F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (47 page)

           
"Yes, but still..."

 
          
"It
must have left her vulnerable in some way."

 
          
"Well,
doesn't that leave you vulnerable too?"

 
          
Damn!
She knew immediately she shouldn't have said that. Dr. S. didn't miss a trick.

 
          
"No,"
she said, fabricating on the fly. "Because I'm so unnaturally
left-brained, I'm actually
less
susceptible."

 
          
I
hope.

 
          
"I
don't know how you know that, but I certainly hope you're right. In a very real
sense you'll be entering the belly of the beast. A beast that's waiting for
you. Are you ready for that?"

 
          
No,
she thought. But she said, "Yes. And I want you with me."

 
          
"I'll
be right here, watching over your shoulder. I want you back."

 
          
"Why?"
she said teasingly. "For the Bruchmeyer grant?"

 
          
Christ,
she'd forgotten all about that. Strangely enough, she found she couldn't care
less.

 
          
"You
know better than that," he said.

 
          
She
took a breath. "Yeah. I do."

 
          
And
for the first time, she wasn't bristling at the thought of someone monitoring
her every move. She had a feeling it was going to get hairy in there this time.

 
          
I
could die, she thought. But this was something she had to do.

 
          
"All
right," she said. "Here we go."

 
          
You
can understand how easily false memories can be implanted in a susceptible
person when you realize that the act of imagining the look of an object
utilizes the same area of the cortex involved in actually seeing an object;
the act of imagining a touch utilizes the same area of the cortex involved in
actually
feeling
a touch.

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

 
          
La
ven the gallery is gone now. Under the shattered moon you strike out
immediately for the right flank of the slumbering volcano.

 
          
You
enter the crevasse, travel down through the fissure and along the tunnel until
you reach the
Starry Night
grotto.

 
          
But
instead of smoking ruins nestled among the trees, you see the
Millburn
house intact and
unscorched. Waiting to reyfor the rightfl ankof the slumber

 
          
No,
thank you. You'll pass this time.

 
          
You
spot the smaller tunnel off to the side. You enter that and follow it deep into
the hill. As you glide this way and that along its dark, tortuous path, you
sense the growing heat, a sure sign that you're nearing your destination. But
you can't mention that to Or. S.
—
you're not supposed to be
able to feel anything here.

 
          
And
then you see the red glow ahead. You're almost there. Soon you'll have the
answers to all your questions.

 
          
Your
stomach knots. Do you want those answers? Will you be able to handle them? Look
what happened to Sam.

 
          
But
you're different from Sam.

 
          
You
never took things as hard as she did. You could always reason your way through,
and you don't see why this should turn out to be any different.

 
          
At
least you hope it won't.

 
          
No.
You'll be okay. You're steeled for this. You're ready for the worst. You can
handle anything this memoryscape can throw at you.

 
          
So
why won't your stomach unknot?

 
          
You
push on and soon you see flames ahead. The heat grows as you move toward them.
Hot, but not unbearable. Yes, you have a physical presence here, but not a
substantial one. You're a gossamer-thin curtain, and most of the heat passes
through you.

 
          
And
then you're at the tunnel mouth, staring into the heart of the volcano. The
chimney is a flaming well, with a pool of magma bubbling and belching a dozen
feet below you and the well's narrow walls disappearing into a red haze as they
stretch toward the night.

 
          
And
there, maybe twenty or thirty feet above you, a bridge. Or at least what once
had been a bridge. A narrow span, no more than three feet in diameter, that
must have arched across the gap when its middle section was intact.

 
          
But
that's gone now, blown away by the blast of the eruption. All that remain are
two truncated protrusions from the chimney wall, like two lovers reaching
across the fire, separated by no more than seven or eight feet, yet never to
touch

 
          
You
search about for the event that triggered this cataclysm Hut see nothing that
could possibly be a memory.

 
          
You
notice the Window button blinking and click it. Dr. S. appears in the drop-down
screen.

 
          
"This
is frightening, Julie,"
he says.
"You've found the locus of
the memory, but there's nothing left. Whatever was here has been utterly
destroyed. The memory's gone."

 
          
"That's
the way it looks," you say, yet you find it difficult to accept. "But
how could a memory be so volatile that it not only destroys the entire
memoryscape, but itself as well?"

 
          
"I
couldn't say. I've been disturbed by the utter devastation of this
memoryscape since you first set foot in it. This scene is even more
distressing. There is something deeply wrong here."

 
          
"I
think that's obvious."

 
          
"No-no.
1 don't mean just what we see. I think it goes deeper than that."

 
          
"Explain."

 
          
"I
wish
I
could."
His face looks troubled, his expression almost
embarrassed.
"I'm responding to that time-honored scientific tool that
nobody talks about: intuition."

 
          
"Never
ignore intuition," you say. "I'm going to explore what's left of that
bridge."

 
          
You
click Dr. S. away, then glide up to the sundered bridge. You stop near one of
the stumps of its span. The heat is relentless. You realize that your body,
reclining in the cool of Sam's bedroom, is probably flushed and bathed in
sweat. You hover above the bubbling lava and try to make sense of this.

 
          
Why
a bridge? Did the final, awful memory take place on a bridge? Was someone
thrown off? Into what? The
Seine
? The
Thames
? The
Hudson
? Dammit, you need a clue.
Just one clue!

 
          
That's
when you notice an irregularity in the surface of the opposing stump. More than
an irregularity
—
actually the truncated end
is stippled with countless fingertip-sized protrusions. Except at the center
where a somewhat smoother, roughly oval dome protrudes.

 
          
You
glide toward it. Close up, the dome has a wrinkled look, slightly puckered here
and there, as if scarred by the heat. And now that you're this close, you see
that the thousands of finger-sized protrusions are moving, twisting,
stretching, toward ...

 
          
You
turn and approach the other stump and find it's exactly the same. A low,
wrinkled central dome surrounded by thousands of fingerlike papillae, more
active here, wriggling, reaching ...

 
          
And
then you realize: They're reaching for the other side, reaching for their other
half, their severed counterpart across the divide.

 
          
The
Window button is blinking again. You click Dr. S. into view. He looks excited.

 
          
"Lord,
]ulie, I just realized something. After you entered the crevasse on the
flank of the volcano, the direction you traveled was downward."

 
          
"Right.
Far down."

 
          
"Sure,
but listen
—
when you traveled the second
tunnel, the di' rection was lateral, correct?"

 
          
"Correct.
But
—
"

 
          
"Then
this isn't a bridge. You understand? Unless both our senses
of direction
are
completely
off, this
structure was underground
—
under the
memory scape's virtual surface
—
when
the eruption took place."

 
          
Mentally
you retrace your path to this spot.

 
          
"You're
right. Of course. How could I have missed that?'

 
          
"Ah
ha!
Now you see
the
benefit of an off-site observer. What else did
you miss on your solo trip, eh?"

 
          
You
could tell him you've soloed more than once, but why add fuel to his fire? It's
already hot enough in here.

 
          
And
unfortunately, his observation doesn't help you. In fact, it only adds to the
mystery.

 
          
"So
what was it, then?" you say. "A subterranean structure ... but
what?"

 
          
As
you speak you look more closely at the wrinkled dome in the stump. It reminds
you of something. You touch it
—

 
          
And
snatch your glove away as the dome's surface ripples and bulges. The
disturbance subsides immediately, so you touch it again. This time the response
is more dramatic. The dome ripples, then contracts into large folds as its
surface slides up, revealing ...

 
          
An
eye.

 
          
You
gasp and dart back. You stare at the huge blue iris set in the glistening white
sclera. And in the center of it all, a pupil as deep and dark as interstellar
space.

 
          
"My
God! Do you see?"

 
          
"I
see,"
Dr. S. replies. His voice is hushed, awed. "But
does
it
see?"

 
          
"I
don't know...."

           
You move to your left and the eye
follows you. Back again to your starting point and it tracks you all the way.

 
          
"It
can see. But what in the name of heaven does it mean?"

 
          
A
polite beep from the physiologic readout strip across the bottom of your visual
field informs you of a change in one of the parameters.

 
          
Sam's
resting pulse, usually a uniform seventy to seventy-two beats per minute, has
kicked up to eighty-six. Still well within normal. No problem.

 
          
You
turn and approach the opposite stump of the bridge
—
or root or conduit or whatever it is... was. You touch the
corresponding dome. Its surface ripples, but barely. Another touch, with a
similar response, but no more. No matter what you try, this lid will not open.
You turn back and find the other eye staring at you, watching your every move.
It's eerie.

 
          
"I've
got an idea,"
Dr. S. says. "It
sounds a little crazy, but
I
have
a feeling this broken structure connects Sam's cortex with her regular
activating system."

 
          
"No
way," you say. "The RAS isn't an anatomical structure. It's a
functional unit. More of a network. There's no direct trunkline between it and
the brain."

 
          
"But
this isn't the brain, ]ulie. This is the memoryscape. As you said only a
short while ago, it's symbolic."

 
          
"And
this is a symbolic link ... ruptured."

 
          
"Yes
. . . exactly . . . ruptured. And that means the repressed volatile memory was
buried here, right under the RAS-Cortex link."

 
          
"Talk
about lousy luck," you say.

 
          
"Was
it just bad luck?"

 
          
"What
else could it be?"

 
          
"Maybe
it was hidden here for a reason."

 
          
"What?
To wreck the RAS-cortex linkage when it was accessed? That's practically
suicidal. The brain wouldn't do that. It makes no
—
"

 
          
And
then you stop. Sam
was
suicidal. More than once, most likely. But this?
How could she ever manage this?