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Authors: Tim Richards

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BOOK: Thought Crimes
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Journal keeping was integral to the project. This was no hassle for Sam, who had kept a journal most of his adult life. He might have been happier if the Coats were more precise about what they expected from journal entries. Were they interested in physical states, mental states, or perceived changes?

Sam figured he'd just write about everything the way he normally did, and let them decide what was important. He imagined they wanted to trace a pattern of side-effects. In his experience, that's how these things usually worked.

Intense shaking, pain when you passed water. That stuff. A succession of unusual thoughts or behaviours. It wasn't for him to determine what might interest a researcher. If a subject believed he was in the masking study, he should write that too. ‘Feeling terrific. Mr Placebo, take a bow!'

The average person hates telemarketers, especially the way they start asking personal questions just when you're cooking dinner, or eating it, but it's a job, and you have to find some way to make a living. Sam ate earlier than most people he knew. And what's to hate about answering questions? You should be flattered when people value your thoughts.

This survey related to ads he remembered from television coverage of the Olympics. Should he actually tell the interviewer that he watched television from eight in the morning to well past midnight? Sure. It was for someone else to feel embarrassed about that. Sam recalled the bank ads and the beer ads, but, strangely, not that many food ads. That was something he should comment about in the journal, the way food advertisements never registered. His appetite was half what it normally was. Clothes were hanging off him. He should weigh himself, or write about the concern that he was losing weight, and consider whether weight-loss might be a direct or indirect side-effect.

As Sam thought these things, he lost track of the interview, and the girl had to ask the same question twice. Did Sam mind giving his name and some personal details to show her boss the interview was
bona fide
? Not a problem. Would he say that he was thirty to thirty-five years of age? He'd say that. Occupation? This, as always, took some explaining. The girl struggled to accept that what Sam did was an occupation, but Experimental Subject was how he described himself in his passport, or would do if he were permitted to travel.

‘This next bit isn't part of the interview,' the girl said. ‘I'm just curious. What's the money like?'

Sam told her that the money had improved markedly in the ten years he'd been full-time. Almost enough to buy his two bedroom flat outright. She wanted a figure, and he was reluctant to give one, because people never understand the risks involved. It's like being a test pilot or a racing driver. You get paid for
what
might happen
. That, and your ability to maintain calm under pressure. Panic is a problem. You mustn't contaminate a study with panic, though panic, if you experience it, is something worth reporting in your journal. Pragmatism came into it. Any fool knew that if you reported panic, and panic wasn't a known side-effect of the research, you wouldn't be asked to participate in further studies. Finally, Sam gave the marketing girl a figure.

‘
You're kidding!
They pay you a thousand dollars a week to sit around and watch the Olympics?'

‘Only when the Olympics are on,' Sam told her. ‘Otherwise you make your own entertainment.'

He wasn't surprised when the woman expressed her desire to leave telemarketing. The job sucked. The pay was shit. She'd make a fortune as an experimental subject. She didn't want to hear Sam explain that experimental subjects have no career path, it's just something you fall into. You couldn't count on being so lucky as he had been.

Researchers divide into Coats, Jackets and Suits. They always explain who they are and what their role is within the Institute, but remembering that only gives you something else to forget. Memory is almost always the key thing. It's not often that you're in danger of finding purple blisters on your chest, or drowning in mucus. Mostly, the studies are about fiddling with the circuits upstairs. It's hardly in their interests to let you know what they're really doing, so there's no point in taking their spiels to heart, or getting thingy about white lies. Almost everything said or asked is part of a strategy to discover something peripheral.

Had Sam experienced discomfort in his feet? Whether he had or hadn't, their area of concern probably wasn't his feet, or what the medication was doing to his circulation; they want to plant a seed of fear, something that will make you pay attention to your feet. Researchers love to work their subjects over in this way.

Sam has a favourite Jacket, a pretty brunette he thinks of as Laura, having failed to catch her name the one time she mentioned it. Laura presents as sex on a stick, always asking about erections, fantasies, dreams, whether you now experience more intense orgasms when you masturbate, pain when you ejaculate, or any noticeable loss of libido.

Sam's knowledge of research strategies inclines him to believe that Laura's study is about obesity, or anxiety-depression, since most sexual enquiries are just a blind, but sometimes it's nice to imagine that an attractive woman could be genuinely interested in your sexual being. Should he record this in the journal? No. No one pays you a bonus for being more honest than you need to be.

Feeling good can be a problem. A prelude to feeling bad. Sam's more inclined to ask if he might be feeling too good than whether a new ache or pain could be the first sign of something nasty. Toss a coin. Sam's coin-toss comes down seven to three in favour of placebo. ‘You're feeling fine because you are fine. Mr Placebo strikes again!'

The amount of money you receive just might reflect the amount of risk you're running. Sam doesn't know if he's more or less imaginative than the average person, but he does know that scientists wishing to test the limits of the human imagination would probably conduct a well-paid study where participants were left uninformed about the true nature of the investigation, and told only that their involvement left them open to the possibility of serious side-effects, even death. Though it's unlikely that someone would give you a drug that causes your dick to burst, probabilities never hold much sway when you're a participant who's worried that his dick's turned explosive.

Keeping order in your family requires a certain amount of deception.

Sam did enough worrying on his relatives' behalf without giving them cause for concern. He told them that he'd been playing the investment market, or acting as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry.

There was one occasion in Sam's past when he told a young woman he fancied that he made his living as an experimental subject. Not long after, when speaking to a mutual friend, this woman described Sam as ‘a fucking guinea pig'.

What was her name? Sam could see her face clearly. Her eyes, the line of her cheeks, but just then, her name slipped his memory. Something beginning with A, or R.

Forgetting is the most disturbing thing that can happen to a participant. Forgetting always means something. If they've given you a substance that makes you forget, you'll never know how much you've already forgotten. You could walk past friends as if they were invisible.

So it's best not to load loved ones with the burden of these possibilities, not even when they express pride that you're doing so well. Better than they ever imagined you would. You make a very good living.

Arriving for his Thursday appointment, Sam found a group of concerned hardhats pointing to the spot on the sixth floor of the R.K. Howarth Building where a slab of sandstone had fallen from its moorings to shatter the concrete below. There would be scaffolding on his next visit. A beautiful building under scaffold is sadder than a wild animal that's lost a limb or an eye.

BOOK: Thought Crimes
12.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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