Tailored Realities, page 9
“I can’t believe you even wanted to eat one of those!” Zhi said. “I could never.”
“Well, I’m not generally known for my decision-making aptitude,” Rod said.
“Nonsense! You’re here, aren’t you?”
That’s good marketing, Baraka thought, reassessing. Maybe she’s got a business-focused brain. The Hu-Gou?
“We just want to do this right,” Rod said. “For our kid. We want the perfect brain.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Zhi said.
Baraka frowned. “You can’t? But, I mean, this is a brain dump.”
“We at Crescendo prefer to call it the showroom,” Zhi said with a laugh. “But what I meant is that there is no perfect brain.” She turned and gestured to the holographic brain hovering above the first counter. The décor was sleek, stylishly simple. Nothing to distract from the holograms.
“It’s a common mistake,” Zhi said. “We all have intentional brain architecture these days—or, well, most everyone does! But intentional doesn’t mean perfect, though it can be perfect for you!
“There’s an old myth that humans only use a small portion of their brain capacity. That’s never been true—every cell and every neuron is important. No designer, no matter how skilled, can create a brain that’s good at everything. So for your child, we have to ask ourselves what you most value—what you want the little one’s strengths to be.”
“That makes sense,” Rod said, glancing at Baraka. He noticed her frown— he usually did—and nudged her. “What are you thinking, Bara?”
“If there aren’t any perfect brains,” she asked, “does that mean that each of these is going to be bad at something?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Zhi said. “Now, our designer brains are top of the line, the best. Don’t mistake me. Your child is going to have incredible capacity and endless potential. But with the enhancements to most capacities will come a slight disendowment in others.”
She gestured at the brain beside them again. “The Delphi,” she said proudly. “Designed by Kublo Noratami, based on the brains of the most genius painters of our times. A child born with this brain architecture has a three thousand percent higher chance of becoming a master artist than children born with a natural brain. It also includes above-average computational skills, giving a high likelihood of aptitude in mathematics. It is one of our most popular architectures.”
“Three thousand?” Rod said. “Wow.” He nudged Baraka again. “What?”
“It has a weakness, though, right?” Baraka asked.
“Some mild disendowments in interpersonal skills,” Zhi admitted. “Though the enhancements to personal discipline and individualism will ensure that the child is quite adept at working on their own. And it is very common for a little eccentricity to accompany an artist anyway—so this is basically a feature. Who doesn’t love the idea of a quirky genius with a different way of seeing the world?”
Good marketing, Baraka thought again.
Rod rubbed his chin. “Don’t much like the idea of a kid I can’t talk to.”
“Oh, you’ll be able to talk to him, Rod,” Zhi promised. “Don’t worry about that. But come, we have seventeen different architectures for the choosing, each designed by one of the best brain architects alive.”
She strolled them along, showing off several more. A charismatic model, which Zhi promised would make their child “six thousand percent more likely to achieve success in politics.” That one came with the weakness of an impatient, sometimes argumentative attitude. “Just like you’d expect!” Zhi exclaimed.
The next was a science-focused brain, patterned after the mind of Kat Gutritch, the woman who pioneered brain architecture. It was Crescendo’s biggest claim to fame, giving them an advantage over the other seven major companies selling architectures.
“You keep mentioning percentages,” Rod said, waving at the science-focused brain. “So … are there people with this brain who don’t become scientists?”
“Great question, Rod!” Zhi said. “There are, actually. Nothing is guaranteed. Your child will have their own personality. We don’t want everyone to be clones! These architectures set a child up for success, but the individual has to make their own choices.
“That said, I assure you, any children born with our architectures have a very high rate of excellence. Now, you really need to see the DiMaggio—a brain optimized for sports performance. Did you know that Donny Tin has one of these?”
“Tin the Bin?” Rod’s eyes lit up. “Really? You’re kidding me. I have his jersey. It’s even digitally signed!”
Baraka smiled. She’d known this one was coming; it was why she’d steered him to Crescendo first. In fact, she’d read about most of what Zhi was saying; Baraka had probably been a little too zealous in her research, if she was honest. She just hated going into experiences feeling foolish, and if she researched first, she picked it up faster in person.
Rod, though, liked to dive straight in or ask experts. Reading had never really been his thing.
“… has a seven thousand percent greater chance of playing professional sports than a natural brain,” Zhi finished, gesturing to the DiMaggio with a flourish.
“Seven thousand,” Rod breathed.
“Indeed!”
“So … what’s the weakness?” he asked.
“Math,” Baraka said. “I read about it.” It seemed silly, in retrospect, not to have guessed that they’d all have weaknesses. Everybody had their hang-ups. She’d just assumed that if you went with the best—if you came to Crescendo—well … you wouldn’t have to worry about that.
“If that’s the case,” Rod said, “the kid would fit in well at our home, eh?”
They continued to the next display, though Baraka’s eyes lingered on the DiMaggio, its hologram rotating slowly, so complex and full of lights. That was the one Rod would want to pick, and she was inclined to agree.
But the cost …
“This is the Boardroom,” Zhi said, gesturing at the next hovering brain. “An architecture optimized for interpersonal skills, leadership, and teamwork. The CEO of this very company has a Boardroom brain. The architecture is one of the very best for exceptional business acumen.”
“What’s the weakness, then?” Rod asked. “Bad water-cooler jokes?”
“Well, those are an optional extra! No, the Boardroom has a slight disendowment of individualism and ambition.”
“Downgraded ambition?” Baraka asked. “For a business-focused brain?”
“It’s actually an advantage,” Zhi said. “Though we often talk about the ruggedly individualistic entrepreneur, those types burn out quickly—and their great deeds can often be traced to more levelheaded executives beneath them. Ask any manager, and they’ll tell you: it’s better to have people who work well in groups with modest ambition than ones who want to tear the place up and make themselves famous.”
Rod smiled. “I like how you do that.”
“Oh?” Zhi said. “How I do what?”
“How you make every weakness sound like it’s this great thing.” He pointed at Baraka. “Sounds like the things you write.”
“I’m in marketing,” Baraka explained. “I’ve been admiring your showmanship.”
“It can be a bit much, can’t it?” Zhi said, leaning in. “I’ll admit, we’re fed most of these lines. But brain architectures are like life itself—you have to take what you’re given and put the best spin on it you can.”
Baraka cocked her head. That felt more candid than the other things Zhi had said. Like they were seeing through her mask a little. “That’s your brain, isn’t it?” Baraka said, pointing at the hologram. “You have a Boardroom.”
As soon as she said it, Baraka was immediately embarrassed by blurting it out like that. Where was her tact?
Zhi blushed. Another glimpse past the mask. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m surprised you guessed! I have an earlier design, of course. All of our architectures are updated each year.”
“But you’re not a CEO,” Rod said with a frown. “You’re just a…”
Oh, Rod, Baraka thought, squeezing his hand. He cut himself off, but not before Zhi blushed again.
“We can’t all be CEOs,” she said. “I mean, I’ve got a very good job. I get to work with people like you, Rod!”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by—”
“No, no. I didn’t take anything from it. Come on, let me show you the re-creator, where we can look at what your child might be like.”
She tried to usher them to a station by the wall, but Baraka remained in place, looking back along the lines of brains. When she realized they were waiting for her, though, she felt anxious and hurried to catch up.
“You’re thinking something,” Rod said, taking her hand.
“I shouldn’t ask it.”
“I want to hear. Go on.”
“Any question is fine,” Zhi promised as they reached a station with a monitor at the side of the room.
“Well, I was just wondering,” Baraka said. “What’s the actual chance our child becomes a professional player, if they had that brain back there? The sports one?”
“DiMaggio,” Rod said.
“Right, the DiMaggio.”
“Seven thousand percent greater,” Zhi said, perking up.
“You’d have heard that if you were listening,” Rod said, giving Baraka a playful poke. “Now what’s this re-creator thing?”
“Well, it—”
“But what’s the actual percentage?” Baraka asked. They both looked at her, and she blushed to have interrupted. But she took a deep breath and continued. “The actual percentage of becoming a professional player? Seven thousand percent higher than normal makes … what? How likely is that in real numbers?”
Rod laughed. “That sounds like math.”
“You don’t have to answer,” Baraka said, “if you don’t know. I realize it’s probably not included in the marketing material—”
“I know,” Zhi said quietly. “I looked it up. You’re right, it’s not exactly part of the pitch. Point zero four percent.”
“Four percent?” Rod said.
“No, point zero four,” Zhi said. “Just under one-half of one-tenth of one percent. That’s how many DiMaggios go pro.”
Rod blinked.
“It’s better than it sounds,” Zhi explained quickly. “Really, considering how few professional sports players there are—and how many people there are in the country—a child’s chances are infinitesimal without proper brain architecture.”
“Just like it’s not that likely someone with the Boardroom becomes CEO of a powerful company,” Baraka said.
“Not that likely,” Zhi agreed, “but it’s still far better than trying to make it without the right brain architecture. Isn’t this about making the best life for your child?”
“The best chance of the best life,” Baraka said.
“Exactly.”
“I just thought,” Baraka said, “with the cost being so high…”
“But it’s not high,” Zhi said. “It’s free.”
“For us.”
No, she and Rod wouldn’t pay for the brain—but the child would owe 25 percent of their lifetime earnings, after age thirty, to the company. Crescendo had the highest cut of all the architecture companies. That was the price one paid for the best designer brains in the world.
“You can’t look only at the mega-success stories,” Zhi said. “Yes, very few DiMaggios become professional sports players—but their brains are geared for physical conditioning, training, and self-moderation. You’d be surprised how many become models, bodybuilders, or even religious officials. Repeated studies have shown that the average Crescendo brain outearns the competition, even after the cut is factored in.”
That was an excellent marketing pitch, but Baraka could see the holes. You could squeeze a lot of mileage out of words like “average” and “studies.”
Baraka met Zhi’s eyelinered gaze. “And you? How do you feel about it?”
Zhi glanced around. Then, oddly, she smiled. “Honestly,” she said softly, “it sucks. Average earnings don’t mean a lot when you’re stuck on the wrong side of the bell curve, staring up the slope without a ladder.
“I had to apply for government relief and was released from my contract—but after that, nobody else would take me on. Who wants the woman who was given a designer brain, then ‘squandered’ it? Two years later, I had to come to Crescendo to get a job at all. They took me on because it looked bad to have Boardrooms on welfare. But … you know.”
Rod looked between the two of them. “So … you’re telling us not to go forward with this?”
“Of course not,” Zhi said. “The statistics are solid. Your child is more likely, on average, to be successful with our brains than with any other brain. The cut taken is specifically designed to make certain that remains the case.”
“But?” Baraka urged.
“Well,” Zhi admitted, “sometimes it seems like the only way to be sure to win in this system is to own the architecture, you know? Individuals, we can roll the dice and still flop. But if you’re the house, you get a cut from every winning hand. Just … pretend I didn’t say that, all right? I could get in so much trouble…” She gestured at a screen in front of them. “If you don’t mind? This might help you understand. It does a quick scan of your own architectures and gives us the percentage chances of your child achieving various milestones.”
Brain scans being as common as they were, it didn’t seem like too much to ask. Zhi ran the calculations while Baraka stood, thinking.
“This projection is going to be embarrassing, isn’t it?” Rod joked. “With a couple of naturals like us? No fancy architecture.”
“Oh, it’s a little embarrassing for everyone,” Zhi said, smiling. “A lot of people with designer brains assume their children will naturally inherit their skills, but genetics has a way of muddying things. It’s showroom policy to do this with everyone, so we can persuade them to re-up for their children, rather than just going natural once they have one of our brains themselves. After we show them how low the percentages are if they leave everything to chance, they are usually eager to jump back in. It’s really quite…”
She trailed off.
“What?” Baraka said, crowding in to see the monitor.
“That bad?” Rod said with a chuckle.
“Not that,” Zhi said. “I mean, yes, it’s kind of horrible—no offense. These are amazingly low percentages, but … look. Here, I’ll make it easier.”
The screen showed how much less likely a possible offspring was to have various high-status jobs using natural genetics as opposed to an architecture. Again, the company obfuscated the actual percentages—working in multipliers.
But Zhi hit a button, showing the raw numbers with a percentage chance for each achievement. And … they were almost identical. CEO, professional sports player, Nobel Prize–winning scientist, acclaimed artist—all the same number, the same chance.
“It’s just kind of amusing,” Zhi said. “It doesn’t really mean anything, but isn’t it odd that all the chances are equal for your potential child? I’ve never seen that happen.”
“All I see,” Rod said, “is a kid with no weaknesses.”
Zhi chuckled. “That’s not true, Rod. I mean, they might technically not be weak at any specific thing—but that’s because in raw numbers, they’d still be bad at everything.”
“Just spinning it like you two do. Making the best of things.” He laughed. “Why are we even doing this? We all know I’m going to want the DiMaggio. Kid doesn’t have to be a pro. So long as he can hit a ball, I’ll be happy. What do you think, Bara?”
She was staring at those numbers on the screen and thinking about what Rod had said.
No weaknesses. Yes, it was just spin, just a way of talking, but … that was the way the world worked—at least the corporate world. And if everyone else was using the same language, then there was a chance that …
She looked at Zhi. The saleswoman’s eyes opened wider at her expression.
“What if,” Baraka said, “we were to help build you a ladder, Zhi?”
* * *
“Welcome to Top Row Architectures,” the well-dressed salesman said, shaking Joan’s hand eagerly. “I’m Geoff. You are?”
“Joan,” she said, then glanced at her husband. “And Vuillaume. We’re really just browsing.”
“Of course, of course,” Geoff said, waving them into the showroom—which, oddly, had only a single display.
“Only one?” Vuillaume asked. “The others had dozens.”
“I see you’re a smart man,” Geoff said with a grin. “Doing your homework, visiting all the showrooms. Great! Because now you have something to compare against.”
Joan hesitantly entered the showroom. “One brain.”
“We only need one,” Geoff said, still grinning. “Though I understand why you might be skeptical. Yes, we’re new. But that’s what you want out of an architecture company—the young, visionary pioneers! After all, our company is the natural evolution of brain architecting. This brain here is our CEO’s personal concept, and you know, she has a Crescendo brain.”
“Crescendo,” Vuillaume said. “They’re the best.”
“They were the best,” Geoff said. He tapped his temple, winking. “Just think about it. Who is going to sell you the better product? The people who designed the first brains, or the updated brain they designed to be better than they are?” He gestured to the holodisplay with a flourish. “Behold, the pinnacle mind of our time. Perfection: the world’s first brain architecture with no weaknesses…”
POSTSCRIPT
This is one of those stories that came from a single prompt: designer brains. I had the idea for that concept and mulled it around in my own (nondesigner) brain for a time until one day, we went shopping for a new phone. My wife likes iPhones, and we ended up in the Apple Store—where, while she shopped around for phones, I spent the time thinking about an Apple Store for brains.
