Page 116 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

In the spectral glow of the dome, surrounded by suspended-animation pods, Robert Langdon stood beside Katherine and studied their captor. Having positioned himself a safe five yards away, Everett Finch was leaning comfortably against a pod, his gun leveled.

Considering the tense circumstances, Finch’s demeanor seemed unsettlingly serene. There was an icy detachment about this man that suggested he was capable of doing whatever was necessary.

“The future will be controlled by those who develop the first true human-to-machine interface,” Finch began.

“Effortless communication between people and technology. No typing, dictating, viewing…just thinking. The financial ramifications alone are enough to create a new world superpower, but the practical applications, particularly in the field of intelligence work…are unimaginable.”

“For this reason,” Finch continued, “the CIA had been working tirelessly to keep pace with the biotech behemoths—Neuralink, Kernal, Synchron, and the rest—all of whom have bottomless war chests and the same quest to be the first brain implant capable of true high-speed, human-to-machine communication. Fortunately for us, they’ve all faced the same hurdle. ”

“The interface,” Katherine said. “How to create artificial neurons.”

Finch nodded. “Neuralink has had moderate success, but nothing on the scale of what’s necessary. The missing piece turns out to be a design that the CIA has been fortunate enough to be developing for two decades now.”

“Taken from Katherine’s patent,” Langdon said.

“To repeat, Dr. Solomon holds no patent. And if she had, we would have taken it over in the name of national security. The challenge with exercising eminent domain is that the process can be contentious and public, often revealing precisely what the agency is interested in keeping secret.”

“What are you doing with my design?” Katherine demanded. “What is Threshold?”

Finch removed his glasses with his free hand and slowly rolled out his neck. “Dr. Solomon, perhaps you recall when Caltech built an implant that tapped into the brain’s visual cortex and could effectively ‘see’ whatever the host was seeing through his or her eyes.”

“Certainly I remember,” Katherine said. “The implant captured optical signals passing through the optic nerve, translated them, and broadcasted them out as live video.”

Langdon was not familiar with the technology, but it sounded essentially like an internal GoPro camera—a way to look through someone else’s eyes.

Is Threshold monitoring what subjects are seeing?

If so, it was an entirely new kind of surveillance.

Langdon looked up at the video screens encircling the dome and imagined point-of-view broadcasts from people moving about their daily lives. But then why the pods?

“The agency has been working on something similar,” Finch said, “a far superior version of that implant—one that can monitor what is being experienced not by the eyes …but rather by the mind’s eye. ”

For Langdon, the phrase “mind’s eye” conjured images of the colorful bindi dot worn between the eyebrows to represent the gateway to spiritual wisdom, also called the Third Eye.

“Your mind’s eye, Professor,” Finch said, apparently sensing Langdon’s uncertainty, “is the mechanism by which your brain sees without your eyes. When you close your eyes and picture your childhood home, a vivid image appears. That is your mind’s eye.

Your brain does not require visual input to conjure detailed images.

Your brain continuously views memories, fantasies, daydreams, imaginations.

Even when you sleep, your brain conjures images in the forms of dreams and nightmares. ”

“You can’t really have built…” Katherine trailed off, looking for the right words.

“We did,” Finch replied with a hint of pride. “Threshold has created an implant that can view the content of the mind’s eye. We can now monitor the full spectrum of images a brain conjures…seeing it unfold in real time, in full detail.”

From the stupefied look on Katherine’s face, Langdon sensed this was an astonishing feat in the field of brain science.

He was aware that a scientist at Kyoto University had recently announced a technology that recorded dreams and played them back as a rough movie, although his process sounded rudimentary—using AI to translate MRI dream data into approximated images.

What Finch was describing sounded like a quantum leap.

Can Threshold spy on the imagination?

Langdon wondered if this technology related somehow to Katherine’s notion of the brain as a receiver.

After all, if an implant could see an image that materialized in the brain, maybe the implant could also tell where the image came from.

Was it stored inside the physical memory, as materialists claimed?

Or was it flowing in from the outside, as Katherine believed in her model of nonlocal consciousness?

“This implant…actually works?” Katherine asked, finding her voice. “A technology like that could have enormous implications for consciousness research…”

“So I imagine,” Finch said. “But Threshold is focused solely on national security.”

Langdon saw Katherine go slightly pale as she turned and surveyed the sleek EPR pods fanned out beneath the dome.

“Suspended animation…” she whispered, turning fearfully back to Finch.

“Are you placing subjects on the edge of death…and watching what they see ? You’re monitoring near-death experiences? ”

“In a sense, yes, of course,” Finch replied. “As you well know, the delicate ‘threshold’ between life and death is a mystical place.”

Finch paused, as if to let the words soak in.

Threshold.

Langdon hadn’t thought of the term that way until now.

“Those hovering on the brink of death will see things, know things, understand things normally beyond our reach,” Finch continued.

“The agency has been running psychic research for nearly half a century—aimed at harnessing the untapped power of the human mind for the purpose of intelligence gathering. We’ve hired psychics, mediums, clairvoyants, remote viewers, precognition specialists, and even lucid dreamers.

But the world’s most gifted minds cannot come close to achieving what can be achieved in the altered state that accompanies death. ”

This is exactly what Katherine wrote about…

Langdon realized, recalling her theory about the chemistry of death: as we die, GABA levels plummet, our brain filters dissolve, and we receive a vastly wider bandwidth of reality.

Langdon couldn’t help but feel that if enhanced perception were truly the mystical gift accompanying death, then harnessing it for military intelligence work was somehow… sacrilegious.

“The challenge,” Finch said, “is that near-death experiences are fleeting and confusing. When you emerge and try to recall them, it’s a bit like trying to remember a dream in the morning; the images are fuzzy and dissolve quickly.”

“And now you can record the experience?” Katherine said, looking astonished.

“Yes, and in addition we can introduce guides on the outside watching in real time.” Finch motioned to the array of cockpits and video screens, each associated with its own coffin-like pod.

“When this facility is up and running, these walls will broadcast direct feeds from human minds in the ultimate altered state—the brink of death—which, as you know, Dr. Solomon, usually results in—”

“An out-of-body experience,” she said quietly. “Nonlocal consciousness…”

Langdon thought of the common accounts of patients “dying” in the operating room, only to be resuscitated and report hovering over their bodies or the hospital itself. In death we leave our bodies behind.

“Correct,” Finch replied. “When a subject in one of these pods is placed near death, their consciousness becomes untethered. The powerful mind becomes a detached soul, if you will…a conscious mind outside the physical body. We refer to someone in that state as a ‘psychonaut.’ And when that happens, we can monitor exactly what the psychonaut perceives as he lifts off out of the pod, ascends through the dome, and moves out into the world. These screens will show us a point-of-view feed from an untethered mind…the full experience of nonlocal consciousness, if you will.”

This cannot be real, Langdon told himself, and yet Katherine was taking it all in as if it made perfect sense to her. She looked captivated, as if she had entirely forgotten the man talking to her was holding a gun.

This is her Holy Grail, Langdon reminded himself.

In Katherine’s world, out-of-body experiences were the best evidence for nonlocal consciousness, and yet they were fleeting, and far from proof.

A person claiming to have hovered outside his own body was describing a subjective experience, perceived alone and in an altered state of mind.

No witnesses…no scientific corroboration.

And the inability to reproduce these mystical phenomena in a controlled setting—the replication crisis, as Katherine had described it—regularly cast doubt on the veracity of the accounts.

This facility, on the other hand, might finally offer proof that human consciousness could survive apart from the human body; it would be a paradigm-altering breakthrough with miraculous implications for our perspective on life.

And also our perspective on death, Langdon thought, recalling Jonas Faukman’s rationale when he paid top dollar for Katherine’s manuscript: Evidence of nonlocal consciousness speaks directly to humankind’s ultimate hope—the existence of life after death…

It’s a topic of universal impact and massive commercial potential.

“What are the cockpits?” Katherine demanded, pointing to the raised platform.

“Believe it or not,” Finch said, “those are for the pilots. We’re still perfecting piloting, but as you can imagine, two implanted brains can now communicate in ways we’re just learning to understand.

The out-of-body state is a confusing world, so the psychonaut is coupled with a ‘grounded mind’ to help pilot the experience.

The person in the cockpit acts as a spirit guide of sorts. ”

Katherine stared at him, momentarily at a loss for words. “You’re telling me you’re navigating …an untethered consciousness?! As if…flying a drone?”

Finch smiled, obviously enjoying Katherine’s epiphany.

“I knew you’d understand, Dr. Solomon. You are correct…

When this dome is fully operational, these cockpits will support a small squadron of pilots who navigate what amounts to a fleet of invisible drones, which we will send anywhere in the world to observe whatever we like—battlefields, war rooms, or boardrooms. Undetectable. Inescapable.”

And totally impossible! Langdon wanted to shout. It’s madness…pure science fiction. And yet he knew these claims were supported by the increasingly accepted theory of nonlocal consciousness.

Despite Katherine’s beliefs, Langdon still could not quite accept that a consciousness could exit a body and still be present enough to observe the physical world.

As a rigorous academic, Langdon felt it was his job to maintain skepticism and rationality in the face of superstition—but in the case of Threshold, he was facing a paradox.

At some point…skepticism itself becomes irrational.

In order to maintain his cynicism about Finch’s claims, Langdon needed to set logic aside and ignore a growing mountain of rational proof.

First, there existed thousands of medically documented near-death experiences describing precisely this phenomenon.

Second, the world of quantum physics had revealed overwhelming evidence that consciousness was nonlocal and worked in ways we could not yet comprehend.

Third, there were thousands of established cases of “paranormal” phenomena—telepathy, precognition, mediumship, shared dreams, sudden savant syndrome—occurrences impossible within our established model, and which required Langdon either to shift his perspective dramatically or be willing to classify those phenomena under his least favorite heading: “Miracles.” In light of the evidence, Langdon knew his refusal to believe that Threshold could work was as rational as seeing a lunar eclipse and insisting the moon was a myth.

“Robert…” Katherine turned to him, her voice brimming with exhilaration. “This changes everything! This is beyond theory…it is proof that consciousness is nonlocal…”

Langdon nodded, trying to imagine how this moment would feel for her, learning suddenly of exponential breakthroughs in a field she had been studying for decades.

Katherine turned back to Finch. “The scientific community needs to know. Noetic science—”

“Threshold is not a science project,” Finch snapped, his fierce tone immediately dominating the room.

“It’s a military intelligence operation.

The only true source of power is information, and in the war to understand our enemies, this dome is our nuclear arsenal—the ultimate surveillance tool.

Threshold is the next generation of remote viewing.

The CIA has been working toward this facility for decades. ”

Decades? Langdon was taken aback. “Why would the CIA invest so heavily in a project that sounds just like Stargate…which failed thirty years ago?”

Finch’s gaze was uncomfortably piercing. “Very simple, Mr. Langdon. Stargate never failed.” He held his pistol steady as he gestured around the expansive room. “It simply evolved…into something far greater.”