The Feeler
Jul. 20th, 2011 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsol"All right," said Doctor Safeway sternly. "Now you *are* going to take this seriously, right?" He glared at Daniel sternly.
Daniel opened his eyes and rolled them, folding his arms. "Whatever," he said.
"That's good," said the doctor cautiously. "I've gotten a lot of you psych student volunteers from the university over the years, and sometimes there's a tendency to goof off. But what we're doing is no laughing matter. This is serious business we're working on, kid. With your help we're going to do the world a lot of good."
That got a little of Daniel's interest, but only a little. "Yeah?" he said. "Who are we going to be helping?"
"Guys like these men, for starters," said Safeway. He spread four photographs on the table. The men instantly frightened Daniel. Something about their eyes didn't look right. One was younger and the others were middle-aged; two were bald and two had hair; none of them looked quite like the others. But they all had that same bad craziness in their eyes. Daniel shuddered.
"They're the Oxville Four," said Safeway quietly. "They went on a shooting and stabbing rampage in 1997, killing twenty-one and wounding seventeen others. All four were captured alive and sentenced to death. They'll be executed this year."
"And you want me to help them?" laughed Daniel. "You're not really selling it, Doc."
"It's too late to help them," said the doctor. "We're going to help other people who are sentenced to death by lethal injection. But that's just the start of it. Daniel, what if I could tell you that you can feel what other people are feeling?"
Daniel fidgeted in his chair. "What, you mean like empathy?" he asked.
"No," said Doctor Safeway. "I mean, actually experiencing exactly what another person is experiencing. We can do that now, you know. I've built a test rig. It works; I tried it myself. I put the helmets on myself and a monkey, gave the monkey a random popsicle, and I found myself tasting strawberry. In the next room."
"Nice toy," said Daniel, impressed despite himself.
"Not a toy!" said Safeway irritably. "A useful tool, to be used to benefit all of society." He reached into a bag and pulled out a cream-colored bottle. It had a small handful of pills in it.
"Pentobarbital," said Safeway. "There's a huge shortage in execution drugs in this country, you know. We're run out of the old standbys, so they're starting to use this stuff. There's a problem, though. For the last few executions, witnesses have said they've seen the condemned men writhe in pain and thrash around. It certainly appears that dying by pentobarbital injection is a very painful way to go. That's a problem; if true, it would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."
Daniel still didn't see it. "So?" he asked.
Safeway shook the bottle of pills. "The Oxville Four," he said, "will be executed with Pentobarbital. We want to know exactly how painful it is, but none of the previous executees are talking. But this time, when our boys die for their crimes, we'll have a witness – a witness who can report exactly what they were feeling."
Daniel gaped. "You're insane," he said.
Safeway shrugged. "It might be insane if I was somehow making you do this. I'm not forcing you to do this. I'm not even coercing you to do this; there's no money in it for you, and turning down this experiment won't even cost you class credit – I've made sure that your professor will assign you another experiment without penalty."
"Then why," demanded Daniel, "would I ever do this? You're asking me to volunteer to feel incredible pain!"
"And then," continued Safeway, "to feel what it's like to die."
That shut Daniel up. Safeway pulled out a manila folder and began to leaf through it.
"I borrowed this from the dean's office," he confessed. "It says here you like BASE jumping. You ride motorcycles. You won a scholarship by competing in skateboarding competitions."
"Whatever," snapped Daniel, snatching the file and peering into it.
"You're an adrenaline junkie," said Safeway. "You want to experience new, strange, extreme things. Well, what could be newer or stranger or more extreme than dying – and living to talk about it?"
Daniel knew he was caught, he just didn't want to give in too soon. "I don't like pain," he said.
"Nobody likes pain," answered Safeway. "The question is, are you willing to face a little pain to get to something really interesting?"
**
It was time to execute Theo.
"Do not approach Theo," warned the marshall. "Do not talk to Theo. It would be best if you didn't look at Theo; he doesn't like it. Try to avoid frowning or smiling. Whatever you do, do not laugh."
"What happens if I laugh?" asked Daniel. His freshly shaven head was sweating.
"A sociopath will think you're laughing at him," answered the marshall, leading Daniel into the execution chamber. "Do the math, kid."
Safeway was already waiting near Daniel's chair. The helmets were ready to go. He helped Daniel get into the chair and got the helmet on his head. Daniel protested when the doctor started to strap him in.
"This is absolutely essential," said Safeway. "When you start experiencing pain, you may involuntarily thrash around. We have to keep the connection intact, so we have to constrain you. Don't worry, I'll let you out when it's done."
"Great," said Daniel, rolling his eyes.
The door opened again and Theo was led inside the room. He was bald with a high, pointed head that made him look like Bert from Sesame Street. He was wearing prison orange and shuffled along because of the shackles; a burly guard on each side of him kept hold of his upper arms and guided him to his chair. Daniel studiously just looked straight ahead.
"Man," said Theo, "I wish I had another smoke." He made himself comfortable while the guards fiddled with the straps on the chair. Once he was secured, the guards left Theo alone. Theo looked over at Daniel.
"I was gonna ask you for a smoke," he said, "but it looks like there ain't gonna be no handoff." Theo chuckled to himself. Daniel said nothing.
"Hey, man, that was a joke," said Theo with a trace of irritation.
Daniel decided the marshall could go screw himself. "How can you joke?" he asked. "They're about to kill you."
"Shit," said Theo, supremely unconcerned. He nodded at the long window that screened the spectator booth.
"Warden's up there," he said. "Warden would LOOOOOVE for me to act all scared. He would eat it up if I started blubbering and saying I was sorry and shit. Sorry, Warden; it's not gonna happen."
"Are you scared?" asked Daniel.
"Boy," said Theo, "I'm not a twentieth as scared as you. I can smell it all over you."
Daniel was relieved when Safeway came up carrying some things in a shoebox. He crouched down by Daniel, ignoring the killer sitting a yard away.
"Feeling good?" he asked. "Feeling ready?"
"Whatever," said Daniel.
"Okay, great," said Safeway. "You're going to do fine. Now it's time to baseline you."
"What's that?" asked Daniel. Safeway produced something like an alligator clip and put it over Daniel's left thumb.
"Lay it flat on the arm of the chair here," instructed Safeway, showing Daniel how to do it. Daniel complied.
"Good," said Safeway. He pulled a ball peen hammer out of the pocket in his coat and, without warning, pounded on Daniel's protected thumb.
"SHIT!" screamed Daniel, jerking his hand away. Theo began to howl with laughter. The killer convulsed in his chair, rocking back and forth, tears rolling down his cheeks as he laughed. Safeway unclipped Daniel's thumb, which was throbbing. It appeared undamaged and unbruised.
"The clip kept you from sustaining any serious injury," said Safeway, "but I know it hurt like hell. That's the baseline. Remember how that felt. That's the maximum acceptable level of pain for an execution. If what's to come hurts worse than that, it's cruel and unusual punishment."
"Just don't hit me any more with the hammer," said Daniel. "That wasn't part of what we talked about."
"Sorry," said Safeway. "It had to be a surprise."
Theo had completely recovered, his mirth turning off like a switch. "Hey, doc, I wanna kill you," he said evenly. Doctor Safeway didn't say anything, but he swallowed.
"Okay!" he said to Daniel. "Good luck!" The doctor turned and fled.
"I love that line," said Theo. "It's the simple lines that get to people. Hey, kid; are you really going down with me? like, all the way down?"
"That's what they say," said Daniel.
"Well, I wouldn't be too worried," said Theo. "I bet dying sucks, but I'm going to hell. And that's gonna hurt a whole lot worse."
The warden, a priest, a doctor and several orderlies approached. Theo grinned.
"I do believe it's 'Go' time," said the killer.
"Whee," said Daniel.
**
Doctor Safeway pored over the telemetry charts. "None of it makes sense," he said.
"None of what makes sense?" asked Daniel. He was drinking a cup of coffee two hours after the execution. The experience of dying had been overwhelming once he had gotten past the pain; it had been like a drawn-out acid trip. It hadn't been an entirely unpleasant feeling.
"The amplitudes on three out of five key indicators are completely off," said Safeway. "It's as if you weren't even getting the right sensations from the guy. Or…" The doctor sat stock still for the better part of a minute. Then he gritted his teeth and jabbed his fists into his eye sockets.
"I'm such an idiot," declared Safeway. "Sorry, kid; we got some bad data."
"What do you mean, 'bad data'?" demanded Daniel indignantly. "I felt it all perfectly, just as if it was me dying. And the pain was close to the pain from the hammer, but not quite as bad."
"But there's a problem," said Safeway. "I should have seen it earlier. The experiences of pain were filtered through Theo's nervous system before they got to you. He's got an abnormal brain structure in some ways, not at all unusual in sociopaths; that could very well be coloring your sensation of pain. We have to remove the effects of his nervous system from the equation."
"I don't know how you're going to do that," said Daniel, finishing his coffee. "Theo's dead and not coming back. I should know."
Safeway snapped his fingers. "It's not too late for the other three," he said. "This isn't a problem. We just need to do a little surgery. We'll intercept the various sensory input nerves before they ever reach the brain. We'll clip the helmet to those as inputs instead of synching you to their brains. Then you can feel the raw input from their sensory organs. It'll work, Daniel. We just have to try again."
"Great," said Daniel.
**
Roberto didn't speak English, to Daniel's extreme relief. He was also plainly frightened, and probably in some pain as well. The surgery to put in the nerve-leads had only been a week ago, and Roberto was still healing up on the nape of his neck. A bundle of wires snaked out of a grommet set in a raw wound.
Safeway clipped Daniel's helmet leads to Roberto's wires. Roberto started to speak to Safeway in Spanish, first quietly and then frantically.
"What's he saying?" muttered Safeway, applying conductive gel to a pair of leads.
"Sir, step away from the prisoner," said an orderly.
"I have no idea what he's…AIEEE!" Roberto had gotten himself so worked up that he had thrown himself sideways in his chair and nipped Doctor Safeway on the elbow. A piece of flesh the size of a dime had come away and was now bleeding freely.
"Oh my God," said Safeway, staggering back and examining his wound. "I need some antibiotics immediately."
"I tasted you," murmured Daniel. "You taste like honey and fire."
Roberto was chewing Safeway's skin. Two guards grabbed his head and began to pry his jaws open.
"Ow," moaned Daniel. "Oh my God, that hurts."
"Let's just get this out of the way," said Safeway, trying to staunch the bleeding with a handkerchief.
Daniel's eyes rolled back. "Whatever," he said.
**
Safeway threw the charts down. "They're still not matching up!" he shouted. "What the hell is wrong? Everything should have gone perfectly, but now four of the indicators are off!"
"Yeah, and this time the Pentobarbital pain was worse than the hammer baseline," added Daniel. "So there's something up there, too."
"I have no idea what," snarled Safeway. He sat down on the ground and held his head in his hands.
Daniel reflected on his death experience. This transition had been less disorienting. He had kind of known what to expect and could concentrate on experiencing what was going on around him. There had been a rushing system, and then the feeling of lying in a deep pond. The light show had been fantastic as well. Daniel had to admit – dying was quite a rush.
Daniel giggled. "You tasted weird," he said.
Safeway looked up. "What was that?" he asked.
"Your taste," said Daniel. "It was, uh, not what a person ought to taste like."
"That's right," replied Safeway, his eyes widening. He jumped to his feet and began to pace, snapping his fingers. "You felt what you felt through the sensory apparatus of Roberto. You bypassed his central nervous system, but perhaps the difference is coming with the initial data gathering equipment – his own pain receptors."
"I think you're probably right," said Daniel. He was beginning to think of himself as a sensonaut – an explorer of the realms of sensation – and this gave him the courage to speak with authority. "We need to figure out a way for me to directly feel what he's feeling. None of his nerves between me and the input."
Safeway looked at Daniel. "We can do that," he said, "but it would mean more surgery. On the condemned, yes, but on you too. I can't ask you to do that."
Daniel thought of what it felt like to die – to lie at the bottom of a perfectly still pool; to feel oneself circling the drain of existence. He knew he was hooked on dying but he didn't care.
"Sure you can," he said.
**
Howie was a joker, but Daniel knew from the marshall that this didn't make him any less dangerous than Theo or Roberto.
"Hey, dude," said Howie, grinning like always. "Did you feel it when I jerked off this morning?"
"Naw," said Daniel, no longer afraid of these people. "We weren't hooked up yet." What seemed like a million wires poked out all over Daniel's body – the input-end of pain and touch and heat and pressure sensors in every part of his body, inside and out. Analogous wires were attached to Howie, and artificial sensors were implanted next to his natural nerve endings.
"Dude," said Howie, "I always wanted to get hooked up right before I went. Not with a dude, though."
"That's funny, Howie," said Daniel.
"Hee, hee!" giggled Howie. "You're all right, kid. Hey, man: what's it like to die?"
"I think it's different every time," said Daniel. "So far it's been different, anyway. I guess we'll find out together, right?" Safeway was letting him wear the helmet too, but was keeping the input from that flagged separately.
"I always imagined that when I die, it would feel like flying away," said Howie. "I'd just spread my arms and zoom up into the sky, flying like Superman, higher and higher." A tear leaked out of one of his eyes. One leaked out of Daniel's eye too – the same eye.
"Hey, I got a joke," said Howie. The warden and his friends were coming.
"Okay, but make it quick," said Daniel.
"I will," promised Howie. "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Death."
"Death who?"
Howie didn't answer. To the extent that he could turn in his chair, Daniel looked sideways at Howie.
"Death who?" he repeated. Howie just giggled to himself. The doctor was already injecting him.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he muttered, as the pain began to kick in.
**
Safeway stared at the papers, shell-shocked. He hadn't shaven in forty-eight hours. He hadn't slept for even longer.
"One Oxville killer left," he mumbled. "Three bad data points. I don't understand it. I just…I just…."
Safeway put his head down on the table. Daniel interrupted his Dorito-eating for a half a second to spare the doctor a glance, then went back to watching TV.
"It was all you," said Safeway, his voice muffled by the table. "It was all your nerves, your brain. It's still screwed up, even though you directly experienced his pain."
"No I didn't," said Daniel, his mouth full of chips.
"Yes, you did," insisted Safeway exasperatedly, looking up. "You sensed every bit of input he sensed. You processed it yourself, sent the messages to the appropriate parts of your brain according to the activity map. You felt the pain. You felt *his* pain."
"No I didn't," repeated Daniel.
"You did!" shouted Safeway. "Who's the doctor here, anyway?"
"You are," admitted Daniel. "But I didn't feel his pain. I felt my pain. I don't think you can truly feel what another person feels."
"Why's that?" asked Safeway, curious now.
"Because what you perceive has a lot to do with who you are to begin with," said Daniel. "Same set of inputs, but one guy's a white-bread college boy, and the other's a hardened criminal. They don't feel the same things because their contexts are totally different."
"That's bullshit," said Safeway. "You're talking about what you do with the signal once your brain gets hold of it. I'm talking about input to your brain – the raw pain response that comes from your dumb old nerves. They don't know who you are or where you come from. They're just nerves, just like wires, and when you put two of them in the same situation, they're going to do the same damned thing."
"Hey, whatever," said Daniel, turning back to the TV. "But I'm telling you, speaking as a guy who's actually been there and done that, I don't feel like those guys feel. To feel like Theo, I'd have to actually *be* Theo."
Daniel at chips and watched TV for a long time. Safeway stared at the back of Daniel's head. The leads were still snaking out of it, like the hair of the Medusa. Safeway thought, and thought. Then he smiled.
"How do you feel about dying one more time?" he asked.
"Sure!" said Daniel, turning around on the couch. "Last time was great. Just like flying." He frowned.
"Why?" he asked.
**
Grover was the worst of the lot. During the Oxville Massacre he had used the knife most of the time, but he had still accounted for ten of the dead. Grover was a creature of pure hate. He hated everybody and everything, and he wanted to kill whatever he hated.
He was already strapped into the chair. They had used double-straps, because Grover had been known to break normal restraints. He was firmly held in place. The wound, which ran the circumference of his hairless skull, still itched like hell, but it didn't actually hurt because Grover couldn't actually rub it against the chair's headboard. He could wiggle his fingers and toes, and that was about it.
The warden approached with his retinue of doctors and guards. There were twice as many guards as normal. Grover liked that. He liked when people feared him. It was only proper.
"Grover Lamb," said the warden. "You have been sentenced to die by lethal injection. In accordance with the laws of this state, we will now carry out your sentence. Do you have any last words?"
Grover glared at the warden. Then he rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he grumbled.
Daniel opened his eyes and rolled them, folding his arms. "Whatever," he said.
"That's good," said the doctor cautiously. "I've gotten a lot of you psych student volunteers from the university over the years, and sometimes there's a tendency to goof off. But what we're doing is no laughing matter. This is serious business we're working on, kid. With your help we're going to do the world a lot of good."
That got a little of Daniel's interest, but only a little. "Yeah?" he said. "Who are we going to be helping?"
"Guys like these men, for starters," said Safeway. He spread four photographs on the table. The men instantly frightened Daniel. Something about their eyes didn't look right. One was younger and the others were middle-aged; two were bald and two had hair; none of them looked quite like the others. But they all had that same bad craziness in their eyes. Daniel shuddered.
"They're the Oxville Four," said Safeway quietly. "They went on a shooting and stabbing rampage in 1997, killing twenty-one and wounding seventeen others. All four were captured alive and sentenced to death. They'll be executed this year."
"And you want me to help them?" laughed Daniel. "You're not really selling it, Doc."
"It's too late to help them," said the doctor. "We're going to help other people who are sentenced to death by lethal injection. But that's just the start of it. Daniel, what if I could tell you that you can feel what other people are feeling?"
Daniel fidgeted in his chair. "What, you mean like empathy?" he asked.
"No," said Doctor Safeway. "I mean, actually experiencing exactly what another person is experiencing. We can do that now, you know. I've built a test rig. It works; I tried it myself. I put the helmets on myself and a monkey, gave the monkey a random popsicle, and I found myself tasting strawberry. In the next room."
"Nice toy," said Daniel, impressed despite himself.
"Not a toy!" said Safeway irritably. "A useful tool, to be used to benefit all of society." He reached into a bag and pulled out a cream-colored bottle. It had a small handful of pills in it.
"Pentobarbital," said Safeway. "There's a huge shortage in execution drugs in this country, you know. We're run out of the old standbys, so they're starting to use this stuff. There's a problem, though. For the last few executions, witnesses have said they've seen the condemned men writhe in pain and thrash around. It certainly appears that dying by pentobarbital injection is a very painful way to go. That's a problem; if true, it would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."
Daniel still didn't see it. "So?" he asked.
Safeway shook the bottle of pills. "The Oxville Four," he said, "will be executed with Pentobarbital. We want to know exactly how painful it is, but none of the previous executees are talking. But this time, when our boys die for their crimes, we'll have a witness – a witness who can report exactly what they were feeling."
Daniel gaped. "You're insane," he said.
Safeway shrugged. "It might be insane if I was somehow making you do this. I'm not forcing you to do this. I'm not even coercing you to do this; there's no money in it for you, and turning down this experiment won't even cost you class credit – I've made sure that your professor will assign you another experiment without penalty."
"Then why," demanded Daniel, "would I ever do this? You're asking me to volunteer to feel incredible pain!"
"And then," continued Safeway, "to feel what it's like to die."
That shut Daniel up. Safeway pulled out a manila folder and began to leaf through it.
"I borrowed this from the dean's office," he confessed. "It says here you like BASE jumping. You ride motorcycles. You won a scholarship by competing in skateboarding competitions."
"Whatever," snapped Daniel, snatching the file and peering into it.
"You're an adrenaline junkie," said Safeway. "You want to experience new, strange, extreme things. Well, what could be newer or stranger or more extreme than dying – and living to talk about it?"
Daniel knew he was caught, he just didn't want to give in too soon. "I don't like pain," he said.
"Nobody likes pain," answered Safeway. "The question is, are you willing to face a little pain to get to something really interesting?"
**
It was time to execute Theo.
"Do not approach Theo," warned the marshall. "Do not talk to Theo. It would be best if you didn't look at Theo; he doesn't like it. Try to avoid frowning or smiling. Whatever you do, do not laugh."
"What happens if I laugh?" asked Daniel. His freshly shaven head was sweating.
"A sociopath will think you're laughing at him," answered the marshall, leading Daniel into the execution chamber. "Do the math, kid."
Safeway was already waiting near Daniel's chair. The helmets were ready to go. He helped Daniel get into the chair and got the helmet on his head. Daniel protested when the doctor started to strap him in.
"This is absolutely essential," said Safeway. "When you start experiencing pain, you may involuntarily thrash around. We have to keep the connection intact, so we have to constrain you. Don't worry, I'll let you out when it's done."
"Great," said Daniel, rolling his eyes.
The door opened again and Theo was led inside the room. He was bald with a high, pointed head that made him look like Bert from Sesame Street. He was wearing prison orange and shuffled along because of the shackles; a burly guard on each side of him kept hold of his upper arms and guided him to his chair. Daniel studiously just looked straight ahead.
"Man," said Theo, "I wish I had another smoke." He made himself comfortable while the guards fiddled with the straps on the chair. Once he was secured, the guards left Theo alone. Theo looked over at Daniel.
"I was gonna ask you for a smoke," he said, "but it looks like there ain't gonna be no handoff." Theo chuckled to himself. Daniel said nothing.
"Hey, man, that was a joke," said Theo with a trace of irritation.
Daniel decided the marshall could go screw himself. "How can you joke?" he asked. "They're about to kill you."
"Shit," said Theo, supremely unconcerned. He nodded at the long window that screened the spectator booth.
"Warden's up there," he said. "Warden would LOOOOOVE for me to act all scared. He would eat it up if I started blubbering and saying I was sorry and shit. Sorry, Warden; it's not gonna happen."
"Are you scared?" asked Daniel.
"Boy," said Theo, "I'm not a twentieth as scared as you. I can smell it all over you."
Daniel was relieved when Safeway came up carrying some things in a shoebox. He crouched down by Daniel, ignoring the killer sitting a yard away.
"Feeling good?" he asked. "Feeling ready?"
"Whatever," said Daniel.
"Okay, great," said Safeway. "You're going to do fine. Now it's time to baseline you."
"What's that?" asked Daniel. Safeway produced something like an alligator clip and put it over Daniel's left thumb.
"Lay it flat on the arm of the chair here," instructed Safeway, showing Daniel how to do it. Daniel complied.
"Good," said Safeway. He pulled a ball peen hammer out of the pocket in his coat and, without warning, pounded on Daniel's protected thumb.
"SHIT!" screamed Daniel, jerking his hand away. Theo began to howl with laughter. The killer convulsed in his chair, rocking back and forth, tears rolling down his cheeks as he laughed. Safeway unclipped Daniel's thumb, which was throbbing. It appeared undamaged and unbruised.
"The clip kept you from sustaining any serious injury," said Safeway, "but I know it hurt like hell. That's the baseline. Remember how that felt. That's the maximum acceptable level of pain for an execution. If what's to come hurts worse than that, it's cruel and unusual punishment."
"Just don't hit me any more with the hammer," said Daniel. "That wasn't part of what we talked about."
"Sorry," said Safeway. "It had to be a surprise."
Theo had completely recovered, his mirth turning off like a switch. "Hey, doc, I wanna kill you," he said evenly. Doctor Safeway didn't say anything, but he swallowed.
"Okay!" he said to Daniel. "Good luck!" The doctor turned and fled.
"I love that line," said Theo. "It's the simple lines that get to people. Hey, kid; are you really going down with me? like, all the way down?"
"That's what they say," said Daniel.
"Well, I wouldn't be too worried," said Theo. "I bet dying sucks, but I'm going to hell. And that's gonna hurt a whole lot worse."
The warden, a priest, a doctor and several orderlies approached. Theo grinned.
"I do believe it's 'Go' time," said the killer.
"Whee," said Daniel.
**
Doctor Safeway pored over the telemetry charts. "None of it makes sense," he said.
"None of what makes sense?" asked Daniel. He was drinking a cup of coffee two hours after the execution. The experience of dying had been overwhelming once he had gotten past the pain; it had been like a drawn-out acid trip. It hadn't been an entirely unpleasant feeling.
"The amplitudes on three out of five key indicators are completely off," said Safeway. "It's as if you weren't even getting the right sensations from the guy. Or…" The doctor sat stock still for the better part of a minute. Then he gritted his teeth and jabbed his fists into his eye sockets.
"I'm such an idiot," declared Safeway. "Sorry, kid; we got some bad data."
"What do you mean, 'bad data'?" demanded Daniel indignantly. "I felt it all perfectly, just as if it was me dying. And the pain was close to the pain from the hammer, but not quite as bad."
"But there's a problem," said Safeway. "I should have seen it earlier. The experiences of pain were filtered through Theo's nervous system before they got to you. He's got an abnormal brain structure in some ways, not at all unusual in sociopaths; that could very well be coloring your sensation of pain. We have to remove the effects of his nervous system from the equation."
"I don't know how you're going to do that," said Daniel, finishing his coffee. "Theo's dead and not coming back. I should know."
Safeway snapped his fingers. "It's not too late for the other three," he said. "This isn't a problem. We just need to do a little surgery. We'll intercept the various sensory input nerves before they ever reach the brain. We'll clip the helmet to those as inputs instead of synching you to their brains. Then you can feel the raw input from their sensory organs. It'll work, Daniel. We just have to try again."
"Great," said Daniel.
**
Roberto didn't speak English, to Daniel's extreme relief. He was also plainly frightened, and probably in some pain as well. The surgery to put in the nerve-leads had only been a week ago, and Roberto was still healing up on the nape of his neck. A bundle of wires snaked out of a grommet set in a raw wound.
Safeway clipped Daniel's helmet leads to Roberto's wires. Roberto started to speak to Safeway in Spanish, first quietly and then frantically.
"What's he saying?" muttered Safeway, applying conductive gel to a pair of leads.
"Sir, step away from the prisoner," said an orderly.
"I have no idea what he's…AIEEE!" Roberto had gotten himself so worked up that he had thrown himself sideways in his chair and nipped Doctor Safeway on the elbow. A piece of flesh the size of a dime had come away and was now bleeding freely.
"Oh my God," said Safeway, staggering back and examining his wound. "I need some antibiotics immediately."
"I tasted you," murmured Daniel. "You taste like honey and fire."
Roberto was chewing Safeway's skin. Two guards grabbed his head and began to pry his jaws open.
"Ow," moaned Daniel. "Oh my God, that hurts."
"Let's just get this out of the way," said Safeway, trying to staunch the bleeding with a handkerchief.
Daniel's eyes rolled back. "Whatever," he said.
**
Safeway threw the charts down. "They're still not matching up!" he shouted. "What the hell is wrong? Everything should have gone perfectly, but now four of the indicators are off!"
"Yeah, and this time the Pentobarbital pain was worse than the hammer baseline," added Daniel. "So there's something up there, too."
"I have no idea what," snarled Safeway. He sat down on the ground and held his head in his hands.
Daniel reflected on his death experience. This transition had been less disorienting. He had kind of known what to expect and could concentrate on experiencing what was going on around him. There had been a rushing system, and then the feeling of lying in a deep pond. The light show had been fantastic as well. Daniel had to admit – dying was quite a rush.
Daniel giggled. "You tasted weird," he said.
Safeway looked up. "What was that?" he asked.
"Your taste," said Daniel. "It was, uh, not what a person ought to taste like."
"That's right," replied Safeway, his eyes widening. He jumped to his feet and began to pace, snapping his fingers. "You felt what you felt through the sensory apparatus of Roberto. You bypassed his central nervous system, but perhaps the difference is coming with the initial data gathering equipment – his own pain receptors."
"I think you're probably right," said Daniel. He was beginning to think of himself as a sensonaut – an explorer of the realms of sensation – and this gave him the courage to speak with authority. "We need to figure out a way for me to directly feel what he's feeling. None of his nerves between me and the input."
Safeway looked at Daniel. "We can do that," he said, "but it would mean more surgery. On the condemned, yes, but on you too. I can't ask you to do that."
Daniel thought of what it felt like to die – to lie at the bottom of a perfectly still pool; to feel oneself circling the drain of existence. He knew he was hooked on dying but he didn't care.
"Sure you can," he said.
**
Howie was a joker, but Daniel knew from the marshall that this didn't make him any less dangerous than Theo or Roberto.
"Hey, dude," said Howie, grinning like always. "Did you feel it when I jerked off this morning?"
"Naw," said Daniel, no longer afraid of these people. "We weren't hooked up yet." What seemed like a million wires poked out all over Daniel's body – the input-end of pain and touch and heat and pressure sensors in every part of his body, inside and out. Analogous wires were attached to Howie, and artificial sensors were implanted next to his natural nerve endings.
"Dude," said Howie, "I always wanted to get hooked up right before I went. Not with a dude, though."
"That's funny, Howie," said Daniel.
"Hee, hee!" giggled Howie. "You're all right, kid. Hey, man: what's it like to die?"
"I think it's different every time," said Daniel. "So far it's been different, anyway. I guess we'll find out together, right?" Safeway was letting him wear the helmet too, but was keeping the input from that flagged separately.
"I always imagined that when I die, it would feel like flying away," said Howie. "I'd just spread my arms and zoom up into the sky, flying like Superman, higher and higher." A tear leaked out of one of his eyes. One leaked out of Daniel's eye too – the same eye.
"Hey, I got a joke," said Howie. The warden and his friends were coming.
"Okay, but make it quick," said Daniel.
"I will," promised Howie. "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Death."
"Death who?"
Howie didn't answer. To the extent that he could turn in his chair, Daniel looked sideways at Howie.
"Death who?" he repeated. Howie just giggled to himself. The doctor was already injecting him.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he muttered, as the pain began to kick in.
**
Safeway stared at the papers, shell-shocked. He hadn't shaven in forty-eight hours. He hadn't slept for even longer.
"One Oxville killer left," he mumbled. "Three bad data points. I don't understand it. I just…I just…."
Safeway put his head down on the table. Daniel interrupted his Dorito-eating for a half a second to spare the doctor a glance, then went back to watching TV.
"It was all you," said Safeway, his voice muffled by the table. "It was all your nerves, your brain. It's still screwed up, even though you directly experienced his pain."
"No I didn't," said Daniel, his mouth full of chips.
"Yes, you did," insisted Safeway exasperatedly, looking up. "You sensed every bit of input he sensed. You processed it yourself, sent the messages to the appropriate parts of your brain according to the activity map. You felt the pain. You felt *his* pain."
"No I didn't," repeated Daniel.
"You did!" shouted Safeway. "Who's the doctor here, anyway?"
"You are," admitted Daniel. "But I didn't feel his pain. I felt my pain. I don't think you can truly feel what another person feels."
"Why's that?" asked Safeway, curious now.
"Because what you perceive has a lot to do with who you are to begin with," said Daniel. "Same set of inputs, but one guy's a white-bread college boy, and the other's a hardened criminal. They don't feel the same things because their contexts are totally different."
"That's bullshit," said Safeway. "You're talking about what you do with the signal once your brain gets hold of it. I'm talking about input to your brain – the raw pain response that comes from your dumb old nerves. They don't know who you are or where you come from. They're just nerves, just like wires, and when you put two of them in the same situation, they're going to do the same damned thing."
"Hey, whatever," said Daniel, turning back to the TV. "But I'm telling you, speaking as a guy who's actually been there and done that, I don't feel like those guys feel. To feel like Theo, I'd have to actually *be* Theo."
Daniel at chips and watched TV for a long time. Safeway stared at the back of Daniel's head. The leads were still snaking out of it, like the hair of the Medusa. Safeway thought, and thought. Then he smiled.
"How do you feel about dying one more time?" he asked.
"Sure!" said Daniel, turning around on the couch. "Last time was great. Just like flying." He frowned.
"Why?" he asked.
**
Grover was the worst of the lot. During the Oxville Massacre he had used the knife most of the time, but he had still accounted for ten of the dead. Grover was a creature of pure hate. He hated everybody and everything, and he wanted to kill whatever he hated.
He was already strapped into the chair. They had used double-straps, because Grover had been known to break normal restraints. He was firmly held in place. The wound, which ran the circumference of his hairless skull, still itched like hell, but it didn't actually hurt because Grover couldn't actually rub it against the chair's headboard. He could wiggle his fingers and toes, and that was about it.
The warden approached with his retinue of doctors and guards. There were twice as many guards as normal. Grover liked that. He liked when people feared him. It was only proper.
"Grover Lamb," said the warden. "You have been sentenced to die by lethal injection. In accordance with the laws of this state, we will now carry out your sentence. Do you have any last words?"
Grover glared at the warden. Then he rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he grumbled.
