The Vestigial Heart Read online

  Once they’ve left the room, a sense of vagueness, of perplexity, hangs in the air. Two silent spectators had watched on as the white-coated protagonists abandoned them without warning, leaving them face-to-face, at each other’s mercy. All at once Lu has lost her place in the script that the psychologist had so precisely drawn up for her throughout all their interviews. She’s even wondering if this adoption was such a good idea in the first place. It’s only just begun and already the weight is too much to bear. And Celia keeps on looking at her with her eyes too open, intimidating her.

  This woman must be the psychologist, surely. Without the white coat and with that expression that means, “I’ve got all the time in the world just for you, sweetheart, so we’ll talk, right?” What a drag! She doesn’t understand why her mother insists on trusting these people, saying that they’re as professional as the doctors … or even more so, she sometimes adds, because having a bright outlook helps you to get better more quickly. Why isn’t she saying anything? That is weird, psychologists talk and talk and never stop asking questions. Please, no!, now she’s going to start taking things out of the box and she’ll want me to tell her all about each one. She’d better get comfortable.

  “Look what’s in here: a pretty doll.” Lu grabs hold of it as if it were a life preserver.

  Wow! It’s Nancy! It looks like they’ve read her mind, her dad sorted that out so quickly … My Nancy, how exciting!

  She squeezes the doll tight with both arms, still shaking with fatigue, and then places her on the bed next to her and covers her with the sheet. The movement stirs up the dead air between her and Lu and, for a moment, a welcome breeze softens the woman’s tense face.

  “There’s also a box with funny shaped pieces and a board…” Now she regrets not having dedicated more time to studying the games of that era, as the psychologist had recommended. She has no idea what it’s all for. And she is only saved when she spots a cardboard folder, identical to the family album her grandmother guarded like a treasure, at the bottom of the box. “Maybe you’d prefer to look at some photos.”

  She’s not going to try to show me them herself, is she? “Leave them on the nightstand, I’ll look at them later.” Why is she looking so shocked? What’s she said wrong? Oh, that’s it, there’s no nightstand. “Leave them here then, on the shelf.” What is it she doesn’t get?

  There are too many things Lu doesn’t understand. She said to “leave them,” ignoring her and transmitting orders to some nonexistent robot instead. As if she weren’t there. What’s she up to? The girl doesn’t know the slightest thing about robots. And “nightstand,” what does that mean? A dark coat stand? She can tell they’re not going to understand each other … and these are the first words she’s said … No one told her the girl would speak differently, or could stand up to her and give her orders, or dominate the situation more than herself. None of that had figured in her plans and, suddenly, what had been dawning on her becomes obvious: What if the girl doesn’t want her? Will they give her another one?

  Just the idea of it scares her, so to get it out of her head she opens the photo album and starts to turn the pages, if nothing else it will win her some time. Most of the photos show open spaces, green and brightly lit, in which Celia appears alongside people with their arms around her, touching her hair or with her sat on their lap. Lu can see herself in the pictures, not outside among the vegetation, that’s not possible anymore, but caressing the girl, kissing her, brushing her hair. She’s sure she’ll enjoy always having Celia by her side, it won’t be like that high-tech little dog that her psychomanager prescribed her. Yes, it was sweet, but it made her feel like a useless, boring, old woman. When she looks over at Celia to check, she is met with the girl’s hard expression, who is pointing at the platform next to the head of the bed.

  “Don’t you want us to look at them now? Ok, I’ll leave them here, on the hi’plat.” She goes back to rummaging around in the box, looking for a familiar game.

  If she’s a psychologist she must be new … and pretty shy, nervous even. But that can’t be right, psychologists always know what to do. Núria always knew. “Miss, who are you? A nurse?” Now, without meaning to, she’s really surprised her. You can’t say anything to this woman. Why does she always take so long to answer? She squirms as if she were out of practice, and she struggles to meet your gaze; actually, she still hasn’t looked at her. The box has her distracted. Maybe she’s looking for the words she has such trouble finding.

  “I’m not called ‘Miss.’ My name is Lu. I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, and no … I’m not a nurse.” She wonders for a moment whether to tell her she doesn’t work; they made it very clear that for now she shouldn’t talk about herself, they should talk about the girl’s life instead. “But, let’s talk about you …”

  Now she wants me to think she’s nice. She has such little personality, poor thing. Celia doesn’t feel like explaining anything to her, she just wants to know where her parents are and when they’re coming to pick her up. And, if they can’t come here, she’ll go to them … since she’s cured, isn’t she?

  Celia insists and insists some more, and Lu doesn’t know how to deal with it. The afternoon seems to be dragging on forever, she’s already taken everything out of the box and she can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. If only ROBul were here, he’d know how to manage, if nothing else he would entertain the girl and she wouldn’t have to worry about it.

  The nurse on the afternoon shift is irritated when she sees Lu scurry off as soon as she goes in. These adoptive mothers are all the same, in such a hurry to have a kid and then, as soon as they get one, they’re rushing to get out of there and get some peace. As much as she was in favor of intersecular adoptions when she first went to work at the clinic, now she would be happy to defend the right to unfreeze oneself and die. The parents fail to fulfill their duty and leave the kids to their own devices too often. But she, too, has learned to hide from the responsibility. She observes Celia out of the corner of her eye. The girl’s picked up the photo album and she’s looking at it intently. Without stopping to think about who she’s hiding from, she furtively accesses the room controls and advances the diffusion of the repose emissions a couple of hours. Now she can forget about this room until tomorrow.

  The photos have been chosen really carefully, Grandma must have done it. Everyone is in them, even people she doesn’t know … that guy, as tall as a giant, obviously has to be uncle Raimon, but he looks different, older, and on the porch there are some deck chairs she’s never seen before. Where would they have come from? The garden is the same as ever though, full of flowers with the steps well swept. “Stop complaining so much and get on with your work,” her grandma would say to her, but she won’t have to say it anymore, because she’ll be happy to help with the sweeping. What’s this white thing sticking out of the cover? Ah, an envelope … “For our daughter …” She has no idea what’s happening to her, it’s hard to read and her eyes are closing; suddenly she’s really sleepy. She leaves the album on the floor, but the letter … she wants it close to her, here under the pillo

  5

  ROBCO

  Status: deactivated. Cause: overload. Details: I have been functioning at 100% for three days. My PROP has not stopped giving me maps, searching for information, and saturating me with electromyographic records to process. I have not had any available time to carry out the mandatory updates and I have ignored four forced deactivation warnings. Now domestic tasks have been added to the technical ones: Leo has to catch a flight in four hours’ time and I have not yet prepared his luggage. The fifth notification was terminal: in order to avoid irreparable damage, it says. My only option was to disconnect.

  Status: testing circuits. Diagnosis: pending task list overfilled. Action: erase low priority tasks. Error: all tasks have maximum priority. The scheduler has collapsed and emitted an alarm signal. I need expansions everywhere: memory, processing capacity, speed …, but my PROP does not he
ed alarm signals. In critical situations, he interferes directly and changes priorities. This goes against all the factory specifications and security regulations. He must know what he is doing, because this is his field, and they say he is one of the best, but he often skips maintenance, and for several months he has ignored pending updates and expansion notifications.

  Status: undergoing repairs. He has already put his hands on me. I note how he rummages in my processing unit, he is always so daring, he has not even taken the precaution of isolating it from the neutronic generator. Hey, now he is touching my memory. I think … finally! He has decided to put in an extension module. But it is not a standard one. Where could he have acquired it? He will have to install a custom protocol. Today’s meeting must be important, then. I had assumed it was just another of the same, one of those they hold regularly at CraftER’s Prospective Unit to generate new products. Mixing ideas, they call it. But now I realize I was wrong, it is certainly not an everyday meeting, and that is why he has overloaded me and worked himself like never before. And he has done it alone, without consulting other bioengineers as he always does. What is he up to?

  LEO

  “Why has it crashed now, the fool? Just now.” The young, athletic Asian man comes out of the sensory booth where he’s doing some last-minute experiments, goes up to his assistant and stares intently at the screen embedded in its chest. “These primitive models …” he mutters while he opens the lumbar cover, pokes around here and there, moving cables around and checking the state of the picochips, “even if they don’t have an auto-repair function, they could at least be able to diagnose what’s wrong with them.”

  “Beep, beep … Diagnosis: pending task list overflowed.”

  “Okay, Okay, but that’s not much help to me, there are thousands of reasons why that might have happened. You’ll have to be more specific.” He answers without looking up and with his hands still in among the wires.

  “Alarm: scheduler collapsed.”

  “You’re giving me the consequence, not the cause.” Leo’s voice exudes impatience. He doesn’t know why he insists on talking to ROBco when it doesn’t have the capacity to learn. Besides, he’s in a hurry. He’ll solve the problem the quick way and then sort it out properly when he gets back from Los Angeles.

  While he looks for the memory module he bought for his project but never used and installs it in ROBco, his mind wanders to what will happen this afternoon. He’s keen to see Mr. Gatew’s face when he shows him the total immersion he’s achieved. He knows that he’s fond of the physical basketball of the golden age, and that he’s a self-declared fan of Michael Jordan, that’s why he’s chosen the game against the Utah Jazz, where His Airness made five or six stratospheric baskets. He needs to convince him to go into the booth himself: the sensation will be much more powerful. The image of the arthritic manager dribbling, passing one, two, three opponents, faking out the colossal Karl Malone, and then launching himself into the air above the mortal souls and making a galactic slam dunk, makes him smile. But that’s nothing innovative, Gatew will proclaim with disdain, it’s just classic visual simulation, accompanied by muscular, auditory and tactile sensations; that was invented years ago, there are already products on the market that do this. And then he, with great seriousness, will connect the intracranial stimulation. This is the point, my good man, transforming yourself into Air Jordan himself, experiencing what was going through his cerebral cortex in each and every moment. If only he had access to the authentic encephalographic records of the one and only Jordan! That, however, would be techno-fiction and Dwyane Wade’s records do the job very well, don’t you think, Mr. Gatew? The man wouldn’t even hear him, he’d be sucked in by the events of the game. And Leo would have his moment of glory.

  He’s ended up daydreaming with the module in his hand. Again. If he doesn’t fix ROBco soon he’ll miss the plane. While he plugs in the extension and manually checks the connections, his mind goes back to the afternoon’s presentation, to the key points he has to mention. He’s convinced the product will be a success. It’s nothing like the limited virtual reality that’s been available until now. He’s added an intimate perception to the classic sensorial stimulation, the feelings of the star brought to life using a replica of his cerebral activity. And he hasn’t yet done away with the idea of eliminating the booth, along with the cables and haptic devices. He’ll reduce everything to wave-based communication, no wires, and the user will be able to enjoy the system in any situation—lying in bed, for example. It won’t need light projections or recharging or anything. The stimuli won’t be directed to the eye, ear or sense of touch, instead they’ll be injected directly into the brain. Electroencephalic waves traveling through the air. A dream. Truly a revolution.

  ROBco is operative again and is getting everything ready for the trip. It packs the suitcase for a type C2 transoceanic displacement while connecting to the server of the American consulate and requesting the passkey, a procedure that is completed in bursts because, in the middle of it all, it has to answer a series of calls. Using a faithful representation of Leo’s voice and intonation, it confirms his attendance at a chess match next Sunday and also the seat reservation on the flight. Bet, however, is not so easy to please, and, once she finds out that Leo is in the sensory booth and that he’s leaving in a couple of hours, she demands to speak to him directly.

  The young man makes her wait for a while before connecting up the telephonic sound from inside the booth.

  “Sorry, Bet, but I really don’t have much time. What is it?” As he talks he carries on manipulating the screen and pressing buttons. “Yeah, in the end the manager agreed to see it … but I can’t talk about it right now, company rules, I already told you. No, not at the weekend either. I’m sorry Bet, don’t keep going on about it.” He’s stopped working and is rubbing his forehead like he has a headache. “Of course it’s not your fault you’re working for the competition! Do we have to talk about this now? I thought you were calling to wish me luck.” He looks at his watch impatiently. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you’re having a good enough time swapping gossip about our supercompanies. You’re better informed than the two CEOs put together.” He pauses for a moment and announces with conviction: “But I can’t talk to you about this product … for now.” Little by little his eyes open wider and wider and he tries to interrupt once, twice, three times. “Behind your back? What’s up with you? It’s my work and that’s that, I’m not hiding anything. Don’t go overboard, okay?” He stands up and sits back down. “I’m absolutely not compromising our happiness app project! They’re completely different ideas. As if I wouldn’t be able to come up with more than one original product! And our app is much more ambitious, I’m telling you.” He stresses this with both hands. “Go on, wish me luck …” He devotes all his attention to her while scratching the back of his neck. “Whatever, but don’t come running to me later saying you want me to be successful and all that.” A pause. “No, I’m not angry; I’m just in a hurry, I told you that. Yes, when I get back I’ll come over to your place. Do you want anything from Los Angeles? All right, I’ll bring a couple of bottles. See you on Friday, then. Bye.”

  6

  Finally, they’ve left me alone! She knows these women have the best intentions but they’re all over her, and she’s fed up with holding it all in … tears, worries, the sadness gnawing at her insides … and having to pretend nothing’s wrong so they don’t keep going on and on: you should be happy you’re cured, you’ll feel better and better every day, you’ll see, you’ll be back to normal in no time … she can’t take any more. The illness has taken away all her spirit and left her empty, as if her body were just a shell that doesn’t obey her orders, she has no energy to do anything. She closes her eyes and imagines herself diving down into the dark, stagnant waters inside the shell. Two rays of light penetrate her eye sockets, helping Celia get her bearings, like car headlights on a foggy night. She has to find the nest of sadness and find the energy
to fight it by any means necessary. Good spirits, her mother says, which to her sounds similar to the soul. She doesn’t know where it is, but she imagines it nestled in her lung, because of her breathing troubles. Her breathing stirs up a current that shakes the diving suit this way and that, and she lets herself be carried by it, without resisting the swaying motion of the salty, dense water. Until, with her back to the headlights, she’s drawn into the cavernous corridor of her left leg and, grabbing hold of the blue and red coral tree that is her backbone, she goes in. Swimming forward she leaves the dome of her knee behind her; at the end of the tunnel, coming out of the curve of her ankle, she finds herself in front of the segmented cavities that are her toes. It’s hard to get into the little toe, the ebb of the water pushes her back out, and when she manages it, she imagines the feeling of rubbing up against the walls of the cave and it provokes a tickling sensation in her toe that brings her back to her giant body lying in a hospital bed. For a few moments she’d escaped the heaviness and had felt well, like before, happy and light under the water. She wants to go back and hangs onto the image of the crisscrossed veins and arteries … she can almost see them in those immense, glossy sheets of paper that hung next to her school desk. What a joy it would be to sit there and listen to the singsong voice of Ms. Dalmau. She didn’t know it was a pleasure when she was there, or that she would miss it. She wants to go back there right now. She’s cured, isn’t she? Her parents had promised. Her parents … Suddenly, all the water she’s been holding in this entire time spills over in a river of tears that soaks the pillow.