“So you see,” Kaiser concluded, “we already recognize — legally — that we are not always in control of ourselves. And that is just the beginning.”
“What you’re suggesting,” Chance said, “is that no one anywhere should be held accountable for their actions.”
“I know it’s hard to swallow. We have blindly chosen to deny it for centuries, despite some already knowing otherwise.
“In 1878, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote something prescient: ‘And thus we come to understand that the history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called ‘responsibility,’ which in turn rests on an error called ‘freedom of the will.’ No one is responsible for his deeds; no one for his nature; to judge is to be unjust. The tenet is as bright as sunlight, and yet everyone prefers to walk back into the shadow and untruth — for fear of the consequences.’”
“If people don’t believe they have free will,” Chance said, struggling to keep up, “I don’t even know what would happen. It would be chaos.”
“Indeed,” Kaiser said, “the foundation of civilized society would crumble. Free will has been called one of the world’s most dangerous ideas, but for decades scientists have shielded us from the truth. We have uncovered correspondence, evidence of an insidious conspiracy, where scientists have acknowledged to one another that free will is ‘a fiction worth maintaining’ and a ‘glorious, absolutely necessary illusion.’ Labs have been shuttered, data withheld, results altered. Prominent neuroscientists have abruptly changed fields. The implications here are simply too awful to consider for most people.”
Chance stared at Kaiser. “Most,” he repeated, “but not you. Not Provost Levick.”
“It is a necessity that I do not relish. But someone must bear the burden of truth and science, no matter where it leads.”
“But where does it lead?” Chance asked. “If there is no free will, what happens?”
“The repercussions of this discovery are staggering,” Kaiser said. “In a universe without free will, people have no opportunity. If their fate is truly determined by biology and environment, nature and nurture, then there is no incentive for personal responsibility. Imagine everyone invoking the same defense as Daniel M’Naghten. What would happen to our legal system? If we believe that the universe and everything in it are following predetermined laws, will we become a citizenry of blind abeyance?”
“If what you are saying is true, about free will being an illusion,” Chance began, “then why are we here? What is the Picasso Project?”
“It’s our way of fighting back,” said Kaiser. “You and your friends have demonstrated a dying quality of original thought, contrarian thinking, the final gasping vestiges of free will. We believe it has something to do with creativity, your artistic sense, even your left-handedness. Experiments have shown that people with a dominant left hand are more creative, more intelligent, possibly because lefties have been forced to adapt to a right-hand-dominated world. Either way, you and your friends may hold the key to the future of humanity.”
The future of humanity. There it was again.
“We seek to find ways to prevent complete extermination of free will and to preserve our way of life. You and your friends may hold the key. The Picasso Project studies ‘originals’ so that we may harness that creative power. We want to continue our studies with you as our willing partners. Will you join us? Will you join our effort to save what’s left of our humanity?”
FORTY
Choice, free will and the fate of humanity.
Chance’s mind reeled.
On a very appreciable level, Kaiser’s discourse on the threat of free will and the negative impact of vanishing originality struck home with Chance. Years earlier, when he was a precocious fifth grader, he often tuned out during math lessons, the numbers a dizzying puzzle that his brain struggled to assemble. Instead, he translated the numbers into words, the equations into poems. Reframed, Chance found it easier to work through the problems. But when he turned in his work, his teacher — a stern man named Mr. Gunther — was displeased. “Mr. Matthews,” he said. “You need to stop marching to your own drummer.”
And yet, even if Kaiser was right, it seemed absurd to think that they could be part of a solution. They were just four misfits. Misunderstood oddballs. What could they possibly do?
“If we were to help you,” Chance said to Kaiser, “what would happen next?”
“We would take you to the Brain and Behavior Institute, where all four of you would undergo additional testing. We want to understand how to best nurture your originality, determine its origins. Does it come from your genes, your DNA? Or from other factors within your environment? And how can we cultivate its spread? How can we make creativity contagious?”
“We would have to leave right now?” Chance pressed. “We are tired. We haven’t seen home in days. There are people we want to see.”
Kaiser fixed him with a stern gaze. Suddenly, Chance felt like he had disappointed this man, just as he had disappointed Mr. Gunther years ago. “Yes, I am afraid you would have to come right now. One of the primary functions of the institute is the study of the brain. And with every passing minute, the very neurons inside your brains that we wish to analyze are becoming more difficult to examine. The trails left behind by firing circuits do not last forever. And we wish to capture that data as quickly as possible.”
Chance saw the provost nod beside Kaiser.
“Let me talk to my friends for a moment,” Chance said. “We are a team, and we will decide as a team.”
“Very well,” Kaiser said. “Ms. Levick and I anxiously await your decision.”
Chance waited until Kaiser and the provost retreated to the far side of the common area, out of earshot. He gestured for the others to huddle around him. They spoke in low whispers.
“I’m not sure I like this,” said Tahoe. “I’m not getting a good vibe from this guy.”
“Well, I know I don’t,” added Wolfie. “I just want to get home. All of this saving the world stuff? Something just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Chance turned to the fourth member of their group. “Kate?”
“I just want to go home,” she said quietly. “I am tired, and all of this is a bit too much for me.” She had been staring at her hands as she spoke, but now raised her head and fixed Chance with a doleful glare. Her eyes were wide, still red. There was more behind those hazel eyes than fatigue. Chance knew that the reappearance of Jenny had thrown her. Her emotional struggle – happiness that Jenny was alive, confusion about what it meant for her and Chance – was clear. He desperately wanted to talk with Kate alone about all of it. He wondered if he would ever get the chance.
“I need to tell you all something else, too,” Wolfie said. “I tried to tell you earlier. I’m not sure what to make of it, though.”
“What is it, Wolfie?” Tahoe asked.
“Something I saw in the Darwin Room,” he said, “when I was looking inside the fireplace with the black light.”
“Yeah, you found the clue in there,” Tahoe remembered. “The title to the book, On the Origin of Species. It led us to the hidden room behind the bookcase.”
“I found something else there too,” he said. “Didn’t seem relevant at the time, but now …”
“Tell us,” Chance prodded.
“It was another message, handwritten in that same kind of writing that you can only read in black light. But the words were different, like they had been scratched in somehow. Like maybe they were left there by someone in a hurry. But I could read it clearly enough.”
“What did it say?” asked Chance.
“It said, ‘Picasso is a lie.’”
They all considered this a moment. It was surely a reference to the Picasso Project, or one hell of a coincidence. But what did it mean? And who had written it?
“I don’t understand,” said Tahoe.
Picasso is a lie. Chance could not make sense of the cryptic message.
Wolfie shru
gged. “We had never even heard of the Picasso Project until a few hours ago. It meant nothing to me at the time, so I just forgot about it.”
“Could it be some kind of warning?” Tahoe asked.
“A warning about what?” Chance asked. “And left by who? Who even had access to the Darwin Room?”
“Jenny?” offered Tahoe.
Chance felt Kate stiffen at the mention of Jenny’s name.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “If there was something going on with the Picassos, she had plenty of opportunities to tell us directly.”
“She had plenty of opportunities to tell us a lot of things,” Kate muttered.
Picasso is a lie.
Another mystery to add to their bizarre experience.
“So now what, Chance?” asked Tahoe. “What do we do?”
Chance took a moment and looked each of them. Behind their resolute visages, he saw the same thing: weariness. They’d all had enough of the mysterious Picasso Project, of the tests and experiments, and of strangers in lab coats observing them. Enough.
“Time to go home,” he said.
FORTY-ONE
“I am most disappointed in your decision,” Kaiser said. “And all of you are in agreement about this course of action?”
“We decided as a group,” Chance said. “Maybe we can help later, but for now, we just want to go home, see our loved ones. Get some sleep.”
Kaiser didn’t even try to mask the disapproval in his tone. “As a group. The power of social incentives on display – we act as those around us act. Perhaps I overestimated the strength of your independent thought in the first place.”
Chance didn’t respond. He simply did not care what Kaiser said or thought about them. In a few minutes, they would never have to see Richard Kaiser again.
“Very well, then. I fear that I have perhaps failed to properly convey the gravity of the threat we are facing, but no matter. That is my issue to deal with, not yours.”
“I just don’t see how we can be much help,” Wolfie interjected. “We’re just a bunch of high schoolers, too young to save the world.”
“Ah, but there you are wrong, Mr. Wolfson. It is your youth that makes all of the difference. And the reason is simple: The brains of male and female teenagers are still malleable. On some level, all decisions come down to a comparison of risk and reward. Studies have shown that teenagers exhibit the same level of rational thought as their elders, but they also exhibit higher rates of impulsive decisions.”
“I think just about any parent could’ve told you that,” Tahoe said. “My mom could’ve saved you a lot of time and trouble.”
Kaiser smiled wryly. “The young have a higher tolerance for risky decisions, perhaps because they cannot grasp the potential consequences. Studies have demonstrated that in the vast majority of cases, impulsive decisions — those made on instinct — are more often the correct ones. It’s only as adults that we start to overanalyze our decisions, our choices. Endlessly, it seems.”
“I still don’t understand how this relates to us,” said Chance.
“After a certain age, the vast majority of adults simply stop being creative. Some retain some semblance of creativity, but nothing like the imaginative spirit of children. Even Einstein himself said that if a person has not made a great contribution to science before the age of 30, that person will never do so. Think about it. As children, we invent games out of sticks, form bonds with imaginary friends. We invent elaborate stories for our dolls, for little green army men. As adults, all of that vanishes. Creativity is a spark that flashes most brightly in the young. That is where we must capture it.”
Chance felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Kate. She looked at him with pleading eyes. Her meaning was clear. She wanted to go.
Kaiser seemed to catch the exchange. “But I can see that Ms. Winter is ready to leave, so I will leave you to it. But I wonder if her sudden compulsion to flee might not have an ulterior motive?”
The strange remark gave Chance pause. “What is that supposed to mean?” he challenged.
“Chance, just let it go.” Kate’s voice was suddenly insistent. “Let’s just go.”
Kaiser smirked. “I wonder if you all would humor me one final question.” Without waiting for an answer, he asked, “Why do we lie?”
Chance felt Kate shrink away, just a half step. He reached for her hand, but she was already out of reach.
“To spare someone’s feelings, perhaps?” Kaiser said. “Like every part of what makes us human, it is our nature that compels us to deceive. Recall, we have evolved with a singular purpose — to pass our genes on to the next generation. That is why sex has evolved to be pleasurable. It is why women wear more makeup and jewelry while they are ovulating, to attract a mate. It is why we get jealous when our lover spends time with a potential rival. Our bodies generate fear if we are in danger, they inform us when we need to feed them to stay strong, and they fight infections when they are sick. Every second of every minute of every day, our bodies do nothing but impel us to follow this compulsory goal. And so it is with lying, just another evolutionary construct. Simply put, we lie when it serves our best interests of survival.”
Chance did not bother to mask his frustration. “Why is this relevant right now?” he barked.
“I am a little disappointed that you have failed to figure this out on your own, Mr. Matthews. It seems all too obvious to me. I wonder why you missed all the signs. Could it be that emotions were somehow interfering? Feelings, as we have learned, can often short-circuit our biological computers.”
“What are you talking about?” Tahoe asked. “Chance, what is he talking about?”
Kaiser eyed Chance. “Somewhere, perhaps purposefully repressed, I think you know the truth. One of you is a liar. One of you is not who you claim to be.”
The pronouncement detonated inside the room.
Chance’s first thought was: Tahoe. She had already told him her real name was Margaret, that she didn’t really live in Nevada, that her mother wasn’t really a big shot at the Reno casinos. Her deception seemed innocuous enough, though. Little more than a nickname, and a fantasy about a better life. Could there be a deeper, more sinister, untruth?
Wolfie seemed as straightforward and genuine as someone could be. Chance had been with him in his grandfather’s home. There was nothing insincere about him or his life. But he had to remind himself that he had known Wolfie for barely a week. How much did he really know about him?
Kaiser was not looking at either of them. Rather, his eyes were locked on the fourth member of their entourage. Chance turned to Kate, and suddenly something clenched in his gut. Like a python had crawled into his belly and was now constricting around his innards. The crush of pain nearly made him double over.
Kate.
She had backed away from the rest of them. She would not meet his gaze.
“Kate?” Chance said quietly.
“Deceit is such an insidious beast,” Kaiser hissed. “We mislead others when it is in our bestinterest. We even delude ourselves, believing in our own specialness to make us feel better.”
“Kate?” Chance said again.
She spoke without looking at him. “I’m sorry, Chance.” Kate shook her head, unable to speak further. “We make do with what we have.”
Kaiser looked pleased with himself.
“As I said earlier, I’m afraid your friend here is not who she claims to be. Surely all of you noticed that she was somehow different. The three of you are artists: writer, painter, musician. She is none of these things. You are all left-handed, she is right-handed.
“Kate,” Chance said quietly. “Talk to me.”
“Her name is not Kate at all,” Kaiser said. “She is not a student at Wilson High School in Washington, D.C. We know this, of course, because the real Kate Winter is alive and well at her home in Northwest D.C., perhaps still wondering where she misplaced her escape room golden ticket.”
“You … stole the ticket?” Chance
said.
The girl he knew as Kate nodded, a nearly imperceptible motion.
“Why?”
When she finally opened her mouth to speak, Kate — he still did not recognize this girl by any other name — her voice was little more than a quivering whisper. She tried, but each time she tried to meet Chance’s stare, her resolved faltered.
“I didn’t even know what it was,” she said. “Not at first. I saw this girl in this coffee shop near Union Station, working on her computer, headphones on. Nice clothes, expensive laptop, new shoes. She looked so stylish there, I just, I don’t know, I just started to watch her. I went there sometimes, to the coffee shop, because I have a friend who works there. He gives me day-old muffins sometimes, before they throw them out. So yeah, Chance already knows this, but I live on my own. No family, not anymore. I don’t even go to school.
“Anyway, I was watching her when I saw another well-dressed woman walk by and slip a gold envelope into her messenger bag. At the time I didn’t recognize her at all, but now I’m pretty sure it was the provost. Anyway, Kate didn’t even notice the envelope. But I was intrigued. I walked by and snatched it before she even noticed.”
Wolfie stared at her, open-mouthed. “So you really are a professional thief,” he said. The comment was intended as a joke, but it was met only with a dull thud of silence.
“Chance, I’m sorry,” she said, finally looking up from her fretting hands. “I wanted to tell you. When I showed you where I lived, I wanted to tell you everything.”
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