Broken Symmetries: Age of Illuminati (5 page)

Chapter 8

Ericson Sanders, the 71 year old leading neuroscientist, was waiting in his office for his visitors. He had accepted the meeting, despite his extremely busy schedule, because one of the visitors claimed to be from Interpol and in his emails he had stated he needed to meet him on a very important and urgent topic. Ericson had no way to reject the meeting; otherwise, Interpol might grow more suspicious. ‘Do they know?’ he asked himself. ‘But why would they send an investigator from Interpol? And why are they asking for a tour around my lab?’ He thought to himself, ‘I need to look innocent and answer them with a straight face.’ He kept looking at his watch and thinking, but at that moment, his secretary came and notified him about the arrival of the two visitors.

“Should I show them in?” the secretary asked.

“Yes, please,” Ericson answered.

The secretary went outside and opened the door for the two visitors. “Please come in,” she said.

Mark looked at her face when entering and wondered about her age. ‘What a young lady serving such an old man! She looks like a 15-year old teenager!’ he thought.

“Hello. Shall we go to the lab directly?” Ericson suggested as they entered his office. “There I have more space and we can tour around it while talking.”

“Yes, please let’s go,” Mark said “Professor as you know, I’m working with Interpol and this is my colleague, Hast. You are probably wondering why we wanted to meet you.”

“Yes, please tell me. Did I do something bad?” Ericson said laughingly while playing innocent.

Mark sensed that Ericson’s laugh was fake and unnatural. “Actually we are investigating something unrelated to your lab, but I wanted to consult you because of your expertise in neuroscience.”

“Sure, but you could have consulted me over the phone or by email. Why would you take all this trouble to come in person?” Ericson said.

“To be honest, we are investigating a homicide and we have already caught the criminal responsible for the murder,” Mark said. “The problem is the criminal has had past psychiatric problems and now he blames his psychiatrist for his crime.”

“Why he does that?” Ericson asked curiously.

“He claims his psychiatrist controlled his brain by giving him a pill and putting something like a helmet over his head.” Mark continued, “We didn’t believe him but he insists, and it’s been a year since we captured him his story still has not changed. I’m now curious about this case so I’ve come here to consider your thoughts on this,” he said before pausing briefly trying to answer Ericson’s first question. “And the reason we came in person was to have a tour of your lab to see the cutting edge tools for reading and writing from and to the mind.”

“Reading and writing from and to the mind!” Ericson laughed. “You are talking as if we are in a science fiction film. Such things are not so advanced yet, so I’m sure the criminal is lying.”

“So you don’t think his story is correct in any way?” Mark asked.

“If his story is correct, we should hire the psychiatrist immediately to work for TNARK,” Ericson said chuckling.

“So you don’t think any form of mind controlling is possible yet?” he asked again.

“Well, not to such an extent,” Ericson said.

“Can you please tell us to what extent neuroscience is able to control someone’s brain, so I can be more informative about the topic next time I encounter a similar homicide?” Mark asked realizing it was a silly line of questioning. ‘I should have thought of some better lines before coming to this lab,’ he thought to himself.

Ericson realized that the Interpol agent was making up questions on the fly and the purpose of this visit was not what he was claiming, nevertheless, he kept his cool. He coughed twice then started to explain, “As you know neurons in our brains are stimulated through involuntary and voluntary interactions with our environment. We can stimulate neurons externally by using a strong alternating magnetic wave called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or through Induced Transcranial Direct Currents (ITDC).” At this pause, Ericson pointed toward some bulky coils over a bench. “However, these tools are by no way as sophisticated as the brain controlling conspiracy you were describing and they are only good for research purposes in our lab.”

“Are there any pills to make humans more submissive?” Mark asked. “Or any other ways to induce brain stimulation with other more powerful tools?”

“No, not to my knowledge, if there are any, our lab should have it,” Ericson said. “Some people claim the possibility of brain control through hypnosis, but that is controversial.”

Hast and Mark looked at each other signaling their surprise at Ericson. They were thinking, ‘Why doesn’t he mention optogenetics? How can such a high profile neuroscientists not know about optogenetics?!’

Mark thought he had reached a dead end with Prof. Sanders as he seemingly was refusing to give them details on the more exciting and dangerous ways of brain control.

“What about optogenetics?” Mark asked abruptly to surprise the professor.

“Oh! You are right. I totally forgot about that,” Ericson said. “Indeed, optogenetics is another way, but how are you aware of it, Mark?”

Mark did not sense any anxiety or confusion on Ericson’s face when he asked him the surprise question, so he thought that either Ericson innocently forgot about optogenetics or he was a good liar. “Well Hast and I read about it briefly online before we came. Could you please tell us more about it?”

“Optogenetics is not my specialty,” Ericson said, “but basically you induce brain stimulation through pulses of blue light.”

“How can neurons be stimulated by a plain blue light?” Hast interjected.

“You cannot normally stimulate neurons with light, however, you can genetically alter them so that they can respond to it,” Ericson said.

“And how can you alter them genetically? Through surgery?” he asked.

“No, much simpler,” Ericson said. “You can infect neurons by injecting a specific virus which could alter the neurons’ genetic composition and make them excitable to the blue light.”

Mark knew that they shouldn’t appear to Ericson as if they were interrogating him and suspecting him of wrongdoing, but the topic looked so dangerous so he was compelled to ask the next question, “Can you infect humans with this virus through other means, like putting the virus in food or the water supply or even making a bio-weapon from it?”

“No, currently the virus needs to be injected, but scientists could work to change the strain of the virus to make it airborne or waterborne,” Ericson said. “But I don’t understand why someone would do that because even if you could genetically alter the neurons in the brain, you can’t stimulate them directly over the scalp. You would need to make a hole through the cranium and expose the brain tissue.”

Hast and Mark thought this information, if true, was very important because it meant that the set of 120 blue light emitters on the outer surface of the helmet may not be intended for brain controlling purposes, however, Mark thought since Kogar was suspecting something unnatural so he needed to be sure.

“I have heard that your lab works closely with the commercial company Virtual-world™,” Mark said. “Can you tell me the nature of your lab’s cooperation with that company?”

“I don’t know too much about that, but they have a lot of engineers who work on the ideas and brain reading technologies developed in our lab to make them suitable for their commercial use,” Ericson answered.

“Just out of interest,” Mark said, “what are the main goals of your lab?”

Ericson began to sweat when Mark asked this question abruptly, as if he was suspicious about the lab’s main intention, nevertheless, he forced himself to stay cool and answer in a normal tone. “Oh, it’s all on our website. I thought you had read it. Anyway, our main interest is to scan all the neural connections and their configuration in the human brain and then print them back using a specially designed 3D bio-printing technology developed specifically for printing organic substances,” he said. “We are already successful doing this for an insect’s brain, but unfortunately we are still far away from being able to scan all the neurons in a human brain.”

With this last question answered, Mark and Hast thanked Prof. Sanders for his time and left the building which harbored Ericson’s lab.

Chapter 9

After their meeting with Prof. Sanders, Mark and Hast were walking toward another office a few blocks away. The building was one of the branches of the famous gaming company Virtual-world™, and Mark had already made an appointment with the manager there. He had initially made a request to the manager to let him investigate his company’s documents to see the detailed commentary behind the blue 120 light emitters and their intended function, but the manager refused to release the classified documents to Mark claiming that they were copyrighted and close source inventions belonging to the company. Mark had made an appeal to Interpol to issue a Red Alert which now forced the manager to comply and release the documents to him.  Finally the manager agreed to reveal to him some of the classified documents which showed the process and design of their helmet along with the name of its contributors.

“Do you think Prof. Sanders is involved?” Hast asked Mark while walking along with him toward the Virtual-world™ building.

“It’s hard to say. He answered everything in a normal tone, so either he is a good liar or he is telling us the truth,” Mark said. “I think he genuinely forgot to tell us about the optogenetics; he didn’t intend to hide it from us.”

“I thought that too, also, he looks too old and weak to be the Antichrist,” Hast said. “That is unless he genetically modifies himself!”

“I bet the real Antichrist would be able to do that,” Mark said laughingly.

“Also, he wasn’t blind in his left eye,” Hast said.

“What! Is that one of his signs?” Mark asked in surprise.

“Yes, some Abrahamic faith sects believe that he is blind in his left eye according to their prophecies.”

“Why only some?” Mark asked.

“Different sects of Abrahamic faith have slightly different prophecies about the Antichrist, and even those who believe the blind eye prophecy think it’s just metaphorical and what it really means is that the Antichrist is blind to the truth.”

“That makes more sense. If the Antichrist is so powerful, he should be able to fix his blindness or at least deceive people for not seeing it,” Mark said.

“You are right, and that is why I criticized the recent movie
The Rise of the Antichrist
because its depiction of the Antichrist was very literal and simple minded,” Hast said.

       Hast and Mark finally arrived at the entrance of the Virtual-world™ building, and they were welcomed by someone waiting for them to direct them to the manager’s office.

Meanwhile, Prof. Sanders was in deep thought in his office. ‘I should be more careful in the future and I should be careful about what I say in my unencrypted phone and email communications.’

***

      John Badu, the current head of Virtual-world™™, had already printed some documents containing classified information about the company’s game console designs along with the names and addresses of the contributors. He also put the latest game console on his desk along with the controllers and the suspicious helmet with its 120 blue light emitters on the outer surface. He put it there in case the two visitors asked for it because he wanted to finish the meeting quickly as he had a busy schedule that day. He now heard a knock on his office door.

“Come in, please!” he shouted.

“Hi Mr. Badu,” Mark said. “Oh, I see you have already put the products we’ve been querying on the desk!”

“Yes, I wanted to settle the dispute already,” John said.

“Then you know why we are here,” Mark said. “So to keep the meeting short, could you tell us who designed the 120 blue light emitters and the details of their function?” Mark asked.

“I know it’s strange to say, but to be honest, we don’t know the identity of the designer,” John said.

“How is that possible?” Mark said.

John exhaled a sigh. “Part of our company’s success is because we are using the recently advanced 3D printers which can print anything from your imagination to reality given the necessary materials. We usually invite clever minds to join our online service in which each person is able to give and share his own ideas and designs with us. They need to use our specific software for that purpose because we are then able to translate the ideas designed into reality directly with our 3D printer.”

“Do they do that for free?” Mark asked.

“Not always,” John said. “We filter out many of the designs and proposals, but the remaining ideas do make it to our final product and for that we transfer some money to their online bank account for their participation, however, many people do it for free. They just like to see their ideas come to reality through our company.”

“But you have their profile information. Don’t you?” Mark asked.

“Yes, I have printed it here for you on this document. The problem is that their details might not be authentic,” John said. “From now on we will be asking for their authentic IDs, but even IDs can be faked.”

Mark looked at the list of the names and their design ideas on the document, and he found the name ‘Mr.
Young Nimrod
’ opposite to the term ‘blue light emitters’ under the proposal column.

“Do you have more details about this developer?” Mark asked.

“Here are more details,” John threw another document which seemed to have a computer generated drawing of the detailed circuitry for the 120 diodes. In the lower part, the details of its designer were listed:

Name: Mr. Young Nimrod

Age: 32

Profession: Inventor

Address:  44 Myfake Road, New Delhi, 212003, India

Email:
[email protected]

“This address is clearly false!” Mark said.

“I know and I realized that today. Unfortunately, he doesn’t respond to our emails,” John said. “As I said to date we haven’t checked the authenticity of the profiles of our software users. We do have many users having similar accounts, and we plan to be stricter from now on.”

“And did he give you his bank account?” Mark asked.

“No, unfortunately he is a free volunteer,” John answered.

“And who is responsible for filtering the proposed ideas before publishing?” Mark asked.

“Me,” John said, “and I don’t understand the technical parts of the design, but I have read the short description and I thought it looked good to have some small blue light emitters on the outer surface of the helmet just for the aesthetics and to make it look more technical. As you know, we are competing with several other companies, and from my experience, customers tend to buy electronic stuff that looks more advanced. I thought a set of 120 blue emitters was a cool idea to make the helmet appear sleeker. Now, I really regret choosing that design for our final product because it has brought a lot of unnecessary suspicion toward me. You really need to believe me.”

“Can I please take these documents with me?” Mark said referring to the design and the list of the names.

“Yes, of course,” John replied.

Mark didn’t sense any abnormal behavior from John to indicate that he was lying or hiding something, though it was hard for him to believe John’s story that the main reason for making  120 brain reading sensors emit a blue light was just for aesthetics. This was especially true now that Mark knew that there was a real brain controlling technology which used blue lights in its design, so he decided to inform Interpol to put John and Prof. Sanders on their surveillance and monitor their communications.

Once Mark came out from Virtual-world™ he turned to Hast. “What do you think about John? Did he look to you like the Antichrist?” he said with a humorous voice.

Hast laughed. “He doesn’t have the signs of Antichrist, but I didn’t believe his story at all.”