The channel had several hundred thousand subscribers, with individual videos topping out at a million views. I’d never watched a minute of it, but I still knew what it did.
Dee Ramey turned to Robin. “I saw you in Professor Currier’s training clips. You’re amazing.”
“Who told you about us?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.
“We did our homework.”
The penny dropped. For a guy who’d grown up on science fiction, I’d been amazingly na?ve about what artificial intelligence, facial recognition, cross-filtering, common sense, and a quick dip into the planet’s aggregate brain could do. At last I freed myself of stupid civility. “What do you want?”
My rudeness to a stranger shocked Robin. He kept patting his sandwich, too hard and fast. Ova Nova, Dad. They did that story about the guy who let the botfly hatch under the skin in his shoulder?
Dee Ramey shouted, “Wow, you watch us!”
Just the ones about how cool the world is.
“Well! We think what’s happening to you is one of the coolest things we’ve seen.”
Robin looked to me for explanation. I looked back. Realization spread across his face. Influencers wanted him for the perfect three-minute episode, one that could earn a million thumbs from strangers across the globe: Boy Lives Again, Inside His Dead Mother’s Brain. Or maybe it was the other way around.
LIFE ASSEMBLES ITSELF on accumulating mistakes. By the time Dee Ramey showed up with plans to turn my son into a show, I’d lost count of how many parenting errors I’d already made.
Robin thought it would be fun, to become an episode alongside all of Earth’s other strange inhabitants. He put his case to me over ice cream, hours after I sent Dee Ramey packing. Honestly, Dad, think about it. I was super-miserable for so long. And now I’m not. People might like to know about that. And it’ll be educational. You’re all about education, Dad. Besides, it’s a cool show.
Two days later, Dee Ramey called me. “You don’t understand my son,” I told her. “He’s . . . unusual. I can’t have him turned into a public spectacle.”
“He won’t be a spectacle. He’ll be a subject of legitimate interest, respectfully treated. You can be there as we film. We’ll avoid anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry. He’s a special child. He needs protection.”
“I understand. But you should know that we’re going to make the film, whether or not you want to take part. We’ll be free to use all the materials already available, in whatever way that makes sense to us. Or you can participate and have a say in things.”
Smartphones are miracles, and they’ve turned us into gods. But in one simple respect, they’re primitive: you can’t slam down the receiver.
My son was still technically anonymous. But what the Ova Nova researchers had discovered, others could soon find out. I’d made a mistake, and doing nothing now would only make it worse. At least I could still try to manage the way the story went public. Two days later, when my anger subsided, I called Dee Ramey back.
“I need a say in the final edit.”
“We can give you that.”
“You are not allowed to use his real name or say anything that would make him easier to identify.”
“That’s fine.”
My son was a troubled boy, hurt by seeing what the sleepwalking world could not. An offbeat therapy had made him a little happier. Maybe showing him on camera being himself could beat whatever sensationalism Ova Nova might create out of Currier’s clips and sales talks.
Robin sat curled under my arm on the living room sofa and explained it to me, on a night when we decided to stay home on Earth. Like Dr. Currier says. Maybe it could be useful.
I DIDN’T GRASP WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO ROBIN until I saw the rough cut. In the video, his name is Jay. He comes into the frame, and the shot begins to breathe. He turns to look at the ducks and the gray squirrels and the lindens along the lake, and his gaze turns them into aliens for the camera to reappraise.
Next, he’s lying in the fMRI tube in Currier’s lab, moving shapes around on his screen with his mind. His face is round and open but a little devilish, pleased with his skill. Dee Ramey, in voice-over, explains how Jay is learning to match another set of frozen feelings laid down years before. But her explanation is beside the point. He’s a child, in the full grip of creation.
Then he’s sitting across from Dee Ramey, on a bench under a spreading willow. She asks: “But how does it feel?”