Wes turned back to his team and got nods or thumbs-up signs from them all, and then they looked at him expectantly. They were ready for the next phase and were waiting for Wes to suggest it. Unfortunately, it required Elizabeth’s cooperation. Wes tried to frame his proposal in a diplomatic way.
“Elizabeth, we want to try the next step—just to see if the equipment works. We want to try combining more than one mind. What I mean is we want you and Ralph to volunteer to have your minds combined with Daphne’s.”
Elizabeth stared at him long and hard before responding. “You want me to submit to an experiment where you can electronically manipulate me into a hypnotic state where I’m susceptible to your suggestions?”
“You make it sound like I have some evil purpose in mind.”
“Machiavellian, not evil.”
“What is it you think I would do to you?”
“I can think of several possibilities. How about planting a posthypnotic suggestion so when I wake I find myself an ardent supporter of this project.”
“Do you really think I would do that?”
“I think you believe very strongly in your work and see me as a threat to your funding.”
Wes couldn’t tell if Elizabeth really thought he might do something to her, or whether she was simply afraid of something she didn’t understand.
“I’d be willing to stand in,” Gil interrupted. “Elizabeth’s the one who’ll get blamed if something happens to Ralph or Daphne. I should be the one to go under, or whatever is the right way to put it.”
Uncertain, Wes hesitated. There was something about Gil that bothered him—he was too likable. Everyone seemed to take to him instantly, and Wes didn’t believe anyone was that agreeable. Suddenly, he changed his mind. “It’s a good idea. Thanks, Gil.”
“Yeah,” Ralph added. “I think it’s a good idea too, Gil.”
Wes watched Gil jerk around to stare at Ralph, then quickly turn back to Wes. Something was going on between them, he realized, but at the moment Wes’s experiment was all he cared about.
“Ralph, we can do this with two, but it would be a better test if we had three people. Would you be willing to help us?” Wes asked. “You just have to lie there like Daphne.”
Ralph’s big smile suddenly dropped into a frown and his eyebrows furrowed. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned back, thinking long and hard, puckering his fleshy lips. Then in a very serious tone he said, “I dunno. I might be hungry when I get done.”
“Wes will buy ice cream when we’re done, won’t you, Wes?” Elizabeth said.
“Yes. Two scoops. Waffle cones. Whatever you want.”
Ralph’s expression suddenly changed from a frown to his usual oversized grin. “Well okeydokey then.” Smiling, and chewing his wad of gum openmouthed, Ralph stood, swinging his head back and forth.
Pushed into position by Daphne, two cots were angled so the participants’ heads would be next to each other. Gil took the middle cot and Len began fitting him with a scalp array. Ralph remained by the wall, grinning and swinging his head. Wes waved him forward but he just stared back blankly.
“Ralph, you need to lie down like Gil and Daphne.”
He looked back and forth several times and then suddenly his hand shot out and up and he thumped himself in the head. “How could I be so stupid?” he said, taking three oversized steps and plopping onto the cot. “Can you chew gum and do this?” he asked loudly.
“Not a good idea, Ralph,” Len said.
“Okeydokey.”
Ralph took the wad of gum out of his mouth and then looked up at the ceiling. When Len followed his stare, Ralph reached under the cot and put the gum on the bottom. It irritated Wes, but he said nothing, making a mental note to have Elizabeth talk with Ralph about his gum-disposal habits. Len fit an array to Ralph and then returned to his monitor. Wes’s team bent to their monitors. While they worked Ralph talked.
“Let’s go to the Dairy Queen. I want to get a dip cone. Does a dip count as two scoops? I think it should. A dip cone costs less than a double dip at the thirty-two flavors. I like the cherry dip. Daphne doesn’t though. Daphne likes the chocolate dip. I like the chocolate dip too, but I like the cherry dip better. I don’t like the butterscotch dip, do you? Huh? Are you busy, Wes?”
“Yes, I am. Please look at the pictures Karon is holding up.”
“Sure, sure. Is it like one of them tests the head doctors do? I can see a butterfly in that one.”
Wes punched up Shamita’s display on his monitor, worried that Ralph’s chatter would interfere with the mapping. After several cards, blue lines began multiplying on his display, indicating that the multiplexed waves were being identified and localized. After what seemed to be an eternity of Ralph’s prattle, Wes could stand it no more. “Shamita, is he mapped?” Wes asked, and then made a slicing motion with his hand. Shamita waved him off and typed on her keyboard. Wes tried concentrating on setting the program parameters based on the feed he was receiving on his volunteers, but Ralph’s chatter cut through.
“I had a dip cone at Frosty Freeze one time. It was yucky. They only had chocolate dip. I never got a dip there again. I never ate there again. I ate a cherry dip at another Dairy Queen one time that tasted different. I thought all Dairy Queens tasted the same. Their hot dogs taste different too. Their hamburgers—”
Suddenly Ralph was silent. Wes looked over at Ralph, who was now lying quietly on the cot. Shamita flashed him a smile and wiggled her eyebrows. Wes mouthed a thank-you to Shamita, then called up a color simulation of Ralph’s cortical activity from Shamita’s computer. As he expected, there was nothing unusual in his brain-wave activity. That was one of the many mysteries of the brain. Ralph was mentally retarded, with a functional IQ of sixty, but his brain-wave activity couldn’t be distinguished from that of Einstein. Daphne, who was a genius in music and some math computations, didn’t show any particular differences in brain activity from that of Ralph, or anyone else. Dozens of researchers had searched for decades for some difference, but had never found any.
Wes reduced the screen window showing Ralph’s brain waves and pulled up Gil’s. Wes watched the wave activity with his practiced eye, but saw nothing peculiar. He felt a presence behind him and turned his head, catching Elizabeth in his peripheral vision. She was standing a few feet behind him, watching the screen. He knew she was interested, but he suspected she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking for an explanation. Karon was just beginning the deck of visual patterns with Gil, so Wes took the time to explain to Elizabeth.
“Let me show you what we’re doing.”
Elizabeth came a step closer.
“This screen shows Daphne’s brain-wave activity. Here, let me make the image bigger.”
Wes doubled the image size and the top view of Daphne’s walnut-shaped cortex expanded. Then Wes expanded each of the other views until the three images were side by side. In all three images waves of color washed over the cortexes, expanding from dots to flood large sections of both the left and right cortex, only to be replaced by new waves of color.
“What do the colors indicate?”
“In this mode you’re looking at electrical activity. This is essentially an EEG; an electroencephalograph that’s been computer enhanced and color-coded.”
“I don’t see the corpus callosum—where the brain waves spread from one cortex to the next.”
“It’s deep between the two hemispheres. Here . . .” Wes pointed between the two halves of the walnut shape on the screen. “I can get you a view if you want.”
“Maybe later. What you’re showing is electromagnetic activity, but there’s more going on than just that.”
“Right. Here, I’ll show you another mode.” Wes typed on his keyboard and the image on the screen changed from waves of color to glowing splotches. Most of the brain glowed green, blue, or yellow, but here and there were spots of brown or deep red.
“This is an infrared image. We’re measuring the heat cont
ent of different regions of the brain,” Wes explained. “Red areas are the warmest regions. When an area of the brain is active, the blood flow increases, and it shows as red. That’s one way we can tell which regions carry out which functions. Here, I’ll show you what we’re doing with Daphne. Len! Ask Daphne some calendar questions for me, will you?”
Wes used the computer’s mouse to click on the brain labeled DAPHNE and it expanded to fill the entire screen. Another click and the image split in two, providing a separate view of the right and left hemispheres.
“All right, Len, ask. Now, watch the monitor, Elizabeth.”
As soon as Len began asking the questions the whole brain changed in color, from bluish green to green and yellow, and here and there new patches of red and brown appeared.
“Notice the red here in the frontal regions, and here in the parietal,” Wes said, pointing at the left hemisphere. “Three major centers, and two minor.”
“What about the right hemisphere?” Elizabeth asked. “There’s not much activity there.”
“Calendar counting is primarily a left function; it’s based on verbal skills. If these questions were spatial questions—like having her move chess pieces around in her mind—then the right hemisphere might activate.”
“I would have guessed she was solving these problems visually. I pictured her rapidly flipping through the pages of a calendar and looking up the dates.”
“Really,” Wes said in real surprise. “I never thought of it that way. But if she was I would think you would see the right hemisphere working more than it is.”
“Maybe,” Elizabeth replied. “But you’re assuming Daphne’s brain has divided functions between hemispheres like other people. What makes her a savant could be having both functions in the same hemisphere.”
Wes turned and looked up at Elizabeth, who was towering over him. Wes wanted to see Elizabeth’s expression, to see if she was genuine in her speculation or just trying to needle him. Wes saw no guile in her, only sincere interest.
“That’s a creative idea,” he conceded. “But we’ve already mapped her, and her hemisphere functions are virtually identical to the norm. Also, remember we enter at a macro level, so unless she rejects the multiplexed waves we send her from the others, her brain will split them into recognizable signals just as other brains do.”
Karon finished with Gil, and Len and Shamita indicated they were done mapping the two new volunteers. Wes pulled up the displays of Gil and Ralph, adding them to Daphne’s brain-wave activity. Each display had the person’s name below it. Next a blank fourth display appeared with the name Frankie below.
“Frankie?” Elizabeth prompted.
“Len’s idea.” Wes explained. “It’s short for Frankenstein. He says our project reminds him of Dr. Frankenstein piecing together body parts to make a whole person. Except our work is cleaner, we’re piecing minds together, and we’re not working with dead people.”
“I see.”
Wes detected a note of disapproval in Elizabeth’s voice.
“OK, I’m ready,” Wes said to his team. “Let’s use Gil’s pattern as the matrix and overlay Daphne and Ralph.”
“Whose verbal center do you want to use? I can connect Ralph up if you want,” Shamita said.
“Don’t you dare turn him back on!” Wes said in a near shout.
Shamita smiled but didn’t look up from her monitor. Len started to say something, but Wes cut him off.
“I don’t want to hear it, Len,” Wes said.
Len acted the shocked innocent, but kept quiet.
“Let’s use Gil for verbal,” Wes continued. “We want to be sure we’re getting integration.”
Wes typed in instructions and then used the mouse to select the blank Frankie square. As he typed, the blank square filled with brain waves, colors sweeping back and forth.
“That’s Gil,” Wes said. “You can see the two displays are the same.” Wes pointed at Gil’s display and then at the new display below. “Now, here comes Daphne’s contribution.” Wes typed some more and then used the mouse to click on the Frankie display. The wave pattern changed. “You can see this pattern is different from Gil’s and not exactly Daphne’s either. Now we add Ralph.” Then in a louder voice the others could hear he said, “Let’s give Frankie Ralph’s sensory input.”
“No output from Ralph?” Karon asked, a big smile on her face.
“None,” Wes snapped back.
The Frankie display changed again.
“Does everything look good to you?” Wes asked. After everyone indicated agreement, Wes turned to Elizabeth. “Take my yellow pad and go ask Ralph a calendar question.”
“Ralph?”
“Yes. He’s input.”
Elizabeth picked up the pad and walked over to Ralph’s cot, standing by his head, her back to Daphne.
“Ralph, can you hear me?”
There was no reply. Before Elizabeth could repeat the question Wes stopped her.
“You’re not really talking to Ralph, or Daphne, or Gil, for that matter. It’s Frankie, remember.”
“Should I call him Frankie?”
“There’s not enough of a mix here for that. It’s still mostly Gil. Don’t call him anything, just ask the question.”
Wes could tell Elizabeth didn’t like depersonalizing the volunteers, but she went along.
“Was 1492 a leap year?”
There was no response.
“Wait a minute, Elizabeth,” Wes said. “Shamita, expand the parameters on verbal. Are you getting all of Broca’s area?”
Shamita typed furiously for a minute, then nodded to Wes.
“OK, good. Try it again, Elizabeth.”
“Was 1492 a leap year?”
“Yes,” came the reply from Gil’s mouth.
Elizabeth spun around and looked at Gil in surprise. “That’s weird,” Elizabeth said.
“You think that’s weird,” Len said. “If you kiss Daphne, and blow in Ralph’s ear, Gil will get an erection.”
Karon snickered, but Wes hung his head in embarrassment. “Ignore Len, Elizabeth, we all do. Ask another question.”
Elizabeth turned back to Ralph and then bent and whispered in Ralph’s ear. Wes understood. She couldn’t quite believe that one person could hear the question, a second solve the problem, and a third give the answer. Whispering in Ralph’s ear was a simple test. While she was whispering Wes heard Len say to Karon, “She’s actually blowing in Ralph’s ear.”
As soon as Elizabeth finished, Gil said, “Sunday.” Elizabeth looked down at the pad and then nodded her head. Wes smiled. Elizabeth whispered more questions, and each time Gil answered correctly. When Elizabeth had satisfied herself it wasn’t some kind of trick, she stood up and nodded at Wes, who took it as sign of respect.
“OK, let’s shut it down,” Wes said.
Elizabeth came over to watch as Wes systematically removed each layer of mind and disconnected from the donor. Finally, only Gil’s pattern was left and Wes signaled the others to bring them back out. A few minutes later they sat up one at a time. Daphne got up immediately and walked out of the room, Elizabeth following. A few seconds later the sounds of “Throw Out the Lifeline” came through the door. When Gil sat up he seemed excited and assured everyone he felt fine, then scampered off to his room. As soon as Ralph sat up his mouth opened.
“Ice cream time. You promised. A promise is a promise.”
“Yes, Ralph. We’ll go get the ice cream. Just give me a second.”
“I’ll ask Daphne what she wants. She’ll want chocolate dip. She always gets chocolate dip. We going to Dairy Queen?”
“Dairy Queen, fine.”
“Not Frosty Freeze.”
“I said Dairy Queen, Ralph. It’s Dairy Queen.”
“Well okeydokey then.”
Ralph turned to leave and was nearly gone when Len piped up from behind his console. “Are we still going to Frosty Freeze like you promised, Wes?”
Ralph immediately turned, fo
lded his arms across his chest, and leaned back. His large loose lips formed into a pucker and deep furrows appeared on his brow. Then he walked back over to Wes.
“You said Dairy Queen, Wes.”
“Len was kidding, Ralph. We are going to Dairy Queen.”
Wes looked at Len, who was hiding behind his console. Karon had her head down next to his and he could hear them snicker every time Ralph spoke.
“I don’t like Frosty Freeze. They don’t have cherry dip. They only have chocolate. It’s yucky. Daphne doesn’t like it either. Daphne likes the chocolate dip at Dairy Queen, not Frosty Freeze.”
“Len, tell him you were kidding!”
Wes heard only muffled laughter from behind Len’s console. Then Shamita spoke up.
“You’re not changing your mind, are you, Wes? I love Frosty Freeze.”
Len and Karon burst out laughing and Shamita bit her lip, stifling a giggle. Wes rolled his eyes and waited for what was coming. Ralph crossed the room, pulled a chair up and put his face inches from Wes’s.
“Dr. Martin, we’ve gotta talk.”
“It’s a joke, Ralph.”
“Some things aren’t funny, Dr. Martin. Let me explain it to you real simple. I don’t like Frosty Freeze.”
“I know Ralph.”
“The chocolate dip is yucky.”
Wes was still listening to the chocolate-dip story when his team walked out to get coffee, holding their sides and giggling.
5
AFTERMATH
Gil lay on his bed, excited and afraid at the same time. He didn’t know where he got the courage to actually submit to their experiment, especially after he heard Ms. Foxworth describe it as a hypnotic state. Now Gil was glad he’d had the courage to risk it—his mind felt sharp and clear and he felt confident, and capable. Something was different, and it excited him.
Gil got up and paced his room, trying to do calendar problems like Daphne, then checking them against his wall calendar. He couldn’t do it with any accuracy, but still, he was sure in some way he was different.
Fragments Page 7