“Rory,” she said, and my whole body went taut. So much for not getting singled out. “You tried to stop the cart with your own body. Of everyone in this scenario, you had the highest utility value, followed by the baby’s father, a prominent venture capitalist, who you also killed.” Her tone was scathing. I shrunk down in my seat. “Do you have a hero complex?”
It sounded like a rhetorical question, so it took me a second to realize she was actually asking me. “Uh, n-no,” I stammered. “I just—”
“Heroism is narcissism in disguise,” she declared, cutting me off. “And narcissists are incapable of the objectivity that prudence requires. So if you want to prove that you’re worthy of being here, I suggest you tame that self-admiration with haste.” She flicked her eyes away from my pod and moved on. She didn’t look in my direction for the remainder of the class period. Worthy of being here. She’d hit my fear on the head.
I had to hustle to get across campus for my second-period class. Our teacher was standing on a chair when I arrived, fiddling with the string of paper lanterns he’d hung from the ceiling. His classroom looked like a classroom should, with rows of metal desks and a single screen on the front wall. The only not-in-public-school-anymore aspect of his room was the handheld dock built into the upper right corner of each desk. I docked my Gemini and my name turned from red to green on the class roster projected onto the screen.
“Welcome to Cognitive Psychology,” our teacher said when everyone was seated. “I’m Mr. Rudman. But you guys can call me Rudd.” He was young, mid-twenties I guessed, and in his hipster horn-rimmed glasses and sneakers wasn’t nearly as intimidating as Dr. Tarsus. He was cute, in a Seattle tech-geek sort of way. An older, more brainy version of the kind of guy I was used to from back home. The familiarity was disarming. I relaxed a little in my seat.
“In this class, we will look at how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems,” Rudd explained. “We’ll study how the healthy brain operates, what its limitations are, and how those limitations, if exaggerated, can lead to psychosis.” He punched a button on his handheld and the wall behind him lit up with a sign-up sheet. The left-hand column contained a list of twenty-four mental illnesses, in alphabetical order, from Acute Stress Disorder to Trichotillomania. The right-hand column was blank. I glanced down at my desk and noticed that my Gemini was lit up with the same image.
“Topic choices for your first term paper,” Rudd explained. “Due in five weeks. Simply put your name down next to the disorder you’d like to study and tap ‘confirm.’ And don’t fret: If you’re feeling indecisive or indifferent, there’s an auto-select button at the bottom of your screens that’ll let you use Lux to decide.” He tapped his screen once more and the topic list went green. “Happy picking.”
I scanned the list from the bottom up. “Akratic Paracusia Disorder (APD),” the third topic from the top, caught my eye.
Choose that one.
The voice was unequivocal, a quiet scream. Twice in two hours. My insides went taut as the words of a nursery rhyme I’d sung as a child sprung to mind, an incessant refrain in my head. Watch out, little girl, for the Doubt, watch out, watch out, watch out.
Beads of sweat popped up along my hairline. I hadn’t heard the voice since my eleventh birthday and now I’d heard it three times in less than twenty-four hours. I gave my head a firm shake to clear it. Don’t make this a big deal. Just let Lux decide and be done with it.
I tapped the auto-select button and my name appeared in gray next to “Claustrophobia.” All I had to do was press CONFIRM. My eyes darted back to topic number three. The space next to it was still blank.
Choose that one.
It was ironic, the Doubt telling me to choose the Doubt. That’s what APD was. The medical term for adults who listened to the inner voice. I knew because I’d heard Beck’s parents use it. It was the diagnosis they were so desperate to avoid.
When we were kids, Beck’s parents would tease him about the voice he heard, asking what the Doubt wanted for dinner, whether the Doubt liked chocolate ice cream, if the Doubt wanted milk with its cookie, to which Beck would patiently respond that the Doubt wasn’t a person, but a spirit, and spirits couldn’t eat because spirits didn’t have bodies. When we got older, and the rest of us began to ignore the voice, his parents stopped laughing. He was ushered to a psychiatrist who prescribed the antipsychotic Evoxa and recommended that Beck double up on extracurriculars and spend more time interacting online to keep his mind occupied. Beck ignored his advice, and the voice kept talking. He told his parents he didn’t hear it anymore, just so they’d leave him alone, but I knew they still worried. I didn’t know enough about the disorder to understand why.
My finger hovered over the CONFIRM button, my name still in gray next to “Claustrophobia.” What made choosing APD as my research topic so irrational? It had to be, because that’s what the Doubt did, by definition: It hijacked your thoughts, making you doubt what your rational mind knew to be true. Curious, I scrolled down to see where APD appeared on Lux’s recommendation list.
It was at the very bottom.
“Thirty seconds!” Rudd announced. The list was filling up fast.
Choose that one.
I’m not listening to the Doubt, I told myself. I’m protecting myself from it. Knowledge was power, after all. Before I could think twice, I typed my name next to topic number three and tapped CONFIRM.
6
“THE FOOL IS DESTINED TO REPEAT HISTORY. The wise man has the wit to avoid it.”
My history teacher, a wiry white-haired man in his seventies, was giving an overview of our coursework for the semester, but I was only half listening. While everyone else was dutifully scrolling through the syllabus, I was on Panopticon, my mind whirling but not registering any coherent thought. I’d read the entry for APD before, but it had different significance now.
Akratic Paracusia Disorder: from the ancient Greek akrasia “lacking command over oneself” and para + acusia “beyond hearing.” A psychiatric disorder characterized by persistent arational auditory hallucinations expressed as a single voice. The voice, known colloquially as “the Doubt,” is commonly heard by healthy prepubescent children and believed to coincide with the rapid synaptic growth of the frontal cortex that occurs in early adolescence. The postpubescent presence of the voice, however, indicates a predisposition for Akratic Paracusia Disorder, or APD. Diagnosis is based on observed behavior and the patient’s reported experiences.
Although the specific cause of the disorder is unknown, factors that increase the risk of developing the disorder include a family history of APD or extended periods of high stress, emotional changes, or isolation from one’s peers. If caught early, APD can be treated with antipsychotic medication. Without pharmaceutical intervention, the akratic brain quickly degenerates, resulting in self-destructive behavior and, eventually, dementia.
Our teacher stepped into my sightline.
“Any questions?” he asked pointedly, looking directly at me. I gave my head a tiny shake, lowering my tablet onto my lap. He nodded and moved on. I closed out of Panopticon and pulled up my history syllabus, but I still couldn’t concentrate. My vision blurred and all I could see were the words predisposition and degenerate and dementia over and over on the page.