He returned with another data cube, one he'd dug out of a box by the door. Louise wondered what kind of filing system he kept.
"Prepare to be amazed," he said, loading the cube.
A half life-size image of Nick lying on a bed materialised in mid-air.
"That's me," he said. "Five months ago."
She recognised the bed. It was the one pushed up against the far wall.
"Now, watch as I strip away my ruggedly handsome features."
First the bed then Nick's body peeled away—feet first—until all that was left was his brain. It flickered for an instant then jumped to twice life-size.
"Ready?" he asked, once more resembling a stage magician. A stage magician poised to present his showstopper.
"Should I get the popcorn?" she asked.
"Only if you want to miss the most amazing thing you'll ever see."
He pressed the remote and the image vanished to be replaced by nine smaller images in a three by three grid.
"Come closer," he said, beckoning her forward. "You can't afford to miss a thing. All these are different views of my brain. The one in the centre is the purely physical representation, top right is purely upper dimensional—the abc image—and those others are a mix of higher and physical axes—note the fracture lines."
Louise dutifully did.
"Now, I'm going to fast forward in time—let's not forget the ubiquitous fourth dimension—until . . ." He paused, his eyes riveted to a display panel on one of the control boxes. "Now!"
He pressed the remote and sat back on his heels. "Watch this. You'll be amazed."
Nine stationary objects floated in the ether. Some were the size of a large cauliflower others smaller, all were bizarre. Even the physical brain—the more she looked at it. What a weird collection of twists and folds.
Louise blinked. Was that movement? The one at the top right, the chunk of blue coral. Did one of its tips move?
It did. And again. The whole structure seemed to shudder. But the physical brain hadn't moved an inch. She looked at Nick. He smiled back.
"Astounding, isn't it?"
"How are you doing that?" she asked. "Are there muscles that cross into the higher dimensions?"
He didn't answer. Only smiled and pointed to the image. There was more to come.
The blue coral appeared to stretch, the appendages elongating. And the other images too. The movement barely perceptible, a shimmer, a slight ripple along the surface. Only the physical brain remained stock-still.
Louise watched, fascinated, what was going to happen next?
There was a sudden shudder—across all the blue images—every surface rippling and then . . . movement. Each image stretching and elongating just as the coral had and . . .
Louise's mouth opened in surprise. The dark fracture lines were widening. The basal areas remained stationary while the rest of the image pulled away, maybe as much as an inch, two inches.
Louise leaned in closer, lowering and tilting her head to peer through the crack of the nearest image. It had almost split in two. The upper portion pulling away but still connected by a thread. The thread distorting under the pressure, looking like a piece of elastic pulled close to its limits. It had to be seven, nearly eight inches long now. The other images showed a similar deflection. Nick's brain was being pulled apart at the higher dimensional level.
She threw a glance in his direction. Had it hurt? Had it . . .
Another shudder. She caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. The blue images were wobbling just like the bubbles of detergent she'd loved blowing as a child. Then they snapped back. Every image restored to how they had first appeared.
"Well?" said Nick, switching the display off. "What do you think of that?"
"What was it?"
"You mean besides history in the making?" He paused. Something that Louise had begun to recognise as his customary pause after a rhetorical question. "That was my attempt to prove a theory," he continued. 'And a good attempt too. Did you see the degree of separation I achieved?"
She had but what did it mean? "Separation?" she asked.
"Of mind and body. Weren't you watching?"
Alarm bells went off in Louise's head. Separation of mind and body? Was Nick about to say he'd just filmed his soul? She started to shake her head. Religion had no place in her life. Religion, God, souls. They were anathema. If there was a God why did He look the other way when her mother got sick? When she was wasting away in front of everyone's eyes? When she died?
And if He hadn't looked the other way—if He'd watched—that was no God she wanted to know.
"That was not a soul," she said, jabbing a finger at the empty space where the image had been.
"A soul is only a name . . ."
"No, it's not. It's a belief. You'll have every zealot using it as an excuse to get creationism back on the curriculum. Don't you remember the chaos that caused?"
"Okay," he said, raising his hands in attempt to calm her down. "Don't worry, I'm the last person who wants to go public with this. Not until I fully understand it. And at the moment I see two possibilities neither of which involves a deity."
She calmed down. "You do?"
"The way I see it it's one of two things. Something from the past or a glimpse of the future."
She was puzzled. "How do you mean?"
"Well, think back in evolutionary history to the birth of consciousness. Now, could that have come about because of a chance meeting millions of years ago? Two beings—one physical, one higher dimensional—combining together in a symbiotic relationship to produce the hybrid we know today? The higher dimensional component bringing consciousness and an increased potential for learning. The physical being bringing all the wonders of sensation—sight, sound, taste, smell and touch."
Louise was sceptical. "How would it breed? How could you transfer the higher dimensional component into future generations?"
Nick shrugged. "I haven't worked out the detail yet. But if it happened far enough back in the evolutionary process maybe the higher dimensional component fused with the corporeal being. Maybe it was that spark that brought life to our planet all those billions of years ago. Maybe our bodies are more like shells that the higher dimensional component animates and the fracture that I showed you is the vestigial join between two ancient entities."
"What's your second theory?"
"That we're on the verge of an evolutionary quantum shift."
She looked at him. He appeared deadly serious.
"What kind of evolutionary quantum shift?"
"Ascension."
She wasn't sure if she'd heard correctly. "Ascension?"
"Our next evolutionary step. Discarding our corporeal form. Not in this generation, maybe nor for several generations. But the mechanics are being put in place."
"Who by? God?"
"No, by random chance. All we need is that evolutionary push. The same motivation that whispered in the amphibian's ear—nice legs, now how about trying them out up there?"
"You think the human race is about to fly off into hyperspace?"
"I think a lot of things. One being that with the right motivation we can do anything. If the planet became uninhabitable—nuclear catastrophe, climatic meltdown, you name it—and I had the option of dying or flying, I know which I'd choose."
She didn't know what to say. It was all so . . . unreal and yet she'd seen the images.
"And it's already happening," continued Nick. "Think of Near Death Experiences. What's that but a natural stress reaction? A precursor, if you want, of evolution's tap on the shoulder."
"I thought NDE was brought about by anaesthetics."
"That's the bright white light. Distortion of the visual cortex. What I'm talking about are the cases where a person finds him or herself floating above their body, looking down at the scene. There've been hundreds of accredited cases. Several where a patient was unconscious, their eyes closed, and yet they could recount everything that had happened around them—the conversations, what people were wearing, even the bald patch on a doctor as tall as a basketball player. They were up there," he pointed to the ceiling, "looking down the whole time."
"Is that what you were trying to do? To move your mind to the ceiling?"
He nodded. "And it almost worked didn't it? You saw how much it moved."
"But it didn't separate. You only shifted what . . . eight inches?"
He shrugged. "It was an early attempt. With practice I know I could do it. A little self-hypnosis maybe?"
"Why would you even want . . ."
A light bulb blazed into life inside Louise's brain. He wasn't? He was. She could see it etched in every contour of his face.
"You're going to fly to Upper Heywood?"
He smiled. "And I won't be knocking on any doors."
She still didn't appear to understand. He'd explained the position he was in. On the run—from the police and a crazed serial killer—with only one person believing in him—Louise—and even she was having second thoughts. What else could he do? He had to prove to her that Pendennis had escaped.
Okay, so perhaps there was an element of the untried and the experimental about his suggested approach but didn't she see the elegance, the potential, of what he was proposing? If it worked he'd be able to see and hear everything going on around him, to by-pass security, locked doors. He'd be able to search every cell and listen to every conversation. If Pendennis was missing, he'd find out. And then track down whoever was in charge and listen to whatever they had to say. A high-profile prisoner like Pendennis going missing was bound to generate a lot of audio traffic.
That had to make more sense than phoning Ziegler and trying to shame him into telling the truth. The man's job would be on the line. He wouldn't say a word.
"But it's a 130 miles to Oxford! You can't even fly eight inches."
"I didn't have the motivation then. I saw the images of my brain stretching on the HV and panicked. Now I'm motivated. Believe me."
Back and forth the argument raged. Yes, there were risks but what choice did he have? Give himself up and put his trust in the justice system? With all that evidence against him and a deranged killer ready to manufacture more?
Or stay in hiding? How long would that last? Two days? Three? Certainly not a week. Louise was on the verge of walking out already. She'd be climbing the walls by next week. And he had a career, a vocation. He couldn't drop out forever and devote his life to something else. He had to clear himself now. Take the initiative and prove Pendennis's guilt.
"But what if it doesn't work? What if that elastic thing snaps and you can't find your way back?"
"Look, Lou, I'm not insane. I'm not intending to fly to Oxford on my first trip. I'll test everything thoroughly first. A trip to the ceiling and back to make sure I can re-connect. And I expect that membrane or whatever it is to snap. There's no way it could reach the ceiling. And when it does break it'll make subsequent separation easier."
"You don't know that!"
"I can infer it! Thousands of people have had Near Death Experiences. And thousands more have experienced out-of-body flight. I'm not inventing anything new. I'm just bringing the light of science into a long neglected corner of our understanding."
And taking a sledgehammer to a centuries old wall of scientific dogma. If it doesn't accord with our understanding of the world it cannot be true.
Well, sometimes it could, even if shifting opinion was like trying to turn an ocean tanker with a rowing boat.
"Look, let's agree to differ for the moment," said Nick. "Don't you want to see Pendennis's scans?"
He retrieved the new Pendennis file and fed it into the simulation matrix.
"Watch this," he said, turning his head to speak to Louise. "Look for fractures."
And count them. He crossed his fingers. Thirteen fractures were what he was looking for. One along the physical boundary and one for every personality. Wouldn't that be amazing? The first ever clinical test for MPD. An incontrovertible proof!
And maybe an explanation for Peter's new-found memories of John Bruce. A chunk of higher dimensional matter adhered unconformably to Pendennis's brain. A chunk that he could map back to a missing portion from John Bruce—if NASA ever forwarded that brain scan he'd requested.
Pendennis appeared—half life-size—recumbent in his chair.
"I'll strip the chair away in a minute but look at this first."
He tapped at the presets, switched out the z axis and brought in the c. A blue image appeared, recognisably Pendennis and the chair but different, looking like a corroded statue after centuries on the sea bed, the shape distorted by decay and accretion.
"See how the chair itself—both the metal and the fabric—protrudes into the higher dimensions. Not much, but enough to give it substance and shape. The same for Pendennis's body."
His eyes raced towards the head. He could make out the boundary fracture but was that another? He leaned closer and peered. Difficult to make out at this resolution.
He hurried on to the next preset. Switched out the c axis and replaced it with the e. The chair disappeared. So did the body.
"This is the e axis. See how it's only the brain that exists here. If I wanted to pass through a wall all I'd need do is shift a few centimetres, maybe as little as a few molecules, along the e axis and there wouldn't be a wall to stop me."
Louise didn't answer. Her mouth was set and her eyes told him to get on with it.
He turned back to the image, re-centred it on the brain and ramped it up to twice life-size. There was more than one fracture but . . .
He rotated the image. The fracture wasn't complete. It was about six inches long on one side with nothing corresponding on the other. He flipped between the dimensions, swapping axes in and out. Similar results. Pendennis's brain was crazed with cracks but only one—along the dimension boundary—penetrated all the way through the structure.
Was he viewing the image correctly? Was there something he wasn't seeing?
Images flashed and morphed. Pendennis's brain was incredible. Wild, distorted, ruptured, lacerated. And looking more closely were some of those cracks almost complete? Not slicing though the structure to the other side but looking like the crack you'd get if you removed a chip from a piece of knapped flint and stuck it back together again.
Or pressed a piece of gum onto the surface of a bowl.
He strained to make sense of the images, increased the magnification. Did it look like Pendennis's brain had grown through accretion or by being teased apart? If only there was a mechanism for weighing higher dimensional matter or probing inside—some kind of higher dimensional ultra-sound that he could use to map the fractures and discover their depth and extent.
But there wasn't. This was as far as the technology had developed.
"What does it show?" asked Louise.
God knows, thought Nick. Those cracks could be minor rips or the mouths of large pockets. Large pockets containing chunks of discarded memory or personality that had been sucked inside and absorbed. Or they could be healing fractures, the last outward signs of a personality ripped into thirteen pieces and now slowly growing back together. Who could tell?
Without dissecting Pendennis's brain.
Late afternoon passed into evening. They ate, they talked, they surfed the holovision. And planned. It was dark outside, too dark for a debut out-of-body flight across the countryside but that didn't mean he couldn't practise. He dragged the bed out of the corner and placed imagers on either side. If he fed the imager data direct into the HV he could use biofeedback to help him separate.
"You're mad," said Louise.
"I'm desperate," corrected Nick.
He felt like a boxer who'd walked into two right hands before he'd even known he was in a fight. Now his head was clearing and he was out to prove to Pendennis and the police that he was both faster and smarter. The higher dimensions would be his edge. And he was going to use every inch.
He lay there, legs out straight, fingers laced across his stomach, eyes staring up at the holo-image he'd beamed above the bed. His brain stared back at him from the ceiling. A profile shot showing the fracture line along the boundary divide. All he had to do was concentrate, imagine the crack widening and think it into happening.
Minutes passed. He concentrated. He imagined. He tried to suck the ceiling towards him. Nothing. Not even a wobble. He closed his eyes, tried to float, tried to fill his mind with thoughts of weightlessness. He was a feather, a bubble of air, a floating spaceman.
He cracked open an eye. His brain stared back. The crack nothing more than a wafer-thin line.
"It's not working," said Louise.
He ignored her and tried harder. He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated, pushed with his mind, strained. More minutes passed. Time meaningless in the struggle to break free. Pain. A pain behind his eyes. Was it concentration or something else? The membrane about to snap?
Panic. Suppressed but growing. What if the membrane wasn't meant to be broken? What if all those NDEs came from people who didn't have membranes? People who were genetically disposed to separate? People not like him? People ready to ascend?
More panic. Not only was he in danger but now he was defective. A Neanderthal trying to pass himself off as Homo Superior. Soon to be a comatose Neanderthal with mind and body irreparably cleft in two.
He opened his eyes, sweat beading his forehead. The image of his brain still sitting above him, the crack still wafer-thin.
He turned his head towards Louise. "Well?" he asked. "Did anything happen?"
She shook her head. "Some rapid eye movement but that was all. The image didn't change."
He tried again and again, failing every time. Perhaps the conditions weren't right. Perhaps he was trying too hard. Or it was the presence of Louise and all her negative energy. He could feel her, sitting on the edge of that box, looking as though she was about to pounce on him and drag his mind back to earth the moment it started to break free.
He'd try again tomorrow.