Blindsight, page 39 by Peter Watts
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nown. Man, you showed them." He held his fist up and shook it, vicariously triumphant.
Showing them had become a cornerstone of Robert Paglino's life. He'd really made it work for him, too, overcome the handicap of a natural birth with retrofits and enhancements and sheer bloody-mindedness. In a world in which Humanity had become redundant in unprecedented numbers, we'd both retained the status of another age: working professional.
"So you're taking orders from a vamp," he said now. "Talk about fighting fire with fire."
"I guess it's practice. Until we run up against the real thing."
He laughed. I couldn't imagine why. But I smiled back anyway.
It was good to see him.
"So, what are they like?" Pag asked.
"Vampires? I don't know. Just met my first one yesterday."
"And?"
"Hard to read. Didn't even seem to be aware of his surroundings sometimes, he seemed to be... off in his own little world."
"He's aware all right. Those things are so fast it's scary. You know they can hold both aspects of a Necker cube in their heads at the same time?"
The term rang a bell. I subtitled, and saw the thumbnail of a familiar wireframe box:
Now I remembered: classic ambiguous illusion. Sometimes the shaded panel seemed to be in front, sometimes behind. The perspective flipped back and forth as you watched.
"You or I, we can only see it one way or the other," Pag was saying. "Vamps see it both ways at once. Do you have any idea what kind of an edge that gives 'em?"
"Not enough of one."
"Touché. But hey, not their fault neutral traits get fixed in small populations."
"I don't know if I'd call the Crucifix glitch neutral."
"It was at first. How many intersecting right angles do you see in nature?" He waved one dismissive hand. "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is they can do something that's neurologically impossible for us Humans