highway unless you have screwed up bad. If you do, say to escape from nanobots, find yourself a teeny, tiny capillary to drill in, because a vein or an artery? That’s like diving into a crazy rockslide or something. That’s an avalanche, there. And who knows when or if you get back out. But. But that’s not the daily meat.”
“She’s right,” Ophelia said. “We spend our time in eyes and ears, in the brain itself. In order to reach those targets we travel through hair, across faces, eyebrows, and eyelashes. And along the way—”
“It’s like crossing a desert drawn by Dr. Seuss or Salvador Dalí,” Wilkes interrupted. “Wrinkles and crevices and hairs the size of trees.”
“And parasites. The two you’ll encounter with some frequency are mites—dust mites and demodex. Dust mites are about the size of your biots, but taller. They’ll look quite large to you in m-sub. Micro-subjective. Demodex are smaller. They’ll look like alligators crawling.”
“Jesus. Are they dangerous?” Keats asked.
“Naw,” Wilkes said, and waved that suggestion off. “They eat dead skin cells. They aren’t lions. Or tigers. Or bears. Oh, my. Pretty fucking creepy, though.” The fact seemed to delight her.
“The thing you need to understand is that you are visiting what might as well be an alien planet.” Ophelia tried out an encouraging smile. It didn’t work. So she sighed. “Plath, you and Wilkes will go walkies around Keats’s face and eye, and maybe the ear.”
“I’m tired of ears,” Wilkes pouted.
“Keats, you and I will do a little of that, and then we’ll go all the way in.”
Plath said, “I don’t understand why I can’t be the one to take care of my own brain. Why is it everyone else’s job? Why does he have to do it?”
“Plath, think about it. If the aneurysm ever does rupture, as your brain is dying and you’re wracked with migraines, hallucinating in all probability, who is going to run your biots in to fix the leak?” She leaned forward and took Plath’s hand in hers, held it until Plath had forced herself to relax into the touch. “You’re important to us. You have resources we will need, when you’re able to access them. And this boy … this young man … is going to keep you alive.”
EIGHTEEN
Plath placed her finger in the open flower of the crèche.
It was the hand of God descending from the sky. Huge. Like someone stabbing a pink blimp into the pinkish soil of the culture medium.
She saw her finger, both small and large, both a part of her hand and a giant pillar disappearing up into the sky.
Both were in her head.
She gasped.
“Now make your biot move toward it,” Wilkes said.
“How?”
They sat in chairs next to each other. Two rickety chairs placed side by side but pointing in opposite directions so that Plath was face-to-face with Wilkes.
A similar setup on the other side of the MRI machine. Plath could see Keats’s eyes. Her destination. Insane.
“Think it,” Wilkes said with a shrug.
She thought it. And yes, she could see the dimpled spongy surface of the medium flowing by beneath her as she ran. Hah-hah! It worked.
