“Hello, this is Peter.”
“Hi Peter, this is Doug Richards from Essex University.”
There was a pause. “Doug! Thanks for calling.” Peter sounded excited. “You got my email then. Were you aware of Kal's correspondence with my brother?”
“No I wasn't. Hey – erm – I'm afraid Kal took his own life last week.”
There was another pause. “He killed himself?”
“Jumped thirteen stories from a tower block window.”
“My brother took pills. It was suicide also.”
Doug took the phone from his ear, the word “suicide” hanging in the air like some ghostly apparition. Some seconds passed as each processed the information.
“Do you still have the files?” asked Peter eventually.
“No... Kal formatted his PC before jumping. He also deleted all his files from the university server. What about Martin's?”
“Also deleted.”
“Shit!”
“Indeed. I still have Martin's audio-only files though. Do you want me to send a couple to you?”
Doug thought for a moment. He still had the early graphic generators from his initial work with Kal. “Yes, I can send you some of the fractal programmes too if you like. I still have them on my laptop.”
“Okay, why don't you put them into the DZ folder that Kal created. I tried Martin's login and it still seems to work. I'll upload all the audio files that I found on Martin's PC. Then we can talk later, if you're not too busy.”
“I'm lying in a hospital bed with a fractured cheekbone at the moment so no, I'm not too busy right now.”
“Oh...I'm sorry to hear that. But you're online - obviously – otherwise you wouldn't have got my email, I suppose.”
“Yep. No it's all right – I'm fine really. Let's swap files and talk later.”
Doug located a handful of the fractal graphics generators on his hard disk and uploaded them to the server. It had been several weeks since he'd done anything at all with Dream-Zone, so he searched for the most recent file and double-clicked. The familiar patterns started to shift and swirl on the screen. Intricate shapes and colours melded into one another in hypnotically rhythmic waves. Doug felt himself being drawn in, as calm and warming sensations of lightness enveloped his body. It was as though the whole room was being smoothly hoisted on a giant crane. The hospital bed and surroundings then seemed to disappear, as his peripheral field of vision began to blur, focusing his gaze onto the screen in a kind of tunnel vision. Now the patterns were enlarging as though he were falling into this strange kaleidoscopic world, and as he did so, a million thoughts and feelings flooded his mind. In the centre of what was now a swirling vortex, a point of light appeared, growing in size and intensity until it seemed to fill the entire screen. Then nothing.
Doug felt sun on his body. A breeze, carrying the familiar scent of salt and seaweed blew across his naked skin. He opened his eyes onto a perfect cloudless sky above a deep turquoise ocean. Gentle waves lapped at a pristine sandy beach, and seagulls could be heard calling in the distance. The water started to ripple at a point some twenty yards from the shore, and from the disturbance rose the head and then naked body of Cindy, wading slowly toward him. When the surf was down to her knees, droplets of water glistening on her white skin, she stopped and reached out to him, holding something small and red in her hand. All of a sudden, loud music started to pound from a set of speakers behind and now there were people all around, fully clothed and dancing to the music. Feeling naked and exposed, he turned back to Cindy, but instead of blue sky and ocean there were now disco lights and a stage. It was a night club, and Cindy was hanging upside down, clutching a steel pole between her thighs. People were rushing towards her with twenty-pound notes in sweaty outstretched hands, and she was taking them, stuffing them into a G-string. He saw Markov at the front of the crowd smiling knowingly at her. She slid gracefully from the pole and began slinking sexily towards him on all fours. Doug tried to clamber through the crowd, but could make no progress. He watched helplessly as Cindy grabbed Markov by the tie, drew his ugly face to hers, and kissed him on the mouth. At the same time, she produced what looked like a bright red computer memory stick and slipped it into the breast pocket of Markov's jacket, giving it a reassuring pat and winking.
“Mr. Richards!” came a voice. “Mr. Richards!” There was a hand on his shoulder. Doug opened his eyes. The portly nurse who had taken his blood pressure was by his side, peering into his face. “Sorry to wake you, but it's time for your MRI,” she said, removing the PC from his lap and placing it on a side table. As she led him slowly and painfully down the corridor, Doug thought about the dream. Rather than fading from memory almost immediately, like most dreams upon waking, the images seemed burned into his mind with an unusually vivid clarity – even for a post-Dream-Zone dream. In particular, the image of Cindy kissing Markov, and the red memory stick in her hand, seemed to tug at his consciousness with a frustrating persistence. He followed the nurse through the radiology department and into a large room, in the centre of which was a huge white machine. A tall, elegant and familiar looking nurse approached him from an observation room situated behind a number of large glass panels. “Doug?” she said.
“Hi...” said Doug in surprise, desperately trying to remember who she was.
“It's Susan! From the party...remember...I had my hair down then...”
“Susan, yes of course, you said you were a nurse. Great to see you again. How are you?”
“I'm a radiographer actually, but yeah I'm fine, thanks. Listen, I'm so sorry about Kal. He was such a lovely guy.”
“Yeah, Me too... sorry that is ...not lovely,” he stammered awkwardly. “By the way, my friend Brian told me you might be driving over to the funeral on Friday, any chance of a lift? Assuming they let me out of this place, that is.”
“Yeah, maybe. Hey, let's talk about that later, can we? I'm on a tight schedule - I have four more of these to do this afternoon. I'll pop over and see you before I leave this evening, if that's okay.”
She helped Doug onto the machine, where he lay, face up, his head just outside the large white cylindrical chamber. She then placed a cage-like structure over his face. “I need you to remain as still as you possibly can now,” she said. “It's going to get very noisy for the next twenty minutes or so, but you shouldn't feel a thing. Just keep your arms to your side and try to relax.”
After a few seconds, there was a low humming sound and he began to slide slowly into the machine. Once his head was well inside the chamber, the motion stopped and the humming was replaced with a loud mechanical thrumming. Doug shut his eyes and began to think of the fractals, which had sent him off into such a bizarre and vivid dream. As he recalled the colourful images, a calming sense of awareness washed over him. For a fleeting moment, he felt as though everything in the world made perfect sense.
After dozing for a while, he opened his eyes and stared at the machine above him wondering what lay behind the glossy white inner surface of the cylinder. Gradually an image of large electromagnetic coils began to break through his field of vision, as though he was seeing through, and into, the machine itself. He scanned his eyes from left to right, then up and down. Wherever he looked, the image was a perfect representation of what he imagined the workings of the machine to look like. He blinked and the glossy white surface reappeared. “Cool!” he muttered to himself, uncertain of what had just happened. Clearly he didn't have X-ray vision, so the image must have been somehow conjured up by his mind. Perhaps the images had been drawn from memories of a photograph in some scientific journal – a kind of semi-conscious hallucination. But it had seemed so real. He tried to recreate it, but couldn't.
“Is everything all right in there?” came Susan's tinny voice from a loudspeaker somewhere behind his head.
“Yes, everything's fine thanks. Sorry, did I move?”
“Just a little! Nearly finished.” came the voice again.
Eventually the thrum
ming sound stopped, and he slid slowly from the machine. Susan removed the cage from his head and helped him off.
“Everything look okay?” asked Doug.
“I can't really say. I'm not supposed to interpret. You'll have to wait for Doctor Singh for that I'm afraid.”
Back in his private ward, after sleeping for an hour or so, Doug checked the Dream-Zone folder and saw that Peter had uploaded the audio files. He began to transfer them to his hard disk, as Dr. Singh entered the room carrying some dark sheets of film. “I have the results from your MRI this afternoon,” he said, holding one of the foils up to the window. Seeing the concern on Doug's face, he immediately added, “Don't worry, it's nothing life-threatening!”
Doug relaxed a little. “Okay, that's good to hear.”
“Do you know anything about brain anatomy, Mr. Richards?”
“Only a few bits and pieces from reading The New Scientist and watching TV,” replied Doug.
“Well, see this image from the MRI? It shows a lateral cross section of your brain.”
Doug peered at the image wondering what he was supposed to be seeing.
Singh continued. “It shows two perfectly healthy hemispheres with no abnormalities whatsoever.”
“Okay, so far so good,” said Doug, as Singh leafed through the foils and held up another.
“Virtually all of the slices paint the same picture - no tumours or any other abnormalities.” He paused. “This one, on the other hand, shows something a bit strange in an area known as the hippocampus, which is located in your temporal lobe.”
“That doesn't sound so good.”
“Normally an area like this,” said Singh pointing to a part of the image, which to Doug, looked exactly like all the rest, “could indicate a hardening of the brain tissue.”
“Caused by hitting my head?”
“Not usually, but it's impossible to say for certain. It's very small, almost too small to say whether it's really there or not, but if there really is a hardening, or sclerosis as we call it, then it could explain the seizure you experienced last night.”
“And if it is there, can you fix it?”
“Well we need to see what we're dealing with first, and even if you did have some mild scarring in there, it's not necessarily cause for concern, unless it gets worse or gives rise to more seizures. What I would like to do is monitor you over the next twenty-four hours using electroencephalography - EEG.”
“Okay – that's like a bunch of electrodes attached to my skull right?”
“Exactly, we'll need to move you to another room and we're also going to video you at the same time, so that the brainwave patterns recorded on the EEG can be correlated with any physical movements or other activities.”
“So I have to lie still for twenty-four hours? Can I work on my computer?”
“Obviously we can't expect you to lie still for all that time, which is why we video you. That way we can tell when the brain activity we record is caused by physical movements. You can read or listen to music, but the PC is probably out. For a start, its electromagnetic field might interfere with the readings, and secondly, the typing action could give rise to brain patterns which could obscure what we're looking for."
“So my iPod is okay?”
“Yes, that should be fine providing it's not plugged into the mains. You'll also need to turn off your mobile.”
“Okay, I can handle that.”
“Good, we should be able to get you moved over to the lab in a couple of hours. The results will take some time to interpret, so providing you don't experience any more symptoms, you can go home tomorrow afternoon.“
Once Singh had left the room, Doug connected the iPod to the PC to charge, and checked his email once again. After addressing a few urgent mails, he texted Cindy and Brian to explain what was happening. He looked at the computer again, and remembered that his computing assignment was due the following day. He supposed that now he would just have to turn it in late. But as he thought about the problem which had bogged him down the previous afternoon, the solution hit him in a flash. He opened up the compiler and examined the code he'd written so far. At once, he could see where he had gone wrong. It now seemed so obvious. He started correcting the programme, his fingers flying over the keys with a speed and precision he would have never thought possible.
After about fifteen minutes, there was a knock at the door and Susan appeared. “Doug?” she said. “How are you? What did Singh say?”
Doug looked up at her. “He said I might have sclerosis in my hippocampus, and he's going to run a video EEG over the next twenty-four hours.”
“How do you do that?”
“How do I do what?
“Carry on typing at that speed, while you're talking to me about hippocampal sclerosis?”
Doug looked down at his fingers, still busily writing code, and stopped. “I've no idea. I've probably just written a load of gibberish.” But as he scanned his work, he could see that it was syntactically perfect.
Susan came over and looked down at the screen. “Shit, it's not even text. Are you programming?”
“Hmm...I guess men can multi-task after all!” he said with a smile.
“I guess so!” she said, clearly impressed. “Anyway, I came by to say yes - I think I will be driving over to Kal's funeral, so if you and your friend need a lift...”
“Brilliant, thanks. Will you be able to drop by campus and pick us up or should we meet you somewhere?”
“I'll pick you up. How about 9am on Friday morning?”
“We'll be there.”
She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. “Good luck with the EEG then, and I'll see you on Friday.”
“Friday!” he confirmed, watching her as she left. She shot a glance back over her shoulder, smiling, and then skipped off down the corridor, humming cheerfully as she went.
Another thirty minutes and the computing assignment was completed. It compiled first time, so he zipped it up and emailed it to his supervisor. He had no idea how he had done it so quickly, but it was a huge relief to finally put it behind him.
The EEG lab was a smaller room, with light blue walls and a one-way mirror at one end. At the other end, by the bed, was a rack of electronic equipment, and an IV support from which dangled a net of wires and electrodes. A young man in a white lab coat placed the net on Doug's head and carefully attached each electrode to a point on the scalp, first moving his hair aside and gently rubbing the skin beneath with a piece of cloth.
He lay on the bed wondering what his brainwaves might look like. Then he wondered how his wondering might affect those waves. It was strange to think of the inner workings of his brain somehow represented on a sheet of graph paper. It seemed rather like trying to appreciate music by plotting the decibel levels around a concert hall.
After reading for a while, he eventually took the iPod from his bag, set it to shuffle, and turned out the light. It took a few moments to get comfortable. When he lay on his side the electrodes dug into his temple and the wires pulled uncomfortably against the dressing on his cheek. Lying on his back felt somehow unnatural, but was ultimately more comfortable. After shifting restlessly for some time, he finally drifted off into a world of music and dreams.
CHAPTER 9
The four-bedroom mock Georgian box Peter had called home for the last six years now seemed depressingly cramped. In fact, the whole cul-de-sac, an expression he could no longer recall without hearing Isabelle's accompanying translation to ass-of-ze-bag, appeared to have contracted to an anally retentive pouch. It was as though each house and garden were stolidly attempting to preserve a sense of isolation and privacy as everything squeezed ever closer together.
Initially Peter had been excited at the prospect of returning home to his family. While not expecting any pomp and circumstance, he couldn't help thinking that a little fuss and attention might be in order after burying his brother. But following a quick round of hugs and kisses, everyone had returned to their lives as
though he had merely strolled back from a two minute walk to the shops.
Not quite sure whether his life had just changed completely or not at all, he immersed himself into the Dream-Zone audio and graphics files, now transferred to his laptop. The similarity of effect between the two apparently independent sets of stimuli was staggering. It was clear that both were somehow exciting the same part of the brain - perhaps triggering the release of endorphins or other natural opiate-like chemicals. But it was more than just an endorphin rush. It was as if Dream-Zone were somehow unlocking distant memories. Obscure long forgotten facts were once again retrievable. Unpractised skills became second nature, as if honed through years of constant use. A contract to design the control system for some automated factory assembly equipment had finally been awarded to him after a lengthy bid process. Normally, such a project would have taken weeks of planning before he could start on the main architectural design, but within a matter of hours, he could already visualise the finished system. Three more days on the CAD software and the project would be completed - two months ahead of schedule.
He had tried to call Doug, to discuss how they might combine audio and visual components, as Kal and Martin had somehow succeeded in doing, but Doug's mobile had been switched off. Playing both files simultaneously, as described in his brother's email to Kal, elicited only glimpses of the full potential. At the back of his mind was the nagging suspicion that success in creating the combo file might have had something to do with the suicides, but the desire to experience whatever lay beyond overpowered any concern for personal safety. That train had already left the station and Peter was firmly aboard. Where, or even if, it might eventually come to a stop was, at this point, a mystery. Either way, he was in for the duration and, it had to be said, was relishing every moment of the ride.
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