Authors: A.A. Bell
‘Looks like a big set of binoculars, except you’re looking through them backwards.’
Zhou chuckled. ‘I suppose it does.’
‘Try not to blink while you’re answering questions,’ Van Danik said, scraping his chair as he took his own seat. ‘These sensor pads will monitor your heart. Put them inside your shirt on your chest and shoulders. I imagine you know how?’
Ben nodded and complied.
‘Now spread your fingers like this,’ Van Danikdemonstrated, ‘and hold them over the glass sensor, like this.’
‘Ready?’ asked Zhou.
‘As I’ll ever be. I feel like a lab monkey about to have my claws filed and detergent squirted into my eyes.’
Zhou chuckled again. ‘The only thing going into your eyes will be light. Some say it looks like a rainbow.’
He switched on the recording equipment and read aloud from a standard disclaimer sheet explaining that all answers were being recorded electronically as voice-to-text documents instead of audio or video files, and that participants understood they were volunteers and could withdraw at any time without penalty or recrimination.
‘If we get to a question that makes you feel uncomfortable,’ Zhou added, ‘you can decline to answer, although please remember that your voice, name and face will not be recorded with any of your test results, so you shouldn’t feel the need to do that. You’ve been assigned a random number to help protect your anonymity — in your case, J40423. In effect, the only way your answers leave this room is in batched charts and tables with data from everyone else.’
‘You’re filming my face, though?’ Ben asked.
‘Only the inner lens and iris of each eye,’ Zhou replied. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you. Do you accept these conditions for participation?’
Ben tried to nod, but the chin support limited his movement.
‘Please just answer yes or no,’ Zhou said, ‘for the record.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you bring the extracts from your staff file?’
‘I think so. We got a little sidetracked on the way, but they should be in the back pocket of the wheelchair.’
Ben heard rustling behind him and wondered if — or how well — Mira could hear it too. It really was quite loud to him now that he was becoming more aware of what life must be like for her. He closed his eyes, visualising, and knew the instant the extracts were retrieved.
‘Excellent,’ Zhou said, with a shake of the papers. ‘These will provide the fodder for our control questions. Answering yes or no to questions that we can verify from these will help initialise our equipment to suit your specific physiology before we get to the sticky questions.’
‘Like a lie-detector test?’ Ben asked.
‘You might say that,’ Zhou replied. ‘Now let’s get started. I’m going to ask twenty simple questions from your staff file. The first ten I need you to answer truthfully, and the second ten I need you to lie. Then we’ll make things a bit more interesting.’
Ben frowned. ‘So it
is
a lie-detector test. I thought so. They’re not accurate, though, I hope you know. I can guarantee that from personal experience.’
‘How so?’ asked Van Danik.
‘I spent —’
‘Don’t answer that yet,’ Zhou interrupted. ‘If you’re willing to answer truthfully, you can help us a lot more if you wait until after we’ve initialised our equipment with your control questions.’
‘My pleasure. I’ve been aching to get a second go at one of these for six years.’
Zhou nodded and flicked to the last page of extracts from Ben’s staff file. ‘Yes or no answers only at this stage, please. Say yes if you understand.’
‘Yes.’
‘True,’ Van Danik said, and explained that his audio and other sensors had verified Ben’s response and effectively cross-checked it with his subconscious.
‘You were born in May?’ Zhou continued.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re an only child?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your hobbies include surfing and bushwalking?’
‘Yes.’
‘You started work today at 6 am?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your hair is black?’
‘Yes.’ Ben stifled a laugh. ‘Obviously... oh, sorry.’
Zhou pressed a button that made an audible click. ‘That’s okay. Emotion of any kind during responses is actually helpful.’
He clicked the button again and continued with another four yes/no style questions — ‘You’ve been working here since June in various wards? You hold a current driver’s licence? Your parents were Afro-British and Australian? You’re employed here as a trainee social worker?’ — all of which Ben answered in the affirmative.
‘Take a break and blink your eyes a few times,’ Van Danik suggested.
‘Now the next ten questions,’ Zhou explained, ‘must all be answered with deliberate lies. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ Ben lied.
‘You were born in May?’ Zhou continued.
‘No.’
‘Your hobbies include cleaning toilets?’
‘No. Wait, wait! Sorry, I should have said yes to that. I hate cleaning toilets!’
Zhou chuckled as if he’d been expecting to trip him up on that one. ‘You’re married?’ he continued.
‘Yes,’ Ben replied, taking greater care with his answers.
‘You have an older brother and sister?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve hurt your foot?’
‘Ahh... no.’
‘You ride a horse to work?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have brown eyes?’
‘Yes... no,’ he said, correcting the truth to a lie again.
‘You’re doing just fine. Try this one. You have eleven fingers?’
Ben laughed. ‘Yes.’
‘And you were released from jail on your birthday?’
‘How did you know I was in jail, let alone released on my birthday?’
‘It says so here.’ Zhou pointed to a line in the extract from Ben’s staff file.
‘Oh. I. I didn’t realise they kept those notes from my job interview.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Van Danik said. ‘They hired you anyway. Something minor, was it?’
Ben shook his head, still wondering how well Mira could hear. ‘It was serious.’
‘Hang on, that was the truth,’ Van Danik reported.
‘Yes, but I’d already told my ten lies, and that’s more than enough for anyone, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose,’ Zhou conceded. ‘Now we’re going to detach you from the equipment and you’re going to do some callisthenics over there, away from the cables, to get your blood pumping.’
‘You mean like running on the spot or something?’
‘Sit-ups, push-ups, whatever you can manage on your injured feet, so long as your body temperature is up before we try again.’
Ben nodded and crossed the floor towards Mira, where he dropped to his knees and counted off fifty clapping push-ups, then returned to his chair with barely a puff.
‘You’re in good shape,’ Zhou commented. ‘The next set of questions will be a little more complicated. This time, your answers can be as long as you need them to be, and you can either lie or tell the truth, or tell half-truths. No need to tell us which is which until we’re finished, understand?’
‘No,’ Ben replied with a smile to reveal the lie.
Zhou nodded and started with ten questions that could be easily verified from his staff file regarding his duties, medical records, allergies, inoculations, work experience, previous jobs, and accident record. Then they progressed to another ten questions that involved greater subjectivity, including professional goals, work satisfaction and who he enjoyed working with the most. At the end, they went through his answers again, asking him to verify if their equipment had picked up his lies, half-truths and truths with a success rate of one hundred per cent.
Van Danik clapped his hands at the results. ‘So far so good!’
‘The last ten questions,’ Zhou said, ‘are supposed to include a few that you’ve already answered as well as a few harmless childhood memories that stir the strongest emotions. But considering that you have a more recent experience that’s particularly emotive, I’d like to include a few questions about that instead, if that’s okay with you?’
‘Suits me,’ Ben replied. ‘Like I said, I’ve been aching for another chance at clearing my name.’
‘Hold on a second,’ Van Danik cautioned. ‘The last ten have to be answered in front of a witness.’
‘Someone you know, but not very well,’ Zhou explained. ‘Which is why we’ve asked for staff and clients to attend sessions in pairs. We expect it to temper your responses and make the tests more challenging to interpret.’
‘More valuable for
us,’
Van Danik emphasised. ‘Your responses are recorded anonymously, remember, so they’ll be useless for clearing your name of any police record. The best you could hope for at this stage is a little personal reassurance that more accurate equipment is currently in development. On the downside, blabbing about it outside this room is likely to delay our release date.’
‘But on the upside,’ Zhou added, ‘and this has to be held in strictest confidence, we’d be happy to redo these tests again officially for you after the equipment has made it through testing with a one hundred per cent success rate. By then, our financiers will be looking for test cases to stir up international media.’
Van Danik grunted in agreement. ‘Publicity stunting. I hate it, but showcasing an injustice will be near the top of their wish list, and since a lot of good will come of it eventually, it’s a necessary evil.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ Ben replied, ‘and my conscience is clean in the meantime. Take all the time you need.’
‘Let’s get into it,’ Van Danik replied.
He unplugged Mira from her music and led her to sit behind Dr Zhou, explaining that they needed Ben to see her face over Zhou’s shoulder.
‘We’re going to ask Ben a few sticky questions,’ Zhou told her. ‘And we need him to answer them in front of someone with whom he needs to maintain a good working relationship. You don’t have to do or say anything, although you’re welcome to pull faces at some of his answers if you feel like it. Mainly, we just need you to sit quietly and listen, if that’s okay with you?’
‘May I ask him questions too?’
Zhou and Van Danik exchanged glances.
‘Like what?’ asked Van Danik.
‘Like what crime he committed and how long he really spent in jail.’
‘Actually those two are already top of our list,’ Zhou said. ‘Do you agree to be his witness?’
‘Yes, I do!’
Ben swallowed hard, knowing the next set of questions were likely to make or break their relationship.
‘L
et’s start with the verifiable question,’ Zhou said. ‘How long were you in jail?’
‘Six years, two months, four days, eleven hours, two minutes and nineteen seconds,’ Ben replied.
‘Measured it exactly, huh?’
‘Didn’t need to. Time can scar you all by itself.’
‘That’s an exaggeration,’ Van Danik confirmed from his monitor. ‘But not much. He was accurate to the minute.’
‘Okay, for what crime?’ Zhou asked.
‘Armed robbery, harbouring a felon and. and second-degree murder.’
‘Of whom?’
‘An old guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a convenience-store robbery.’
‘Were you guilty?’
‘Of murder, no! Absolutely not. Of harbouring the felon, yes, but not intentionally.’
‘And the armed robbery?’
‘Innocent, completely and utterly. I was sleeping at a friend’s place that night. August fourth. It was his birthday. I was there the whole time, and the only reason I was guilty of harbouring him as a felon is because he was over at my place the next night, returning some of my clothes, when the cops burst in. But I’m sure it was him, and his brother maybe. I reckon they spiked my drink at the party so I was stuck there all night, and then set me up to take the rap for them.’
‘And you took a lie-detector test as part of the trial process?’
‘Sure, but the thing had to be faulty. I swear I wasn’t guilty, but the jury was convinced otherwise by that and a stack of other trumped-up evidence.’
‘Fantastic!’ Van Danik said. ‘Oh, not for you at the time, obviously.’ He briefly consulted with Zhou over their other readouts, in particular the EEG scans of localised portions of Ben’s brain. ‘This is exactly what we needed to see!’
‘It had better not suggest that I’m guilty.’
‘Exactly the opposite. Your subconscious and conscious minds are in total agreement. You’re innocent, all right. There’s no doubt about it. Even better: it should only take another hour or so of questioning your subconscious to work out exactly what did happen in the room around you while you slept, and from that you might be lucky to identify the hard evidence you need not only to clear your name but also to put the real killer behind bars.’
‘Back up, Doc. You want to question my
what?’
‘Your subconscious. Your database of every fact you’ve ever learned or experienced.’
‘How can that work? I already begged my lawyer to hire a hypnotist and she said that any form of hypnotherapy wouldn’t hold up in court as evidence.’
Van Danik nodded. ‘That’s because, officially, hypnotism is still in the realms of hocus-pocus. However, brain scans, bioelectrical responses and other tangible physiological responses are all perfectly scientific. The subconscious can’t yet speak for itself in court, but with this equipment we hope to prove that it can respond physiologically in a reliable manner to both truth and lies, whether you’re conscious or not during either the crime or the interrogation afterwards. But the equipment isn’t intended for use in court anyway. By using it during initial stages of investigation, truth can be disgorged that points to hard and tangible evidence.’
‘And the only reason we’re telling you this much,’ Zhou cut in, ‘is because it seems obvious that a relationship could be mutually beneficial. Confidentially, we believe this system will be far more reliable than interrogating a willing witness. Take, for example, your initial response about cleaning toilets as a hobby. At first you said no, and since you were supposed to be lying, this meant that your hobbies
did
include cleaning them. However, your subconscious sparked an opposite response, which meant it not only knew what your conscious mind was supposed to be saying, it also responded correctly even while the answer coming out of your mouth was accidentally incorrect. It wasn’t until you said you hated cleaning toilets that your subconscious and conscious responses realigned biomedically.’