PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 267 Blindsight
Something knotted below my diaphragm. "Who isn't? Who
doesn't—try to fit in, who doesn't want to get along? There's
nothing malicious about that. I'm a synthesist, for God's sake! I
never manipulate the variables."
"Well you see, that's the problem. It's not just variables you're
manipulating."
Smoke writhed between us.
"But I guess you can't really understand that, can you." He stood
and waved a hand. ConSensus windows imploded at his side.
"Not your fault, really. You can't blame someone for the way
they're wired."
"Give me a fucking break," I snarled.
His dead face showed nothing.
That, too, had slipped out before I could stop it—and after that
came the flood: "You put so much fucking stock in that. You and
your empathy. And maybe I am just some kind of imposter but
most people would swear I'd worn their very souls. I don't need
that shit, you don't have to feel motives to deduce them, it's better if
you can't, it keeps you—"
"Dispassionate?" Cunningham smiled faintly.
"Maybe your empathy's just a comforting lie, you ever think of
that? Maybe you think you know how the other person feels but
you're only feeling yourself, maybe you're even worse than me. Or
maybe we're all just guessing. Maybe the only difference is that I
don't lie to myself about it."
"Do they look the way you imagined?" he asked.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"The scramblers. Multijointed arms from a central mass.
Sounds rather similar to me."
He'd been into Szpindel's archives.
"I—Not really," I said. "The arms are more—flexible, in real
life. More segmented. And I never really got a look at the body.
What does that have to do with—"
"Close, though, wasn't it? Same size, same general body plan."
"So what?"
"Why didn't you report it?"
"I did. Isaac said it was just TMS. From Rorschach."