“That was the final test,” Levick said. “An experiment to test your ability to overcome visual stimuli in a high-stress environment. To override your instinctual response. Everything in your body was screaming at you not to fall, and yet you processed scraps of discordant information rapidly and accurately. In the end, you demonstrated freedom of choice, free will. It is not an easy thing to demonstrate.”
“What the hecking heck,” said Tahoe again. But her voice had lost some of its anger. When Chance looked at her, he no longer saw rage, only relief. The tension in Wolfie’s face finally released. He placed a hand on his heart and bent at the waist, exaggeratingly breathing freely again. Kate was staring across the room at Jenny. Then she slowly turned toward Chance.
“Kate, I —” he said before she could speak.
Levick opened her arms with another grand flourish. “Now you know the truth. It was all a massive open-world escape room. A grand experiment on your brain and behavior. And all of you passed with flying colors. All of this is a celebration! I know it’s a lot to take in, and you’re all surely anxious to get home. But we do have a small party set up right upstairs, food and drink. A few surprise guests there want to say hello.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
The provost escorted them to a large elevator. Inside, she placed her hand on a digital recognition pad and pressed an unmarked button. Chance felt the elevator rise. Tahoe and Wolfie retreated to one corner, hand in hand, laughing with relief. Kate retreated to the opposite corner, sullen despite the fact that Jenny did not join them in the elevator. Levick stared at the closed door, saying nothing until the doors opened.
“Apologies for the disorder. We’re still in the process of putting the final touches on this building.”
The space was roughly the size of the lecture room below. Only this time, it wasn’t stark and featureless. There was furniture here, sofas and chairs and low tables placed in semi-arranged groupings. Three vending machines were pressed against the far wall.
Two tables had been shoved to the center of the room. Bowls of pretzels and chips and dip and several two-liter bottles of soda sat atop a white tablecloth. A half-dozen colored balloons hovered from a table leg. It wasn’t a lavish spread, but it hardly mattered. Chance and the others pounced on the food.
A half-dozen glass-walled rooms lined the perimeter, each equipped with a desktop computer, monitor, desk and chair. A few of these individual study rooms had additional equipment, and one was occupied. A young woman wearing an oversized sweatshirt was hunched over a thick textbook, tapping notes into a laptop. A ridiculously large Starbucks cup was within reach.
“Please, eat as much as you want,” the provost said. “You must all be starving. I need to step away for a moment, but I will be back to officially toast to your success.” Levick gave a slight bow, and just before she disappeared through door, she turned back. “Oh, and here are those special guests I promised.”
Five figures entered the common area. Chance realized with a shock that he was staring at Bigfoot, Flicker, Snake, Cyborg and Fats. The motorcycle gang was considerably cleaned up: beards trimmed, hair washed, tattoos erased. The leather and the denim had been replaced with pressed shirts and tan chinos.
“You motherfuckers,” said Wolfie with a broad grin.
They all embraced, slapped backs, laughed at the unexpected reunion.
“Don’t hate on us,” Bigfoot said. “We’ll do just about anything for some free pretzels.”
“Please tell me your names are real,” said Tahoe. “I so want to be friends with Bigfoot and Snake.”
“Sorry,” said Bigfoot. “My name is Josh. And that’s Crystal and Cheryl, and those two tough guys are Gabe and Joe.”
“So, your name is Gabe, huh?” Wolfie said, grinning. “Just a tad less imposing than Snake.”
“I’ll still cut a bitch,” Snake/Gabe said. But he couldn’t keep a straight face, and they all burst into laughter.
“You guys all work for the provost?” Chance asked. He was of course happy to see them, but something about the reunion felt stilted, as if it were all somehow staged for them. For what purpose, he did not know.
“No, no,” Bigfoot/Josh said. “We are all just part of the building staff at the institute downtown.”
“The Brain and Behavior Institute?”
“That’s the one. We were approached a few months ago about playing roles in this little experiment. I guess someone found out we rode, and that seemed to be what they needed.”
“So you’re not researchers?”
“Hell, no. That science stuff is over our heads.”
“Hey!” Snake/Gabe protested through a mouthful of chips. “I can read, you know.”
Bigfoot/Josh ignored him. “Anyway, I sure am sorry if our little role-playing down in Colombia and Panama caused you any heartburn. They told us that you would never be in any real danger. It was just a fun little adventure in the jungle — and double-time pay to boot.”
“With all that extra money, you bought those pants?” Tahoe quipped.
Wolfie dropped a handful of pretzels into his mouth. “It’s all a little messed up — okay, a lot messed up — but here’s how I’m thinking about this,” he said between chews. “We all got a free vacation to Central America and now all-you-can-eat pretzels and all-you-can-drink Dr. Pepper. All in all, not too shabby.”
The little party helped release the stress and tension of the past eight days and nights. The food helped, but the laughter did even more to salve the pain. Even Chance started to relax.
“The look on your face when Desmond and Scarface appeared?” Wolfie said to Tahoe. “Priceless.”
“Me? You looked like you were about to charge them, ready to strangle them right then and there.”
Chance smiled, poured two cups of Dr. Pepper and handed one to Kate. They moved away from the others, out of earshot. “You okay?” he asked.
Kate fixed Chance with a thoughtful stare.
“Kate?” he asked.
“She’s alive,” she said quietly. “Jenny is alive.”
Chance could read the disquiet on Kate’s face. Her eyes narrowed and widened, as if wrestling with conflicting thoughts. Her mouth was open slightly, but her lips did not move, as if struggling to find just the right words. She looked lost.
Chance could relate. Just hours earlier, he had lain with Kate in her small bed, felt the warmth of her body against his, the sweetness of her lips. The trembling birth of feelings deep within his chest. He wanted to reach out to Kate now, to hold her and reassure her that everything was okay.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t shake the image of Jenny from his mind. They had developed a real connection too. Unsaid and unconsummated, yes, but no less real. Now, the fact that Jenny was alive … Well, it complicated things.
“Kate, I —”
“You laid in my bed and cried about her death,” Kate said. “You’re happy, I get that and would never take that away from you. But I just thought—”
It was at that moment that Madeline Levick strode confidently back into the room. “Pardon my absence,” she said. “I trust that you are all enjoying the party? Taking the time to catch up with your old motorcycle friends, I see.”
Chance realized he was grateful for the interruption. He didn’t know how to feel, not yet. And he certainly didn’t know what to say to Kate. He needed time.
And he was eager to press the provost with some lingering questions.
“Can you tell us more about this big experiment?” he asked. “I mean, this was a lot of trouble to go through for a college study.”
The provost considered Chance for a moment, as if determining how much to share. “The Brain and Behavior Institute is one of the finest brain labs in the world. The only lab that can simultaneously collect and analyze MRI, fMRI, EEG and EKG brain functions, all in real time.”
“That would be impressive,” Tahoe said, “if any of us knew what any of that meant.”
; “It means that it is the first lab that can explore the inner workings and functions of the brain. Think of all of those tools as X-rays of brain function, allowing us to see how we think, and to understand why we think. I don’t need to tell you that the brain is one of the greatest mysteries in science. Even after centuries of study, there is more unknown than known. Here, let me show you.”
With a slight nod of her head, one of her assistants — they seemed to cling to the provost like remora wherever she went — handed her a computer tablet. Levick tapped on the screen, and showed it to the others. On the screen were two shapes.
“One of these shapes is called Kiki and the other is called Bouba,” she said. “The question is, which one is which? Ms. Andrews, what do you think?”
Tahoe gritted her teeth at the use of her last name. “The one on the left is Bouba. Kiki is on the right.”
The provost smiled. “There is, of course, no right or wrong answer. And yet, almost 90 percent of respondents answer the same way. And we do not fully understand why. In many ways, the brain is a blank place on the map. For example, we have not even begun to answer a fundamental question about ourselves: How did consciousness emerge?”
“I thought Darwin already figured that out,” Chance said. “Evolution, survival of the fittest, and all that. We evolved bigger brains in order to outsmart the other animals during prehistoric times.”
“Not quite accurate,” the provost said. “Our brains are actually physically smaller today than those of our ancient ancestors. But we are certainly smarter. Modern human brains have conceived of space shuttles and iPhones and wireless electricity and virtual worlds.”
“And Cool Ranch Doritos,” added Wolfie. “Some of our best work.”
Everyone laughed, and the sight of Wolfie cramming a dozen orange chips into his mouth was enough to make even the provost crack a smile before continuing.
“My point is that the brain is merely an organ, just like any other in the body. A three-pound organ comprised of billions of neurons, connected by synapses to even more neurons. And from all of these genetic pathways, consciousness somehow emerged. The answers to why still elude us.
“We have made much progress. Over the past decade, neuroscience has discovered something remarkable about our brain — it operates exactly like a computer, albeit a biological one. It acquires, stores and processes information.”
“You make it all sound so … robotic,” said Chance. “But that’s not how brains work, is it? We don’t always process things rationally. We’re emotional. We make rash decisions. Computers never make mistakes. We make them all the time.”
“You are really quite perceptive for such a young man,” she said. “Our institute is studying how our brains process information to make decisions. Do we make decisions based on emotion, like you suggest, by hunch, on instinct? Or do we reach decisions through rational deliberation, like a computer?
“One of the institute’s esteemed social psychologists has devised an ingenious experiment to test this. Participants are asked to evaluate two options — say, two televisions. They are asked to make a simple determination on which television is better. In the first part of the experiment, the two televisions are identical except for price. In this scenario, the choice is simple: Participants choose the cheaper one. However, when the experiment introduces other factors — resolution, brand, connectivity, smart features and so on — the participants begin to have trouble making rational decisions. Instead, they begin to make decisions based on instinct. And remarkably, using only their gut reaction, the participants almost always choose correctly. The experiment indicates that when it comes to complicated situations, we should trust our instincts more than extended rational deliberation.”
The door to the common area opened and Jenny slipped inside, her head low. She walked to one of the experiment rooms. Once inside, she sat at a computer station, her back to them. The monitor in the room sprung to life.
Chance felt eyes fall on him. When he looked up, he saw Kate staring at the back of Jenny’s head. Levick, too, had caught the exchange.
“Of course, most of our brains run on autopilot,” she continued. “Our emotions are triggered by our brains in response to external stimuli. Most of the time, we are barely aware that they are even happening.”
Chance realized he was staring at the back of Jenny’s head, then tried to make out what was being displayed on her monitor. He suddenly needed a distraction. He poured himself another cup of Dr. Pepper.
“That soda,” the provost said, gesturing to his cup. “Do you know why you are drinking it? Of course, we all know that our bodies need water in order to function. On some rational level, we understand that. But that’s not why we drink. No, we drink because we are thirsty. But where does that impulse come from? Why are we thirsty?”
“I drink because LeBron James tells me I’m thirsty,” Wolfie quipped.
Levick ignored the remark. “Science has given us the answer. There is a circuit in the brain that detects when the body is becoming dehydrated. That circuit makes a connection with a remedy, with water or even soda, and releases a stream of dopamine, which acts as a sort of motivation engine. This engine triggers the sensation of thirst in our mouth and in our throat, which in turn eventually spurs us to action. You only think that you have actively chosen to drink. The reality is that your brain already decided it for you.”
“That’s a little creepy,” said Wolfie. “Like there’s a little alien in our brain, pulling all the strings.”
“I think Sigmund Freud would appreciate that analogy,” the provost said. “He was really the first one to postulate the idea that consciousness originates in these unconscious circuit boards and neurons of the brain. Freud said that almost all mental activity is unconscious, and that the unconscious is the true motor of our actions. He believed that we really have no power to make decisions, only the ability to sometimes modify or censure them.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Even Jenny must have somehow sensed it. From her isolated glass-walled experiment room, she slowly turned and looked to the center of the room.
Chance was reminded of a line from one of his favorite poems, “Chess,” by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
God moves the player, as he the pieces.
“A century later,” Levick continued, “we now know that Freud’s astonishing idea is true. We are merely vessels to carry out decisions that have already been made for us.”
“I’m not buying it,” Tahoe said. “I make my own decisions. There’s no little alien inside me pulling the strings.”
“If you’ll indulge me,” the provost said, “I’ll give you another example. Imagine that a snake suddenly darts out from that bowl of chips.”
Wolfie eyed the bowl suspiciously, and slowly placed a pretzel back in the bowl.
“Your visual system sends a burst of energy to your thalamus, which then forwards the impulses to your frontal cortex. There, your brain jumps into action. Your mind searches its memory banks to identify the snake. How poisonous is it? How big? How much will a bite hurt? How close is the snake to the body, what is its potential striking distance? This information triggers questions like: Do I need to move, and if so, how far, how quickly? A command is then sent from the cortex to the appropriate muscles — seven different muscles and ligaments in your legs are activated simultaneously to allow you to jump away, your mouth to scream out a warning. All of this happens even before you consciously realize there is a snake in the bowl. You will jump, you have no choice but to jump, and it is done entirely without your conscious consent.”
“That is a reflex,” Chance countered. “We all have reflexes. Same reason we yank our hand away from a hot stove.”
“A common belief,” Levick conceded. “But we now know better. Science has told us that every decision we make is unconscious. And we can prove it.”
As she spoke, the provost kept her voice low and steady. She was back in her element, a profes
sor delivering a lecture.
In the early 1980s, she told them, a social scientist named Benjamin Libet conducted a series of experiments that unsettled the scientific world. The set-up was deceptively simple: Subjects were asked to push a button at a moment of their own choosing. One decision, to press or not to press. There were no external stimuli of any kind. Simply push the button, the subjects were told, as soon as you make the decision.
Libet had attached small electrodes to the scalp of the subjects, connected to an electroencephalogram to measure brain activity. He also recorded the subjects’ muscular activity in order to pinpoint the moment when they activated the appropriate muscles needed to press the button.
What Libet discovered seemed impossible. The experiment demonstrated that brain activity and muscle movement began a full second before the subject actually pushed the button.
“It was an astonishing finding, but really just the first scratch on an infinite surface,” Levick said. “Another researcher at the institute has since built upon Libet’s work. Professor Hayes Dylan complicated the experiment by adding a second button. Now, the choice would be twofold: whether to push the button, and which button to push. Dr. Dylan improved on Libet’s measurements by replacing the EEG with magnetic resonance, using fewer channels to gain even greater precision in decoding cerebral states. When he first evaluated the results from the study, Dylan did not believe his own findings. So he repeated the experiment over a period of several months, with multiple subjects. And each time, the results were the same.
“Subjects who were supposedly making a free and conscious decision to push one of the buttons exhibited brain activity in the frontal cortex a full 10 seconds before they felt they were making the decision. In other words, the subject was not aware of their decision until several seconds after they had made it.”
The provost paused there, watching them all grapple with this information. She smiled, trying to lighten the mood, but her mouth contorted into something forged and artificial. Like the little alien in her brain had ordered a smile, but some of the neurons were not fully responding. Chance once again recalled the Borges poem, and shuddered as he recalled the next lines.
Escape Room Page 20