A Cage of Butterflies (6 page)

XII

Myriam

August 9, 1990. 2 am

Myriam loved the night.

At night, the Noise subsided. The competing thought-pat-terns which screamed, uncontrolled, from all parts of the Institute by day, the thunder of the countless mind-tones a little distance to the north and the endless background rumble of a million minds and more; the psychic voice of the distant city. At night, it faded, altered its rhythm; still loud, but gentler, somehow, like the ocean at low-ebb. Shallow ripplings on the surface of her mind, but always with the presence of a power subdued.

So different from the waking hours, when it crashed against the Shield like a king tide, held out by force of will; huge waves of thought, the soundless voices of uncountable minds, all shouting to be heard, all merging into a single, silent, unbearable roar. The Noise.

Let down the Shield for more than an instant, allow it inside, and it would sweep you away; drown your thoughts in its roaring, tear your sanity to shreds and carry your mind along with it. For ever.

So Myriam lived for the fall of dark.

Somewhere in her memory was a time before the Noise. A vague, dreamlike memory of a short, sweet and distant childhood, that ended on that day of pain and fever. A white-hot surge, agonising, swelling from the centre of her brain; rising, overwhelming, then fading. To red and then to black.

And then the voices. Barely noticeable at first. A word, an image, an emotion that was not her own, but suddenly there within her mind, breaking the rhythm of her thoughts. They grew until the constant shouting in her mind became unbearable. Day after day, the growing roar, until she could no longer think. Until her thoughts were little more than a desperate whisper in the storm.

Until she discovered the Shield.

The Shield said no. It was an instinct, a barrier which shut out the Noise. As closing your eyes shut out the light. But more. It allowed her to think. Thoughts which multiplied and expanded in the silence of self. At three years old, cut off from her family, her world; alone inside the Shield, Myriam had discovered pure thought.

But she could share it with no one. The insights, the understandings remained locked inside her mind-silent prison. She could see. She could hear. Touch, taste, smell. The Shield allowed sensations in, but nothing out. The control which blocked someone else's thoughts – anyone else's thoughts – from entering, allowed for no communication. No words, no gestures. For to focus on another, to make the sounds or the signs, was to move out from the core of self that was the essence of the Shield.

Greg was dreaming. Of Mikki. For a moment Myriam paused. Then her mind moved on. Boys' dreams made little more sense than their waking fantasies.

Mikki rarely dreamed. Tonight, the rhythms of her sleep flowed gently in the dark. Lines from a poem, phrases of music, a picture, a face; random echoes, but no dreams.

Susan was still awake. As usual, she was struggling to understand, poring over the contents of a folder. As usual, the question was “why?” Why these kids? Why no others? Knowing their secret, experiencing the beginnings of the mind-speech, had answered one set of questions, but it had brought her no closer to solving the original mystery. What had happened in the first place? What was the cause?

Slowly, Myriam eased inside, slipping in between those troubled questions. Into the centre of the struggle, to the core of tension that kept Susan from sleep. And slowly it began. A feeling, warm, soothing, spreading from that centre, loosening the knot, relaxing.

Susan stopped reading in mid-sentence, closing her eyes for a moment. “Myriam?” She voiced the thought. Then she smiled, pushed back her chair and made her way into the bedroom. She lay down on the bed, allowing the calm to seep through her like a gentle tide. “Good-night, Myriam,” she murmured, and drifted into sleep.

Myriam lingered a moment.
goodnightsusan.
Then her mind moved on.

Myriam never really slept. None of them did. The Shield required conscious effort; each of them, in their years of isolation, had developed the half-sleep, relaxing the body, dozing, sometimes with the appearance of sleep. But always a part of the mind remained conscious, aware.

Once, it had been a matter of survival. Now it was an unbreakable habit. Lying there in the dark, she thought of Larsen, and smiled.

What he would give for proof of what he already suspected! It was ironic that his self-interest, his obsession, had brought them together here, breaking their isolation, handing them the power to resist him. The strength of numbers.

Life had changed for Myriam the day the twins arrived. It was like a rebirth. An escape from the prison of self. The beginning of the Sharing.

Behind the Shield, alone with her thoughts, she had grown beyond her years. In her isolation, thoughts had come, connections, understandings which she could never share.

But the twins had never been alone. From the start they had shared the burden of maintaining the Shield. From the outset they had thought, pooled their understandings, interpreted their world together. Behind the mask they presented to the world they were one. In a way the rest of the world could never be one.

And on that first day they had made her a part of that unity.

Standing there, watching them arrive, she had felt the sudden thought grow in her mind behind the Shield, and Ian had caught her eye.

hello
the thought had said. No more.

A single word which spelled the end of loneliness. More than enough reason to smile.

XIII

GREG'S STORY

You have to get away from the idea of words. Words are only the labels we put on thoughts to make them manageable for ourselves; to communicate them to other people. I guess that's why the Babies had so much trouble teaching us the mind-speech. We had to overcome a lifetime of verbalising. I'm sure that most of the communication they used between themselves was on a plane beyond words.

How do you describe a taste? Apart from very general descriptions like “sweet” or “sour”, we don't have the words to describe, say, the flavour of an orange, or a packet of salt-and-vinegar chips or garlic. So we rely on comparisons: “It tastes like …”, “It's similar to …” and a hundred other phrases which count on the other person having had experiences that match ours.

Myriam and the others never had that problem. If one of the Babies wanted to describe a taste to the others, they simply shared the experience. Without reducing it to words. The hardest part for them was slowing down; breaking up a complex thought into individual words, so that we could comprehend it.

I had to pity Larsen. Susan let us in on his attempts to measure just how bright the Babies were. You just couldn't do it. No scale he could devise could come close. How do you measure a mind that looks and just knows? And anyway, there was no point in trying to gauge the power of any one of the Babies' minds. Because in a real sense, they weren't five separate minds at all, but one. Like a network. Five terminals feeding one memory. What one learned, they all knew.

That's not to say they weren't individuals. They were. Eventually I was able to distinguish between their thought-tones and their personalities, but the power of their thoughts was overwhelming. If Larsen had ever developed any accurate conception of their capabilities, he would probably have packed away his research and taken up finger-painting. He only knew that they were extremely bright and that he thought he could use them.

He never really believed they were autistic. Even though from the age of three none of them had made any attempt to communicate with the outside world. They simply didn't fit the pattern of autism. There were no violent outbursts; the Babies were all placid kids, who never caused the slightest commotion. Most autistics absolutely need order, repetition; everything has to be in the right place, predictable, familiar. The Babies had never made such demands.

So, how did they end up at the farm? How did Larsen get hold of them?

I asked Susan and her answer was to let me read her brother's research. Basically, it was a coincidence, a series of accidents. Under other circumstances, the Babies might have lived their whole lives virtually unnoticed, trapped in their own separate little worlds. Richard Grace didn't go looking for
them
in particular. He was working for Larsen, searching hospital records, talking to paediatricians, looking for signs of kids with unusual intelligence. Larsen was in the process of setting up the Institute to study advanced learning techniques. He'd already lined up the kids in the think-tank. I guess we were easy to find; a few letters to regional counsellors in the Education Department would have given him our names, and probably a number of others. Richard Grace had the harder job. He was after something different. Abilities that were more … bizarre.

And he certainly found them.

First, it was Myriam. He came across a reference to her in the literature from one of the big teaching hospitals. A five-year-old autistic kid who could write down the entire score for a complex piece of piano music – say a Chopin “Etude” – after hearing it played just once. She had apparently just picked it up by watching her mother play. The little girl couldn't play a note, had never tried, but apparently she had the ability to connect the notes on the paper with the sounds she heard, even the sharps and flats and time signatures. Her father had found her one day scribbling down the notes to a new piece her mother had just finished playing. And this from a kid who had not said a word to anyone since the age of three.

They'd tested her at the hospital, but she wouldn't perform the trick on demand, only if and when the mood moved her. But she could do it. It was just the sort of “off the wall” talent Larsen had sent him out looking for.

Richard had talked to the doctors, but they couldn't explain it. Myriam's case was a puzzle. The mysterious fever and its aftermath, the total withdrawal, the bit with the music and the other signs of obvious intelligence. She was a case for the “too hard” basket, and she fascinated Richard, who, like his sister, could never let a problem lie.

Then he discovered Pep. Her real name was Phetmany, (pronounced ‘Petmany'), but to her brothers and sisters – six of them – she'd always been “Pep”, and the name had stuck.

Her case came to light quite by accident. According to Richard's journal, he was at a party – one of his old professors was retiring or something – and he mentioned his interest in Myriam's unusual abilities. He was talking with a young paediatrician who'd just set up practice in the south-west.

One of the guy's first cases was a little Asian kid who'd been diagnosed by the local GP as autistic. As the doctor outlined the facts of the case, the similarities to Myriam's situation were overwhelming: the fever, the withdrawal and some striking flashes of intelligence …

Richard left the party early.

And the search for the Babies was on.

By isolating all the similarities in the two cases, especially their place of birth, and following them up, he soon had a list of five or six others – including a set of twins. A pattern was emerging.

All the time, he dutifully forwarded the information to Larsen, who by now had the Institute up and running, with four or five of the think-tank – including me – already in residence. But something about Larsen's approach or attitude began to worry Richard. You could pick it from the journal entries, and by the fact that he stopped informing Larsen when he discovered new names – some of the names on the second sheet in the red folder that Susan let us see.

Shortly before Richard died, he'd given Larsen a list of eight names. Kids who apparently failed to survive the fevers which had preceded the Babies' radical changes. Perhaps it was a warning to Larsen. A reminder of the dangers involved. Richard was bright; he may have seen the direction Larsen's mind was heading. Maybe he could have kept him in check. We'll never know – the accident prevented him from trying.

XIV

Learning Phase

September 2, 1990

“Beef casserole. Too much pepper, not enough sauce.” Greg could never master the skill of “sending” his thoughts without speaking them aloud. So far, only Katie had managed the trick.

verygoodgreg
… It was Pep's thought-tone. She was the easiest to pick. There was a – gentleness about her projection. After eight weeks, the different “tones” of the soundless whispers which appeared inside his head were almost as recognisable as individual voices, heard over the phone.

“It wasn't very difficult. We only had it for dinner last night. I guess they feed you lot the same garbage they feed us.”

ofcourse
… There was a pause and a congratulatory warmth crept over him.
buttastesare … hardtocatch … youaredoingverywell.
He could sense the difficulty she had slowing down the thought-stream. To Pep, this kind of conversation had to be like trying to watch the whole of
Gone With the Wind
in ultra-slow-motion, or reading
War and Peace
one word at a time.

Greg remembered the Babies' early attempts at conscious communication. Syllables exploding simultaneously, rolling over each other in their haste, until the whole message became a meaningless jumble and he felt like screaming with frustration.

It wasn't so bad if they waited until you were asleep. They could home in and for some reason, in that semiconscious state you could absorb the whole message intact. Chris theorised that it was because the subconscious operates on images rather than words, and doesn't stop to break a thought into individual ideas, but eats it whole. He thought he recalled reading somewhere that a dream which you remember lasting for minutes or hours really took place in the few half-seconds before you woke. That seemed to make sense.

In fact, that was how they first contacted Katie. At night. Greg remembered Mikki's description of those early nights, when Katie would lie there asleep – her eyes open – mumbling replies to unheard questions. And Mikki would feel those buzzing sensations at the back of her mind which had irritated her so much until she learned the truth.

gregareyoureadyfor … thenextone.
The pauses, the breaks inside a message or a question were quite random. They were just pauses: the Babies' concession to a mind struggling to grasp and translate. It had been Mikki's idea, and without it no one, except maybe Katie, would have made such progress.

Still, it took a large measure of discipline on the Babies' part; first to channel a whole thought into a stream of syllables, then to break that stream artificially into bite-sized pieces. The twins found it hardest, of course – they had more years of telepathic habit to overcome; quite often, one or both of them would assault some member of the tank with a barrage of indecipherable thought, before they realised and shut it off apologetically.

“Go ahead.” Almost before the thought was complete, his mind was filled again. This time a burst of sound, melodious, soothing. “Music. Piano. Who is it?”

verygoodgregit … israchmaninov … youlikeit.
It was difficult to tell whether Pep was asking a question or making a statement. The Babies could fill you with such powerful feelings if they chose to, but when they communicated in words there was no intonation, no emotion; just the words. Like the artificial voices they program into talking computers.

“Yes, I like it.” He paused. “Do you?”

yesido … verymuchit … ismyfavouritethe … harmon iesand … therhythmicalvariations …

“When did you first hear it? I mean, not too many parents take their five-year-olds to classical concerts.”

ihavenever … hearditmyparentsplayed … littlemusicat … homemyriam … showedittome.

“Showed it to you? Showed you Rachmaninov?” Not for the first time, Greg was confused.

hermother … playedand … myriamlistenedshe … showedmethememory … itismyfavourite … gregiamglad you … likeditwould … youliketohear … more.

“Would you?”

i …

“Yes, you. We have a whole record library in the rec room and we hardly ever use it. Larsen must have assumed the brains trust would prefer Rachmaninov to rock 'n' roll. Most of it's classical. If you'd like to hear more, I can listen to it for you.” For a moment hewas silent, then: “Pep, is the memory asgood as the real thing?”

asgoodit … istherealthing … thereisnodifference.

“You mean you can hear something once, then the memory stays with you so you can replay it whenever you want to?”

replay … rememberyes … herewehaveno … musicwe share … myriam's.

“Well, now you can share ours.”

thankyougreg … youarekind.

“What are friends for?” A sudden, warm feeling spread over Greg, so that he wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

friends … wearefriendsgreg … youandi.

“All of us, Pep. We're all your friends. You aren't alone any more – any of you – and we won't let anything happen to you.”

iweknow … thank you … all …

“Come on, Suse, call it a night.” Erik was leaning in through the office doorway, one hand on the door jamb. “It'll still be there tomorrow, you know.”

He moved across to the desk, reached for one of the files, glanced at it casually, then returned it to the desk top. Susan had not responded to his advice. He knew her too well by now to expect that she would. She was on to something, and she would follow it to its conclusion – even if it proved to be a dead-end. At times, her dedication rose to the level of an obsession. An obsession from which even he had found himself excluded. At first, he had resisted; that had led to a few heated and memorable arguments, but since July, since the Babies had finally broken their mind-silence, he had come to understand the obsession. To share in it. And it had brought them closer.

“Need any help?” Out of habit, he rubbed her neck and shoulders, gently massaging the tension from her muscles.

“Just keep doing that and maybe I'll marry you.”

“Yeah? Just for what I can do with my hands?”

Susan looked up at him and smiled. “It's a good start.”

“Just once, I'd like someone to love me for my mind.”

“Good luck.” That smile again. “But if I were you, I'd take what I could get. You might never get a better offer.”

“Careful. I just might take you up on it.”

Reaching up, she placed her right hand over his. Then, without releasing her grip, she rose and turned to face him. The teasing was gone, from her voice and from her face.

“I could do a lot worse.” At that moment, as their eyes met, they reached a silent understanding. Then she brushed his lips lightly with her own and stepped back, smiling again.

Turning back to the desk, she began to tidy the files into a rough pile. “Let's go and eat. At this point in time, I'd marry the first man who offered me a supreme pizza.”

“It was nothing I could put my finger on, but I could swear they'd been acting … differently.” Larsen pressed the remote and speeded up the tape, searching for something. “Then, earlier today, I recorded this.”

MacIntyre sat patiently in the chair, waiting for the balding scientist to come to the point. He was used to the theatrics; Larsen was emotionally incapable of telling you something simply – he had to make a production of it. His eyes wandered to the TV.

The image on the screen slowed to normal speed.

“Watch,” Larsen said, unnecessarily. It was a close-up of Pep's face, shot through the one-way glass.

As he watched, MacIntyre could see a look of intense concentration tighten the young girl's features, though her eyes, as always, remained unfocused. Then, suddenly, she seemed to relax. The tension drained from her face and shoulders, a smile creeping upwards from the corners of her mouth. And a single tear began to slide slowly down her cheek.

“There!” Larsen jabbed an index finger in the direction of the TV screen.

And MacIntyre caught the single word, mouthed almost too quietly for the hidden mikes to catch, but recognisable all the same.

“Friends …” she said.