"Not necessarily.  It's possible, of course, but the action wasn't undertaken with your benefit solely in mind.  You got along well enough for a time, showed no self-destructive impulses and few other symptoms other than a persistent depression-normal enough for you, I might add.  Then, without any warning I could detect, you slashed your wrists in the privacy of your apartment.  You made no attempt to call for help."

"In the imagined privacy, apparently," I said.  I thought back, and finally turned to look at him.  He was sitting on the edge of his chair, hands clasped, elbows on knees.  His shoulders were hunched, as if to receive a lash across the back.  "I think I can pinpoint that one.  Was it when my handwriter malfunctioned?"

"You damaged some of its circuitry."

"Go on."

"Attempt number three was shortly afterward.  You tried to hang yourself.  Succeeded, actually, but you were observed this time by someone else.  After each of these attempts, I treated you with a simple drug that removes memories of the last several hours.  I gathered my data, returned you to your life as if nothing had happened, and continued to observe you at a level considerably above my normal functions.  For instance, it is forbidden for me to look into the private quarters of citizens without probable cause of a crime being committed.  I have violated that command in your case, and that of some others."

We are a very free society, especially in comparison to most societies of the past.  Government is small and weak.  Many of the instrumentalities of oppression have been gradually given over to machines-to the Central Computer-not without initial trepidation, and not without elaborate safeguards.  Things remain that way for the most persuasive of reasons:  it works.  It has been well over a century since civil libertarians have objected to much that has been proposed concerning the functions of the CC.  Big Brother is most definitely there, but only when we invite him in, and a century of living with him has convinced us all that he really does love us, that he really has only our best interests at heart.  It's in his goddam wiring, praise the lord.

Only it now seemed that it wasn't.  A fundamentalist would have hardly been more surprised than I if he heard, direct from Jesus, that the crucifixion had been a cheap parlor trick.

"Number four was more easily seen as the classic cry for help.  I decided it was time for different measures."

"Are you talking about the fight in the Blind Pig?"  I thought about it, and almost laughed.  Attacking Wales while she was in a drug-induced state of no inhibitions might not be quite as certain as a rope around the neck, but it was close.