"There.  That should feel better."

The doctor, having finished adjusting the mesh cap with electrodes stretched across Naas's head, stepped back, and the light flashed directly in his eyes again.  He blinked but didn't look away.  He couldn't have done so even if he had tried.  The chair he was seated in, which was reclined, was fitted with a padded head rest that circled around the back of his neck and rose up on both sides to form "wings."  They held his head in place, eyes forward--gently, but absolutely.

"We're almost ready now."

The doctor was busy preparing something out of Naas's vision, off to the left.  He rushed around, fussing over his work.  There was a mildly reassuring aspect to his obssessiveness.  At least he cared.

In the chair beside Naas, Andrea was resting in the same position.  They were in the lecture hall, on the dais.  Except for the spotlight overhead, the lights were turned almost all the way down.  The seats in the gallery were empty; as the doctor had said, they were to be left alone.

"One more adjustment...," Tarnovsky whispered, mostly to himself.  He was out of Naas's view now, but he knew what was going on.  The doctor had showed them before strapping them in.

On a small round table behind and between the chairs there was an assortment of tools: a mirrored tray, several large needles, a packet containing medicated wipes.  And a brushed stainless steel cannister with a complicated black lid.  There was a symbol on the side:

And below this it said, "Do Not Cross-Contaminate."

Naas, for the life of him, could not think who would make this mistake.  Then he remembered that this substance would soon be coursing through his veins.  He breathed deeply.

"Now--" the doctor reappeared, standing over Naas.  "As I've said, there are no known side effects, except for the telepathy of course.  Despite the radioactive isotopes from the terridium, it leaves no after-trace.  Although I would not go through security for a week!"

The attempt at humor got no response from the two test subjects.

"Anyway.  We will begin shortly.  I'll be able to watch your readouts with this."  He took a handheld device from his pocket.  "A more complete set of data will be fed into the computer upstairs.  It's best to think about everyday things, the effect will be sudden and total.  You'll know when it kicks in.  Believe me."

Naas thought the doctor seemed more animated than he'd ever seen him.  In his briefing of himself and Andrea that morning, he had emphasized how going into the experience with an open, relaxed mind would help--somewhat.

"...It's all in the head," he'd joked with them, standing in front of a chart showing the respondents' reactions, by percentile, up to that point.  Disorienting and Euphoric were near the top of the scale.  "Really, I mean, that's where reality is anyway, isn't it, in our heads?  This is just an extreme example of the same thing.  It's an extreme way of seeing reality."

There was a loud snap and a hiss as air escaped from a pressurized container.  This was cut off after a moment.  Naas strained his eyes to his side to see if he could catch a glimpse of Andrea, but the padding blocked his view.  He could just see her feet if he looked down.

"Please, no movement."

The doctor's voice was intense with concentration now. 

"I have the serum...and...there.  We're ready.  Now, I'll inject Andrea first."  The doctor stepped between them, partially blocking the light.  "Are you ready?"

Naas heard Andrea murmur her assent.

"Alright."  The doctor was bending over.  He was swabbing Andrea's arm.  He discarded the used wipe on the floor.  "Now.  This will prick a little."

There was a sharp intake of breath.  The doctor remained motionless for several heartbeats.  Then he said, "O.K.  That's over with."  He stood up and returned to the table to draw another dose. 

"And Mr Naas..."

The doctor came into view, the needle in one hand, a fresh wipe in the other.  Naas glanced down at his exposed arm.  The doctor, quickly, deftly, swabbed a patch of skin about four inches wide and six inches long, just below and above the main vein inside his elbow.  It was cool, a whiff of alcohol reaching Naas's nostrils.  "And again," the doctor said, inclining his head and looking at Naas with a calm, steady gaze, "this will prick a little."

The needle slid in easily.  The substance, a dull yellow liquid--it did look a little like a thick soupy broth--disappeared into him.  Naas didn't move or make a sound.

"Excellent."

The doctor stepped back, the spent i.v. still in one hand, and regarded them both from a position at their feet.

"The effects take about fifteen minutes to peak.  Rest.  And try to think about everyday things."

Sunshine...

Space...

The river...

The three-quarters moon...

Naas was standing in a hallway.  Only it wasn't in the institute.  It wasn't even a hallway he recognized--a long, narrow space with three doors set at regular intervals along the left side, white walls, the doors painted a dark color, brown perhaps, all shut--but he knew it somehow.  It was familiar...in a distant way.  Like a memory, only wrong.

There were noises coming from the nearest door.  Someone was shouting.

"Are you going to do it?  Are you?  Are you?  Girl!"

The door opened and a little girl, about five or six, flew into the hall.  She was fleeing, running so hard that she smacked flat against the wall opposite the door, righted herself, and tried to turn to get away.  But she wasn't quick enough.  A woman, naked, hunched over, was following her, grasping for her with one hand while with the other she held onto a metal bucket by the handle (a farmer's milking bucket, thought Naas, part of himself still detached from the scene) with water sloshing over the sides.

"Cm'ere!" the woman shouted, and the girl screamed.  The woman--forties, but haggard beyond her years, her skin pockmarked with illness or dissolution--got the girl by the hair.  She bodily lifted the child off her feet, swinging her around and shouting down into her face:  "You are going to do it!  Do you hear?"

"Yes, mama," the girl said.  She wasn't crying.  There was a determined, serious look on her face.  And her eyes were wide...her bright green eyes.

"Let her go," Naas said, clearly, in his mind.  But neither seemed to sense his presence.  And where was he exactly?  Was he there, in the hall with them?  He could see everything, feel everything, but there was a buffer between him and the events...like pressure pushing back against his chest.  Only he had no body.

"That's right," the woman said, and plopped the girl back on her bare feet.  The child was dressed in rags, and filthy from head to toe.  The woman--the girl's mother? yes, and no--handed the bucket to her.  The woman reached down inside and brought up a sopping sponge.  More water sloshed on the floor, a dirty wooden floor.  They were in a farmhouse.  Naas could smell manure, the wet smell of soil from outside.  The woman put the sponge into the girl's tiny hand. 

"Then come back inside here and wash mama, ba-by.....wash her all over....."

They were gone.

Naas was standing in a courtyard.  There was a group of boys in front of him.  The largest of them, no more than seven or eight, was standing directly in Naas's path. 

"Faggot."

Naas shook his head.  He was afraid, but not that afraid.

"Am not, you are though,"  he heard himself say.  There was no buffer this time.  He was himself, only he was eight, too.  His nose was running, it was cold.  He glanced up and saw a wintery sky--a halo-projection on the roof of the Beta-station.  This was home.

"Are to."

"Prove it."

The other boy moved in, and Naas knew what to do.  His father had showed him many times.  When the boy was close enough, and without giving any indication, he lashed out with his left hand--more surprising that way--keeping his hand level and striking just about halfway up from the base of the neck.  The boy crumpled.  The others were around him.

"Knew you could do it, Richie," one was saying, putting his arm around Naas's shoulders.  He felt...big inside.

Then he was in darkness.  Arms were wrapped around his back.  He was naked.  A body was pressed up against his.  Katherine.  They were making love for the first time.  It was his first time anyway.  They had just come back from finding out where they would both be going to train for the Agency.  She was going to the surface.  He was staying in Orbit.  Their lovemaking was muscular, angry.  They directed the rage they felt at the system back into each other's bodies.  It was wonderful, terrible. 

At the moment of truth, he pulled his mouth away from hers, holding his  hands to the sides of her head as they arched against each other and she gave a little cry.

Someone was crying.

He was crying.

He opened his eyes. 

"Wait a moment, just a moment."

The doctor leaned across him and flipped a switch.  The chair released its hold on him, rising as the "wings" on the headrest folded back.  He was thirsty.

Suddenly he realized that Andrea was crying, too.  She was still in the chair beside him, still in the reclining position, but she had managed to curl herself up into a ball, raising her legs and moving them both to one side.  She was sobbing uncontrollably.

Naas wiped at his eyes while the doctor, shaking, bent over Andrea, a strange smile playing on his face as he breathed one word over and over:

"Success."   

                                                         *                *                 *

"Again, I hope you're not too put off by my security measures."

They were standing in the hallway on one of the upper levels in the institute, near the staff living quarters where Naas was staying.  The doctor was talking about what had happened at the club.  Andrea had disappeared somewhere right after the experiment.

"I'm afraid," the doctor continued, "that due to the secrecy of our work, for now, at least, those men are an evil necessity."

Naas thought it mildly surprising to hear of three policemen referred to as "evil."  But after meeting Gatt and his men, he had to agree.  He shook his head at the doctor.

"Don't worry," he said.  "It's already forgotten."  And he meant it.  In the face of what he had just experienced, the night before seemed dim, meaningless.

Besides, he was certain that it would be covered up.  The way the police operated down here on the surface, there would be no news about a dead man at a nightclub.  And a little money, and a few credits for time in Orbit, would make sure he wasn't missed by anyone he knew.

"I'm glad to hear you're on board then." 

Naas pursed his lips.  "Well...I'd like to know more.  About what happened.  I mean, to Andrea and myself, when we were under."

"In the Soup, we say.  When you were in the Soup."

"Right.  What exactly was that that happened, when we were in the Soup?"

"Cognitive-affective synchronicity.  Perfect telepathic communication.  In yours and Andrea's case, a communication of memories."

Naas laughed a little.  "I hadn't thought of that fight in years."

"Yes.  Amazing, isn't it?  It produces a perfect reproduction of past events as well, right down to the runny nose."

Naas started.  "Did I write that down?"

The doctor looked at the report in his hand.  He had given Naas a pad and pen the moment he got up from the chair.  The lines related there were shaky, an emotional, chaotic hand Naas didn't recognize as his own.

"Yes...'a runny nose' and 'a winter sky.'  Wonderful.  Perfect."

"And she felt everything I felt?"

"Right.  The same with her memories, as you say here. "

"Right."  Naas pursed his lips again, thinking to himself.  "Is she alright?" he asked suddenly. 

"Oh, she's fine.  She wanted to rest and collect her wits.  You can see her later, if you want."

Naas was seized momentarily with a strong feeling of avoidance.  He found it hard to explain.  He felt as if he had been diminished in some essential way, like one feels after having been embarrassed in front of another by a revelation, a revelation that threatened to undo the substance of oneself.  It wasn't her memory he was thinking of, either.  Although he could see how she might feel the same way.

"Maybe later," was all he said to the doctor, and they left it at that.

                                                     *                  *                 *

But it was Andrea who found him later.  He was in his room, a converted study.  There was a panel missing from one wall where a workstation used to be, and a bed had been installed, complete with attached night-tables and a porto-deck that protruded from one side of the headboard as if it were a hotel room.  He was sitting on the end of the bed smoking a cigarette when she entered without knocking.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately.  "I thought you were with the professor.  I was going to leave a note."

"That's alright."  He stubbed out the smoke in a plastic ashtray shaped like a cutaway geodesic.  "I was just about to go to bed."

They both paused. 

"Right," she said at last, with a little laugh. 

He smiled and the uneasy feeling from before vanished.  "I have to be more careful what I say around you now, I guess," he said.  "We're practically two parts of the same mind."

"Not yet."  She lingered in the door.  "I think the effects only last about an hour after the visions wear off."

He was confused by this, but he didn't question her.  For him, the effects had worn off the moment he'd opened his eyes.  Was she still in his head for a time after that?  She went on:

"I'm sorry about..." but then she stopped.  He moved a little in his seat.  "...about what you saw."

"It's alright.  I mean it.  I think everyone has something like that in their past."

"Do you?" she asked plaintively.

"Do I....?"

"Do you genuinely think that?  That everyone has something so....traumatic, that they're holding onto?"

"Well."  He scratched at the knee of his pants.  "No.  But I read it somewhere."

She smiled at his attempt to soften the blow.  "Thanks."

He looked at her, and for the first time he thought he knew what she was about.  "Don't mention it," he said, softly.

"Well...."  She looked back out into the hall.  She still hadn't come all the way into his room.

"Yes," he said, definitively.

She looked him in the eye.  "I'll see you tomorrow, Mr Naas."

"See you tomorrow, Andrea."