Chapter 15

  SIZZLE

  He was back in lab MCB432. The familiar surroundings comforted him. Alex, Beta and Chaz busied themselves at their desks, their backs to the box’s framework in the center of the room.

  Alex cleared his throat. ”OK. I have revised the boilerplate protocols to fit our project. It's 50 pages of blah blah blah, just exactly what Tilly would want to see. Since we don't know what's going on or why it works, I think we're going to have to publish our observations. In the meantime, I've identified 23 experiments that we can run with the Kelton field engaged but nothing inside the box. That should satisfy Tilly and the review board. The experiments will provide more data to the international community so we can develop some theories of operation.”

  “Doctor Kelton wanted us to keep this among ourselves. He wanted to avoid a media circus.” Beta protested.

  “It doesn't matter what Deke wanted. Not anymore. He’s off the project. Let’s find out what the community has to say. ” Chaz concluded.

  “Deke, now is it?” Jacob's sniggering voice came from behind the coat rack. “I didn’t know you were on a first-name basis with the staff. I think your big buddy here is getting a little full of himself.” He put his face right in front of Chaz’s, ”Ain’t that right, Mr. High and Mighty?”

  Chaz brushed his face and shifted in his chair.

  “I came in here to get away from you,” Kelton told Jacob.

  “How’d that work for you?” Jacob paused to wait for a response from Kelton that didn't come. “I got news for you, bud. You're gonna be seeing me around a lot. I’ve been working this gig quite a while and it suddenly got a lot more interesting. I usually like to spend my time in war zones, around criminals and murderers, any place where there's some excitement and drama. But this one, this gig, has some pathos. This whole thing here is heating up nicely.” He spread his arms slowly, his gesture taking in the box, the lab, the protocols, the letter to the board, and even to the administrative offices, “I'm gonna stick around for the fireworks. This could be huge!”

  Deke paced around the lab, looking at the work each of the team was doing. The snooping made him uncomfortable, but he couldn’t come up with any other plan to keep in touch with the research. He kept right on reading over their shoulders. Alex was right. It was just a lot of blah, blah, blah. The plan the team had laid out at Tilly’s request was busy work, but it was guaranteed to stretch out the development cycle by months or even years.

  Kelton wanted to see what Jillian was doing, to see her, and to hear her voice, but he definitely didn’t want to lead Jacob back to Jillian. Deke would be happy if Jacob and Jillian never crossed paths. A terrible thought struck him. Can Jacob hear my thoughts? Did I just lead him to Jillian? He watched Jacob closely. Jacob was leaning over Chaz, whispering furiously in his ear. Kelton saw no reaction to his thoughts. He needed to understand this situation better.

  SIZZLE

  Kelton found Cohen on the couch in Tilly’s office. Tilly was nowhere in sight. “Can you help me understand the rules, how things work here?”

  Cohen tucked his head and looked past his eyebrows at Kelton. “What little I know, I am happy to share. Mostly I know that I know very little. What do you want to know?”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kelton related his terror at the idea that Jacob could read his thoughts.

  Cohen nodded. “This, this, is an interesting question. The short answer is no. I don’t think Jacob can read your thoughts. You may be interested in my longer theory. It’s one I have given much thought to.”

  “Right now, I have a lot of time on my hands, with no place to go. Tell me. When will I ever have a chance to learn like this again?”

  “First-principles first. What do you see?”

  “I see the world as I used to, but very dimly. Everything seems to be lit by its own dim light source. It takes a lot of effort to tell if a lamp is lit or not.”

  “Exactly. I don’t think you are seeing reflected photons. How could you? You have no photon receptors-no rods or cones in your eyes.”

  “So what am I seeing?”

  “I believe that everything is projecting its image, for lack of a better term, psychically. We have the ability to receive that psychic projection. The more intelligent the object, the brighter it appears. You may have noticed your ability to illuminate other objects the closer you got to them. I still don’t have a theory why that works, but it seems to be the case.”

  Cohen put his hand behind Kelton’s head. “Don’t turn your head. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “You want me to guess?”

  “No, I want you to see my hand. You are still seeing things the way you are used to seeing them. Looking out of your eyes. Nudnik, you may not have noticed it yet, but your vision extends 360 degrees in all axes.”

  Kelton tried this thought on. It was true. He could focus on single objects, but peripheral vision was completely unlimited. “Three fingers!”

  “Gevaldig! You are catching on. You are seeing what I am projecting.”

  “In my theory, every atom, every particle projects what it is in all directions. Light and optics have nothing to do with what you see now. It is your intellect, whatever part of you that is you, not your eyes, that receives the projections. It is your intellect that projects how you want to be seen, how you see yourself, to those around you. You are projecting to me your mental image of yourself. Fortunately, your image of yourself includes clothing!” Cohen chuckled. “As a mensch, you are different from the inanimate objects. Although you have no atoms projecting their presence, your consciousness somehow projects itself. You are using the same strategies for communication you learned in your body. You want to talk to me like you are speaking using your lips and mouth and vocal chords, all working together. Your intent is for me to hear you, so I hear you. If you want to think I am meshuga, you keep it to yourself; it stays in your head- as though you had a head.”

  “So, I could alter my appearance like Jacob did when we first met just by thinking about it?”

  “Crawl before you walk, my boy.”

  “So, to be clear, I can think things, and they stay private?”

  “Your thoughts are your own,” said Cohen. “I have no experience and seen no evidence otherwise, but it is a very large universe. Anything that can happen…”

  A knock came at the door. When there was no answer, the door opened slightly. “Dr Tilly?” It was Chaz at the door. The door swung open, and Chaz entered the room carrying a stack of papers. He looked around the room, admired the plaques and diplomas on the wall, and walked around the desk. He placed the stack of papers centrally in the workspace. “Dr. Tilly will see these the first thing when he walks into his office.” Chaz looked around furtively as though looking for a security camera. He sat down in Tilly’s oversized office chair. The chair was set low, so Chaz’s knees extended almost to the desktop. He swiveled back and forth. He picked his nose, rooted around with his finger inserted almost to the second knuckle, sighed with satisfaction, and threw the booger on the floor.

  Cohen and Kelton watched the performance with gritted teeth. They struggled for a few seconds, and then both burst out in embarrassed laughter. “When you get out of the box, my friend,” Cohen chortled, “Always remember, you might not be alone!”

  A noise came from the hallway; Chaz jumped up, straightened the chair, and quickly left the room.

  Kelton walked to the desk and leaned over the papers. He read the cover page out loud. “Protocol Registry and Project Timeline for Undefined Field Research.”

  “Nu? I think your team is giving conflicting signals.”

  “I’m going to check in on them,” said Kelton.