Chapter 8

Ink

Dr Elizabeth Armstrong sat in a room that smelled of dust and things nobody had yet found the resolve to throw away. It was less a setting for scientific enquiry than a place where the institution had postponed decisions. Steel shelves lined the walls, supporting boxes, supplies and objects whose continued presence apparently depended upon the possibility that somebody might need them eventually. Above her, one fluorescent light flickered at irregular intervals. She had begun counting the intervals, then stopped when she realised she was giving the fixture more attention than her patient.

Before she commandeered it, the room had served as a destination for possessions that had narrowly escaped disposal. Battered boxes stood crookedly in one corner, labelled XMAS DECORATIONS in faded marker and handwriting that suggested either haste or resentment. Garlands spilled over their edges. Strings of coloured lights had become entangled in ways that would require somebody to care about Christmas before attempting to separate them. Nativity figures occupied a shelf nearby, their painted faces catching the changing light. Elizabeth had asked for the room to be cleared. Evidently the request had joined the other things awaiting a decision.

She adjusted her position on the stool, keeping her back straight despite the temptation to lean against something. Her glasses came off, their arms folded carefully before she slipped them into her blouse pocket beneath the grey sweater vest. On the small coffee table stood a black box, aligned squarely with the edge. A green indicator blinked at a steady rate. One thin lead connected it to the laptop balanced awkwardly on her crossed knee. Another extended across the table to a circular adhesive electrode attached to Mr Omnia’s right temple.

The experiment had been running for almost twenty minutes. A neat discard pile lay beside the box, every inkblot card face down. Across from her, Mr Omnia sat stiffly in a chair whose upholstery had yielded to years of use. He held a small grey remote with a single red button. His thumb hovered above it while he studied the card she presented.

The button clicked. Between two pulses of the green indicator, a red light flashed once. Elizabeth lowered the card without looking at its face, placed it on the discard pile and selected the next.

“Again, please.”

Mr Omnia exhaled through his nose. “How many more?”

“Not many.”

“You said that twenty cards ago.” He shifted, and the chair gave a small complaint beneath him.

“I said we were approaching the end.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Apparently, twenty cards.” Elizabeth raised the next image and waited. A moment passed before he pressed the button. She exchanged the card for another, maintaining the same orientation and taking care that its surface remained invisible to her.

“Can I ask a question?” Omnia said.

“You may.”

“About the cards?”

Her expression tightened slightly. They had discussed this. More than once. She understood curiosity, but would have preferred it to attach itself to some part of the procedure that did not depend upon her remaining ignorant.

“Then I must insist that you refrain. My knowledge of the cards would compromise the integrity of the study.”

“Right.” He returned his attention to the image. After a short delay the remote clicked again.

The restriction was fundamental, and therefore vulnerable to the kind of small, apparently harmless departure from procedure that could undermine an entire series of trials. The cards were for Omnia to see. Elizabeth knew them by the identifiers on their backs, not by their contents. She could not allow sympathy, impatience or a moment’s curiosity to give her information she had designed the experiment to exclude.

“And again,” she said, presenting the next card.

Omnia looked at it. Something changed in his face before she could identify a particular expression. His fingers tightened around the remote until the knuckles whitened. His shoulders lowered, pressing him farther into the chair, and his breathing became slow and dry. Each inhalation made a faint rasp.

Then the lights began to stutter.

Brightness and darkness alternated too quickly for Elizabeth to distinguish individual failures. The shelves seemed to change position between flashes, although she knew they had not moved. Shadows stretched up the walls, collapsed and returned at different angles. She kept the card steady. Omnia’s hand trembled as he pressed the button.

The click was almost lost beneath the electrical noise.

Elizabeth lowered the image. The lights steadied, returning to their usual illumination with a hum she now found difficult to ignore.

“My apologies, Mr Omnia. This environment is less than ideal. Entirely too many distractions.” She set the card face down and glanced at the shelves. “I instructed the caretaker to stop using the room for storage, and he assured me the fluorescent tube would be replaced. I shall press him to address both matters before your next appointment.”

Omnia did not answer. His eyes had become glassy, fixed without appearing to settle on anything. Colour had left his face. His lips were slightly parted, and his pupils looked unusually large.

“Mr Omnia?”

He blinked and gave a small shake of his head. “Sorry. Did you say something?”

“Are you feeling unwell? You appear unsettled.”

He swallowed before replying. “Slept badly. You know how it is. When I’m tired.”

Elizabeth considered the wording of her next question. “Are you seeing them now?”

After a moment he nodded. “I always see them. It’s worse when I haven’t slept.” His gaze moved briefly towards the nativity figures. “Usually it’s something out of the corner of my eye. A flash. When I’m tired, I can see them properly.”

She closed the laptop and moved it out of the way, then took up her notepad. The room was colder than the rest of the facility. That was unsurprising; nobody had previously required much comfort from a space used to store paper towels and unwanted ornaments. Heating joined the list of matters to raise with the caretaker. She pulled at the edges of her sweater vest, retrieved her glasses and wrote at the top of a fresh page: Mr S. Omnia — Hallucinations — Session #2.

“Describe what you see,” she said, allowing her voice to soften into the manner she used during consultations.

Omnia looked across the room, then back at her. His breathing grew shallow. He pressed a trembling hand against his forehead.

“It doesn’t like me looking.”

“What doesn’t?” Elizabeth leaned forward, pen ready. His eyes went to the corner. She acknowledged the direction with a small nod. “What does it look like? Any detail you can provide would be useful.”

He folded his arms tightly and began to rock. His attention moved from wall to wall, pausing nowhere long enough to suggest that he was examining an ordinary object.

“It’s just… a shadow.”

“That is a useful beginning.” Elizabeth waited until he looked at her. “What distinguishes it from an ordinary shadow?”

The rocking stopped briefly. “I don’t know.”

“You recognise a difference, otherwise it would not concern you. What is it about this one that unsettles you?”

His eyes met hers. “Nothing casts it.”

She wrote that down. “Interesting. Does it have a recognisable shape? Animal, vegetable, mineral? Does it move?”

“Yes. It crawls.” He glanced towards the ceiling. “Across the walls.”

“Excellent. You are doing very well.” Her pen moved again. “Does it maintain a consistent shape? Would you describe it as humanoid?”

The light shuddered. Darkness broke across the shelving in jagged intervals, making the nativity figures appear to twitch in place. The child in the chipped manger acquired a different expression each time the light returned. Its painted mouth seemed wider, then ordinary, then wider again. Elizabeth registered the distortion without giving it significance. Unreliable illumination could make stationary objects appear to move. That was precisely why the room should not have been allowed to remain in this condition.

Omnia closed his eyes and groaned.

“Mr Omnia.” Her voice sharpened before she intended it to. She moderated it, but retained the firmness. “Please continue. I cannot assist you unless you articulate what you are seeing.”

“I’m trying.”

“I recognise that. I also believe you are approaching greater progress than we achieved last week. A little further may prove useful. I understand that it requires you to endure some discomfort.”

“No, you don’t.” His eyes remained shut. “You don’t have to look at it.”

Elizabeth lowered her pen. There was no reason to dispute something obviously true.

“No,” she said. “I do not. Which is why I need you to look for me. Be my eyes for a few more minutes. Then we can conclude knowing we have taken another step towards understanding this. Would you not like that?”

He opened his eyes with visible effort. They travelled across the walls and occasionally the ceiling, resting for scarcely a second before moving again.

The hum above them deepened. Both the sound and the light became irregular, and Elizabeth glanced up with a muttered curse. Once the consultation ended, she would bring the caretaker into the room herself. A report had apparently been insufficient. The fault had progressed beyond an inconvenience and was now interfering directly with her work.

“It really doesn’t like me looking,” Omnia said. “It prefers when we pretend it isn’t there.” His fingers gripped his upper arms. “I’ve had enough. I want to stop. It’s getting angry.”

“One final observation,” Elizabeth said. She kept her tone encouraging. “It would be useful to establish what the shadow belongs to. Understanding what it represents may help us understand why it troubles you.”

He did not reply.

“A distressing experience can become associated with an image, a fear or a person. Sometimes the association is easier to encounter than the memory itself. If this shadow represents somebody, examining that possibility may help us understand it.” She paused. “You have made considerable progress. I would not ask you to continue if I did not believe there was value in doing so.”

“It’s not a who.” His voice rose sharply. “Have you listened to anything I’ve said? It’s a what.”

He made a low sound that seemed to catch painfully in his throat. His gaze fixed on the dark corner. For several seconds his mouth remained open without producing words.

“But I think it wants to be a who,” he said at last. “It wants to look like a person. It isn’t one.”

Elizabeth wrote quickly. “Why do you believe it wants to look like a person?”

No answer came. She finished the sentence in her notes and looked up.

“Mr Omnia?”

Both fixtures were failing now. Their competing rhythms broke the room into intervals of brightness and grey. Elizabeth shivered. The cold had become unexpectedly sharp, penetrating her clothing with a persistence that made her stomach tighten. She pulled the vest closer and attempted to continue writing, but the changing light made it difficult to follow the line.

A pale cloud left her mouth.

She watched it disperse. Her next breath produced another, smaller mist. For a moment she held the pen motionless, then looked down at the page. The caretaker was accumulating an impressive list of failures. Heating, lighting, storage, ventilation: she would need to be specific if she expected any of them to receive attention.

When she looked up again, Omnia was no longer watching the corner.

He was watching her.

“It’s so fucking angry,” he said.

Elizabeth swallowed. Enough. Whatever benefit she had hoped to obtain would become irrelevant if she allowed him to leave the consultation more distressed than he had arrived. She should have concluded when he asked. The recognition irritated her, partly because it was accurate and partly because there was no useful time to examine it.

“Very well. That will be sufficient for today. You have made considerable progress, Mr Omnia. You should be pleased with what you have accomplished.”

His face looked hollow in the flickering light, his eyes dark within their sockets. He raised a shaking hand and pointed over her shoulder.

“You’ve really pissed it off.”

The lights went out.

Grey daylight remained at the small window, largely obstructed by supplies. It entered the room in a narrow strip that gave objects edges without making them clear. Behind Elizabeth came a prolonged creak, followed by a dry, rapid sound like many small legs tapping against glass.

She froze. There was a shape behind her. She knew it with a certainty that arrived before she could decide what she had heard.

Her body stood without consulting her. The stool struck the floor. She turned, the notepad slipping against her blouse, and the fluorescents returned in a brief burst of light.

The caretaker stood at the door. One hand held a broom. The other rested on the handle.

“Sorry,” he said. “If I’d known you and Skippy were in here, I’d have knocked.”

Elizabeth drew a breath that hurt a little on the way in. She put one hand against her chest and released it slowly. The room resumed its ordinary proportions around him: shelves, boxes, table, door. Her fingers continued to tingle after the rest of her had recognised there was no reason to be afraid.

“Henceforth, assume I shall be present,” she said, adjusting her cuffs before retrieving the stool. “I will be utilising this room more frequently. My transition to the facility is nearly complete.”

He turned the broom handle between his palms. “Sure. Won’t happen again, cupcake.”

Elizabeth straightened.

His hair had grown beyond the boundaries of its last haircut, and two days of stubble darkened his chin. Navy overalls hung loosely from his shoulders, the upper buttons undone. His appearance suggested a man who regarded tidiness as an occasional requirement rather than a continuing responsibility. There was an easy confidence in his manner, an expectation that something amusing could be found in almost any situation if nobody insisted too firmly upon its importance.

Elizabeth believed she recognised the type. Her work had given her ample opportunity to examine the motives beneath people’s preferred versions of themselves. This man treated rules as negotiable, authority as a source of entertainment, and seriousness as a problem belonging principally to other people. His mouth seemed always on the verge of acknowledging a joke she had not been invited to hear.

“Please address me as Doctor Armstrong,” she said. “Especially in front of patients.”

He nodded solemnly. “Noted.”

She watched him for a moment, uncertain whether the solemnity improved his answer or undermined it. Then she turned back to Omnia.

“That will be all for today. Thank you for your continued participation. I sincerely believe we are making progress.”

Omnia nodded. His attention returned briefly to the corner before he peeled the electrode from his temple and placed it beside the remote. He stood carefully, as though establishing whether his legs were ready to support him.

“See you next week, Dr Armstrong.”

His smile was uncertain. The caretaker moved aside.

“Take it easy, Skippy.”

Omnia glanced at him, apparently considering whether anything was required in reply, then continued into the corridor. The caretaker watched him leave. When he turned back, Elizabeth was already looking at him.

“Skippy?”

“Couldn’t remember his name.”

“His name is Mr Omnia.”

“Skippy’s easier.”

“I would prefer that you refrain from assigning nicknames to my patients.”

He considered the request. “Sure thing, cupcake.”

“Doctor Armstrong.”

“Right.” He rested the broom against his shoulder and waited.

“I distinctly recall asking that this room be cleared last week. How am I expected to conduct assessments in what amounts to a neglected storage cupboard? The only natural light is obstructed by an absurd quantity of blue paper towels, and the fluorescents have yet to be addressed. This room is intended for professional use.”

He remained silent, leaning against the broom. Elizabeth waited, then frowned.

“Well?”

“Making sure you’d finished.”

“I have finished.”

“Right.” He looked towards the window. “First off, those towels are supposed to be green.”

“They are quite clearly blue.”

“That’s what I said when they arrived.”

“I fail to see the relevance.”

“There isn’t any. Just annoys me.”

Elizabeth looked at him for several seconds. “And the lights?”

“Did those.”

“You did?”

He pointed with the broom towards two old fluorescent fittings leaning against the wall behind a shelf. “Those are the ones I took down. Tubes were fine. Couldn’t find anything wrong with the fittings either, so I replaced the lot. Figured that would settle it.”

Elizabeth followed the gesture, then looked at the ceiling. Around the installed fixtures, patches of paint marked where larger fittings had previously been attached. She had noticed the marks without considering what they meant. Now that she did, the work was obvious.

One light stuttered faintly.

He looked up. “You’re telling me they still flicker?”

“I believe they have demonstrated the fact quite adequately.”

“Great.” He leaned more heavily against the broom. “Wiring, then. Just what I need.”

Elizabeth hesitated. Her criticism had been based upon a reasonable inference, but an incorrect one. There was no advantage in pretending otherwise.

“I must apologise. I had not realised you replaced the fittings entirely. My criticism was therefore unjustified.”

He continued looking at her.

“I am apologising,” she clarified.

“Oh. Wasn’t sure.”

“I specifically said, ‘I must apologise.’”

“I heard. Just never heard anybody apologise like they were reading a death sentence.”

Her lips tightened. She resisted the temptation to explain that the quality of an apology did not depend upon how entertainingly it was delivered.

“Nevertheless, I was mistaken. If I can assist with clearing the room, I am willing to help.”

“Nah. Leave it with me. Hopefully the loony tunes stop pissing in the corridors long enough for me to get this junk out.”

“I would prefer that you refrain from referring to patients as loony tunes.”

“Nutter butters?”

“No.”

“Fruit Loops?”

“Mr—” She stopped. The absence became suddenly obvious. “I do not actually know your name.”

“Probably should’ve started there, cupcake.”

“You called me Cupcake again.”

“It suits you.”

“I assure you it does not.”

“Agree to disagree.”

Elizabeth drew a patient breath, discovering that patience could require as much effort as irritation. “Your name?”

“Black.”

“Thank you, Mr Black.”

He moved towards the table and picked up the uppermost card from the discard pile. Elizabeth saw his hand close around it an instant before she understood what he was doing.

“What is it you do in here?” he asked, turning the card towards himself. “Poker? Hope you’re not swindling the nut-jobs. Not that I disapprove. Just disappointed I didn’t think of it first.”

The face of the card entered her field of vision.

“I can see it,” she said. “Excellent. I can see the card.”

She removed her glasses and pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose.

“Thank you, Mr Black. That was an exceptional waste of my time.”

“This the ace of clubs?” He rotated it, bringing the blot into another configuration. “Could be the eight of diamonds. Rigged deck. Smart.”

She took it from him and placed it face down.

“No money has changed hands. Please refrain from touching the cards.”

He looked at her as though the statement had opened an unexpected possibility. His attention moved over the blouse, the grey vest, the carefully arranged hair and the posture that remained upright despite everything the morning had provided.

“Surely not strip poker.”

Elizabeth stared.

“With that deck I don’t fancy my chances of keeping my shirt buttons,” he added, adopting an expression of speculative enthusiasm. “But I’ll give it a go.”

She adjusted the vest, then became irritated with herself for having done so.

“They are inkblot cards. We were neither playing poker nor conducting klecksography.”

“Klecko-what?”

“Inkblots have been used by clinicians since the 1920s to explore aspects of personality, emotional functioning and thought processes. You work in a psychiatric facility. Surely you have encountered one before.”

“Well, I’ve seen that one.” He indicated the pile. “Does that count?”

Elizabeth set her glasses on the table. The session had ended badly, her patient had become distressed, and the experiment was now potentially compromised. She wanted quiet in which to establish how much of the morning remained useful. Mr Black appeared unlikely to provide it voluntarily.

“I think it is time you left.”

He raised both hands. Something in his posture eased, and the amusement left his expression.

“I’m sorry. Honestly. I was messing about. Didn’t mean to upset you.” He looked at the equipment. “I am curious, though. All this. Been here so long, and it’s the same thing every day. Nothing changes. The other quacks don’t do much more than they have to.”

She said nothing.

“Right. Sorry. You asked me to leave.”

He picked up the broom and went towards the door.

“Wait.”

His hand paused beside the handle. He looked over his shoulder.

“I am upset,” Elizabeth said, “and I am taking it out on you. Granted, the immediate difficulty is entirely your fault. You have almost certainly compromised part of my experiment. But you were not to know.”

“Because I picked up the ace of spades?”

“Because I saw the ace—the inkblot.” She stopped, recognising how little the correction explained. “I am a scientist. My field is noetics. I study the mind and its unexplored potential. In particular, whether conscious thought can exert a measurable influence upon physical events.”

He smiled. “You’re a witch.”

“I possess several university qualifications that would strongly dispute that assessment.”

“Educated witch.”

“Mr Omnia is participating in one of several experiments. The electrode records neurological activity, and the remote marks the moment at which that activity is sampled.” She looked at the cards. “Beyond that, it would be preferable not to explain the procedure.”

“Why?”

“Because the experiment depends upon ignorance. Including mine.”

Noetic research had spent decades attempting to move questions about consciousness and its possible relationship with physical systems from philosophical speculation into controlled investigation. The Institute of Noetic Sciences had been established in California in 1973 by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, following an experience of profound interconnectedness during his return from the Moon. In Geneva, the Swiss Institute of Noetic Sciences had developed from organisations investigating psychophysics, altered states and the relationship between mind and matter. Elizabeth’s own passage into the field had been less dramatic. Psychology led her towards cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience towards altered states of consciousness, and those questions gradually consumed the career she had originally intended to pursue.

“It was one card,” Black said. “Don’t count it. You haven’t seen the others. Probably got fifty-one and a couple of jokers left.”

“It is not that simple. Until you showed me the image, I did not even know which deck was in use. My own mind must remain as far removed from the procedure as possible.” She paused. “Ideally, I would not be present.”

He glanced towards the door, appearing to find that a readily achievable condition.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “Sunny Meadow would object to patients being left unsupervised, and I cannot be sufficiently confident that the procedure would be followed without intervention.”

Every card carried a barcode on its reverse. Elizabeth could identify and present it without knowing what image the patient saw. A press of the remote associated that identifier with a sample of neurological activity and triggered experiments in several laboratories. Each site recorded its results independently and returned timestamped data to her software. Distance, within the limits of her previous trials, did not appear to alter the relationships she was investigating.

Some laboratories operated electronic random-event generators, producing long sequences of binary outcomes. Another froze de-ionised water under controlled conditions and recorded characteristics of the resulting crystal structures. The inkblots supplied a structured means of eliciting responses in the participant while keeping Elizabeth unaware of the stimulus. Whether comparable images could produce sufficiently repeatable emotional or neurological states was itself something the accumulated data had to establish.

An unusual sequence of ones and zeroes meant very little in isolation. A distinctive ice crystal meant less. Physical systems produced variations without requiring an extraordinary cause, and a researcher who collected only the striking examples could make ordinary chance appear obligingly mysterious. Elizabeth was interested in recurrence across thousands of trials: whether particular neurological states repeatedly accompanied departures from the outcomes expected in systems that should remain unaffected by the participant.

A correlation alone would not establish causation. Before she could claim an influence, the relationship would have to survive statistical scrutiny, the exclusion of ordinary sources of interference and independent attempts at reproduction. She understood how much stood between a suggestive result and evidence. The difficulty was one reason she regarded procedural contamination with such severity. A finding weakened by preventable ambiguity was of little use to anyone except somebody already determined to believe it.

The information she allowed herself to examine remained aggregated: percentages, distributions and graphs. She did not inspect individual images alongside individual neurological samples and physical outcomes. She did not look at particular crystals. If consciousness possessed the influence she was attempting to measure, her own expectations could not be assumed harmless simply because she called herself the observer. That possibility made ignorance a practical precaution. Observation belonged among the variables.

“Trust me,” Black said, “you don’t want them alone with this lot. Sharp things. Pencils. Scissors. Ask Dr Patel.”

Elizabeth looked at him.

“She left someone in her office for five minutes while she fetched paper towels. He’d knocked a snow globe off the desk. Glass and glitter everywhere.” Black rested both hands on the broom. “That evening she puts her coat on, sticks her hand deep in the pocket, and you’ll never guess what she finds. Made a hell of a mess. Carpet stained all over. I know. I cleaned it.”

Elizabeth covered her mouth. “Fragments of glass?”

“No. A turd. She flicked the bastard thing everywhere.”

For a moment she could think of nothing to say. Black scratched his chin, apparently satisfied that he had conveyed the relevant institutional experience.

“So why here? Surely there’s somewhere nicer to do it. Bigger windows. Fewer locks.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

“Sunny Meadow,” he amended, although she had not yet objected to anything.

Her position at the facility represented a return to work she had largely left behind. Before noetics absorbed her attention, she had trained in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and clinical assessment. Those qualifications now supported a temporary placement in which she provided consultations alongside the existing staff while conducting independently funded studies with consenting participants.

The arrangement benefited both parties only while its conditions were met. Sunny Meadow gained additional clinical work without assuming the cost of her research. Elizabeth gained access to participants, a room and the opportunity to investigate questions her previous samples had left unresolved. She was still new. Her continued presence depended upon demonstrating that the consultations were useful and that the experiments did not obstruct the facility’s ordinary responsibilities. There was no reason for an institution to surrender space and staff time indefinitely merely because a visiting scientist regarded her own enquiry as important.

For Elizabeth, however, the opportunity was considerable. Her earlier results suggested that any effect she might be detecting varied substantially between individuals. Most minds appeared resistant, constrained by layers of inhibition and cognitive restraint she privately thought of as firewalls. Certain psychological and neurological conditions seemed to weaken those barriers. She did not yet know why. More importantly, she did not know whether the apparent relationship would remain when tested against a larger and more varied sample.

Sunny Meadow offered a way to ask that question. It also offered patients whose experiences deserved examination for reasons entirely independent of her experiments. The two purposes could support one another, provided she remained careful about which conclusions belonged to which evidence.

Black waited, his broom planted on the floor between his feet. For once he seemed prepared to hear the answer without supplying another joke. Elizabeth looked at the card he had turned over, then at the remote lying beside the discarded electrode.

“Not all minds are equal, Mr Black,” she said.