by A. A. Bell
Mira blinked to keep her eyes moist and Zhou asked her to describe the blue in more detail.
‘It’s definitely the sky.’ Mira turned her eyes upwards, scanning from side to side. ‘I’m sure of it. The paler blues are clouds. When I was young, I remember clouds that thick were white or grey, but these have all been washed over by a watery blue paintbrush. They look ghostly.’
‘True,’ said Van Danik, still watching her bioelectrical responses.
‘I know what’s below me if I look down, but I don’t want to. This has happened so many times before … I just … need a second … ‘ Her voice faltered and her eyes reddened around the edges with fear. ‘Don’t let go of me, Ben. I’m going to …’
Her eyes turned down a little; Zhou followed her movements with his hand-held scope.
‘Treetops! I knew it.’ She glanced up again and panted to catch her breath. ‘I’m scared of heights, sorry.’
‘No need to be sorry. I used to be scared of heights too,’ Zhou confessed. ‘How high are you? Aeroplane high, or treetop high?’
‘A bit higher than treetops — about the same as three rooms off the ground.’
‘Coincidence?’ asked Sanchez. ‘We are three storeys high.’
‘Good point,’ Zhou agreed. ‘Are you still in this building, Mira?’
‘Yes and no. I can smell it — it’s stuffy in here, but it’s all invisible.’
‘True.’ Van Danik huffed in frustration.
Mira wavered, nearly falling off her chair. ‘Don’t let me fall!’ She gripped harder onto the table and sensor glass.
‘Easy, Mira,’ Zhou said soothingly. ‘Ben’s got you.’
‘A seagull! It flew right through me!’
‘It wasn’t real,’ Sanchez said. ‘It was —’
‘It was real, all right,’ Van Danik reported. ‘As real as we are.’
‘Then maybe I’m the dream?’ Mira said. ‘I can’t see myself anymore than the bird seemed to see me, so is it possible …?’ She paused, as if the thought snagged on something deeper. ‘Is it possible that I’m thehallucination for someone else? One of you, maybe? Or someone else here at Serenity?’
‘Hardly.’ Van Danik kicked the leg of the table. ‘Kick your foot too, if you doubt it. Imagination can imagine pain, but a real person will experience it.’
Mira curled her bare toes against the timber, still uncertain, then stomped down hard with her heel. ‘Ow! That hurts! So I’m real, I suppose. I was hoping that would be a relief, but it’s not.’
Ben chuckled. ‘Well, it’s a relief to me. At least I know I didn’t get the sack for nothing. What else do you see?’
Mira glanced down briefly again. ‘Everything is blue, I told you. The trees are blue; the ground and the buildings. Even the ghosts of the prisoners.’
‘What prisoners?’ asked Zhou. ‘I thought you mentioned soldiers before?’
‘These are different. There are two long rows of prisoners below me. Hang on … four, six, ten,’ she counted, gripping tighter onto the invisible sensor glass to help keep her balance. ‘Twenty prisoners and they’re all trudging towards the front gate. Except it’s a different gate to the brown one I saw outside on my way over here. It’s in the same place, but the trees around it are only saplings and the guardhouse has shifted to one side. The traffic barriers are gone too, and there’s one big iron gate beside the guard tower instead of a boom gate.’
Zhou rapped his fingers on the table, thinking. ‘What about the prisoners? Do they have any guards?’
‘Six on horseback. Three on each side of the prisoners. The guards are all carrying long ghostly guns, and there’s a bullock wagon full of garden tools leading the way down to crops near the tramline.’
‘There used to be an asylum for the criminally insane on this site,’ Sanchez interrupted. ‘And before that it was a penal colony for convicts; a leper colony too at one stage. All three grew vegetables, hemp and sugar cane. What clothes are the prisoners wearing, Mira? Do they have symbols on them?’
‘Yes, question marks on their shirts.’
‘That’s what the asylum’s chain gangs wore,’ Sanchez said. ‘It was the warden’s idea of a joke. Earlier convicts and settlers wore either striped hessian or rags.’
‘Sounds to me as if somebody’s been watching too much Batman on TV,’ Van Danik said. ‘The Joker wore question marks, didn’t he?’
‘No, the Riddler,’ Zhou said.
‘I never watched Batman!’ Mira snapped. ‘My father never let me watch anything with violence! Not even the tame stuff, like cartoons.’
‘Hey, don’t take offence,’ Van Danik replied. ‘I’m staring at biofeedback here that confirms you’re telling the truth. Your conscious and subconscious minds are still in total agreement.’
‘Total agreement?’ Zhou asked. ‘Surely there must be a sign of counterspikes by now?’
Van Danik swivelled his computer screen around to face Zhou. ‘See for yourself.’
Zhou scanned the multiple windows on the screen and frowned. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Even if her conscious mind has been swept up in the illusion, there should still be a counterindication that she can feel the floor and the chair as well as Ben’s hands, therefore her subconscious must know she hasn’t moved away from us.’
‘I know that consciously too,’ Mira replied. ‘I’m curling my toes against the timber all the time now. And feeling Ben’s hands on my shoulders is all that’s stopping me from losing my balance. But none of that stops everything around me from looking blue. It’s the truth!’
‘It certainly is from your point of view,’ Van Danik agreed. ‘Which explains why there’s no counterindication. We just need to figure out what kind of truth it is.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ben. ‘Truth is truth, isn’t it?’
Zhou shrugged. ‘Truth has many guises. There’s the truth of dreams, the truth of experience, half-truths and a few others. Even delusions have some degree of truth. Sometimes the conscious mind confuses them with other things, like memories, resulting in various degrees of intellectual instability. That’s because the conscious mind is only designed to hold and process enough information to function on a minute-by-minute basis with limited and varying ability to access short-and long-term memory. However, the subconscious mind is much smarter and more dimensionally aware. The swfcconscious — also known as the unconscious mind — is the brain’s hard drive that files everything; and each record is filed according to which part of the brain generated or processed the data. So you see, it’s really quite easy for the subconscious to tell the difference between a dream, a delusion or a memory. And now that we know how to read when, how and where the subconscious is accessing its own files, we should be able to tell the difference too.’
‘That’s the art of psychology,’ Sanchez said, ‘and the science of interpretation. I have graduate degrees in both cognitive and humanistic psychology, Doctors, so I do understand how the human mind works.’
‘But psychologists, so far, have let Mira down with their interpretations, artful or otherwise,’ Ben argued. ‘If anything, they’ve made matters worse for her — present company excluded, of course.’
‘Don’t be too quick to flatter me,’ Sanchez said. ‘I supervised Mira’s first session when she transferred here, and I agreed with the diagnosis then. She never displayed any of the behaviour she’s displaying now, I can assure you. Nor has she in follow-up sessions with my other staff. They’ll be just as surprised by this new behaviour as I am.’
‘They hate me,’ Mira snapped. ‘I won’t talk to anyone who hates me.’
‘They don’t hate you,’ Sanchez said kindly. ‘We’re all just trying to understand you, so we can help.’
Mira shook her head. ‘They weren’t truth-sayers. I can hear the difference. They say one thing and think another — like you did when you promised me a gate pass. You didn’t think I knew, did you?’
Sanchez shifted her feet uncomfortably, but didn’t rep
ly.
‘Truth-sayers?’ Zhou repeated. ‘It’s interesting you should say that, because one of the adaptations we made to our polygraph is a sensor that digitises our subject’s voice to analyse conspicuous intonation changes. In effect, we’re also listening for lies electronically.’
‘Time is marching along,’ Van Danik reminded them all. ‘We need to do some cross-questioning about the sky and the prisoners. And remember, Mira, we’re watching for contradictions between your conscious and subconscious thoughts, so it doesn’t matter what you say if you don’t know the answer. Just say what comes to mind first.’
‘Even fibs will do,’ Zhou agreed. ‘So here’s the first cross-question. Can you really see ghostly trees, guards and prisoners below you?’
‘Yes,’ Mira replied. ‘I see ghost people and I am sitting in the sky. I don’t tell lies.’
‘True,’ said Van Danik. ‘Her brain has filed those records under actual experiences. And she doesn’t consciously tell lies.’
‘I knew it!’ she cheered, clapping her hands.
‘Try again,’ Zhou replied. ‘She must have misinterpreted the question. Mira, tell me,’ he said, keeping a closer watch for reactions in her eye, ‘are the prisoners real?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are the ghosts real?’
‘Yes, as real as you and me.’
‘Stop!’ Van Danik insisted. ‘Those responses are all true too. Her subconscious and conscious mind are both convinced that everything she sees is real.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Mira argued. ‘You get locked up for believing in ghosts.’
‘That’s not what I asked you, though,’ Zhou said. ‘I asked if the ghosts are real, meaning the ghosts you can see now — not ghosts in general, as most people would think of them. It’s a subtlety of English. Did you hear the difference?’
‘No.’
‘False,’ reported Van Danik. ‘You might not have noticed the difference consciously, but your swfcconscious understood the question perfectly.’
‘That’s starting to annoy me,’ Mira said. ‘Why can’t my conscious and subconscious minds cooperate all the time? I didn’t mean to lie, and I don’t want to.’
‘We can see that,’ Van Danik replied. ‘It’s frustrating us too. We may have another glitch here, Zan. First the spikes that suggest sensory overload, and now truthful responses that don’t obey the laws of either physics or logic. Try asking her more about the soldiers.’
‘Do you mean the soldiers down there?’ asked Mira. ‘Guarding the prisoners?’
‘That depends,’ Zhou said. ‘Are they the ones that upset you before?’
‘No.’
‘Then tell us about the ones that upset you.’
Mira spun her head away from Zhou, clenching her eyes shut. ‘I can’t, it … it hurts. It hurts to see them. It hurts really badly, even to think about them.’
‘Repressed memory?’ asked Sanchez.
‘Repressed nothing!’ Mira snapped. ‘I see them nearly every day!’
‘Steady, Mira,’ Ben crooned as he massaged her neck and shoulders again. ‘Deep breaths. Slower, that’s it.’
Her head sagged, then she turned back to Zhou. ‘Sorry,’ she said, keeping her eyes closed. ‘Please just give me another second. I will try.’
‘When you’re ready,’ Zhou said, ‘explain what you see that hurts so much.’
‘Soldiers,’ she replied.
‘With your eyes open,’ he reminded her. ‘Try asking your subconscious not to view the experience anew. Ask to access it from memory. It should be less scary when you can distance your emotions that way. Just be sure to instruct your subconscious clearly, or else unclear questions can result in unclear responses.’
‘You mean, ask my brain as if it’s a separate person? That’s schizophrenic, isn’t it, Matron?’
‘Usually,’ Sanchez replied. ‘In this case, however, it’s a form of affirmation.’
‘Affir-what?’
‘That’s the name of the method we use when we ask you to repeat your mantra about ghosts being nonexistent,’ Ben explained. ‘Except in your case, the staff shouldn’t be allowed to enforce that little song any more, right, Matron?’
‘No, I suppose not. We have to figure out what’s really going on first. Positive affirmations will start to play a bigger role in your life, though, Mira. Especially if you want to speed up your recovery process. I’m a little surprised you haven’t had that explained already.’
‘I gave up smoking barely a year ago,’ Van Danik confessed, ‘and that was the first I’d ever heard of them. Now I use them all the time. Whenever I can’t find my socks, I shout the question to my subconscious three times loudly, then do something different until the answer comes to me.’
Mira smiled. ‘Don’t let Steffi Nagle hear you shouting to yourself. She’ll sting you with a Taser glove.’
‘Not anymore,’ Sanchez replied. ‘I’ve banned them from the centre.’
Mira nodded gratefully and began to prepare herself for the next step. ‘I don’t want to relive the soldiers!’ she said three times loudly. ‘I just want to remember them!
‘Okay,’ she added, taking one last deep breath and releasing it slowly. ‘I think I’m ready.’
She opened her eyes to allow Zhou to watch her responses.
‘There were seven soldiers.’
‘You’re not looking down, Mira. Were they below you?’
‘No, they were on the far side of the flooded gully. I was here in the graveyard, except it wasn’t me now. It was me when I was very young. Eight or nine, I think.’
‘So you are accessing a memory?’
‘I guess so.’
‘She knows it’s a memory,’ Van Danik confirmed. ‘I’m getting a few small countersignatures of disparity now, though. This is good. Ask her what type of memory.’
‘Is it a memory of a delusion or a memory of a real experience?’ Zhou asked. On his notepad he made additional comments about tabulating results for his scientific report.
‘My experience?’
‘True,’ Van Danik reported. ‘I’m still getting countersuggestions of something else, though.’
‘Delusion then,’ Mira said. ‘But it seemed so real!’
‘False,’ replied Van Danik.
‘How about a dream?’ asked Zhou.
Mira shrugged. ‘I guess so.’
‘False,’ said Van Danik. ‘What else is there? A mix perhaps?’
Zhou scratched his temple. ‘We need more data, Mira. Tell us everything you can remember, detail by detail. Let’s start with you. What were you doing?’
‘I don’t know. It was raining and I was cold.’ She shivered at the memory. ‘I was soaking wet, but I don’t think it was the rain that made me wet. I had a bath towel around me. And I think I … I think I was naked underneath.’
‘All true,’ said Van Danik. ‘That part of the memory is a physical experience. Her conscious and subconscious minds are in complete synchronicity.’
‘I’m in a graveyard, and I’m at my father’s gravestone beside a tree —’
‘False,’ Van Danik interrupted. ‘This part of the memory is something other than experience.’
‘Delusion or dream?’ asked Zhou.
‘Dream?’ Mira guessed. ‘In real life, I think the tree itself was the grave marker.’
‘True,’ Van Danik said. ‘On all points.’
‘Really?’ asked Mira. ‘Are you sure it was a dream? I was terrified that place was all real!’
‘A nightmare then; nearly the same thing, generated in almost the same part of your brain as a happy dream. Too close for us to tell the difference this long after it happened, except from your emotional responses to the memory. But that degree of accuracy isn’t required for our purposes anyway. It’s enough to know that this version of your graveyard, the gravestone and that tree are all creative figments of your own imagination while asleep.’
‘But delusions are figments of my imaginat
ion too, aren’t they? Built on truth? So how can you tell it’s a nightmare and not a delusion?’
‘They’re created and filed in separate areas of your brain,’ Van Danik explained. ‘I can tell from the changes in blood supply and electrical impulses on your EEG which segments of your brain are being accessed. So by all means continue. You were saying you were at your father’s gravestone in a dream.’
‘Yes, but I can also see his head in front of me. He’s looking away from me. All I can see is the back of his head. I know he wouldn’t want me to look at the soldiers, but I can see them over his shoulder. He must be sitting down, I think. I was so young and he was much taller than me, I couldn’t have seen over his shoulder unless he was sitting down.’
‘All true,’ confirmed Van Danik. ‘That part of your memory is actual experience.’
‘No wonder it was distressing,’ Sanchez said. ‘A mixture of nightmare and memory. It’s enough to confuse anyone, let alone someone affected by Fragile X.’
‘What about the soldiers?’ asked Zhou. ‘Could they see your father?’
‘I don’t think so. They were still in the rainforest, coming towards me … us … down a narrow, slippery path that zigzagged into a very steep gully. They seemed to be very focused on what they were doing. It was pouring rain and they had to crawl on their hands and knees in some places to get through the vines and thickets. In other places, the mud was so thick it sucked the boots off their feet. And the creek at the bottom was flooded. It was flowing really fast and they …’ She sucked in a breath, trying not to cry. ‘They wouldn’t listen to me. They wouldn’t stay on that side where they were safe. I heard a deep voice shout that he’d never hurt me — a bit like my father’s voice, but much angrier. Then the soldiers started to cross, and no matter how much I shouted they never listened. There was a fallen tree under the water and it came loose. It swept them away. And then my father saw me. He saw me standing behind him in the house and he got very angry at me for watching it. Very, very angry, and when he stood up, I saw that his white T-shirt was smudged heavily with fresh blood.’
‘Strange,’ Van Danik said. ‘That’s all registering as personal experience, or something that she witnessed. But how can that be if she’d been inside a house the whole time?’