SENSELESS MIND

CHAPTER ONE THE INCIDENT It was extraordinary and miraculous: the quintessential birth. No one knew when or where it first began, certainly not how, but it was going to begin again, soon, from here—just as forewarned. Who would have believed that it lay within the thoughts of an innocent? Merak was about to miss the blatant rape of a man’s mind. He rushed down the vacant corridor toward the laboratory, his one free hand fumbling to unroll his lab coat collar. With each hurried step, the soles of his monk-strap shoes squeaked on the tile floor and echoed against the concrete block walls of the otherwise silent hall, suffering for a fresh coat of paint. His favorite mug, toted in a three-finger grip, pictured two pastel bow ties, one angled over the other, with the initials L-I-N in the upper right corner: his institute's logo, inspired by the formation of the biomedical entities the facility manufactured. Cream-laden coffee sloshed over the top and dripped in front of each footstep, leaving behind a caramel-colored trail. He stepped up to the lab entrance. The fluorescent light above hummed and flickered, and cast an eerie effect on the entry—an impenetrable steel door marked Classified–Restricted Access, with a clipboard affixed for recording the time someone last checked that the lab was secure. His identification card, with logo, photo, and metallic strip, stayed tethered to his neck by a short nylon lanyard that caused him to bend to pass the badge across the reader. “Come on, come on. Aaah, this dang thing never works,” he mumbled, frustrated once again with an electrical device. “Open!” It always took him three or four swipes before it recognized his card. No one else seemed to have that problem, only Merak. With each pass, his cup tilted farther and again spilled unnoticed on the floor and his shoes. Merak pecked in his pass code, waited for the lock to buzz open, and then entered the lab. He proceeded down the short hallway that led to double doors with reinforced glass windows. Just a brief glance at the nurse, technician, and volunteer inside, then he slipped into the small adjacent room to the left. He was only seconds late, but the experiment already had started, on schedule. An unlit cigarette jittered on the lower lip as a commanding voice spoke out, “Dim the lights to thirty percent. Vitals are normal. Skin temp's elevated; cool the room down another two degrees. Begin the sequence. Quiet now. I want it right this time.” The laboratory was both an experimental research facility and a fully functional hospital examination room, complete with observation booth. Unadorned and sedate, everything was painted light blue: the walls, the cabinets, the metal racks, everything. The idea was to have nothing present that might distract the patient and affect the experiment. The lab had to be tranquil, calming, and relaxing. Ironically, today it was going to be anything but that. “Super-cool the adatom diffusion plates and ready the STM.” An assortment of high-tech equipment lined each of the room's three exposed walls with only the intermittent glow of colored LEDs giving evidence that things were operational. Despite the advanced equipment, the lab was a makeshift facility with components placed almost haphazardly wherever there was an empty space to set them. Heavy power and data cables spread across the floor, radiating out from the hospital bed in the room's center. Only a few small spotlights illuminated the subject reclined on the bed and covered with a crisp white sheet up to his waist. His bare chest and head were raised. Several dozen wires draped from his forehead into a nearby rack of computers and monitors, with another set of electrodes connecting his chest to other units. However, the most vital component was a small catheter penetrating his carotid artery and attached to a large, distinctive device. This tiny passageway provided the interface between man and machine and soon would be the connection for bringing the two, quite literally, together. A complex-looking metal cowl, with more wires and ribbon cable attached, surrounded the subject's scalp less than an inch above his shaved head and provided the image scans of his brain. Banks of computers, recorders, power supplies, and expensive medical devices, each stacked on top of one another or mounted into towers of cold steel racks, occupied the room. Opposite these was a large smoked glass wall that separated the experiment room from a control and observation area. The lab had no windows to the outside, no emergency exits, not even a telephone. It provided but one way in and out. The volunteer lay motionless on the bed, mildly drugged, and placid. This test would be the first to use a human subject. Of course, no one knew exactly how he would react to the experiment—no normal person could. “Everything set? Do it. Fire up Mnemosyne.” * * * * *