Prophecy. An ARKANE thriller. (Book 2)

by J. F. Penn

  Natasha could see he had nothing left to give her. He didn't know where the book was, but the trail led to other ossuaries and she had spies in place. They would find it and she would claim her reward from Milan. She bent forward to whisper in the monk’s ear.

  “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.”

  With the last words from Ecclesiastes, she slit the monk’s throat, blood spurting over her gloves as she stepped away from the pulsing gore. The monk hung on the chains, his eyes closing as death took him. Natasha turned and walked away, her heels clicking again on the stone, leaving tiny imprints of blood on the floor of the crypt.

  Zoebios Head Office. Paris, France 7.15am

  This is it, Maria thought as she walked into the lobby of the Zoebios building. Today I can finally present my results to the Director and the Board. Today I will make a name for myself and my research. She had to hold herself back from skipping a little as she joined the queue for the security checks. She smoothed her hands down over her neat pinstriped suit instead, appearing far more restrained than the feelings she held within. The Board had released the audio programs for anxiety and depression but she now had more extensive data that would take it even further than they expected. After the late nights and extensive preparation, today was her chance to shine. She needed the bathroom again, third time in an hour. It’s just nerves, she thought, be calm.

  Maria entered the elevator and ascended to the twenty-first floor. Few people spoke on the journey between floors. It had become established office practice because the building contained areas that were not accessible to all and secret projects were tacitly acknowledged but not mentioned. Drug research and health companies were often targets of industrial espionage so the code of silence meant Maria had little idea what was going on elsewhere in the company. Not that it really mattered because she was so busy on her own projects anyway.

  The elevator doors opened onto the main landing, identical on every floor. Glass paneled doors with access codes and retinal scans allowed entrance only to the staff. They were emblazoned with the etched Zoebios logo, the unfurling shoot of new life. Inside, the office area and labs beyond were quiet, one of the reasons that Maria liked to come in early, even though she also worked late most nights. There was nothing to go home to and besides, she loved her work. The early morning was the time of day she felt able to think, to centre herself, and today she needed to go over the presentation for the final time. She wanted to go over the figures again, to check and recheck. Silly, she laughed to herself. She had already examined them ten times and her best scientists had retested the results. Everything was correct but her nerves still fluttered, for this day could make or break her career.

  Maria walked through to her office and sat down at the desk. It was tidy, with a sleek monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse offset by a vermilion crystal paperweight her mother had given her. She took a deep breath, preparing to go through the material once again. Her gaze drifted upwards to the framed print on the wall opposite. It was a large poster of the Escher drawing, Circle Limit IV. She had always been fascinated with how Escher tessellated images to tell a fundamental truth. In this image, angels in white and devils in black opposed each other through the print, the shadow of one highlighting the other. It was a permanent reminder that both were needed to form the whole, she thought. We all have light and dark in us and the barriers between them are permeable.

  There was no grey in the Escher image, only white and black, and Maria believed that all scientific research needed to be seen through this prism. So much of it could be used for good or evil purposes and she was grateful that she worked for an ethical company like Zoebios, whose focus was on improving the human population. But she acknowledged the potential diabolical uses for even her own research if it got into the wrong hands. She had accepted long ago that there were trade-offs in ethics, that animal experiments were justified to save human lives, that the abhorrent experimentation of the past informed the breakthroughs of the present. The Escher print helped her put that in perspective.

  “Morning Maria.” Her assistant, Simone, popped her head around the open door. “Can I get you anything?”

  Maria smiled and snapped out of her Escher trance.

  “Morning. No, I’m fine, thanks. Any news?”

  Simone frowned. “There have been some problems with one of the clinics using the drug pairing with the new headsets. Harghada has dealt with it, apparently, but you need to know in case they bring it up.”

  “Yes, I got the email this morning about the suicides. It’s an anomaly, I’m sure of it.” Maria frowned at her watch. “Can you shut the door behind you? I just want to go over these figures one more time.”

  Simone nodded and backed out, closing the door behind her. Maria bent her head to review her work again, trying to distill years of effort into the short presentation, acutely aware of what was at stake.

  *****

  The boardroom was on the thirty-fifth floor, just below the penthouse where the Director, Milan Noble, had private apartments. Maria had arranged with his secretary to gain access early in order to set up the presentation for the event. Everything was now ready and she stood at the window, looking out over Paris. It was a glorious day and she felt a touch of vertigo as she looked out towards the curving Seine far below. The wire outline of the Eiffel Tower reflected the sun over shimmering buildings. Fall would come soon, her favorite time, when she would feel part of the earth and the seasons again. The craziness of summer heat would give way to chill nights, warmed by wine and friends.

  A door opened and voices could be heard in the lobby. Maria straightened, put on her best professional smile and watched the Board members as they entered and sat at their appointed seats, six men representing the decision-making power behind Zoebios. They spoke to each other as they entered, none acknowledging her. At one minute to ten, Milan Noble entered the room.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said as he looked around. “Dr Van Garre, thank you for your time today. I’m looking forward to your presentation.”

  Maria flushed slightly.

  “Thank you, sir.” She chided herself inwardly. How could a mature woman such as herself feel like a schoolgirl in front of him? She checked her notes while he finished his greetings. Milan Noble made women weak and men jealous. Tall and commanding, his physical presence filled the room.

  “You may begin,” Milan smiled, and sat down, switching his attention fully to her. She had heard of the power of his gaze, but now she truly understood it. It was a gift, one he cultivated, and his charisma swept all before him. Maria began.

  “My lab has been focusing on mental health for the last four years, specifically investigating binaural beat brainwaves and how they can be used to carry messages into the deep brain. This is the key to the new anxiety and depression treatment that has just recently been released to the public. That method has been tested and proven, but today I want to take a step further into the realms of behavior modification using the same mechanism.”

  Maria could see she had the full attention of the Board members and she changed the slide to show a brain and aural apparatus used in the experiments.

  “First, we went back to basics,” she explained. “Binaural beats are auditory brainstem responses that originate in the superior olivary nucleus of each hemisphere. They result from the interaction of two different auditory impulses in opposite ears where the difference between the frequencies is experienced as a wave across the hemispheres. The binaural beat is not heard as you would listen to music, but it is perceived by the unconscious and can be used to communicate messages based on an alternate state of consciousness. Brain waves oscillate in the same way as tuning forks and we have access to control them through binaural beats. Until now the research hasn’t been used to affect physical behavior, but our breakthrough came when we combined this with research by Persinger and also with a drug regime.”

 
Milan Noble had been writing notes, but at this he looked up.

  “I’ve read Persinger’s research with the God helmet but how does it relate to binaural beats?”

  Maria nodded her acknowledgment of the question and clicked forward to show highlights of the original God helmet research.

  “For those who may be unfamiliar, Professor Michael Persinger is a cognitive specialist who has been researching neuro-theology, a specific branch of brain science that looks at religious experience and how it occurs in the brain. The original God helmet was a crude device that stimulated the temporal lobe with a weak magnetic field. Participants in the original experiments sometimes experienced visions or felt another presence in the room. But now, regardless of what an individual believes, we have been able to use the suggestion of God or the Other in our binaural experiments.”

  Maria looked at Milan to check for further questions but he nodded for her to continue. She felt elated at his encouraging response so she clicked the button for the next slide. It showed a Caravaggio painting in muted reds with a dark Italian landscape in the background. An old man stood holding his young son down, a knife to his throat. An angel grasped the man’s hand to stay the blade as a ram nudged into the frame, awaiting sacrifice in the boy’s place. Next to the image was a headline from a newspaper article that announced the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister, at the hands of Yigal Amir, a right wing extremist Jew who protested against the peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians. Maria had Milan’s focused attention now. He was leaning forward, his eyes fixated on the screen.

  “Abraham,” he said. “Why?”

  “This started out as a thought experiment for me,” Maria replied. “For many people, the ultimate authority is God, so I based the experiments on that principle. In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated and his murderer said that God told him to do it. It echoes the biblical story of Abraham. If you believe that the ultimate authority is God, even if you are asked to do things you don’t want to, you will perform them anyway. Even if the task is abhorrent, people will usually obey a higher authority figure. This is also demonstrated by Stanley Milgram’s studies on obedience.”

  “Could you refresh our memories on that too, Dr Van Garre,” Milan asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Of course.” Maria flicked to images of subjects strapped to electric devices with voltage meters marked Extreme Danger. “Milgram was fascinated by the behavior of the Nazis during the Second World War, when ordinary people did horrific things to other humans because they were ordered to by authority figures. Many said they were just following orders and in this way they gave up personal responsibility for their actions so Milgram conducted a variety of experiments that proved that just about everyone would have done the same thing. There were many iterations of his experiment, but in essence a subject had to administer an electric shock to another person if they failed memory tests. The subject didn’t know that the person being shocked was an actor, so they truly believed they were causing pain. The shocks continued to be administered at the request of an authority figure through various levels of torture through to extreme levels that would cause death. Essentially the responsibility was shifted to the authority figure. In applying that to the binaural beat research, we realized that if we could bring a sense of authority into the commands using a sense of the Other, then people would obey the embedded directives. Of course we would be asking subjects to behave in ways that were positive and healthy rather than causing pain to others which has huge potential for the weight loss industry and the obesity epidemic as well as many other possibilities.”

  “And have the experiments been successful?” Milan asked.

  Maria smiled proudly and flicked onto the next slide to show a detailed graph.

  “The results have far exceeded what we expected. You can see the various responses here from the different arms of the trial. A physical action was requested through the binaural channel, not just a thought, so we influenced actual behavior. We found that the feeling of the Other being present is particularly enhanced by the subject wearing oversized earphones that are a more portable version of the God helmet. This would also enable an easier rollout to the public.”

  The screen flicked to show an image of the earphones.

  “Within our clinics, we were able to pair this with an enhanced drug regime, which was even more successful.”

  “But you have had problems as a result of the research, haven’t you?” asked Dr Armen Harghada. Up to this point the subdued lighting in the conference room and the close proximity of Milan Noble meant Maria hadn’t focused on the other men in the room. Harghada was Milan’s right hand man and a medical doctor. His job title was nebulous but he was feared by the Zoebios staff as he was known to have a formidable memory and allegedly made problems ‘disappear’ for the company.

  “Correct,” Maria replied. “We did have some problems in one clinic. For those individuals already primed for religious mania, the suggestions can make them even more extreme. We have had two suicides in one of the clinics in Israel, where people are hospitalized with Jerusalem Syndrome. But I’m confident that with adjustments to dosage in their drug regime and changes to the audios specifically for such outliers, the research can still be used.”

  Harghada leafed through the pages of her report.

  “You mention LSD in some of your preliminary notes,” he commented. “It’s a class A drug, Dr Van Garre, and not even available for medical usage. What exactly were you doing with it?”

  His eyes seemed to bore into her.

  “It was a hunch, sir,” Maria stammered a little under his attack. “We know that LSD is a psychoactive drug that causes extraordinary shifts in consciousness with even small doses. We have conducted several small experimental studies combining its use with the audio input. We have performed the same tests with mescaline, based on Aldous Huxley’s ‘Doors of Perception’.”

  “What’s that?” one of the other men cut in. It was Nechiffe, head of accounting. Harghada rolled his eyes but let Maria continue.

  “Huxley is well known for his novel ‘Brave New World’ but he also spent many years experimenting with various alternative states of consciousness. ‘Doors of Perception’ was written as a recollection of a trip using mescaline, at a time when it wasn’t restricted.”

  “What did he see?” Nechiffe asked. “Did it work?”

  “He explained the experience with the analogy of Plato’s ‘Being but not separated from Becoming’,” Maria replied. “This is a complicated concept for those of us who haven’t experienced it but it could be described as a few timeless hours outside the world. There was no striving, just an experience of being. I was particularly interested in his description of not being concerned for survival anymore and I interpreted this experience as a way to open the unconscious further to the suggestions we might plant with binaural technology.”

  Harghada wasn’t finished with her and cut back in.

  “Huxley was on mescaline, so why LSD for your trials?”

  “They’re both psychoactive but mescaline leaves the subject mostly lucid and coherent, whereas LSD is characterized by confusion and disorientation. Mescaline has a stronger euphoric effect, but it also makes people want to lie down and relax, whereas LSD is more of a stimulant. We wanted people to be able to actively behave in a way we suggested, so we needed more of a stimulant. But these were tiny trials with willing participants in a highly regulated environment. We were testing whether a variant of the psychoactive drug could be used in extreme cases to reduce the negative side effects of anxiety but still enable the behavioral response.”

  “And what do you see as the potential uses of this technology, Doctor?” Milan asked. He was so keen to know more that Maria was sure she would be getting her research funding approved.

  “In applying it to the therapies Zoebios currently offers, we could use it with schizophrenia medication to encourage self-care and override self-harm. With post-tr
aumatic stress, we could use it for promoting well-being and preventing suicide. It could be applied to treating addiction, in helping people give up smoking or stop taking harmful drugs. It could be used to ensure people follow regimes like weight loss for obesity. These initiatives could transform healthcare as they are non-invasive and have few side effects. Taking it further, the punitive aspect could be used in prisons for sex offenders and murderers. Research has shown that these categories of subjects respect a specific and different kind of authority.”

  “And what are you asking for today? What is your funding proposal?”

  Maria clicked the final slide.

  “The next phase would be to move to more extensive trials by releasing the headsets to specific groups of people already using Zoebios’ audio programs and counseling. We can also pair with the clinics to test drug regimes, with the permission of the participants, of course. I would also like to publish some papers on the research. It has far reaching implications so it can only be a good thing if the data is shared.”

  Milan stood, his eyes hooded as if shutters had come down on his enthusiasm. Maria felt a shift in the room. Had she asked for too much? Her confidence sank a little. She knew the amazing potential of her work, but did they recognize it?

  “Thank you Dr Van Garre. We’ll discuss your proposal along with some of the others made today. If you would wait in the ante-room, you will be notified shortly.”

  “Of course. Thank you your time today, gentlemen.”

  Maria unplugged her laptop, picked up her papers and walked to the door where Milan Noble’s sharp nosed personal assistant waited to show her to the ante-room. Maria sat on the edge of the chair and waited.

  *****