“True enough,” Carlisle said. “But hardly the point I was making, Mr. Lemke.” He led them to a door just inside the entrance to the building, and he fiddled for his keys. “Have a seat in my office, all of you,” he said, opening the door. “I’ll explain how this experiment is going to work.”
They stepped inside.
9
Carlisle stood behind a little desk, and he directed the four of them to sit down on a pair of couches by the far wall. They all noticed how neat the office was. Not a single stray paper, no piles of books or overflowing file cabinets. They did notice one strange thing on the desk, however: a small, gleaming object, oddly shaped. It reminded Jason of an old television antenna, the kind with all sorts of strange loops and wires.
“This experiment is about smell perception,” Carlisle said. “The procedure is very simple. I’ll be giving each of you a small nasal spray bottle. All I want you to do is take a good sniff, and then write down what you smell. Be as clear as you can. The descriptions should be your own, and each of you will be getting a different scent.” He looked at them expectantly, as if he had just finished telling a gripping story. “Questions?”
“This is a joke,” said Garrett. “We sniff a little white bottle and write down what it smells like? What kind of experiment is that?
Carlisle’s eyes brightened. “Some of the simplest experiments are the best, Mr. Lemke.”
“You’re the professor,” Garrett said with a shrug.
“Other questions?”
Carlisle waited, but no one else spoke up. “Fine, then.” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out four small white bottles. Each bottle had a smooth, round end at the top.
“Those look like the things for unclogging your nose.”
“Yes, Mr. Lemke. Except that these are filled with specific scent chemicals, rather than antihistamines.” He pushed them across the desk. From another drawer came a stack of papers and four pens. “Take one each, and then fill out these forms. Be sure to record which bottle you are using.”
They each stood up and took a little white bottle, a form, and a pen.
Carlisle was being cautious, and he didn’t smile. This was the moment of truth. Go ahead, he thought. Have a nice big snort of oxytocin. Then we can all get down to business.
Melissa sat down and glanced at the others. They were already pushing the tips of the bottles up their noses and spraying.
She hesitated. The idea of introducing a chemical directly up her nose didn’t seem like a good idea. She saw Lea and Jason put their bottles down and begin to write. Garrett looked as though he wanted to take another spray before filling out his paper form. All three of them seemed okay. No one acted revolted.
She didn’t notice how carefully Carlisle was watching her.
Melissa put the bottle gently inside one nostril, then gave the tube a little squeeze. A cold mist went squirting up her nose.
She felt herself relax immediately.
That’s not a bad smell at all.
She had been expecting something harsh and artificial, like the oily stink of a fast food restaurant. But the mist in the bottle didn’t remind her of burgers or fries. And it wasn’t like any perfume she had ever encountered. In fact, she thought it smelled sort of nice. A memory of Ms. Cooper suddenly filled her head, and a little smile came to her face.
Maybe it smells like art supplies, she thought.
No, that wasn’t it exactly. Could it have been something in Ms. Cooper’s hair? Shampoo? No, that wasn’t it either. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Either way, she decided that it was a good smell.
A happy smell.
“I think all of us are ready now,” Carlisle said, coming out from behind the desk. He spoke with a sense of anticipation, like a grandfather getting ready to dole out birthday presents. “How is everyone feeling?”
The students looked up at him and nodded. All four wore identical expressions of calm satisfaction.
Carlisle smiled. Even if someone had come into the room at that moment, they would not have suspected anything unusual. The students would experience no motor-skill impairment or disorientation from the small dose they had received. The only way to detect a change in behavior would be to ask them to do something requiring an unusually high level of trust.
Which was exactly what Dr. Carlisle was planning.
“You can all stop writing,” he said. “Just listen for a minute.” They put down their pens and sat back in their chairs. “I’ve been doing some very interesting experiments over the last few weeks,” he said. “I’m not going to go into all the details, but there is one important thing I think you’ll enjoy hearing about.” He stopped and stared at them, widening his eyes. “You’d like to know what I’ve learned, wouldn’t you?”
They nodded like a row of trained seals.
Carlisle spread his arms in a gesture of inclusion. “I’ve discovered that when it comes to neuroscience,” he said, “everyone is abnormal.”
Lea put up her hand, and Carlisle grinned. He was glad to see that her sense of curiosity had not been subdued by the drug. “Yes, Ms. Redford?”
“What do you mean?” she said, sounding quite girlish. “I don’t feel abnormal.”
“Not abnormal in a bad way.” Carlisle said, and he smiled reassuringly. “In a special way.”
Lea looked ready to accept virtually anything the professor told her – they all did – but she still seemed confused. “Special how?”
“Let’s start with you,” Carlisle said, walking over to her. “What’s your favorite subject?”
“Math.”
“So you probably have an abnormally well-developed frontal lobe,” he said triumphantly. “That’s where most mathematic processes take place in the human brain. It’s a good thing, Lea. You should be proud of yourself.”
She nodded dutifully. “Okay, then. I’m proud.”
“But we can find more,” Carlisle said. “Because the first thing is not usually the only thing. Think hard, Lea.” He squinted his eyes at her, as though helping her to think. “Is there something else? Something you’ve always had a flair for? Never mind school work for a minute. This could be anything – your ears, your eyes, how you speak… what is there about you, Lea, that’s just a little bit better, a little bit stronger than everyone else?”
Lea’s face changed, and Carlisle knew she had found it. He’d seen this look before, on psych patients who had gone through a similar interview process. It always took longer with the crazies, of course, since it was difficult to convince criminally insane patients that there was anything special about them. But Lea was no criminal. “What is it?” Carlisle said eagerly. “You can tell me, Lea. Don’t worry, it can be our secret.”
She didn’t hesitate; no one in the grip of oxytocin ever did. “I can read people really well,” she said happily. “What they’re feeling, I mean. It’s something I’ve been able to do forever. Since I was little. Since before I could even talk.”
“Perfect,” he said to her. “And listen, Lea.” His voice became quiet, conspiring. “What if I could make you even better at reading people?”
Lea brightened. “That’d be fine.”
“Of course it would.”
Jason spoke up suddenly. “I have a really good memory,” he said, sounding hopeful.
Carlisle turned to him with an approving smile. “Yes, Jason. Good. Thank you for sharing.” That was the other wonderful thing about the oxytocin – it made everyone so much more willing to offer up personal information.
Melissa put up her hand. “I think my nose is more sensitive than most,” she said.
Carlisle nodded at her. This was going to turn out even better than he had planned. “Terrific, Melissa. That’s just the sort of thing I’m looking for. Smell is one of the most ancient and fundamental brain functions – it’s controlled in the temporal lobe, by the way – and it’s an area of enormous potential. You’ll have the nose of a bloodhound by the time you leave this office.�
� He pointed back to Jason. “And Mr. Bell, your memory will be flawless after today.”
Melissa and Jason looked at him, then at each other, and they nodded simultaneously. They looked very happy. Neither one seemed interested in how the professor was going to accomplish all these things.
Carlisle glanced at Garrett, who hadn’t spoken yet. “What about you, Mr. Lemke? What makes you special?”
Garrett didn’t reply immediately, which Carlisle found surprising. “I’m not sure,” Garrett said finally. “I get migraines more than other people, I guess.” He rubbed one of his temples absently. “And I’d say my headaches hurt a lot more than the regular ones.” He shrugged sadly, as if he knew that this wasn’t the sort of specialty the professor was looking for.
Carlisle walked over to him. He almost looked concerned. “How long have you had these headaches, Garrett?”
“Not sure. A few months, maybe.”
“Do you have one right now?”
Garrett let out a painful little laugh. “Bet your fucking PhD.”
Carlisle knelt down so that he could get a better view of Garrett’s eyes. He frowned deeply. “Okay, Mr. Lemke.” His voice was soft now. “We’ll see if we can do something about that.” He stood up, shaking his head. “At least for the time being, anyway.”
Garrett nodded slowly. Then something seemed to occur to him. “I’m good with the ladies,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice.
“Are you, now?”
“Really good. At least, I was before this whole headache business started messing up my game, you know?”
Carlisle seemed to reconsider. “You’re not just boasting?”
Garrett shook his head vigorously, wincing from the pain the motion caused him. “No, seriously. It was like some kind of gift, you know?”
Carlisle nodded. He seemed hopeful again. “That could be something,” he said thoughtfully. “Probably being obscured by a cerebral pathology of one type or another, but maybe the ability is still buried in there somewhere.” He put a hand to his chin and dropped his voice, as if conferring with a colleague. “Go for the hypothalamus?” he whispered. “Sure. And temporarily subdue the paraneoplastic symptoms…” His voice trailed off. Then he turned back to Garrett. “We’ll make you a sexual machine, Mr. Lemke. How does that sound? And maybe we’ll even get those headaches to ease off for a day or two, okay?”
Garrett grinned like a wolf, and he looked hungrily at Melissa. “Just tell me what to do,” he said.
Carlisle laughed. “Oh, I will, my young friend. I will.”
Carlisle took Garrett into the examination room first. After half an hour had passed, he came back for Jason.
The door swung shut behind them, and Lea and Melissa were sitting alone in the office together. They were both still smiling.
“Hey, Melissa?”
“Hmmm?”
“What do you think about Jason?”
“I think he likes you.”
Lea did not blush this time. She closed her eyes and let her head drop back, as if she were remembering her first time tasting ice cream. Then a new thought occurred to her, and her expression changed. “But what if he likes you?”
Melissa hooted. “Lea, he hasn’t even looked at me.”
“Everyone looks at you.”
“You don’t know that. You just met me.”
“Right,” Lea said. “But so far, everywhere we go, people are looking at you.”
“Jason’s not.”
“Promise?”
“Yup.”
Lea nodded slowly. “I believe you, Melissa.”
“I know. And I believe you, Lea.”
“About what?”
Melissa paused. “I don’t know. About anything.”
“Yeah,” Lea said. “Me, too.”
“Hey. You know what?”
“Hmmm?”
“That little white bottle smelled really good.”
“Shhh, we’re not supposed to discuss it, remember?” Lea sat quietly for a minute, her eyes focusing on nothing in particular.
Then: “You’re right, though. It smelled great.”
Sometime later, Carlisle came to collect them. He led Lea in first, then Melissa. Neither one resisted. Or even asked what was being done to them. When he brought them into the examination room, they found Garrett and Jason strapped into a pair of large chairs with canvas restraints. Neither girl asked why. Carlisle explained to them that it was okay, that both boys were simply recovering from their treatments. He suggested to the girls that they might like to make themselves comfortable in the other two chairs.
The girls thought that sounded fine.
They waited patiently as Carlisle secured their arms and legs, and they didn’t mind when he came toward them with the thing that looked like an old television antenna.
There was no sound from the examination room. A careful listener might have been able to detect a very faint, very low-frequency humming, but nothing more. It sounded like a high-powered halogen lamp, or a noise that might have been coming from some sort of lab equipment. Nothing that would arouse concern.
Inside the examination room, Professor Carlisle walked back and forth among his four test subjects, grinning broadly.
He took pages and pages of notes.
Modifications
1
From Getting to Know Patient Nathan:
What made Kline so special? Not the symptoms themselves, surely. Nathan did present with more varieties of neuropathy than anyone I have ever observed, but sheer symptom volume is not, in any systematic analysis, worthy of special consideration. An accumulation of compromised cerebral function is more often simply an indication that death may be approaching.
And yet Nathan was unique. Not because he had a greater number of maladies, or because each problem was so severe. Rather, he distinguished himself with awareness.
Self-awareness.
Now someone asks: Why should this be so remarkable? Are the sick not capable of self-diagnosis? When someone has a fever, for instance, are the effects not most easily detected by the patient himself? “I’m hot,” he says. “I need a glass of ice water. Someone get me a cool towel.”
And indeed, this is normal behavior.
However, we must remember that cerebral deficits of the right hemisphere are usually difficult – if not impossible – for patients to view objectively. This is because the viewing apparatus itself has been altered. We must imagine, then, a patient with a fever and a lack of ability to sense his own internal heat. “Perhaps you would like a glass of ice water,” we say to him. But the patient, with sweat pouring down his flushed-red forehead, turns to us with a glassy-eyed smile. “No thank you,” he says. “Why would I want such a thing? I’m not thirsty. I think I’ll go for a jog.”
Dr. Kline had several right-hemisphere conditions. Taken together, these should have reduced him to a state of total self-oblivion. And yet they did not. He could discuss his issues intelligently, and this is something I still struggle to understand. Dr. Kline could “see” the problems while he experienced them, as if he were diagnosing another patient from afar.
Granted, his vision in these situations was never perfect. But he did know, for example, when to discount paranoid delusions, even when he was in the grip of the fear they generated. At such times, he was like the brave child in the middle of a thunderstorm, hiding under the covers of his bed. He was deathly afraid. And yet he knew, somehow, that his terror was not realistic.
Such presence of mind is unheard of in schizophrenics.
For Nathan, this ability to see was both therapeutic and damaging. On the one hand, he was better able to treat himself than any similarly affected patient. He could give himself counsel and support. This was a blessing, since it allowed him to avoid the medication he so despised. On the other hand, his awareness made him far more self-critical than any “normal” schizophrenic. He could comprehend, as so few patients can, that his own mind was not working correctly.
2
Dr. Carlisle was dreaming of money. Not in any specific, story-oriented sense, though. It was more of a feeling. He dreamt of the concept of money. Of wealth.
Vast wealth.
He pictured stately, high-ceilinged rooms in sprawling summer houses. European cars pulling out of too-wide, gravel-lined driveways. Sparkling water. Sparkling women.
The phone rang, waking him, but he almost welcomed the interruption. For once, being awake was nearly as exciting as having the dream. Because he would be living the dream soon. The experiment with the students was going well. Before long, the fame would come. And then the money, and then –
The phone rang again, breaking his trance. He glanced at his bedside clock as he twisted and reached.
6 AM.
Who the – ?
“This better not be one of my students,” Carlisle said groggily.
“No, this is just a courtesy death notice.”
Professor Carlisle sat up quickly. He recognized that voice. It was different now – strained and whispery, as if there were a bad connection – but it was the same underneath.
“Kline?”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like?”
Carlisle took a long, shaky breath. It was Kline. “What?”
“You heard me.”
That’s true, I did. “No,” he said.
Kline huffed. “You will know. Starting today.”
“Where are you?”
Kline kept talking as though Carlisle hadn’t spoken. “It’s interesting,” he said. “When I’m in the paranoid phase, I can never shake the fear. No matter how well I control myself, I still suspect everyone. Everything. Even the moon and stars are out to get me.”
“I never forced you – ”
“It’s hard to describe with words. But I’ve been trying to give people a little taste of what it’s actually like. You know, to be insane?”
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