Cronix (26 page)

“I give up,” muttered Glenn, again feeling like a dim-witted schoolboy.

“Well, the enlarged hominid brain created a new, virtual environment: the human mind. Think of the ego, the conscious mind, as a sort of avatar that allowed all these newly evolved, sentient hominids to find their way through the complex virtual world of the intellect: to interact with each other, read the facial expressions of others, hunt in packs and not kill each other, at least not too often. They had to remember taboos and danger areas and relationships and loyalties and hundreds of other interconnections within the group. Gradually, this new environment of the mind became a solid reality, the auto-pilot became the self, what we identify today as ‘us’, even though below it we are still just the same animal organism.”

Glenn stared at the spotless blue sky arching over him, his own auto-pilot struggling to grasp what he was being told.

“Let me put it more simply,” said Fitch. “Somehow, at the dawn of human history, we invented ourselves, just as we are now inventing avatars in online worlds, some
thing
that will identify me as
me
, easily recognizable to others and knowing its place in highly complex surroundings.”

“We
invented
ourselves?”

“Out of necessity, yes. The ‘self’ was a useful tool, but effectively an illusion.”

“Isn’t that a bit like… Buddhist or something?” Glenn was feeling oddly discombobulated, as though he’d just smoked a too-long blunt of too-strong weed.

“Some of the ancients in the East suspected the same thing, it’s true. Now modern science is coming to very similar conclusions. ‘We,’ as we understand ourselves, really don’t exist. We are a figment of our own imaginations. I know it sounds like science fiction, but maybe that’s why some people like science fiction: the soul trapped in the robot, the zombie spirit living in a dead body, doing the bidding of its master. If you take our genes to be that hidden master, maybe it makes sense. We
are
the science fiction.”

“Jesus,” whispered Glenn. “But…I’m here, aren’t I? How can I not exist?”

“Of course you exist, as a living organism, a galaxy of interacting cells,” said Fitch. “You are a 29-year-old animal of the homo sapiens species that survives relatively happily in an environment created by your ancestors over millions of years. But what would happen if all your peers disappeared? If
you
were the last of your species? What would happen to poor old Glenn Rose then, as you know him? Who would tell Glenn Rose that he’s still Glenn Rose? How long before he started to unravel, to fall to pieces? Why do you think people in solitary confinement, or ship-wrecked sailors, go mad? Because there is no ‘other’ to recognize them, to tell them what they are. Other people are the sounding board that helps us identify ourselves Take that away, and you’re a lone, lost mind facing up to the disturbing reality that what you are, or what you think you, is all in your head.”

“Jesus,” muttered Glenn, for want of anything more constructive to contribute.

Fitch frowned, dredging up a memory. “I was at an airport in Africa once, way out in the boondocks. Can’t even recall which country it was. Anyway, as I was waiting in the departures lounge, there was this bird trapped inside the hall, flapping against the big glass window that looked out on the runway. It could see the world outside clearly enough, but couldn’t figure out why it couldn’t get there. Now, from a bird’s point of view, that might appear to be a mystical experience: trapped by an invisible, mysterious force far beyond its comprehension. If it had the capacity to think, maybe it would have called it the will of god. But it was just glass. All it had to do was to fly out one of the side doors at the bottom and it would be free.”

He threw his cigarette butt into the snow and started walking back to the house. Glenn went with him.

“What we are looking for is that door in the glass,” he said, pulling his gloves off and heading back to the house. “Then we can get to the other side. The question is, are our brains advanced enough to find it? And if we are, are we also smart enough to convince others to follow us outside?”

***

Little man, you will serve me

Oriente shot upright in bed with a howl. Lola, startled from sleep, pulled herself up next to him.

He looked at her, eyes wide in panic. Shaking and sweating, he leapt out of bed and bolted for the door.

“What the fuck?” she said, irritation turning to fear. Oriente was scrabbling like a lunatic at the door handle. She got up to follow but

he burst into the corridor, buck naked.

Lola fumbled into her uniform and rushed after him, past the surprised DPP guard drowsing in a chair outside. The confused man stumbled to his feet and set off after the bellowing patient.

“Stop right there,” shouted the agent. But Oriente had already crashed into a doorway and was hunched like an animal, chest heaving, hands over his ears.

Lola pushed the agent aside and sat down on the floor beside Oriente.

“What is sweetheart?” she said.” What the hell happened?”

He looked at her wildly. “Voices. In my head. I keep hearing the voices.”

She wrapped her arms round her. “It's probably some problem with the chip they implanted.” She threw an accusatory glance at the DPP agent, who was holstering the weapon he had pulled out.

“No,” Oriente whimpered. “I don't think so. I think I'm falling apart.”

She pulled him close and kissed on the top of the head, ignoring the agent. “Naah,” she cooed. “You're fine.”

“There's something you don't know,” Oriente said. “Something I haven't told them yet.”

“What's that?” said Lola.

Oriente rubbed his face, took a deep breath. “I'm … I'm not quite real. Not quite human. I never was.”

Lola sighed. “None of us are anymore, honey. Welcome to the club. Come on, let's get you back to bed now.”

She stroked his sweaty forehead and smiled. He smiled back, the panic receding. She held him in her arms, in the corridor, until the dawn light came through the window and his shivering subsided.

***

“Is this going to be like the helmet?”

There was a distinct tremor in Glenn’s voice. He was lying on his back, and had to raise his head to see Fitch and Stiney as they prepared what they called his “first session.” Laura was there too, frowning as she tapped away at a computer attached to the MRI machine.

“A bit,” said Fitch, strapping Glenn's wrists to the flat bed of the MRI machine. “Now, it's very important you don't move at all.”

Stiney came up and stood next to his feet.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to have a great time. You’re not going to be meeting any Haitian share-croppers in here, my friend. This is the big daddy of the lab. This is Laura’s brother, Lyle.”

“But I though he wasn’t dead?” Glenn looked at Laura, hoping for reassurance.

“He’s not, and with your help he’ll stay that way,” said Laura. “We have been reaping Lyle’s memory banks for two years now. And we are still getting a steady stream from an implant in his brain. What we need you to do is go in there and make sure that we are getting the real thing. You’ll under be under for ten minutes. Then you wake up and tell us what you saw. That’s all.”

Stiney was fiddling with a plastic jar with a child-proof lid. He pulled out a pill that looked big enough to tranquilize a horse.

“You’ll need to take this,” he said. “It knocks you out, isolates your conscious mind, so you don’t interact with Lyle’s memories. We don’t want to taint the process.”

Glenn took the horse pill and examined it nervously. Stiney proffered a water bottle to wash it down. “We’ve found the pill is better than an injection. Once you’ve taken it, the effect will kick in within seconds. You’ll love, judging by the results of your blood tests. Oh come on, you thought we wouldn’t know? We’re all adults here, Glenn, don’t worry. We all enjoy a puff or a snort now and then. Now, lie down as soon as you swallow, then we can begin.”

Glenn put the tablet in his mouth, wincing at the chemical blandness. He swigged water, gagged slightly as the pill muscled its way through his gullet. He lay back on the padded bed, head in the molded receptacle.

The world shut down, just for a moment. Glenn’s mind took an awkward twitch-step into deep sleep.

Abruptly, he was someone else, in another realm. If the drug brought him relief from the constraints of this life, the new person he found himself to be freed him entirely from his old self. He wanted to say something, to utter words that would take possession of this new persona, but before he could find the right ones he had forgotten that he was ever anyone but Laura's little brother Lyle.

Ten minutes later, his body was smoothly ejected from the machine. He found himself abruptly awake, bereft as a ghost at a séance. What disappointment to be summoned back to this drab old self, to once again be the same old Glenn Rose, beset by the disappointments and failures of a squandered life. Yet he could not stop smiling as Fitch, Laura and Stiney gathered round, faces intent. Laura in particular was scrutinizing him for news of his voyage of discovery. Glenn grinned at them.

“Can I do it again?”

Fitch started clapping, Stiney rabbit-punched the air and Laura’s face crumpled as the tension evaporated. Fitch handed Glenn a cup of hot, sweet tea and urged him to recall what he had seen, though it was far from easy: a fleeting kaleidoscope of memories and sensations swirled before him and he simply stared into his mug for a while. With a smile, he looked at Laura.

“It’s strange to say it, but I know what your grandmother’s house smelled like.” She locked her eyes on to his. “But it’s difficult to put into words now. It was a kind of mix of some cake flavoring, vanilla essence and lemon…I don’t know, a particular flowery perfume, something I can’t quite pin down. Jasmine, maybe.”

“Olfactory sensations are notoriously difficult to categorize,” said Fitch, without looking up from the notebook he was scribbling in. “Try a visual memory if you can.”

Laura glanced angrily Fitch, as though he had robbed her of something precious.

“Okay. There was this street where I…sorry, where Lyle and you used to live,” Glenn said, looking straight at her. “It was on a slight rise, with really big terraced houses with stoops and trees lining the sidewalks. I was riding my bike there, it was one of those 1970s choppers with a gear stick on the cross bar. Blue with yellow go-faster stripes. You and some of your girlfriends were playing in the street, hopscotch. You were wearing flared purple corduroys…”

He stopped, because Laura was crying. Not loudly, but her cheeks were wet and she turned away. Fitch, either unseeing or uncaring, urged him to go on.

“Anything else?”

Glenn scratched his head, still relishing the childhood memory, the softness of a warm spring evening, full of sap and promise.

“Yeah, there was a school, a huge concrete building. A gang of teenage boys pushing along the corridors and a school teacher shouting at them, telling them to slow down. There was that strong smell of board markers, a sweet, chemically banana smell like nail polish. And …oh yeah.”

A broad smile spread across his face.

“What? You get laid or something?” grinned Stiney. “I saw some major activity on the chart that indicated sexual arousal.”

Glenn nodded slowly, feeling very pleased with himself.

“What? At school? Who was it?” cut in Laura, the big sister suddenly emerging.

“Cindy Jappe,” said Glenn, nodding with pleasure. “In the bathroom cubicle. She was wearing a red-pleated mini. We did after we cut geography class. “

“That slut!” said Laura. “I remember her. She’d slept with just about the whole school by tenth grade.” But Laura was smiling now, despite the evident scorn for her brother’s cheap teenage conquest. Here was proof that her beloved sibling was salvageable. “Well,” she said, “Lyle was quite the lad about town. I think you’re going to have an interesting few weeks here.”

“When can we do it again?” repeated Glenn.

Fitch raised an eyebrow at him. “Not more than once every three days at the beginning, I’m afraid. You’ll have to let the memories settle, or they could overtake your own. We’ll schedule the next session for Wednesday. By the way, you may want to change your underwear. These dreams can be extremely realistic.”

To his enormous embarrassment, Glenn could feel the warm, sticky sensation in his boxers. He flushed a deep crimson and stuttered in front of the scientists.

“It’s alright” said Stiney in his barely suppressed giggle. “You know, if it makes you feel any better, Doug here shat himself the first time he tried it out.”

“I did not,” snapped Fitch, affronted. “I told you I
almost
did.”

“Well that ain’t the way it’s going down when the Smithsonian asks me for my version,” tittered Stiney, high-fiving Laura as Fitch pursed his lips and did his best to ignore them.

***

The dreaming lasted for weeks. As Glenn got used to the drugs, Fitch allowed the sessions more frequently. Sometimes Glenn would emerge traumatized and breathing heavily, needing to talk his way back to his old self: at other times, he came out grinning at some escapade that Laura’s ne’er-do-well brother had got up to. Lyle had lived a less than ordinary life and when he was inside the machine, it was almost as if the stronger memories were tugging at Glenn, trying to grab his attention, telling him,
This is who I am
.