Chapter 2
"It itches,"
Sandra complained.
"You'll get used
to it," her friend replied.
"The first 5 minutes
are the worst," the technician put in, "After that, you'll
hardly notice it. In fact, after a few more visits, you won't feel
it at all."
Still, the helmet-like
device pressed into Sandra's skull with what seemed like a thousand
pinpricks. "Hell Megan, how do you stand it?"
"Hang in there,
it gets better. Besides, the benefits far outweigh any discomfort."
The two girls were led
into their separate, softly-lit booths where they could concentrate
without distraction.
Sandra closed her eyes.
As Megan said, she did get used to the device in a way. It still
felt kind of heavy, but it didn't seem to prick her as much. She
actually got comfortable enough to feel sleepy. In fact, she hovered
in that zone between sleep and wakefulness. She had fleeting glimpses
that she was playing pool although with whom or where, she couldn't
tell. It was an odd dream for her since she never played pool.
She lost track of time
and was startled when the bright lights came on. She had the device
on for 30 minutes, yet it seemed like it was only about 5.
"Wow," she
said, "that was quick."
"Thirty minutes
is the maximum we allow for the first couple of visits," the
technician explained as she removed some monitoring equipment form
Sandra, "This is still new technology. That's why we monitor
your vital signs for evidence of distress. Our subjects tell us
that the process is very tiring."
Sandra thought about
that. In spite of her "nap," she did feel drained.
The technician went on
to interview Sandra on what she saw, heard, smelled, felt, etc.
On the way back to the
house, Megan said, "So how did it go?"
"They told us we're
not supposed to talk about it."
"Oh come on, all
us girls talk about it." "All us girls" were the
sorority to which Sandra and Megan belonged. Many of the girls were
volunteers, and some of them actually worked at the Institute.
"Well, there really
isn't much to tell. At first was all that annoying prickly feeling.
Then nothing. I was actually getting bored, and my mind drifted."
"Drifted?"
"I was at some sort
of bar with a pool table."
"No way!" Megan
exclaimed.
"What about it?"
"You were there
girl!"
"I was where?"
"You were in the
same place as your implant."
"It was just a daydream."
"No it wasn't. You
were in contact with your implant."
"I don't understand."
"Look," Megan
explained, "Eventually you'll be able to really get into your
implant's head. But the first step is a dreamlike trance. Most people
don't get this far until at least several sessions. You must really
be in tune with your implant."
"So how do you know
it just wasn't a dream."
"Maybe it was, but
it's a weird coincidence if it wasn't. We're not supposed to know
who our implants are, but Betty works at the place and she let me
know. I'm Jason Dodson, and you're Billy Green. They figure if we
know who our implants are, it would bias the results of the experiments.
I know that they like to hang out at a pool hall downtown."
"So the boys wear
a helmet like we do?" Sandra asked.
"Didn't Dr. Sterneman
explain it to you?"
"Well, she did,
but she was well over my head with her explanation."
Megan nodded, "It
is somewhat hard to understand. In some ways, Dr. Sterneman is too
smart for her own good. She does have a difficult time speaking
plain English. The only reason I caught on is because I'm majoring
in psychology. Some of the stuff I learned there helped me understand
the explanation. I don't understand the electronics or physiology
at all."
Sandra shook her head
dismissively. "I don't understand any of it."
"It's based on stimulating
a part of the brain associated with mirror neurons."
"Mirror what?"
Sandra asked.
"Mirror neurons.
Apparently these neurons allow us to emphasize with other people.
If I were to do something, say yawn, it fires off a set of neurons
in my brain. When you watch me yawn, the same set of neurons fire
off in your brain. It sort of lets us project ourselves into other
people. Sort of see things the way they see things."
"I don't understand."
"Don't feel so bad;
neither do the scientists. At least they still can't explain how
or why it works, but they do know that it does work."
The puzzling expression
on Sandra's face prompted Megan to go on, "You've heard the
expression, 'Monkey see, monkey do?' Haven't you?"
Sandra nodded and Megan
continued her lecture.
"Well, this is sort
of the same, except with people. Actually monkeys don't have mirror
neurons so they can't watch and learn in the same way humans do.
You can train a monkey to do something easily enough, but monkeys
do not mimic the actions of other monkeys."
"On the other hand
toddlers easily pick up the actions of adults even though they are
seeing them 'in reverse.' For example, a child can watch an adult
throw a ball and then mimic the action even though the throwing
action is external to the child and not at all from the child's
point of view."
"Mirror neurons
help us abstract actions and recombine them internally from our
own point of view. It helps us communicate with others. In fact,
damage to mirror neurons is thought to be one of the causes of autism."
"Mirror neurons
is what the whole project is based on: reading other peoples' neutrons
to see what they see, and projecting our impressions on them so
they see what we see."
The light came on in
Sandra's mind, "So the helmet reads our mirror neurons?"
"That's essentially
it."
"What about the
boys? Do they wear a helmet also?"
"The boys don't
wear a helmet. They have a device implanted under the skull, hence
their name. The implant is like a radio receiver for the brain.
The device we wear is like a transmitter and a receiver. In theory
we should be able to read the thoughts of our implant and put thoughts
into his head. So they call us transmitters."
"How come we get
to wear those bulky helmets, and the boys just get an implant."
"It has to do with
the difference between male and female brains," Megan explained,
"In the male brain, the functions are centralized. In women's
brains, the thought process is more distributed. That's why there
are no male transmitters. I am sure some men might be capable of
transmitting, but there are too few of them to be worth screening
them." Here she laughed, "For centuries men have chided
women for being 'scatter brained.' Little did they know how advantageous
that would be."
"Girls are naturals
for transmitters. We empathize more. Our mirror neurons are better
developed."
Megan took a deep breath
and went on, "We girls need a wider device to detect the signal.
Besides we have a more complex device. We need what professor Sterneman
calls an active transmitter. The boy's units are more like transponders,
They don't do anything until we turn them on." Here she laughed
again at the obvious sexual pun. "Boys cannot initiate transmission.
They can only receive and respond to our transmissions."
"And the boys go
along with this?"
"The boys don't
know it all. They were told only that their brainwave patterns were
being monitored."
"Isn't that deceitful?"
Sandra asked.
"And your point
is? Dr. Sterneman said that if the boys knew the full extent of
the experimentation, that it would invalidate the results, so we
can't tell them."
"You've been at
this for a number of sessions, can you really read Jason's thoughts?"
"Well, so far all
I've really been able to do is see more clearly and consistently.
I still can't always tell whether what I am seeing is real or it's
something he's imagining." Megan then giggled and blushed,
"One thing that was for real was when Jason went to the men's
room last time. I could sense he was standing there unzipping his
fly. And he looked down. I could see his stream of urine, but I
didn't see his penis. It was so weird. I was like I was dreaming
I was peeing, but only I was standing up."
"I knew boys looked
at where their pee goes. I learned that as a little girl. Whenever
my friend and I watched her little brother make pee, we noticed
that he looked at where it was going. We looked at where it was
coming from. It's just that I never saw boy pee coming out of what
seemed like MY body. It was a good thing my bladder was empty before
I went into the booth or I think I would have wet my pants."
"Did he look at
the other boys?" Sandra asked. "I always wanted to know
if men checked out each others 'equipment' when they were in the
bathroom."
"As best I could
tell, he was the only boy in the men's room. Maybe I can catch him
in the locker room next time." Megan laughed.
"What else can you
do?"
"Only my last session,
I thought I was also picking up on hearing and maybe even smell."
"How do you determine
what you see?"
"I don't. I see
what Jason sees and I don't even get good reception at that. The
picture often goes out and in. Dr. Sterneman says that I'll get
better as we go along. It's sort of learning how to see all over
again. I have to map his brain visual centers to mine."
"How are the other
girls doing?"
"Some of them describe
funny sensations. It's like they hear colors or see smells. Dr.
Sterneman says that this is what happens when you map one part of
your brain to the wrong part of the implant's brain. People under
the influence of LSD reported the same phenomenon."
Sandra had a few more
things to think about before her next session.
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