Free The Mind-Riders by Brian Stableford Page A

exist. He didn’t say much and he didn’t have anything to contribute outside his job.
    The woman, who was introduced last despite etiquette, was called Maria Kenrian, and she was a psychotherapist. I’d expected it, but I was still resentful.
    â€œI don’t need a PT,” I told her, as we shook hands lightly—formally, like fighters touching gloves.
    â€œEverybody needs a PT,” said Valerian. “This is the twenty-first century.” That was an exaggeration. But for the most part, fighters did need psychotherapy. Sim boxing is something you do with your head and your head has to be in shape for it—not just the motor connections but all of it. The psych aspect is very important. But I thought I was exempt. I didn’t admit that I needed PT. I wanted to do it my way. And there was an extra reason that I had to be wary—on paper, Valerian would be paying Dr. Kenrian to help me win. But the real contract might be slightly different. She might be there to make me win his way. I wasn’t about to let any fancy mindbender turn me into a plastic imitation of Paul Herrera.
    I looked her over. She was in her thirties, with silvery hair curling under at the shoulders. Her face was crisp and hard—pretty, in a way, but pretty like glass or metal, not like flesh. She was an objet d’art, not a human being. She didn’t look particularly bothered by my attitude but it wasn’t exactly lust at first sight. The way she was looking at me I felt like an object too.
    â€œDr. Kenrian will be here to observe for some time each day until the end of the week,” said Valerian smoothly. “After that, you’ll fix up appointments between you when it’s deemed necessary. Either Curman will drive you into town to see her or she’ll come out here—it depends on the way she wants to handle the case.”
    I didn’t bother objecting to the word “case”. I just shrugged.
    We all moved to one side to look over the equipment.
    â€œIt’s all new and up-to-date,” said Valerian, “but you’ll be used to working with all types. There’ll be no adjustment difficulties. You start with a big advantage. Thanks to your work you’re virtually in full-time training.”
    I nodded, noting the slight note of irony in his voice. I’d been in training for eighteen years. I just hadn’t been allowed to apply it the way I wanted to.
    After a shade more preliminary chatter I got into the chair and allowed the techs to begin wiring me up. One of the techs maneuvered the headrest into position and adjusted the seat to fit the contours of my frame, while another began fitting the electroreceptor net over my skull. Each contact had to be made separately, and there were eight electrodes implanted in my skull—four afferent, four efferent. Each one, of course, could carry a vast number of coded impulse-sequences simultaneously—the actual number of organo-metallic synapses was something on the order of sixteen million. Adjusting the set to my convenience was a long drawn-out task, initially. The techs had a lot of very accurate measuring and calibration to do. At the studio I could get loaded up in a matter of minutes, because my personal data was on file, but this was a new ball-game and they were doing a thorough job. There was a little pain. Don’t ever let them tell you that having your head wired for cyborg-symbiosis is the easiest passport to an exciting new career. It hurts.
    I noticed that Maria Kenrian was hitching up to one of the E-link receivers. Wolff didn’t bother—he just wanted to see how the sim was handling. The receiver, of course, had no direct contacts because the resonance induction works across the skull bones, so she was ready long before I was. She wasn’t getting anything through, though, because the sim image has to be called up and integrated before the circuit is complete and the miracle of