“Yes,” Susan agreed.
“Reshaped?” I looked from Susan to David. “You mean completely false.”
“No, not at all,” Susan said. “And be careful here—we all reshape our memories all the time.”
“Not to this degree.”
“Oh?” David looked at me. “Go to Vegas and ask any gambler whether they’re up or down in lifetime winnings and nearly every one of them will tell you they’re up—a statistical impossibility.”
“That’s denial—or just plain ignorance. And hardly comparable to someone wiping out any memory of getting an MBA or the fact that their parents are dead.”
“Okay,” David said. “How much do you remember about the first five years of your life?”
“Nobody remembers stuff that far back.”
“Do you remember the day you took your driver’s test?”
“I remember I got my license.”
“Sure, but that’s just a fact. How do you know it’s true?”
“I have it.” I started to take my wallet out.
“What if you had a pilot’s license in there? Would you believe you had taken your pilot’s test?”
“No. But I remember taking my driver’s test.”
“What is it exactly that you remember about it? Did your tester wear sunglasses, an ID badge? What color shirt did he or she wear? What color shirt did you wear? This had to be a pretty big day in your life, and I bet you can recall but a few specifics. Now think about an ordinary day—the day before the test. Any memories? What about a week before that? A month?
“Tyler, my entire teens come down to just a small collection of sensory images: clouds over the Mediterranean, a loudspeaker voice at some airport somewhere, a girlfriend’s smile. But the reality is that these sensory fragments aren’t what maintains my memory; a narrative I keep running in my head does. I went to school here, I played lacrosse there, I did this, I did that. And every time I go to recall this narrative, I reinterpret it—reshape it.
“But it’s just a story. And I can guarantee you that if I had never taken my driver’s test, yet knew how to drive and had a license in my wallet, sooner or later I’d start to believe that, yes, I must have taken my test. Why else would I know how to drive and have a license? Perhaps I had simply forgotten about the test and now, now that I’m trying to remember it, it’s all starting to come back.
“And this is all that Danny did when she awoke. She simply tried to make sense of a life she had been tossed into from out of nowhere.” David paused and stared at me. “If Danny’s delusional, so are we all.”
“It should also be noted,” Susan said in a friendly, though professional, tone, “that while Danny had to alter her life story in order to match her new personality type, she did so quite successfully. Danny is actually quite a success story.”
“And you’re certain she’s unaware of Daniella’s existence?” my father asked.
“Absolutely,” Susan said. “But she does have access to nearly all of Daniella’s practical knowledge.”
“Yes, David mentioned that.”
“Psychologically speaking, there’s no reason for her subconscious to block those types of memories.”
“Memories such as motor skills,” Yuri interjected, “are stored in different region of brain.”
“So,” my father said, “it’s not as if Danny just popped into existence from where she left off at seven.”
“Heavens no,” Susan said. “The way I see it, Danny is kind of like a musical fugue. She emerged out of Daniella, who emerged out of her. And, if you think about it, Danny, our present Danny, is really a third personality. She’s part that seven-year-old girl, part the accumulated knowledge of Daniella.”
“Though lacking any memory of how she acquired that knowledge,” my father said.
“Yes, but do any of us really remember learning how to walk or ride a bike? Learning how to add or subtract? We can do these things, but they don’t require a memory of having learned them. We simply take it on faith that as children we did.
“Danny’s situation, however, is a little different. She can’t just tell herself that ‘all children learn the skills I possess.’ Not with the vast array of skills Daniella bequeathed to her. And to be clear—I’m not sure if David mentioned this, but—Daniella’s influences on Danny actually go quite a bit beyond practical knowledge. She didn’t merely inherit a bunch of facts and skills from Daniella.
“You see, since one may fear dogs or love the ocean without remembering the exact experiences of how these fears and loves were learned, Danny, without any conflict to her identity, shares many of Daniella’s purely emotional memories. Consider how attached she is to David, her supposed ex-boyfriend. She has no idea why she trusts him so much, she just does. She—they—really are quite a remarkable fugue.”
My father and I exchanged tired glances. He went to the counter and poured himself another cup of coffee, raising the pot in an offer to everyone at the table. No takers.
“So,” he said, returning to his seat. “You don’t think it’s possible that Danny coming to work at Quantum Bay could have been just a coincidence?”
“Something about your book—I believe—must have struck a chord with her. Perhaps she was seeking a father figure in you. Or maybe she felt a bond with Tyler—he was featured prominently in the book. Honestly, though, I can’t say for sure. All I know is that Danny had the means to do just about anything she wanted, and she chose to work for you. Coincidence? I doubt it.”
My father studied his coffee.
David closed his eyes.
A minute passed.
“All right,” my father said, startling us out of our contemplations, “what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“Equipment will be arriving early,” Yuri said. “So, with luck, we will begin feedback therapy by one or two o’clock.”
“And what will that do?” I asked.
“Hopefully,” Susan said, “Yuri’s system will locate certain neurological activity and stimulate it. And that, in turn, will encourage Danny to wake up.”
“Is like jiggling wires in back of old radio,” Yuri said.
I looked at my father.
“They know what areas to probe in general,” he explained, “but the brain is a complex machine. So, yes, it’s a bit like jiggling wires. Yuri’s machine is, however, the best wire-jiggler there is.”
“As for the rest of us,” Susan said, “we all need to interact with Danny as much as possible. Verbal stimulation can reduce neurological atrophy and potential neurological deficits.”
“There’s a nurse reading to her now,” David informed her.
“What time should we set our alarms for?” My father looked at Yuri.
“Six a.m. is good.”
“Where are you going?” my father asked as I pushed my chair aside and started for the door.
“I—I need to think about all this.”
“Tyler?” David called out.
“Just let him go,” I heard my father tell him. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
17
I took the elevator down to the main lobby and walked outside through the courtyard to the caduceus fountain. As its glistening jets arched high into the night sky and I stood there watching, listening, I noticed the brightly lit portals that connected the East Building to the West. Suddenly, I felt the urge to be up high.
Minutes later, I stepped through the seventh-floor skywalk’s automatic doors and made my way to the center of the transparent tube. There, I peered down at the world below: pure blackness except for the lights which marked the courtyard’s meandering sidewalk—and, of course, the fountain. That thing was its own cosmic event.
Sitting down, I leaned against the glass wall.
What if I had misremembered parts of my life? Would that have diminished any of the experiences Danny had had with me? Not in any way I could think of. And it could even be the case. As David pointed out, maybe I had misremembered parts of my life.
I supposed the only thing that really mattered was that Danny believed she was telling me the truth. Her truth. That’s all that mattered. To her, to any of us, what else is there?
But—how could she have been this other person, Daniella? Can two people really share the same body? And speaking of which, they weren’t the only ones to have shared that body. I’d been to bed with David’s wife—or, at least, his wife’s body.
Why didn’t that bother him more? It would me. He must have really believed that Danny was a different person… but still.
I tried to imagine the kind of hell he must have gone through, watching Danny and me get together. There’s no way I could have done that.
The automatic doors to the East Building opened. Speak of the devil.
“Mind if I join you? Your father’s reading to Danny.” David sat down across from me.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of this man. He had concealed Danny’s history from my father and me, but it did seem he’d only had Danny’s best interests at heart. And, I reminded myself, in all likelihood it would be this man’s resources and resourcefulness that would end up saving her.
“It’s peaceful up here,” David said, looking over his shoulder at the freckling of high-rise windows.
A minute passed.
“So,” he said, clearing his throat, “I thought we should talk about our situation—”
“Tell me about Daniella,” I said, anxious to keep it light. I had no intention of discussing the naked elephant in the room. “What was she like?”
“Daniella…” He thought a moment. “It’s funny; sometimes it’s hard to remember what she even looked like.”
“She looked like Danny—obviously.”
“Yes, but Daniella had different mannerisms; she carried herself differently. She was tenacious, ambitious, driven. But she had a big heart. That part of her was very much like Danny.”
I stared at one of the buildings over his shoulder. What if Daniella, in becoming Danny, had really changed? I mean really changed. What if Daniella had not only lost her personality, but her looks? Would David still be this dedicated? Would he still be spending all this money, putting in all this time? Why should he? At that point, what would make her any different than any other person he might meet on the street?
Actually, given all that he and Susan had been spouting this evening, what made any of us any different than anyone we might meet on the street? Were we all just our looks plus a good knock on the head away from being an entirely different person?
“You would have liked her.” David smiled. “You and your dad would have both liked her.”
“Of course we would have,” I said. I couldn’t imagine any part of Danny being anything less than wonderful.
“Does anyone ever come out here?” David looked up and down the skywalk.
“Poor Peter.” I chuckled wryly.
“What do you mean?”
“He felt slighted because my father always depended on Danny to do QBL’s financial work.”
“Peter had no idea he was going up against a Columbia MBA.”
“Apparently, neither did Danny.”
“Believe me, she didn’t—and doesn’t.”
“So, what if it’s Daniella who wakes up?” I asked.
“I can’t even think that way, Tyler. Danny’s the one who’s downstairs, and she’ll be the one who’ll be waking up.”
I nodded. Maybe he believed Danny would be the one waking up, but I couldn’t believe for a second he didn’t hope it would be Daniella.
“Whether Danny or Daniella, or whoever else she may become,” he said, as if reading my mind, “I will always love her, and will always be there for her.”
“I will—would—too.”
“So why don’t we put all these what-ifs aside,” he said, “and start concentrating on getting her back? She needs both of us now.” David rolled up his sleeves and stood.
“I’m not sure what I can do.” I got to my feet.
“Your father has to go get Ishana soon. So I suppose we can start by taking over reading to Danny.”
****
The next morning, I awoke in my very own Brook Howard resident’s sleeping quarters and stared at my very own Brook Howard red-numbered clock: 5:45. Good God, is that Yuri snoring? I threw off my sheet and got up. As quickly as I could, I showered, dressed and headed down the hall to the control room.
David was already inside reading to Danny. I stared at him through the observation window. Had he been there all night? When I went to my room at around one a.m., he had been still going strong, even acting out the characters. I was no match for David’s oratory skills. He flipped a page and continued on. He looked like a parent reading a bedtime story to a child.
Discouraged, I went to the kitchen.
“Your mom called around two,” my father said. He was making coffee. “She had just made it to the hotel. And Stewart’s doing better—he’s out of surgery.”
“And Ishana?”
“Still asleep.” He pointed in the general direction of his room. He sat down with his coffee and rested his hand on a stack of papers. “This is going to be a busy day.”
“Yes, well, just as fast as we can get Yuri’s machine up and running.” I didn’t like how much time David was spending with Danny. “What are those papers?” I asked.
“Neurological case studies from Susan. And two more research papers from Yuri.”
“I trust you two had good night sleep?” Yuri marched into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and informed us that his two assistants and equipment had just landed at LaGuardia Airport and should be here within the hour. David and Susan then joined us and, over breakfast, we discussed the assembly procedure for the Bourilkov Neurofeedback System.
My father suggested—and Yuri agreed—that, for efficiency’s sake, if Susan and David concentrated on the cabling between Danny’s room and the control room, while he and I assisted Yuri with the detector ring, then Yuri’s two assistants could focus on the computers in the server room.
My father had just assumed Susan would be willing to get her hands dirty, and, not surprisingly, he was right. She actually seemed excited about threading wires through the wall. She was one of his kind. She was a scientist.
About an hour later, Yuri’s assistants, Kurt Sokolinsky and Cole Rodgers, an engineering duo much like Mohamed and Stewart, arrived at Brook Howard’s loading docks with four crates. The crates were immediately transported up to Danny’s room.
With Danny temporarily located across the hall in room 514, we went right to work, Yuri spreading the detector-ring assembly diagram out on one of the crates.
“I hope this isn’t going to be like one of those build-it-yourself barbecue grills,” my father said.
“No, no, we supply all parts,” Yuri assured him. “But ring is in four main sections and will require heavy lifting.”
“That’s why we have Tyler here.” My father applied a pry bar to the edge of the crate labeled “Support Assembly” and lifted the lid. Once it was detached, I helped him lower it to the floor.
We worked throughout the morning and into the afternoon and, by three o’clock, the Bourilkov Neurofeedback System was ready for testing.
Because the system incorporated resonant inductive tomography and pulse-charged magnetic probes, there was no dangerous radiation to worry about, which meant that during the scanning process we would be able to stand or sit as close to Danny as we wanted. The halo detector/probe ring was also physically far enough away from her head that we, and the nurses, would have unobstructed access to her.
Presently, in the control room, my father, Yuri and I sat behind the Bourilkov System’s three control monitors. On the right, we could see system information, data-transmission error rates, sensor temperature readings, that sort of thing; in the center, a three-dimensional brain map with faint orange blips; and on the left—the monitor directly in front of me—raw data, twenty-eight columns of ev
er-changing numbers, each one representing thousands of localized peaks:
Yuri adjusted the onscreen controls, explaining that only once his system had detected a “substantial” neurological pattern could he target that activity for feedback amplification. Once that happened, he said, he would use Danny’s response characteristics to design a personalized therapy session.
Ten hours later, not a single significant pattern had been found.
During that time, however, Ishana left for the island, claiming that she would be returning home to India soon (my father seeming neither surprised nor upset); Kurt and Cole left for LaGuardia Airport, Yuri telling them that he had enough help with my father as his assistant; and, for at least three of those ten hours, my father and I hovered over his cellphone in the kitchen, fielding questions for my mother and the A.I. XPRIZE board, all the while just wanting to get back to the control room and Danny.
At a little after one in the morning, my mother called to let us know the presentation had gone well and that she was on her way home.
Our news was a bit more sobering. After a full day’s work we had nothing to show for it. No significant patterns, not even a discernible sleep/wake cycle.
Eventually, Susan and David went off to bed, and my father and Yuri left to go troubleshoot a problem in the server room. I sat there alone at the Bourilkov System’s three control monitors. With the 3D brain map showing only a freckling of orange blips and no patterns, I turned my attention to the raw data screen. I tried to follow the ebbs and flows of the numbers. But they changed so quickly.
“That will only give you headache,” Yuri said, entering the room.
“I just get a sense of them, and then they all seem to change their reference frame.”
“Is correct. Reference will change as Bourilkov System scans different regions of brain.” Yuri patted me on the shoulder. “But you will not get anything out of numbers that machine does not. Brain is clever, computer is faster.”
“Tyler?” my father said. I hadn’t realized he had come into the room. “Why don’t we get a fresh start tomorrow? Go get some sleep.”
Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle Page 19