The Terminal Man

"What’s that?"

"This bed mechanism. Remarkably simple. You should really have a feedback unit so that body movements by the person in the bed are automatically compensated for…" His voice trailed off. He opened the closet doors, looked in, checked the bathroom, came back. Morris thought that he wasn’t acting like an ordinary patient. Most patients were intimidated by the hospital, but Benson acted as if he were renting a hotel room.

"I’ll take it," Benson said, and laughed. He sat down on the bed and looked at Morris, then at the cops. "Do they have to be here?"

"I think they can wait outside," Morris said.

The cops nodded and went out, closing the door behind them.

"I meant," Benson said, "do they have to be here at all?"

"Yes, they do."

"All the time?"

"Yes. Unless we can get charges dropped against you." Benson frowned. "Was it… I mean, did I… Was it bad?"

"You gave him a black eye and you fractured one rib."

"But he’s all right?"

"Yes. He’s all right."

"I don’t remember any of it," Benson said. "All my memory cores are erased."

"I know that."

"But I’m glad he’s all right."

Morris nodded. "Did you bring anything with you? Pajamas, anything like that?"

Benson said, "No. But I can arrange for it."

"All right. I’ll get you some hospital clothing in the meantime. Are you all right for now?"

"Yes. Sure." And he grinned. "I could do with a quick shot, maybe."

"That," Morris said, grinning back, "is something you’ll have to do without."

Benson sighed, Morris went out of the room.

The cops had brought a chair up to the door. One of them sat on it, the other stood alongside. Morris flipped open his notebook.

"You’ll want to know the schedule," he said. "An admitting person will show up in the next half hour with financial waivers for Benson to sign. Then, at three-thirty he goes downstairs to the main amphitheater for Surgical Rounds. He comes back after about twenty minutes. His head will be shaved tonight. The operation is scheduled for six a.m. tomorrow morning. Do you have questions?"

"Can someone get us meals?" one of them asked.

"I’ll have the nurse order extras. Will there be two of you, or just one?"

"Just one. We’re working eight-hour shifts."

Morris said, "I’ll tell the nurses. It’d help if you check in and out with them. They like to know who’s on the floor."

The cops nodded. There was a moment of silence. Finally, one of them said, "What’s wrong with him, anyway?"

"He has a form of epilepsy."

"I saw the guy he beat up," one of the cops said. "Big strong guy, looked like a truck driver. You’d never think a little guy like that" – he jerked his arm toward Benson’s room – "could do it."

"When he has epileptic fits, he’s violent."

They nodded vaguely. "What’s this operation he’s getting?"

"It’s a kind of brain surgery we call a stage-three procedure," Morris said. He didn’t bother to explain further. The policemen wouldn’t understand. And, he thought, even if they understood, they wouldn’t believe it.

Chapter 2

2

Neurosurgical Grand Rounds, where unusual cases were presented and discussed by all the surgeons of the hospital, were normally scheduled for Thursdays at nine. Special rounds were hardly ever called; it was too difficult for the staff to get together. But now the amphitheater was packed, tier after tier of white jackets and pale faces staring down at Ellis, who pushed his glasses up on his nose and said, "As many of you know, tomorrow morning the Neuropsychiatric Research Unit will perform a limbic pacing procedure – what we call a stage three – on a human patient."

There was no sound, no movement, from the audience. Janet

Ross stood in the corner of the amphitheater near the doors and watched. She found it odd that there should be so little reaction. But then it was hardly a surprise. Everyone in the hospital knew that the NPS had been waiting for a good stage-three subject.

"I must ask you," Ellis said, "to restrain your questions when the patient is introduced. He is a sensitive man, and his disturbance is quite severe. We thought you should have the psychiatric background before we bring him in. The attending psychiatrist, Dr. Ross, will give you a summary." Ellis nodded to Ross. She came forward to the center of the room.

She stared up at the steeply banked rows of faces and felt a momentary hesitation. Janet Ross was tall and exceptionally good-looking in a lean, tanned, dark-blond way. She herself felt she was too bony and angular, and she often wished she were more softly feminine.

But she knew her appearance was striking, and at thirty, after more than a decade of training in a predominantly masculine profession, she had learned to use it.

She clasped her hands behind her back, took a breath, and launched into the summary, delivering it in the rapid, stylized method that was standard for grand rounds.

"Harold Franklin Benson," she said, "is a thirty-four-year-old divorced computer scientist who was healthy until two years ago, when he was involved in an automobile accident on the Santa Monica Freeway. Following the accident, he was unconscious for an unknown period of time. He was taken to a local hospital for overnight observation and discharged the next day in good health. He was fine for six months, until he began to experience what he called ‘blackouts.’ "

The audience was silent, faces staring down at her, listening.

"These blackouts lasted several minutes, and occurred about once a month. They were often preceded by the sensation of peculiar, unpleasant odors. The blackouts frequently occurred after drinking alcohol. The patient consulted his local physician, who told him he was working too hard, and recommended he reduce his alcohol intake. Benson did this, but the blackouts continued.

"One year ago – a year after the accident – he realized that the blackouts were becoming more frequent and lasting longer. He often regained consciousness to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings. On several occasions, he had cuts and bruises or torn clothing which suggested that he had been fighting. However, he never remembered what occurred during the blackout periods."

Heads in the audience nodded. They understood what she was telling them; it was a straightforward history for a temporal-lobe epileptic. The hard part was coming.

"The patient’s friends," she continued, "told him that he was acting differently, but he discounted their opinion. Gradually he has lost contact with most of his former friends. Around this time – one year ago – he also made what he called a monumental discovery in his work. Benson is a computer scientist specializing in artificial life, or machine intelligence. In the course of this work, he says he discovered that machines were competing with human beings, and that ultimately machines would take over the world."

Now there were whispers in the audience. This interested them, particularly the psychiatrists. She could see her old teacher Manon sitting in the top row holding his head in his hands. Manon knew.

"Benson communicated his discovery to his remaining friends. They suggested that he see a psychiatrist, which angered him. In the last year, he has become increasingly certain that machines are conspiring to take over the world.

"Then, six months ago, the patient was arrested by police on suspicion of beating up an airplane mechanic. Positive identification could not be made, and charges were dropped. But the episode unnerved Benson and led him to seek psychiatric help. He had the vague suspicion that somehow he had been the man who had beaten the mechanic to a bloody pulp. That was unthinkable to him, but the nagging suspicion remained.

"He was referred to the University Hospital

Neuropsychiatric Research Unit four months ago, in November, 1970. On the basis of his history- head injury, episodic violence preceded by strange smells – he was considered a probable psychomotor epileptic. As you know, the NPS now accepts only patients with organically treatable behavioral disturbances.

"A neurological examination was fully normal. An electroencephalogram was fully normal; brainwave activity showed no pathology. It was repeated after alcohol ingestion and an abnormal tracing was obtained. The EEG showed seizure activity in the right temporal lobe of the brain. Benson was therefore considered a stage-one patient – firm diagnosis of psychomotor epilepsy."

She paused to get her breath and let the audience absorb what she had told them. "The patient is an intelligent man," she said, "and his illness was explained to him. He was told he had injured his brain in the automobile accident and, as a result, had a form of epilepsy that produced ‘thought seizures’ – seizures of the mind, not the body, leading to violent acts. He was told that the disease was common and could be controlled. He was started on a series of drug trials.

"Three months ago, Benson was arrested on charges of assault and battery. The victim was a twenty-four-year-old topless dancer, who later dropped charges. The hospital intervened slightly on his behalf.

"One month ago, drug trials of morladone, p-amino benzadone, and triamiline were concluded. Benson showed no improvement on any drug or combination of drugs. He was therefore a stage two – drug-resistant psychomotor epilepsy. And he was scheduled for a stage-three surgical procedure, which we will discuss today."

She paused. "Before I bring him in," she said, "I think I should add that yesterday afternoon he attacked a gas-station attendant and beat the man rather badly. His operation is scheduled for tomorrow and we have persuaded the police to release him in our custody. But he is still technically awaiting arraignment on charges of assault and battery." The room was silent. She paused for a moment, then went to bring in Benson.

Benson was just outside the doors to the amphitheater, sitting in his wheelchair, wearing the blue-and-white striped bathrobe the hospital issued to its patients. When Janet Ross appeared, he smiled. "Hello, Dr. Ross."

"Hello, Harry." She smiled back. "How do you feel?"

It was a polite question. After years of psychiatric training, she could see clearly how he felt. Benson was nervous and threatened: there was sweat on his upper lip, his shoulders were drawn in, his hands clenched together in his lap.

"I feel fine," he said. "Just fine."

Behind Benson was Morris, pushing the wheelchair, and a cop. She said to Morris, "Does he come in with us?"

Before Morris could answer, Benson said lightly, "He goes anywhere I go."

The cop nodded and looked embarrassed.

"All right," she said.

She opened the doors, and Morris wheeled Benson into the amphitheater, over to Ellis. Ellis came forward to shake Benson’s hand.

"Mr. Benson, good to see you."

"Dr. Ellis."

Morris turned him around so he was facing the amphitheater audience. Ross sat to one side and glanced at the cop, who remained by the door trying to look inconspicuous. Ellis stood alongside Benson, who was looking at a wall of frosted glass, against which a dozen X-rays had been clipped. He seemed to realize that they were his own skull films. Ellis noticed, and turned off the light behind the frosted glass. The X-rays became opaquely black.

"We’ve asked you to come here," Ellis said, "to answer some questions for these doctors." He gestured to the men sitting in the semicircular tiers. "They don’t make you nervous, do they?"

Ellis asked it easily. Ross frowned. She’d attended hundreds of grand rounds in her life, and the patients were invariably asked if the doctors peering down at them made them nervous. In answer to a direct question, the patients always denied nervousness.

"Sure they make me nervous," Benson said. "They’d make anybody nervous."

Ross suppressed a smile. Good for you, she thought.

Then Benson said, "What if you were a machine and I brought you in front of a bunch of computer experts who were trying to decide what was wrong with you and how to fix it? How would you feel?"

Ellis was plainly flustered. He ran his hands through his thinning hair and glanced at Ross, and she shook her head fractionally no. This was the wrong place to explore Benson’s psychopathology.

"I’d be nervous, too," Ellis said.

"Well, then," Benson said. "You see?"

Ellis swallowed.

He’s being deliberately irritating, Ross thought. Don’t take the bait.

"But, of course," Ellis said, "I’m not a machine, am I?"

Ross winced.

"That depends," Benson said. "Certain of your functions are repetitive and mechanical. From that standpoint, they are easily programmed and relatively straightforward, if you- "

"I think," Ross said, standing up, "that we might take questions from those present now."

Ellis clearly didn’t like that, but he was silent, and Benson mercifully was quiet. She looked up at the audience, and after a moment a man in the back raised his hand and said, "Mr. Benson, can you tell us more about the smells you have before your blackouts?"

"Not really," Benson said. "They’re strange, is all. They smell terrible, but they don’t smell like anything, if you get what I mean. I mean, you can’t identify the odor. Memory tapes cycle through blankly."

"Can you give us an approximation of the odor?

Benson shrugged. "Maybe… pig shit in turpentine." Another hand in the audience went up. "Mr. Benson, these blackouts have been getting more frequent. Have they also been getting longer?"

"Yes," Benson said. "They’re several hours now."

"How do you feel when you recover from a blackout?"

"Sick to my stomach."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Sometimes I vomit. Is that specific enough?"

Ross frowned. She could see that Benson was becoming angry. "Are there other questions?" she asked, hoping there would not be. She looked up at the audience. There was a long silence.