by K. Z. Howell
I don’t know about Kat, but what I experienced was not a memory. I think it was an awake person.” Jennifer said quietly. “I went to Paris, and at first just saw an empty street, I was at a bus stop waiting. I think that was the waking persons view. Next I believe I saw memory. I rode the bus to a building near the Eiffel Tower and went into it. There, I sat at a desk for hours, looking at papers, eating lunch on a bench under a tree. It wasn’t until after lunch that I realized I was in a mans memory. Then I guess the visit ended. There was no sense of time, or awareness on my part, but it felt repetitious, like I had done the same thing the same way hundreds of times.”
Kathryn nodded, “My trip was similar. It started out in the back of a taxi, to my right were the Pyramids in Egypt. I’ve always wanted to see them. I wasn’t hot, or cool, I felt nothing which was very disconcerting. Even when the woman raised her hand to push the hair back from her eyes I couldn’t feel the touch, or the sense of movement. That must have been the womans waking mind. Suddenly I was getting out of the cab in front of a large house surrounded by palms. A tall, bearded man with a gun looked at her and opened a gate. From there I followed a flagstone path to a pool. There was a man in a swimsuit, he was fat and hairy, almost hairy enough to be an ape. I couldn’t smell him, but somehow I know he smelled of sweat and cheese. He stood and smiled at her, reaching out to put his arms around her. He was just leaning in toward her face when the trip ended.”
Will and Benji sat in stunned silence. Jen and Kat looked again at each other then at the two silent men with a look of curiosity at what they thought. Will, always careful when considering new data, remained silent for several minutes. Benji chimed right in, unabashedly drawing conclusions and making wisecracks about the girls descriptions.
In Wills mind, this sounded much more like Edgar Cayce’s description of his readings. Had they stumbled onto the very thing that had been the catalyst for the program in the first place? It made sense, Cayce worked alone and his readings left him drained and weak. It was thought that the strain of his ability had been in large part responsible for his death. Neither Jennifer nor Kathryn could maintain a stable dream state for more than a few seconds alone. Together they could reach out and maintain a connection longer, but with Benji they seemed to be able to turbo-charge the wave energy and do incredible things with no ill effects. I
f Cayce had been not only working alone, but trying to maintain a link to an awake brain long enough to do real time activity, then it was no wonder that the strain had such a deleterious effect on his body. There had to be some degree of gender difference for this to occur. Will knew that at a genetic level the male and female brain were alike in their structure on the physical level, but like the difference between one computer and another, it was the wiring and the software that made one good at processing data and the other good at graphics.
This new information changed Will’s concept of what the program could do and what it could be used for. The professor had been willing to abandon the entire program because it had discovered an ability of the dream state that far transcended its original intent. Will didn’t like the old scientists assessment of the programs potential use and abuse, but he understood it. Couple the ability to influence a sleeping mind, with the ability to ‘ride along’ unseen while a person was awake, even for a very brief period of time and the program became even more dangerous.
Will was still a bit skeptical of the government turning the discovery against its own people, despite having a great deal of evidence that they had done exactly that many, many times already. He was even more concerned at what a criminal or terrorist organization could do with the knowledge if its existence were ever found out.
Jennifer was beginning to look more worried than curious as he remained deep in thought. Finally he said “We can now cause people to act by planting ideas in their dreams. We can now not only see through another persons waking mind but access their memories as well. While they are awake. The professor is right. At least as far as the potential for serious abuse goes. We have gone from occasional glimpses a few months ago, to this tonight. I believe that we have only scratched the surface.
If Einstein, Tesla and so many others are correct about there being an ethereal repository of collective consciousness, then it won’t be long before you find it. Einstein gave us gravity, nuclear power and the atomic bomb. Tesla gave us electric motors, remote control and so many other powerful, world changing things. They were good men, working alone with a rigid sense of purpose and presumably a structural difference in their brains that allowed them to act alone, but in a very limited capacity. Look what they did with that limited capacity. Imagine what can be done now that we know how to create much longer and more powerful links.”
Jennifer reached out and placed her hand on Wills. “It’s okay, babe. Professor Bench knows what he’s doing.”
He smiled at her, “Yes. He does. He’s ending the project. He didn’t tell the funding board about your new discovery. He was afraid of what they would do with it and even more so of what would happen if the information became public. At the end of the semester, the program dies.”
Benji was shocked. He sputtered around his burger “What? Why would he shut it down just as it gets moving the way he wanted?”
Will saw the glance Kathryn gave Jennifer and the look of recognition on his girlfriends face.
“You already knew.” He said. Not a question. A statement of fact.
Kathryn nodded before replying, “Yes. We saw it a few days ago.”
Will was puzzled, how could they both have seen the future days ago when they had not done the experiment until tonight. Then he understood.
“You don’t have to be together anymore! You can dream state on your own.” He said excitedly.
“For several weeks now. We didn’t realize what was happening until last week, but we can work together without even knowing where each other are. Kathryn and I can do some things on our own, but just like the experiments with Benji we can reach farther and do so much more.” Jennifer explained.
“Hey!” Benji said in a mock offended tone. “You two have been hijacking my dreams without my express written consent? Well, I am just mortified at your lack of respect for my privacy, young ladies!”
When he saw the look on Wills face and the arched eyebrow on his friends face, it dawned on him exactly what that meant.
“Whoa now! Does that mean that you two are crawling around inside my skull when I’m dreaming? Can you see my dreams? During the experiments I am at least subconsciously aware of you and things stay pretty tame. If you two are skulking around in secret, what’s to keep you from peeking in on things you shouldn’t see?” Benji asked, a slight blush turning his cheeks red at the possibility of the two women seeing certain of his dreams.
Both women gave him an amused stare, “Benji, at no point in a mans life will he ever have a dream that compares to the conversations women have among ourselves. Your dreams are mildly amusing. Ours? Our dreams would leave you a babbling wreck with a permanent blush on your face from humiliation at the childlike level of your sex fantasies.” Kathryn said.
“The double mint twins with a feather? Benji, seriously, we’ve seen your girlfriends. You really should have a much better imagination, even for a guy.” Jennifer teased.
Benji got a confused look on his face and Kathryn covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her laughter. Jennifer realized her mistake just as Will narrowed his eyes and stared at her in disbelief.
“I’ve had that dream since I was 12, thank you very much.” He said indignantly. “Now that I know that you have been poking around in my head without telling me. Would one of you mind telling me who changed that one to the naughty cop and even naughtier cop routine?” He demanded.
“Not that I mind, or rather not that I could stop it. I just want to know which perverted mind I owe that one too.” He added hastily.
Jennifer turned to Kathryn. The sheepish look on her face admitting her
guilt.
“Well!” She said, “You wanted to look and his dreams were even more boring than Benji’s. All I did was spice them up a little. ”
Jennifer arched her eyebrow at her friend “So, maybe I should go play around with Professor Powells imagination and see what happens?”
Kathryn laughed, “Honey, trust me. He doesn’t need any more ideas. He has plenty of his own and I happily fill in the blanks!”
That got all four roaring with laughter. The weighty news of the programs impending end was momentarily forgotten in the bawdy banter.
Dream State
Chapter 4
If a dream can be so real as to wake you in trembling fear
Why do we not tremble at the thought of dreaming?
Professor August Bench
Director of Scientific Studies, National Security Agency, Kendra Mills.
Director Mills quickly removed the thumb drive from her laptop and slipped it back under the stack of files in her desk drawer. The knock on her door was unexpected and she didn’t want anyone catching a glimpse of what she was looking at. Not yet.
“Come!” she said loudly.
The door opened and her boss, Robert Hall, the Assistant Special Operations Director of the National Security Agency, came in and sat in the leather chair across from her. They had met only twice. The first time had been for her selection interview and again a month ago when he had assigned her to the job of Director of Scientific Studies. She had beat out over a dozen other candidates for the job, in part due to her utter confidence in herself, but mostly on her background and reputation as a no nonsense hard charger in the research field. She was already a well known innovator in the field of computer science and her second doctorate in Psychology had made her the ultimate choice to oversee the NSA’s attempt at computer modeling future events. Hall had taken a bit of a risk in picking her over a few of the NSA’s rising scientific all-stars, but Robert Hall wanted results and he wanted them quickly. Dr. Kendra Mills appeared to be the way for him to get those results. He had given her thirty days to devise a program that would yield those results. Today was the day.
“Good Morning, Doctor Mills. I trust that you have settled in well?” He asked.
“Oh, yes, Director Hall. The people here have been very accommodating and the team you assigned to me has been very helpful.” She replied.
“That’s good, Doctor. Well, today is D-Day. What do you have for me to show the boss?” Hall asked impatiently.
Kendra opened her top drawer and handed the Director a folder. Stamped in large red letters, the word “Classified” was the only outer marking. The Director opened the file and began looking through its contents. From the look on his face, Kendra could tell that the thin stack of papers and charts was not impressing him. The woman made no outward expression, inside though, she grinned smugly. Thinking to herself “Genius doesn’t need a lot of words, only those without it require them”.
Director Hall read through the top page, an almost quizzical look on his face. Halfway through the second page his expression changed. His eyebrows arched and his gaze narrowed, he glanced up briefly at Dr. Mills, she showed no expression. He returned his attention to the folders contents and continued. There were only four pages of text, a very basic program outline and list of goals and milestones. The last two pages were charts on long fold out sheets of graph paper that were covered with rows of lines and handwritten notations. Director Hall only unfolded the top sheet, he recognized an EEG printout, but he was a bureaucrat and former spy, not a scientist. The lines and words meant nothing to him but he did understand what they meant. The first four pages were the tease, the EEG’s showed the potential.
“Are you certain of this Dr. Mills? I have heard of the program, I scrapped it as a matter of fact for not producing results. Now you’re telling me it worked?” he asked, the doubt apparent in his demeanor.
“Oh yes. It worked. Sporadically, in a limited manner and utterly chaotic. But that is the human brain, it will not do what you tell it. I have no doubt that we can replicate the activity and control it using the computer system I outlined on page four. The technology already exists with some tweaking. The software will be difficult, but it is do-able. I gave no timeline, as you noticed, because it is impossible to quantify. We need to make each step, in order, and as we reach a milestone the next should follow quickly.
We will be building a mechanical human brain, minus the lack of order and the need to control a billion operations at once even in its sleep. When we are done, I believe we will have the tool that you want.” She stated.
“It’s ambitious but you are basing it on something that already works to a degree. I like it. What I don’t like is the cost estimate. That’s because you didn’t include one. I happen to know that tens of billions of dollars have been poured into creating a mechanical human brain, most people call it artificial intelligence. I also know that we still do not have one. In spite of the massive amounts of money there is not a single working model in the world.” Director Hill said.
“The reason that the A.I. programs fail is that they are attempting to replicate chaos. Every A.I. program in progress is trying to make a machine that can do what a human brain can do. They can throw all of the money in the world at the issue and they will never succeed. The human brain cannot be duplicated and it shouldn’t be.
A brain controls a body. Why create one in a metal box? That has never made sense to me. What I propose is that we make a device that can do one thing that a brain does, only one. One thing a brain does but on a far larger and more powerful scale. That will be complex enough, but it can be done. We need to make a machine that can see dreams, not the dream itself. All we need is the brains ability to create and direct various forms of wave energy. The technology already exists to create them on a small scale, ramping up the power and duration is simply mechanics. Getting them to work together under precise control will be the issue.” Dr. Mills said. She was selling the concept in its simplest form. The true scope of the endeavor was a total unknown, even to her.
Director Hill sat silently for what seemed to be a very long time to the scientist, she wondered what was going on behind the mans expressionless face. Without any warning, he stood and said
“Thank you Doctor Mills. I will see you next week.” Before walking out of the room.
Kendra Mills knew how the system worked. The Director would either sit on the project until she found more research to support her concept or he would bury it and her in the mammoth bureaucracy of the NSA. She had no intention of becoming a footnote in the personnel departments records.
She had several people in her department that were working on obvious dead end projects. She picked up the phone, she would move ahead with the background research on her own. That way she would have the jump on Director Hill when he came asking more questions at their next scheduled meeting.
Interdepartmental liaison, Special Agent Zachary Loudon
Zachary Loudon had what his boss asked for, he didn’t know why the NSA’s chief scientist wanted the names and addresses of some former students, but then it wasn’t his job to know. Director Mills had made it plain on many occasions, his job was to simply follow her orders, not ask why she gave them. Special Agent Loudon was nothing if not a loyal worker bee. Still, something about his boss bothered him. There was nothing he could really point to that had put him on his guard around the Director, narcissism and assholisism were prerequisite traits for a Directors seat at NSA. Zach smiled a little inwardly, assholisism, it fit his boss to a tee, not that he would ever say it aloud to her or anyone else. He had been with the NSA for five years, he knew damned well anything he said could be in some data archive somewhere and probably was. He knocked on Director Mills door, half hoping she would be out and he could just leave the folder with her staff and be on his way. No such luck though. He heard the agitated “Come!” and pushed the door open.
Loudon stood next to Director Mills desk, patiently wait
ing for her to look up from her paper strewn desk and deal with him. She was obviously in no hurry since she didn’t bother to even look up to see who had entered. He had spoken to the scientist only a few times since her arrival. Once at the meet and greet for the entire staff and once in her office a week ago when she had assigned him the task of finding several of her former students. In between they had interacted in hallway whenever she had stopped him to ask, again, exactly what his job for her was. That had occurred three times and he had meticulously explained that he was the liaison between her department and any other NSA departments or teams that her work may need to assist her.
His job was really not complicated enough to need three separate explanations. If her work needed intelligence, analysis or field teams to facilitate it, then he would be the one to arrange it with the other departments. Simple. Her actual first and only request for outside support had been last week when she asked for the information he now stood patiently waiting to give her.
When she showed no sign of getting around to him any time soon, he began to do what intelligence officers do, he looked around and studied the room. Not that there was much to study. Her desk was completely covered in text files and graphs. Some of the papers were stamped ‘Secret’ but his clearance was well above that so he paid it no mind. The bookshelf was almost bare, a few old text books on computer science and a set of fairly new tomes on psychology and one on the theory of human dreaming. That one was odd, but not odd enough to merit his time considering her possession of the book.
The walls were plain except for two diplomas. Now his interest piqued. There were absolutely no personal items in the office. No pictures of her climbing mountains or skiing in Aspen. No pictures of children, nieces and nephews. No sign of a happy couple on vacation, or proud parents at a graduation. Nothing personal of a life outside these walls. Now that he did find worthy of his time.