The Revelations by Erik Hoel (some good books to read TXT) 📗

and Jessica from McGill, who are laughing at something Max had just said like Max is the only source of valid humor in the whole damn world. There’s a pinch of nausea at the phoniness of the whole enterprise and under his dress shoes he can feel his big toe sticking through the hole in his sock. The conversation moves off by itself as various professors come to join the small group: hello, it’s a pleasure, really, yes, the building is quite the maze, I’ve read it, yes, elegant work, no, I’ve never lived here before, I’ll be sure to check it out, it sounds wonderful, yes, of course it’s no problem, yes, that’s always been an interest of mine, yes, no, yes, yes, yes.

At noon Kierk, who has been charming, a self-deprecating but promising enfant terrible to the professors, goes to the empty men’s room, and, looking at himself in the mirror, both hands gripping the edges of the sink, pale under the fluorescent lighting, wants to shoot himself.

Someone opens the door and Kierk pretends to be washing his hands. After a moment Alex says—“So a prominent behaviorist in the 1950s meets this woman and they go back to his hotel room where they screw. And after they’re done, they’re lying there and he says: ‘I know it was good for you, but how was it for me?’ ”

Kierk begins to laugh as Alex scans the wall and ceiling for a smoke detector.

“Listen, I really thought I would get through this. But I just need to calm down a bit, and this always relaxes me so is it okay if I . . .” Alex uses his fingernails to pull out a joint hidden amid a pack of cigarettes. “I know it’s a bad habit. I picked it up two years ago from a boyfriend of mine. But it really helps me out . . .”

“Fuck it, you don’t mind if I . . .”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

As Alex lights up, Kierk says—“What does the B in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?”

“Who’s that?”

“The inventor of fractals.”

“So what does the B stand for?” Alex says with pinched breath, and then exhales a thin cloud.

“Benoit B. Mandelbrot.”

There’s a silence. Alex passes him the joint, which Kierk accepts solemnly. But then slowly the chuckles build and soon they both can’t stop laughing, the kind of laughter that incubates in the serious career moments of academic conferences or corporate meetings. Kierk is coughing at the same time, hanging onto the bathroom counter, passing the joint back to Alex.

“Oh god, is that going to be our future?” Alex says, gesticulating in the haze. “I get so nervous at these things. I always want to do something ridiculous to break the spell. Have them stop talking about grants.”

“Seriously,” Kierk says. “What does any of this have to do with consciousness?”

The door opens slowly, hesitantly, and Alex expertly hides the joint as Atif’s smiling and befuddled face peers in. After a laugh all three of them talk in the hall for a while. Then back in the conference room Kierk exists in a stream of placid small talk until the conversations lie like flags on the floor.

The pot has definitely helped. It lasts him all the way until midafter-noon when most of the rest of the room has cleared out, leaving only a few small exhausted groups milling about around the chairs and tables. Carmen has finally shed the crowd of professors that had trapped her between the podium and the wall, and now she walks over to the table and greets Alex and Kierk.

“Carmen and I have met but you two haven’t. Kierk here,” Alex says by way of introduction, “is coming in out of the wild. Returning to civilization.”

She tilts her head at him like a curious stork.

“I thought you were from the UW in Madison?”

“I’ve been out in California for the last six months or so.”

“Is that where you got that lovely bruise?”

“I got hit in the face.”

“Um, by accident?”

“No.”

“. . .”

Once the rest of the Crick Scholars wander over, Carmen addresses them all, clearly stepping into the role as ringleader—“We should go out Friday night! There’s a really good place to play pool around here. I’ll try to get everyone together.”

People begin pulling out their phones. Carmen, after getting number, looks expectantly to Kierk, who shrugs.

“You don’t have a phone?”

He shrugs again. Alex begins laughing—“Yup, I think Kierk will be good for the program.”

Norman Bennett, the director, comes over to them all, accompanied by a smiling man and woman both sporting blue nitrile gloves and a bag reading BIOHAZARD.

“I didn’t mention this before,” Norman says, “but it should only take a few minutes per person.” Everyone waits—Norman doesn’t seem to realize that the Crick Scholars don’t know what he’s talking about.

“Oh! Ah, yes, we’re growing cerebral organoids in the building.”

Kierk, Carmen, Alex, Atif, and Leon all let out a collective “Ahhhhhh” but Greg, Mike, and Jessica all look confused, so one of the researchers jumps in. “We take some of your skin cells, then reprogram those cells back into a pluripotent state. Eventually we coax the new stem cells into growing nervous tissue, a little mini-brain, a cerebral organoid.”

“Why make these mini-brains from us?” Jessica asks.

Everyone looks at Norman expectantly, who finally says—“They wanted to do eight mini-brains and I had eight consciousness scientists. Serendipity. It’ll only take a few minutes each. And you can visit your cerebral organoid later on.”

Calling over Atif first, they wipe down a spot on his forearm with gauze soaked in alcohol. He asks questions in his deep-voiced Indian-En glish accent as a local anesthetic is injected. It’s followed by a punch biopsy where calipers pinch off a bit of Atif’s skin, and then medical scissors are used to cut away the base of the small tag of skin. The sample is stored in a labeled test tube and placed in a small Styrofoam box filled with crushed ice. The whole process takes less than two minutes. Atif is stoic