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Peter Watts 268 Blindsight
"You saw them before Rorschach. Or at least," he continued,
"you saw something that scared you into blowing your cover, back
when you were spying on Isaac and Michelle."
My rage dissipated like air through a breach. "They—they
knew"
"Only Isaac, I think. And it kept it between it and the logs. I
suspect it didn't want to interfere with your noninterference
protocols—although I'll wager that was the last time you ever
caught the two of them in private, yes"
I didn't say anything.
"Did you think the official observer was somehow exempt from
observation" Cunningham asked after a while.
"No," I said softly. "I suppose not."
He nodded. "Have you seen any since I'm not talking about
run-of-the-mill TMS hallucinations. I mean scramblers. Have you
hallucinated any since you actually saw one in the flesh, since you
knew what they looked like"
I thought about it. "No."
He shook his head, some new opinion confirmed. "You really
are something, Keeton, you know that You don't lie to yourself
Even now, you don't know what you know."
"What are you talking about"
"You figured it out. From Rorschach's architecture, probably—
form follows function, yes Somehow you pieced together a fairly
good idea of what a scrambler looked like before anyone ever laid
eyes on them. Or at least—" He drew a breath; his cigarette flared
like an LED— "part of you did. Some collection of unconscious
modules working their asses off on your behalf. But they can't
show their work, can they You don't have conscious access to
those levels. So one part of the brain tries to tell another any way it
can. Passes notes under the table."
"Blindsight," I murmered. You just get a feeling of where to
reach...
"More like schizophrenia, except you saw pictures instead of
hearing voices. You saw pictures. And you still didn't
understand."
I blinked. "But how would I—I mean—"