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* * * * *

The door was slightly ajar.  Gatchel hesitated, then gave a loud rap.

"Come in!" the voice called, and Gatchel pushed open the door to the Dean's office.  "Please shut the door behind you.  Shut it firmly, please."

Gatchel did as he was told.  Then he faced Dr. Seth, head of the Faculty of Medicine.  It was like being summoned into the presence of God.

"You asked to see me, Dr. Seth? I'm not sure what it's about, though."

Seth looked at him coolly.  "You aren't? Really?  Take a seat, Dr. Gatchel."

Gatchel took a seat.  She stared at him, then, held up to his gaze a data pad showing a spreadsheet with columns of numbers and a few figures.  She scrolled through it.  The figures looked very familiar.  Gatchel, already damp, began to sweat profusely.

"These files were sent to me two weeks ago," she said pensively, starring at the datapad, "from an unmonitored computer in a public Internet Café via an e-mail account registered under a pseudonym.  The files contain highly confidential information from a clinical trial headed by a friend of yours, a Dr. Silverberg."

Gatchel swallowed.  He felt dizzy.

"When we examined the files carefully," continued Seth, "we noticed some striking discrepancies between the raw data and the reported outcomes.  There were inconsistencies in the patient files.  When we contacted the primary physicians of some of the patient participants we were very saddened to learn that many of them weren't doing as well under Dr. Silverberg's treatment as reported.  Six had died, eight were experiencing various degrees of partial paralysis, fourteen with tachycardia, well, you get the picture.  I don't want to bore you."

She flung the datapad down on her desk.

"Thank God we caught this before it went out to review.  Aside from the patient suffering caused by this little project, the publicity when this got out would have been ruinous for programme funding.  The situation's bad enough as it is.  There's going to be an investigation, of course – everyone in that lab will be put through the wringer.  Jail time, possibly, and re-education, certainly.  We should be able to keep the worst of it under wraps, though.  Why did he do it?"

"He wanted to go Cybertron.  He wanted the Chief Residency position at their hospital," said Gatchel, shakily.  There was no point in trying to protect Silverberg now. "He thought this study would nail it."

Seth nodded.  "That's the impression we got when we talked to him.  I don't know what he was thinking.  He wouldn't have been able to keep this to himself for long.  There would have been an audit once it was published, or there would have been a follow-up study at another university.  Of course, he would have been on Cybertron by the time we figured things out.  What a shame.  I liked him."

"I thought he was brilliant," said Gatchel, around the great, heavy pit in his stomach.

"Oh, he is brilliant.  Certainly much cleverer than you.  I've read your file. I don't know what happened.  He had that job in the bag.  That publication would have been the icing on the cake, but it certainly wasn't necessary. Do you know what he said when we confronted him?"

Gaskell shook his head dumbly.

"He said, 'I knew my conclusions had to be right.  The research assistants must have screwed up the data collection, that's all.' "

Seth sighed, and leaned back in her chair.

"I've been running clinical trials for thirty years.  You know what?  I've seen all sorts of people pull all sorts of dirty tricks in medicine.  I've stopped being surprised.  But, generally speaking, it's the really brilliant ones that screw up big time.  The slower ones – that's you – may tweak a few points – may "forget" to add in a few references – but it takes a certain type of creative genius to bullshit out an entire data set. It requires an arrogance, I suppose, that the mediocre just don't have.  I doubt that Silverberg even understood the implications of what he did.  If reality wasn't matching up to his expectations, then, according to him, it was due to a flaw in reality, not a flaw in his reasoning.  The problem is, even the Silverbergs of this world don't know everything."

She was silent for a minute, and Gatchel decided to risk speaking.

"Sir, does this mean – ?"

"He also had that weird obsession with Interfaces," continued Seth, ignoring him completely. "– those freaks on Cybertron who are mind-linked to robots. He wouldn't shut up about them. Maybe he doesn't find being human enough of a challenge? I don't know.  As for you and me, we're only human. We can't be afraid to be petty. We're not guaranteed love and we're not guaranteed respect. It's fight, fight, fight constantly, and there is no fifty foot robot to fly in and save you and me when we get in over our heads. And there are no second chances for us – we've got about eighty years to do what we want to do and that's all we're going to get.  You are going to get the position on Cybertron.  Chief Resident of Organics wing at Central Hospital on Cybertron – it's all yours."

She paused, and started at Gatchel expectantly.  Gatchel took a few seconds to catch up.

"Sir! I don't want the position on Cybertron!" he yelled, horrified.  "I only applied there because I thought Silverberg was going to get it!"

"I know," grinned Seth, "too bad.  You're perfect.  You're a reasonably competent doctor, honest occasionally, fairly astute politically, and you don't indulge in flights of fancy.  Certainly, you'll never fall in love with Cybertron.  Earth can count on your loyalty.  And it'll keep you out of our hair and away from the media during our investigation. We'll expect reports periodically on certain individuals… nothing too onerous, or invasive.  A few medical files, maybe.  But this is a long-term project.  We'll let you know."

Gatchel realized that his mouth had fallen open.  He shut it.

"How long?" he ventured feebly.

"Now, now, Dr. Gatchel," said Seth, standing up.  "No point in getting ahead of yourself.  And try to summon up some enthusiasm. Think about it! Travel! Aliens! Flying robots!"

She held out her right hand.

Numbly, Gatchel stood up and shook it without thinking.

She smiled at him beatifically.

"Congratulations, Dr. Gatchel.  You're going to be very happy."

* * * * *

Gatchel looked at Scott.   He opened his mouth to make the automatic rejection.  He stuttered for a moment, and then was silent.  He thought of all the times he had egged Scott on, purposely indulging in crass or ugly behaviour.  He thought about his many xenophobic remarks.  He thought of the snide comments, and the sly attempts at character assassination he had made behind Scott's back.  He thought about the insults, and the physical punches he had thrown – which had served nothing other than to make himself look ridiculous.

Then he thought about the Interfaces and their robots.  He thought of all the times his questions had been ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant.  He thought of the many orders that had been barked at him.  He thought of how often obedience had been assumed and explanations had been denied.  He thought of the many times the Interfaces had invaded Earth airspace, leaving fear and chaos behind.  He considered the arrogance, the unconscious air of superiority.  He wondered, for a moment, if it would be worth sitting down, and spending the next hour or so trying to explain this to Scott.

But Scott was six thousand years old.  He would have an answer for every point that Gatchel made.  He had heard it all before.  Gatchel had no more chance of changing Scott's mind than a floating chip of wood had of altering the course of a great river.  But Gatchel wasn't a piece of wood.  He was a person.  And the Interfaces had taken too much of his life already.

"No, Dr. Scott," he said firmly.  "I'm not interested in working with you."

Scott's face was unreadable.  "Why?"

"You're not worth my time," said Gatchel, clearly.  "You're not human.  You're not playing our game.  There's no risk for you.  How can you sympathize?  Fears of age, of betrayal by our loved ones, of ignorance, and loss, and loneliness, and dying.  We breathe in these fears every day.  We live in them like a fish in water.  But they mean nothing to you."

"I don't understand – " began Scott.

"I know you don't," said Gatchel.  And he left.

"That wasn't what I meant! Let me finish!" Scott called after him.  But Gatchel was gone.

* * * * *

Gatchel never did find out what happened to Silverberg.  As he hurried home in the deep night, his path picked out by lamps lit hundreds of meters overhead, he wondered once again what might have happened to him.  Rokia, he knew, was currently heading the Panini Institute in New Delhi.  They kept in contact, but she seemed as mystified as to Silverberg's whereabouts as he was.  Probably locked up in the bowels of the Earth in some billion-credit facility having cybernetic implants drilled into his skull.  Or else drilling cybernetic implants into someone else's skull.  Or plotting a takeover of Cybertron on Betazed.  Or else sitting around in a longhi in Mozambique, teaching pottery to quadriplegics.  Christ, who knew.  Walking home amid a maze of straight lines and perfect right angles, his eyes began to ache.  Like kittens raised in a box painted in vertical lines only, Gatchel's brain was being moulded by his environment.  Someday he would go home, and he would be plunked down in the middle of a green park, and he would be completely unable to navigate his way through it.  Or he would see each tree and blade of grass in sharp angles, like some cubist nightmare.  Silverberg would have eaten this shit up, no doubt.

His stomach lurched.  Moments like this gave him the feeling of being a ghost in someone else's fantasy.  As if, for example, through some evildoing on his part, he had managed to usurp Silverberg's destiny, and was playing the starring role in Silverberg's life, instead of in his own.  Whose face would he see in the mirror when he woke up tomorrow?  Gatchel shivered, and quickened his pace.

Home, finally. He punched in the code, angled his head for the retinal scan, and once inside, threw his briefcase onto the sofa.  In the kitchen he pulled a salad out of the fridge, then went back to the sofa, and threw himself down next to his briefcase.  He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.  His apartment was small by Cybertronian standards – still large enough for a football rally – but he had chosen it with an eye to cutting down on a particular type of potential visitor.  He closed his eyes.  Music from the wave player in the corner wafted across the room.

"You want me to forget, pretend we've never met.

And I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet.

You walk by, and I fall to pieces."

Pain stabbed again at his right temple.  He swore, and raised himself labourously off the couch to get an analgesic from the kitchen.  Halfway there the doorbell rang.  He swore again, and changed course.  His vision was starting to blur.

He opened the door to his apartment and stared way up at the indistinct brown mass.

"You again? Jesus. What do you want?"

The mass was silent for a moment, then folded itself in half.  A large metallic face now hovered a meter or so above Gatchel's own.  It looked… worried? Concerned?  How could a robot face look like anything at all?

"Well, what?" Gatchel snapped.

The robot face hesitated.  "Can I come in?"

"No.  It's been a long day, and I saw enough at you at the hospital.  What do you want?"

The robot hesitated again.  "Gatchel," he said softly, gently, "Gatchel… we need to talk."

Gatchel's head swam, and for a moment his vision was split, as though he were looking down from above at his own ghostly face cowering against the doorframe.  Dazed, he slipped, and banged his head against the frame's edge.  He vision snapped back into place and he gaped in horror. He stepped back, trembling, and a giant hand reached out to catch him.  Gatchel dodged, wheeled into his apartment, and slammed the door shut.  He leaned back against the wall and tried to calm his breathing.

Shit.  Shit.  Shitty-shitty shitty-shitty.  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.

* * * * *
Part 1
Part 2

"I Fall to Pieces" was written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard
Sung by Patsy Cline

Description
* * * * *

The door was slightly ajar.  Gatchel hesitated, then gave a loud rap.

"Come in!" the voice called, and Gatchel pushed open the door to the Dean's office.  "Please shut the door behind you.  Shut it firmly, please."

Gatchel did as he was told.  Then he faced Dr. Seth, head of the Faculty of Medicine.  It was like being summoned into the presence of God.

"You asked to see me, Dr. Seth? I'm not sure what it's about, though."

Seth looked at him coolly.  "You aren't? Really?  Take a seat, Dr. Gatchel."

Gatchel took a seat.  She stared at him, then, held up to his gaze a data pad showing a spreadsheet with columns of numbers and a few figures.  She scrolled through it.  The figures looked very familiar.  Gatchel, already damp, began to sweat profusely.

"These files were sent to me two weeks ago," she said pensively, starring at the datapad, "from an unmonitored computer in a public Internet Café via an e-mail account registered under a pseudonym.  The files contain highly confidential information from a clinical trial headed by a friend of yours, a Dr. Silverberg."

Gatchel swallowed.  He felt dizzy.

"When we examined the files carefully," continued Seth, "we noticed some striking discrepancies between the raw data and the reported outcomes.  There were inconsistencies in the patient files.  When we contacted the primary physicians of some of the patient participants we were very saddened to learn that many of them weren't doing as well under Dr. Silverberg's treatment as reported.  Six had died, eight were experiencing various degrees of partial paralysis, fourteen with tachycardia, well, you get the picture.  I don't want to bore you."

She flung the datapad down on her desk.

"Thank God we caught this before it went out to review.  Aside from the patient suffering caused by this little project, the publicity when this got out would have been ruinous for programme funding.  The situation's bad enough as it is.  There's going to be an investigation, of course – everyone in that lab will be put through the wringer.  Jail time, possibly, and re-education, certainly.  We should be able to keep the worst of it under wraps, though.  Why did he do it?"

"He wanted to go Cybertron.  He wanted the Chief Residency position at their hospital," said Gatchel, shakily.  There was no point in trying to protect Silverberg now. "He thought this study would nail it."

Seth nodded.  "That's the impression we got when we talked to him.  I don't know what he was thinking.  He wouldn't have been able to keep this to himself for long.  There would have been an audit once it was published, or there would have been a follow-up study at another university.  Of course, he would have been on Cybertron by the time we figured things out.  What a shame.  I liked him."

"I thought he was brilliant," said Gatchel, around the great, heavy pit in his stomach.

"Oh, he is brilliant.  Certainly much cleverer than you.  I've read your file. I don't know what happened.  He had that job in the bag.  That publication would have been the icing on the cake, but it certainly wasn't necessary. Do you know what he said when we confronted him?"

Gaskell shook his head dumbly.

"He said, 'I knew my conclusions had to be right.  The research assistants must have screwed up the data collection, that's all.' "

Seth sighed, and leaned back in her chair.

"I've been running clinical trials for thirty years.  You know what?  I've seen all sorts of people pull all sorts of dirty tricks in medicine.  I've stopped being surprised.  But, generally speaking, it's the really brilliant ones that screw up big time.  The slower ones – that's you – may tweak a few points – may "forget" to add in a few references – but it takes a certain type of creative genius to bullshit out an entire data set. It requires an arrogance, I suppose, that the mediocre just don't have.  I doubt that Silverberg even understood the implications of what he did.  If reality wasn't matching up to his expectations, then, according to him, it was due to a flaw in reality, not a flaw in his reasoning.  The problem is, even the Silverbergs of this world don't know everything."

She was silent for a minute, and Gatchel decided to risk speaking.

"Sir, does this mean – ?"

"He also had that weird obsession with Interfaces," continued Seth, ignoring him completely. "– those freaks on Cybertron who are mind-linked to robots. He wouldn't shut up about them. Maybe he doesn't find being human enough of a challenge? I don't know.  As for you and me, we're only human. We can't be afraid to be petty. We're not guaranteed love and we're not guaranteed respect. It's fight, fight, fight constantly, and there is no fifty foot robot to fly in and save you and me when we get in over our heads. And there are no second chances for us – we've got about eighty years to do what we want to do and that's all we're going to get.  You are going to get the position on Cybertron.  Chief Resident of Organics wing at Central Hospital on Cybertron – it's all yours."

She paused, and started at Gatchel expectantly.  Gatchel took a few seconds to catch up.

"Sir! I don't want the position on Cybertron!" he yelled, horrified.  "I only applied there because I thought Silverberg was going to get it!"

"I know," grinned Seth, "too bad.  You're perfect.  You're a reasonably competent doctor, honest occasionally, fairly astute politically, and you don't indulge in flights of fancy.  Certainly, you'll never fall in love with Cybertron.  Earth can count on your loyalty.  And it'll keep you out of our hair and away from the media during our investigation. We'll expect reports periodically on certain individuals… nothing too onerous, or invasive.  A few medical files, maybe.  But this is a long-term project.  We'll let you know."

Gatchel realized that his mouth had fallen open.  He shut it.

"How long?" he ventured feebly.

"Now, now, Dr. Gatchel," said Seth, standing up.  "No point in getting ahead of yourself.  And try to summon up some enthusiasm. Think about it! Travel! Aliens! Flying robots!"

She held out her right hand.

Numbly, Gatchel stood up and shook it without thinking.

She smiled at him beatifically.

"Congratulations, Dr. Gatchel.  You're going to be very happy."

* * * * *

Gatchel looked at Scott.   He opened his mouth to make the automatic rejection.  He stuttered for a moment, and then was silent.  He thought of all the times he had egged Scott on, purposely indulging in crass or ugly behaviour.  He thought about his many xenophobic remarks.  He thought of the snide comments, and the sly attempts at character assassination he had made behind Scott's back.  He thought about the insults, and the physical punches he had thrown – which had served nothing other than to make himself look ridiculous.

Then he thought about the Interfaces and their robots.  He thought of all the times his questions had been ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant.  He thought of the many orders that had been barked at him.  He thought of how often obedience had been assumed and explanations had been denied.  He thought of the many times the Interfaces had invaded Earth airspace, leaving fear and chaos behind.  He considered the arrogance, the unconscious air of superiority.  He wondered, for a moment, if it would be worth sitting down, and spending the next hour or so trying to explain this to Scott.

But Scott was six thousand years old.  He would have an answer for every point that Gatchel made.  He had heard it all before.  Gatchel had no more chance of changing Scott's mind than a floating chip of wood had of altering the course of a great river.  But Gatchel wasn't a piece of wood.  He was a person.  And the Interfaces had taken too much of his life already.

"No, Dr. Scott," he said firmly.  "I'm not interested in working with you."

Scott's face was unreadable.  "Why?"

"You're not worth my time," said Gatchel, clearly.  "You're not human.  You're not playing our game.  There's no risk for you.  How can you sympathize?  Fears of age, of betrayal by our loved ones, of ignorance, and loss, and loneliness, and dying.  We breathe in these fears every day.  We live in them like a fish in water.  But they mean nothing to you."

"I don't understand – " began Scott.

"I know you don't," said Gatchel.  And he left.

"That wasn't what I meant! Let me finish!" Scott called after him.  But Gatchel was gone.

* * * * *

Gatchel never did find out what happened to Silverberg.  As he hurried home in the deep night, his path picked out by lamps lit hundreds of meters overhead, he wondered once again what might have happened to him.  Rokia, he knew, was currently heading the Panini Institute in New Delhi.  They kept in contact, but she seemed as mystified as to Silverberg's whereabouts as he was.  Probably locked up in the bowels of the Earth in some billion-credit facility having cybernetic implants drilled into his skull.  Or else drilling cybernetic implants into someone else's skull.  Or plotting a takeover of Cybertron on Betazed.  Or else sitting around in a longhi in Mozambique, teaching pottery to quadriplegics.  Christ, who knew.  Walking home amid a maze of straight lines and perfect right angles, his eyes began to ache.  Like kittens raised in a box painted in vertical lines only, Gatchel's brain was being moulded by his environment.  Someday he would go home, and he would be plunked down in the middle of a green park, and he would be completely unable to navigate his way through it.  Or he would see each tree and blade of grass in sharp angles, like some cubist nightmare.  Silverberg would have eaten this shit up, no doubt.

His stomach lurched.  Moments like this gave him the feeling of being a ghost in someone else's fantasy.  As if, for example, through some evildoing on his part, he had managed to usurp Silverberg's destiny, and was playing the starring role in Silverberg's life, instead of in his own.  Whose face would he see in the mirror when he woke up tomorrow?  Gatchel shivered, and quickened his pace.

Home, finally. He punched in the code, angled his head for the retinal scan, and once inside, threw his briefcase onto the sofa.  In the kitchen he pulled a salad out of the fridge, then went back to the sofa, and threw himself down next to his briefcase.  He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling.  His apartment was small by Cybertronian standards – still large enough for a football rally – but he had chosen it with an eye to cutting down on a particular type of potential visitor.  He closed his eyes.  Music from the wave player in the corner wafted across the room.

"You want me to forget, pretend we've never met.

And I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet.

You walk by, and I fall to pieces."

Pain stabbed again at his right temple.  He swore, and raised himself labourously off the couch to get an analgesic from the kitchen.  Halfway there the doorbell rang.  He swore again, and changed course.  His vision was starting to blur.

He opened the door to his apartment and stared way up at the indistinct brown mass.

"You again? Jesus. What do you want?"

The mass was silent for a moment, then folded itself in half.  A large metallic face now hovered a meter or so above Gatchel's own.  It looked… worried? Concerned?  How could a robot face look like anything at all?

"Well, what?" Gatchel snapped.

The robot face hesitated.  "Can I come in?"

"No.  It's been a long day, and I saw enough at you at the hospital.  What do you want?"

The robot hesitated again.  "Gatchel," he said softly, gently, "Gatchel… we need to talk."

Gatchel's head swam, and for a moment his vision was split, as though he were looking down from above at his own ghostly face cowering against the doorframe.  Dazed, he slipped, and banged his head against the frame's edge.  He vision snapped back into place and he gaped in horror. He stepped back, trembling, and a giant hand reached out to catch him.  Gatchel dodged, wheeled into his apartment, and slammed the door shut.  He leaned back against the wall and tried to calm his breathing.

Shit.  Shit.  Shitty-shitty shitty-shitty.  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.

* * * * *
Part 1
Part 2

"I Fall to Pieces" was written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard
Sung by Patsy Cline