Page 103 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)
T his is a veritable pharmacy of psychedelic substances…
Katherine felt dumbfounded as she stared into the refrigerator at the staggering array of potent drugs.
In addition to several substances she did not recognize, Katherine saw vials of diethylamide, psilocybin, and DMT—the effective ingredients in LSD, magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca.
She even spotted containers of distilled Salvia extract and MDMA—both illegal in these forms.
The presence of these drugs inside a VR lab could mean only one thing. Threshold is administering drugs in conjunction with state-of-the-art virtual reality immersions.
Dual-stimuli VR/drug therapies were strictly regulated in the medical field because their results were not yet understood.
In many cases, the combined stimulation was so powerful that it altered the brain’s structure rapidly and in unpredictable ways.
Neuroscientists had already begun to see startling structural changes in the brains of young people who combined computer gaming with designer drug use.
A new generation of thrill seekers now donned consumer VR goggles and spent hours smoking cannabis while floating virtually through space…
snorting cocaine while riding a virtual roller coaster…
or “edging” on various time-dilation sex drugs while watching VR porn.
To no avail, countless warnings had been issued because the experiences were intensely addictive.
People don’t want to hear how dangerous it is…
Last year, Katherine had been booed when she spoke to an audience of tech-savvy gaming enthusiasts and explained that prolonged exposure to hyperrealistic first-person shooter games had been shown not only to shape people’s sensitivity to the graphic subject matter—but to rewire the brain’s structure, muting normal empathic triggers.
The boos grew louder when she informed them of new brain studies showing that voracious consumption of online pornography was physically altering young minds—“essentially growing a callus on the human libido” and desensitizing them to real sex.
The result was that arousal, even in young people, could be achieved only with the assistance of a mind-boggling quantity and variety of stimuli.
Langdon stood beside her, scanning the vials and containers in the refrigerator. “What are the drugs for?”
“Specifically, I’m not sure, but some of these substances are no joke—powerful hallucinogens.” She looked around, her thoughts now racing. “If I had to guess, I’d say this room was custom-built for one purpose—to rewire a human brain.”
“I’m sorry—rewire?”
She nodded. “It’s called neural plasticity.
Our brains physically evolve to meet the needs of new environments.
The brain creates new neural pathways to process new experiences.
Taking drugs like these, in conjunction with VR simulation, would create a staggeringly intense experience—exponentially more vivid than what occurs in normal life—the type of experiences, which, if repeated, would literally begin to rewire a brain’s neural network with alarming speed. ”
“Rewire the brain…to do what ?”
That’s the million-dollar question, she thought.
Katherine knew the brain of a lifelong meditation guru was anatomically unique—the years of meditation having gradually rewired it to access a state of deep calm at will. In essence, calm became that brain’s new normal.
“Robert, it now occurs to me that if Threshold repeatedly placed a subject into an artificially induced out-of-body state— accentuated by psychedelics—that subject’s brain would begin to rewire itself to make that disassociated state feel more…
normal. In other words, this process might be trying to tune a consciousness…
to be more comfortable outside the body. ”
Her words hung a long moment in the silence of this underground space.
“Nonlocal…” Langdon finally said. “That would certainly relate to your book.”
“Yes, it certainly would.” Not to mention Stargate, she thought. “I hate to say it, but Sasha would be a perfect candidate for VR rewiring. As an epileptic, her mind is already partially wired for out-of-body experiences. Using her as a test subject would be something of a shortcut.”
“Sasha never mentioned anything like that to me.”
“She might not remember, or even be aware…” Katherine said, her voice trailing off as she pointed into the fridge. “See that? It’s Rohypnol.”
“The date-rape drug?”
She nodded. “It profoundly impairs memory function and causes anterograde amnesia—keeping its subjects functional but making it extremely difficult for them to remember anything that happened.”
Langdon looked horrified. “Sasha told me she has memory issues. She thinks it’s epilepsy -related.”
“They may well be,” Katherine replied. “But if Sasha is being given Rohypnol regularly, she would have serious memory impairment…perhaps even no recollection of ever coming here.”
“Maybe that explains the wheelchair in the transport? They could have been shuttling Sasha back and forth?”
“It’s quite possible,” Katherine said. “And it makes me think of the other epileptic you mentioned—the man Brigita brought from that same institution? Brigita may have told Sasha that he went home, but these are incredibly dangerous drugs… Anything could have happened. He could have gone insane or died—who knows? One advantage of recruiting a patient who was abandoned in a government institution is that he won’t really be missed if he disappears. ”
Langdon was already heading for the door. “This is starting to make sense,” he said, “and if we’re right…and we can find proof that the CIA is experimenting on innocent test subjects without their knowledge…”
It would be game over, Katherine realized, imagining the extent of public outrage if this was true.
Back in the hallway, Langdon was eager to push deeper into Threshold. The main corridor turned sharply right, and he could see two smaller hallways branching off it to the left. The facility was turning into a labyrinth.
A meandering Cold War bomb shelter…How far does it go?
He knew they would need to pay close attention if they were going to find their way out of here.
At the corner, they turned right, keeping with the main corridor. Once again, as they stepped into the darkened space, the floor lights immediately illuminated.
Not far ahead, a pair of double doors blocked the hall. Langdon felt reassured to note the door’s oval windows were dark, suggesting no lights were on in the area beyond.
We’re still alone down here…at least in this section.
They pushed through the double doors into more darkness, and again floor lighting came on to reveal another section of hallway. But something was different here…The air was about ten degrees cooler and carried the faint carbon tang of museum air. Heavily filtered.
The second thing Langdon noticed was that the hallway was a dead end. The hall offered only a single alcove on the left, about halfway down, which, by all appearances, was the entrance to another suite of some sort.
Langdon realized that if they didn’t find what they needed in there, they’d have to start venturing off the main hall into other areas. Despite his eidetic memory, he was already getting turned around in this maze.
As they continued walking, Langdon tried to gauge exactly where beneath Folimanka Park they were now located.
He eyed the dead-end wall at the end of the corridor, wondering if perhaps there were tourists milling on the other side of it in the public section of the shelter…
unaware of the ominous facility that existed right beside them.
They turned into the lone alcove and stopped short. In front of them was an oversized glass revolving door with thick rubber gaskets designed to retain air quality. It looked like another lab door, but the space beyond was pitch-black.
“RTD,” Katherine said, reading three stenciled letters above the revolving door. “Sounds promising.”
“Does it?” Langdon’s only memory of RTD was from grade school math. Rate x Time = Distance.
“Research and technical development—it’s the European equivalent of R&D,” she said, peering into the dark glass. “Which means this could be exactly what we’re looking for.”