Factoring Humanity

Damn it all, that monster in France should have his penis sliced clean off.

She felt as though she herself had been assaulted. It took time for her equilibrium to reappear, time to distance herself from the horror.

But at last she was ready to try again. She reached forward, tentatively, frightened of what she might be thrust into, and touched another button.

A woman — at last! But much, much older than Heather. Italian, maybe; the moon visible through a window. Stuccoed walls; labored breathing. An old Italian woman, in an ancient house — thinking hardly at all, just watching, breathing, waiting, waiting year after year after -

Heather precipitated out, reintegrated, then touched another hexagon.

At first she thought she’d entered a retarded person, but then she realized the truth, and smiled.

A newborn — a baby lying in a crib, looking up. The slightly unfocused faces beaming down at it, grinning with pride and joy, were of a black man in his early twenties, with dreadlocks and a short beard, and a black woman, the same age, with beautiful, clear skin. The image was mostly meaningless to the child except for a feeling of contentment, of happiness, of simplicity, of belonging. Heather lingered for quite some time, letting the innocence and purity of the moment wash the remaining horror from France out of her.

But then she pulled out, and tried once more.

Darkness. Silence. Images flowing, fading at the periphery, distorted proportions.

A sleeping person; a dream of… of what? Ironic for a Jungian: to see someone else’s dream instead of hearing it described, and being utterly unable to interpret even the overt content, let alone any deeper meaning.

She left the dreamer and tried once more.

A doctor — a dermatologist, perhaps. Somewhere in China, looking at a scaly growth on a middle-aged man’s leg.

She disengaged; tried again.

Somebody watching TV; this, too, in Chinese.

There had to be a better way than just trial and error. But she’d tried calling out Kyle’s name, tried conjuring his face. And before she touched a key, she concentrated hard on Kyle. Still, the vast array of hexagons seemed utterly indifferent to her wishes.

She continued to hop from mind to mind, person to person — crossing genders and gender orientations and races and nationalities and religions. Hours passed, and although it was fascinating, she was no closer to her goal, no closer to finding Kyle.

She continued her search.

And at last, after a dozen more random insertions, the breakthrough came.

She finally found another Canadian: a middle-aged woman, apparently living in Saskatchewan.

And she was watching television.

And on the television was a face Heather recognized.

Greg McGregor, the man who sometimes anchored CBC Newsworld’s newscasts out of the Calgary studio.

And a thought occurred to Heather.

They say there are no more than six degrees of separation between any two people — John Guare even wrote a play and a movie on that theme.

It’s often a peak — three steps up and three steps down. A man knows his local minister, the minister knows the Pope, the Pope knows every major world leader, the appropriate leader is known by lesser politicians, and even lesser politicians know their constituents. A bridge is built from Toronto to Tokyo — or Vladivostok to Venice, or Miami to Melbourne.

The picture changed, McGregor’s face disappearing as a news story came on. It was a report on the Hosek inquiry — which was indeed deliberating today; the connections were indeed in real time.

Heather stuck through it, waiting for McGregor to return. And he did.

Now, if there were only some way to get from this woman in Saskatchewan into McGregor, hundreds of kilometers away.

This was live. McGregor was doing this right now.

Meaning that he had to be perceiving the exact same words; what he was saying was precisely what the woman was hearing.

Heather thought about her earlier perspective shifts.

Could she try something similar here?

The Saskatchewan woman was listening to McGregor, but she was also idly thinking about how handsome he was, how trustworthy he sounded.

Heather concentrated solely on the words McGregor was saying, defocused her eyes, and tried the Necker trick, reorienting her point of view, and -

— and suddenly she was inside McGregor’s mind!

She’d found a way to take a step from one person to another; if an experience was directly shared, even at a great distance, the jump could be made.

McGregor was in his anchor’s chair, wearing a blue Newsworld blazer, reading the script off the TelePrompTer. He needed another touch of laser keratotomy; the text was a little blurry.

While he was reading the news, he was concentrating exclusively on it. But as soon as he’d introduced the next story, he relaxed.

The floor director said a few words to him. McGregor laughed. All sorts of thoughts were running through his head now.