The Amazon Code (2 page)

“Go back!”
 

Amanda looked over to Dr. Wu, frowning.
 

“Sir?”
 

“Go back,” he repeated. “This is being recorded, yes?”
 

“Y — yes, but —“
 

“I don’t care about the current feed. Rewind the video back about three seconds.”
 

“Dr. Wu,” Amanda said, “we don’t want to lose the —“
 

“I understand, Amanda, but I saw something…”
 

Amanda nodded, and the technician closest to the monitor reached out and fiddled with the controls on the computer below it. The screen changed to a computer desktop for a moment, then he double-clicked a folder and then a video file inside of it.
 

“Just changing from the live feed to the recording…” he said as he worked.
 

The video started over again, from the swirling vortex of colors to the blank screen. He dragged the cursor over the scrubbing track, “fast-forwarding” the file to a few seconds before the end.
 

“What did you see, Henry?” Amanda’s voice was calm, but it hid concern. Dr. Wu was not the type of person to mess around or engage in hyperbole, especially not during a live testing period.
 

“I — I don’t know. I’m not quite sure yet,” he stammered, his eyes transfixed on the monitor display. “There! Stop it there, and go back a few frames at a time.”
 

The memory they were watching was the same one as before: Herrera chasing his oldest son through a house. But Wu seemed transfixed not on the object of Herrera’s active memory — his son — but on the background.
 

The video’s point-of-view swiveled to the left, trying to keep up with the child, and it seemed as though Herrera was running past a window. They watched the screen until Wu spoke again.
 

“Hold it. Right there, on the right, outside the window. That is a window, correct?”
 

Heads nodded. Amanda couldn’t see what it was that had Wu’s attention.
 

“Outside, just beyond the window.
 

She blurred her vision again, then released it. The image came into focus more, and she felt her throat constrict.
 

“What the…”
 

“Is that a person?”
 

It was indeed. Amanda was sure of it.
 

The image was small — difficult to see even when she leaned in to the monitor — but it was sharply focused.
 

Eerily
focused.
 

It was a man, covered in what looked like gold paint.
 

“It looks like a statue to me.”
 

“But the detail…”
 

Amanda shook her head. “This is a joke, right, Dr. Wu?”
 

Dr. Wu just frowned at the screen.
 

“The man — or statue — is
completely
in focus.” The gold-covered man in the image, standing outside the fuzzy outline of the window, was defined perfectly in the frame. It was small, and therefore easy to miss, but Amanda knew without a doubt what she was staring at.
 

A man, perfectly focused, stared back at them.

“Dr. Wu,” she started again, “did you somehow layer this into the feed? Maybe there’s an artifact from a previous —“

“No, Dr. Meron,” he responded, his voice soft. “I did not interfere with this recording. What we are seeing here is part of the dreamstate created by Mr. Herrera’s subconscious. The man we are seeing is, in fact, part of Herrera’s memory.”
 

“But how can it be so
clear
? So perfectly in focus?”
 

Wu shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But let’s see what happens if we jump a few frames at a time, forward and backward.”
 

The technician nearest the monitor and computer assembly nodded and moved some controls. The frame jumped, skipping forward. Herrera’s memory moved to the left, turning away from the window as he searched for the child.

All eyes were on the gold-covered man in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
 

The technician pushed forward another frame, then another.
 

“There!” someone shouted.
 

Amanda jumped, startled by the sound of the person’s voice.
 

Or startled by what she saw.
 

The gold-covered man had
moved
. As Herrera’s memory of the scene changed and shifted, the man in the corner, standing outside the window in the distance, turned and followed Herrera.
 

Amanda stared back at the man. She could see his eyes, deep black and sunken into his head, and his gold face, outlined by a shimmering light surrounding his body.
 

The eyes were looking directly at her.
 

2

“BUT HOW CAN HE BE
staring
at me?”
 

Dr. Amanda Meron was following her coworker, Dr. Henry Wu, through the halls of the facility to the staff conference room.
 

“He wasn’t, Dr. Meron,” Wu answered. “He was staring at the camera.”
 

“The camera?”
 

“Well, you know what I mean. Our subject’s projected memory. In this case, the memory of chasing his young son through his house, is remembered in first person, just like any dream you or I have.”
 

“So the man was looking at Herrera? Our subject?”
 

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Wu said. “But yes, I suppose that is the most logical conclusion — the memory of the gold man would likely not have appeared unless it was a significant, yet repressed, memory. We need to ask Mr. Herrera who the man is and why he was dreaming about him.”
 

“But why was he in focus? Once you pointed him out, it was as clear as looking at a photograph. I thought —“

“That the projections would all be distorted, blurry, out of focus? Yes, as did I. But for some reason, this memory of the man was so strong, so
reinforced
, that the electrodes were able to recreate it almost perfectly in the transmission.”
 

“
Almost
perfectly?” another voice asked. Amanda noticed they had been joined by the same younger technician who had helped them navigate the computer’s controls a few minutes ago. “He seemed pretty perfectly composed to me.”
 

“Right,” Dr. Wu said, not slowing his upbeat clip through the hallways. “But he was completely gold. The memory wasn’t firm enough in its recall to recreate the man’s proper attire, coloration, etcetera. Still, I do find it quite strange at the seeming insignificance of it.”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“Well, why was that man, in particular, the only thing in focus during that memory? Sure, we do not have the capabilities as of yet to recreate perfect images, but we’ve hypothesized on this before. The strongest memories, or the strongest
elements
within those memories, will be the things that show up the clearest.”
 

“So that man is the most important part of that memory?”
 

“That’s what our research suggests, yes,” Dr. Wu said.

Amanda knew that, but it was encouraging — comforting, even — to hear it from one of her closest friends, and most trusted coworker.
I’m not crazy, then,
she thought.
 

“But why
that
man, and not Herrera’s son? Or his house?” she asked.

“That is exactly the question we need to answer, Dr. Meron.”
 

They turned and entered the conference room. Amanda had often thought the small room would be better served as a closet, but she held her tongue and pushed between the wall and the backs of chairs to get to a seat in the corner. This was her company, after all, and she was the last among them who would want to spend money on frivolous things like space and fancy conference rooms.

One technician and two other research scientists — Johnson, Guavez, and Ortega — were already there, seated across the table from Amanda. Dr. Wu and Nichols, the last technician, sat next to her.
 

She started immediately. “Team — as you know, our first neurological experiment using a fully-functioning, live human brain was a success. We will begin the project assessment and start assembling a response and hypothetical model as soon as this meeting is adjourned.”
 

She continued through the required debriefing, not stopping to take questions until the end.
 

Thankfully, that was only a few minutes later.
 

“Okay,” she said, wrapping up the session. “Any questions?”
 

Hands shot up around the room.
 

She smiled. “Let me guess — ‘who do we think the gold-covered man is?’ ‘How was he so perfectly in focus?’”
 

Heads nodded in unison.

“I’m wondering those same things myself.” Just then, the door opened and a small, petite woman shuffled into the few square feet of remaining space.
 

“Dr. Meron, the lab results,” the woman said. She slid a folder across the table toward Meron.

“Thank you, Diane.” She turned to the techs and scientists that had joined her around the table. “As you all know, I want this to be a fully open, honest forum. We’re all part of this, so this is the first time
any
of us are seeing these results.” Amanda opened the folder and began reading aloud.
 

“Upon waking the patient at 0900 hours, the following questions were asked. The transcript and responses to follow.”
 

Amanda flipped a page. “1 — Were you able to engage in restful sleep? Response: ‘Yes.’ 2 — Do you remember dreaming during your most restful periods of sleep? Response: ‘Yes.’”

She stopped for a moment and looked around the room. “I’m going to skip ahead a bit.”
 

There were a few chuckles and nervous laughs, but she continued.
 

“7 — There was an object — what appeared to be a human male — in the dream. This man seemed to be covered in a gold paint. Brief pause. Who is the man? Response: ‘I am sorry? I do not remember seeing a man.’ 8 — This man seemed to be situated outside a window in the house. Do you remember the window? Response: ‘I do. This was my house, my family’s house. The window, uh, must have been the front window, looking out onto the street.’ 9 — And yet you do not remember the man outside the window? Response: ‘There was no man outside the window. I am sure of it.’”
 

Amanda swallowed, then closed the folder. Without speaking, she set the folder down on the table and placed her hands on it.
 

What the hell is happening?

Her first reaction was anger.
My research — my entire
company
— all of it is being sabotaged.

She kept that feeling to herself. Unfortunately, the
second
emotion she felt — that of complete shock, of wondering what was going on, was plastered all over her face.
 

“Dr. Meron?” Dr. Wu’s voice. “Are you okay?”
 

Amanda felt her head spin.
Am I shaking?
She tried to steady herself on the table. She looked over at Dr. Wu, nodding.
 

“Dr. Meron, I am sure there is a logical explanation for this. Perhaps Mr. Herrera had temporarily forgotten —“
 

“No,” Dr. Wu said. “We need to run another test. Please have Diane prepare the subject for another round of REMS. He will need to expedite his regular daily schedule so we can have a test prepared for this evening.”
 

Around the table, heads nodded. Amanda could hear the voice of Dr. Wu, but his words weren’t registering.
We’ve been sabotaged,
she thought.
It’s a joke. It’s all a joke.

Dr. Wu continued. “In the meantime, is there another subject prepared for a REMS analysis?”
 

Diane nodded. “Yes, Dr. Wu. Actually, we have a cousin of Mr. Herrera here as well. They signed up for the same examination week.”
 

“That will be perfect.” He turned to the technicians seated around the table. “Prepare the computer and fMRI system once more.”
 

3

DR. WU DIDN’T BLAME AMANDA. For years she’d been building this project, working toward the ultimate goal and dream they both shared: recording human dreams.
 

The fact that she was currently overwhelmed with the reality of the situation did not surprise him. He would take the lead until she was ready to return. Knowing her, she just needed some rest and time to clear her mind.

He had been with her since the beginning of this final phase. Their careers were similar, though Amanda was certainly the savvy and creative mind that a research project of this caliber needed, while he was the lead scientist that provided the logical and analytical functions to keep it moving forward.
 

They were a perfectly matched team, as well. From day one they’d hit it off, her wit and charm matched by his seriousness and love for science. In most of his professional career he’d witnessed only cutthroat types vying for publication credentials, university positions, and curriculum vitae-building projects that would only further their careers.
 

But not here at NARATech. Neurological Advanced Research Applications was a firm like no other — focused solely on achieving the goals set by all of them, together, around the table inside that terribly cramped conference room. Political and bureaucratic considerations were, simply, not considered.

For the first years they’d worked together, he’d assumed that she had personally bankrolled NARATech — he simply couldn’t fathom any other possibility for a company such as this. But after getting to know her, he overheard a few references to ‘investors’ and ‘capital’ and things of that nature, and he started wondering where Amanda had found the hands-off investors she’d collected to get this place off the ground. He couldn’t imagine anyone willing to invest such hefty sums in an unproven market, especially without the massive oversight and earmarking along the way that always came with the investment money.