Skinner

 ©Lew Stowe

Martin Bracken wasn't in a good mood when he disembarked on Volare 5. What he could see confirmed that the planet was as dark, rocky and barren as he had heard.

Uneasiness filled him, tightening his chest, constricting his breathing. Volare 5 was one of six of its type scattered around a quadrant of the galaxy, with an unstable core that moved tectonic plates around at an alarming pace, accompanied by frequent tremors. The Central Planetary Union hadn't been sure what to do with these strange, ugly little worlds, so finally made them recreational destinations, where members of humanity went for unusual games and sports.

Martin didn't want to be there. An operations inspector for the CPU, his specialty was financial auditing. He didn't know anything about games or sports. And didn't want to know. He had just barely heard of Skinner, the one he was supposed to examine.

None of that mattered. He had gotten the assignment by default because someone else couldn't make it. With no related expertise, he knew he'd have to feel his way carefully. He just wanted to get the damned thing over with and go home.

* * *

“Why ‘Skinner'?” Martin asked. “Where did that name come from? What does it mean?”

He was talking to David Shael, general manager of the facility. The man was younger than Martin, probably mid-thirties, and Martin didn't like him any more than he did the planet. Shael was too confident and smiled too much.

“The name came from the PR unit,” Shael said, “so it doesn't carry a whole lot of significance. All it means is that people get skinned. Mentally, emotionally. Their secrets are stripped away and laid out for everyone to see. The viewing audience, anyway.”

“How does that happen?”

“A person goes into a booth. Skinner takes control, mentally and physically. First, it creates a replica of the person. That's a full-size exact replica. Then it extracts information from the person's mind and plays out a series of scenes, using the replica. These are normally scenes from the person's past life. Whatever one prefers to keep hidden, gets revealed. Such as traumatic incidents that have been blurred in conscious memory. Or embarrassing moments. All in graphic detail behind a big superplastic dome. When finished, a destructor particle beam destroys the replica and clears out the dome in preparation for the next person.”

“This happens in front of an audience?”

“Yep. It's a spectator sport. People love to watch. Drives them wild.”

“Why?”

Shael smiled. “Because everyone is a voyeur. And because everyone enjoys seeing others in uncomfortable situations. It helps them minimize their own embarrassments and failures, compared to those exposed by Skinner. Believe me, that's what Skinner does. Get into that booth and everything is pulled out into the open.”

Martin frowned. Who thought up such bizarre stuff? And who could possibly enjoy it?

“Sounds sadistic,” he said.

“Not at all. It's completely voluntary--no one is forced into anything. But we have no end of volunteers. They line up to get into that booth. Maybe we're getting all the exhibitionists. Who knows? The crowds love it. Hottest thing around.”

“What about safety?”

Shael broadened his smile and said in a patronizing tone: “Safety is rock-solid. We've anticipated everything and covered all the bases. There is, of course, the issue of the antimatter component. But . . .” He shrugged.

“How does antimatter figure in this?”

“The replicas are made of antimatter. And the other pieces--people, furniture, surroundings, etc., that Skinner creates--all made of antimatter. But refined antimatter,which greatly reduces its volatility when it comes in contact with matter. Except for the replicas. The replicas are different. If a replica would ever get within twenty feet of the original... goodbye. But that isn't even a possibility, because after each person, each session, the beam destroys all antimatter within the dome, including the replica. The beam scours every millimeter of that dome.”

Martin stared at him.

“There's no danger,” Shael said. “Absolutely none.”

“But the risk of the replica coming into contact with the original? That's dangerous.”

“Nah. Can't happen. We had to make it impossible because an occurrence would be hyper-catastrophic. The planet would be torn apart by the explosion, causing ... who knows what else around the galaxy. But, I repeat: it can't happen. Replicas are created inside the dome and destroyed inside the dome. All tightly controlled. No way

can they get out.”

“Tell me about the replicas. What are they like?”

Shael was still smiling, but he paused for a second. “A replica of you is the same as you, same everything, an exact copy, with your DNA. Except that it's antimatter. And there's an additional twist. Two versions of a person, identical except for opposing electrical charges, is a Universal Identity Conflict. There's nothing more volatile than a UIC. Of course, UICs can be corrected--as Skinner does--by destroying the replica. Don't, and correction is possible only if the replica and its original come together, producing a horrendous explosion. Which, of course, is unthinkable, so we've made sure the replica is always destroyed."

"But if somehow a replica wasn't destroyed. And somehow got out of the dome. What would it do?"

"Replicas never get out, as I've said. As for behavior, there frankly is only one thing we know for certain. Each has a ferocious compulsion to confront its original." Shael paused again. "We aren't sure why. The UIC is probably a factor. So if a replica ever escaped the dome, it would spend every waking moment searching for the original. If and when the search was successful . . .”

Listening, Martin felt himself start to sweat.

Shael broadened his smile and spread his arms. “But should we worry about it? No! Anybody can come up with doomsday scenarios, but we're professionals here, and our safeguards are as good as they get. Worry is definitely unnecessary.”

Right, Martin thought. He had to worry. It was a necessary part of his job.

“I need to see Skinner in action,” he said.

“Of course,” Shael said. “We can do that right now.”

* * *

Martin wasn't prepared for what he saw. He watched in astonishment as person after person went into an innocuous little black booth and allowed Skinner to take control of their bodies and minds. There they stood frozen while Skinner pulled out their secrets, dismantled their very identities and obliterated every shred of self-deception.

A confident-looking female went in and came out shaken to the core after Skinner showed that her success in business was dependent on providing sexual favors to superiors, coupled with merciless back-stabbing of associates. An imposing man was revealed as a latent child molester. Another woman, heading toward middle-age and grossly overweight, emerged shrieking after Skinner exposed her as totally incompetent in her private life, neglecting her husband and children and addicted to incessant over-

eating. Two people had murders hidden in their backgrounds. Others only fantasized about it. Everyone had things to hide, but Skinner yanked them out in full view of the raucous audience.

This took place in a huge semicircular amphitheater spread out around the dome in which the action was contained. As David Shael had described, Skinner first created a physical replica of the person in the booth. Then it dug into the mind. The person's secrets, whether embarrassing, despicable, intimate, or just fantasies, even things the person couldn't admit to himself, were vividly enacted using the replica. The scenes unfolded like a realistic movie in which the replica was the main character. The dome magnified the action so that every detail was visible. A lot of that action was sexual: people making fools of themselves over sex, destroying their lives over sex. But sex that was far more ridiculous than erotic. Scenes rolled past of lust, cowardice, flagrant dishonesty, racism, degradation, hideous cruelty. Nothing was too disgusting or appalling for Skinner to display. A parade of humanity at its absolute worst.

And the crowd loved it. They cheered, shouted, occasionally watching in stony silence, then erupting with gleeful laughter. In the booth, under Skinner's control, the majority of the subjects found the process agonizing--their facial expressions were projected on an overhead screen--but the volunteers kept coming anyway. The volunteers puzzled Martin. A few might have been exhibitionists, as Shael had said, but surely not all of them. Did they think Skinner was a fake? Something that could be outsmarted?

Lots of different people, lots of different reasons. You'd sure never get me in there, Martin thought.

The parade continued. Martin felt sickened by much of what he saw, but was forced to admit it was perversely fascinating. He couldn't stop watching.

He began to notice other things. Skinner not only created a person's replica, but everything else needed for each scene, including people and complete settings, either indoor or outdoor. As a scene ended, the dome darkened, then brightened again with the setting for the next scene. Since these were presented in rough chronological order, the replica was modified to match the passage of time. When, finally, a person's session with Skinner ended, the dome again darkened so the destructor beam could remove

everything inside.

Including the replica.

Martin wondered about the ethics of this. Was an antimatter replica really a living, breathing person? If so, how could you justify creating such a being in the first place, just for the sake of amusement? And casually destroying it when no longer needed?

Of course, once created, the replica had to be destroyed. No question about that.

Not his problem to ponder, Martin knew. Moral concerns of creation and destruction were beyond the scope of his job. He had to concentrate on safety issues. Such as whether it was possible for a replica to ever get out of the dome.

Shael had said it wasn't. I have to make sure, Martin thought.

* * *

Martin stood inside the dome and looked around slowly. He had made them shut Skinner down for two hours. With the same attention to detail he applied to auditing, he went over every inch of the inside surface and couldn't find any way for a replica to escape before being destroyed by the beam. The dome was foot-thick, triple-reinforced superplastic, and nothing could get through that. Skinner did indeed look fool-proof.

If I were a replica, how would I get out? he asked himself.

Only one possible way: the same way he, Martin, got in. Through the door at the rear of the dome. It was near the blank wall containing the aperture through which the beam emerged. Not really a door, more like a small hinged flap in the superplastic. Only maintenance personnel used it. A person had to crouch and scramble through. The door locked automatically from the outside. You signaled for the guard to open it when ready to leave.

Martin looked at the aperture for the beam. He knew from careful observation that the beam didn't come anywhere close to the door on its first pass. Which meant a period of two, three seconds before the beam swung around again and finally hit that area.

He went over and examined the door. It fit almost invisibly into the superplastic and couldn't be seen from the audience. Was there no way to open it from the inside?

He squatted and felt around under the door. Nothing. He edged over a few inches. Still nothing.

But on the bottom right corner, just below the edge of the door, he found a small bump, maybe a type of button. He had noticed it before, but thought it was a defect in the superplastic. He pressed it--and the door swung open.

An emergency escape trigger. Within easy reach of anyone, including replicas.

A chill rippled through him. He thought: If a replica is fairly close to the door, and moves quickly when the beam first emerges, and presses the button, the replica can be outside before anyone knows what's happening.

He climbed out through the door, which swung shut behind him, and looked over toward the guard, who was staring into space. The guard finally glanced toward him. Martin gave him the thumbs-up sign. The guard grinned and returned the gesture.   

He had found the hidden flaw. Chances were tiny that it would ever be exploited. But the impossible had just become the merely improbable. It was an unacceptable risk that had to be removed.

* * *

“This is completely confidential,” Martin said. “Anything you say will not be repeated, at least not with your identity attached. So I hope you will be candid with me.”

He was talking to Peter Towson, who had been an engineer on the team that developed Skinner. Towson worked for Recreational Technologies, the company behind Skinner, and was on Volare 5 for only a few days. Martin had learned about him accidentally and thought it might be helpful to speak with the man.

“I'll tell you whatever you want to know,” Towson said.

“I'm concerned about Skinner's safety and the odds of one of the replicas escaping the dome and meeting up with its original.”

“I can't see that ever happening. Safety is pretty comprehensive.”

“But if it did?”

“Boom. Big explosion. Really big explosion, maybe planet-shattering. At least, that's what Recreational Technologies maintains.”

“You don't believe it?”

“I'm not sure believe is the right word. The conclusion is backed up by a lot of careful study, and I have no basis for saying it's wrong. But it's never been fully tested. A replica from Skinner has never actually made contact with an original, so what would happen if it ever did is really theoretical. Scary to think about, though.”

“You can't test because a successful test would ... destroy itself? And everything else around it?”

“So it appears.”

“Isn't that a huge risk to build into a game or sport?”

“Enormous.” Towson raised his eyebrows. “But a company like RT has a lot of competition. It has to come out with something new and advanced every couple of years, or face oblivion. Everything is developed under relentless pressure. Nobody likes it, but significant corners get cut in the process.”

“But why antimatter? Can't the replicas be created from something else?”

“What else? Holograms might work, but they wouldn't be nearly as realistic. Antimatter technology has become so commonplace that it's the easiest thing to use in an application like this. We've refined it to the point where volatility between two objects--one matter, the other antimatter--has been reduced to almost nothing. But replicas somehow don't behave the same way. We have absolutely no idea why.”

“Universal Identity Conflict.”

Towson smiled. “UIC? I've heard that term. RT probably invented it. All I want to say is that we may have stumbled into an area where we don't belong. We definitely don't understand it. Which means, at least to me, that we need to be very, very careful. Or maybe you need to be very careful--to make sure we are.”

“I'm trying,” Martin said.

* * *

Martin saw replica after replica go through its paces and vanish when a person's time with Skinner was over. Most replicas acted too bewildered to find their way out of their own footsteps, much less out of the dome, especially if they had to locate the button and dodge the beam at the same time. He had to concede that the possibility of an escape was extremely unlikely.

But still possible. So it had to be addressed.

Today, instead of relying on volunteers, Skinner was randomly skimming the audience with a spotlight. When the light stopped on someone, two gorgeous women in flowing gowns escorted the person to the booth. Although a few refused, most went willingly.

A plump middle-aged man came out of the booth yelling unintelligible things to the jeering crowd. Skinner had just shown him sexually abusing his daughter for twelve years until she committed suicide at the age of nineteen. The man seemed to be pathetically trying to explain, but the crowd didn't want to listen.

Martin glanced at his watch. He had a meeting with David Shael in half an hour. He rose to leave--and found the spotlight shining squarely on him. He made his way to the aisle, the light following him all the way. The two women appeared at his side, each firmly taking one of his arms.

“No,” he protested. “Please, I'm leaving. I have to go.”

The crowd was roaring, telling him to give himself to Skinner, and the two women murmured encouragement as well, guiding him toward the black booth. But it was totally out of the question. No way was he getting in that booth. The light was in his eyes, blinding him, and he found it hard to see where he was. He turned his head away, stumbled forward, recovered.

But he was now partly within the circle of light that encompassed the booth. And Skinner had him.

No longer able to move voluntarily, he was helpless as the smiling women led him the few additional feet to the booth and placed him inside. His mind was racing around like a terrified squirrel. He couldn't speak. Bodily movement, except for facial muscles, was impossible. He watched as the dome brightened.

And there he was, big as life, at age thirteen, in his old room at home, in bed, and . . . masturbating. He grimaced, and it flashed on the overhead screen. The crowd laughed.

Then there he was sometime later . . . masturbating.

And yet later . . . masturbating.

The crowd thought it hilarious. They laughed and laughed. Martin, a very private person, groaned inwardly, wanting to dissolve on the spot.

A few scenes after, the dome darkened and brightened again, and he was with Alicia Willis in his first person-to-person sexual contact. She was the most desirable girl in his neighborhood and two years older than Martin, who was shy and awkward. She got him alone one day, teased him until he was half-crazy, stripped him naked, and made him perform oral sex on her. He had done such things only in his fantasies, so required instruction every step of the way. Since Alicia obviously hadn't washed in a while, she

stank like death itself. She giggled derisively all through it, and when she'd had enough, she went home. Then she spread the story around that he'd begged for the privilege of doing her, but hadn't the slightest idea how. Living down that incident was a very difficult part of his adolescence.

And reliving it in front of several thousand amused strangers was hideously painful. But things only got worse.

His first marriage had been a disaster. His wife was a vindictive control freak who tried to dominate him in all areas. Growing hostility poisoned their sex life and made it, for him, a series of exercises in humiliation. His resentment colored everything he did and affected his work.

Skinner did a good job of graphically depicting all this.

A couple of scenes later, Skinner showed Martin going berserk. He smashed his fist into his wife's mouth, knocking out teeth and splattering blood about the room. Pulling her toward him, he kneed her in the stomach. He grinned as she crumbled to the floor.

Just fantasy! Martin screamed inside his head. It hadn't actually happened. He was not a violent person. Thoughts like that filled him with guilt, and the possibility of anyone believing they were real made him want to cringe. He couldn't, though, because the overhead screen would pick it up for all to see. With Skinner exposing everything else, he desperately wanted to keep at least his immediate emotions to himself.

Skinner moved on.

Martin had taken a bribe once. In a moment of weakness, he omitted a minor piece of malfeasance from a report in return for a small payment. No one ever found out, but remorse nearly suffocated him, and he would have died before doing it again. He would have died before telling anyone about it.

Skinner, however, laid it out in excruciating detail, shoving Martin deeper into his hole of anguish.

The torture went on and on and on. When it finally ended and Skinner released him, Martin didn't want to face anyone. He staggered out of the booth, hand covering his eyes, the crowd noise pounding in his ears. He moved away down the aisle and found the door that led to the hallway. Inside, he stood a moment with his back propped against the wall, fighting to gain control of himself. His thoughts were chaotic. Then he walked on toward David Shael's office.

* * *

Martin's replica watched as the dome darkened and the beam emerged from the aperture and began its methodical sweep of the area. The beam was hard to see, but it had a bluish tinge, and the replica knew he had to stay away from it. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. He dove to his left and rolled up against the dome, then crawled to the rear. Other things came bubbling up in his mind. There was a door back there. And a button that opened it. He moved forward, feeling for the button. He found it. He pushed the button, and the door swung open. Quickly, he slithered through and was outside. The door closed behind him. He stood up, looking toward the guard.

The guard was drinking something from a big cup. When he saw the replica, he put the cup down, clearly puzzled. The replica gave him the thumbs-up sign. Reassured, the guard nodded. The replica turned and walked away. The hallway was three doors to the left.

That's where the offices were.

The replica knew what he had to do.

There was someone he had to find.

* * *

“Remove the button?” David Shael's smile clicked off. “Why? There's no need for it! No replica is ever going to get out of that dome.”

“Whatever can happen will happen,” Martin said. “The button has to go.”

He was beginning to feel better. Much more focused. He wondered if the Skinner experience was actually therapeutic--all that buried guilt and inhibition forced out into the open, cleansing the psyche. He had been a total mess only minutes earlier. Now his confidence was returning and his spirits lifting. He hoped it would last.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble that would entail?” Shael leaned back in his chair, his eyes glittering. “Just getting approval would take a couple of months. Then all the procedures would have to be revised. Then I'd have to shut Skinner down for testing. Loss of revenue? Substantial. All to fix something that isn't broken. Look, maybe we can work this out. Okay? How about if you leave the button out of your report and--”

“No,” Martin said firmly, not interested in hearing the rest of that suggestion. “The button has to be removed. I know it's inconvenient. But it can't be helped. Too much at risk.”

Someone tapped on the door to the office, then pushed it open and stepped in. Martin turned his head to see who it was.

“Hello!” the replica tried to say.

But the UIC correction was already in progress, matter and antimatter particles ferociously obliterating each other, so the word didn't quite make it out.

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