Neural Web

by Dima Zales

  A hint of a smile lifts her lips. I build on my success and grab her in a large hug. The benefit of the hug is that she can’t see my face, because I suspect I don’t look that reassuring. Now that we’re past the battle and the shock of Mitya dying, I allow myself to contemplate the horrible possibility of Ada’s death, and the stupid thought fills me with an ocean of dread.

  Fighting it, I pull away and gaze down at her. “Whoever is behind this, I’ll make sure they—”

  She presses a finger to my lips, then slides it down my neck and across my chest. She then rises on tiptoes, and our mouths intertwine, the kiss more urgent than usual, almost primal.

  “I want to finally test the Join app,” she tells me telepathically. Her Zik messages’ emotional undertones are still on the sad side. “Please?”

  The app is something she first thought of years ago, but it turned out harder to implement than she originally conceived. The idea is to use Brainocytes to merge two or more minds. The melding, or whatever the proper term would be, is an extremely complex process. The simplest aspects include the heavy simulation of mirror neurons for both parties. Both participants experience one another’s memories and emotions by sharing a lot of nonbiological brain regions, in part to swap sensory data and in part to process neurological data together. The basic idea is that I’d experience the world as Ada does, and she would get the reverse experience.

  A month ago, Ada finally decided she was happy enough with the app to test it on our rats. The rats, especially Mr. Spock and Uhura, liked the experience a lot and now run the app continuously. As a result, Mr. Spock got a bit more mellow, for lack of a better term. Sadly, though, the rats aren’t yet smart enough to properly explain how the Join app makes them feel—at least beyond terse descriptions like Kirk’s “I just feel better,” McCoy’s “It makes me feel never alone,” Scotty’s “It’s more fun than Alan’s Rat World—and I like Rat World,” Uhura’s “It makes me happier,” or Mr. Spock’s slightly less cryptic “It makes me love Uhura more.” To me, the idea of having Ada inside my head seems scary. Despite my therapy with Einstein, I’m afraid that what she finds there could scare her away.

  “It’s unfair to ask me today,” I whisper once our lips unlock. “Why don’t we do that zero-gravity position?” I begin the gesture to disable gravity in the room, but she puts her hand on mine to stop me.

  “I really need this.” She’s still speaking virtually. “It will take our relationship to the next step, I know it will, and I want to do that because life is unpredictable, and—”

  “It’s okay.” I lose myself in her amber eyes again, grateful she didn’t alter their color today. “If it means so much to you, I’ll do it.”

  I stop myself from adding something like, “It was going to happen eventually, anyway.” I learned long ago that I can only tell Ada no for a very short time, and the whole process is full of guilt and other subtle unpleasantness. There’s an old Russian saying that goes, “The husband is the head, and the wife is the neck.” That’s our relationship in a nutshell: I turn where Ada wants me to turn and see what she wants me to see. Not that this means I imagine myself as the head of our family. Ada is both the head and the neck in our household, while I might be something like the gallbladder.

  A giant new icon shows up in the room, and I psych myself up to activate the Join app. If I look at it through Ada’s eyes, this is a way to get closer to each other. Seen that way, the whole business doesn’t sound nearly as scary. Besides, Ada already knows what I did five years ago in Russia and a few months later in the US. She also saw what I did earlier today. Hopefully, she won’t hold any of my memories against me. And she’s going to see how I feel about her, which is worth something. We don’t say the L word to each other as much as other couples, so that reassurance might be a nice bonus.

  Perhaps as blackmail, or as extra motivation to get me to start the app, Ada VR-magicks her clothes away from her body.

  I instantly get rid of mine as well.

  “This is how I’ve always pictured this,” she says, stepping toward me.

  Without voicing my doubts, I give in to the call of biology, and as the pleasure begins, I launch the Join app and close my eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  Brainocytes allow us to experiment with safe psychedelic experiences, and Mitya has made it his personal mission to blow our minds with a set of LSD-like apps of ever-increasing potency. But none of Mitya’s apps, real drugs, or even the horrific truth serum cocktail used on me four and a half years ago could’ve prepared me for this assault on my sense of reality.

  My senses feel completely crisscrossed—though that’s not quite accurate. What’s really happening is that I’m trying to sense through Ada’s eyes, skin, ears, nose, and mouth, while in a strange, recursive loop, I’m also feeling what it feels like for her to experience my own senses. It’s like placing a mirror in front of another mirror. We each get lost in our experiences of each other’s experience of the other person’s experiences, down infinite levels, until we simply forget there’s a difference between Ada and Mike—which I think is one of the goals.

  It quickly becomes clear that sex is not the best way to first experience this app because of the sensory overload that comes with intimacy. A part of me that’s more Ada than Mike disagrees and thinks we’d be equally overwhelmed during a session of knitting or playing solitaire.

  The boundaries between the being who is Mike and the glorious entity that is Ada blur more with every second, yet I still feel that I’m myself at the same time. Although I’m used to being in many places at once, what’s happening now feels completely different. In a strange way, I feel more in the moment in multiple places at once, more alive in multiple places at once, and again paradoxically more myself, even though I’m merged with someone else. I can’t shake the feeling that this is how I’m supposed to be, that this is the real me. Finally free. Finally home.

  As my mind adjusts to this roller coaster of newness, I begin to see myself through Ada’s eyes. I feel what she feels for me, and I feel what she’s feeling as we make love, here in the VR room. I knew she loves me, but because she doesn’t like to overuse the words to express her feelings, sometimes I’m open to doubt. I will never doubt again. Ada loves me with an intensity I might not be capable of myself, though I must be wrong, because she swells with contentment when she experiences how I feel about her.

  They say that as couples live together, they become like rocks polished by a river. Any differences and problems between them smooth away. I’m not sure if there’s any truth to that metaphor, but in this VR room, in one instant, we understand and move past whatever tiny flaws we’ve noticed in each other. We forgive all grievances by seeing the world through the other’s eyes. We become more as one than a couple who have lived together all their lives.

  This is when the oddest part begins. A surge of Ada’s memories flood my awareness. I recall a nice day in Central Park when she was walking over a scenic bridge and musing about her deadbeat father, who left her mother and was never heard from again. Her conflicting emotions are familiar to me, and I soon realize that I have had almost identical musings about my own father, a man whose death I still relive with intense guilt. I recall Ada’s memory of sitting in the hospital, her love for her mother swelling her chest, and I remember myself in similar circumstances after Mom’s accident.

  Not all the memories pull us closer. Some memories are almost opposites: Ada worried after losing her virginity as a teen, while I worried that I’d never get the chance to lose mine. Some are completely foreign to me, like the ordeal Ada experienced when she lost her mom to cancer.

  Tears stream down my face, both in VR and in the real world, as I relive her struggles. The pain she felt is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, carrying me to the verge of panic.

  Soon, though, the sad memories are over, and happier ones move to the forefront. I witness Ada discovering coding, her first love. I recall her first kiss in a forest camp
and her first crush on a young professor in Intro to Java class. I remember how she felt the first time we had sex, and when she said her vows during our Hawaiian wedding—and the first time she held a screaming Alan in her arms. I understand that Ada is most defined by her happier experiences, and I hope she finds the same to be true about me, though it’s probably not the case.

  If it were possible to feel yourself evolving into a better person, this is what it would feel like. There’s no jealousy when I recall the men and the one woman from Ada’s past. I would hug them and thank them if I met them now—a reaction I can’t believe I’m having. I also now understand Ada’s abhorrence of violence, having felt her conviction of how precious life is and how even the worst person in the world is still deserving of love and kindness.

  Ada has been trying to get me to meditate, and in the process, I’ve learned a little bit about Buddhism. Now, using the Join app, I feel as if I’ve reached enlightenment, or how I imagined it would feel, although I probably had a very reductionist view of that spiritual term.

  Experimentally, I open my eyes in the real world. The plane is still in the air, and when I try to introspect, I feel normal. I feel like an individual—that is, until I try to feel one with Ada. Then the feeling of enlightenment rushes back full force.

  I open my eyes in the VR room and see Ada’s naked body reflected in all the mirrors. We’re still joined in this way, too, our virtual sweat glistening on our ephemeral bodies.

  Something new becomes possible, and it demands my attention. As the intensity of the Joining lessens, I discover that we can think as one, at least for a moment. Unimaginatively, we jointly contemplate, “We think, therefore we are.”

  “Wow,” I reply. “Our hive mind is a philosopher.”

  “Amazing,” she agrees. “I know that neither of us came up with that thought, yet we thought it.”

  “I need a way to reference self,” the hive mind thinks to themselves (or herself or himself or itself).

  “How about The Cohens?” I suggest.

  “The Cohens would make more sense if we Joined with your uncle, cousin, and mom,” it counters. “But fine, it will do.”

  Somehow, a reminder about the rest of the family during sex doesn’t seem gross or even weird. It feels completely neutral, like thinking about clouds. Perhaps this is part of an evolved state of being, though it might also be because sex is the last thing on our minds now, even though we’re still making love.

  “Can more than two people Join like this?” I ask. “I mean, the Join app, not—”

  “The more people, the more complete we’d become,” answers the being code-named The Cohens.

  “Besides people, we could even pull in other beings, like Mr. Spock,” Ada adds. “But perhaps after we finish.”

  I don’t get to make any bestiality jokes because we’re getting to the climax of the physical—well, the virtually physical—part of our Bedroom extravaganza, and it’s becoming impossible to talk, even telepathically. I pray nobody is watching me on the plane right now, or if they are, I hope they don’t record my facial expressions or consider my reactions some form of sexual harassment.

  Though I’ve become acclimated to Ada’s senses, now that she’s this close to release, I begin to feel overwhelmed. What I feel intermingles with what she’s feeling, and I’m eager to learn what this part will feel like from her perspective.

  Then she performs a maneuver possible only in VR (though she claims she’s going to start doing Kegel exercises to replicate this in the real world). My response arrives like clockwork, and for a moment, I forget the hive mind named The Cohens or even my own name.

  At some point during Brainocyte development (maybe around the seventh brain boost, though it might’ve been the eighth), we cloud-replicated the parts of the brain responsible for orgasms, giving us a much greater capacity for appreciating this already miraculous experience. Without the Join app, I’d say what I usually feel is at least a hundred times more intense than an unenhanced orgasm. With the Join app, however, I feel Ada’s reactions as well as my own enhanced ones. Our minds meld into pure bliss with no boundaries or limits and an intensity thousands of times more powerful than anything we’ve ever experienced.

  What feels like a hundred heavenly years later, I catch my breath and reflect on how hard it is to become winded when you have Respirocytes doing the job of your red blood cells. Then again, I just got winded in VR, so oxygen efficiency obviously isn’t the main factor.

  “Not my best idea,” Ada whispers as soon as she’s able to make coherent sentences again. She VR-magicks herself a virtual cigarette, more as a jokey prop than because she has any physical need for it. “The Join app on its own would’ve been enough.”

  “It might’ve been one of your best ideas,” I say, my voice thick from the experience. “Should I shut down the app?”

  “I think so,” she murmurs. “Though it would make The Cohens go away.”

  “We’ll use this again,” I say. “The Cohens will return.”

  “I’m glad that part of the app actually worked,” she says with noticeable enthusiasm.

  I gaze at my brilliant wife with pride that borders on worship. “You utilized our idle brain regions, didn’t you?”

  Her eyes shine with mischief. “That’s a very primitive way of looking at it, but something like that. I leveraged Einstein to provide this app with a platform to self-organize our unused resources. Clearly, it worked.”

  “Fascinating,” state The Cohens. “We’re intrigued about bringing more minds into ourselves.”

  “Good idea, but not now.” Ada releases the smoke from her cigarette. Instead of the usual toxic fumes, the cloud has a soft, vaporous quality and smells like bergamot tea with a slice of lime. It probably tastes that way as well, since that’s Ada’s favorite morning pick-me-up. “How about we shelve the Join app experiments until we figure out who’s trying to kill us?”

  “I agree,” I reply. “The Cohens will also have to wait.”

  “We do not fear nonexistence,” The Cohens reply.

  “You won’t not exist,” Ada says. “You’re us. As long as we exist, you also exist.”

  “However long it takes for you to Join again will seem but a moment to us,” The Cohens say enigmatically.

  “On that note, I’m turning off the app.” I match mental actions to my words.

  I instantly feel a sense of loss. The being that was The Cohens is gone without a trace. Until it disappeared, I didn’t realize I felt it was a part of me. Given Ada’s pained expression, I can see something similar is happening to her.

  “Is the app addictive?” I ask.

  “We just need to readjust to being alone,” she replies softly. “But I can now see why our rats run a version of this app all the time.”

  “Me too. I wonder what their version of The Cohens is like.”

  “Their Join app doesn’t have that part. I actually wonder if it’s safe to have in our version. What would happen if we Joined with more than a few thousand people at once?”

  “Because The Cohens would be too smart to control or comprehend?” I yawn demonstratively. Post-coital bliss always hits me hard, whether the coitus is real or virtual.

  “Exactly,” she says. “We should run this by the others at the next Brainocytes meeting.”

  “Sounds like a plan. What do we tell them about this app for now?”

  “Nothing, if you don’t mind. Let me prepare to tell them about it properly.”

  “Fair enough.” I can’t help another yawn. “Can we sleep?”

  “Our friends probably think we fell asleep anyway,” she says through another puff of yummy smoke. “So yeah, why not? It might actually be a good idea.”

  “I have enough left of my flight for a decent nap.” I yawn so temptingly that she yawns as well.

  “I actually have time for a substantial rest,” she says after another contagious yawn. “Let’s just check on everyone before we fall asleep.”

&
nbsp; We rejoin the VR conference room and learn that nothing interesting occurred while we were away discovering a new state of consciousness.

  “Time for a nap,” I say in the VR room, fighting to stay awake.

  “We’ll wake you up if you’re needed,” Joe says flatly.

  “I had no doubt you would,” I mutter under my breath. Joe has no problem having his people slap me awake if that’s what it takes.

  Stopping all multitasking, I leave my mind firmly in my real-world environment, and my thoughts turn to the change in my marriage. Now that I’ve seen the world through Ada’s eyes, I don’t think I can ever have an argument with her again—not that we normally have many. I must also admit that, although I loved Ada before the Join app, my feelings are now almost frighteningly intense. Fully understanding her has made me see how sacred her mind is, how sublime. It’s as though Ada is a literal part of me, her well-being irrevocably entwined with my own.

  I might be a better husband than before. Perhaps even a better human being.

  Another yawn makes my jaws crack and interrupts my self-aggrandizements, so I decide to just sleep. Usually, I use an app designed to help me fall asleep, but I don’t need it today. Instead, I simply run a utility app called Do Not Disturb, which basically disables hearing and vision for the duration I want—in this case, five hours.

  As soon as it turns on, Do Not Disturb creates the effect of being in a deep underground silo. Not a single photon hits my eyelids, and not a fraction of a decibel titillates my eardrums. I open my eyes because I still find it fun to see how Do Not Disturb makes the space around me pitch dark even with my eyes wide open. Then I close my eyes again and drop like a stone into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Nine

  The hall of mirrors stretches as far as my eyes can see. A camera inside a drone above my head shows me that this space has taken over the whole world, horizon to horizon.