But the issue here wasn’t the physical effects of thoughts on your own body, or the effect of your presence with or actions toward someone else. The question was: could your loving thoughts affect another person’s physiology when you’re not present, when you’re not communicating with him in any tangible way?
Medical science, of course, said no.
But the quantum physics that Dr. Tanbyrn was researching seemed to say yes.
All of this made Riah increasingly interested in what would be on the video that Cyrus was going to show her at seven o’clock tonight.
With traffic in central Philly, she would need to leave her apartment by six.
That gave her just over two hours.
And there was one thing left that she needed to do.
Someone named Williamson would be at the meeting as well.
Riah was going to find out who that person was.
I see Charlene’s picture appear on the screen.
Without letting Philip or Dr. Tanbyrn notice, I gently tap the button to start the lap function of my watch.
“Okay, Mr. Berlin.” It’s Dr. Tanbyrn from behind me, speaking softly. “I’d like you to concentrate on the image of the woman you love. Imagine what it’s like being with her, holding her hand, kissing her, having intimate relations with her.”
Admittedly, I’m a bit surprised by the bluntness of his request. Not only would it be a little distracting to take things as far as he’s suggesting, but the idea of sexually fantasizing about Charlene while watching her on the screen has a sleazy, voyeuristic feel to it. Doing so would’ve made me feel more like a Peeping Tom than a co-worker and friend who respects her as a woman. So instead of following his request to the letter, I focus on my affection for her rather than my physical attraction to her.
Think loving thoughts.
Loving thoughts.
Concentrate on the image of the woman you love.
The woman …
She looks relaxed and comfortable sitting in that metal chamber, and I can tell she has no idea that I’m watching her.
… you love.
Despite my efforts to keep my thoughts on a purely platonic level, I can’t help but notice how attractive she is — not runway-model beautiful, but naturally pretty — the kind of woman who doesn’t need makeup to turn heads but can really dial up the volume and be striking when she wants to be.
What really is love? At its essence? Action? Emotion? Attraction? All three?
Think about the woman you love …
When I first started looking into this research, I’d thought I might end up inadvertently thinking about Rachel during the test, might return to the feelings I had for her while she was still alive. But although those feelings are present to some degree, they’re bookended by time — we met, we fell in love, we married, had kids, and she died. I’ll never stop caring for her, loving her, but I’ll also—
No, Jevin, she didn’t just die, she killed herself and she murdered your sons.
Grief marked with a sting of caustic anger grips me, making it harder to be present in this moment, and while I’m trying to focus on Charlene again, her image disappears and the bird documentary comes back on.
I tap the watch’s lap function button again to record the end of the video segment of Charlene.
I’m not sure how well I did in sending my positive thoughts through the building to her, but at least I couldn’t be accused of not putting forth my best effort. Dr. Tanbyrn encourages me to try to stop thinking about Charlene now and let my attention drift toward other things.
I’ve already started to do that, but it’s not easy to put her out of my mind, or to obviate my thoughts of Rachel and the boys.
The birds flock across the screen, moving together just as fish do, as if guided by an unseen hand, and watching them, I can’t help but be struck with a sense of wonder at the natural world.
An admiration, an awe, a sense of marvel I’ve always had.
Ants build intricate tunnel systems. Bees build hives. But how does each member of the hive know what his job should be? How does each ant know where to dig? Ask a biologist and she’ll typically answer “instinct,” but that’s like explaining how you saw a woman in half by saying it’s “magic.” It’s an explanation that doesn’t explain anything; just more smoke and mirrors, misdirection, to keep you from asking the questions that really get to the heart of the matter.
Instinct.
Really?
That’s the explanation for every adaptation, trait, and inborn desire of every species? Even of behavior that could not possibly be taught to offspring, or of environmentally cued responses that could not be passed on in the genetic code? There’s a gap in logic there that most people simply overlook or aren’t willing to acknowledge.
Charlene’s picture appears again, and I turn my attention to her, start the timer on my watch.
Over the next half hour or so, her image appears twenty-six times — I keep track as I tap the button on my watch to record the exact timing of the appearances.
And although I’ll need to analyze it later, the timing of the image generation certainly does seem to be random.
Sometimes the segments come on only a few seconds apart, other times several minutes pass between them, so unless I’m missing something, I can’t imagine how Charlene could ever guess when her image is being played for me — and even if she could, there’s no believable way she could alter her heart rate and respiration within a handful of seconds in ways that would coincide with each of the video segments.
Every time her image disappears, I do my best to lend my attention to the bird video, but with each passing minute I become more and more curious about what the tests will show, about whether or not Charlene’s physiology will have been altered, even in the slightest degree, by my thoughts.
Finally, Dr. Tanbyrn announces that we’re done. He graciously thanks me for being part of the study, and then consults the tablet computer again. “Give us just a few minutes, and then we’ll go down the hall and see how Jennie is doing.”
The DVD
Glenn arrived at the center.
With his fake beard and wig, he knew he would never be positively identified, even after the surveillance video was analyzed later, after the fire.
Rather than hike through the woods on his injured leg, he drove straight to the registration building, pulled into the parking lot, and went inside to get a visitor’s pass for the day.
Caitlyn Vaughn, Dr. Cyrus Arlington’s faithful receptionist, ushered the courier into his office.
An earlier arrival than Cyrus expected.
The courier handed him a package stamped “Official business. Requested material.”
Cyrus knew, of course, that it was the DVD containing the video footage of what had happened in Kabul thirty-one hours earlier.
He also knew that he needed to watch the footage privately before allowing the twins, Riah, or Undersecretary of Defense Oriana Williamson to see it. And definitely before passing it on to Akinsanya. He was not someone Cyrus was prepared to disappoint.
He paid the courier, closed the door, and locked it so that even his nicely endowed and seductive young secretary, the one he’d slept with when she was in accounting and then transferred up here before starting his relationship with Riah, wouldn’t interrupt him.