Human Sister

and then placing them in a gestation chamber, where for ten months they would reproduce, differentiate, and connect with each other and with organic nanoneuralnets. During the same operation, cells from my liver, kidneys, thymus, bone marrow, and other organs would also be extracted; and through a process similar to that used for the brain cells, those extracted cells would develop into functioning organs of a biologic system necessary to support the biologic parts of the integrated brain.
    Unlike First Brother, my new brother would need to go to the bathroom; he would even cry salty tears, just like mine!
    And then came the disclosure of what I now believe was the core reason for my involvement: Michael and I could more directly be a part of each other, Grandpa said, if interconnections between our brains were made through implants to my cribriform plate, which, he explained, was a good place for such a junction because it was hidden and was easily accessible through my nostrils. The implants would be constructed from my cells and would be nourished and repaired as if they were a natural part of me, thereby making the junctions all the more difficult to detect—possibly an important feature, depending on future political developments.
    “What would the connection be for?” I asked.
    “After some practice with the braincord, it should be possible for you and Michael to enter each other’s thoughts and to control each other’s arms, hands, and other motor functions.”
    Though I don’t remember being concerned about the extraction of cells, I reacted strongly to this braincord suggestion. Someone’s controlling my body had not been part of my fantasy of having a new brother. Images of some of my own intimate interactions with my body flashed through my mind, and I scooted off the couch. “No!”
    Grandpa’s eyebrows squirmed like fuzzy white caterpillars. “Of course, Michael wouldn’t—”
    “No! No! I don’t want that!”
    I wanted a brother I could play with, not someone new who would be capable of controlling me even more than Grandpa already did.
    Grandpa continued looking at me with steady attention. This was the look that often preceded my having to sit cross-legged on the floor of his study and meditate until I calmed. But determined to have the brother I wanted, not the brother I thought Grandpa wanted, I stayed my ground, standing silently in front of him.
    Although he was intent on motivating his androids with emotion, Grandpa was suspicious of human emotions, which, he said, had evolved in a primitive world very different from the one in which we now had to survive and prosper. In our advanced technological world, only reason transformed into wisdom through carefully guided experience and training could tame and properly direct our powerful yet often errant and dangerous emotional heritage, a heritage providing modern humans with at best a call to action and a coarse first approximation as to what that action should be. Thus, my human emotions had to be passed through the meditative filter of reason, so that I might confront reality with a minimum of illusions and self-or clan-centered aggression.
    “I just want a nice brother I can study with and play with,” I finally said.
    Grandpa smiled. “Yes, of course, you do. I wouldn’t think of giving Michael any capability to harm or embarrass you. I can assure you that Michael will not be able to exert any control over you that you wouldn’t approve of. The power of his intentions and desires coming in through the braincord would be only a slight fraction of the power of your brain over itself. For him to have any influence over you at all, you would have to meditate and enter into a high state of relaxation and receptivity for him.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. We thought you would enjoy being able to get inside and feel and understand Michael more directly and deeply than you ever could by using normal means of communication.”
    “I’d be able to feel what he feels?”
    “We hope you will, at least to some extent.”
    “You mean, as when Grandma’s happy I can see it in her face and hear it in her voice, but I can’t really feel it. But with Michael I could really and truly feel his happiness?”
    “Yes, that’s right. And he could feel your happiness, too, if you choose to let him.”
    My imagination sparkled. I knew that words often were used to hide, not disclose. I’d sensed the shadowy underneath and behind of things.