Whitewall continued...
Other than the constant insects buzzing inside my skull I hadn't experienced problems with my hearing until now, but this man's voice is different. The words come to me in a kind of mush, understood, but thick and distorted; immensely difficult to process and comprehend. Numbed by neon, my eyes are being force-fed with the overly-bright space we are entering. This reinforces the impression of the exterior as a sports centre, the inside being a chilly and featureless utilitarian square, its height much greater than necessary. The walls seem to exude that pink hiss which has been at the back of my mind from the start. It is like being inside a sea-shell. With little else to divert the eye, a bizarre display over the floor space is the focus of attention. Equally spaced but of various lengths, narrow vertical columns are fixed over a wide section of the chamber floor. Each is connected to a complex of thin cables which run to a number of control centres beyond vision, their vanishing-point perspective drawing my gaze reluctantly back towards those mournful shapes which are mounted at the top of each thin pillar.
The mind will always play tricks to defend itself. I find myself noting that some of the mounts are empty, and likening these to wind farms where there are always one or two sets of rotors which stand still and idle for no apparent reason. I am putting off allowing myself to acknowledge that the majority hold, sealed in plastic, grim relics. Human heads: dead and disgusting.
The cavernous room whispers and hisses and rustles with electricity and fans. In such a place it would be easy to hear such sounds as the hoarse voices of unquiet souls in desperately secretive debate. I notice that the eyes are taped open on several specimens, and I sense my own features empathising with their looks of surprise, or terror. My guide's gelatinous voice oozes towards me through a deepening aural fog.
"You'll be wondering what this is all about I expect? Let me try and explain.
"The exploration of the brain has progressed a great deal in recent years, but most of what was done in the past has been based on scanning techniques done from outside the skull. This is all very well, but is the equivalent of looking at the universe using optical telescopes positioned on the earth's surface, rather than using all that clever apparatus we have floating around in space these days. Our technology is too invasive to be used on living patients, which is why we're using these specimens. The body is discarded as it only gets in the way. We started on surgically removed brains but found the complex connections to the eyes and ears to be an essential element, and it is far better to keep everything intact. The whole head is sealed from the air and prevented from deteriorating as much as possible. There is a finite time we can keep each experiment going, but the results are always recorded and will remain accessible for future generations."
Fighting to concentrate, at least I don't feel the need to smile and nod politely. The voice seems to be becoming perversely sibilant. Orbiting around the letter 'S', it is now coming at me through heavy rain on flat forest leaves.
"So, you see these cables? Most of them are connected to sensory monitoring equipment, but the most important connections go through these yellow conduits. We've developed a filament which grows in an almost identical way to the mycelium of a common fungus. These are single cells, thin enough to move through neurones, seeking and following the brain's pathways, connecting and cross-communicating in similar ways to the synapses of the brain. Such fungal growth is associated more usually with decay, but in essence, while these filaments don't replace these cells, they can inhabit, replenish and re-activate all or almost all of the brain's pre-existing pathways. The only limitation is how quickly we can start our procedure after death, and how many cells have been permanently destroyed. See this one?"
My guide plugs a hand-held monitor into an access panel underneath one of the transparent cases. This contains a blackened monstrosity, a glimpse of teeth and the ragged domed familiarity of a cranium the only points of recognition.
"This poor soul was left under water rather too long to be much use, but even here there is still a glimmer. Look..."
The screen shows a distorted image which emerges and dissolves in a repetitive cycle. It looks at first like an abstract pattern, but becomes recognisable as blades of grass: a banal mental imprint, but the surviving fragment of a person's consciousness nonetheless.
"We've been refining these techniques, and adapting our sensor and monitoring equipment to catch up with the kinds of signals we're receiving. Each result, however small, adds to our knowledge. Narrowing the bands of chemical and electrical responses means we can now seek out, isolate, and stimulate individual memories. It's been an immensely complex task, but our greatest successes have provided some quite extended narratives."
We have been walking towards one side of the chamber, and I am now allowed a glimpse into a monitor room. Dozens of screens flicker, some showing repetitious cycles similar to that of the patch of grass I had seen before. Some show no image but quiver in a permanent state of dim expectation, and others pulse and flow like an aurora borealis. The most active screens spill over with a kaleidoscopic confusion of movement and images, often too swift to interpret, but occasionally showing glimpses of irrefutably recognisable structures: a car, buildings, distorted faces.
"Now, come over here."
Through my mental pallor I sense this strange visit is about to enter a new, critical phase. Following in the slow wake of the man in the white coat, I become aware of three mounted heads positioned in front of all the others. These are placed away from the main section, close to and facing towards the blank white surface of the wall. I don't want to go anywhere near them, but we press on, our movement meeting the rhythm and inevitability of a clock's hands turning towards mortality.
"In just the last few days we have made something of a quantum leap. One of our aims has of course been to try and achieve awareness in our samples, to go beyond recorded memory into a threshold of consciousness. We've made some startling progress, but are never quite sure if what we are achieving is real responsiveness, or some kind of in-between state; you know, like an out-of-body experience. We can bring the experiment full circle however, and monitor brain-cell activity using more conventional scan results. This way we can see if certain recognition fields are activated."
His words maintain a relaxed nonchalance, but I can tell he is deliberately trying not to lead me. Even through a rising tide of nauseous, noisy hash I sense a catch in his voice, as if some kind of Holy Grail is all too close to hand.
"Now, have a good look at this row of faces.
SSSSSee anyone you recognisssssssssssssssssssss....?"
Black
Writhing
Pain
I can taste rubber and salt between my teeth. The sun moves through the water around me, warming my back and turning the shells and anemones beneath into sparkling jewels as the mist clears on the glass of my mask. I am snorkelling through warm, gently undulating seawater. I could be somewhere exotic but I know where I am; the only false notes to this childhood scene being an awareness that I have to leave the water soon, a pain somewhere like a bad hangover, and the hissing of a distant unidentifiable turmoil...
END