A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee

Some writers work the best when they are away from their world, at a holiday spot, left alone with their laptops, pecking away furiously. They come home gloriously with a finished manuscript two weeks later. Unfortunately I am not one of them, and to add to the misfortune I realized it only this week, when I was already here.

My dome of polished perfection- that’s what my wife calls my bald head- has quit on me before, but not this severely. Tired of whacking uselessly at the keyboard, I decided to get myself an extra large helping of the evil Mochaccino they brewed up at the comfy little coffee shop I had found during one of my walks.

Engrossed in one of those sloppy 20th century thriller novels that I had begun to love, I was taking contented swigs from my mug.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” The voice came from above. I looked up and saw a smiling female face. She slipped down into the couch in front of me without waiting for the reply.

“I am sorry, but I just can’t have a coffee alone. Force of habit I guess. I have always lived around a lot of people.”

I noticed she was holding a mug like mine in her hands. Then I looked at her more closely and noticed that she was really attractive. Not lovely like a movie star, but with a strong magnetic force that lasts much longer. She was dressed casually, in a frilly white shirt and a pair of white trousers.

She must have seen a back-off sign in my lack of response while I was busy watching her, “You don’t mind? Do you?” She asked hastily.

“No, no. Not at all. I was just wondering how could a member of the fairer sex be alone in Goa. Are you a writer too like me?”

She laughed and shrugged. “I am re-discovering myself. Taking a sabbatical, not just from work but everything.”

I smiled secretly. She could be one of those bored housewives on a trip away from her husband and kids. Goa is a magnet for all sorts of people. I wondered if I was really the type who would interest her.

“Is it any good?”

Startled, I could only produce a questioning, “Huh?”

“The book.”

I grinned and tried to hide it under my palms without being too obvious. Popular writers aren’t supposed to be caught reading pulp-fiction, even when they are living incognito in Goa.

“Philo Gubb?”

Too late. I removed my hands still grinning. “Yeah. I’ve been reading Ellis Parker since I was a teenager.”

“That long, eh?”

I was only slightly offended. She couldn’t have guessed how old I really was. A bald head may shine out in a crowd, but it surely shaves off several years.

“Do you only read mysteries, or do you also write them?”

“Oh no. Nothing of that sort. I am a technical writer. My books are about computer programming,” I lied, but only partly, because I really did write computer books when I needed money. She laughed. A good throaty laughter. Not trying to subdue it like most women do.

“I can’t blame you for liking Philo Gubb then. Programming can’t be very interesting. Why don’t you write a story?” She paused and leaned towards me confidentially. “What if I tell you a really interesting story for you to write?”

Normally that line would have meant the end of a conversation for me. But that day I was in the mood to squander away my time.

“OK. Sure. I will give you a share of the paycheck,” I replied.

She laughed her throaty laugh again. “No thanks. You can keep it. I just wanted to tell it to someone.”

She picked a copy of the day’s Times of India from the newspaper rack and pushed it towards me.

“Read this news?”

“Which one?”

She tapped on the newspaper. “This one- about Dr. Heads.”

‘Dr. Heads’ was the name given to Dr. Orrell Lake, arguably the best biological scientist of the time. He had made some really amazing claims, bordering, according to many, on fantasies. About a week ago his lab’s janitor had found him in his chair, dead. There was no sign of foul play and the doctors concluded he had died an elegant, peaceful death, possibly of heart failure. He wasn’t too old, but the ticker works in mysterious ways.

She interrupted my thoughts.

“Do you know why he’s called Dr. Heads?”

I tried to sound indignant. “I do watch the television you know.”

She didn’t even notice the sarcasm. “Great! I was in his research team.”

I lost my skepticism instantly. If there was ever a story worth telling, she had it. “What’s your specialty?” I asked her.

“Psychology.” She looked at me expectantly.

“No. I am not surprised,” I said. I had been following Dr. Heads’ work closely enough to know that a psychologist would be vital to his team. Dr. Heads was a biologist, but his current research needed experts from several different fields. Maybe that’s why it was that expensive.

There was only thing about the Dr. that I wished to know, “Did he really achieve direct information transfer to the brain?”

“Why? You want the entire Wikipedia fed to your brain?”

I realized she wasn’t the type of girl who could answer a straight question.

“Okay… Suppose I wanted that. Could the Dr. do it?”

Suddenly her eyes stopped laughing. “No, I don’t think he could.”

I smiled at that. “I guess he was bluffing after all.”

I wasn’t alone, who thought so. Almost everybody who heard doctor Lake’s claim on national television that he was aiming to build a device that would record information directly to the brain rejected it as a bluff. You have to learn things to put them in your brain. Connecting your brain to a couple of electrodes, and emerging a genius ten minutes later is something that science-fiction writers write about. I know. I am one.

“You believe he was a fraud?” Her voice had an accusing note.

“Maybe not,” I shrugged. “A little too cocksure maybe.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew doctor Lake.”

“You seem like a big fan of his,” I was enjoying baiting her.

“I know how much he achieved,” she replied.

I sipped at my coffee while I thought of the right thing to say. A moment of silence had crept between us. She seemed upset enough to walk away as soon as she finished her coffee, but my curiosity was aroused and I didn’t want her to leave anymore.

“He was definitely very brilliant.” I told her. “I wonder if he could really have done it if he had lived.”

“If he had any support from the right people, he would have done it by now,” she had a bitter edge to her voice.

“How far do you reckon he was from success?” I asked her.

“Nearer than you can imagine. Much nearer.”

That was news to me. I put my mug down and smiled. “You think so? Did he show you a demo?”

She leaned nearer to give more weight to her statement. “He did more than that.”

“Like what?”

She laughed and leaned back again. “You really are very curious.” She said, and then considered for a moment. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you a story.”

“Sure, I love stories.” This meeting was becoming more interesting then I had expected.

 “How much do you know about the doctor’s research?” She asked me.

“Just that he said he was researching a way to record things directly in the brain, so that you would know them without learning them.”

“That’s a really simple way to put it. But essentially correct.” She was already starting to sound earnest. “What he wanted to do was—- decipher how the brain stores information, and then find a way to duplicate it externally to be able to feed any information to the brain without using the sensory mechanism.”

“He was trying to do that since a long time.” I couldn’t help but quip.

“You think it’s an easy task?” She snarled. “He had most of the puzzle solved. If only he had some more resources, he could have done it.”

“How do you know?” I asked her.

She did not speak for a moment. “That’s what the story is about.”

“Great! Let’s hear it then.”

“Okay. Let’s say there was this brilliant researcher who thought he had found a way to record information in a brain directly, like a computer.”

“Dr. Lake?”

“Yes, Dr. Lake. He published a paper about the theory, and discussed it with some of the top scientists. They all believed it could be done…”

“I remember that time. He got some incredible reports in the press.” I said.

“They set him up. Gave him a lab. Hefty funding. He got to work immediately. In the beginning he made great progress. Unraveled some of the most perplexing mysteries of the brain.” She paused. “Who do you think gave us the cure for schizophrenia?”

“Dr. Lake?” That was news even to me.

“Yes, Dr. Lake. He was a very discreet man.”

“What happened then?”

“Well… years passed. He felt everyday that he was only a fraction away from achieving his true goal, but it always eluded him. Meanwhile, unmindful of all his contribution, his masters stopped the flow of the precious funding he needed. Do you remember how the press mocked him?”

I remembered that clearly. He was the victim of one of the worst smear campaigns carried out against an individual. The press had heralded his project as a glaring example of how public money was being wasted on research that went nowhere. Even the politicians who believed in his research abandoned him after that.

“He only needed another year. He tried everything from arguing to pleading, but they didn’t listen to him.”

“I am not surprised, people in power can never be moved by cajoling, they can be influenced only by power or public opinion and Dr. Lake had none right then.”

She tilted her head to a side as if considering whether she should compliment me for the observation or slap me for the insult, finally she decided on none and shrugged her shoulders instead.

“I guess you are right. I pity Dr. Lake. Poor. Poor Dr Lake.”

The expression of disappointment on her face was genuine.

“You must really believe that he could do it.”

“Believe in it? I KNOW he did it.”

“How?”

“Because I saw him do it.”

“You mean like real? How come he never told anybody?”

She settled back.

“That’s because he died the same day.”

I was shocked for a minute. If the woman was telling the truth the only way she knew something like that was if she murdered him. This was sounding more and more like the Philo Gubb book I was reading.

“No. Don’t panic. I didn’t kill him,” she said as if reading my thoughts.

I was not very convinced but I knew nothing better to do than sit tight and wait.

“You know, he really was successful in transferring information directly into the brain. But that information had to come from another brain. He could read the brain neurons like bits of silicon by making them fire up and yield their secrets, and then he could record the same information into another brain, neuron to neuron, each one a true copy of the original.”

“But why didn’t he publicize the findings?”

“Because of the side-effect.”

“What side-effect?” I demanded.

She looked at me intently as if trying to read me. “I have never told anybody. Yet.” She twiddled her fingers exaggerating her indecision. After a moment she stopped. “The side-effect Mr. Hot-shot-writer, was death. To fire up the neurons he had to run a special kind of current through them, very like the synaptic transmissions in the brain cells, but much, much more powerful.”

“Think of your brain as lump of stone and this triggering current would be like a tsunami the size of Godzilla’s mother! Big enough to drown the entire damn continent!” Her hands fell on the table with a wham.

“Result. The brain overloads and fries. The target has new information, but the source is finished.”

“That’s a damn strong side-effect.” I said, genuinely awed. “But if you saw him do it, then…?” I let the question hang.

She smiled and finished her coffee in one big swig. “Dr. Lake really believed he could find a way to make the job safe. But the world didn’t believe in him, so he decided to let someone else finish the job for him.”

The truth slowly started dawning on me.

“You say you saw him do it the day he died. And you’re here… Does that mean?”

Her smile got broader.

“I see Philo Gubb really has a big influence on you. Yes. Dr. Lake transferred all his information, his knowledge, his personality, everything he was, to someone else. Someone young. Someone with the necessary credentials. Someone who could pick up where he left and convince the world it can be done. Someone who could finish what he started.

“And that’s you?”

She rose from her chair laughing.

“But don’t tell anyone,” she said as she walked away still smiling.

When she reached the café’s door she turned around.

“Or they will think you’ve read too much of Philo Gubb.”

And then she was gone.