"Not really. Much of that is illusory. It certainly is true that Brian has now recovered many of his own memories of himself up to the age of fourteen. But very far from all of them. Some parts are missing, will remain missing, leaving gaps in his memory that may interfere with a lot of his abilities and attitudes. Furthermore, the age of that cutoff is far from sharp. A lot of threads that we've repaired do not go all the way up to that date- while others go well past that time. But the important thing is that we're starting to see signs of a reasonably well integrated personality. Not a very complete one yet-but one that is learning all of the time. Much of the original Brian has returned-but in my opinion not yet enough."

She was frowning as she said it, then forced a smile.

"In any case, none of that need concern us now. The important thing is that now we can enlist his active, thinking cooperation. And that means that we can proceed to the next stage."

"Which is-?"

Snaresbrook looked at him grimly. "We have done just about as much reconstruction as we can do 'passively.'

But there still are many concepts mat we simply have not reached. For example, Brian seems to have lost virtually all his knowledge about animals, a particular form of aphasia that has been seen before in cerebral accidents. We seem to be at the point of diminishing returns in trying to reconnect all of Brian's old nemes. So although I plan to continue that, I shall now also begin the new phase. It might be called knowledge transfusion. What I plan to do is to try to identify those missing domains-those domains of knowledge that virtually every child knows, yet Brian st ill does not-and upload the corresponding structures from the CYC-9 commonsense data base."

Benicoff weighed the significance of this, started to speak- but she raised her hand to stop him.

"We had better discuss this at another time." She shook her head, felt herself fading, felt the onslaught of exhaustion too long held at bay.

"Now let's get a sandwich and some coffee. Then, while Brian is sleeping I'll get my notes up to date. He is going to need guidance every step of the way. Which means that I-and the computer-will have to know more about him than he knows himself."

The restraints had been removed and only the raised sides of the bed remained in place. The end of the bed had been lifted up so that Brian was no longer lying flat. The bandages that encased his skull covered the connecting fiber-optic cable that led to the back of his skull. All of the drips and other invasive devices and monitors had been removed; the few remaining ones were small and noninvasive and fixed to his skin. Other than his bruised and bloodshot eyes and pallid skin he looked to be in adequate health.

"Brian," Erin Snaresbrook said, looking at the brainwave monitor as the wavelength changed to consciousness. Brian opened his eyes.

"Do you remember talking to me before?"

"Yes. You're Dr. Snaresbrook."

"That's very good. Do you know how old you are?"

"Fourteen. My last birthday. What happened to me, Doctor? Don't you want to tell me?"

"Of course I do. But will you let me set the pace, explain things one step at a time in what I think is the best order?"

Brian thought for a moment before he spoke. "I guess so-you're the doctor, Doctor."

She felt a sudden spurt of enthusiasm when he said this. A small verbal joke. But immense in significance, since it indicated that his mind was alert and functioning.

"Good. If you let me do it that way I promise to tell you the complete truth-to hold nothing back from you.

So first-what do you know about the structure of the brain?"

"You mean physically? It's the mass of nerve tissue inside the skull. It includes the cerebrum, cerebellum, pons and oblongata."

"That's pretty specific. You have had brain trauma and have been operated on. In addition-"

"There is something wrong with my memory."

Snaresbrook was startled. "How do you know that?"

There was a weak grin on Brian's lips at this small victory. "Obvious. You wanted to know my age. I have been looking at my hands while you talked. How old am I, Doctor?"

"A few years older."

"You promised that you would tell me only the complete truth."

She had planned to hold this information back as long as possible; the knowledge might be traumatic. But Brian was way ahead of her. The truth and only the complete truth from now on.

"You are almost twenty-four years old."

Brian ingested the information slowly, then nodded his head. "That's okay then. If I was fifty or sixty or something really old like that, it would be lousy because I would have lived most of life and wouldn't remember it.

Twenty-four is okay. Will I get my memories back?"

"I don't see why not. Your progress to this point has been exceedingly good. I will explain the techniques in detail if you are interested, but first let me put it as simply as I can. I want to stimulate your memories, then restore your neural access to them. When this happens your memory will be complete and you will be whole again. I can't promise that all of your memories will be restored. There was injury, but-"

"If I don't know they're missing I won't miss them."

"That's perfectly correct." Brian was sharp. He might only have the memories of his first fourteen years now, but the thinking processes of his conscious brain appeared to be much older. He had been a child prodigy, she knew. Graduate school at fourteen. So he was not just any fourteen-year-old. "But not missing a memory is only a small part of it. You must realize that human memory is not like a tape recorder with everything stored in chronological order. It is very different, far more like a badly maintained file system organized by messy and confusing maps. Not only messy to begin with, but we reclassify things from time to time. When I say that I have memories of my childhood-that is not true. I really have memories of memories. Things that have been thought about over and over, simplified, reduced."

"I think I understand what you mean. But please, before we get started, there are a few things you will have to tell me. Ten years is a long time. Things happen. My family..."

"Dolly has been here and wants to see you."

"I want to see her too. And Dad?"

The truth only, Snaresbrook thought, although it would hurt something terrible.

"I'm sorry, Brian, but your father-passed away."

There was silence as slow tears ran down the man's-the boy's-face. It was long moments before he could speak again.

"I don't want to hear about that now. And me, what about me, what have I done in those years?"

"You've gotten your degrees, done original research."

"In artificial intelligence? That's what Dad does, what I want to do."

"What you have done, Brian. You have succeeded in everything that you tackled. In fact you made the breakthrough to actually construct the first AI. Before you were injured you were at the threshold of success."

Brian noticed the juxtaposition of the terms, made the snap logical leap.

"You have told me everything so far, Doctor, I don't think that you have held back."

"I haven't. It would be unfair."

"Then tell me now. Does my injury have anything to do with AI? Was it the machine that did it? I always thought the stories of evil AIs were dumb."

"They are. But men are still evil. You were injured in the laboratory by men wanting to steal your AI. And reality has turned out to be quite the opposite of myth. Far from being evil, your work with Al-assisted micromanipulators has aided me greatly-and has enabled me to bring you here and speak with you like this."

"You must tell me all about AI!"

"No, Brian. We must rebuild your memories step by step until you can tell me how AI works. You were the inventor- now you are going to be the rediscoverer."

11.

October 1, 2023.

The blinds had been pulled up by the nurse when she had brought Brian his breakfast. He had been awake since dawn, unable to sleep with the whir of thoughts in his head. Bandages covered it, he could feel them with his fingertips. What had happened to him that had made him lose all those years? Selective amnesia? It just wasn't possible. He should ask the doctor to physically describe the damage-though maybe he better not. He really didn't want to think about that now. Not yet. The same way he didn't want to think about Dad being dead.

The TV controller-where was it? He was still amazed at the quality of the picture-if not the contents.

Programs were just as bad as ever. Should he watch the news again? No, it was too confusing, full of references he did not understand. It depressed him when he tried to figure it out, since he was mixed up too much as it was.

There, that was better-kiddie cartoons. They had some really fantastic computer animation now. But despite the incredible quality the animation was still being used to sell breakfast cereal drenched in sugar. Ten years was a long time. He ought to forget about that too. Or look forward to getting the years back. Or did he want to? Why live the same life twice? What's done is done. Though it might be nice not to make the same mistakes twice. But he wasn't going to relive those years, just get back his memories of them. It was a very strange situation and he wasn't sure that he liked it. Not that he had any choice.

Breakfast was a welcome intrusion. A lot of the chemical taste was gone from his mouth now and he was hungry.

The orange juice was cold-but so were the poached eggs. Still he finished them and used a bit of toast to wipe up the last bits. The nurse had just cleared the dishes away when Dr. Snaresbrook came in. There was a woman with her-and it took a long moment to recognize Dolly. If she noticed his startled expression she did not let on.

"You're looking good, Brian," she said. "I'm so happy that you are getting better."

"Then you have seen me here before, here in the hospital?"

"Seen is the wrong word. You were hidden behind all those bandages, pipes and tubes. But that's all in the past."

So was he. In the past. This thin woman with the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and graying hair, was not the maternal Dolly he remembered. Memory had taken on a new meaning for him now, something to be raked over, examined, rebuilt. Remembrance of things past, mat was what old Proust had written about in such a long-winded way.

He would see if he could do a better job of it than the Frenchman had done.

"Dolly has been of immense help," the surgeon said. "We've talked about you and your recovery and she knows that your memories stop some years back. When you were fourteen."

"Do you remember me, when I was fourteen years old?" Brian asked.

"A little hard to forget." She smiled for the first time, looking far more attractive with the worry lines gone from around her eyes, the tension from her mouth. "You were going into graduate school the next year. We were very proud of you."

"I'm really looking forward to it. Though I guess that is land of stupid to say now. I've gone and graduated already, the doctor has told me. But I remember all too clearly the trouble I'm having-had!-with the registrars. They know I have all the credits that I need and it is just the administration still standing in the way. Because I'm too young. But that's all in the past, isn't it? I guess it all worked out well in the end."

It was odd hearing him talk like this. Dr. Snaresbrook had explained to her that Brian could remember nothing of the years since he had been fourteen, that it was her job to help him recover those years. She did not understand it-but the doctor had been right so far.

"They didn't cause trouble for very long. Your father and some of the others got in touch with the companies funding the university. They couldn't have cared less if you were five years old-or fifty. It was the search for talents like yours that had caused them to start the school in the first place. The word came down from on high and you were admitted. I'm sure that you made a success of it, but of course I wouldn't know."

"I don't understand."

Dolly took a deep breath and glanced at the doctor. Her face was expressionless; there was no help there.

Going through it the first time had been bad enough; reliving it for Brian's benefit was not easy.

"Well, you know that your father and I had-have-our-difficulties. Or maybe you didn't-don't-know."

"I do. Adults think kids, even teenagers, are dim when it comes to family matters. You keep your voices down but there have been a lot of fights. I don't like it."

"Neither did I."

"Then why do you-why did you-fight with Dad? I have never understood."

"I'm sorry it caused you pain, Brian. But we were two different kinds of people. Our marriage was as sound as most, sounder maybe since we didn't expect too much of each other. But we had little in common intellectually.

And once you joined us I began to feel a little like a fifth wheel."

"Are you blaming me for something, Dolly?"

"No. Quite the opposite. I'm blaming me for not making everything work out for the best. Maybe I was jealous of all the attention he lavished on you, how close you two were and how left out I felt."

"Dolly! I've always-loved you. You are the closest thing to a real mother I have ever had. I don't remember my mother at all. They told me I was only a year old when she died."

"Thanks for saying that, Brian," she said with a slight smile. "It really is a little too late to assign blame. In any case I and your father separated, had a very amicable divorce a few years later. I went back to live with my family, got a new job and that is where I am now." Sudden anger flared and she turned on Snaresbrook.

"There it is, Doctor. Is that what you want? Or a bit more guts spilled on the floor."

"Brian has the physical age of twenty-four," she said calmly. "But his memories stop at age fourteen."

"Oh, Brian-I am so sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Of course you didn't, Dolly. I suppose that everything you have just told me about was in the wind and I should have seen it coming. I don't know. I guess kids think that nothing basic will ever change. It's just that school is so busy, the AI work so exciting-" He broke off and turned to Dr. Snaresbrook. "Am I at least fifteen by now, Doctor? I've certainly learned a lot in the past few minutes."

"It doesn't quite work that way, Brian. You heard a lot-but you don't have your own memories of the events. That's what we must restore next."

"How?"

"By using this machine. Which I am very proud to say you helped to develop. I am going to stimulate memories which you will identify. The computer will keep track of everything. When other memories have been matched on both sides of the lesion they will be reconnected."

"There can't be enough wires in the world to reconnect all the nerves in the brain. Aren't there something like ten-to-the-twelfth hookups?"

"There are-but there are plenty of redundancies as well. Associations with one sector of memory will permit compatible reinforcement. The brain is very much like a computer and the opposite is true as well. But it is important to always be aware of the differences. Memory is static in a computer- but not in the human mind.

Recalled memories get stronger, untouched memories weaken and vanish. My hope is mat when enough pathways have been reconnected, other interconnections will be reestablished as well. We will be looking for nemes."

"What are nemes?"

"A neme is a bundle of nerve fibers that is connected to a variety of agents, each of whose output represents a fragment of an idea or a state of mind. For example, what is red and round, with a sweet taste and a crunchy texture, a fruit about the size of your fist and..."

"Apple!" Brian said happily.

"That's exactly what I had in mind, but notice I never used that word."