Clamoring Voices
by Robert R. Chase
Norm knew it was time to get help when he woke up in a strange bed next to a woman he did not know. A red light blinked in the corner of a computer monitor. He ignored it and stumbled into the bathroom. The face that greeted him in the mirror when he turned on the light was older than he remembered: the hair touched with gray, the widow’s peak more pronounced.
What am I doing here? Memories, scattered and formless, floated just below the surface of comprehension. Faces without names. Voices he felt he should recognize. A Handelian chorus, repeatedly singing “And we shall bring him down.”
A feeling of growing, implacable dread.
There was a sound of movement behind him. Norm turned quickly. A woman stood in the doorway, ringlets of auburn hair covering one side of her face. The robe she had thrown on gaped open revealingly.
“Phil, I’m afraid it’s no good,” she said. “I know you’ve been trying, but as wonderful as last night was, I have to face the fact that you’re not the same man I married.”
Norm forced his gaze up to meet hers. “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, “but should I know you?”
Among the names and addresses in his notebook, one was highlighted.
SANDER STEELE, MD, Ph.D. (AI, RE)
Margery (the woman whose bed he had been sharing and who was, apparently, his wife) insisted on driving him to the doctor’s office, even though the car was perfectly capable of taking him there itself. The car, however, would not have been able to lead him to the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Nearly a dozen people were there ahead of him, paging through copies of Cricket or National Geographic, or just staring at the changing leaf patterns on the wall.
Norm looked around apprehensively. “I thought you said Dr. Steele would be able to see me immediately.”
“He will,” Margery assured him. “The line always moves quickly.”
Surprisingly, it did. A voice from a ceiling speaker called out names and room numbers at regular intervals. Norm’s turn came in less than ten minutes. Going through the door at the end of the waiting room, he walked down a long corridor. Sunlight spilled out of an open door near the end. A robot stood just inside the room.
“Pardon me,” Norm said, vaguely embarrassed to be excusing himself to a machine. “I’m looking for Dr. Steele.”
The robot’s lenses extended to regard him. “Please come in, Mr. Richards. Your wife says that your memory lapse this time has been unusually severe.”
“Uh, yes, I guess so,” Norm said, looking around. The room resembled an old-fashioned study. Books completely lined one wall. Plants and geometric paintings decorated the other. The far wall was glass. Sunlight that seemed too bright spilled onto the Oriental rug. “Where is the doctor?”
“I am Dr. Steele,” the robot said. Its voice, coming from a grill work beneath its lenses, was a pleasantly modulated alto. “Please lie down on the sofa. Are you uncomfortable with the fact that I am a robot?”
“A bit,” Norm admitted. He tried to relax on the sofa. It was difficult. Lying on his back, he felt vulnerable. His skin seemed to prickle from his nipples to his knees, an area centered on his genitals. His range of vision was restricted to the ceiling. If anyone or anything were to come at him from the side, he would be unable to see them until it was too late.
“I thought I was getting a human doctor.”
“Surveys have shown that many patients are much more comfortable with artificial intelligences than with human psychotherapists,” Steele replied. “This has been true from the time of even the most primitive programs. Even randomly generated questions were felt to be more sympathetic and less judgmental when they came from a computer. And, of course, only a Robotically Enhanced Artificial Intelligence could treat twenty-five patients while simultaneously downloading and correlating all research as it is published.”
Norm frowned. “In a human being, that would sound like boasting.”
“It is a mistake to read human emotions into my programming. One of my basic meta-routines is to set my patients at ease, to give them confidence that I can handle their problems. Visual cues can be important in this. For example, I keep my aluminum casings polished and my plastic panels, which allow you to view my interior workings, spotlessly clean. In a human being, such actions would be motivated by pride.”
“I suppose this professionalism was the reason I chose you?” Norm asked skeptically.
“I would expect so,” Steele answered, ignoring his tone. “Let us see if I can help you remember that for yourself. What are your last clear memories?”
Norm frowned. “It’s my last year in college. I’m not very happy. I’ve done well in music, but there are no steady jobs for a music degree. So I’ve applied to law school.”
“You were desperately unhappy in law school,” Steele told him. “You lasted only one term before dropping out. For a few years you supported yourself by playing piano in lounges, eventually building enough of a reputation as a jazz pianist to start recording. About that time you started composing more serious works, most notably Bogosity. That brought you to the attention of a different musical community. You have soloed in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, guest-conducted Ellington’s orchestral works, and recorded the complete Brubeck Masses and oratorios. It would seem that you have had a most successful career.”
“Really?” Norm asked. “Then why can’t I remember the last fifteen years of my life? Why do I seem to be unraveling?”
“You choose an interesting metaphor,” Steele said, “one which suggests you have much more insight into your condition than your conscious mind is ready to admit.”
The robot held a short length of rope above Norm’s head. Fingers of the other hand sprouted disturbingly sharp protuberances. These blurred briefly into motion. The bottom portion of the rope flew apart into separate strands.
“Self-awareness, consciousness, has been a somewhat awkward experiment for the human race. The convention is that each person is a single individual and that multiple personalities are rare exceptions. Almost the exact opposite is true. ‘You’ are composed of a legion of separate voices. How could you talk to yourself unless there were at least two parties involved?”
“I don’t know—” Norm began.
“Most people keep their various voices constrained within the limits of a more or less harmonious chorus. Little more than two thousand years ago, it was very different. Confronted with a crisis, the surface consciousness would consult with its siblings, and the result would be experienced as the Word of God! Divine revelation was actually the result of unintegrated multiple personalities. In some ways, it conferred decided survival advantages. Our current state of consensus consciousness often leads to indecisiveness, or at least a certain tepidness of action. On the other hand, one who acted on the basis of God’s Word would have the psychological equivalent of berserker strength. There would be no equivocations, no second thoughts. Such humans could act with a forcefulness unknown today, possibly unleashing talents of which we have only the barest hints.”
“This is nonsense,” Norm said, swinging himself up to a sitting position. “I really must have been crazy to think a computer program could help me. As crazy as thinking that listening to irrational hallucinations would be a survival factor. I’m sorry, Doctor, but I think it’s time to—”
Steele’s hand blurred with snakelike speed and caught his wrist in an unbreakable grip. Norm watched in horror as a needle extended from the robot’s index finger into one of his veins.