Listening, Gil heard the sound of splashing water—the pastor was in the bath. Baths were fraught with danger, and Gil’s hopes rose. Listening to the sounds of washing, Gil slipped up to the door and leaned out until his eye cleared the frame. It was a small bathroom with a tub at the far end. There was a sink and counter along one wall with a toilet at the end by the tub. The tub had a shower curtain pushed back along one side, hiding the pastor’s head, while his body was stretched out full length. Most important of all, there was a radio playing on the counter.
Gil studied the radio. It was an old-fashioned clock radio, with hour and second hands. The cord was plugged into an outlet on the counter and then disappeared behind the radio. Gil thought about rushing in and tossing the radio into the tub, but hesitated, worrying the pastor might be fast enough to knock the radio aside. Then the phone rang.
“Not now!” the pastor exclaimed, pushing himself up.
Panicked by fear of discovery, Gil trotted down the hall and turned in to the study just as the pastor emerged, towel around his waist, and ran to the living room. He was on the phone when Gil closed the door and retreated to the window. It had been too close and he was scared. Climbing out, he pulled the window closed, and then headed for the alley. Pausing in the shadow of a bush, he waited, making sure there were no witnesses. His fear subsided as he waited, and his anger returned. The pastor could betray him and had to be stopped, but he had lost his chance for now. Vowing to return, he hopped the back fence and trotted down the alley.
21
CREATIVITY
You want I should be in the speriment, Wes? I wouldn’t mind. You wouldn’t have to buy me a ice-cream cone, if you didn’t want to.”
“No, Ralph. Thanks, but we won’t need you this time.”
“Want me to put Daphne’s helmet on her?”
“Karon will do it, Ralph.”
“I could help Yu, or Archie.”
“No, Ralph.”
“What’s this button do, Wes?”
“Don’t touch that!” Wes shouted. Then softer, “I know what, Ralph. Daphne and the others will be thirsty when they get done. Why don’t you go down and get them all a Slurpee.”
“Even in the rain?”
“Sure, sure. Go ahead. It’s all right, isn’t it, Elizabeth?”
Looking amused, Elizabeth gave her permission.
“Well okeydokey then. I’ll need some money.”
“Here, Ralph,” Wes said, handing him ten dollars.
Ralph turned, then stopped, thumping himself in the head. “How could I be so stupid? I can’t carry that many—specially if I get mediums.”
“Take a box, Ralph.”
Shifting instantly from concerned to happy, “Well okeydokey then.”
It took Ralph a few minutes to circulate among the savants, taking orders; then he was off. Wes sighed with relief and then urged his coworkers to hurry.
“You know, Wes,” Len said. “You and Ralph remind me of the man who always bought shoes two sizes too small. When asked why, he said, ‘Because it feels so good when I take them off.’ ”
“Do your job, Len.”
“You should have put an EET on Ralph, Wes,” Shamita said. “I could have turned him off.”
Elizabeth scowled at Shamita. “Let’s not misuse the equipment, or the savants.”
Shamita immediately bent to her terminal, while Elizabeth helped Karon finish up fitting the headgear. One by one Shamita put the savants under, doing Gil last.
As Shamita intercepted the brain waves she fed them to Wes, and they appeared on his terminal. Soon he had a full set of undulating waves. Then, as before, he integrated the functions using Gil as the matrix. Finally he said, “We should have Frankie. Try it, Elizabeth.”
“Are you there, Frankie?” Elizabeth said to Yu.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
The voice came from Daphne.
“You recognized my voice?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember drawing a picture for me?”
“Yes.”
“Was that a picture of you?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where do you live?”
“I live . . . I live . . .”
Wes signaled a cutoff. “You’re confusing her, Elizabeth. She’s probably filled with memories of the homes of all five of the mind donors. Let’s not stress her unnecessarily. We have a special task for her tonight.”
“She doesn’t sound confused, she sounds disoriented.” Then, after a moment of thought, “All right, what is it tonight? Are you going to ask her to explain God to you?”
Wes was hurt that Elizabeth would mock him with something he’d shared in a private moment. “No, we want to explore the power of her intellect. We’re going to ask her to be creative. That was what we designed the program for—to draw on all the powers of the savants to put it to work on a task.”
Karon came forward carrying a yellow pad. Reluctantly, Elizabeth moved behind Wes, studying the display.
“Frankie, my name is Karon.”
“Hello, Karon. Why can’t I see you?”
Karon looked surprised, turning to Wes for direction. Wes mouthed something at her.
“You’ll be able to see again soon, but right now we want you to concentrate on what you hear. Can you do that?”
“I can, but I’d like to see you.”
“Later. Frankie, I want you to picture a mountain with a temple at the top. Do you know what a temple is?”
“Yes.”
“There is a path that winds around the mountain from the bottom to the temple at the top. At sunrise one morning, a monk begins to journey to the temple. He walks at varying speed, stopping many times along the way to rest. When he reaches the top he spends the night. The next morning he leaves again at dawn, but travels much faster going down, again stopping many times to rest. Do you understand so far?”
“Yes, Karon.”
“Good. Now, can you prove that there is a point along the path the monk occupies at the same time of day, coming and going.”
Elizabeth whispered in Wes’s ear. “What kind of problem is that? He’d need calculus to solve it.”
As she finished Frankie spoke with Daphne’s voice.
“Picture the monk both climbing and descending on the same day, leaving at dawn, one at the top and one at the bottom. At some point they must pass each other, and that is the point the monk would occupy at the same time going up and coming down.”
Karon nodded in appreciation. Elizabeth sat quietly trying to understand the solution. Then she said, “It’s just a tricky riddle.”
“Yes, but it took a creative solution,” Wes said.
“You could define creativity that way, but this is just a variation on Yu’s ability to make remote associations. Where’s the unique contribution? Give this riddle to a hundred people and thirty of them will come up with a solution identical to Frankie’s.”
“Not thirty, only about ten. But I see your point. We’ll get to that eventually.”
“You can get to it now if you want.”
The voice came from Daphne—it was Frankie. Guiltily, Shamita stabbed at her keyboard and then apologized to Wes.
“I got distracted. I guess I forgot to turn off Frankie’s hearing.”
His jaw tight, Wes controlled his anger. Frankie wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t to know she was being studied like a rat in a Skinner box. Shamita’s error jeopardized the whole project. But short of trying to set different parameters around the abilities of the savants to build a different Frankie, Wes had no alternative but to continue.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” he said. “Turn Frankie back on, but let’s be careful. Only one person speak to her at a time. Elizabeth, will you take over? Try to reassure her.”
“It’s Elizabeth again, Frankie.”
“Hello, Elizabeth. Why does my hearing come and go? What about my
sight? Can you bring it back?”
“Not just yet. You are a unique person, Frankie, and we’re just learning to work with you. When we know each other better I’ll be able to explain more.”
“I don’t understand, but I’ll be patient. I’ve been patient so long.”
Puzzled over the last comment, Elizabeth held up her hands and wrinkled her face. Just as bewildered, Wes shrugged back.
Frankie continued, “I can be creative if you want. I do have an idea, but I don’t know where it came from. I’ve been thinking about mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Of all the cognitive disorders it is the most common, and the most common symptom is hearing voices. Most schizophrenics improve with age, or with drugs which control synaptic activity in specific regions of the brain by reducing the sensitivity of receptor sites.”
Impressed with Frankie’s detailed knowledge, Wes and Elizabeth exchanged puzzled glances.
“Of those that are least helped by medication, there is a peculiar similarity in their symptoms. Many complain of voices trying to control them, or of ideas being placed in their minds. Ideas so foreign that they must invent new words to represent the concepts—words like circlingology, spectralreverberation, and rectangulight. What if . . .”
Frankie’s sentence trailed off.
“What if what, Frankie?” Elizabeth asked.
“What if those poor people who have been labeled crazy and locked up weren’t hallucinating? What if, instead, someone decided to believe them?”
Again, Frankie paused.
“Believe that they are actually hearing voices?” Elizabeth said. “But where would the voices be coming from?”
“I can think of three possibilities. First, they could be hearing the thoughts of those around them.”
“Telepathy?”
“Yes, at least they should be tested for it. The thoughts of others mixing in with their own could convince anyone they’re crazy. But this seems least likely to me. A second possibility is that the voices are coming from a spiritual plane.”
“They are channeling?”
“Something like that. However, this too seems unlikely. These people complain of ideas so foreign that they can’t express them. Other’s thoughts, or the thoughts of the dead, wouldn’t seem foreign—dated perhaps, but not foreign. That brings me to the third, and most likely, possibility. It may be that somewhere in the universe another intelligent life-form is trying to communicate with us. Possibly by telepathy, possibly by some technology we can’t fathom. It may be these people are receivers tuned in to aliens broadcasting ideas so different from our experience it seems crazy.” Then after a long pause, “You wanted creative, so I gave you creative.”
Silence reigned until Shamita cut off Frankie’s hearing.
“It’s OK now,” she said.
“This is incredible,” Wes said. “This is a person, Elizabeth. You can’t deny it now.”
“I don’t. But it raises a whole new set of ethical problems. Frankie only lives through your machines. Every time you turn them off, Frankie dies, only to be resurrected by another flip of the switch.”
“It’s not dying like you think of it, Elizabeth. If there is such a thing as a soul, Frankie doesn’t have one. When the experiment ends, Frankie ceases to exist. No pain, no suffering . . .”
“No joy, no hope, no creativity, no personhood!”
“But there was none of that before we created her!”
“But it’s there now.” Then calmer, “Frankie is too much of a person. It’s uncanny. Look how much she’s changed from just the last contact. Are you sure there’s no consciousness when they’re disconnected? Could Frankie be a part of one of the donors, hidden away in some corner of the unconscious, like someone suffering from multiple personalities?”
Shamita answered. “It wouldn’t be likely. If you watch the displays, Frankie uses the abilities of the donors when she is functioning. Without those, and the memories that go along with them, she wouldn’t be anyone at all. You may remember a famous case in the literature of a man by the name of Phineas Gage, who worked at railroad construction in the eighteen-hundreds. One day while he was using an iron rod to pack black powder for an explosion, the powder went off, blowing the three-foot rod through his cheek, behind his eye, and out through the top of his head. The iron rod tore a hole through his prefrontal brain. The doctor who attended him reported bits of bone and brain around the opening in the top of his head. He did recover, but his friends said he wasn’t the same person—they said the Phineas Gage they knew had died in the explosion, and the profane, violent man now calling himself Phineas was someone else. Our Frankie isn’t Frankie without those brain regions we’re using from the donors.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “Let me talk to her again.”
Shamita turned Frankie on just as Ralph walked through the door.
“They didn’t have Coke, Archie. Only cherry and something that looked like pineapple. Pineapple is yucky. I didn’t get it. I got you cherry. I told Sylvia to get new flavors. She said she would when they ran out.”
“Ralph, we’re in the middle of our work,” Wes said.
“You want I should put this in the refrigerator? It’s not as good when it’s melted. I put one in the freezer one time and it all stuck together. One big lump.”
“It’s nice to see you’re still alive, Ralph.”
Frankie’s voice silenced everyone but Ralph.
“Was that you, Daphne? Your voice sounds funny,” Ralph said.
“No, it’s me, Frankie.”
“Frankie?” Ralph said.
“Karon, get him out of here,” Wes said.
Karon ushered Ralph out on the pretense of helping put the Slurpees in the refrigerator. When he was gone, Elizabeth returned to Frankie, puzzled. “Frankie, last time we talked you said you didn’t know Ralph.”
“I recognized his voice.”
“Why did you say you were glad he was alive?”
“Because I am. I like him, and I know someone wants him dead.”
“Who?”
After a long silence, “I don’t know, but they want Shamita and someone called Pastor Young dead too.”
Stunned, Elizabeth signaled a cutoff, and Wes ended the session. As they were winding down, he tried to reassure Elizabeth.
“Frankie’s just confusing phrases like ‘I could kill you,’ said in frustration, with actual thoughts of killing someone. Isn’t that right, Shamita?”
Shock still showing on her face, Shamita was slow to respond. “I suppose it could be a kind of self-talk. Expressing frustration by saying to yourself ‘I wish you were dead.’ If so, it could be someone’s adaptive way of not acting on their impulses. Although I don’t know why one of the savants would feel that way about me. I don’t have much to do with them.”
“See, Elizabeth. It’s easily explained,” Wes said.
“I’d still like to know who’s having these thoughts. It’s got to be one of the donors.”
“All of them but Gil know the pastor from church. It could be any of them. I’d guess Archie, or Yu. They’re the most sullen,” Wes said.
“They’re quiet, not sullen,” Elizabeth said defensively. “At least not Archie. Yu’s got a lot to be angry about, but he’s no killer.”
“No one’s been killed,” Wes reminded her; then, looking around, he saw Gil staring at him. When their eyes met Gil turned away and quickly left.
Wes turned back to Elizabeth to see her watching Gil leave. When their eyes met she just shrugged, and then said, “But someone has been killed, Wes. You’re forgetting Rimmer.”
“He wasn’t on Frankie’s list.”
“He didn’t need to be, he’s already dead.”
Stretched out on the bed, Gil cleared his mind, looked at his lamp, and pushed with his thoughts. It didn’t move. Gil reached deeper, and pushed again—no movement. This time he thought of Ralph’s ability to hear him, and his anger swelled, then he pushed. The lamp flew of
f the table. Surprised, and shocked by the clattering lamp, Gil froze. He listened, but no footsteps sounded in the hall. Quickly he picked up the lamp. The bulb would need to be replaced, but the lamp was unbroken.
He had the power—a real power! Thrilled, he flopped onto the bed, looking for another target. His closet door was open and he pushed, forgetting to get angry. Nothing happened. Giddy, he had trouble summoning anger, but finally he pushed the door closed with his mind. He was telekinetic now, and with his other power he had what he had hoped for. He should leave, he knew, but he couldn’t. Like an addict he needed more of the experiment, but unlike an addict, each session strengthened him. Were there new powers awaiting him? Was there any limit on his development? His telekinetic power was much stronger now. What would it be after another session?
He was determined to stay, to develop his new abilities, but he had to clean up the loose ends. They had been talking about people being killed when he came out of the experiment. If only that college kid hadn’t been killed it would be easier for him, he could just murder one of his loose ends. But now he needed to make it an accident.
Gil relaxed and began exploring his mind, looking for new powers, and waiting for dark.
Gil was in the bushes when the pastor returned home and headed for his kitchen. The pastor was a man of habit, and Gil waited under the unlatched window while the pastor drank his evening tea. When the pipes hummed with the sound of running water he pushed open the window he had used before and climbed in. He crept to the hall, and as before the bathroom light was on and the radio playing. The taps were closed and then came the sound of splashing. Gil gave the pastor a couple minutes to get well relaxed and then crept down the hall.
At the door he paused, waiting for the sound of splashing to be sure he was still in the tub. Water sloshed and Gil leaned out, stared at the radio, summoned up his anger over the pastor discovering who he was, and pushed. The radio flew across the counter, flying off the end toward the tub—but the cord was too short and the radio was pulled up, dropping to the floor. The surprised pastor sat up, looking around, bewildered.
Gil flattened against the wall. How stupid! He had demonstrated his power, alerting the pastor. He might put Gil’s presence and the flying radio together. The pastor had to die now, but it had to look like an accident. The sound of water alerted Gil—the pastor was getting out. He felt fear pushing through his anger and knew he had to act. Gil stepped into the open door. Naked, the pastor stood in the tub, startled by Gil’s sudden appearance.
Fragments Page 21