Factoring Humanity

“Of that,” Heather said, “I have no doubts.” She smiled at him again. “Your turn.”

Kyle looked at the construct, still awed by it. He kissed his wife again, kissed his daughter’s cheek, then climbed inside, resting his butt on the substrate floor of the central chamber. It didn’t yield at all under his weight.

Heather reminded him again of how he could revisualize the construct simply by closing his eyes. And then she and Becky lifted the cubic door — which, she remarked, weighed a lot more than the door from the original construct had. It was a bit of a struggle to get it reengaged, but at last it clicked into place.

Kyle waited for his eyes to adjust to the semidarkness. The constellations of piezoelectric squares were beautiful in their geometric simplicity. Of course, he thought, they must form some sort of circuitry: traces and patterns, channeling the piezoelectricity in specific ways, performing unguessed functions. And when the forty-eight panels folded over, each one superimposing itself upon another, specific and complex cross-connections must be made. The physics of it all was fascinating.

He reached forward and pressed the start button.

The hypercube folded up around him, just as Heather had said it would.

And then he was there.

Psychospace.

God.

He struggled to get the view to orient itself the way Heather had said it should. He kept seeing the two spheres from the outside instead of the two joined hemispheres from within. Kyle found it frustrating — like those damned 3D pictures that had been popular in the mid 1990s. He’d never been able to see those images either, and -

— and suddenly it clicked, and he was there.

So this, he thought, is what having the third eye is like.

He concentrated on the wall of vast hexagons, and they shrank in front of him, contracting to keycap proportions.

It was disorienting; perspectives constantly shifting. He felt himself getting a headache.

He closed his eyes, let the construct rematerialize around him, reestablishing his bearings, letting the air pumped in from outside wash over him.

After a few moments, he opened his eyes again and then extruded an invisible hand.

He touched a hexagon -

— and was stunned by the vibrancy of the images.

It took a few moments for him to begin to sort it all out.

It wasn’t his mind.

Rather, it seemed to be someone’s dream — all the imagery distorted, vague, and in black and white.

Fascinating. Kyle himself dreamed in black and white, but Heather had always said she dreamed in color.

Still, there would be plenty of time for general exploring later. He did as Heather had taught him, envisioning himself crystallizing out and then reintegrating.

He tried again. Another hexagon, another mind, but not his. A truck driver, it seemed, looking out on the highway, listening to country music, thinking about getting home to his kids.

And again. A Moslem, apparently in the act of prayer.

And again. A young girl, skipping rope in a school yard.

And again. A bored farmer, somewhere in China.

And again. Another sleeper, also dreaming in black and white.

And again. A third sleeper, this one not dreaming at all, his or her mind mostly empty.

And again…

And again…

And -

Him.

It was a psychic mirror, very disorienting. He could see himself seeing himself. His thoughts echoed silently. For a moment, Kyle feared a feedback loop, overloading his brain. But with an effort of will, he found he could disengage from the present and start cruising his own past.

He had no trouble finding images of Heather and Becky.

And Mary.

That’s what he’d come for — to touch Mary’s mind, but — but -

No. No, there would be endless opportunities later. Surely this wasn’t the time.

But to have his first lengthy contact be with a dead person…

He felt a chill.

His heart fluttered.

There was Heather, in his thoughts. She’d explained the Necker transformation to him — how he could reorient his perspective, jumping directly to her hexagon, wherever it might be.

It would all be there, laid bare in front of him. Everything his wife was, everything she’d ever thought.

Her perspective. Her point of view.

He concentrated on her, defocused his eyes, tried to bring her to the foreground while he slipped into the background, and -

And -

God.

God.

God in heaven.

Kyle was too young to have seen 2001 in its initial theatrical release; he’d first encountered it on video — and had originally been decidedly unimpressed. But in 1997, when he was twenty-five, there had been a big-screen showing of a restored print at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

It had been like night and day — the film he thought he knew, and the real thing, bigger, richer, more complex, more colorful, absolutely overwhelming.

The ultimate trip.

This was like that. The Heather he’d known writ large, in vibrant colors he’d never seen before, in surround-sound, the seat shaking beneath him.

Heather, in all her glorious complexity.

All her vast intellect.

All her incredibly vivid emotions.