F Paul Wilson - Novel 05

by Mirage (v2. 1)

  But she didn't want to go back in alone. Things were becoming too physical in there. She wanted a lifeline to the real world.

  She sighed. At least the nurse would have time to tend to Sam's various tubes; and the physical therapists were due in for their daily routine of chest FT, sensory stimulation, stretching, massage, and passive range-of-motion exercises.

  They worked like hell to keep her outside in good shape, but inside she was all but gone.

  2

  "How do you know about this tunnel?" Dr. S. was saying.

  His face filled the monitor screen and his expression was a study in suspicion.

  Might as well tell him—but only about this morning's solo trip.

  "I went in alone."

  "Dammit, Julie! I told you—"

  "I didn't have time to wait for you and I haven't got time to argue with you about it. Sam's whole 'scape could shut down anytime now. I went in, I came out, I'm okay. I'm going back in and you're going to be with me this time, so let's not make a federal case out of it."

  She realized how she sounded but she was tired and anxious and didn't want Dr. S. going on and on about the dangers in Sam's whole 'scape

  Because he didn't know the half of it.

  When he made no reply she glanced at his face. Suspicion had been replaced by hurt. Damn.

  "Sorry," she said. "I haven't had much sleep lately. But I can't stop now. I'm getting to the heart of the matter and—"

  "What matter?"

  "Everything. The last secrets. I'm sure that the other, smaller tunnel I saw leads into the heart of the volcano, and I have a feeling that's where all my questions will be answered."

  She couldn't tell him that those questions weren't strictly about Sam. They pertained to herself as well—because back in those days the two of them were practically joined at the hip, and whatever happened to little Sammi happened to little Julie as well.

  This is no longer just about Sam. It's about me too.

  But she couldn't let Dr. S. know that.

  "Why the volcano?" he said. "Couldn't what you seek lie buried somewhere else?"

  "Possibly. But we tend to forget—at least I know I do—that the memoryscape is a symbolic landscape. We've got to ask ourselves what a volcano represents in real life. It's the release point for an uncontainable pressure that builds up within the earth's crust. What does it represent in the memoryscape? Something very similar, I think. Why couldn't it be the blowout point for a cataclysmic memory that got too close to the surface and was simply too hot to handle? It broke free and blasted everything around it."

  "I don't know, Julie. ... How could any memory, no matter how awful, wreak the devastation we've seen in your sister?"

  "I told you what was done to us."

  She'd given Dr. S. some of the details, but had skipped the paternity mess. She'd fill him in on that some other time. Later. Maybe.

  "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."

  Thirty-Two

  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?

  You say, "So you think this memory was so awful that she'd rather die than remember it?"

  "Or perhaps someone else preferred that she die rather than remember it."

  The remark strikes you like a blow. "Someone else?" You're shocked. You can't think for a moment. "Who? Why? How?"

  "1 have no idea. ]ust trying to cover all the possibilities. The strategic location of this memory—or I should say, of this former memory—disturbs me to no end."

  "What disturbs me," you say, "is the finality of what we see here. These two ends here will never be rejoined. It's hopeless. If this symbolic representation is a true reflection of Sam's neurophysiologic condition, then..." That tightness in your throat again. You can barely speak. "Then Sam will never regain consciousness."

  The realization hurts you more than you ever thought anything could.

  She's going to die. Hell, she's as good as dead now. And you can't help her. You've failed her.

  Again.

  You feel a sob building. But you can't allow yourself to break down. You close your eyes, swallowing hard, collecting yourself.

  "]ulie? Are you all right?"

  "No," you say, and the word sounds choked. "No, I'm not."

  "Then I think it's better you exit. After all, anything of interest here has been destroyed, and her pulse is—well into the nineties now."

  You glance at the readout strip. Pulse up to ninety-four; respirations up from six to eight.

  You're as edgy as Dr. S. And hot. You'd like nothing better than to run to someplace cool where you wouldn't have to feel so damn ineffectual and powerless.

  But you pull yourself together. You're loath to admit defeat.

  "I'm curious," you say, meeting the eye's giant stare. "Which end do you think is which? Where's that eye looking out from? The cortex or the RAS?"

  "If the condition of the memoryscape is any clue to the condition of the cortex, I'd say that eye has got to be looking at you from the reticular activating system."

  "Exactly what I thought. The midbrain is fine. It's the cortex that's out cold."

  "And it will remain that way unless contact is reestablished. I don't see that happening. Like a ruptured tendon, like a severed nerve, it won't heal, the ends won't knit unless approximated."

  You can't see any way to bring the two severed ends together, but...

  "Maybe there's some way to bridge that gap."

  "How? What will you use? Whatever was in that span has been vaporized."

  A wild thought flashes through your mind.

  "Why not me?"

  "What?" Dr. S.'s stare from the window is almost as wide as that of the giant eye before you. "Exit now, Julie. I think you're losing your mind."

  "No, I'm serious. Sam and I are made of the same stuff. Identical twins, remember? Why not use myself to bridge the gap?"

  "But that's impossible. You have no physical presence in the memoryscape. You're immaterial, a ghost. And without any sub
stance, how can you bridge anything?"

  No way you can keep it a secret any longer. You remove the data glove and hold your virtual hand before you where he can see it.

  "What's that?" he says. "Did you scan your image into the program?"

  "No. It's me."

  Stunned silence for a few seconds, then Dr. Siegal's voice, shaky, barely audible, trickles into your earphones.

  "Dear Lord! Julie . . . when—?"

  "I first noticed it on the second level." She remembered the bruise from the kraken.

  "You soloed there as well?"

  "Yes, I had to."

  "Dear Lord! 1 warned you, Julie. I knew the genetic link between you and your twin was too dose. Now look what's happened! Do you know what this means?"

  "Yes. It means I might actually be able to do something here."

  "It means you can be hurt here, dammit!" You've never heard Dr. S. so angry. Or frightened. "Get out, Julie. I order you. Exit immediately."

  "Not yet. I have to try something. I can't call it quits yet."

  "You exit now or I'll cut the satellite feed."

  You've been expecting that threat, and you're ready for it.

  "Then you'll be pulling the plug on both of us. I'm Sam's only hope. Do you want to deprive her of her only chance to regain consciousness? Is that what you want?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Then give me a chance here. Just one. Please."

  A very long pause. "I don't like it. I haven't liked any of this." Another pause, then, "Go ahead."

  You shut his window and approach the open eye. You run your hands over the surrounding fingerlike projections. Their tips undulate back and forth in response to your touch, like the tendrils of a sea anemone, tickling your palms. You glide to the other side. This eye remains closed and the papillae here are much less responsive. Which confirms your worst fear.

  Sam's cortex is failing... almost gone.

  You wrap your arms around the trunk and try to move it, pull it farther out of the volcano wall. But you might as well be trying to uproot an oak.

  So much for trying to make ends meet. You never had much hope of that anyway. But if you can bridge the gap with your virtual self, maybe you can act as a conductor. Maybe you can send a wake-up call to Sam's cortex.