THE SOUND of Rachelle’s first scream had flipped a switch somewhere in Steve’s mind as he watched, powerless to stop her trembling in the MEP three hours earlier. It wasn’t her last scream. She spent half of the procedure in agony, and no amount of correction made the slightest difference.
Now he sat in a lounge chair outside the recovery room while David spent a few minutes with his daughter. It was critical that those few anchors to reality Rachelle still had be reinforced—the director had agreed to at least that much. David tied her more firmly to terra firma than any other influence, despite the fact that most of his own memories had been stripped.
The MEP had failed. Her mind simply wasn’t compatible with the algorithms that other minds aligned to. She’d survived and returned to consciousness without any memory of the treatment. Which was good, because if anything had happened to her he would . . .
Steve didn’t know what he would do. But he couldn’t just stand by while they methodically destroyed her.
One way or the other, they were intent on silencing her. With the failure of the MEP, he wouldn’t put it past whoever was pulling DARPA’s chains to consider removing her from the equation altogether.
Which raised the same questions he’d asked himself a hundred times: Who was pulling DARPA’s chains? Who was so threatened by her?
There was something more threatening about Rachelle than her ability to expose the truth about Project Eden. Something more concerning to them than the fact that she could read minds.
What?
David opened the recovery room door and poked his head out. “She’s asking for you.”
“How is she?”
David grinned. “See for yourself.”
He followed David into the recovery room where Rachelle lay under covers, propped up in a hospital bed. Wearing a faint, pale smile under tangled black hair, she looked like a brave doll that had been dragged around by a dog.
“Hi, Steve.”
“Hi, Rachelle.”
Her fingers were still trembling. He glanced at the monitor. “Vitals still in line. You sure you’re okay?”
“I can’t stop all this shaking, if that’s what you mean. But the doctor said it was normal. My body’s reacting to the treatment.”
It wasn’t normal. But Charlene wouldn’t have left her if she had concerns.
“Well, I think you came through like a champ.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” Steve said.
“I’m still hearing voices. So . . . there’s that.”
He nodded. “I guess your mind’s just too broke to fix the normal way. And by broke, I mean brilliantly broke.”
“So it seems.”
Her father grinned wide. “That’s my girl.” He eased into the bedside chair. “Nothing can shake her.”
David was wearing his blue flannel nightclothes with slippers. Hair combed neatly, T-shirt pressed. He’d come out of his reconditioning with a clean streak.
He too had come out of Eden talking of dreams, but the team determined that the dreams were psychosomatic, and they were in such a rush to cover their tracks that they wiped his brain before any serious study could be made of it.
Clearly, science wasn’t interested in anything beyond its self-imposed materialistic firewall. If it couldn’t be measured within the material system, it wasn’t science. There was nothing beyond the observable universe. Dreams of another world were like fairies—nice conversation for children, but absurd, like any hallucination.
Steve looked at Rachelle. “So how are you feeling, really?”
She shrugged. “Tired, like I got hit by a train, maybe. I’m imagining you talking about dreams and science. And I’m hungry.”
“Right. We’ll get you some chicken, how’s that sound?”
“Sounds yummy.”
“Good.”
“I’ve already eaten,” David said.
“Dinner any good?”
“The steak or the dessert?”
“Either.”
“The steak was tough and the ice cream was too cold. Makes the mouth so numb you can’t taste anything.”
“Good to know. You tell Mary?”
“Naw. She’s got enough to do besides microwaving my ice cream.”
Sweet man. Not the same man who’d lived in Eden, but so sweet. Simple. Rachelle knew he’d changed, naturally, but her own drugs kept her amenable. In some ways, she was like the parent now. At the very least they parented each other.
More accurately, neither parented. DARPA was now their parent. Sad.
Steve crossed to the wall and flipped a red switch.
“What’s that?” Rachelle asked.
“I’m making sure no one can hear us.”
“What for?”
He returned and sat on the edge of the bed. “Because I want to ask you a few questions, for our ears only. Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
He glanced at her father. “You, David?”
David lifted his thumb and forefinger and zipped his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
“Good.” Steve stood and paced, choosing his words carefully. Both father and daughter were in a delicate place. Popping their carefully constructed bubbles could throw them into a tailspin. “David, you don’t remember any of your dreams, right?”
“I don’t dream. Not that I know of.”
“And you don’t remember any of your dreams from when you were in Eden.”
“Right. Or is that left?” He glanced between them, grinning. “Right or left, get it?”
“Don’t be silly, Dad. He’s trying to be serious.”
“I get it,” Steve said. “Very funny. What about you, Rachelle? Remember any dreams?” He already knew the answer.
“I don’t dream anymore either, but I do remember dreaming. Why?”
“So you can or can’t remember the dreams you had in Eden?”
“Not really, no.” She looked slightly uneasy. “Why? I don’t want to remember those dreams. They were all a part of some fantasy you created in Project Eden. Why would I ever want to remember the dreams that messed me up?”
Neither of them knew that their water supply was dosed with Rexpinal to actively suppress subconscious brain activity like dreams. The only way to find out if there was any validity to those dreams was to allow them to dream again. A single dose of Kinazeran would negate the effects of Rexpinal and allow either to dream for a night, but Steve couldn’t even think about activating their subconscious minds without their consent. In strict confidence, of course—doing this would put him in breach of his operating agreement. If anyone else found out, he would likely be dismissed.
For Rachelle’s sake, he couldn’t risk that.
“Maybe you wouldn’t want to remember those dreams,” he agreed, “but would you ever want to dream again? New dreams, unrelated to those old dreams.”
She looked away, concerned. “Not really. What good are dreams?”
“You’re afraid you might dream the same kinds of dreams you did in Eden?”
“I can’t remember my dreams from Eden, like I said.”
“But part of you is afraid that if you did dream—tonight, say—that dream might stir up old memories. Something like that, right?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Something like that.”
He decided not to press the matter further. “Sounds reasonable.” Steve looked at David. “What about you?”
“You’re asking me? Because I wouldn’t mind dreaming, not at all. I just can’t. However that MEP machine of yours works, it messed with that part of my brain. But heck, yeah. I think it would be cool to dream again.”
“You sure?” Rachelle asked him.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. Nothing more.
They sat in silence for a moment. David, then, Steve thought. He’d give David a dose of Kinazeran when they retired, and either David would dream or he wouldn’t.
If he did, he just might dream of that world. The world Rachelle had once claimed gave her the same clairaudience and telekinesis she now had. The world that had given sight to a blind girl.
Steve had considered the possibility a hundred times but backed off, hoping DARPA’s methods would ultimately allow Rachelle to stabilize and return to some semblance of normal life.
But with the introduction of the new MEP, the game had changed. He had to start somewhere. Allowing David to dream might be that start, if only to see if that dream world might, just might, open to a mind cleanly wiped. However absurd it sounded, even to him.
“Well, if you do dream, David, make me a promise. Tell only me. Not a word to anyone else. Deal?”
“Deal. But like I said, I can’t dream anymore.”