Langdon nodded as he recalled holding Sasha’s head during her seizure. “Mostly hidden beneath her hair, but yes. I assumed they were from injuries, but later she did mention that Gessner had encountered some minor complications implanting her chip; the surgery was successful…but also a little more invasive than planned.”

  “A little?” Katherine glanced back up at the robotic surgeon. “This machine is not pristine; it’s been used before, and I hate to say this, but Sasha would be a perfect test subject. Naive, no family, unlikely to question the follow-up procedures recommended by a famous doctor who saved her life and is now paying her salary.”

  The thought seemed reprehensible to Langdon, but he forced himself to focus on the matter at hand. “Do you see anything here related to what you’ve written about?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. And there’s nothing particularly incriminating here to take with us as proof of what they’re even doing. All I can tell you is that they’re doing some highly advanced, in-house brain surgery.”

  The Island of Dr. Moreau, Langdon thought, unsettled by the notion of the CIA performing secret surgeries in an underground lab on foreign soil. “Let’s keep looking.”

  They quickly exited the medical suite, returning to the black-tiled corridor, continuing deeper into Threshold.

  They reached another alcove that also contained a doorway, but this door was covered in a thick layer of acoustical foam.

  “Immersive Computing,” Katherine said, reading the placard beside the door. “This could be something.”

  Uncertain what to expect, Langdon followed Katherine into a chamber whose walls, ceiling, and floor appeared to be covered in black carpet. The only light came from the muted baseboard lighting that had faded on as they entered.

  Running down the middle of the room was a row of eight, unusually deep, reclining chairs equipped with shoulder-strap seat belts. Each one sat atop its own tangle of hydraulic arms and valves. “They’re on gimbals,” Langdon said. “These chairs move.”

  Katherine nodded, moving toward them. “Immersive computing is essentially advanced virtual reality. The motion of these chairs is synchronized with the images and sound being fed into these.” She lifted some kind of futuristic, opaque glass helmet off the chair. “Deep-spectrum panoramic displays. This is exceptionally advanced virtual reality, Robert.”

  Virtual reality? What would they be doing here?

  Katherine headed for a computer workstation at the back of the room. “The data required to run these VR simulations is massive, and they no doubt run it off a larger system…like that one.” She pointed at a plate-glass window with banks of computers behind it. “Although I suspect everything is accessed out here, at this terminal.” Katherine sat down and turned on the computer.

  Langdon joined her as they waited for the terminal to power up. “Did you mention VR in your manuscript?”

  Katherine glanced up at him, nodding. “A few times, yes, but just anecdotally. I was once a subject in a VR experiment at Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, and my experience played a role in my decision to study nonlocal consciousness. So I wrote about it.”

  “Really? That seems like it could be relevant.”

  “In principle, perhaps,” she said, looking skeptical. “But not—”

  “Tell me,” Langdon said.

  “Well…as you know, the goal of VR is essentially to trick the brain into believing an illusion. The more virtual input you can feed the mind—sights, sounds, motion—the more likely you are to convince the brain to accept an artificial situation as real. That moment you start believing the illusion is a state that psychologists call ‘presence.’ ”

  “I did some virtual rock climbing,” Langdon said. “I was quite literally paralyzed with fear.”

  “Exactly. Your mind believed your body was on a cliff and in danger. The illusion became your temporary reality. I too experienced ‘presence’ in the VR experiment at Princeton, although…the experience was quite a bit different. Transformative, really.”

  “What was it?”

  She glanced up from the computer and smiled. “Simply stated…I experienced my own consciousness—and it was nonlocal.”

  Katherine would never forget that first magical encounter with “detachment from self.” The experience had changed her life, cementing her passion for consciousness as a field of study.

  The experiment began with her Princeton professor asking Katherine to stand all alone in an empty room. Over the intercom, he instructed her to don her VR goggles. When she did, she was instantly transported to a vast meadow where she stood among flowers and trees.

  The scene was bucolic…with one unexpected twist.

  She was no longer alone.

  Standing only two feet away was an exact double of…herself. The double was smiling calmly and gazing directly into Katherine’s eyes. As Katherine looked upon her other self, she knew of course that it was a projection, and yet the sensation was disquieting. She stood for nearly a minute in the meadow, face-to-face with herself.

  Next, the professor’s voice on the intercom instructed Katherine to reach up and place a hand on the shoulder of her ghost double. This confused Katherine. My double is not real. Uncertain, Katherine raised her hand and lowered it gently toward the shoulder of her other self. Fully expecting to touch nothing but air, she was shocked when her hand came to rest on an actual physical shoulder. More shocking still, in that exact instant, Katherine felt the weight of her hand on her own shoulder!

  The effect was completely disorienting, and her brain suddenly found itself asking:

  Which body…is my real body?!

  The sight of her hand resting on the other’s shoulder, combined with the sensation of a hand on her actual shoulder, was enough sensory input to shift Katherine’s sense of “physical self” to the other body. For several mystical seconds, her consciousness hovered outside herself. She was an observer, a disembodied mind gazing upon her own physical body…much as a near-death patient hovered over their own corpse.

  In that moment, Katherine was imbued with a blissful sensation that her consciousness was free and did not require a physical form to exist. Even after she relocated her true self, the afterglow of the “untethering” remained for many days.

  Despite its potent effect, Katherine learned the illusion had been fairly simple to create. After she had donned her VR goggles and stood in position, a lab tech had slipped silently into the room and stood directly in front of Katherine. When she reached up to place her hand on her “ghost self,” Katherine unwittingly placed her hand on the shoulder of the lab tech, who simultaneously placed her hand on Katherine’s shoulder. In that moment, Katherine’s sense of self was coaxed to exit her physical body.

  Obviously, this was not an authentic out-of-body experience, but the sensation was so peaceful, reassuring, and connected to the nonphysical world that it cemented her career fascination with the potential nonlocality of consciousness.

  As Katherine finished her recap, the computer powered up to its welcome screen.

  “Password protected,” Katherine said. “I was afraid of that. Unless I know what kinds of simulations they’re running, I can’t begin to guess if this VR lab has anything to do with my book.”

  Langdon sat down on the desk’s metal chair and made a handful of guesses. Nothing worked, and he finally shook his head, standing up again. “Maybe they’re running out-of-body simulations? Like the one you just described? That kind of thing seems like it would relate to epilepsy and Sasha and remote view—”

  “True, but…” Katherine studied the helmets and gimballed chairs. “My gut tells me this room is for…something else.”

  Her gaze moved now to the plate-glass window and computer room beyond it. She went over and tried the metal door beside the window, but it was locked. Putting her face to the glass, Katherine surveyed the space beyond and saw a tall rack of computers, assorted containers of electronic gear, and a glass-paneled refrigerator full of colorful vials.

  Then she recoiled, pulling away from the glass. “What in the world?”

  Langdon came over. “What is it?!”

  “Those…” Katherine pointed to the line of eight objects standing against the rear wall. “Those have no business in a VR lab.”

  Langdon peered in at the eight stainless-steel IV poles on wheels.

  “IV stands,” Katherine said, disturbed. “And a refrigerator full of pharmaceuticals! This facility is combining intravenous drugs with virtual reality.”

  “Okay…and that’s unusual?”

  “Yes! Those types of dual-stimuli experiences can be very damaging to the brain. Overexposure can literally alter your brain’s physiology…”

  “Alter it…how?”

  “It all depends on what drugs they’re administering,” Katherine said, squinting in at the glass-walled refrigerator, trying in vain to read the labels on the vials. “Robert, I need to get inside this room and see specifically what drugs they’re using. Then we might be able to figure out what they’re trying to accomplish…”

  Langdon studied her a moment and then nodded. “Okay, stand back.” He strode over to the desk and returned with the heavy metal chair, eyeing the window.

  “Wait, are you—”

  “We’re already in over our heads,” he said. “A broken window isn’t going to change anything.”

  With that, Langdon torqued his body, swinging the chair around himself like a hammer throw. When he let it go, the chair sailed through the air and crashed into the window, partially shattering the glass.

  Startled, Katherine waited for an alarm or some kind of commotion, but the eerie silence of Threshold remained.

  Langdon walked to the window and, using his elbow, knocked out a portion of the broken glass. Then he carefully reached through, found the knob, and unlocked the door from the inside.

  “Inelegant but effective,” he said with a smile. “After you, Doctor.”

  CHAPTER 99

  “How goes the inquisition?” Faukman asked when Alex Conan reappeared in his office. The tech’s mop of hair seemed messier, and for a moment Faukman wondered if the guy had actually aged since first appearing in his doorway last night.

  “I’m okay,” Alex said, clearly exhausted. “My boss knows this isn’t my fault, but she wants to talk to you at some point. I told her you went home for the day.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any word from Robert Langdon?”

  “Thankfully, yes. He emailed. They’re both okay.”

  Alex looked surprised. “He didn’t call?”

  Faukman shook his head. Not yet, at least.

  “And the In-Q-Tel investment list? Any luck finding crossover with Dr. Solomon’s work?”

  “No. The AI gave me garbage data. Definitely not a fan.”

  “I may have something for you,” he said, opening the laptop he was carrying. “I realized that your AI search would have flagged overlap with anything online that was written by Dr. Solomon, but not necessarily anything spoken—like audio-video content—so I ran a modified cross-reference and learned that both In-Q-Tel and Dr. Solomon have a unique interest in the science of…fractals.”

  Faukman knew nothing about fractals other than that they often appeared as swirling designs consisting of infinitely repeating patterns.

  “In the past three years,” Alex said, pulling out his phone, “Q has invested heavily in fractal technologies, while Katherine…” He launched a video and held up the screen for Faukman.

  Katherine appeared, seated on a dais with several other speakers and the IONS logo behind them. “You ask an interesting question,” Katherine said, addressing someone in the audience. “Coincidentally, in the book I’m working on about human consciousness, I’ve written extensively about fractals.”

  Faukman’s ears perked up.

  “As you know,” she continued, “fractals possess an astonishing attribute: each individual section, when magnified, turns out to be an exact smaller version of the whole—an endless telescoping repetition of self-similarity. In other words, each individual point contains everything else. There is no individual…only the whole. A growing number of physicists now believe our universe is arranged like a fractal, which would suggest each person in this room contains every other person, and there is no separation between us. We are one consciousness. It’s hard to picture, I admit, but if you look up images of the Koch snowflake or the Menger sponge, or better yet, just read The Holographic Universe—”

  “That’s the gist of it,” Alex said, stopping the video.

  Faukman was uncertain. “Alex, I strongly doubt the CIA’s interest in fractals has anything to do with the interconnectedness of the universe and humanity.”

  “I agree, but fractals play a critical role in encryption schemes, network topologies, data visualization, and all kinds of other national security technologies. Katherine said she wrote extensively about fractals in her book, so I’m thinking maybe she discovered something that compromised one of Q’s investments. It’s worth a look.”

  “Fair point,” Faukman agreed. “I’ll dive in. I appreciate it.”

  “Let me know if you find anything. Gotta run.”

  The tech hurried back to his interrogation, and Faukman returned to his computer.

  Outside, the rain fell harder.

  CHAPTER 100

  This is a veritable pharmacy of psychedelic substances…

  Katherine felt dumbfounded as she stared into the refrigerator at the staggering array of potent drugs. In addition to several substances she did not recognize, Katherine saw vials of diethylamide, psilocybin, and DMT—the effective ingredients in LSD, magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca. She even spotted containers of distilled Salvia extract and MDMA—both illegal in these forms.

  The presence of these drugs inside a VR lab could mean only one thing. Threshold is administering drugs in conjunction with state-of-the-art virtual reality immersions.

  Dual-stimuli VR/drug therapies were strictly regulated in the medical field because their results were not yet understood. In many cases, the combined stimulation was so powerful that it altered the brain’s structure rapidly and in unpredictable ways. Neuroscientists had already begun to see startling structural changes in the brains of young people who combined computer gaming with designer drug use.

  A new generation of thrill seekers now donned consumer VR goggles and spent hours smoking cannabis while floating virtually through space…snorting cocaine while riding a virtual roller coaster…or “edging” on various time-dilation sex drugs while watching VR porn. To no avail, countless warnings had been issued because the experiences were intensely addictive.

  People don’t want to hear how dangerous it is…

  Last year, Katherine had been booed when she spoke to an audience of tech-savvy gaming enthusiasts and explained that prolonged exposure to hyperrealistic first-person shooter games had been shown not only to shape people’s sensitivity to the graphic subject matter—but to rewire the brain’s structure, muting normal empathic triggers.

  The boos grew louder when she informed them of new brain studies showing that voracious consumption of online pornography was physically altering young minds—“essentially growing a callus on the human libido” and desensitizing them to real sex. The result was that arousal, even in young people, could be achieved only with the assistance of a mind-boggling quantity and variety of stimuli.

  Langdon stood beside her, scanning the vials and containers in the refrigerator. “What are the drugs for?”

  “Specifically, I’m not sure, but some of these substances are no joke—powerful hallucinogens.” She looked around, her thoughts now racing. “If I had to guess, I’d say this room was custom-built for one purpose—to rewire a human brain.”

  “I’m sorry—rewire?”

  She nodded. “It’s called neural plasticity. Our brains physically evolve to meet the needs of new environments. The brain creates new neural pathways to process new experiences. Taking drugs like these, in conjunction with VR simulation, would create a staggeringly intense experience—exponentially more vivid than what occurs in normal life—the type of experiences, which, if repeated, would literally begin to rewire a brain’s neural network with alarming speed.”

  “Rewire the brain…to do what?”

  That’s the million-dollar question, she thought.

  Katherine knew the brain of a lifelong meditation guru was anatomically unique—the years of meditation having gradually rewired it to access a state of deep calm at will. In essence, calm became that brain’s new normal.

  “Robert, it now occurs to me that if Threshold repeatedly placed a subject into an artificially induced out-of-body state—accentuated by psychedelics—that subject’s brain would begin to rewire itself to make that disassociated state feel more…normal. In other words, this process might be trying to tune a consciousness…to be more comfortable outside the body.”

  Her words hung a long moment in the silence of this underground space.

  “Nonlocal…” Langdon finally said. “That would certainly relate to your book.”

  “Yes, it certainly would.” Not to mention Stargate, she thought. “I hate to say it, but Sasha would be a perfect candidate for VR rewiring. As an epileptic, her mind is already partially wired for out-of-body experiences. Using her as a test subject would be something of a shortcut.”

  “Sasha never mentioned anything like that to me.”

  “She might not remember, or even be aware…” Katherine said, her voice trailing off as she pointed into the fridge. “See that? It’s Rohypnol.”

  “The date-rape drug?”

  She nodded. “It profoundly impairs memory function and causes anterograde amnesia—keeping its subjects functional but making it extremely difficult for them to remember anything that happened.”