The Mind Game

by Norman Spinrad

  By the time Carson had withdrawn the hypodermic, Weller was shaking with fatigue, his eyeballs burned, his brain seemed to be trying to beat its way out of his skull, his mouth tasted like a toilet bowl, and a black rage was boiling through him. I’ve been drugged! he thought. I’ve been fried out of my mind for hours! How long has it been? Where the hell is this place … ? New York! Jesus, I’ve been stoned out of my mind clear across the country! Son of a bitch!

  “How do you feel now?” Carson asked.

  “How do I feel?” Weller snarled. “You bastards pump me full of downers and you ask me how I feel? I feel like I’ve swallowed a quart of Lysol, you son of a bitch! My head is killing me!” A sudden wave of nausea passed through him and his head swam with vertigo. “Jesus … ,” he groaned.

  Carson smiled fatuously. “Well, at least you’re obviously no longer sedated,” he said. “Please understand that we at the Institute don’t approve of these crude Monitor tactics.”

  “Fuck you,” Weller moaned. I think I’m going to puke, he decided. I wish I could cut my fucking head off.

  Nothing fazed Dr. Carson. “You’re going to be surprised at all the advances we’ve made here,” he said, going to one of the cabinets, taking out a bottle of green liquid, and pouring two inches of it into a water glass.

  “You might as well begin your education with this,” he said, handing the glass to Weller. “Go ahead, drink it. You’ll feel much better.”

  Weller eyed the poisonous-looking stuff suspiciously. “What is it?” he said. “Rat poison?”

  “Something for your head,” Carson replied. “A massive dose of megavitamins. Plus a mixture of amino acids, MAO inhibitors, alkaloids, L-dopa, and central-nervous-system stimulators. Replaces depleted enzymes. Tones up the synapses. Raises the biochemistry of the brain to optimum function. We call it eptifier. Go ahead, drink it. Satisfaction guaranteed. ” Weller sighed. Even a dose of cyanide would improve how he felt at this point. Resignedly he gulped down the green liquid. It tasted like cod-liver oil mixed with hair tonic.

  “I don’t feel any different,” he said belligerently.

  “You will,” Carson said. “It takes a few minutes to metabolize.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got to meet Dr. Bernstein now,” he said. “You’ll be a new man before we reach his office. ”

  By the time they had reached the golf cart, Weller was beginning to feel almost human; at least he could walk without vertigo, was no longer in imminent danger of barfing, and his pounding headache had receded to a vague broken-glass feeling in his brain.

  Carson drove off in the general direction of the big brick main buildings, past bungalows, two low white buildings, the swimming pool, tennis courts.

  “This place used to be a private resort for the idle rich,” he said. “Institute Central was the main hotel. Most of the buildings you see were here when we bought the place. All we’ve had to build are a few lab buildings and the computer complex. There was even an airstrip, though the runway had to be lengthened and resurfaced to take John’s Learjet. Still, it was an ideal purchase. As far as the outside world knows, it’s still a private resort, and even most of the security set up was already in place.”

  Carson smiled at Weller confidentially. “I believe the original owners were Mafia connected,” he said. “Who else would’ve had the estate already enclosed by electrified barbed-wire fencing and had guard-dog kennels already set up? As I understand it, even our Dobermans and Shepherds were bred from stock they threw into the deal.”

  Perhaps it was the fresh air, or perhaps the Institute really had developed a magic hangover cure, for Weller found that his mind was becoming crystal clear. It was obvious to him that Carson’s chatty little talk was coldly calculated to casually inform him that this place was under very tight security, that he could forget about just walking out whenever he pleased.

  Realizing that, and realizing how alertly he had perceived it, he also realized that his headache was now gone, along with his vertigo, his nausea, his muscular tremors, and even his fatigue. Even the cruddy taste in his mouth was fading away. He could feel and enjoy the intermittent warm sunlight dappling his skin through the trees and smell the heady wet perfume of an eastern forest, so unlike the dry chapparal of Southern California. Birds chirped music in the treetops, and his eyes caught them flitting from branch to branch. Goddamn it, he was beginning to feel not merely recovered, but physically great and mentally alive.

  “You ought to package that stuff as Instant Hangover Cure,” he told Carson. “You could make millions.”

  “Oh, it’s much more than that,” Carson said. “For now we don’t want to call public attention to the Institute. But Dr. Bernstein will brief you. Arthur’s not only the director, he set the place up. It’s as much his baby as John’s.”

  They had reached the main building: a rambling four-story brick structure with a big glassed-in portico, and a main entrance facade done up with pseudo-Georgian white columns. Carson drove around to the side of the building where another golf cart was parked beside a round redwood table. Sitting at the table was a slightly built man in his sixties in tan chinos and matching bush shirt, with thin birdlike features and long, unruly white hair, looking for all the world like a mad scientist from central casting.

  The old man got up as they pulled up beside him and got out of the golf cart. “Ah, Mr. Weller,” he said, extending a bony hand. “I’m Arthur Bernstein. I trust you’ve recovered from your trip well enough to take the ten-penny tour. John wants to get you oriented as quickly as possible for some mysterious reason, and this is my only free time for two days.”

  Weller shook Bernstein’s hand perfunctorily, studying the old man’s face. Though Bernstein spoke in a high, rapid voice and seemed to tremble with nervous energy or perhaps merely the frailness of age, there was something calm and oceanic about his cool green eyes, as if some vaster and entirely different being inhabited this ancient fleshly envelope.

  “No thanks to the Monitors,” Weller said. “But I’ve got to admit that the stuff Dr. Carson gave me is something else again.”

  Bernstein cocked an eyebrow at Carson.

  “Formula three,” Carson said.

  Bernstein nodded. “Good enough for a start,” he said. “Monitor security measures aren’t exactly designed to insure mental clarity,” he told Weller. “But then, that’s their business and enhancing consciousness is ours, hmmm? It all balances out. Well, we’d better get started. As usual, my schedule is terribly tight.”

  With a dismissive nod to Carson he led Weller to the other golf cart and drove around to the main drive at the front of the building. “John tells me you’re highly motivated, Mr. Weller,” he said. “Excellent. You won’t be disappointed. We’re at the cutting edge of human knowledge here. The Institute is the essence of Transformationalism—our goal is nothing less than the total understanding of human consciousness on a rigorous scientific level, and no expense has been spared to give us the means of achieving it. You’re a lucky man to be here, Mr. Weller.”

  It had all come out rapid-fire and flawlessly like an often-repeated guidebook spiel, but Weller sensed that Bernstein was sincere; that he could not even entertain the notion that anyone else did not share his dedication to his work. The movies’ traditional mad scientist—except there was no disheveled aura of crankiness about him.

  Bernstein abruptly stopped the golf cart in front of a low windowless white building. “This is our computer complex,” he said. “The logical place to begin. ”

  He led Weller into the building through a double-doored, airtight vestibule, down a gleaming white hallway, and into a huge room. Reels of tape spun on memory units. Card-punch machines and automatic typewriters clattered. Numbers, curves, and shapes flickered on dozens of assorted cathode-ray tubes. A dozen white-smocked technicians scampered around busily like the machine tenders of Metropolis. The exciting electric odor of ozone hummed in the air. Whatever this place actually did, Weller had to admit, it certainly
would make the ideal set for a movie about itself.

  “The sum total of the most advanced human knowledge about the mind and its workings is stored and correlated here, ” Bernstein said, with the ardor of a doting grandfather. “The memory banks are updated daily, so we can call up a realtime picture of where we stand at any moment. It all comes through here.”

  Bernstein sat down in front of a typewriter with a screen display. “I’ll show you,” he said. He typed a few fines. “Brainwave change correlations with eptifier formula twelve,” he said, as columns of figures appeared on the screen. “The molecular structure of RNA.” A helical chemical diagram replaced the numbers. “Yesterday’s creativity curve of Frederick Conners.” A spiky curve replaced the chemical diagram.

  “And so forth,” Bernstein said, looking back and up at Weller.

  “I’m afraid all this is Greek to me,” Weller said.

  “Oh?” Bernstein said, surprised for some reason. “I thought you were going to be filming some of our activities for the archives,” he said. “I had assumed John sent for a man with the technical background.”

  Is that what I’m supposed to be here for? Weller wondered. Or is Steinhardt not above even telling this character some cover story? Something told him he should keep his mouth as shut as possible.

  “My technical background is in film making,” he said. “I guess John felt it would be easier to brief a professional film maker on the technicalities than to make a director out of some scientist.”

  Bernstein looked at him most peculiarly. “I see,” he said. Suddenly, for no discernible reason, he was nervous.

  He stood up and seemed to distance himself inside a professorial persona. “I’ll try to keep it in layman’s terms then,” he said, waving his arms for emphasis, almost as if he were on a lectern. “Here at the Institute we are experimenting in many areas. We’re trying to obtain as total a description of human consciousness as possible. The structure of the brain. The biochemistry of the mind. The electronic nature of thought and mental states themselves. We are quite close to our first-stage goal, a rigorous scientific model of total human consciousness, a biophysics of the mind.”

  He leaned against the typewriter console, more for emphasis than for support. “In this computer everything we have learned is stored and constantly updated as we learn more. This computer also does the necessary calculations for all of our various projects.” He thumped the console affectionately.

  “But this computer contains much more than even that,” he said, a far away look coming into his oceanic green eyes. “It contains a complete systems model of what we now know of human consciousness. A subprogram simulates the biochemistry of the brain, another simulates brainwave patterns, yet others simulate sight, vision, smell, all the human sensory imput. And so forth. Everything that interacts to form human consciousness can be made to interact electronically here in patterns and combinations of our choosing. Are you following me so far, Mr. Weller?”

  “I’m not sure,” Weller said. “Sounds to me like you’re playing with one of those intelligent computers that get temperamental and take over the world. I may not be a scientist, but I’ve sure seen the movie.”

  “Artificial intelligence?” Bernstein snorted. “Pointless rubbish! We’re not trying to imitate the human mind with some clumsy simulacrum. We’re using a computer simulation of how the human mind works so that we can learn how to make it work better. We test our experimental results against our computer model of consciousness to see whether our inputs make its outputs simulate the known human patterns. If they do, we know we have learned something, and if they don’t, we know we have to update our model. ”

  He smiled a fatuous, reassuring smile at Weller. “Rest assured, Mr. Weller,” he said. “We’re not replicating Dr. Frankenstein’s monster in electronic software. Were simply using the latest computer technology to maximize the efficiency of our research and development programs. If those fools at the Pentagon did the same, they’d save the taxpayers ten times over the cost of financing this work.”

  From the vehemence of the sudden shift Weller got the feeling that Bernstein had had some frustrating experience with the military-industrial complex at some point in his past.

  “I gather you’ve worked for the Pentagon then?” Weller asked.

  Bernstein did a short take and hurriedly ignored the question. “And now I think you’d like to see some of what we are actually doing in concrete terms, wouldn’t you, Mr. Weller?” he said. “There’s really nothing here to actually see, is there, after all? Nothing that would make for dramatic film. And that’s what you’re here to do—isn’t it, Mr. Weller?”

  “Yeah,” Weller said, unable to fathom why Bernstein had become almost fearful of him. Could it be more Monitor paranoia, even at this level? Even the director of the Institute has to watch over his shoulder for secret Monitor agents?

  “Shall we continue the ten-penny tour?” Weller said, amusing himself with a slightly authoritative tone that did indeed seem to keep Bernstein guessing. “I’m sure your time is valuable.”

  Bernstein whisked Weller around to about a dozen assorted laboratories within the next hour, exactly like a plant manager showing what he imagined were choice locations to the commercial director sent down to him from the home office to film his premises. Long on scenes where people were doing outré things with exotic equipment, but short on specific information as to what was really going on.

  There were three or four chemical laboratories full of glass tubing, electronic instruments, and foul smells. According to Bernstein they were experimenting with brain biochemistry.

  What did that mean?

  They were experimenting with chemical enhancement of consciousness.

  “Why, Dr. Bernstein,” Weller chided, as they stood in one of the bubbling alchemist laboratories surrounded by tables of Incredibly complex glassworks, “you mean you’re inventing new kinds of psychedelic drugs?”

  Bernstein almost physically flinched. “Psychedelic drugs are to what we are doing here as a witch doctor is to a brain surgeon,” he said indignantly. “You’re not alone, Mr. Weller. Most people have difficulty distinguishing science from witchcraft in this area. As witness the impossibility of getting research grants from the government or from industry. Only John Steinhardt has had the vision to support this work. Everyone else has assumed that I’d be concocting mind poisons for rebellious youth.”

  “You’ve got to admit that seems like a fine distinction to a layman like me,” Weller said. “Are you saying you’re not inventing new ways to get stoned?”

  “Get stoned?” Bernstein snapped. “What an archaic, useless concept! Is that what you felt today when you drank the eptifier, Mr. Weller? Stoned? High? Disoriented? Hallucinative? I think not!”

  “Was that stuff developed here?” Weller said, suitably impressed.

  “Of course it was,” Bernstein said. “We’re not interested in strange new alkaloids that produces random disorientation. All human consciousness exists in a biochemical matrix. Therefore there must be chemical differences in the brains of ordinary men, morons, and geniuses, for example. Our goal here is nothing less than to develop the chemical means of giving every human being on the Earth the brain metabolism of a charismatic, creative, visionary genius.”

  “Like John?” Weller said half humorously. How Faustian could you get?

  “Like John,” Bernstein answered, in utter dead earnest. “Beyond John. There is no reason why we cannot go beyond the raising of the mass consciousness to the level of the best of us. Someday we will know enough to go beyond eptifying what we evolved with and create the biochemical base for a whole new level of human consciousness that has never existed before. True Transformational Man.”

  “Are you really serious?” Weller asked.

  “Of course, I’m serious,” Bernstein said. “Don’t you find that your mind is working as well now as it ever has? Isn’t that proof that we have at least begun the process?”


  Considering that he had had the mind of a carrot not too long ago, Weller had to admit that his head seemed to be rolling along in high gear. He had been able to grasp most of what Bernstein was talking about once the technical jargon had been left behind. He had picked up the man’s Monitor paranoia and even played with it. He had sussed out that Bernstein had worked for the Pentagon, had been unable to get research grants for this kind of work from the usual sources, and thus was grateful to Steinhardt for backing him. But not grateful enough, apparently, to trust him entirely. Not bad, Weller, not bad.

  “I guess you have a point, Doctor,” he said.

  From there, Bernstein had grown a little less hostile, a little less contemptuous, though his nervousness remained. At least he stopped assuming that Weller was skeptical of everything he saw. And for his part, Weller was beginning to question his own skepticism too.

  There were dissecting laboratories filled with bottled brains and sensory-deprivation tanks and huge human-sized mazes with moving walls and strange optical effects controlled from a central console and so many other things that he had seen so fast that it all became a blur. It was clear that Transformationalism had spent tens of millions of dollars setting up this place. It was not clear at all how they could possibly expect to return a profit on the investment, which certainly could not be said of any other of John B. Steinhardt’s manifold enterprises.

  Bernstein himself might be a little weird, a little defensively self-righteous, a little afraid of phantom Monitors, maybe even a little nuts in spots, but he did seem to be sincere about what he was doing. If anything, a little too sincere. And the wonders he was predicting seemed more and more possible as Weller got a fuller and fuller picture of how many people were working here, how many projects they were running, and how much this must be setting Steinhardt back. One thing Transformationalism didn’t seem to be into was expenditure without results.

  Was this what really lay at the heart of Transformationalism? A dedicated effort to advance the level of human consciousness with Steinhardt’s own psychic Manhattan Project? Was it possible? But how could something really worthwhile come out of the cynical scams, the broken fives, the power trips, the mind-control numbers, the fascist secret-police methods of the Monitors? How could you make gold out of shit? How could you advance human consciousness by screwing up human minds?