“I’m a little nervous,” admits Brock as he stares fixedly at the white enclosure.
“Perfect,” replies Dmitri while attaching a final cable from a laptop computer to a port at the back of the pod.
Mirabelle observes quietly from a chair against a wall, leaning back casually with a lit cigarette held loosely in one hand.
“There has to be feeling in the request,” continues Dmitri as he stands up to face Brock. “If you’re bored, sleepy, distracted, you’re not gonna get a good result. That is, if you get one at all. Do you meditate?”
“No,” admits Brock. “Never appealed to me.”
“Shame,” remarks Dmitri, “but never mind. Since this is your first session you’ll only be taking this thing out for a test drive. Once we know how you react we can start training your neural net. For now you should concentrate on that request. Maybe some piece of information you want, or some material support, or some assistance you need. Use that jittery energy to piggyback it on.”
Brock considers the directions for a moment and finally replies, “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Focus on the request,” instructs Dmitri, “at the same time as that anxiety. Strong feelings are like the fuel. Don’t reject them or try to push them away.”
Brock does as advised and closes his eyes.
“Who’s after us? How did this all start?” he questions silently while mentally replaying the events of the past few weeks. A mixture of doubt and hope ripples its way across his nerves as he lands on some of the more exciting memories.
“Okay,” interrupts Dmitri after a few minutes, “let’s get you into the pod.”
Brock’s eyelids shoot open with mild a start. He follows Dmitri to the pod’s mesh recliner, steps into the enclosure, and slowly lowers himself into the seat.
“Comfortable?” asks Dmitri.
“Umm, yeah,” replies Brock after brief consideration. “So what do I do now?”
“Put on the headset and then do as little as possible,” says Dmitri with a smile. “Relax. Let go. Concentrate on the vibration. We’re going to be entraining your brainwaves to a deep sleep level so your biggest challenge will be staying awake.
“After that, try to say out loud what you’re experiencing but keep in mind to describe rather than name, use adjectives rather than nouns. Agency responses tend to be symbolic, representational, so don’t assume anything. Analysis happens later.”
“What kinds of response should I expect? What if it gets a little too intense?” quizzes Brock as he adjusts the headset.
“Expect anything,” answers Dmitri. “As for freaking out, it’s never happened but you can just push open the lid from inside. There’s good air flow in there, no latch, and even if you somehow get stuck inside the insulating panels will break if you push on them hard enough.”
“So just chill, wait to see what comes to me, and then describe it?” confirms Brock.
“Yeah. Ready?”
Brock nods and leans back.
Dmitri gently lowers the lid, plunging Brock into total blackness and absolute silence. For a few moments he sits there, taking in the experience. The mesh recliner is as comfortable as he remembers but this time he notices that the inside of the pod has a mild, almost undetectable scent, like a mix of lavender and pine.
Without any visual or auditory cues the tiny space might as well not have any internal dimensions. Brock extends one hand outward and, feeling the reassuringly warm tile on his fingertips, retracts his hand to its previous position.
Slowly the inky nothingness reaches over and enfolds him.
A deep vibration begins to build all around him. As it grows in intensity the low rumble reaches through his limbs and into his body, gently shaking every internal organ, benignly beating on his bones. It feels like the molecules in his head are losing cohesion, as though they’re being painlessly vapourized.
“This feels really fucked,” he manages to say through muddled sensations.
“Looks like that’ll be your upper limit,” responds Dmitri through the headset, his voice distorted by the low frequency in the pod. “I’ll back off the amplitude.”
Brock’s head almost immediately re-assembles itself. “Better,” he reports.
“Cool. Now don’t forget,” returns Dmitri, “relax and let it come to you. Describe, don’t name, and don’t leave anything out.”
With that Brock is plunged back into the pulsating void. The frequency is pleasant and he allows it to work its way through his physical structure. It begins to feel like it’s sifting him up and out of his dense, porous body, positioning him about a foot above it.
There he floats, enjoying the calm sensation of the omnipresent vibration. Even his thoughts become fuzzy and begin to decohere within the signal. Slowly, everything dissolves.
A timeless moment later he begins to perceive some sort of dim object far off in the distance. He studies it as it floats toward him, becoming larger and clearer.
“It … it looks like a photograph,” he says, somehow remembering both how to speak and what he’s supposed to say. “A rectangle. A plane. Four corners, Sharp. Some kind of geometric design or image on it.”
He pauses a moment as the image becomes larger and more defined.
“It’s a picture. A photo. The picture looks like a building, an office building,” continues Brock. “I know I’m supposed to describe but it’s so clear … it’s a photo of a building. Black and white. At the bottom is a cracked surface. It looks like a road. Above that is another horizontal patch with vertical dividers every so often. This looks like a sidewalk. There’s a vertical stick in it with a circle attached to it at the top. Looks like a something you’d lock your bike to.
“To the right of that there’s this horizontal strip in front with vertical lines at regular spaces. You can see through it. The strip seems to be attached to vertical columns. It’s exactly like a fence. At one point there’s something like a gate with two panels. This time there are diamond patterns on the panels, which are also see-through. At the top of this gate thing are three connected circles. Behind that is an open area that appears to have a kind of elevated section, like a platform. On the face of the building are many evenly-spaced rectangles which look like shiny windows. The ones on the right have inside panels pulled down at different heights, like sun shades.
“The windows facing me, above the courtyard, have three horizontal dividers and two vertical ones. Wait … those are just on the first floor. There seems to be some narrow horizontal divider, like a ledge. The next row of rectangles above that are smaller, by about a third, and have only two horizontal dividers. The next row up is pretty much the same. The left part of the building, next to the courtyard, is closer and in the picture the windows stop on the third floor.
“On the inner part, though, above the courtyard, there’s a design that sits between the windows. It looks like three squares, one within each other. The design is as wide as the window. The pattern repeats all the way to the top. In the corner, where the right and back part of the building join, is a long vertical strip with windows all the way down. They also have regularly spaced dividers but are much bigger. Through the glass are diagonal lines that look like a staircase. There are even what look like neon lights over doorways on each floor.
“At the bottom, about in the middle of the first row of windows, is a dark grey strip and below that another window with a thick white rectangle inside it. Inside of that is a small white rectangle. This one’s horizontal and it looks like it might be stuck there with a piece of sticky tape. Like a notice stuck to a window.”
Brock takes a moment to silently examine the image.
“On the right section of the building are two black boxes stuck to the wall. They’re about a quarter of the way up the windows, between the first and second, and third and fourth windows. They look like fixed lights for the courtyard. And on the left section of the building, about flush with the top of the right window, erm, rectangle is a small white protrusion that’s bent, like a goose neck, and ends in a shiny black ball. It looks a lot like a security camera. What else? Oh, the face of the building looks like large bricks. But they’re clean and smooth, like you’d find on government buildings or banks. The wall on the right that faces the courtyard looks like it could be poured concrete. Pretty sure this is an office of some kind.”
“You’re analyzing too much,” cuts in Dmitri, sending a mild shock through Brock’s system.
Instantly the image is lost.
Brock sits in the darkness for a moment trying hard to regain his relaxed focus. Instead he finds that he’s becoming increasingly agitated. Feeling the heat emanating from his head he remarks, “I don’t think I have anything else for today. Can we get me out of here?”
Within seconds the vibration ceases and the lid is opened. Brock tries hard to focus on Dmitri’s features as they hover over him but his perceptions are still synchronized to the pod’s frequency. As he moves closer to Brock, waves of distortion wash over Dmitri’s face like interlocking ripples on a pond.
“Give me your hand,” Dmitri instructs Brock, his voice choppy as thought it’s coming through rotating helicopter blades. Even Dmitri’s palm seems to be pulsating as Brock extends his own to grasp it.
In a few moments Brock is up and on his feet, though barely. The distortion in his ear isn’t limited to just sound and he finds himself tilting unsteadily. As he stumbles around, Dmitri rushes in behind him with a collapsible chair and guides him into it.
Sitting slowly and unsteadily on the small chair, Brock recalls Rebekah’s after-pod technique and allows his head to hang down while cradling it with his hands. He sits like this and stares at a single point on the floor as his perceptions slowly steady.
A minute or so later Brock feels centered enough to sit back up and take a deep breath.
“Kicks like a mule,” he professes through a weak smile.
“Your descriptions were a little more…” notes Dmitri, pausing to consider his words, “concrete than we’d like but for your first session you did pretty good. How was it in the pod? What was the experience like?”
Brock considers his questions for a moment and then responds, “I kinda felt like I left my body, like I was floating. But overall it was nice. Relaxing.”
“Sounds about right,” says Dmitri with a smile.
Recalling that Mirabelle was in the room, Brock spins around to see if she’s still there.
He’s met with a pouting nod of approval as she slowly gets to her feet. “It sound like maybe pod will ‘ave good use for you,” she posits as she glides toward the door.
Unplugging the cables from the back of the pod Dmitri suggests, “I’m gonna break this down and then head up to the deck. You go on ahead if you want.”
Uncertain, Brock swivels his head between the door and Dmitri.
“We can review how to put it back together and operate it later. It’s not that complicated,” assures Dmitri, his back to Brock as he focuses on the dismantling process.
Brock decides at last to follow Mirabelle back to the deck while pondering the meaning of the crystal clear photo.
“Hmm,” concludes Dmitri to himself inscrutably.