Join (15 page)

They have a short video
conference with the adviser, Oceanic, a Three who suggests they meet in person at one of the recreation buildings at a community center. When Josette and Leap One arrive, Oceanic Two, a short, heavy, middle-aged woman dressed in a loose pantsuit and paisley blouse, waves them over to her table. She's got a square face, dark, flattened hair, and red cheeks. When she smiles, Leap imagines her with an elf's hat. It doesn't quite fit. She's a little more expressive than an elf would be.

“Hi, I'm so happy to meet you,” she gushes. Out of the corner of his eye, Leap One sees Josette pulling back a bit.

•

Leap Two, flying with Chance Two, has been casually warming up to the topic of risks for an elderly join. Now she says, conversationally, “So some kinds of undiagnosed dementia could be a problem for someone joining with an elderly person. But we have pretty good detection for that kind of thing. If you have good testing, why are people really frightened of it?”

“Yeah, that's really interesting,” says Chance Two, believing she's in a relaxed, early evening conversation during a routine flight. “It's because elderly people can be less flexible in their outlook—”

“Is there a technical term for that?”

“Uh, sort of, yeah, believe it or not, it's called attitudinal plasticity in the literature.”

•

In the community room, Leap One says to Oceanic, “We're concerned about attitudinal plasticity.”

•

On the airplane, Leap Two asks, “How much of a problem is it?”

“Well, not much of one.” Chance Two takes a moment to dislodge something from between two front teeth, then continues, “Sorry. That was bugging me. By itself it probably wouldn't present complications, but elderly patients usually have other tendencies that make low attitudinal plasticity difficult to manage. So, for example, feelings of loss of control can engender emotional volatility that . . .”

•

Oceanic's lower lip pushes against her upper lip in something between disapproval and a pout. “Oh, we'll talk it over, but I don't think that's going to be a problem. First of all, attitudinal plasticity isn't a problem by itself. And on first impressions, and from what Mark Pearsun has told me, I don't see Josette as likely to have lower than normal plasticity for her age. And, well, she seems perfectly happy.”

Josette's eyes narrow.

•

Leap Two says to Chance Two, “So, okay, what are we really concerned about? I mean, what would someone really have to look out for?”

“Well, the biggest danger, particularly with an elderly join, is the danger of a flip.”

“Okay,” says Leap.

Chance says, “Yeah, you've probably read all about it.”

•

Leap One asks Oceanic, “How do you guard against a flip?”

Oceanic has lowered her chin, pushing it against her neck so her head is bent forward and her eyes are rolled up toward her brows. “Well,” she says, “in the past I would have said that that's our biggest risk. But I think things have improved to where that's unlikely.”

•

Leap Three is tired. It's been difficult staying focused and effective in the ER while One is talking with Oceanic and Two is flying with Chance. He has a half hour left, then will get a two-hour sleep, then four more hours of work, then home. He needs to find someone to trade those final four hours with. If he tries to do that shift, he's afraid he might hurt someone.

“There you are!” It's Gnosis Two, a patient Leap stitched up earlier that night. He's a man who claims to have incredible talents as a psychic distance viewer, and a woman who does tarot and palm readings. While Gnosis One had been reading a client's palm, Gnosis Two had slashed his own palm on a drainpipe.

“No coincidences!” Gnosis said several times, fiercely, as Leap sutured.

•

On the plane, Chance is saying, “The best way to avoid a flip is to be certain that both parties to the join are committed. That they
genuinely want
the join. Technically, there are different kinds of flips. Any change or weakness in conviction state can end in a minor flip. A minor flip, one that happens early, simply prevents the join. The risk for older people, when attitudinal plasticity is low, is that the flip might not occur until values compatibility at the sixth layer.”

•

“I'm not going to sugarcoat this one.” Oceanic is smiling kindly at Josette. Her voice is subdued, steady. “If a flip were really to happen, well, it could be fatal. For both you and whoever you're trying to join with. Now, even though it's rare these days, it's still the main reason that I would recommend that you find a join as your other half. A flip is less likely if you complete the procedure with someone who has already joined.” Oceanic reaches a hand across the table toward Josette. She says, “Usually, someone in your position wants to join to escape death, as it were.”

Josette says stiffly, “That's right.”

“Well,” says Oceanic, “even though there's a lot at stake, it's still very important to be careful and not to rush into it. You have to be confident that your join partner is someone that you do want to join with.”

•

On the airplane, Chance Two is saying, “A bad flip, the truly catastrophic kind, is really fascinating, one of the most interesting conditions in all of join science. The network connection is both established and not established, leaving the join incomplete. The most concise way to describe it is that the join is trapped almost between two different alternatives of the present moment, one in which the join is working, and one in which it isn't.”

“That's concise?”

Chance laughs. “Well, for join technology that's uncommonly concise. That's as elegant as it gets.”

Leap is thoughtful. So far, the weather has been unsurprising, and they're flying into evening. The sun has been setting behind them so that the sky in front is becoming darker and more transparent, stars fading into sight like beacons in a dream of perfection. Leap watches for a few moments and then says, “Okay, cowboy, hit me with the long version.”

Chance answers slowly, “Okay, then. Most of what gets talked about in Civ News, in stories about join science, are old risks. Things we can avoid these days if we're careful. We understand most of them. But this, a flip, is . . . just mysterious. Like the join itself, and like a lot of the science around the network, our real understanding of it is fragmentary.

“We don't have the tools to test it. Everybody knows the punch line here: observational bias blows up our experiments. Knowing what you're testing skews your results. The results of any single experiment might show an irrefutable relationship, but the quality of the relationship isn't reproducible. The first time through, the results don't disprove your hypothesis. The next time, they do, unmistakably. Bottom line, the network seems to operate through consciousness and even across time. I mean, that one really bends me. There are seriously debated theories of join science that describe the caduceus as, in a very limited way, a kind of quantum time machine.”

As the light outside fades, the window's polarity changes, ensuring that it remains fully transparent. Chance watches the stars brightening. She says, “A flip is one of a very small class of join-related issues that give us a peek into a reality where we can't seem to distinguish the reflection from the observer.”

•

Josette leans forward, one elbow on the table. “What happens?” she asks.

“I'm going to tell you what happens,” says Oceanic. “This isn't what might happen or what would happen if you didn't get treatment. If you flip, this is what happens. The theory is that your psyche is oscillating very quickly, in very small fractions of a second, between a joined and not-joined state. At first, the oscillations are rare, and you might feel a little more tired than usual, maybe more irritable. In most cases, it seems to people as if the join has succeeded. But the integration is still partial.

“Slowly, the effect of the oscillations increases, bringing on any number of side effects. It usually becomes noticeable with an increase in memory loss, slight nausea, fatigue—which joins may be able to get around for a while through improved cycle management. So it can go on for a while during this period. But then you progress to tics, like simultaneous sneezing by all of the joined drives, and then to minor convulsions and seizures, bloody noses, uncontrollable bowels, blackouts. Pulmonary fibrillation is very common. Mood swings. Paranoia. Really, anything unpleasant you can think of that happens to a body could eventually happen. Each case is slightly different. Some happen very quickly; some take a few years. But every case is progressive.

“In the final stage, you see symptoms that look like paranoid schizophrenia, psychosis, and then ruptured internal organs. It can get very painful. I don't like to talk about it too much. It can be very gruesome. It almost always happens to all of the join's drives, but there have been two documented cases in which a single drive survived. And, of course, distress this severe has additional victims. Family members and other caretakers can have a very hard time. The join may become violent.”

“Well, aren't you an hour of sunshine,” Josette says, her face reddening.

“There's no treatment?” asks Leap One.

“Nothing worth discussing,” says Oceanic.

“What are the odds?” asks Josette.

“Of a flip?” says Oceanic. “With proper vetting, and with someone who understands herself well, is clear about her motivations, and is honest with the process, the odds are very low. But it's still one reason why there aren't many joins with people above seventy. About one percent of joins with people over seventy results in any kind of flip, but most of them are minor. And I can tell you right now, if I approve the join, a flip will not happen. That's my job, the job of a CJA, to make sure we don't get in that situation.”

•

On the airplane, Chance yawns for a long time, fans her open mouth. When she's done, she chuckles. “Sorry. That was a surprise. I need my second cuppa.” She smiles at Leap, then continues, “Our only useful strategy, really, to reduce flips, has been subject profiling and screening. Without pre-screening, we think some kind of flip would happen in about ten percent of joins with elderly solos. These days, though, we can screen out most people who are likely to flip. With the most at-risk group, people older than eighty, say, and the most careful screening—using modern multidimensional testing and integrative techniques in the very best labs—we probably can't get the odds of a destructive flip below one in one hundred thousand, or one one-thousandth of one percent.”

Leap doesn't look tired at all. She looks very alert. Very interested.

•

After describing a variety of ailments, and then claiming that none of them was quite what he has, Gnosis Two has finally turned and begun ambling out of the hospital. He also offered Leap Three many different opportunities to have his fortune told for free. Now, as Gnosis leaves, he calls enthusiastically over his shoulder, “You know, you're one in a million! No, one in a billion!”

•

Josette turns almost pointedly away from Oceanic and toward Leap One. She says, “I'm scared. What do you think?”

Leap can hear the fear in her voice. He knows how painful even the smallest things have been for her as the arthritis has worsened. He knows it will get much worse. “I think those aren't bad odds,” he says.

Josette hesitates for only a moment, then her fear blows away.

“I'm ready,” she says. “I'll do it.”

•

On the plane, Chance Two squints at Leap Two. “Why are you asking all these questions? What got you interested in all this? Anything?”

“No. Well, maybe the lovely scenery we're always flying through inspired musings on the nature of existence.”

“It's almost like you're reffing me.”

“Reffing” means surreptitiously using a casual social encounter to extract reference information while simultaneously using that information elsewhere. It's an old term, not heard much anymore because the practice has become so common.

“Ha!” says Leap.

Finding a join for Josette
becomes an urgent priority. Leap and Josette begin to make inquiries. They run ads. They meet people for short interviews, for long interviews, for meals. They talk with solos; they talk with large and small joins.

Oceanic is mindful and efficient. With her help, they quickly finish Josette's prejoin clearances. Leap has the impression that Oceanic has done everything by the book, hasn't spent any time in gray areas, hasn't fudged anything. Despite that, Leap is left with the uncomfortable suspicion that they've only gotten through the clearances because of Oceanic. That any other CJA would have rejected Josette.