Crosstalk

by Connie Willis

  But unless that patient’s brains had started leaking out through her EED incision, her problem couldn’t possibly be as bad as what Trent was telling him, especially considering the dangers it held for his reputation if word leaked out. And she knew that was a concern, because at one point he asked sharply, “Who have you told about this?”

  “No one,” Trent said. “That was why we were so anxious to have you return, so we could speak to you first.”

  “I’m glad,” Dr. Verrick said, and there was no mistaking his relief. But that didn’t tally with his being indifferent, or whatever it was he was: Bored? Detached? On hold?

  That’s it, she thought. On hold. He’s just marking time talking to us while he waits for something. But for what? An orderly from the psych ward with a pair of straitjackets? Or some new brain scan Sky didn’t know about that could tell exactly what someone was thinking?

  I need to find out, Briddey thought, and went into her courtyard. She hadn’t been able to find Dr. Verrick’s voice on the radio before, but hopefully that was because he’d been out of range. He was here now, and—

  A nurse stuck her head in the door. “Doctor? I’m sorry to interrupt, but you asked me to let you know when Ms. Walenski arrived.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Verrick said, and went over to the door. He and the nurse conferred in undertones for a moment and then she withdrew, and Dr. Verrick came back over to them. “I’m terribly sorry. There’s a patient issue I need to deal with. It should only take a few minutes. Please, have some coffee.” He gestured toward the coffeemaker and went out.

  Trent immediately took out his phone, looked at his messages, and called his secretary. Good, Briddey thought, and went cautiously over to the cottonwood tree, sat down on the bench, and picked up the radio to see if she could find Dr. Verrick’s station.

  “When did he call?” Trent was saying. “I said, when did he call?…What? I can’t hear you. Let me get someplace with better reception.” He put the phone to his chest. “Tell Dr. Verrick I’ll be right back.”

  Briddey nodded and went back to the radio, and then thought, Forget Dr. Verrick. Now’s your chance to talk to Sky, while Trent’s focused on his call, and the moment the door snicked shut behind him, said, Sky?

  I’m here. What’s up? Where are you?

  With Trent and Dr. Verrick.

  He’s back? Are they in the room with you?

  No, Dr. Verrick went to deal with a patient, and Trent left to make a phone call—

  It’s still not safe, C.B. said. Go to Santa Fe.

  I’m already there, she said, but Sky had gone. He must think Trent can hear me even when he’s talking to someone else, she thought, replacing the radio on top of the gardener’s cupboard and then pacing the flagstones, wondering what Sky intended to do. Was he going to go into his safe room and talk to her from there?

  “Nope, we’ll use yours,” C.B. said, and she looked up to see him coming over the top of the adobe wall, one jeans-clad leg flung over it. “You didn’t have to make these walls so damned high. You wouldn’t happen to have a ladder, would you? Or a rope?”

  “If you give me a minute, I can visualize one,” she said, running back over to the cupboard.

  “Never mind,” C.B. said. He jumped lightly down onto the flagstones and came over to her. “Nice place,” he said, looking around at the flowers and the cottonwood tree.

  “How did you do that?” she asked him.

  “It’s one of those auxiliary defenses I told you I’d teach you,” he said, walking over to the cottonwood tree and sitting down on the bench. “So what did you need to tell me? And how’d the good doctor get here so fast?”

  “He has his own private jet.”

  “Sorry. I should have thought of that. Where was he? Did you find out?”

  “Yes,” Briddey said, sitting down next to him. “Sedona. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No. I know it’s a haven for the rich, like Aspen or the Hamptons, which means he was probably there to set up an EED, though if that’s the case, why would he have told people he was in Hong Kong?” He frowned. “I’ll see what I can find out. Did Verrick buy Trent’s story?”

  “No. At least I…I don’t think so, but there’s something funny about his reactions. You said he’d reject the idea of telepathy out of hand, but he didn’t. He—”

  “And you’re sure he’s not just humoring Trent? Doctors are awfully good at saying ‘Hmm’ and thinking, ‘Somebody get me the psych ward.’ ”

  She shook her head. “It was more as if his mind was on something else, as if he was waiting for something.”

  “And you don’t have any idea what?”

  “No. Are you sure there’s not some revolutionary new scan that can detect if you’re reading someone else’s mind?”

  “Not without you cooperating. All the same, I think I’d better get down there and listen to Verrick’s voice so we’ll know exactly what he’s thinking and whether we have anything to worry about. Are you at his office?”

  “No, the hospital, but coming here’s a bad idea. So far they have no way of connecting us—”

  “We’ll make up some excuse for why I’m there. We can say I needed to talk to you about some app or something. Where in the hospital are you?”

  “The east wing, first floor,” she told him, “but I still think…can’t I listen to his voice and relay it to you?”

  “No. In the first place, I don’t want you listening to Verrick. Trent’s right, his connection’s getting better. He might overhear you. In the second place, relaying Verrick’s voice wouldn’t work. I’d be hearing him in your voice, not his.”

  “Not if you listened to it on the radio,” she said, going over to the cupboard.

  He shook his head. “That’d be relayed through you, too. No matter how convincing a visualization all this is, I’m not actually here. We’re just exchanging thoughts.”

  “What about the internet? Maybe there’s video of him giving a speech or something.”

  “That’s an idea. I’ll check out YouTube and his website,” he said, and he was obviously still reading her mind, because he said, “Don’t worry. I won’t come to the hospital unless I absolutely have to.”

  “Good,” she said. “And what about Cindy? Did you convince her she’s got to lie low and not talk to me?”

  “Yes, I told her to raise the drawbridge over her moat and then go lock herself in her secret garden. Show me your radio.”

  “I thought you said that wouldn’t work.”

  “It won’t,” he said. “But show me anyway.”

  She did, turning it on and tuning it to Trent’s station. “Hamilton, this is Trent Worth,” his voice said from the radio. “Yes, I’m meeting with the doctor who did our EEDs right now.” A pause. “No, sir, we haven’t gotten that far.”

  C.B. listened for a moment and then moved the dial through several stations, listening to the static and the voices.

  “You think it might work for your hearing Dr. Verrick after all?” Briddey asked.

  He shook his head. “No, but you gave me an idea for—”

  “I’ve got a way better way to listen to them,” Maeve said.

  Both Briddey and C.B. looked over at the barred door and then up at the adobe wall, expecting to see her clambering over it, but it was apparently just her voice, saying, You don’t have to turn a knob or anything.

  “I thought I told you to stay inside your safe room and not talk to your aunt Briddey!” C.B. said angrily.

  I am inside it, Maeve protested, and I wasn’t talking to Briddey. I was talking to you. You didn’t say anything about not talking to you.

  “Well, I’m saying it now.”

  Nobody can hear us, Maeve said. I’ve got a whole bunch of defenses up, and besides, Trent’s talking to Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Verrick—

  “I don’t care,” C.B. said. “I don’t want you talking to anybody or listening to them.”

  You never let me do anything, Maeve said sulkil
y, but she left.

  “Oh, my God,” Briddey said. “If she’d said something like that while Trent was listening—”

  “I know,” C.B. said grimly. “I need to go talk to her and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  “…and don’t schedule any other appointments for this afternoon…,” Dr. Verrick said. Briddey looked automatically at the radio, wondering how it had gotten tuned to his station, then realized his voice had come from outside her safe room.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Dr. Verrick’s coming back.”

  “Right,” C.B. said. “I’ll go see if I can find his voice on the internet, and if it’s there, I’ll listen to him and let you know what he’s thinking. And I’ll see if I can find out what he was doing in Sedona.”

  “Okay.”

  “And if you get in trouble in the meantime, come in here and holler for me. Don’t worry, you’re doing great.” He kissed her on the cheek and disappeared over the wall.

  “I’m sorry that took so long,” Dr. Verrick said to Briddey, coming into the office and looking questioningly at the empty chair beside her.

  “Trent had to make a phone call,” she told him. “He’ll be right back.”

  “Actually, you’re the one I wanted to talk to,” he said, sitting down and smiling at her. “Mr. Worth has told me what he experienced. I want to know what you’ve experienced. Have you heard messages like he described?”

  “Ye-es,” she said doubtfully. “At least I think so. When we connected, I definitely could sense his presence and his excitement…”

  “But it didn’t take the form of his voice?”

  “No…I mean, a couple of times when Trent was sending me messages, I thought I heard him speaking, but…” She frowned, as if trying to think how to describe exactly what she’d experienced. “You know how you said that sometimes emotions could be so intense they came through as someone talking? That was how it felt.”

  “But you weren’t actually hearing words, like Mr. Worth?”

  “No. I mean, how could I have been? People can’t hear each other’s thoughts. That’s crazy!” She leaned toward him. “I’m not losing my mind, am I, Doctor?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, and as Trent returned: “Ah, Mr. Worth, we were just discussing your ‘unusual’ experience. You said the two of you had done a test sending messages back and forth—”

  “Yes,” Trent said eagerly. “We can do it for you again right now. Just make a list of the words you want us to send to each other, and we’ll—”

  Dr. Verrick was shaking his head. “That sort of test wouldn’t prove anything, I’m afraid. It’d be entirely too subjective. To prove actual communication, you’d have to be tested under controlled laboratory conditions.”

  “We’d be willing to do that, wouldn’t we, Briddey?” He looked eagerly at her. “We’ll both be happy to do any kind of test you want.”

  “Good,” Dr. Verrick said. “You must understand, Mr. Worth, you’ve made some extraordinary claims, and extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. What you perceived as thought transference could simply have been nonverbal communication reinforced by the emotional closeness of connecting.”

  He doesn’t believe us, Briddey thought, limp with relief, as Dr. Verrick went into an explanation of unconscious information exchange, tonal cues, and confirmation bias. Sky was right. He was just humoring us. I misread what I thought was his distraction and his lack of surprise.

  “The test I want to run will determine whether what you experienced was actual mind-to-mind communication or something else. You’ll be in separate, soundproof rooms, and the information sent will be codified and randomized so we can compare the results with statistical chance.”

  Which I will try to make it look like, Briddey thought, and Dr. Verrick will tell us we were victims of our emotions and wishful thinking and send us home.

  “We’ll also be able to compare it to previous research in this area,” Dr. Verrick said.

  “Research?” Briddey said, alert.

  “Yes, Dr. Rhine at Duke University did extensive research on mental communication. Are you familiar with Zener cards?”

  “Are you making something up in your head, miss?”

  —FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT, A Little Princess

  Zener cards? Briddey thought. Oh, no, Sky was wrong. Dr. Verrick is a True Believer. Which will make it that much harder to convince him that there’s nothing to see.

  Or maybe not. “Zener cards were used in the Duke University experiments of the 1930s,” Dr. Verrick said, “and used properly, they’re an excellent way to objectively determine whether communication is occurring or whether the subjects merely think it is. There are five different symbols.” He listed them, explained how the test worked, and then led them through the inner door and down a short hall to a small room with soundproofing tiles on the walls and ceiling. It contained a chair and a table. “You’ll be in here, Ms. Flannigan. A nurse will be in in a moment to set you up.”

  Set me up is right, Briddey thought as he shut the door behind her. She went over to the table. On it were a pair of headphones, a microphone, a pencil, and a sheet of paper with numbers down the side.

  And let’s hope this nurse isn’t one of the ones from my hospital stay, she thought.

  It wasn’t. It was a young blonde with a ponytail who introduced herself as Dr. Verrick’s assistant. She wore a lab coat and carried a clipboard and a plastic bag like the one the nurse had had Briddey put her clothes in before her surgery.

  “No handbags, phones, or jewelry are allowed in the testing area,” she said apologetically, handing Briddey the bag. “Put them in here, and we’ll hold them for you.”

  Briddey surrendered her smartphone and wallet and took off her earrings, and the assistant zipped the bag shut, wrote Briddey’s name on it in marker, and had Briddey sit down at the table while she took her through the testing procedure.

  She opened a deck of Zener cards and placed it face-down in front of Briddey. “When the buzzer sounds, pick up the first card,” she said, demonstrating, “look at it, and concentrate on the image. Don’t say it out loud or shape it into words. Just focus on the image and try to send it to Mr. Worth. Do you understand?”

  Yes, Briddey thought, nodding. It means you don’t know we can simply tell each other what’s on the card, which was reassuring.

  “When the buzzer sounds again, lay the card face-down on the table, pick up the next card, and do the same thing until you’ve gone through the entire deck. When you’re receiving, the buzzer will sound, and you’ll focus on receiving the image Mr. Worth is sending, then write it down on this paper. If you don’t receive anything, put NI. If you’re uncertain, write U and then what you think the image was. Don’t guess.” She showed Briddey the headphones. “These are noise-canceling, to shut out distracting sounds and help you concentrate.”

  And to keep Trent from signaling the right answers from the next room, she thought, remembering Sky’s stories of cheating in the Duke experiments.

  “They’re also connected to Dr. Verrick so he can give you additional instructions,” his assistant went on. “And you’ll be able to talk to him through this.” She clipped a microphone to Briddey’s collar. “It’ll be off during the testing, of course.”

  “What if I have a question?”

  “You’ll signal him with this”—she showed her what looked like a TV remote—“and he’ll activate your mike. But please try not to use it. There’ll be breaks between the test rounds, and you can ask questions then.”

  “So you won’t be in here during the testing?”

  “No,” the assistant said, glancing up at the ceiling in front of the table.

  There must be a concealed camera, Briddey thought.

  “Any other questions?”

  Yes. How do I get out of this? “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “We’ll start in a few minutes.” The assistant scooped up the Zener cards, put them in her lab-coat
pocket, and pulled an unopened deck from the other pocket. “You’ll be sending first. Dr. Verrick will tell you when to open the deck,” she said, set the cards on the table, put the headphones on Briddey, and went out.

  Don’t panic, Briddey told herself. They can’t find out anything unless you cooperate. All she had to do was write down different symbols from the ones Trent sent her and send him wrong answers when she was transmitting.

  But that wouldn’t work. A score that was radically lower than random guesses would be just as suspicious as a high score. And that went for the answers she wrote down, too. She’d need to give some right answers. How many?

  Logic dictated that it should be one out of five, which meant it probably wasn’t, but contacting Sky to ask him about it would be even more dangerous than giving Dr. Verrick an encouraging score. She couldn’t let them find out about him.

  Which meant she needed to figure it out on her own. And fast. They’d be starting any minute. The hidden camera meant flipping a coin was out, and mentally rolling dice wouldn’t work. So what are you going to do?

  What people who aren’t telepathic do when they take the Zener test, she thought. They guess. She’d guess a symbol before she turned the card over, and then stick with it whether it matched what was on the card or not. And when it was Trent’s turn, she’d guess before he had a chance to send an image.

  And hopefully after the first round of testing, Dr. Verrick would decide Trent was suffering from an over-active imagination and send them home.

  In the meantime, all she had to do was sit still, stay in her courtyard, and look like she was concentrating. And not give any sign of what she was actually thinking. Poker face, she thought. You can do this.

  “Ms. Flannigan, can you hear me?” Dr. Verrick’s voice said through the headphones, and he must have turned her microphone on because when she said yes, he responded, “Good. You understood the testing procedure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then break the seal on the deck, place it face-down on the table in front of you, and begin when the buzzer sounds. You’ll have thirty seconds for each card.”