“Gamin,” BC said absentmindedly. It was his mother’s maiden name. “Who is—”
“Please, Agent Gamin.” Leary’s voice took on a sterner note. “Lecture first, questions after. Just listen for a moment.”
After Melchior’s rant on the train, the last thing he wanted to hear was another lecture. But he was too busy staring into the dark trees that were closing around them to protest.
“Now then. Our work at Castalia is concerned with the human animal’s neuronal experience of the world around him. In layman’s terms, his senses. If the conscious part of our brain had to process all the raw material our senses recorded, we’d end up so flooded with data that we wouldn’t be able to walk upright or feed ourselves, let alone perform complex motor tasks like climbing a ladder or playing a cello or sculpting
“Oh, um.” BC wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “Sure.” The sun had disappeared behind the dense canopy now, along with the dilapidated mansion, and the early evening had stilled to an ecclesiastical gloaming. The feeling was only emphasized by the thousands of pitch-blackened trunks receding in every direction like the sooty columns of the Mezquita of Cordoba.
BC pulled up short.
“Something wrong?” Despite the shadows, the doctor’s blue eyes twinkled, almost as if he was in on a practical joke being perpetrated at BC’s expense.
“It’s nothing,” BC answered, and, when the doctor continued to stare at him: “A word popped into my head, that’s all.” Still the expectant stare. BC suddenly remembered the man’s degree was in psychology. He disliked headshrinkers almost as much as he disliked Bohemians. “Mez-qui-ta,” he said when Leary still refused to go on. He had to sound out the syllables like a child reading a strange word, because he’d never heard it before, let alone knew what it meant.
“Spanish for mosque,” the doctor said as if reading BC’s mind. He glanced at the trunks all around them. “The Great Mosque at Cordoba is famous for the hundreds of columns that hold up the prayer hall.”
“Yes, of course.” BC nodded. Still the doctor stared at him. “It’s just that, well, I don’t remember ever hearing that word before.” It was more than that of course. He’d never heard of the Great Mosque itself, let alone knew what it looked like, and somehow he sensed that the doctor knew this.
But all the doctor did was nod, then turn and head deeper into the forest. Dark pines stretched farther than the eye could see in every direction, and, with a start, BC realized he had no idea which way the house lay. He swallowed his discomfort and hurried after Leary.
“For some time now,” the doctor was saying when BC caught up with him, “psychiatrists have theorized the existence of a mental clearinghouse that sorts the information our senses gather into usuable and unusable categories. They refer to this clearinghouse as the Gate of Orpheus. You remember that Orpheus descended into the Underworld to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, who had been killed by a snakebite. After he failed in his task, undone by the same curiosity that killed Lot’s wife, he returned to the surface, where he was promptly torn to pieces by the Maenads. This might seem like harsh treatment for a grieving widower, but the Maenads were servants of Dionysus, who was both dismembered and devoured, only to be reborn as an even greater god—a story that clearly inspired a certain young Jewish man running around the Roman province of Judea half a millennium later. As Dionysus’ high priest, Orpheus was said to possess mysteries culled from his time in the Underworld. Dionysus’ Roman name was Bacchus, of course, and for the better part of a thousand years his followers claimed that the famed Bacchanalian orgies of drinking and sex and violence afforded glimpses into these mysteries.
“As with mythology, so with modernity: some contemporary psychiatrists have begun to search for what lies beyond the Orphic Gate in the human brain. No doubt you’ve heard the adage that we use a mere five percent of our mental capacity. This measure refers not so much to size as to functionality—mind as opposed to brain. It’s my theory that the remaining ninety-five percent hides behind the gate, and if we can somehow find a way to open it, a universe of possibility will become available to us. Memories would reappear in crystalline detail. The unrepeatable sensation of our first coital orgasm, say, or the ambrosial taste of mother’s milk. Our physical environment would acquire extra dimensions of sight and sound and smell and touch. Who knows, perhaps we might discover an ethereal bond linking all consciousnesses—the mental equivalent of a radio wave, needing only a receiver tuned to the right frequency to allow for instantaneous communication a thousand times clearer than mere words and gestures could ever convey.”
It took BC a moment to catch up to the end of the doctor’s speech—he stumbled on the term “coital orgasm,” then fell flat on “mother’s milk”—but when he thought he’d figured out what Leary was describing, he said, “Pardon me, Doctor. I was under the impression that your research was geared toward the creation of a—” He couldn’t bring himself to say “Manchurian candidate” out loud. “It sounds to me as though you’re referring to tele—tele —”
BC’s voice broke off, though his mouth hung open.
“Telepathy,” the doctor said, staring quizzically at BC’s slack-jawed face. “And yes, Agent, ah, what did you say your name—”
“Querrey,” BC said, completely forgetting the name he’d used a moment ago. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed audibly.
“Agent Querrey? Are you all right?”
“That depends. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
The doctor looked only at BC.
“Tell me.”
“The trees,” BC whispered.
“What about the trees?”
“They’re …
For the trunks of the pines had begun undulating like strands of seaweed. A small movement, to be sure, only a few inches in either direction, and so lugubrious that BC could almost hear the grain splintering along its fibrous length. A small, slow movement, almost imperceptible. But still. Trees. Rippling.
