Triggers

Singh went on. “Ions with like charges repel each other, and when a bunch of neighboring neurons release a bunch of similarly charged ions, they all push each other away, creating a physical wave—an undulation—in the material of the brain, which has the consistency of pudding. EEGs measure those actual waves bumping against the skull.”

“Oh.”

“So, you see, there’s no way to read brain waves across a large spatial gap.”

“Your mother’s name is Gurneet and your father’s is Manveer.”

Singh tipped his head in a small sign of concession. “I admit I have no explanation for your knowing that.”

“So, I’m what, six feet from you?”

“About two meters, yes.”

“And this square-inverse law you mentioned—”

“Inverse-square.”

“If I went to the far end of the building, the signal should drop off to almost nothing, right?”

“The building is—I don’t know—a hundred meters on its longest side perhaps. So, yes, if we were as far apart as we could get in this building, the signal strength would be one over one hundred squared, or one one-ten-thousandth as strong, assuming there is a signal, and assuming it is broadcast in all directions.”

“What if it isn’t? What if the linkage is just that—a link, like, you know, a line drawn between you and me?”

Singh stood up and spun in a circle. “And did the link maintain itself during that? What mechanism would there be to keep a beam focused from my head to yours, or from yours to Private Adams’s? It’s inconceivable.”

“All right. Still, let’s test it. I’m going to go as far from you as I can without leaving the building, and we’ll see if the signal, um…attenuates? Is that the right word?”

“Yes.”

Susan left the lab and headed down the long corridor, passing patients on gurneys, doctors, nurses, and other people—several of whom tried to question her about how much longer the lockdown was going to last. She made it to the far end of the building as quickly as she could—and then, for good measure, she entered the stairwell and headed up to the sixth floor, which was the highest level.

She found a janitor there in a blue uniform, pushing a mop. “You!” Susan said, pointing at him. “Name a topic.”

“Excuse me?”

“A topic—something, anything—to think about.”

“Ma’am?”

“Oh, come on, man! It’s not that hard a question. Any topic.”

“Umm, like, um, baseball, do you mean?”

“Baseball! Fine. Thank you!” And then she turned her back on the no-doubt-bewildered man, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the first time she’d ever seen a baseball game live, and…

And a memory of her father taking her to Dodger Stadium came to her. She’d spilled her Pepsi all over him, and he’d laughed it off and squirted water at her. She shook her head, clearing her own memory, and tried to summon another, and—

And she was watching the Toronto Blue Jays play, and from a private box, something she herself had never done.

More details: others in the booth. Sikhs, remembered not because they were Sikhs but because the colors of their individual turbans had been noted; Sue had previously had no idea that such choices were individual fashion statements. A party, a celebration of…of…

Ah, yes. Of Ranjip’s brother’s eighteenth birthday, which—yes—had actually been the day before, but there’d been no game that day. A wonderful memory, a happy memory—and no sense at all that it was more difficult to access or recall than Singh’s memories had been when they’d been much closer together. She didn’t have to strain, didn’t have to cock an ear as if listening to something faint, didn’t have to do anything differently. It just came to her when she thought about it, as easily as when she’d been right next to Singh.

She headed along the sixth-floor corridor until she got to the stairwell near the elevator station, then went down to three.

Professor Singh was still in his lab. “The first baseball game you saw live was in Toronto, wasn’t it?” asked Susan. “For your brother’s eighteenth birthday? Your dad rented a private box at the SkyDome.”

Singh nodded. “Although they don’t call it that anymore. It’s the Rogers Centre now.”

“You remember it as the SkyDome.”

“No doubt.” He blinked. “So you had no trouble reading my memories, even from far away?”

“None.”

“I don’t understand that. There should have been attenuation, unless…”

“Yes?”

He swiveled his chair, turning his back on his computer. “It’s…no. No, it can’t be that.”

“What?”

Singh thought for a moment, then, seemingly out of the blue, said, “Do you ever watch Saturday Night Live?”

“Not since I was a teenager.”

“Remember when Mike Myers used to be on? He’d play a Jewish woman named Linda Richman, who had a call-in talk show. When she got emotional, she’d put her hand on her chest, and say, ‘I’m all verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic.’ And then she’d say something like, ‘The Civil War was neither civil nor a war—discuss.’ ”

“No, I don’t remember that. Oh, wait—um, yes, now I do.”

Singh smiled. “Exactly.”