Government clashes with science at the worst of times, and the two sides rarely see eye to eye. Definitely, a theme of the modern day, and a battle of power. However, this story should change how you look at the phrase, ‘change your mind’…
“Security, you idiots!” Director Fred Crane, arms akimbo over his thick waist, stood in the open door of the Quantum Consciousness Lab. The door did not say “SECRET” on it because everything in the Contract Research, Inc., building was secret. “Keep this door closed. And locked.”
“We knew you were coming.” Linda Kelly turned her blonde head to glare at him. Then she transferred the glare to the man who followed the Director into the Lab. “Who’s he?”
“Vincent Conrad,” said the stranger. He wore a black suit and tie with a snow white shirt. His pink scalp was shaved bald.
“He’s from…,” said Director Crane.
“You know there is no such agency.” The stranger did not smile. He did stare at Linda, ignoring her face in favor of other parts. “What are you doing here?”
“These two are our Quantum Consciousness researchers,” said Director Crane. “Dr. Linda Kelly. Dr. Steve Burns. Very effective. Very creative.”
“Doctor Kelly?”
Linda was staring back at the sexist asshole, wishing she dared to say what she was thinking. He clearly did not think women should be researchers. To him, they were good only for one thing.
Vincent Conrad smirked at her. He knew what she was thinking. He knew she was uncomfortable with him. He liked it that way.
“Figured you wouldn’t want to miss the test. But him?” Steve Burns looked up at the Director. “What do we call him? Vinnie?”
Vinnie glared at the egalitarian irreverence.
Steve bent his dark head back over a table covered with circuit boards and cables. A quantum computer, attached to a tank of liquid helium, occupied the right-hand end of the table. From the left, two fat cables stretched toward a pair of padded chairs from whose arms dangled restraint straps. More straps were attached to the chair legs. The cables ended in wire-mesh caps.
“Who did you think was paying for this work?” Director Crane raised both eyebrows as if to say that money should buy some respect. He just pointed at the quantum computer. “That thing’s expensive. For that matter, so are you.” He did not say what everyone knew: It was a black budget operation, so money was not really a problem.
“We’d make more working for Microsoft,” said Linda.
“Not on this,” said Vincent Conrad. “Talk and you’ll never see the light of day again. You signed NDAs.”
“Where are the subjects?” Director Crane sounded more impatient now.
She pointed at a pair of doors beyond the chairs. “Waiting for you.”
“Well, then!”
“First…” Linda moved past the Director to close the Lab’s door. A solid “clunk” announced that she had engaged the lock.
Then she crossed the Lab to open the other doors. Behind them, two young men were waiting in office-style swivel chairs, staring at their hands as if they held phones. Of course, they didn’t. Security.
The young men were paid volunteers from the university across town. After signing iron-clad NDAs, they had been kept isolated from each other for the past weekend. The brush-cut, redheaded bio major had been instructed the day before to hide a small teddy bear somewhere in the Lab’s building and not to tell anyone, ever, where. The honey-skinned law student didn’t even know a teddy bear was involved.
Within minutes, both were strapped into the seats. The wire-mesh caps were lowered over their heads. “We need to ask a few questions,” Linda told them. Then she pointed at the bio major. “What is your name?”
“Cal Atwood.”
She turned to the law student. “What is your name?”
“Bill Witham.”
“Have you had any chances to talk with each other?”
They both shook their heads.
“What do you want to do when you graduate?”
“Biotech,” said the bio major.
“Work for ACLU,” said the law student.
“Students,” muttered Vincent Conrad. “Goddam liberals.”
“Where did you hide that teddy bear” she asked Cal Atwood.
He shook his head again. “I can’t tell you, Dr. Kelly. You told me not to, no matter what.”
“Teddy bear?” Bill Witham sounded confused.
Dr. Kelly nodded to her colleague, Dr. Burns, who promptly flipped a switch buried in the mass of circuitry on the tabletop. Then she leaned toward the law student. “What did you say your name was again?”
He turned his head from side to side, looking even more confused. “What have you done?”
“Your name.”
“Cal Atwood, but…”
An abrupt hand motion silenced him. Then she asked the redhead. “Your name?”
“Bill Witham. My god, you switched us!”
“Where’s the teddy bear, Bill?”
“Behind the microwave in the break room,” said Cal Atwood’s mouth.
“Hey!” cried the other young man.
Director Crane held two white envelopes in his right hand. “These are for today. There will be more after tomorrow’s tests.”
As soon as Linda unstrapped the test subjects, he parted with the envelopes. Steve called for a pair of guards to escort them out of the Lab and to their separate quarters.
Once they were alone again, and the door was locked again, Director Crane stared at his Quantum Consciousness researchers. “Astonishing! You actually exchanged their minds, and they had access to the memories stored in the other guy’s brain.”
“I thought this was about consciousness exchange,” said Vincent Conrad.
“No one has ever been able to come up with a clear difference between ‘consciousness’ and ‘mind’,” said Steve.
“Precisely,” said Linda. “The mind or consciousness has some memory of its own. It has a name, after all. It knows who it is. But it relies on the hardware—the brain—for long-term memory. That’s why Bill Witham’s consciousness could tell us where the teddy bear is. He saw it in Cal Atwood’s memory.”
Director Reid looked at the government agent. “Are you satisfied, Mr. Conrad?”
The man from their funder nodded. “But it could have been faked. We’ll need more tests.”
“We have more scheduled for tomorrow. After that, those kids can go back to school.”
“They won’t talk?”
“NDAs,” said Steve.
Vincent Conrad snorted. NDAs never stopped people from talking. They just spelled out what would happen if they did. “We have yours too, remember. We’ll keep an eye on all of you.”
Now it was the Director’s turn to snort. “Perhaps you should bring in one of those terrorists you want to interrogate.”
Linda pointed at one of the padded chairs. “You could sit there, and then you could consult his memories.”
Vincent Conrad made a face as if to say that he was not at all sure he wanted to trust himself to the apparatus.
“Of course,” said Steve. “He could consult yours, too.”
Now, he shook his head. Like that was going to happen! “I’ll have to report. They’ll decide.”
The Director said, “If he learns something from your head, that only matters if you let him go. Can you pass up the chance to tap his brain?”
“Not my decision.”
Steve grinned. “I’d like to do it with my wife.”
“You trust each other that much?” Linda made a skeptical face. “She’d have access to everything you remember.”
Steve shrugged to say he wasn’t worried about that. “More like body swapping. Hot weekend.”
Vincent Conrad smirked, as if he could all too easily imagine how that would go.
“There isn’t that much mobility,” said Linda. For a moment, she wondered, if there were, would she want to do such a thing? She wasn’t married. She didn’t even have a current boyfriend. There wasn’t anyone she would trust that much. So no. No way.
“Could replace those chairs with a bed,” said Steve.
The Director cleared his throat. “Do both subjects have to have those helmets on? Can you just point at someone and swap?”
Both Linda and Steve shook their heads. “No way. The helmets have to be close to brains.”
#
Director Crane did not appear for the next day’s testing, but Vincent Conrad did, and a night away from the lab had not improved his attitude. Linda Kelly was wearing a bulky sweater to keep his eyes off her, but as soon as he saw her, he smirked, with a nod that said he knew precisely why Doctor Linda Kelly had the sweater.
The two subjects were back behind the two doors on the other side of the Quantum Consciousness Lab. “One at a time today,” said Steve Burns. “We want to see how well actual interrogation works.” He drew the bald man’s attention to the switch on the table; thanks to the tangle of cables and circuit boards, it was not obvious. “If you would press this when I say.”
Vincent Conrad nodded. “Of course.”
Linda held up a sheet of paper. “These are the questions we want to ask.”
First up was the bio major, Cal Atwood. Once he was strapped in, Steve took the other seat and Linda strapped him down and set the mesh caps over their heads.
“You can push the button now,” said Steve.
Vincent Conrad obeyed, and when Linda picked up the list of questions to start the testing, he snatched it from her hand. “I’ll do it.”
Jerk, thought Linda. Interfering jerk. She was very glad she had let Steve volunteer for the swap.
The jerk read the first question: “Have you ever cheated on an exam?”
“No,” said the bio major’s mouth, while Steve’s face looked alarmed.
“Have you ever used AI to write a paper?”
“No.”
“Have you ever cheated on your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Next subject,” Linda said as she reached for the button on the table. Steve kept his seat while the bio major returned to his waiting room and the law student, Bill Witham, sat down. When the mesh cap was on his head, she pressed the button again.
Vincent Conrad started over:
“Have you ever cheated on an exam?”
“No.”
“Have you ever used AI to write a paper?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever cheated on your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Do you even have a girlfriend?”
Linda interrupted: “That’s not in the script!”
“Shut up.” Then Vincent Conrad repeated the question.
“No.”
Linda punched the button on the table emphatically. “Enough!”
“You’re interfering.”
“It’s my lab!”
“Not today.” He went to the Lab door, opened it, and let in an obvious guard. “Keep her out of the way.”
Then he pushed the button once more.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Both Bill Witham’s and Steve Burns’ faces looked alarmed, and Steve’s mouth said, “That’s none of your business!”
“Yes,” said Bill Witham’s mouth, though the look on his face was grim. Steve did not like being forced to reveal what was in Witham’s memory, but he had no choice. A secret agent from no-such-agency surely knew the answers anyway.
The look of disgust on the secret agent’s face spoke volumes: “Fucking gay libtard college student. Of course he wants to work for the ACLU.”
All he said aloud was, “Dr. Burns, can you plant thoughts while you’re in him?”
“Hey!” said Steve’s mouth. “I didn’t agree to that!”
“Maybe,” said Bill Witham’s mouth.
“What does he think of deporting citizens who refuse to support the President?”
“The government has no right to do that.”
“Tell him they’re traitors. They deserve no better.” A moment later, he added, “What does he think of taxing the rich?”
“The more the better.”
“Tell him they deserve their money. They work harder for it than all those lazy bums.”
“It won’t stick,” said Linda. “It will be just a memory.”
“I told you to shut up.” Vincent Conrad reached for the switch.
“Eat the rich,” said Witham from his own mouth.
Vincent Conrad scowled. “So it didn’t stick. This needs work.”
Linda was unstrapping Steve.
“Now I have a report to write,” said Vincent Conrad.
When he slammed the door behind him and his guard, Linda told Steve, “Don’t say a word.”
“What?” said Bill Witham. “He wants you to make this a thought control thing? I want to…”
“Remember the NDA.”
“Fuck the NDA!”
“You want to go back to school?” said Steve. “Stay in school? Have a career?”
Bill Witham bit his lips. “Is there anything you can do?”
Linda shook her head, but once their two young subjects were paid off and escorted out of the building, she said, “He’s right.”
#
Two days later, Director Fred Crane joined them in the Quantum Consciousness Lab. “I was impressed,” he said. “This is the perfect interrogation machine.”
Something in his tone made Linda Kelly say, “But…”
The Director nodded. “But. Our funder wants more.”
Steve Burns was replacing a circuit board on the table. Now he nodded. “Yeah. He made that clear. Not enough to read minds. He wants to control them.”
“Exactly,” said the Director.
“We tried it for him,” said Linda. “The thought Steve sent, or implanted… It didn’t stick.”
“And it works in both directions,” said Steve. “My consciousness was riding Witham’s brain, but his was riding mine. I tried to plant a thought in him, but it didn’t work. He didn’t even try to plant one in me.”
“But he could have?”
Steve shrugged. “No reason why not. I remembered what he made my mouth say.”
“But it wouldn’t work. What if you sedated him?”
“That would affect the brain,” said Linda. “Not the consciousness. It might make it impossible to plant a thought. Even if it would stick.”
The Director looked frustrated. “Would it be more likely to work if the one implanting the thought had a strong mind or will? Would that show up in the consciousness?”
Steve shook his head. “No idea.”
Linda laughed. “I’m sure Agent Conrad thinks he has a very strong consciousness. He has a very definite sense of who he is. And others aren’t.”
“We could tell him we’ve improved it. Put a second quantum computer on the table…”
“And get him to try to implant a thought?” asked the Director.
“It still won’t work,” said Linda. “But if it gets them to leave us alone…” She really did not like the idea of making thought control possible.
#
Two weeks later, Director Crane brought Vincent Conrad back to the Quantum Consciousness Lab. As they came through the door, he was saying, “They’ve upgraded it. See? Two quantum computers. Much more powerful now.”
Vincent Conrad scanned the table, still covered with circuit boards and cables, and nodded. Then he scanned Linda, top to somewhere above her toes. He smirked much as he had done before.
“We’re ready to try the memory implant again,” said Steve. “Though I warn you that the one implanting the memory must have a strong mind.”
“Do you wish to try?” asked the Director.
This time, Vincent Conrad did not hesitate. “Of course.” Either he had been reassured when no one was harmed before, or he had orders.
Steve moved toward the pair of padded chairs. “Then I’ll…”
“No,” said Vincent Conrad. He pointed at Linda. “Strap Doctor Kelly down.”
Linda shuddered at the thought of his consciousness overlaying her mind, her brain. She had no trouble imagining what he would try to make her think or believe. But the thought control hadn’t worked before. She had to put her faith in that.
Unless Steve’s mind had not been strong enough to force a lasting thought into Bill Witham’s head.
When the Director moved one hand toward the chair Steve had been approaching, she suppressed a sigh. She sat down.
“Strap her down,” said Vincent Conrad.
Steve obeyed.
Vincent Conrad took the other chair but waved Steve away when he reached for the first strap. “Just hook us up. And turn it on.”
Obediently, Steve lowered the mesh caps into place over their heads. Then he stepped back, poised his hand over the button on the table, and looked toward the Director.
When the Director nodded, he pressed the button.
Instantly, Linda was in Vincent Conrad’s head. Almost as instantly, she could see from his memories that he was not a nice man. He was married. He had a daughter. And Linda wanted to cry.
She turned his head to see her own face, wearing not Vincent Conrad’s usual smirk, but a blatant leer.
She knew there was nothing in her own memories to provoke that. It must reflect what he was trying to put in her head.
What could she do?
She made his body take a deep breath. Another. Then she formed the thought: “Women re people, too.”
Not enough. Too damned weak. She tried again: “They are you. You are them. What you do to them, they can do to you. Their turn will come.”
Not quite the Golden Rule. But close. With teeth.
She repeated the thought. Then she visualized a hammer. A sledgehammer. And she pounded both thoughts home.
Just in time, for Steve was reaching for the button again.
She checked her memories, almost as if she were probing a cavity with her tongue. And yes. He had tried to do just what she suspected. The words were there: “Your body. Mine now. You will come with me.”
As Steve removed the mesh cap, she stared at Agent Conrad and said simply, “No.”
He stared back, his eyes wide. “What did you do?”
#
“What did you do?” asked Director Crane after Agent Conrad left.
“I hope I gave him a conscience.”
Steve laughed. “”What did he try to give you?”
“You don’t want to know. It didn’t stick. He wasn’t strong enough.”
“He looked like what you did stuck.”
She was a woman, wasn’t she? Women had to be strong-minded just to survive in this world. And men like Agent Conrad did not understand that.
As long as any thought-control machine was bidirectional, women were safe.
#
The next time they saw Director Crane, he was looking discouraged.
“What’s the matter?” asked Linda.
He just shook his head.
Steve said, “They just told you they have other ways to make people talk, right? And they don’t want those people changing their minds?”
“It does not live up to expectations, they say.”
“No more funding, then,” said Linda. She was not surprised. The people behind black budget funding did not want consciences.
The Director nodded. “And we can’t patent or publish. The NDA.”
All three were silent for a long moment. Eventually, Linda said, “We never did do any animal testing.”
After a long, thoughtful moment, the Director’s face brightened. “You think you could read a dog’s mind with this? Or its memories?”
“We could try it.”
Steve grinned. “And that we could publish. And patent. I bet it would sell, too.”
The Director echoed his grin. “Then you still have jobs.”
FIN
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