Under his prone body, Jack cradled a sliver of the glass and plastic material that formed his prison walls. A thin piece of it had been used to form a small shelf near the toilet. He had shattered it with his elbow and hidden a shard before the Experimenter came in to clean. Later, he had ripped up one of his shirts in what he hoped passed as a show of defiance. He had secreted a strip of it, which was wrapped around one end of the sliver to protect his hand.
Now, the time had come for him to try his homemade weapon.
Jack laid motionless, his ears straining for the sound of approaching footsteps, the soft thud of the door bolt being thrown. But there was nothing. Was his breathing right? Should he be panting? Taking in long, deep lungsful? Did this drug make people twitch? Toss and turn? Should he be rambling in his unconscious state?
Hope deserted him. How could he possibly deceive the Experimenter when he didn’t know how to act? Would his captor be enraged by this deceit? Could he possibly make the pain any worse? Jack thought not, because he had been near the point of unconsciousness before. But even if the man couldn’t increase the pain, he could make it go on for hours, perhaps days. He’d die, screaming in agony.
The door to the room opened. Jack wanted to jump up and beg for forgiveness. The urge was overwhelming. He couldn’t win, so why not make his end as peaceful as he could?
But the feeling passed. He had to fight back, if given the chance. So, he laid motionless, trying to control his breathing, as the adrenaline in his blood had accelerated his heart to the point of bursting from his chest.
The door to his cage opened. A second wave of energy infused his body. The drumming of his heart in his ears became deafening. His hands grew sweaty around the makeshift handle to the shank. His muscles trembled in anticipation.
Jack could hear wheels on the mat, as the Experimenter pushed the chair into his cage. Then, the rustle of straps against metal came to his ears as it was laid behind him. The Experimenter was close. The sound of his breathing was just inches from Jack’s ear.
“Time for a little more work, Number 4?” the man asked.
Jack spun out of his fetal position, raising into a crouch facing the Experimenter. He held the shank firmly in his right hand near his shoulder, his arm poised to strike.
The Experimenter gasped. His eyes grew wide in shock, then terror. He scrambled backwards, falling over the wheelchair. As he rose to flee, Jack drove the shank deep into the man’s calf. The Experimenter fell to the floor, holding his leg and screaming in pain.
The man looked up at Jack from the floor, his body trembling. His breath came in short rasps between sobs. “No, please. Don’t hurt me. I’ll let you go.”
Jack didn’t believe it, but the words produced a moment of indecision, and he glanced away.
The Experimenter pushed himself from the floor and lunged toward the door. Jack leapt forward, driving the shank into the back of the other leg. The Experimenter collapsed. He began dragging himself forward with his arms, moaning as the pool of blood grew in his wake.
After a few feet, the Experimenter rolled over, his chest heaving in pain and exhaustion. “Every door between you and freedom is locked. You’ll never get out of here alive,” he hissed.
“And neither will you,” said Jack, his voice calm, cold. He drove the shank into the man’s stomach, blood pouring over the front of his white shirt. “You’ll die here suffering. And I’ll enjoy every moment of it.”
Jack shot bolt upright on the floor, the dream slowly fading from his mind. It had come again. It was the fantasy that had sustained him during the first hours of torture. It was the illusion that had visited him over and over in the fitful hours of sleep in those first, few days. But it had been some time since the dream had come, and he wondered if this time would be the last.
Jack wondered that because something had started to change inside of him, inside his head. The memory of the agony remained, of course, but the sessions in the other room had become…what, satisfying? He craved them. They left him feeling calm, confident, almost invincible, even though he was shackled, left helpless in a chair.
But that was not the only thing that was changing. Like most people, he could picture things in his mind. And like most, when he thought, it was like he was talking to himself. But in the last few days, he didn’t have a voice and a picture. He had two. And while these inner worlds could be and often were different, they also seemed to know about each other. If one was thinking about strangling the Experimenter and the other about the marvels of this mind-multiplying technology, the latter might suggest some questions before the former finished the deed.
Slowly, these aberrations started to feel like a metamorphosis, as if the device in the next room had awakened an ability that was his, but that had long laid dormant within him. Tasks that the Experimenter posed that were nearly impossible at first – evaluate this syllogism, rotate this 3D line drawing in your head, solve this analogy – became easy, and he was doing two of them at the same time. Or two different things. Even math, which had not come readily to Jack, now seemed simple.
And while the voices sometimes bickered, there was one thing about which they always agreed. Whatever the Experimenter was doing to him, it was making him smarter, more focused, more of a man.
Jack heard the thud of the door bolt being shoved open. The Experimenter walked into the residence, pushing the wheelchair in front of him. A man he knew only as Subject 5 sat in it, unconscious, a familiar cap on his head.
Jack stood up and walked to the edge of the cage. He looked out through the glass walls. “Do you have something for me to drink?” he asked.
The Experimenter smiled and pulled a sealed container of orange juice from his pocket. “I do. And I think you’ll really enjoy this.”
✽ ✽ ✽
“That’s it,” I said, closing the application running on the computer. The last chart disappeared from the screen.
“Everything I’ve looked at so far – accuracy by position in the list, speed by position, the type of errors made, and so on – it all suggests the same thing. A.T. had two voices, two streams of consciousness in his head. They develop separately at first, then start working together. By the end of the study, he could put information into rehearsal on one side, while the other looks for a mnemonic – a trick or pattern to help him remember. And since the Blocker increases left-side functions like math ability and mental manipulation, then forming unique memory tricks on-the-fly may not be that hard for him. In the end, he’s recalling some of the numbers from mnemonics he created and some from rehearsal. Well?”
Silence descended on the room. Sue sat drumming a couple fingers on her lips, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. Nicole twirled a strand of hair around her finger, her eyes off toward the corner of the room.
“Unbelievable,” said Nicole, breaking the silence after several moments. “How comfortable are you with these conclusions?”
“Worthington told us from the start that there were two hemispheres at work, and that preconception might have influenced me. But there is one thing that won’t change.”
“The fact that his behavior is different from everyone else in the world?” asked Sue.
I nodded. “There’s no mistaking that fact.”
“So, no one has found anything like this before?” asked Nicole. “Maybe something from the split-brain studies?”
“Not that I know of,” said Sue, turning to me.
“Me either,” I said. “But there are some cases that show how the sides of the brain can work separately and then coordinate later. You remember the movie, Rain Man?”
“Sure, with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise,” said Nicole.
“Right. It’s based on the savant, Kim Peek, whose name came up when I was researching hemisphere differences. Peek’s hemispheres were separate and evidently, he could read two pages of a book at the same time, one with each eye. But when he recalled the story, his brain reassembled it. It’s not the same, but there are par
allels in the way his sides worked independently, but with something else to pull it all together.”
“All I can say, Doc, is that you’re forgiven for being late to this meeting,” said Sue, grinning and shaking her head. “It’s mind-blowing that rewiring can go to this extreme.”
“It is,” I replied. “I think I can use a 10-minute break, but before that, just one last thought.”
“Is this the thought that spoils those 10 minutes?” asked Sue, exaggerating a frown for show.
“Hopefully not…but probably,” I admitted, rubbing my chin. “Two weeks ago, I was sleeping with my Louisville slugger.”
“You’re talking about a baseball bat and not some hottie you picked up in Kentucky, right?” asked Sue.
I chuckled. “Right. Then, Worthington was found dead and that concern faded. A little over a week later, I got spun up again about how extensive use of the Blocker might affect people, make them driven to sustain their fantasy world. And we’ve done some things to protect ourselves against a possible threat.
“But up until now, all our speculation about the Blocker and its effect on people has included the phrase, ‘if it works.’ It may be electronically addictive, if it works. It may produce a cold, heartless drive for self-preservation, if it works. Well, in my mind, we can drop that phrase. The Blocker works.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2:33 PM
At last, it was time. The Experimenter had followed the guidance of the Neural Activity Blocker Advanced Design Document to the letter. He had ‘spared no pain,’ assuring that each part was built to specification, checking that each line of software code was flawless. So now, he would see if the words lived up to their promise. It was time to see if he could insert memories into another human. It was time to find where he was on the road to immortality.
After his rushed attempt to implement the Blocker’s advanced features had left Subject 3 dead, the Experimenter had wondered what he should implant in the brain of his next Guinea pig. Eventually, he would embed his own thoughts, but it was too soon for that. So, after hours of deliberation in concert with his electronic ally, it came to him. And it was pure genius.
Normal communication with his subjects had always been impossible; none had taken their fate in stride. Instead, they had lied, screamed, cursed, spat, and tried to injure him. And when they realized the benefits of the Blocker and became willing participants, the Experimenter still couldn’t trust them. Subject 4 appeared to have turned that corner, but soon, if not already, he would be hatching plans to steal the technology so he could have it for his own.
So, without anyone to trust, how was the Experimenter to know if the latest enhancements worked? How would he know when a memory of a warm summer’s evening had been successfully implanted? Or when the sensation of plunging into an icy lake had been formed? He wouldn’t.
But when the Experimenter saw the answer, it was obvious. He would leave Subject 4 with the experiences of a young child. A child with a benevolent, but strict master. With nothing to guide him but the memories of the Experimenter sustaining his worthless life for years, Number 4 would divulge every thought, undertake every task, make every sacrifice. He would be, in short, the perfect subject. But what made his idea even better was that his discoveries would serve double duty. The same blueprint would work perfectly when he captured Veles.
The first step was to erase the person’s memory. All the stored fragments of past sights, smells, and sounds spread among the various visual, olfactory, and auditory areas of the brain – the grist from which the hippocampus rebuilds a memory – must be removed. It was the equivalent of a factory-reset. He would remove the old, leaving a blank slate on which he would write the sights, sounds, and smells of his life…or those from a fiction he wished to create.
The Blocker was configured for the reset. The Experimenter took one last look into the experimental chamber. Subject 4 was ready. He entered a command on the keyboard, then rolled his chair close to the one-way mirror.
The device was now driving signals deep into the brain, the likes of which no one had ever experienced. The man’s features remained steady. He sat still, looking forward, as if waiting for the next task to begin. Did he know his past was fading? Did he see the memories disappear? Did he feel the loss? Or once they were gone, was it like they had never happened?
Two hours passed, and although the Experimenter wasn’t sure how long the process should take, the time seemed adequate. He returned to his desk, shut down the Blocker, and released a long breath.
“Time to meet a man with no past,” he said to himself. He rose from his chair, entered the chamber, and approached. “Number 4?” he said.
The man’s eyes opened, but he said nothing.
The Experimenter crouched down and raised his voice. “Number 4? Can you hear me?”
The man’s eyes went wide, as he stared at the Experimenter’s lips. Then, his mouth began opening and closing rhythmically, like a fish in water. Drool started running down his cheek. Then, from his lips came a gurgling grunt.
The Experimenter dropped his head, then looked back up at Subject 4. “You’re not a man with no past. You’re a fully grown newborn.”
Subject 4 became more excited as the Experimenter spoke. His eyes darted back and forth across the Experimenter’s face. His mouth worked faster, as the grunts and gurgles came in a rush.
The Experimenter stood from his crouch and retraced his steps back to the work area. From a desk drawer, he pulled the misaligned Blocker cap, the one capable of killing. He was getting more use from his chance discovery than he had ever anticipated. He returned to the chamber, removed the laboratory equipment, placed the cap on Subject 4’s head, and turned it on.
The Experimenter closed the door to the chamber as he left. He didn’t need to watch; he’d seen life slip away under the effects of the cap before.
He sat at his desk and leaned back, rubbing his chin as he studied the gray walls. He was confident in his ultimate success. After all, he only sought to duplicate a natural phenomenon. He wanted to use his electronics to create the equivalent of retrograde amnesia – the loss of one’s past, while general knowledge such as the ability to speak remained intact. But he also knew that the theories that linked brain locations to so-called episodic memory were incomplete. In this attempt, he had selected the most likely regions. Obviously, they were wrong.
He removed his notebook from a desk drawer and reviewed the areas he had targeted. Then, he calculated the number of tests he would need to cover all the combinations of the most likely regions. The number, 28, was larger than he had expected and much greater than he had hoped.
In nearly two months of experimentation, he had caught five men. At that rate, it would take him nearly a year to study even the most likely groupings. But what if the answer lay outside that set? Was he headed for a quagmire of promise never realized? Would he be chasing an unobtainable goal like a thirsty man pursuing a mirage in the desert?
The number, 28, grew in his mind. It crowded the light of success, the hope of immortality. The room dimmed. He turned, expecting to find the numerals looming over him, but there was nothing save the growing darkness.
But then he realized, anyone with a memory would work for this part of his research. Men. Women. Children. The face of Jordan popped into his mind, pushing back against the shadow of his rage. She wouldn’t have to be wasted. He knew what needed to be done, and the darkness receded. “Tonight, I hunt. And I shall not come back empty-handed.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2:53 PM
“Who’s next?” I asked, as I entered the conference room. Sue was looking over Nicole’s shoulder, as they studied something on a laptop.
“I’ve always lived by the adage, ladies first,” said Sue as she slid into a chair. “And that would be you, Nicole.” She nudged her coworker with an elbow and received a roll of the eyes in reply. “But in this case, I can finish my report in two minutes and give Nicole the rest of the meeting.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Two minutes?”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Now that we know the Blocker works, the big question is, what does it do besides allowing A.T. to remember the phone numbers of three women at a time, rather than just one.”
“And you’re not finding anything in the observations?” I asked, trying to hide the concern I felt. If the Blocker had corrosive effects on the mind, that conclusion wouldn’t come from the test data. It would come from the observations after each session, if it came from the study at all.
“I’ll have something soon, but nothing firm yet,” replied Sue. “What I’m working with are the answers to four standard questions and an open-ended description of A.T.’s behavior for the 30 minutes after each session. After that, he went home. The four standard questions were….” She scanned a page of notes. “Memory for location, recall of the day’s date, eye-hand coordination, and navigation. The last question involved either walking to or giving directions to a well-known, nearby spot.
“I expected that my graphs on these questions would look the same as Worthington’s, and they did. A.T. always knew where he was and the date. He made a few, small mistakes on navigation, but they were simple errors, like giving the wrong street name. And eye-hand coordination showed a typical learning curve.”
“Learning curve?” said Nicole. “That’s a large improvement at first, but then leveling off?”
“Right.”
“So, no disorientation…at least on these tasks,” I said.
“That’s the way I’m reading it,” said Sue, “which leaves the notes from the waiting period. I’ve looked at about 20% of them, picking some from early in the experiment, some near the midpoint, and some from the end. Of course, I’ll cover it all before I’m done, but already I can tell that after about two or three weeks, he stopped doing anything and just sat there.”
I looked at Sue closely. “He sat motionless for 30 minutes?”
“Yep.”
Of Half a Mind Page 23