The Light of Other Days

part 2: THE EYES OF GOD Chapter 15 - CONFABULATION
Bobby found the interview room, in the bowels of this aging courthouse, deeply depressing. The dingy walls looked as if they hadn't been painted since the turn of the century, and even then only in government-issue pale green.

And it was in this room that Kate's privacy was to be flayed, piece by piece.

Kate and her" attorney - an unsmiling, overweight woman - sat on hard plastic chairs behind a scuffed wooden table, on which sat an array of recording devices. Bobby himself was perched on a hard bench at the back of the room, there at Kate's request, the only witness to this strange tableau. dive Manning, the psychologist appointed by the court to Kate's case, was standing at the front of the room, tapping at a SoftScreen fixed to the wall. WormCam images, dimly lit and suffering a little fisheye distortion, flickered as Manning sought his starting point. At last he found the place he wanted. It was a frozen image of Kate with a man. They were standing in a cluttered living room, evidently in the middle of a heated row, screaming at each other.

Manning-tall, thin, bald, fiftyish-took off his wire spectacles and tapped the frame against his teeth, a mannerism Bobby was already finding gratingly irritating, the spectacles themselves an antiquated affectation. "What is human memory?" Manning asked. He gazed at the air as he spoke, as if lecturing an invisible audience-as perhaps he was. "It certainly is not a passive recording mechanism, like a digital disc or a tape. It is more like a storytelling machine. Sensory information is broken down into shards of perception, which are broken down again to be stored as memory fragments. And at night, as the body rests, these fragments are brought out from storage, reassembled and replayed. Each run-through etches them deeper into the brain's neural structure.

"And each time a memory is rehearsed or recalled it is elaborated. We may add a little, lose a little, tinker with the logic, fill in sections that have faded, perhaps even conflate disparate events.

"In extreme cases, we refer to this as confabulation. The brain creates and re-creates the past, producing, in the end, a version of events that may bear little resemblance to what actually occurred. To first order, I believe it's true to say that everything I remember is false." Bobby thought a note of awe entered Manning's voice.

"This frightens you," Kate said, wondering.

"I'd be a fool not to be frightened. We're all complex, flawed creatures, Kate, stumbling around in the dark. Perhaps our minds, little transient bubbles of consciousness adrift in this overwhelmingly hostile universe, need an inflated sense of their own importance, of the logic of the universe, in order to summon up the will to survive. But now the WormCam, without pity, will never again let us evade the truth." He was silent for a moment, then smiled at her. "Perhaps we will al! be driven mad by truth. Or perhaps, stripped of illusion at last, we will all become sane, and I will be out of a job. What do you think?"

Kate, wearing a drab black one-piece, sat with her hands tucked between her thighs, her shoulders hunched. "I think you should get on with your show-and-tell."

Manning sighed and replaced his glasses. He tapped the "Screen's comer, and the fragment of Kate's vanished life began to play itself out.

On-screen Kate hurled something at the guy. He ducked; it splashed against the wall.

"What was that? A peach?"

"As I recall," Kate said, "it was a kumquat. A little overripe."

"Good choice," Manning murmured. "You need to work on your aim, however."

"... a*shole. You're still seeing her, aren't you?"

"What's it to do with you?"

"It's got everything to do with me, you piece of shit. Why you think I'm going to put up with this I don't know..."

The man on the "Screen was called Kingsley, Bobby had teamed. He and Kate had been lovers for several years, and had lived with each other for three-up to this point, the moment at which Kate had finally thrown him out.

Watching was difficult for Bobby. He felt he was participating in voyeurism of this younger, different woman who hadn't at the time even known he existed, events of which she'd told him nothing. And, like most WormCam-recorded slices of life, it was hard to follow, the conversation illogical, meandering and repetitive, the words designed to express their users" emotions rather than to progress the encounter in any rational way.

A century and more of scripted TV and cinema had been poor training for the reality of the WormCam. But his real-life drama was typical of life: messy, unstructured, confusing, the participants groping like people in a darkened room toward an understanding of what was happening to them, how they were feeling.

The action shifted from the living room to a catastrophically untidy bedroom. Now Kingsley was cramming clothes into a leather bag, and Kate was grabbing more of his stuff and throwing it out of the room. All the time they maintained a screaming dialogue.

At last, Kingsley stormed out of the apartment. Kate slammed the door shut behind him. She stood rigid for a moment, staring at the closed door, before burying her face in her hands.

Manning reached over and tapped the "Screen. The image froze on a close-up of Kate's face, hidden by her hands, tears visibly leaking between her fingers, her hair a tangle around her forehead, the whole surrounded by a faint fish-eye-distortion halo.

Manning said, "I believe this incident is the key to your story, Kate. The story of your life, of who you are."

The real Kate, bleak and subdued, stared at her younger self woodenly. "I was framed," she said evenly. "Over the IBM espionage. It was subtle, beyond the reach even of the WormCam. But it's nevertheless true. And that's what we should be focusing on. Not this barroom psychoanalysis."

Manning drew back. "That's as may be. But evidentiary issues are beyond my competence. The judge has asked me to come up with a framework for your state of mind at the time of the crime itself. Motive and intent: a deeper truth than even the WormCam can offer us. And," he said with a trace of steel, "let's remind ourselves that you don't have any choice but to cooperate."

"But that doesn't alter my opinion," she said.

"What opinion?"

"That, like every shrink I've ever met, you are one inhuman a*shole." The attorney touched Kate's arm, but Kate shook her off.

Manning's eyes glittered, hard behind his spectacles;

Bobby realized Manning was going to enjoy exerting power over this willful woman.

Manning turned to his SoftScreen and ran through the brief breakup scene again. "Let me recall what you told me about this period in your life. You'd been living with Kingsley Roman for some three years when you decided to try for a baby. You suffered a late miscarriage."

"I'm sure you enjoyed watching that," Kate said bleakly.

"Please," Manning said, pained. "You seem to have decided, with Kingsley, that you would try again."

"We never decided that. We didn't discuss it in that way."

Manning blinked owlishly at a notepad. "But you did. February 24, 2032, is the clearest example. I can show you if you like." He looked up at her over his glasses. "Don't be alarmed if your memory differs from the WormCam record. It's common. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's normal. Confabulation, remember. Shall I go on?

"Despite your stated decision, you don't conceive. In fact you return to the regular use of contraceptives, so that conception is impossible anyhow. Six months after the miscarriage, Kingsley begins his affair with a colleague at his place of work. A woman called Jodie Morris. And a few months after that, he is careless enough to let you find out about it." He studied her again. "Do you remember what you told me about that?"

Kate said reluctantly, "I told you the truth. I think Kingsley decided, on some level, that the baby was my fault. And so he started looking around. And besides, after the miscarriage, work was starting to take off for me. The Wormwood... I think Kingsley was jealous."

"And so he started to seek the attention he craved from somebody else."

"Something like that. When I found out, I threw him out."

"He claims he left."

"Then he's a lying a*shole."

"But we just saw the incident," Manning said gently. "I didn't see any evidence of clear decision-making, of unilateral action by either of you."

"It doesn't matter what the WormCam shows. I know what is true,"

Manning nodded. "I'm not denying that you're telling us the truth as you see it, Kate." He smiled at her, owlish, looming. "You aren't lying. That isn't the problem at all. Don't you see?"

Kate gazed at her caged hands.

They took a break. Bobby wasn't allowed to be with her.

Kate's treatment was one of many experiments being run as the politicians, legal experts, pressure groups and concerned citizens worked feverishly to find a way to accommodate the WormCam's eerie historical reach- still not widely known to the public-into something resembling the existing due process of the law, and, even more challenging, into natural justice.

In essence it had suddenly become radically easier to establish physical truth.

The conduct of court cases seemed likely to be transformed radically. Trials would surely become much less adversarial, fairer, much less dependent on the demeanor of a suspect in court or the quality of her representatives. When the WormCam was available at federal, state and county levels, some commentators were anticipating savings of billions of dollars annually: there would be shorter trials, more plea bargains, more civil settlements.

And major trials in future would perhaps focus on what remained beyond the bare facts: motive and intent-hence the assignment of a psychologist like Manning to Kate's case.

Meanwhile, as WormCammed law enforcers went to diligent work over unresolved cases, a huge logjam of new cases was heading for the courts. Some Congressmen had proposed that to maximize the clear-up rate a general amnesty should be declared for crimes of lesser severity committed up to the last full calendar year before the WormCam's invention-an amnesty, that is, in return for waiving of Fifth Amendment protection in the relevant case. In fact, evidence gathering was made so much more powerful, thanks to the WormCam, that Fifth Amendment rights had become moot anyhow. But this was proving highly contentious. Most Americans did not appear to feel comfortable with losing Fifth protection.

Challenges to privacy were even more contentious- made so by the fact that even now there was no accepted definition of privacy rights, even within America,

Privacy was not mentioned in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights spoke of a right against intrusion by the state-but it left a great deal of room for maneuver by those in authority who wished to investigate citizens, and besides offered citizens virtually no protection against other bodies, such as corporations or the press or even other citizens. From a welter of scattershot laws at state and federal levels, as well as a mass of cases in common law to provide precedent, a certain common acceptance of the meaning of privacy had slowly emerged: for instance a right to be "let alone," to be free from unreasonable interference from outside forces.

But all of this was challenged by the WormCam.

Legal safeguards surrounding WormCam use were being promoted, by law-enforcement and investigation agencies like the FBI and the police, as a compensating balance to the loss of privacy and other rights. For example WormCam records intended for legal purposes would have to be collected in controlled circumstances- probably by trained observers, and notarized formally. That wasn't likely to prove a problem, as any WormCam observation could always be repeated as many times as required simply by setting up a new wormhole link to the incident in question.

There were even suggestions that people should be prepared to submit to a form of "documented life." This would effectively grant the authorities legal access to any incident in an individual's past without the need for formal procedures in advance-and it would also be a strong shield against false accusation and identity theft.

But despite protests from campaigners against the erosion of rights, everybody seemed to accept that as far as its use in criminal investigation and prosecution was concerned, the WormCam was here to stay; it was simply too powerful to ignore.

Some philosophers argued that this was no bad thing. After all, humans had evolved to live in small groups in which everybody knew everybody else, and strangers were rarely encountered; it was only recently, in evolutionary terms, that people had been forced to live in larger communities like cities, crammed together with friends and strangers alike. The WormCam was bringing a return to older ways of living, of thinking about other people and interacting with them,

But that was little comfort for those who feared that their perceived need for curtilage-a defined space within which they could achieve solitude, anonymity, reserve and intimacy with loved ones-might no longer be met.

And now, as the WormCam's history-view facilities deepened, even the past was no refuge.

Many people had been hurt, in one way or another, by the revelation of the truth. Many of them blamed not the truth, or themselves, but the WormCam, and those who had inflicted it on the world.

Hiram himself remained the most obvious target.

At first, Bobby suspected, he had almost enjoyed his notoriety. Any celebrity was good for business. But the hail of threats and assassination and sabotage attempts had worn him down. There were even libel actions, as people claimed Hiram must somehow be fabricating what the WormCam was showing about themselves, their loved ones, their enemies, or their heroes.

Hiram had taken to living in the light. His West Coast mansion was drenched in light from floods powered by multiple generators. He even slept in brilliant illumination. No security system was foolproof, but at least Hiram could ensure that anybody who got through would be visible to the WormCams of the future.

So Hiram lived, skewered by pitiless light, alone, scrutinized, loathed.

The gruesome procedure resumed.

Manning consulted his notebook. "Let me set out some of the facts: incontrovertible historical truths, all properly observed and notarized. First, Kingsley's affair with Ms. Morris wasn't his first in his time with you. He had a short, apparently unsatisfactory fling with another woman beginning a month after he met you. And another six months later."

"No."

"In all, he seems to have had six consummated relationships with other women before you challenged him over Jodie." He smiled. "If it's any consolation he's also cheated on other partners, before and since. He seems to be something of a serial adulterer."

"This is ridiculous. I'd have known."

"But you're also human. I can show you incidents where evidence of Kingsley's unfaithfulness was clearly available to you, yet you turned aside, rationalizing it away without even being aware of what you were doing. Confabulation."

She said coldly, "I've told you how it was. Kingsley started to cheat on me because the miscarriage screwed up our relationship."

"Ah, the miscarriage: the great causal event in your life. But I'm afraid it wasn't like that at all. Kingsley's behavior patterns were well established long before he met you, and were barely altered by the miscarriage incident. You've also said that you believe the miscarriage gave you a spur to working harder at developing your own career."

"Yes. That's obvious."

"This is a little more difficult to establish, but again I can demonstrate to you that the upward trajectory of your career began some months before the miscarriage. Again, you were doing it anyhow; the miscarriage didn't really change anything." He studied her. "Kate, you've constructed a kind of story around the miscarriage. You've wanted to believe that it was significant beyond itself. The miscarriage was a horrible trial for you to endure. But it actually changed very little... I sense you don't believe me."

She said nothing.

Manning steepled his fingers and put them to his chin. "I think you've been both right and wrong about yourself. I think that the miscarriage you suffered did change your life. But not in the rather superficial way you think it did. It didn't make you work harder, or cause cracks in your relationship with Kingsley. But the loss of your child did wound you deeply. And I think you're now driven by a fear that it might happen again."

"A fear?"

"Please believe I'm not judging you. I'm merely trying to explain. Your compensatory activity is your work. Perhaps this deeper fear has driven you to greater achievement, greater success. But you've also become obsessive. It has only been your work that has distracted you from what you see as a terrible darkness at the center of your being. And so you're driven to ever greater lengths."

"Right. And that's why I used Hiram's wormholes to spy on his competitors." She shook her head. "How much do they pay you for this stuff, Doctor?"

Manning paced slowly before his SoftScreen. "Kate, you're one of the first human beings to endure this - umm, this truth shock - but you won't be the last. We are all going to have to learn to live without the comforting lies we whisper to ourselves in the darkness of our minds."

"I'm capable of forming relationships: even long lasting, stable ones. How does that square with your portrait of me as a shock trauma victim?"

Manning frowned, as if puzzled by the question. "You mean Mr. Patterson? But there's no contradiction there." He walked over to Bobby and, with a murmured apology, studied him. "In many ways, Bobby Patterson is one of the most childlike adults I have ever encountered. He is therefore an exact fit for the, umm, the childshaped hole at the center of your personality." He turned to Kate. "You see?"

She stared at him, her color high.