Blindsight

Blindsight
Peter Watts
For Lisa
If we're not in pain, we're not alive.
Prologue
Theseus
Rorschach
Charybdis
Acknowledgments
Notes and References
Creative Commons Licensing Information
"This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of
imagining what is, in fact, real."
--Philip Gourevitch
"You will die like a dog for no good reason."
--Ernest Hemingway
Prologue
"Try to touch the past. Try to deal with the past. It's not real. It's just a
dream."

--Ted Bundy
It didn't start out here. Not with the scramblers or Rorschach, not with
Big Ben or Theseus or the vampires. Most people would say it started
with the Fireflies, but they'd be wrong. It ended with all those things.
For me, it began with Robert Paglino.
At the age of eight, he was my best and only friend. We were fellow
outcasts, bound by complementary misfortune. Mine was
developmental. His was genetic: an uncontrolled genotype that left him
predisposed to nearsightedness, acne, and (as it later turned out) a
susceptibility to narcotics. His parents had never had him optimized.
Those few TwenCen relics who still believed in God also held that one
shouldn't try to improve upon His handiwork. So although both of us
could have been repaired, only one of us had been.
I arrived at the playground to find Pag the center of attention for some
half-dozen kids, those lucky few in front punching him in the head, the
others making do with taunts of mongrel and polly while waiting their
turn. I watched him raise his arms, almost hesitantly, to ward off the
worst of the blows. I could see into his head better than I could see into
my own; he was scared that his attackers might think those hands were
coming up to hit back, that they'd read it as an act of defiance and hurt
him even more. Even then, at the tender age of eight and with half my
mind gone, I was becoming a superlative observer.
But I didn't know what to do.
I hadn't seen much of Pag lately. I was pretty sure he'd been avoiding
me. Still, when your best friend's in trouble you help out, right? Even if
the odds are impossible--and how many eight-year-olds would go up
against six bigger kids for a sandbox buddy?--at least you call for
backup. Flag a sentry. Something.
I just stood there. I didn't even especially want to help him.
That didn't make sense. Even if he hadn't been my best friend, I should

at least have empathized. I'd suffered less than Pag in the way of overt
violence; my seizures tended to keep the other kids at a distance, scared
them even as they incapacitated me. Still. I was no stranger to the taunts
and insults, or the foot that appears from nowhere to trip you up en
route from A to B. I knew how that felt.
Or I had, once.
But that part of me had been cut out along with the bad wiring. I was
still working up the algorithms to get it back, still learning by
observation. Pack animals always tear apart the weaklings in their
midst. Every child knows that much instinctively. Maybe I should just
let that process unfold, maybe I shouldn't try to mess with nature. Then
again, Pag's parents hadn't messed with nature, and look what it got
them: a son curled up in the dirt while a bunch of engineered superboys
kicked in his ribs.
In the end, propaganda worked where empathy failed. Back then I
didn't so much think as observe, didn't deduce so much as
remember--and what I remembered was a thousand inspirational stories
lauding anyone who ever stuck up for the underdog.
So I picked up a rock the size of my fist and hit two of Pag's assailants
across the backs of their heads before anyone even knew I was in the
game.
A third, turning to face the new threat, took a blow to the face that
audibly crunched the bones of his cheek. I remember wondering why I
didn't take any satisfaction from that sound, why it meant nothing
beyond the fact I had one less opponent to worry about.
The rest of them ran at the sight of blood. One of the braver promised
me I was dead, shouted "Fucking zombie!" over his shoulder as he
disappeared around the corner.
Three decades it took, to see the irony in that remark.
Two of the enemy twitched at my feet. I kicked one in the head until it

stopped moving, turned to the other. Something grabbed my arm and I
swung without thinking, without looking until Pag yelped and ducked
out of reach.
"Oh," I said. "Sorry."
One thing lay motionless. The other moaned and held its head and
curled up