Distress

Delphic Biosystems had been too generous by far. Not only had they arranged for me to interview ten times as many of their Public Relations staff as I could ever have made time for, they’d showered me with ROMs packed with seductive micrographs and dazzling animation. Software flow-charts for the HealthGuard implant were rendered as air-brushed fantasies of impossible chromed machines, jet-black conveyor belts moving incandescent silver nuggets of “data” from subprocess to subprocess. Molecular schematics of interacting proteins were shrouded with delicately beautiful—and utterly gratuitous—electron-density maps, veils of pink and blue aurorae melting and merging, transforming the humblest chemical wedding into a microcosmic fantasia. I could have set it all to Wagner—or Blake—and flogged it to members of Mystical Renaissance, to play on a loop whenever they wanted to go slack-jawed with numinous incomprehension.

I slogged my way through the whole morass, though—and it finally paid off. Buried amongst all the technoporn and science-as-psychedelia were a few shots worth salvaging.

The HealthGuard implant employed the latest programmable assay chip: an array of elaborate proteins bound to silicon, in many respects like a pharm’s synthesizer, but designed to count molecules, not make them. The previous generation of chips had used a multitude of highly specific antibodies, Y-shaped proteins planted in the semiconductor in a checkerboard pattern, like adjoining fields of a hundred different crops. When a molecule of cholesterol, or insulin, or whatever, happened to strike exactly the right field and collide with a matching antibody, it bound to it long enough for the tiny change in capacitance to be detected, and logged in a microprocessor. Over time, this record of serendipitous collisions yielded the amount of each substance in the blood.

The new sensors used a protein which was more like a Venus flytrap with brains than an antibody’s passive, single-purpose template. “Assayin” in its receptive state was a long, bell-shaped molecule, a tube opening out into a broad funnel. This conformation was metastable; the charge distribution on the molecule rendered it exquisitely sensitive, spring-loaded. Anything large enough colliding with the inner surface of the funnel caused a lightning-fast wave of deformation, engulfing and shrink-wrapping the intruder. The microprocessor, noting the sprung trap, could then probe the captive molecule by searching for a shape of the assayin which imprisoned it even more snugly. There were no more wasted, mismatched collisions—no more insulin molecules striking cholesterol antibodies, yielding no information at all. Assayin always knew what had hit it.

It was a technical advance worth communicating, worth explaining, worth demystifying. Whatever the social implications of the HealthGuard implant, they could no more be presented in a vacuum, divorced from the technology which made the device possible, than vice versa. Once people ceased to understand how the machines around them actually functioned, the world they inhabited began to dissolve into an incomprehensible dreamscape. Technology moved beyond control, beyond discussion, evoking only worship or loathing, dependence or alienation. Arthur C. Clarke had suggested that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic—referring to a possible encounter with an alien civilization—but if a science journalist had one responsibility above all else, it was to keep Clarke’s Law from applying to human technology in human eyes.

(Lofty sentiments… and here I was peddling frankenscience, because that was the niche that had needed filling. I salved my conscience—or numbed it for a while—with platitudes about Trojan horses, and changing the system from within.)

I took the Delphic Biosystems graphics of assayin in action, and had the console strip away the excessive decoration so it was possible to see clearly what was going on. I threw out the gushing commentary and wrote my own. The console delivered it in the diction profile I’d chosen for all of Junk DNA’s narration, cloned from samples of an English actor named Juliet Stevenson. The long-vanished “Standard English” pronunciation—unlike any contemporary UK accent—remained easily comprehensible across the vast Anglophone world. Any viewer who wished to hear a different voice could cross-translate at will, though; I often listened to programs redubbed into the regional accents I had most trouble following—US south-east, northern Irish, and east-central African— hoping to sharpen my ear for them.

Hermes—my communications software—was programmed to bounce almost everyone on Earth, while I was editing. Lydia Higuchi, SeeNet’s West Pacific Commissioning Executive Producer, was one of the few exceptions. It was my notepad that rang, but I switched the call through to the console itself; the screen was larger and clearer—and the camera stamped its signal with the words AFFINE graphics EDITOR MODEL 2052 -KL, and a time code. Not very subtle, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Lydia got straight to the point. She said, “I saw the final cut of the Landers stuff. It’s good. But I want to talk about what comes next.”

“The HealthGuard implant? Is there some problem?” I didn’t hide my irritation. She’d seen selections of the raw footage, she’d seen all my post-production notes. If she wanted anything significant changed, she’d left it too damn late.

She laughed. “Andrew, take one step back. Not the next story in Junk DNA. Your next project.”

I eyed her as if she’d casually raised the prospect of imminent travel to another planet. I said, “Don’t do this to me, Lydia. Please. You know I can’t think rationally about anything else right now.”

She nodded sympathetically but said, “I take it you’ve been monitoring this new disease? It’s not anecdotal static anymore; there are official reports coming out of Geneva, Atlanta, Nairobi.”

My stomach tightened. “You mean Acute Clinical Anxiety Syndrome?”

“A.k.a. Distress.” She seemed to savor the word, as if she’d already adopted it into her vocabulary of deeply telegenic subjects. My spirits sank even further.

I said, “My knowledge miners been logging everything on it, but I haven’t had time to stay up to date.” And frankly, right now…

“There are over four hundred diagnosed cases, Andrew. That’s a thirty percent rise in the last six months.”

“How can anyone diagnose something when they don’t have a clue what it is?”

“Process of elimination.”

“Yeah, I think it’s bullshit, too.”

She mimed brief sarcastic amusement. “Get serious. This is a brand new mental illness. Possibly communicable. Possibly caused by an escaped military pathogen—”

“Possibly fallen from a comet. Possibly a punishment from God. Amazing how many things are possible, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. “Whatever the cause, it’s spreading. There are cases everywhere now but Antarctica. This is headline news—and more. The board decided last night: we’re going to commission a thirty-minute special on Distress. High profile, blitz promotion, culminating in synchronous primetime broadcasts, worldwide.”

Synchronous didn’t mean what it should have, in netspeak; it meant the same calendar date and local time for all viewers. “Worldwide? You mean Anglophone world?”

“I mean world world. We’re tying up arrangements to on-sell to other-language networks.”

“Well… good.”

Lydia smiled, a tight-lipped impatient smile. “Are you being coy, Andrew? Do I have to spell it out? We want you to make it. You’re our biotech specialist, you’re the logical choice. And you’ll do a great job. So…?”

I put a hand to my forehead, and tried to work out why I felt so claustrophobic. I said, “How long do I have, to decide?”

She smiled even more widely, which meant she was puzzled, annoyed, or both. “We’re broadcasting on May 24th—that’s ten weeks from Monday. You’ll need to start pre-production the minute Junk DNA is finished. So we need your answer as soon as possible.”

Rule number four: Discuss everything with Gina first. Whether or not she’d ever admit to being offended if you didn’t.

I said, “Tomorrow morning.”

Lydia wasn’t happy, but she said, “That’s fine.”

I steeled myself. “If I say no, is there anything else going?”

Lydia looked openly astonished now. “What’s wrong with you? Prime-time world broadcast! You’ll make five rimes as much on this as on Gender.'

“I realize that. And I'm grateful for the chance, believe me. I just want to know if there’s… any other choice.”