I INITIATED the process. Weak electrical signals reached the amygdala of the detainee. He twitched momentarily, his sinewy frame evident as he adjusted on his chair. Deep, somewhere inside his body, a few endocrine cells were stimulated. A powerful fluid diffused through his blood, alarming, tightening his vessels. The adrenaline set his heart to vibrate faster. Suddenly his eyelids opened to reveal bloodshot eyes.
“It is a panic reaction,” I said, breaking the silence as I looked over my shoulder at the handful of intelligence service recruits, who I was to train.
“A few years back a team of neuroscientists inserted electrodes in the brain of a depressed patient. These electrodes sent small electrical signals to the part of the brain responsible for joy, when they sensed low electrical activity in it. They called it the Brain Pacemaker. It was supposed to be a permanent cure for major affective disorders.” I continued.
“Help me please, someone, no…. no, please!” cried the detainee.
I pointed my finger to a region known as the anterior insula on the hologram vision of the brain scans of the detainee. It lighted up.
“This would bring him to a state of anticipatory worry.” I resumed after a pause, “The pacemaker though, was approved on ethical grounds.”
“What was unethical with that?” interrupted an inquiring intern.
I was not reluctant to answer, “The device, unlike anti-depressant drugs, was able to produce elation even in a normal individual and came sans side effects. They said that the super rich would abuse the technology to be in a constant state of happiness. A world where money would be able to buy happiness. The research was not allowed to meet the public eye and further development was abandoned.”
All of us carefully monitored the detainee. He seemed distracted, facial muscles tensed, despondent as if anxious of some unknown danger.
“We harnessed the technology, made it accessible, but changed the sites in the brain where the electrodes would be embedded. We can make him insane, in a state of mania. We can make him act furiously, make him feel what agony is.” I heard myself saying.
“But that is not ethical either,” protested a young intern.
“Ethics don’t work here. We work on instructions. This is Guantanamo Bay, 2035. You will soon learn. Class dismissed.” I said my usual lines.
