Author: Mary Lynne Schuster

“I’m stuck.”

“You’re not stuck. Just get up,” Dylan said, disgusted.

“I feel like I’m stuck,” Sara muttered. She knew she could just – get up. Stand up, get a shower, get dressed, get something to eat. Or do a dish. Just do it! she thought. But the thought drained all initiative. It was like all she wanted to do was sit in a stale bathrobe with a crusty ice cream bowl. She really didn’t. Without thinking, she stood. She wandered the house, dropped the sticky bowl in the sink, and then somehow found herself back on the couch.

What the hell, she thought. Just get up. But she could not remember why. She sat unmoving even when Dylan slammed out of the house.

***

Axlion adjusted the floating image of the human on the bridge of his ship. “The field is working,” he said. “When you try to force a human to do something, they fight it. But take away the motivation, just make them not feel like it, and they might as well be dead.”

“Excellent.” Baxilot studied the monitor screen. The human sat unmoving again. He’d been concerned when she stood a few moments ago, but that had been an impulse of the lower brain, a survival reflex. The higher voluntary functions were still affected by their field. It didn’t directly control the being, but firing just a few of their neurons one way or that managed the motivation and fear, and it turned out controlled behavior.

“Does it work for all humans?” he asked.

“No.” Axlion zoomed in to focus on an electrical impulse jumping between two synapses. “For most of the random samples, yes. But there are a few subcategories. Humans that have practiced not doing what they feel like doing – they have way more resistance.”

“But – why would any humans do that?” Baxilot asked. “That’s the one constant, they do what their electrical impulses and chemical reactions lead them to do. They hate discomfort, and will do many things, including putting themselves in more discomfort, to avoid it.”

“We are still learning.” He zoomed out again and they observed the human adult female. “Some can focus on a longer goal, and it is worth the discomfort. Often it is around competition. They will practice a physical skill to the point of being uncomfortable in order to do it better than another, or to better their own arbitrary measure.” They watched as their subject shifted as if to get up, and then sighed and leaned back again. “The more they fight against doing what they feel like, the stronger is their ability to do so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here – ” Axlion brought up another monitor, and showed a montage of humans running, leaping, dancing, throwing or catching projectiles, making tones with musical instruments, or lifting heavy things. “Look.” He zoomed in on a ballet dancer. She spun through the same movements again and again. “Look at her brain. She is exhausted, and in physical pain. The field slowed her, but then she went and talked to another human, and reprogrammed her brain! She used the words to create thoughts that reignited the neurons that she had strengthened when pushing through the discomfort, and the new pathways I was creating got pruned away.”

He zoomed out again, past the montage of athletes and musicians and scholars and soldiers, to a flowing river of people in every act of human living. “Fortunately for us, very few humans are at that level. Most will do exactly what they feel like doing, with as little effort as possible.”