The Fifth Profession

wouldn't detect them. You admit you were given Demerol. It affects one's sense of reality.”

“Certainly,” Rachel said. “And of course I wasn't there. I didn't experience their pain. I grant I'm fond of these two men. We've been through a lot together. But I'm not a fool, and of the three of us, I'm the one with the best claim to be objective. My friends have not been reinforcing each other's delusions.”

“Well, of course you've heard of the Stockholm principle,” Weinberg said. “People under stress tend to identify with those they depend on for their safety.”

“And of course you've heard of the ostrich principle,” Rachel said. “A psychiatrist who puts his head in the sand because he can't acknowledge a problem he's never heard of before.”

Weinberg leaned forward, scowled, and abruptly laughed.

“You were right,” he told Santizo. “This is amusing.”

“You're sublimating, Max. Admit it. She made you angry”

“Only hypothetically.”

Now Santizo laughed. “Hey, of course. Let's write a hypothetical article. About the phenomenon of being hypothetically angry.”

“What's going on?” Savage asked.

Santizo stopped laughing. “A test. To determine if you were cranks. I had no choice. And Max is wonderful. A gifted man with a marvelous mind and a talent for acting.”

“I wasn't acting,” Weinberg said. “What I've heard is so bewildering I want to hear more.”

Someone knocked on the door.

Santizo pivoted. “Come.”

A secretary, who'd brought in the teacups, now brought a large brown folder.

“The MRIs.” Santizo stood.

Two minutes later, he turned from the films. “Thanks, Max. I'll take it from here.” “You're sure?”

“Yes. I owe you a dinner.” Santizo faced the MRIs. “But the problem's back to me. Because psychiatry won't explain this.”

4

Savage stood next to Akira and Rachel, studying the dusky films. Each had twelve images, arranged in four rows and three columns. They made little sense to him, harder to read than the earlier single-image X rays.

“Beautiful,” Santizo said. “I couldn't ask for clearer pictures.”

“You could have fooled me,”Akira said. “They look like ink blots.”

Santizo chuckled. “I can see where you'd get that impression.” He studied the films again. “That's why, to help you understand, I have to begin with some basics, though I'm afraid the basics will still sound technical…An MRI scan is an advanced technique of photography, based on magnetic resonance, that allows us to see past your skull and into your brain. It used to be that the only way we could get pictures of your brain was with a CAT scan. But a CAT scan isn't detailed enough, whereas these are the next best thing to actually opening up your skull and having a look. We take so many pictures from so many different angles, the combined result provides the illusion of 3-D.”

“But what have you learned?” Akira asked.

“Just bear with me a little longer,” Santizo said. “The brain has many parts.” He gestured toward portions of the MRIs. “The right hemisphere. The left hemisphere. Paradoxically the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, and vice versa. Our ability to think spatially comes from the right hemisphere, our verbal skills from the left. The hemispheres are divided into parts. The frontal lobe. The parietal lobe. The occipital lobe. The temporal lobe. And these in turn contain numerous subparts. The visual cortex. The olfactory tract. The somatic sensory area. The pituitary gland. Et cetera. What makes this awesomely complex organ work is the presence of billions of interconnecting nerves that transmit energy and information. These nerves are called neurons. They're analogous to electrical wires and telephone cables, but that's a simplification. No analogy can truly describe them… By the way, have you ever had epilepsy?”

The question was so unexpected that Savage blinked.

“Epilepsy? No. Why? What makes you ask?”

“I'm trying to account for something.” Santizo pointed toward a dark speck on a light portion of one of the images. The speck was on the left, near the middle. “This is a view of your brain from the rear. That speck is in your mesial temporal lobe-the amygdala hippocampal area. It's in line with the plug of bone that was taken out and then replaced in your skull.”

Savage felt as if he'd swallowed ice. “Speck? Jesus, what-?”

“A lesion. That's why I asked about epilepsy. An abnormality in this area sometimes causes that condition.”

“You're telling me something's growing in my brain?”

“No.” Santizo turned to Akira, then pointed toward another film. “There's an identical speck in the same area of your brain. The coincidence leads me to conclude that whatever it is, it's not a growth.”

“What is it then?” Akira asked.

“An educated guess? Scar tissue. From whatever was done to your brain.”

5

Savage listened in shock as Santizo returned to his desk. “More basics,” Santizo said. “First rule. Eliminate the obvious. The purpose for the operation performed on each of you was not to excise a tumor. That type of surgery requires a major invasion of the brain. Hence a major portion of the skull would have to be removed.”

“But not,” Rachel said, “a five-millimeter plug of bone.”

“Correct. The only reason to create so small an access to the brain would be”-Santizo debated-“to allow an electrode to be inserted.”

“Why?” Savage had trouble breathing.

“Assuming familiar but serious circumstances? Many reasons. I mentioned epilepsy. An electrode inserted into the brain can measure electrical impulses from various clusters of neurons. In an epileptic, different levels of the brain transmit normal and nonnormal current. If we can determine the source of the nonnormal current, we can operate in a specific location to try to correct the abnormality.”

“But we're not epileptics,” Savage said.

“I was offering an example,” Santizo said. “I'll give you another. A patient with impairments of sight or hearing or smell-impairments due to the brain and not external receptors-can sometimes have their impairments corrected if internal receptors, those in the brain, are stimulated by electrodes.”

“But we can see and hear and smell,” Akira said.

“And yet you think you saw each other die. You can't find a hotel where you were beaten. Or a hospital where you were treated. Or a doctor who supervised your case. Someone has interfered with your brain functions. Specifically your ability to…”

“Remember,” Savage said.

“Or more interesting, has someone caused you to remember what never happened? Jamais vu.The phrase you invented is fascinating.”

“To remember what never happened? I didn't mean it literally. I never believed…”

“I can take you down to Pathology,” Santizo said. “I can dissect a corpse's brain and show you each component. I can tell you why you see and hear, why you taste, touch, and smell, why you feel pain-though the brain itself cannot feel pain. But what I can't do is show you a thought. And I certainly can't find a specific site in your brain that enables you to remember. I've been doing research on memory for the