Game Changer (19 page)

“I see why you chose to use the word
unreliable
.”
  

“Exactly,” said Rachel. “Even after I read this study, I
refused to believe it. Maybe for the space shuttle disaster, but what about something
like 9/11? Surely every adult in the country remembered how they heard about
this event, as it was seared into our collective consciousness. So much so that
the words
9/11
are all that are
required to call it back to mind. In my own case, I was just starting high
school at the time, and I was at a sleepover with my two closest friends. We
woke up and were having breakfast when we all heard the news.”

Rachel paused. “So after reading the space shuttle study, I
called each of these old friends in turn to prove to myself that its
conclusions were ridiculous.”
 
She
frowned and shook her head. “Only I confirmed the opposite. I asked each friend
how they had learned of 9/11, expecting them to chide me for even asking, since
we had been together at the time. My friend Kim did remember being with me and
Julia at a sleepover when it happened, but remembered not hearing about it
until long after breakfast. But my friend Julia remembered hearing about it on
the car radio while her mom took her to the store to buy a new coat.”
  

“Holy hell,” said
Quinn
in amazement. He’d had no idea memory was this fallible.

Perhaps Rachel Howard could explain what he had experienced
after all. He would need to ponder the implications of what she was saying at
length. Not only for what it suggested about his current situation, but life in
general. Husbands and wives legitimately remembering two very different
versions of what happened during a past argument.

It was alarming that people could be so certain of memories
that were so inaccurate. If this knowledge became more widespread it could
shake the foundation of what everyone thought was true of their past.

But this reflection would have to wait. He decided it was
finally time to come clean. “Thanks for this overview,” he said. “It’s been
very helpful. But that’s enough for now. I’m ready to tell you what you want to
know.”
 

His memory of the assault that never happened seemed so real
to him, even now, that it still made his blood boil. At the same time it was embarrassing,
and what it said about his sanity was deeply disturbing. He would have given
anything not to have to revisit it,
ever
.

But he didn’t have that luxury. He would just try to get it
out as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as he could. “I’d like to ask you
to hold your questions until I’m finished. And try to keep an open mind.”

And then, blowing out a deep breath, he added. “Because you’re
going to need one.”

29

Quinn proceeded to tell his story to perhaps the most
accomplished neuroscientist in the world. All of it. Of the torture and murder.
His attempt on the president’s life. The subsequent chase. The two mercenaries
at the shack, and finally, his call with Coffey, learning that none of the
memories that had launched him on this odyssey were true.

Rachel Howard listened without interruption, her expression
grim.

“So do you believe me?” asked Quinn when he was finished.
Rachel had learned he was telling the truth about the threat to her life. But
that didn’t mean he was telling the truth about this.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Can you prove that you’re a
Secret Service agent?”

“No. And after last night, I’m
not
one anymore. I’m not sure of all the fireable offenses an agent
might commit, but I’m guessing that trying to kill the president is one of
them.”

A quick smile played across Rachel’s face. “I caught some
news online this afternoon,” she said. “Big headlines about an explosion at a
mosque in Chicago. But not a word about any assassination attempt on the
president.”

“You say the brain takes in information and then creates a
narrative to feed back to us. Well, politicians put the brain to shame when it
comes to massaging reality. News is often delayed by those in power, and
distorted beyond recognition. I’m sure Davinroy has his reasons for wanting to
bottle it up for a while. But it will come out. Soon.”

Rachel chewed on her lower lip. “You just saved my life and
proved at least some of your claims are credible. So just for the sake of further
discussion, I’m going to say that I do believe you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But I should also point out that
I’m, ah . . .
open-minded
to the
possibility that you’ve lied about this.”

“Fair enough,” said Quinn. “So assuming everything I said is
true, does this make me crazy? This is different from misremembering where I
was when I heard about 9/11. This is remembering 9/11, and then learning later
that it never happened, that the Twin Towers are still standing.”

“You could be delusional, yes,” replied Rachel. “But your
behavior in every other way seems rational.” A troubled look came over her face
and she lowered her eyes. “I just hope like hell that you are crazy,” she
whispered.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because the alternative is much worse. If you
are
totally rational, then these might
be
implanted
memories. And much more
sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill kind.”

“What run-of-the-mill kind?” said Quinn.

“As we’ve discussed, if something bubbles up from the
unconscious, our minds seize on it and construct a reality, a mythology, to
explain it and pretend we’re running the show. There are patients whose brains
are split, whose left and right hemispheres can’t communicate with each other.
With these patients there are ways to give instructions to the unconscious
without the conscious knowing this was done. Say you instruct a patient who
doesn’t cook to walk to the kitchen and turn on the oven. His conscious mind
doesn’t know you gave this instruction. But if you ask him why he did this, he
won’t confess he has no idea. He’ll fabricate a story, a logic, sometimes
laughably elaborate, to explain it. ‘I turned on the oven to make sure it still
worked—in case I decide to sell the house.’”

Rachel paused briefly to stroke the cat who had moved closer
to her while she spoke. Duke issued a satisfied purr and settled in even
closer.

“Same thing with dreams. Your brain takes wisps of stray electrical
impulses and immediately constructs an elaborate story around them. Psychotics
have delusions, hallucinations, their minds constructing false visual and
auditory images they can’t distinguish from reality.”

“So how does this connect to implanted memories?”
 

“Our past is nothing more than a reconstruction, sometimes
so exaggerated or inaccurate it borders on fantasy. Our minds are inventive. You
read a description about a place and this later becomes a false memory of
actually having been there.”

She frowned. “More worrisome, our memories are susceptible
to manipulation. The first researcher to show this unambiguously was a woman
named Elizabeth Loftus. She recruited subjects and contacted their families to
get three stories about their past. Then she added a fourth story that was
entirely made up, about the time they were lost in a mall as a child. She
presented each of these stories to the participants. Turns out, many of them
remembered the fourth story happening, along with the other three. Not only
that, but when she had them back later for subsequent interviews, they began to
remember ever more detail about the experience—an experience that
never really happened
. They now remember
who found them. How their mom hugged them and cried when they were finally
reunited. And so on. So it’s not only possible to implant false memories, but
once this has been done, the mind will
embellish
them.”

“Fantasy becomes reality,” said Quinn.

“Yes. And don’t get me started on so-called
recovered memory
therapy. Sometimes
memories of childhood abuse drudged up by therapists are accurate, but they’re
usually not. Like getting lost in the mall. Your memories are wide open to
suggestion and manipulation. There was something called the ‘satanic panic’
decades ago, when dozens of children made allegations of satanic abuse. It was
later proven to be a collective delusion.”

“But you don’t think this kind of manipulation would explain
what happened in my case?”

“No. Your recollection of what was said during your fantasy
encounter with the president is too precise. You seem to have an almost photographic
recall of it. I think this was done using sophisticated techniques, well beyond
even my capabilities.”

“What do you mean,
your
capabilities? Are you saying you’re working on the implantation of false
memories?”

“No. But this is the dark side of what I am working on.”
 

Rachel explained Matrix Learning briefly, and how her goal
was to achieve techniques that would allow her to implant vast knowledge into
minds with the ease of loading a software program into a computer.

“If you can implant knowledge,” she said, “you can implant
false memories. Two sides of the same coin. And it sounds as though whoever did
this tied these false memories to the highly charged, emotional regions of your
brain, like the amygdala. They counted on the fact that whenever you tried to
think about your wife, your rage would keep you from exploring other memories of
your life with her—memories you’d be unable to find.”

Quinn felt a wave of nausea sweep through him. What could be
more insidious than this, more of a violation of his being?

“You
are
your
memory,” said the professor, looking more than a little distraught. “It’s as
simple as that. The implantation of false memories is the ultimate
manipulation, far more troubling even than the lack of memory, than amnesia. If
a man approaches and you don’t remember he’s a hired killer, at least you’ll be
somewhat on your guard—simply because he’s a stranger. But if the same killer approaches,
and you
falsely
remember him as being
a close friend, someone who once saved your life, your guard is completely
down.”

“Or if you remember the President of the United States
savagely killing your pregnant wife.”

Rachel shuddered. “They turned you into a weapon,” she said.
“One pointed at the president. And if someone out there has not only perfected
these techniques, but isn’t hesitating to use them in the most despicable way
possible, this would be . . .”
 

She shook her head in frustration, unable to find words
powerful enough to express her anxiety over this possibility. “Well, let’s just
say we’d have a really bad situation on our hands.”

“In a world where this can be done, how can you ever know
what to trust?”

“Partly by searching your memories for texture. Like with
your wife. If you can’t remember the most fundamental things about her, you know
you’ve been tampered with. And I have been working on more sophisticated and
foolproof solutions.”

“I’m confused,” said Quinn. “I thought you said you were
five to ten years away from this Matrix Learning.”

“This is true. But the possible misuses of this technology
once it’s been perfected are obvious. So I’m working on preventing this misuse at
the same time I’m working on solving the problem in the first place.”

“Really?” said Quinn, intrigued.

“I wish you’d been in my class this morning. We discussed
this at length. Those of us developing breakthrough technology have a
responsibility to predict how the bad actors of the world will bastardize it,
and develop preventative measures. I discussed Matrix Learning with my class
and some of the dangers. Interestingly enough, the malicious implantation of
false memories was a danger we didn’t get to. But my class realized that even
for positive applications of the technology, it will be critical to develop a
diagnostic that tells you when your mind has been tampered with. Or something
that can actively prevent any tampering being done in the first place.” She
tilted her head. “Interestingly enough, this last point was raised by Eyal
Regev.”

Quinn paused in thought for several seconds. “So maybe
that’s what this is all about. Maybe whoever perfected the false memory
implantation technique doesn’t want someone like you developing a way to detect
it. Or prevent it.”

“That’s the first explanation that makes
any
sense,” said Rachel. “But I know
everyone in the field. They don’t necessarily publish all of their findings,
but everything I know tells me I’m years ahead of anyone else in this area. Yet
whoever did this is years ahead of me. It’s almost impossible to believe.”

“If I truly am sane, then isn’t this conclusion
inescapable?”

Rachel forced a weak smile. “Like I said, I’m hoping it
turns out that you’re as mad as a hatter.”

“Given everything we’ve discussed,” responded Quinn with a
deep frown, “I’m suddenly hoping the same thing.”

30

The conversation between an ex-Secret Service agent and a
future Nobel laureate continued for several hours. When it concluded, Rachel
used Quinn’s phone to leave a message at her lab,
 
indicating that she had fallen ill and
wouldn’t be in until further notice, and then they retired to separate rooms
for the night.

They both slept like the dead and arose refreshed. After a
shower and an orange juice and omelet breakfast, Quinn felt like himself for
the first time in ages. Could it really only be Tuesday morning? Could his
attack on Davinroy really have taken place a mere thirty-six hours before?

He felt as though he had lived a lifetime in these few
hours. And now that he knew his memory of Nicole’s death, and life, were
fabricated, the rage and hate that had been consuming him had finally relented,
and he felt at peace, despite his unenviable circumstances. He still felt a
residual sense of loss, but not much of one. He guessed this was because he wasn’t
in love. Had never been. While the implanted memory of Nicole having been the
love of his life was still present, this was now hollow, not even close to the
real
emotion, which he had never actually
felt.

Rachel had turned on the television after breakfast and they
had both been barraged by Quinn’s story, which had finally burst onto the scene
like an ocean of water through a shattered dam.

Quinn was thankful he had told his version to Rachel when he
had.

The coverage was wall to wall, and there was nowhere other
than a monastery to get away from it. Two nights earlier, at a fundraiser at
the Princeton home of David Garza, Secret Service Special Agent Kevin Quinn had
attempted to kill the President of the United States. Luckily, he had failed,
but he had also managed to escape. Authorities had delayed putting this out in
the media until they could be assured there were no accomplices and the
president and public were as safe as possible from this deranged lunatic.

And deranged he was. Interviews with witnesses indicated this
Quinn had ranted about the president torturing and killing his pregnant wife, even
though it was well known that the man had never married. Psychiatrists were
interviewed on every channel, expressing their opinion about psychosis and the
dangers that this man posed.
 

“I’ll be damned,” said Rachel after having watched the
coverage for ten minutes. “How could I have ever doubted you? Maybe I was just
jaded. You know,” she added with an impish grin, “ if I had a nickel for every
time I’ve been accosted by a man who says my life’s in danger, and that he tried
to kill the president . . .”

Quinn laughed. “Yeah. It’s a tale as old as time,” he
deadpanned back.

While Rachel was transfixed by the television coverage,
Quinn made a call with the untraceable phone he had acquired. Coffey answered
on the first ring, but asked Quinn to call him back in ten minutes so he could move
to a more private location.

“Jesus, Kevin!” began Coffey when they had reconnected, the
phone projecting a life-sized 3-D image of his face at Quinn’s eye level. Quinn
kept his end audio-only so as not to give Coffey any clues to his whereabouts. “I
got the present you couriered over. I had a top scientist I trust in one of our
nearby Black labs take a look at it. A PhD computer specialist named Justin
Beam. I was sure you were delusional about this. I only checked it out because
I’d given you my word.”

The stunned expression on Coffey’s face told Quinn
everything he needed to know.

“Dr. Beam confirmed what I told you, didn’t he?”

“He did,” said Coffey, shaking his head like he had just
verified that Elvis was still alive but couldn’t get himself to fully believe
it. “Justin studied it under an electron microscope and ran some tests. He
identified computer circuits, but smaller than he’s ever seen, and with a much
different architecture. Crazy advanced shit. He’s certain that there was too
much damage for us to activate it, or reverse engineer it. The eyes are tiny cameras—also
crazy advanced—that were still working.”

“Let me guess,” said Quinn. “This Justin Beam is in charge
of
our
fly drone program, isn’t he?”

Coffey took a deep breath and nodded. “He was blown away. I
told you this was impossible. He would have told you the same thing. At least
he would have
yesterday
.”

“I’ve had some revelations myself since our last call,” said
Quinn. “I did what you said, Cris. I Googled myself. You were right, of course.
I wasn’t even at Davinroy’s resort this year. Which shook me up, more than I
think you can possibly imagine.”

Quinn went on to explain how he was unable to remember
anything about his wife.

“I can’t say how,” he continued, deciding not to tell Coffey
about Rachel Howard just yet, “but I’ve come to believe my memory has been
tampered with. The memories of Davinroy’s assault were implanted, using
sophisticated techniques. And in such a way as to drive me mad with rage
whenever I considered them. I was nothing more than a tool.”

Quinn recounted the history of Charles Whitman and his tumor-motivated
shooting spree. “So think of it this way,” he said when he had finished. “It’s
like I had a brain tumor that caused me to try to kill Davinroy. But now this
tumor has been removed, and I’m back to being myself again.”

Coffey nodded but didn’t reply, and Quinn suspected he wasn’t
fully convinced.

“Look, Cris, this fly drone is real! Much more is happening
here than meets the eye. I know the idea of memory tampering is far-fetched. I
know it seems impossible. But didn’t you just say the same thing about the
technology I sent you?”

There was a long pause. “Okay, I’m with you,” said Coffey
finally, and this time Quinn sensed he had come to a final, definitive position.
“You’re absolutely right. Things aren’t what they seem. And I do know you,
Kevin. You passed your recent psych evaluation with flying colors. Your attack on
Davinroy never made sense. And during our recent interactions you’ve never come
across as anything but fully rational. And the fly drone
is
extraordinary. So I’m onboard. I believe you’re innocent.”

“Thank you.”

Coffey’s face fell. “This being said, the hole you’re in is
getting deeper. I’m not sure if you’re able to get media wherever you are, but
the story broke this morning.”

“I’m aware.”

“The timing of this wasn’t my idea, it was Davinroy’s. After
Justin got back to me last night that the drone was real, I tried to convince
the president to continue to keep this buried, sit on the witnesses and media. But
since you insisted I not tell him about the drone or our interaction, it was
hopeless. Unfortunately, now that your identity is known by every adult in
America, you’re well and truly screwed. Even worse than before.”

“Trying to cheer me up?” said Quinn dryly.

“Of course,” replied Coffey in amusement. “That’s what I do.
Plus making sure you aren’t bored.”

“Very thoughtful of you. How’s the manhunt going? Making any
progress finding me?”

“Yes. Just this morning we finally
got a break.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said
Quinn.

“Hey, you were the one who
asked,” said Coffey with a smile. “Seems a guy returned from a short business trip
to find his Ford Fusion had been stolen. From a parking lot in Trenton near the
train station. He left Sunday night, at about the same time
you
were reported to have been in the
area. We guessed it likely you’d steal a car so we had our ear to the ground. Paid
special attention to any stolen car reports within five hundred miles of
Princeton. Taking one that wouldn’t be reported for days would be inspired, so I
thought of you immediately.” He raised his eyebrows. “Well done.”

“Thanks,” said Quinn. “You too. But this could be a problem
for me. I don’t want the manhunt getting too close just yet.”

“I understand. I’ll take responsibility for finding this car
myself. I’ll send the team in the wrong direction until we can figure something
else out.”

There was a chance Coffey was still trying to capture him,
and this was a ruse intended to keep him from looking over his shoulder, but
Quinn had too much to worry about to consider this further. There came a point
where you had to trust something, and he chose to trust that Coffey was now on
his side.

“Cris,” he began, almost at a loss for words, “I can’t thank
you enough. And I won’t let you down. We’re just scratching the surface, but
something very big is brewing. I promise you I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Amen to that. We’ll find out together.”

 
“In the meanwhile, if
you find yourself remembering something that’s emotionally charged and seems
crazy, think twice about trusting it.”

“You mean like everything that’s happened in the past few
days?”

Quinn grimaced. “It does mess with your head. My definition
of the ultimate nightmare is living in a world where you can never be sure of
what you
think
you know. If something
unlikely does emerge as a potent memory—you know, something
else
unlikely—just be sure to take the
time to explore it carefully. Search for texture. For depth. If you can’t find
other memories that should connect with it, the memory is bogus.”

“Roger that,” said Coffey uneasily.