The Jericho Deception: A Novel (8 page)

Ethan felt the anticipation building within him. The past five years working with Elijah, the scorn from their colleagues, their financial difficulties—once they made the Logos work, the long nights and early mornings would be worth it.
If it works
, he thought. The first dozen tests had failed, no matter how they’d tweaked the programming. Then he’d had the epiphany to base the algorithm on the EEG of epileptics who experienced hyperreligiosity. That was six months ago.

Elijah had leapt out of his desk chair when he’d made the suggestion. Receiving the approval of his mentor meant more to Ethan than all of the snide comments his friends in the department made. However, Elijah had insisted on the extra safety test on a non-human primate: “Just to make sure we don’t
induce a full-fledged seizure.” Ethan didn’t think that was possible with the care he’d taken in programming the algorithm. He was anxious to get to the human phase, to get answers to his most pressing questions. They were scheduled to begin human testing next week, if the tests today proved the machine safe.

The screeching from the monkeys grew louder as Rachel walked to the fencing. A capuchin leaped from a branch to the cage by Rachel’s face. “Hey, Anakin,” she cooed.

The monkey—one of the younger ones, judging by its small size—pressed its back up to the wire. Rachel reached in two fingers and scratched it.

“You aren’t seeing this. Strictly against the rules.”

“The monkey’s name is Anakin?” Chris asked.

“That one”—she pointed to a larger one with graying hair—“is Obi Wan. Over there we have Luke, Lea, and the black one is Darth.”

“
Star Wars
?” Ethan asked. Although he rarely went to the movies anymore, he’d grown up on
Star Wars
. He’d seen all of the movies multiple times.

“Makes it easier to remember the names.”

Well, little Anakin
, he thought,
I hope you don’t have a grand mal on me here
. This was their last chance. He and Elijah were out of ideas, and even with their new grant, Houston wouldn’t tolerate many more failures. But in his heart he knew the Logos would work. He hadn’t wasted the past five years chasing a phantom dream.

“Are we ready?” Chris asked from behind the Logos.

Rachel glanced from the two men to the black box by the cage. When she’d asked Chris about the machine earlier, he’d been evasive, and Professor Sanchez hadn’t given her much before hurrying to catch her flight to Atlanta. Professor Ethan Lightman might be brilliant,
and attractive
, she admitted to herself, but she was nervous about putting her babies at risk.

Ever since she was a young girl, she’d had a way with animals. She’d thought that she could feel what they were thinking. Plus, they were appreciative of being taken care of, unlike her two younger brothers. Rachel had been the one
responsible for feeding and cleaning up after them. Her dad was rarely home. He worked late nights and weekends, and when he was physically present, he was emotionally distant.
And Mom—
She pushed away the memories. Rather than make their own meals, her brothers would complain if she made PB&Js or chicken fingers two nights in a row. On the other hand, Commander, her fluffy terrier mix, and Flotsam and Jetsam, her hamsters—and even Tiggie, her parakeet—were always happy to see her. After making sure her brothers had what they needed, she would shut herself in her room with her pets.

She put her hands on her hips and said, “We can begin once you tell me what this machine is going to do to my capuchins.”

“I can assure you there is no danger to the monkeys,” Ethan said.

That’s not an answer
, she thought. Standing beside the wire tunnel that led from the cage to the Logos, she folded her arms like a sentry guarding the entrance of a castle.

“I’m sorry, but didn’t Professor Sanchez sign off on this?”

“Well, when she’s not here, they’re my responsibility.” Just because he was a professor, not to mention tall and sexy, didn’t mean she would be intimidated.

He sighed. “The Logos”—he pointed to the metal box on the stand—“generates a series of electrical pulses whose amplitude, wavelength, and frequency are determined by an algorithm I designed. The pulses travel along these wires”—he gestured to the black wires that coiled around the metal arm—“to the two solenoids here, which convert the electrical pulses into magnetic ones.” He pointed to the plastic discs. “We direct these magnetic pulses predominantly toward the left temporal lobe of the subject’s brain. It’s really just a modification of a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation protocol.” He shrugged as if the procedure were no big deal.

“You’re going to microwave my monkeys’ brains?”

Chris jumped in. “Hospitals use TMS technology all the time. The FDA has approved it for the treatment of depression.”

She frowned. “I know that neurons are like tiny electrical circuits, firing small charges across their synapses, but you’re telling me that these circuits can be influenced by magnetic fields from outside the skull?

Ethan nodded. “Studies have shown that TMS can be more effective on depression than medication, with no side effects.”

“But my monkeys aren’t depressed.”

“Of course not.” Chris smiled. “We’ve just tweaked the programming of the machine for our experiment.”

“For what purpose?”

She caught the men exchanging a glance.

“Because you know the monkeys so well,” Ethan explained, “we want you to observe them to see if you notice any behavior changes during the test. Although we didn’t design the experiment as a double blind one, we didn’t want to tell you too much and risk coloring your report to us afterward.”

She held his gaze.
He’s telling the truth
, she thought,
but he’s nervous
. His hands were clasped behind his back. From the tension in his shoulders, she could tell that he was trying not to fidget.
Well, Laura did authorize the tests
. Professor Sanchez was the only one who cared about the monkeys more than she did.

She dropped her arms, walked over to a mini-fridge in the corner of the room, and removed a bowl with sliced green apples and oranges, a small vial of clear liquid, and a syringe.

“Ketamine,” she said, answering the men’s curious looks. “In case you’re wrong about your machine.” Ketamine was a tranquilizer that would immediately paralyze the monkey. The forms they had to fill out to get it were endless because the drug was often abused by ravers who referred to it as Special K.

She pulled a chunk of orange from the bowl. “We can only test one at a time. How many are we going to run?”

“Three, please.”

She held up the slice so that the monkeys could see it. Anakin, who was still the closest to her, began to chatter. She slid open a mesh door that closed off the wire tunnel from the main cage. Anakin leaped toward the tunnel, but just before he entered Obi Wan swung down from a higher branch and pushed him out of the way.

“Wow, aggressive,” Chris said.

“Not at all, just hierarchical.” She closed the tunnel door after Obi Wan entered and held the orange where he could see it as he scooted toward the wire box at the end. “Food, toys, and attention are divvied up according to the hierarchy of the group. Typically the older and larger males eat first and get the most.” She looked up at Ethan, who was at least a foot taller than her, and grinned. “Fortunately, some of us have evolved beyond those instincts.”

When the monkey poked his head up through the small hole in the top of the box, she gave him the orange while snapping the foam collar around his neck, securing him in the position. The first time she’d done this for other experiments, she and the monkeys were nervous, but now it was routine. Ethan nodded to Chris, who lowered the headset so that the two black solenoids were positioned on either side of Obi Wan’s head. Eating his orange, Obi Wan paid no attention. Chris then stepped behind the Logos. When the graduate student hit a switch, a low hum emerged from the metal box. Rachel felt her pulse increase in time with the vibration. She hoped she was making the right decision by allowing them to proceed with their tests.

Ethan’s heart pounded against his sternum as if it were knocking on a heavy door. He had to remind himself to breathe.
All of our work
, he thought. If a monkey had a seizure, their project was over. He pushed the thought from his head, but then another more disturbing one intruded:
What if the machine didn’t work at all?

Elijah’s theory about the nature of mystical experiences was controversial, and their colleagues looked on them with skepticism at best. If the machine worked, they would be vindicated. But then, what if their peers were right?

Scientists had learned more about the brain in the past two decades than in all of prior history. They now had pills that could affect one’s emotions, and others that could stop schizophrenic hallucinations. Experiments demonstrated that electrodes planted deep in the brain could trigger memories of certain smells or tastes; other electrodes could induce orgasm. With all of these advances, the one area that had never been conquered was the control of
one’s thoughts and beliefs. What better way to attempt this, Elijah had first theorized years ago, than through religion—one of the most powerful belief systems of the human mind?

Inevitably, Ethan’s thoughts drifted down a path he’d tried to repress for years—the secret that had plagued him since he was a child, the answers that he’d sought for two decades.

Suddenly, Obi Wan dropped the orange from his mouth. Ethan felt his breath catch. He waited for any sign that might suggest the monkey was about to begin convulsing from a generalized tonic-clonic seizure. Rachel, who stood beside him, stiffened.

“He’s okay,” Chris said.

Ethan wondered whether the grad student believed his comment or was expressing his hope. He bent forward to stare more closely. The monkey’s eyes appeared to be tracking something that none of them could see. His arms hung by his sides inside the wire box, but his body didn’t slouch—he appeared relaxed. Ethan even imagined that Obi Wan looked thoughtful.

Rachel exhaled. “Yes, he is okay.”

A strange thought occurred to him. They’d come here to test that the magnetic pulses from the Logos didn’t cause a seizure in the animals. Could it be that something else was happening—something he wouldn’t have thought possible in a non-human primate?

He turned to Rachel, who stared at Obi Wan with her head cocked. “Monkeys, they don’t—” He struggled with how to phrase his question. “Do monkeys have mystical experiences?”

“I think all living organisms have the capacity to experience the deeper dimension that is the creative energy of existence.” Her eyes locked onto his. “Don’t you?”

W
here am I?

Mousa had asked the same question countless times—for how many days, he was no longer sure. The helicopter ride from the airport had taken an hour or two. Then he’d been shoved in a van and driven to a prison where he was strip-searched, given a blue cotton jumpsuit to wear, and tossed in a rancid cell. The brief hope he’d held at the airport for a quick resolution to whatever misunderstanding had brought him this trouble had vanished. He’d been neither asked nor told anything since he arrived. When he questioned the guard who probed his naked body, the only answer he received was a stinging slap across the head.

How was he supposed to clear his name if he didn’t know what he had to clear it from? They had his ID: his passport, credit cards, and hospital pass. Maybe they would realize their mistake on their own. The empty feeling in his gut indicated that this was unlikely.

The terror he’d felt at the airport still coursed through his veins. His body had been pumping cortisol, the stress hormone, since he’d been taken captive. He guessed his blood pressure was a steady twenty points higher than usual. The lack of sleep made his exhaustion worse. American hip hop music blared from a speaker in his cell’s ceiling at random intervals, which, along with the bare halogen light bulb in the ceiling of his two-by-three-meter concrete cell, made sleeping all but impossible. On his first day, he’d made the mistake of unscrewing the bulb. Not only had he burned his fingers, he’d
earned a beating from two guards who’d burst into his cell. His jaw still hurt, but he was too tired to care.