The Belongers
an excerpt

“Susan,” Louanne asked, “How come lately we can’t have a single conversation without getting into a fight?”
“It’s this thing,” said Susan, rubbing beside her ear where her antenna lay, under her skin. “I know it is. It makes me into an idiot with certain people, and a bitch with you. That’s what it does.”
“That’s not exactly its function,” said Louanne doubtfully.
“Do you know what its function is?” asked Susan. “You said, it’s why you… don’t make friends. Why my friends are different with you than they are with me. How does it do that?”
“Well…” Susan rubbed her forehead and sat down again. “A friend of mine knows how it works better than I do. He looked up the patent.”
“You made a friend?” Susan exclaimed. She sat back down on the sofa. “So you can make friends.”
“Yeah. You know why? Because he doesn’t have it. Like me, his brain is virgin.”
Susan shook her head. “Wow,” she said. “OK, go on now. Tell me what you know about what this thing does.”
“OK,” said Louanne. “Well… one thing is that the antenna sends out a radio signal whenever you make eye contact with someone. But at the same time, it’s waiting to pick up the same signal from the other person’s antenna, when they make eye contact with you. If it gets a signal from the other person’s antenna, then the device stimulates your pleasure centre with electricity. Then you feel good from looking at that person, and you want to hang around with them and talk to them. If you don’t get the signal from the other person, there’s no pleasure centre stimulation, so you stop talking to that person and you go looking for another person who will make you feel that way you’re accustomed to.”
Susan was listening intently, her forehead creased. “But that doesn’t make sense. I mean, it doesn’t make sense that somebody would make a thing like that. People naturally want to relate to other people. They naturally feel good relating to other people. Right? You don’t need a thing in your head giving you a zap. Are you sure this is what it does?”
“Pretty sure,” said Louanne. “Like I said, Scott looked up the patent—he’s my friend—and it describes what the machine does. Plus, this explains… well, my whole life really. You’re right, of course, that people don’t need things in their heads to socialize. Left to their own devices, they do it anyway. But this way, you can control who socializes with whom. Can’t you?”
“But why?” asked Susan, clearly upset. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“We don’t know yet. I wish we did. We don’t know who did this, or why.”
“But…” Susan waved her hands in the air. “But surely… people can’t be controlled this way. I mean, even if this thing in my head isn’t giving me a zap, why can’t I enjoy socializing with someone? It’s instinctual. This thing should not be able to control me like that.”
“But it does,” said Louanne. “It does because pleasure is addictive, and stronger pleasure is more addictive than weaker pleasure. See what I mean? Yeah, maybe you could get some pleasure socializing with me… not that it seems to happen, but anyway… but the thing is it’s so much easier with someone else who’s got the brain enhancement, so why bother making extra effort to get less pleasure? No. You naturally go find someone who gives you bigger, easier pleasure. Who gives you that zap every single time you look at their face. It makes the whole thing so effortless, right? We human beings like effortless. We like it so much more than hard work, don’t we? That’s why we invented all those machines in the first place, and wrecked the environment. It was easier.”
Louanne stopped for breath. She wondered what had gotten into her. Surely she had never made such a long speech before. She felt so excited to have Susan there, listening intently to her for the first time in her life. Susan stared at her in consternation, her mouth open, her forehead wrinkled. Louanne would have liked to reach out and smooth away the creases and the tension that marred the pretty face. She felt a moment of tenderness towards Susan—her irritating, fat-mouthed cousin—she had never felt before.
“Susan,” she added, “have you ever heard of a Skinner box?”
Susan seemed not to quite hear this. “Well if that’s the way it is, I’m getting this damn thing out of my head.”

* * *

Susan walked swiftly down Sherbrooke St., heels clicking, fashionable black swing coat billowing. She caught a brief glance of herself in the plate glass window of a Holt Renfrew outlet and thought she looked pretty good. A piece of hair from the top of her head lifted in a gust of wind and stood on end, looking rather like an antenna. She pressed her lips together, turned away from the brief vision, and strode on.
A turn down Peel St., into an office building, a jog up three flights of stairs. She had to pause at the top of the stairs to catch her breath. She would have loved to take the elevator, but in this Brave New Enviro World, only the handicapped, injured, aged or pregnant were permitted. She allowed herself the usual burst of fury at the asshole treehuggers who had ruined the world for all normal people with normal priorities who just wanted to enjoy life. Then something Louanne had said flashed back at her. What was it again, something like, it’s because humans like things easy that they’re controlled by the devices in their heads, and that’s the same reason why they built lots of machines and wrecked the environment.
She shook her head. Don’t think about it, she told herself, and proceeded towards her doctor’s office. She had enough to deal with already without taking on new life philosophies and upending her usual view of things. Her life had been upended enough by the discovery that she had a piece of hardware in her head, implanted there without her permission.
She opened the door to her doctor’s office and walked to the little window where the receptionist peeped out at a roomful of bored people sprawled on cheap chairs reading magazines. “Hi, I have an appointment with Dr. Sherman at 12:30,” she droned, gazing at a painting across the wall. It was abstract: gorgeous swirls of royal blue highlighted by flecks of yellow and the occasional drip of red and black. Much more interesting than the receptionist, whom she’d always regarded as a helpful appliance installed in a chair behind the little window. There was no malice in her behaviour; it had never occurred to her to act otherwise. There was just something about the receptionist that was lacking. She faded into the background. Much like her cousin Louanne.
Louanne!
She swiftly turned back to the receptionist just as she was making a note on the schedule and saying, “Please have a seat. Dr. Sherman will be with you shortly.” The woman had long hair that covered her ears. “Oh. Thank you,” said Susan stupidly, gazing at the receptionist—she didn’t even know her name, even though she’d been coming here since childhood. Susan hoped that the receptionist would tuck her hair behind her right ear so that she could have a look. But even if she did, was the antenna something you could see? Maybe it was only something you could feel, and she could scarcely reach out and feel in front of the receptionist’s ear, or even ask permission to do so. She’d look a fool.
The receptionist looked at her curiously. “Are you all right?” she inquired.
An even bigger fool than she was looking right now. “Oh. No. I’m fine. Thank you.” She backed up slowly. “I’ll got sit down now,” she said with a smile and an embarrassed giggle, and felt her back hit something. She whirled around and discovered she’d backed all the way up into the man standing behind her, waiting to check in at the little window. “Sorry! Sorry.” She scurried into a seat and snatched up a magazine, holding it up to hide her suddenly-burning face.
Too bad she hadn’t looked at what sort of magazine it was. It was Sports Illustrated. Not a subject that interested her very much. Plus there was probably a hot babe in a bikini on the cover. She folded back the front cover to have a look. Yes, indeed there was.
I look better in a bikini, she thought haughtily, and flipped the magazine back open. She stared at the printed columns of text without reading them. Once she felt her face calm down, she’d go find a more interesting magazine. Maybe they’d have one of those ten pound Vogue tomes. She liked those: page after page of glossy advertisements, featuring women with their lips suggestively parted and their heads thrown back in the throes of makeup-, shoe- or lingerie-induced ecstasy. It was an almost sexual experience to read one, if you could call it reading.
Her face having achieved reasonable coolness, she tossed the Sports Illustrated aside and reached an arm towards a disorderly stack of magazines. Unfortunately, there were no Vogues. She settled for Canadian Living.
The nurse called her name some fifteen minutes later. She tossed aside the magazine with relief and followed her to the examining room.
Doctor Sherman entered the room a few minutes later. “Hello Susan,” she said. “It’s a bit early for your next appointment, isn’t it?”
She looked into his blue eyes and warm feeling suffused her. “It is, isn’t it?” she said with a laugh. “I wonder what I was thinking?”
He laughed as well. “You aren’t sick then?”
“No, absolutely not!” she stood up and approached him. “I feel completely fine. Why am I here?”
The doctor spread his arms apart, palms up.” I don’t know!” he said happily, his eyes twinkling at her, not at all upset or in any way seeming to feel as though she was wasting his time; simply happy to see her, Susan. And who wouldn’t be, after all? She was Susan, glorious Susan. God, it was good to be alive.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she trilled gaily, enjoying the absurdity of the situation and the pleasure of seeing her good friend Doctor Sherman once again.
“It is funny!” he laughed. “But it’s really nice to see you Susan.”
“You too!” she said. “You know, Doctor, your office could really use some Vogue magazines.”
“Oh my goodness, do we not have any?” Doctor Sherman grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll ask my receptionist to get some.”
“That would be fabulous,” sang out Susan, laying her hand on his upper arm. “Thanks so much, Doctor.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing I can do for you?” His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled.
“Noth—” Susan suddenly found herself looking away. She stared at the blank wall, heart pounding. When she realized what had happened to her, she felt the anger roar into her chest like a hot drink of soup. Her heart started beating faster. They did this to you, did this to you, did this to you, her heart seemed to be saying.
“There is something,” she said to the wall.
“Susan?” she heard the consternation in his voice.
Eyes on the wall, she told herself, eyes on the wall. It was too dangerous to look at his face, even just his jawbone or chin; the eyes were too close by. “Doctor,” she said to the white wall, “I would like my brain enhancement removed, if possible. If that is not possible, I would like it deactivated.”
“Susan, honey, what are you saying?” said Dr. Sherman sadly. “Why would you ask for such a thing?”