Collective Notions

Thom awoke slowly, he had been dreaming of being an astronaut. As he began to open his eyes he saw his mother watching over him and beside her was the doctor. Suddenly he jerked up, remembering what he had been asleep for. As he moved his hand up to his head he felt the implant that had been installed into his brain protruding out of his left temple. Thom smiled, it was his first implant and somehow it made him feel more grown up. Thom looked towards his mother, she smiled at him - something she did only occasionally, the bond between them felt stronger now. Instead of being a separate species, Thom was now the same as his mother, although it would take him years to become advanced as she was, it was a start.

Thom sat up still a bit wary of his surroundings, the doctor came over to him and asked him how he was feeling and at the same time scanned him with a medical instrument as if he did not believe Thom, no matter what he said. Thom knew he was fine but let the doctor continue with his scans anyway. It was confusing to Thom, he had expected to feel different after being implanted but he felt the same - he was looking forward to the day that he would first get to use the implant. He was due to start school within the next few days and was just waiting for the doctors to give him the all clear to start.

After what seemed like day's worth of tests and scans, Thom and his mother headed for home. Although he was used to the way his mother looked, he was still uncertain of other adults, so he stayed close to her as they headed for the transporter station. This was also new to Thom, it had only been a month or so since he had first been allowed to travel on the transporter. He had found it scary at first, the way you feel as if you are going to blow up as you dematerialised was a weird sensation but he had become accustomed to it now and in fact quite liked it. His mother had told Thom tales about people who lived long ago, who did not have implants and had to travel places in things called cars. But looking at the people as he walked down the street, he found it hard to believe that the tales were anything more than stories. Thom thought that perhaps his teacher would be able to tell him if the stories were true or not, he would remember to ask when he started school.

Arriving back at his habitat Thom decided that he would play a game, as he did not like to listen to the newspapers like his mother did. He wandered over to the games console that sat beneath the telescreen, picked up the headset and put it on. It did not fit as well as it had but before long he would be able to plug himself directly into the console and then he would not require the headset. Being only young had its limits for Thom - he was not able to play some of the better games that were available as they required your brain to have reached a certain level of development. However he contented himself by playing games designed for his age group and games created long ago, before they required headsets and direct brain connections. Thom chose the game he wanted to play and ran it. His mother looked over to him, she knew he would be occupied for a long time and continued to listen to the newspapers.

Thom was excited, today he was starting school. As his mother rushed around the habitat tidying it up, Thom sat in front of the telescreen waiting for the lesson to begin. In his hands he held a wire which he was supposed to connect to the implant in his temple, Thom was only vaguely aware of what it was for, but he did know that his class were the first to have this wire. "The time is nine a.m, it is time to start your lessons Thom". Heeding the computers words Thom inserted the wire into his implant and turned on the telescreen. In front of him, staring straight back at him was his teacher. He could tell that she was female but it was difficult as she appeared to have more implants than his mother an anyone else he had seen. He did notice however, that she had the same implant in her temple as he did and that she had a wire connected to it. Waiting patiently for the teacher to say something Thom heard a voice in his head - "Good Morning class, I am your teacher". This was astonishing to him, that a person could speak without speaking was to him unbelievable. Thom felt his attention fix on the teacher's voice and before long it was the only thing that he could sense - even the image of her on the telescreen disappeared. For a moment Thom could see himself through the eyes of his teacher and in fact for a instant he thought that he and the teacher were one and the same person.

"Class I am about to start transmitting files from my MSD to your neural networks, I do not expect you to understand the procedure until it is complete". Suddenly Thom began to feel overwhelmed, he was being flooded with images, ideas, knowledge and memories that he knew were not his and for several minutes as the transfer continued he was confused. Then as quickly as it had started, it ended. Thom felt the connection break and once again his mind was free from the influence of his teacher. As his vision and perception returned he saw the image of the teacher on the screen and heard her say that today's lesson was over.

Thom felt strange, he knew he was still the same person as he had been at the beginning of the transfer yet he wasn't. He could remember things that he was sure he had never learnt, he could recall visiting places, witnessing events that he could not have possibly seen, but above all that the childish enthusiasm for games and stories had gone, lost amongst the jumble of information that was now inside his head.

Just has his teacher said, he could understand the procedure now, it was so simple he was amazed that had not understood before now. The way in which he had been linked directly to the teachers brain and how the knowledge was transferred to him seemed like childsplay. Thom stared at the telescreen wishing the link had not been broken. He wished to understand more, he was hungry to learn.

Glancing around the room he could not see his mother - she must have left for work, he looked at things that had appeared so large to him only minutes before - the kitchen table, the chairs, they appeared smaller now, not so threatening.. Thom rose from his chair and walked over to the diagnostics console and plugged himself into it. He watched the screen perform tests on him and as the results came through he could understand what all the terms meant. He had watched his mother perform a diagnostic only yesterday and had not understood anything, but today, Thom felt, nothing was beyond him.

"Its Twelve p.m, time for lunch Thom", at first he did not hear the computer as he was sifting through the information had been given, oblivious to anything going on around him. It was only when his lunch materialised in front of him that he awoke from his thinking. Thom still required to eat, his physiology was still too weak for him to be transferred to the pure energy older children and adults ingested. Thom disliked eating but his mother had made it more palatable for him by having the kitchen table and chairs. They had pretended he lived long ago at his meal times, it made eating appear like a game. He was grateful to his mother for that, but today it did not seem appropriate to eat at the table. Instead he switched on the telescreen and, while watching his favourite programme, he began eating his lunch.

Just as he was finishing his lunch his mother returned from work, she looked tired. She glanced over at Thom and he could she that she was sad, something had happened today that she had not expected. She walked over to Thom and sat down beside him. Thom began to feel uncomfortable, he could tell that he mother had bad news of some sort. They sat together in silence for a couple of minutes while his mother thought about how she would tell Thom the news. Eventually she plucked up enough courage to tell him that he was to be taken from her - her responsibilities as a parent were over. All children were taken eventually, allowing their parents to return to the ways of the new order but she had not expected it to happen so soon. Thom sat listening as his mother told him that all children like him were to be taken away and studied by the government, which wanted to see what effect the link had had on them. If he had been told this news only yesterday he would have not understood, but today, after his experience in the link, he could not understand what his mother was upset about. It was his duty to allow the government to examine him if they wanted to, after all he could recall someone once telling him that they were the government's servants and that he should comply with everything it told him, no matter how extreme it was.

 

Part Four - Irrelevance

//agi. [agi@fsmail.net]