Page 107 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Having entered the bio lab with Langdon, Katherine was carefully examining the sophisticated machine before her.

Artificial neurons don’t exist. Not yet.

This had always been Katherine’s belief…but now she was not so sure. While the machine did indeed look like an elaborate hydroponic incubator, she had no way to know, with her naked eye, what was in the vials of liquid.

It’s impossible…isn’t it?

Much of Katherine’s postgraduate work in brain science had centered on neurochemistry, studying the specific chemical mechanisms by which the brain’s neural network functioned.

Artificial neurons, in concept, had first been proposed in 1943 by American scientists Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts—but the realization of that concept had always seemed a distant dream.

There was a common quip among biologists: Humans will inhabit Mars long before we build an artificial neuron.

“Check those manuals?” she said, motioning to a bookcase across the room. “See if you see anything about this incubator or what they’re growing in here. I’ll check the drawers.”

As Langdon headed to the bookcase, Katherine began rifling through a set of file drawers built into the room’s glistening worktable.

Most meticulous laboratories, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, created a “protocol book” for every project—a hard copy set of procedural guidelines to ensure consistency and reproducibility of results.

This is what Katherine hoped to find, but she found nothing of much interest within the drawers.

It was not until she discovered a recessed “flat tray” drawer in the table that she found anything promising…including a heavy black three-ring binder. Although it was far too thick to be the protocol book she was looking for, she felt a chill when she saw the words emblazoned on the cover.

Top Secret

Property of Central Intelligence Agency

Katherine immediately hoisted the binder onto the table and opened it.

Please tell us something…

As she skimmed the first few pages, she was startled to learn that the authors of this binder came from the prestigious Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE) in Sweden.

The CIA recruited from LOE?! In the quest to produce artificial neurons, LOE was one of the world’s leading think tanks.

Katherine had mentioned their Venus flytrap breakthrough only minutes ago!

Spellbound, she flipped through the various sections of the binder, reading the headers. She saw a number of familiar topics, but then her eye hit on one that stopped her cold.

Modulation via mixed ion-electron conducting polymers

Modulation? She immediately began scanning the section. Did they really solve modulation?!

One of the most daunting hurdles in the quest to build an artificial neuron was to mimic “ion modulation”—a neuron’s unique ability to activate and deactivate sodium ion channels. And yet if this header was to be believed, ion modulation was now possible.

But…how?!

Heart racing, Katherine began reading about Threshold’s solution to the modulation problem. Everything about it made perfect sense to her…almost too perfect…and the further she read, the harder it became for her to breathe.

No…no…this can’t be!

“Katherine?” Langdon repeated, having joined her at the table after hearing her gasp a few moments ago. “Are you okay?”

But she made no reply, her eyes riveted to the binder as she flipped pages, one after another, muttering quietly to herself.

Langdon peered over her shoulder, trying to see what was upsetting her, but the page header meant nothing to him. Modulation via mixed ion-electron conducting polymers?

As the seconds wore on, Langdon sensed Katherine was in a state of mild shock, and he finally placed a hand on her arm. “What is it?”

She spun abruptly toward him, her eyes full of fire. “What is it? Threshold is using synthesized BBL as an organic electrochemical transistor! They cast it into a thin film and dissolved it in methanesulfonic—”

“Slow down—what?”

“BBL! They’re using it in the artificial neurons ! That was my idea, Robert!”

“First of all, what is BBL?”

“Benzimidazobenzophenanthroline. It’s a highly conductive polymer that is uniquely tough and also elastic.”

“Okay, and…?”

“And they are implementing polycondensation to synthesize BBL—which was my suggestion. The result is a substance that is vastly conductive to electrons…much like a neuron. ” She flipped a page of the binder.

“Look! The chemical protocols in this binder are exactly the protocols I describe in my manuscript! Down to the finest details! I suggested modifying conductance by adding three millimolars of glutamine to the electrolyte solution—and that’s exactly what they are doing! ”

Langdon wasn’t following much of this, but clearly Katherine believed she had identified a point of direct intersection between her manuscript and the Threshold project. That’s what we came here for.

“Katherine,” he said quietly, “can you take a breath and explain to me, in simple English, what’s going on?”

She nodded, exhaling. “Sorry, yes,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Simply stated, my book theorized how this technology might actually be produced someday. I specifically proposed weaving the fabricated substance into a neural ‘mesh’ that could be pulled over the brain like a cap…a sheath of neurons in direct contact with the brain.” She sighed.

“And…most incredibly, that is exactly what they are doing here. I just…well, I can’t believe it. ”

“So you wrote expressly about artificial neurons?”

“I did. When I proposed a hypothetical brain chip to regulate GABA, I knew the chip could not be built without artificial neurons, so I included my best guess at how neurons might be fabricated someday…in the distant future.”

That future is apparently now, Langdon realized, glancing down at the binder. “And you think Threshold actually built the GABA chip you proposed?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I have no idea what chip they built—but I’m pretty certain it would not be the one I proposed.

If they have artificial neurons, the sky’s the limit; they could build literally whatever they dream up.

Artificial neurons are the critical leap required for full H2M integration.

You’ve got to understand, Robert…” She looked him straight in the eyes.

“This neuron technology is the key to the future. It changes everything.”

Langdon had no doubt she was correct; he had read more than once that futurists predicted an artificial neuron breakthrough would usher in an astonishing era of direct brain-to-brain communication, memory augmentation, accelerated learning, and even the ability to record our dreams at night and play them back in the morning.

Most disturbing to Langdon, however, was the forecast hailed as “the ultimate social media”—humans making full-sensory recordings of their own experiences…

and sharing their own personal “channels” directly with other minds.

In essence, people would be able to relive the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of someone else’s experience.

Of course, it would not take long for black-market libraries to offer particularly shocking, titillating, or grisly memories.

The 1990s cyberpunk movie Strange Days had ventured into this dark world… presciently, it now seemed.

Even though Langdon recognized this could well be a turning point in science history, the momentous impact of the breakthrough was not foremost in his mind. He was far more focused on the ramifications of Katherine’s incredible bad luck.

She proposed an inconceivably brilliant idea in her book…only to learn the CIA is already secretly developing it.

While the coincidence was stunning, Langdon knew the cliché “Great minds work alike” had been borne out countless times through the ages; Newton and Leibniz independently invented calculus; Darwin and Wallace simultaneously envisioned evolution; Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both invented a telephone device and filed patents within hours of each other.

Now, it seemed, Katherine Solomon and the CIA had both figured out how to make artificial neurons.

“This all makes sense now…” Katherine whispered to herself, staring absently into space. “It’s no wonder I was targeted…”

“It’s an incredibly unlucky coincidence,” Langdon said sympathetically. “At least now we underst—”

“This is not a coincidence, Robert!” Katherine’s eyes were alive with anger. “The CIA stole my idea!”

Stole? The claim made no sense to him; clearly the CIA had been developing artificial neurons long before Katherine had started writing her book.

“They stole my design!” she repeated. “All of it!”

For as long as he’d known Katherine Solomon, Langdon had never heard her make a single irrational claim, much less a paranoid outburst. “I don’t understand,” he said, offering a reassuring smile. “You’ve been writing this book for a year, and the Threshold program is more than twenty—”

“I’m not being clear,” she said, cutting him off.

There was a fierceness in her eyes that he had never seen before.

“My manuscript included a section about artificial neurons, which explained the details of this very design. But in that section I was talking about my passion and work as a young grad student, when I was already dreaming about the future of noetics…designing hypothetical technologies that future scientists might one day use to deepen our understanding of human consciousness.”

Her meaning suddenly became clear to Langdon. “My God… what ?!”

She nodded. “Yes! Robert, I first proposed—and documented —the exact design for these artificial neurons in my postgraduate thesis…twenty-three years ago.”