Black Mirror

Mm-hmm.

-Hi. -Hey.

Tours begin at 11. You're the first in line. Could be a busy day.

Road seemed pretty empty.

Nice accent. You from Australia?

No, I'm from Britain.

So you got one of those crazy British names? Esmeralda or, uh...?

I'm Nish.

-Nish? -Nish.

Well, I can't judge. My name's ridiculous.

Rolo Haynes. Owner. Proprietor.

Well, just us two this morning. You sure you wanna do this?

-This place ain't for the faint-hearted. -I'm sure I can handle it.

Not everyone can.

So, I have to peek in your little sack there if that's OK.

-Ah. That's OK. -Can't trust anyone these days.

If you could step through there.

Anything metal, put it in here.

Cool.

-Mm-hmm. -Mm. Dinky.

Oh, yeah. I call it fun size.

Fun size. I like that.

Guessing you had a gut full of this security shit at the airport.

Our immigration guys are pretty tight these days.

All clear?

OK.

Show on the road.

So, you on vacation?

-Sort of. My dad lives out here. -Uh-huh.

It's his birthday, so my mom just wants to surprise him.

And you're the surprise?

Hmm, part of it, I guess.

-Where'd you fly in? -Salt Lake.

You came here from Salt Lake?

Yeah, I thought it'd be nice to drive the back route,

but I underestimated the--

Heck of a trip for a girl on her own.

-I don't mean to get old-fashioned on you. -Seriously?

That is quite old-fashioned.

It's hot as hell in here.

AC must've shit the bed.

Sorry for the heat.

Goddamn digital systems.

Never trust a guy in tech. Jesus, I should know that.

So what is all this stuff?

Authentic criminological artifacts.

If it did something bad, chances are it's in here.

Take a look around, take your time, see what pops out at you.

Anything piques your interest, I can tell you all about it.

There's a sad, sick story behind most everything here.

Just like our main attraction just through there.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

A lot of folks just rush behind the curtain,

hardly even eyeball this stuff,

and then it's a bunch of one-star ratings on Trip-fucker and before you know it--

Yo, look, I am not in a rush, so don't worry.

Well, then, take your time.

I shall.

-This stuff looks techie. -Well, neuro tech was my background.

Sweet.

So, what's this, then? Looks like a hairdressing thing.

Actually, that was one of my very first souvenirs.

Sheds a little light on how our main exhibit came to be.

-What is it? -You heard of Peter Dawson?

-Mnh-mnh. -Dr. Peter Dawson?

Well, usually I say this is Dawson's Symphatic Diagnoser,

and folks shriek, "No way," and I'm like, "Oh, it very much is."

"How the heck did you get that?" is the next question.

-OK. -My domain was med tech.

I worked out of St. Juniper's. It's kind of like a university hospital.

Sweet setup. Part of the Land Act, actually.

It was in downtown New York, big old building.

Research up top,

emergency room and the great unwashed down at street level.

It was the perfect mix of business and health care.

-Seriously? -Out of the way, asshole!

Idea was folks with no coverage signed up for free health care

in exchange for consenting to occasional experimental treatments.

I... I... I worked for the guys up top.

What, like a scientist?

I was more sort of... recruitment.

-Yeah, yeah, I'm here. -Clear.

Shocking.

-No. -No?

-No. -OK, I'm going again. Clear. Clear!

Shocking.

No.

If I'd known she was on tricyclics, I would have nudged the dose.

You couldn't have known.

This a bad time?

Rolo Haynes from the tenth floor.

Seems you've been having some problems.

I think I got something that can help.

The big thing they're into is neuro technics.

Pioneering brain enhancements.

Neural interfaces.

All that fun stuff.

The holy grail they've been aiming for is a way to transfer knowledge.

So one of the teams here is working on an experiment,

trying to find a way to beam information from one brain to another.

This is Kenny.

This is Hector.

Stay with me on this.

So, the experiment.

They built a little maze and they drop Kenny here into it

and he runs round over and over for months on end

till he knows it like a childhood home.

And then... they put this on him.

It's a transmitter,

absorbing signals from Kenny's brain

which were sent to Hector over here.

Hector had our prototype synaptic receiver fitted.

Now, remember, Hector had never even set paw in the maze.

Plan was he'd now receive Kenny's knowledge of the maze layout

and, boom, he'd be able to solve it, first time.

-And did he? -No.

Scrabbled around like a rat, fucking imbecile.

So, um, why are you telling me this?

Because just as it becomes clear that the maze thing's a bust,

one of our researchers spills his coffee on Kenny.

Hot coffee spills all over Kenny, so obviously he's squealing like hell,

but so is Hector.

Turns out, we haven't discovered how to share knowledge...

-But physical sensations. -Bingo.

That's nuts. Holy shit.

And even nutsier shit,

Hector felt the burn, but took no damage at all.

All of the experience, none of the physical cost.

But how did he die?

They cut him open after to see if he was OK.

Oh.

Anyhow, thanks to Hector's sacrifice, we prototyped this.

A receiver for human experiences.

A neural implant. Only one of its kind.

This is why you brought me up here.

What's the biggest pain in the ass with patients?

Finding out what's wrong with them in the first place.

Half of the assholes that roll in here can't even describe their symptoms.

They're-- They're out cold or concussed or drunk or dumb

or... two years old, or they can't speak English.

Imagine if you could feel exactly what a patient feels,

minus the physical consequences.

Like reading their minds.

So what do you say?

Gotta hand it to Dawson, he lept at the chance.

Like, he was happy to do it.

And it was only a short procedure.

Irreversible, but, hey, he was a pioneer.

Plus, his mortality rates were in the toilet,

so this was his best shot at redemption.

Does it hurt if I touch it?

I don't think so.

There's something kinda kinky about it.

It's like the ultimate piercing.

If you're trying to make me feel better, it's working.

Time for the trial run.

So this is where our hairnet doohickey comes into play.

Theory was, if you slipped it on a willing subject,

it'd absorb their physical sensations and relay them to Dawson's implant.

We just had to find out if it worked.

Ow.

This one.

Houston, we got a miracle.

Right off the bat,

Dawson gets to work with the ailing public,

starts building up a kind of mental library of physical symptoms.

Plan was, he'd get to know how things felt so that he could diagnose them quicker.

So, starts small in the ER, minor fractures, that sort of thing.

Soon graduates to bigger stuff.

Major injuries. Diseases.

Late-stage terminal stuff.

Dawson grit his teeth and went through it all.

Say a kid comes in obviously in pain.

Doctors suspect appendicitis, they'd hook him up to Dawson just to be sure.

Dawson had felt appendicitis many times by now,

so he knows if it's something more.

Caught things they weren't even looking for.

Blastomas and so on.

Good luck, man.

That man saved lives, no doubt about it.

-Good luck, huh? -Bye.

-Stay in touch. Bye-bye. -Bye.

That was nice.

And, incidentally,

if you'll allow me to be crude,

Dawson's symphatic diagnoser came in handy in the bedroom.

His implant received pleasurable sensations, too.

So if his girlfriend slipped on that transmitting blue hairnet

and he tuned in his little implant nubbin...

he didn't just feel what he was feeling...

-I'm gonna come! -...but also felt what she was feeling.

Son of a bitch was experiencing male and female orgasms at the same time.

Oh, my... Oh, my... Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, shit.

I can't get enough of your...

But?

-I'm sorry? -Dawson's having a great time.

-There's gotta be a "but." -Oh.

He's having a great time, but...

But...