Pruned: A Tale of Emotion From an Unemotional Society.

  I peered into my patient’s tired eyes, flicking a penlight from one to the other. As I’d suspected, they appeared wild, pupils blown. I was searching for signs of a Relapse, which would signal the end of Patient 511’s stint in our society.

   “Patient 511,” I started. He sat completely still. 

   I subtly pushed the button beneath my desk.

   “You have Relapsed."

    The clinic doors swooshed opened, and two orderlies entered. They walked purposely, approaching 511 where he sat. A moment later, each towering man placed a hand on 511’s sagging shoulders. He didn’t resist.

   “Everything will be alright,” 718 said, though the patient was not soothed. I wondered why 718 bothered with the small kindness.

   “I understand,” 511 said, slumping forward. He was a man defeated, a pole away from the Neutrality all of the Treated exemplified. He stood. I knew that the orderlies would escort him to the Relapsed room, where he would be evaluated. Some of the Relapsed were successfully restructured, and some were not. The ones who failed were ejected at the Border. 

   The Border. 

   I witnessed the Border every day from the comfort of the Western shuttle. The Border was eerie, unkempt. From my viewpoint, I could see miles of wire, concrete, and desert. Guard posts and watchtowers were scattered across the terrain, alternating like a chess board. Guards stood with rifles in hand, unmoving unless necessity demanded it. I knew that one of those guards was my brother. Every day, as I passed, I tried to identify his shape. 

  The next morning was no different. The shuttle emerged from the Western tunnel, spitting us out next to the Border. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the harsh light, they focused on the distant, still figures. Dimly, I realised that my search was becoming more determined. More… urgent. I had not seen anyone who resembled my brother in some time now. He was easy to recognise, standing at over six foot five, and as thin as a whip.

   Was he hidden away in a watchtower, or near the dividing line?

   I felt a jolt. My breath caught. The sensation lasted for just a moment, but it took me several to recover.

  I surveyed the area, but everyone appeared unaffected, and the shuttle was running smoothly. Was my heartrate elevated? A quick pulse check confirmed it. 

  How unusual. If it hadn’t been environmental, it must have been psychological.

  A mental scan revealed an unfamiliar signal. If this was an emotion, I had not experienced it before. I opened my log, and entered every detail about the unusual experience. Then, two things happened at once: the shuttle doors clicked opened, and an alert silently appeared on the log screen. In attending to the first, I missed the second.

  My day continued as it normally would. I interviewed patients who had displayed recurrent emotional signals, performing routine scans. Some were escorted to the Relapsed room, and some were returned to society, now under watch.

  Near the end of my 7-hour shift, a senior supervisor, 249, entered the clinic room. 

   “249,” I greeted her, pausing in my latest report.

   “615,” she replied. “May I sit?” I nodded politely, knowing she would sit anyway.

   “You have been ignoring a Recall notification,” she said. I blinked.

   “A Recall? I was not aware.” 249 surveyed me, like I had surveyed countless patients before.

   “You experienced fear today. With your history, it was vital that we examine you.”

   Both my brother and I had been Treated as Latecomers. For several weeks, we'd stayed in the tiny, white clinic, supporting each other through the exhausting process. Soon, our memories had been systematically suppressed, and unconscious pathways pruned and re-structured. My brother was assigned to the border, and I was assigned to the clinic. My Treatment was a success - until it wasn’t. 

  Two weeks after Treatment, I had experienced a dream so vivid, it felt real. I'd woken with a surge of primary emotions. The experience was surreal. My training hadn’t prepared me to expect emotional dreams. They were supposed to be limited to mundane tasks, rational activities in my day-to-day life.

  Within moments, my log had flashed with a message: Urgent Recall. 

  At the clinic, assessment had immediately started. 249 scoured my logs, performed an fMRI, then called a meeting with a panel of supervisors. There was hours of back-and-forth about my likelihood to Relapse, and the level of danger I posed to society. The sticking point was my fMRIs: my cognitive pathways appeared normal, and experiments proved the primary pathways they’d built were still my default setting. 

  Another hour passed, and the panel had taken a vote. 

  The group agreed I could remain in society, with the conditions that I had daily scans, weekly meetings, and panel assessments every month. If there were any cognitive changes, I was out.

   For five years, there was no change.

   “615,” she prompted. I realised I had been silent.

   “Yes.”

   “What’s your status?”

  There was a beat. I remembered the thousands of patients I’d sat across, thinly veiled fear in their eyes as they awaited my assessment.

I looked inward, assessing.

   “I,” I started. Paused. 249 waited. I noted her hand hovering under the desk.

   “I don’t know.”

  The door swooshed open as the orderlies stepped in.

  That night, I remembered that first, intensive panel discussion. One supervisor was firm in his prediction that I would Relapse again, that I would pose a significant danger to society when I did. He pointed to my birth records: ‘Look,’ he said. ’She was recommended against Treatment from day one, right from the beginning of her re-birth. And why is there no record of who authorised the procedure? There isn’t enough data. She should be ejected immediately.’ 249 had pressed her buzzer. ’32,’ she addressed him. ’This is is a rare opportunity to advance our research. We eject more than one thousand Relapsers every year, and every one of them has symptoms from the same model. 615 has none of these symptoms.’ 

  I felt absent as 249 placed the fMRI machine over my head. I had seen enough Relapsed patients to know I was going to get evacuated.

  The scan started, and my memories flowed over me. I remembered every scan I’d had, every log, every meeting. I remembered each fragmented dream of my brother, of our Treatment, how that had felt in the morning. I wondered about our lives before Treatment. I wondered.

   “615,” 249 began.

   “Yes,” I said. Another primary emotion welled up in my mind. I didn’t know what it was.

   “Our predictions were wrong.”

   I looked to the screen, where one of the previously pruned pathways was now gloriously alight. I blinked.

  "We can’t allow you to move around in our society anymore.”

   Silence. Light.

   “We thank you for advancing our research," 249 began. There was a hint of tiredness in her voice. I wondered when I became able to label that emotion.

  "Your logs have been informative, and your cognitive data rich. One day, we believe we will be able to Treat your kind.”

  She paused, looking at me.

   “What’s your status now?”

  What was my status? The emotion I’d felt was now gone, disintegrated.

   “Neutral.”

  Silence.

   “That’s a shame,” she sighed. "615, before you arrived, you had an identity. Do you wish to learn facts about your history, before I call the orderlies to eject you?”

  Another unnamed emotion briefly surfaced, then passed. A beat of time. I wondered if 249 asked everyone this question.

   “Yes.”