Factoring Humanity

31

The lab’s door chime sounded. Two grad students were working in the lab along with Kyle. One of them went to the door, which opened for him.

“I’d like to see Professor Graves,” said the man who was revealed on the other side of the doorway.

Kyle looked up. “Mr. Cash, isn’t it?” he said, crossing the room, hand extended.

“That’s right. I hope you don’t mind me coming by without an appointment, but—”

“No, no. Not at all.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“My office,” said Kyle. He turned to one of the grad students. “Pietro, see if you can make some headway on the indeterminacy bug, would you? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The student nodded, and Kyle and Cash headed down the curving corridor to Kyle’s wedge of an office. When they entered, Kyle bustled about cleaning off the second chair, while Cash admired the Allosaurus poster.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Kyle. Cash folded his angular form into the chair.

“You’ve had a weekend, Professor Graves. I’m hoping you’ve had a chance to consider the Banking Association’s offer.”

Kyle nodded. “I have thought about it, yes.”

Cash waited patiently.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cash. I really don’t want to leave the university. This place has been very good to me over the years.”

Cash nodded. “I know you met your wife here, and you did all three of your degrees here.”

“Exactly.” He shrugged. “It’s home.”

“I believe the offer I made was very generous,” said Cash.

“It was.”

“But if need be, I can offer more.”

“It’s not a question of money; I was just telling someone else that earlier today. I like it here, and I like doing research that’s going to be published.”

“But the impact on the banking industry—”

“I understand that there are potential problems. Do you think I want to cause chaos? We’re still years away from posing a real threat to smartcard security. Look at it this way: you’ve had a warning that quantum computers are likely coming down the pike; now you can get working on a new encryption solution. You survived Year 2000, and you’re going to survive this.”

“My hope,” said Cash, “was to deal with this situation in the most cost-effective manner possible.”

“By buying me off,” said Kyle.

Cash was quiet. “There is a great deal at stake here, Professor. Name your price.”

“To my rather significant delight, Mr. Cash, I’ve discovered I don’t have one.”

Cash rose. “Everyone does, Professor. Everyone does.” He headed for the office door. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

And with that, he was gone.

Heather needed to convince her only living daughter of the truth. If the family was ever to reconcile, it had to start with Becky.

But that raised a larger question.

When was Heather going to go public with her psychospace discovery?

At first she’d kept it secret because she’d wanted to develop a sufficient theory for publication.

But now she had that—in spades.

And still she hadn’t gone public. All it would take to establish priority would be a preemptive posting to the Alien Signal newsgroup. Peer-reviewed journals would follow later, but she could, this minute, announce her discovery if she wanted to.

Plato had said that an unexamined life is not worth living.

But he was referring to self-examination.

Who could live with the knowledge that anyone and everyone might be scrutinizing their own thoughts? What would happen to privacy? To trade secrets? To criminal justice? To interpersonal relationships?

It would change everything—and Heather was not at all sure that it would be for the better.

But no—that wasn’t why she was keeping it a secret. Not some lofty concern about other people’s privacy, although she liked to think she was giving that at least some consideration; except for Kyle, she’d refrained from giving in to temptation, staying out of the minds of others she knew personally.

No, the real reason she hadn’t gone public was much simpler; she liked, at least for a time, being the only one with this power. She had something no one else had—and she didn’t quite yet want to share it.

She wasn’t proud of that fact, but there it was. Did Superman ever spend even one second trying to figure out how to give the rest of humanity superpowers? Of course not; he’d just lucked into them. Then why should her first priority be to share this?

She’d yet to find anything in psychospace that directly corresponded to Jungian archetypes. She couldn’t point to some part of the maelstrom and say that it represented the wellspring of human symbols, couldn’t point to a bank of hexagons and say that it housed the archetype of the warrior-hero. And yet simply reflecting upon what to do about her discovery was indeed giving her insights into her own mind.

First and foremost, which was she? Mother? Wife? Scientist? There were archetypes of parents, and there were archetypes of spouses—but the Western concept of the scientist didn’t have a Jungian definition.

She’d made the same decision once before. Her career could wait; science could wait. Family was more important.

And with this discovery, she could prove to Becky that her father had not molested her—just as Heather had proven it to herself. That was what mattered right now.

One way to prove it would be to show Becky the archives of Becky’s own mind. But there was still that vexing problem of how to distinguish false memories from real ones. After all, the false memories clearly seemed genuine, or Becky would have never believed them in the first place; they might feel as real as any other memories, even when viewed from within, but—

But you couldn’t Necker from them to someone else!

Of course!

Surely the Necker swapping—the moving into the mind of someone who also remembered the same scene—simply wouldn’t work if the memories were false. There would be no corresponding memories in another, no touchstone between the two minds.

Heather, if she had any lingering doubt at all about Kyle’s guilt, could violate Becky’s privacy, find the false memories, and demonstrate for herself the inability to transfer from Becky’s point of view to Kyle’s.

But—

But no. She had no doubts left.

And besides—

Besides, it had been one thing to search for memories she hoped to God weren’t there. It would be another to actually see, even if it was false, the molestation. Let Becky herself, who already had those repugnant mental images burned into her, experience the inability to do the Necker swap. For Heather, even a false representation of her husband harming their child was something she didn’t want to witness.

Still, Becky might want further proof. And she could get that, of course, by retracing Heather’s steps, by looking directly into Kyle’s mind.

Kyle would be utterly exonerated—but would things really improve between father and daughter if, although that demon were dispelled, Becky discovered that her father really had liked her older sister better, that she really was an accident that had strained their finances while both of them were still grad students, that her father had base thoughts, ignoble thoughts?

Was this really the path toward healing?

No—no, that wasn’t the answer.

And, anyway, there was a better way.

Let Becky see into the mind of her therapist, see the manipulation, the lies.

On its own, that might not absolutely eliminate Becky’s doubts. As Heather herself had mused, even if the therapist’s methods were leading and inappropriate, that didn’t necessarily prove that no abuse had occurred. But in conjunction with a demonstration that Becky’s own memories were false, shared by no one else, she should be completely convinced.

It was time—time to start healing.

Heather picked up her phone and called Becky.

The Fashion District, where Becky lived and worked, was only a few blocks west of the university, so Heather asked Becky to meet her at The Water Hole for lunch. During the days she’d spent probing Kyle’s mind, she’d learned many hitherto unknown things about her husband, not the least of which was that he had developed a fondness for this place that Heather herself had walked by a million times without ever entering.

Heather knew that Kyle was teaching right now; there was no possibility of an accidental reunion.

She’d seen the interior of The Water Hole already through Kyle’s mind—in searching for Kyle’s memories of Becky, she’d found the time Kyle had unburdened himself here to Stone Bailey.

It was startling to see the real Water Hole, though. First, of course, the colors looked different to Heather than what she’d seen in Kyle’s mind.

But there was more than that. Kyle had stored only some of the details. Much of what made up his memory had been interpretation or extrapolation. Oh yes, he’d remembered the Molson’s holoposter with the stunning blonde ski-bunny—but he’d had no recollection of the other framed posters on the walls. And he’d remembered the tablecloths as a uniform red, when in fact they were covered with tiny red-and-white checks.

It was Monday, August 14; Becky worked at the clothing store all day Saturday and Sunday this week, but got Monday and Tuesday off. Still, she was late, and when she finally did enter, she did not look happy.

“Thank you for coming,” said Heather as Becky took a seat opposite her, a small round table between them.

Becky’s face was grim. “I only agreed because you said he wouldn’t be present.” There was no doubt as to whom the pronoun referred.

Heather had hoped for some pleasantries, for some news of her daughter’s life. But apparently there was to be none of that. She nodded grimly and said, “We need to resolve this issue with your father.”

“If you’re proposing an out-of-court settlement, I want to have a lawyer present.”

Heather felt as if she’d been hit in the face. She gulped air, then at last managed to get out the words, “There will be no lawsuit.”

“I don’t want that any more than you do,” said Becky, softening a bit. She’d never been good at putting on a tough face. “But he ruined my life.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I didn’t come here to hear you defend him. Making excuses is just as bad as—

“Shut up!” Heather shocked herself with how sharp her voice was. Becky’s eyes went wide.

“Just shut up,” said Heather again. “You’re making a fool of yourself. Shut up before you say anything else you’ll regret.”

“I don’t have to take this,” said Becky. She began to rise.

“Sit down,” snapped Heather. The few other patrons were now looking at them. Heather locked eyes with the one nearest them, staring him down. He went back to his soup.

“I can prove that your father didn’t molest you,” said Heather. “I can prove it absolutely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to whatever degree of certainty you require.”

Becky’s mouth hung open. She was staring at her mother, an expression of shock on her face.

The server picked that moment to arrive. “Hello, ladies. Can I get—”

“Not now,” snapped Heather. The server looked stung, but he quickly disappeared.

Becky blinked. “I’ve never heard you like this.”

“It’s because I’m fed the fuck up.” Becky looked more shocked; something else she’d never heard before was her mother saying “fuck.” “No family should have to go through what ours has.” Heather paused, took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. But this has to end—it has to. I can’t take any more of it, and neither can your father. You have to come back to my office with me.”

“What are you going to do? Hypnotize me into not believing what I know to be true?”

“Nothing like that.” She signaled the server, and as he somewhat timidly approached, Heather said to her daughter, “Don’t order too much to drink—you’re not going to have an opportunity to easily pee for a few hours after lunch.”

“What in God’s name is that?”

Becky’s expression was one of pure surprise as she entered her mother’s office. Heather couldn’t help grinning at her.

“That, my dear, is what the Centaurs were trying to tell us how to make. See the little tiles making up the bigger panels? Each one of the tiles is a pictorial representation of one of the alien messages.”

Becky loomed in to look at the construct. “So they are,” she said. She straightened up and stared at Heather. “Mom, I know all this has been very hard on you…”

Heather couldn’t help laughing. “You think the pressure’s gotten too much for me? That I couldn’t figure out how to read the messages, so I spent my time just shuffling them around and building things out of them?”

“Well,” said Becky, and she gestured at the construct, as if its very existence made everything plain.

“It’s nothing like that, honey. This really is what the Centaurs intended us to do with their messages. The shape—that’s an unfolded hypercube.”

“A what?”

“The four-dimensional counterpart of a cube. The arms fold up and the ends touch, and the thing becomes a regular geometrical solid in four dimensions.”

“And that accomplishes precisely what?” asked Becky, sounding very dubious.

“It transports you to a four-dimensional realm. It lets you see the four-dimensional reality that surrounds us.”

Becky was silent.

“Look,” said Heather, “all you have to do is get inside it.”

“In there?”

Heather frowned. “I know I should have made it bigger.”

“So you’re saying—you’re saying this is some sort of time machine, and—what?—it’ll let me travel back to see what Daddy did?”

“Time isn’t the fourth dimension,” said Heather. “The fourth dimension is a spatial direction, precisely perpendicular to the other three.”

“Ah,” said Becky.

“And although we all appear to be individuals when viewed in three dimensions, we’re actually all part of a greater whole when viewed in four.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I know—know to a moral certainty—that your father didn’t molest you. And how you can know, too.”

Becky was silent.

“Look, everything I’m saying is true,” said Heather. “I’ll be announcing it publicly soon… probably, anyway. But I wanted you to know first, before anyone else. I want you to go look inside another human mind.”

“Inside Daddy’s, you mean?”

“No. No, that wouldn’t be right. I want you to go see your therapist. I’ll tell you how to find her mind; I don’t think you should enter your father’s mind, not without his permission. But that damned therapist—we don’t owe that bitch a thing.”

“You don’t even know her, Mom.”

“Oh, yes I do—I went to see her.”

“What? How? Look, you don’t even know her name.”

“Lydia Gurdjieff. Her office is on Lawrence West.”

Becky was visibly stunned.

“You know what she tried to do to me?” asked Heather. “She tried to get me to explore the abuse I had at the hands of my own father.”

“But… but your father… your father…”

“Died before I was born. Exactly. Even though it was categorically impossible for me to have been abused by my father, she said I showed all the classic signs. She talks a good game, believe me. She had me half-believing that someone had abused me, too. Not my father, of course, but some other relative.”

“I—I don’t believe this. You’re making it up.” Becky gestured at the construct. “You’re making it all up.”

“No, I’m not. You can prove it to yourself. You’ll see Gurdjieff implanting the memories in you from her point of view, and I’ll show you how you can demonstrate that the memories you have are false. Come on, get inside the construct and—”

Becky sounded half-wary, half-desperate. “ ‘The construct’? Is that what you call it? Not the ‘Centaurimobile’?”

Heather managed a neutral tone. “I should introduce you to Cheetah—a friend of your father. You’ve got similar senses of humor.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I’m your mother, and I’d never hurt you. Trust me; try what I say. We won’t be able to communicate when you’ve got your eyes open in there, but when you close them, after a few seconds the interior of the construct will reappear in your mind’s eye. If you need further help, press the stop button.” She pointed to it. “The hypercube will unfold, you can open the door, and I’ll be able to tell you what to do next. Don’t worry—when you press the start button again, you’ll end up exactly where you left off.” She paused. “Now, please, get inside. It gets pretty warm in there, by the way. I won’t ask you to do it in your bra and panties like I do, but—”

“Your bra and panties?” said Becky, stunned.

Heather smiled again. “Trust me, dear. Now get inside.”

Four hours later, Heather assisted Becky in removing the cubic door, and Becky got out of the construct, accepting a helping hand from her mother.

Becky stood quiet for a moment, tears running down her cheeks, clearly utterly at a loss for words; then she collapsed into her mother’s waiting arms.

Heather stroked her daughter’s hair. “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right now.”

Becky’s whole body was shaking. “It was incredible,” she said. “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

Heather smiled. “Isn’t it, though?”

Becky’s voice was growing hard. “She used me,” she said. “She manipulated me.”

Heather said nothing, and although it tore her up to see her daughter distraught, her heart soared.

“She used me,” Becky said again. “How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so wrong?”

“It’s okay,” said Heather. “It’s over.”

“No,” said Becky. “It isn’t.” She was still shaking, and Heather’s shoulder was now moist with Becky’s tears. “There’s still Daddy. What am I going to say to Daddy?”

“The only thing you can say. The only thing there is to say. That you’re sorry.”

Becky’s voice was incredibly tiny. “But he’ll never love me again.”

Heather gently lifted Becky’s head with a hand under her daughter’s chin. “I know for a fact, sweetheart, that he never stopped.”