BOOK 3: DISCLOSURE / CH. 3: BOB'S TENTH REPORT
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH, AFTERNOON
I report today on a momentous event that I knew was coming. How could I not know, having been reporting from the Institute all these weeks?
I hope you will understand by now, having heard my earlier reports, about the care and attention to detail that the researchers of the Institute have put into the article that has come out in Nature today.
The researchers have checked and double checked their answers and demonstrated them to many independent scientists. This is not a repeat of the unfortunate cases of the past, where data was published that was later found not to be reproducible. The editors of Nature have no desire to be victims of a hoax or to publish unreliable results. They've been double checking and triple checking everything.
There have been some people who have wondered that I have sometimes been wearing gloves in my reports. Now you see the answer. It is normal here at the Institute to wear gloves, as I expect that it will be more common in the world as a whole. I have no wish to impose my wandering thoughts on those here who can hear them, and they can no more turn off their ability than I can turn off my ears. Gloves protect against accidental contact, and so avoid me accidentally informing the woman I'm interviewing that I really don't think that new dress suits her. It is no accident either that you might have observed gloves being worn by various figures in government, media or business. When evidence was first found of this potential in some people, the Institute immediately began to study it. But it was also under a moral obligation to warn its clients and suggested that gloves seemed to work. Every study since had confirmed this, except for very thin gloves on wet hands. Once the warning was out, inevitably, human nature took its course and rumours have spread. Now, the truth behind the rumours is available to all.
There are people who have a limited ability to hear the top level, almost spoken thoughts of others. It was described to me quite simply: everyone broadcasts, a few people can receive. I'm not one of those who can receive, but I've been a willing guinea-pig on occasions. I can do this, Me, a reporter with sources I have to hide, because of the nature of the ability and the very strict ethical rules that the researchers here work to. They came up with a legally enforceable contract that says spreading what they learn by their abilities will cost them at the very least their jobs and half their personal wealth. By the nature of their ability — or rather by the nature of my thought transmission, they can only hear the things I'm saying to myself. So it would have been very unlikely that my mind wander so far during the tests we were doing that I give away secrets. But even if it had, the Institute's been a safe place for secrets for a long time.
In some countries, what the Institute publishes today will be greeted with utter disbelief, in others there will be surprise it was worth publishing. Has anyone published a paper reporting that some people actually lose their hair when they get older?
I repeat again, I've talked to people who thought this was common knowledge. Why has the West been so wilfully ignorant? And it is wilful. Journals have refused to publish articles describing this ability before. For some reason our culture has refused to accept reality and today the Institute has given us evidence to show us that our disbelief was wrong.
Thought-hearing seems to be a rare genetic ability, and was surely a useful skill in the days of primitive hunters, passing messages to one another in silence. Now, to those who have this ability, the overwhelming opinion I've met is that it is a complete pain. For those who have it, it makes a mockery of the social conventions of saying, “How are you, oh, I'm fine” as you shake hands, because the speaker who said they were fine then mentally ticks a list of every ache and pain. So the thought hearer wishes we'd all wear gloves, and that we'd keep them on when greeting each other. Really, they don't want to hear about your haemorrhoids. Or consider the poor teenage thought-hearer, out for a first date, as the boy opposite holds her hand and thinks loudly about all the faults she has while saying how her eyes are so beautiful. That date might have gone a lot better if gloves had been worn.
But of course there are also crooks in any population of humans. Not many, but a few. And a thought hearing crook is going to hear ample information to further their career in blackmail, information theft and corruption if we don't wear gloves, or more precisely avoid any sort of skin to skin contact, or skin to metal to skin contact.
Now, I'd like to reassure you all that the glove making industry has been warned about the likely surge in demand, and major clothing stores similarly. There shouldn't be a shortage, and if you decide that on balance you need gloves before you leave home this morning then the winter gloves granny knitted for you all those years ago are just as good at preventing your thoughts leaking as anything available from the shops, although perhaps a little less fashionable.
Speaking of which, you might have seen fashion magazines suggesting gloves for the past few months also. I don't know that this was because of direct contact from the Institute, but rumours have been spreading among the fashionable, as I said, and I'm sure the psychologists of the Institute know that some deliberate rumour spreading can help to prevent panic when the truth comes out.
Now about those rumours I've heard. The old favourite, the hat lined with tin foil, does not work. Plate-mail armour has not been tested yet, but I can't see it being preferable to a simple pair of gloves. Actually, since metal conducts thoughts quite well, I expect that the only reason it might work would be the padding worn underneath.
Other forms of metallic undergarment are similarly ineffective. This isn't radio. Our bodies seem to vibrate slightly as we think, not with the actual sounds we'd like to say, but with a representation of them. The mind of a sensitive person can, does, interpret this vibration through their sense of touch and feeds it into the same place our ears connect to. The vibration is very small, and the signal is confused by the minute electrical noises around us. Touching gets rid of that interference and also helps the reception of the vibration. Clothing blocks both the vibration and the electrical connection.
Some of you might wonder about what happens in a swimming pool, for there there is electrical contact and water transmits sound well. It seems though that it doesn't transmit thoughts very well, or rather it transmits the vibrations so well, so fast, that the signal your brain normally picks up on isn't there. Unless you're very close indeed. An engaged couple at the Institute volunteered to test just how close they needed to be to pick up each others' thoughts in the pool. The result was that they didn't hear anything until they were practically in a close embrace. They claim that for decency's sake they abandoned the experiment having made this discovery, and carried on to enjoy their swim together.
Well, they would, wouldn't they. Since of course this experiment wasn't carried out under strict laboratory conditions, you'll have to make do with this anecdotal evidence. But I hope that you can be reassured, and I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing them every blessing on their upcoming wedding.
“You cannot transmit that, Bob!” Karen said, outraged. “It's half lies anyway.”
“I have to agree, Bob,” Kate said. “I know there's such a thing as poetic license, but no. Too much innuendo, too much fabrication, and since you say that it's an engaged couple, that uniquely identifies Karen and George among the staff.”
“What about Ivan and Janet?” Bob asked.
“They're not official yet.”
“But it's so much better than saying that they got into a tank in the cellar but the harnesses they were in to keep it all scientific didn't let them get closer than five millimetres,” Bob said.
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“I'm sure it is. But still, you're embarrassing them.”
“Personally, I'd find the experimental set-up an embarrassment,” Bob replied.
Karen blushed. “It was. How come John and Sarah weren't in it? I thought his leg was waterproof and she came up with the harness idea.”
“He's waterproof up to a point, but was worried that the straps might open the maintenance slot,” Sarah said. “And I couldn't convince him it'd be fun.”
“It wasn't. The thermostat on that tank must be dodgy because we were freezing by the end.”
“Oh. Sorry. That was my mistake,” admitted Kate. “I didn't know there was cooling circuits there too, and I turned it down.”
“Kate! We said it was getting cold, didn't you hear? It was hardly above room temperature by the end!”
“So, if Kate stays away from the thermostat and we adjust the harnesses so you can get closer...” started Sarah.
“No! I refuse to get back in that torture chamber until you turn it into a civilized jacuzzi, without a scary big lid threatening to fall on us all the time, and without a thermostat which can be set to freeze or boil!”
“Don't exaggerate, Karen,” Kate said. “The sense deprivation tank doesn't go below ten or above fifty.”
“Bob, do you know what are the limitations of long term human survival in water?”
“I'm not sure, but I'd prefer it closer to body temperature if I were getting in.”
“Can we get back to the subject? Whatever are we going to do with Bob's message to the world?”
“Tests have shown that even with a piece of metal joining them, there is no thought transfer between two people in a swimming pool, until they are less than five millimetres apart,” Sarah intoned in her best dispassionate voice. “No, that sounds like it would work at five millimetres, and we don't even know that. I mean, the tight net was made for a good scientific study, but unless we actually describe it all then it's hardly broadcastable. Bob's attempt is actually better from that point of view.”
“Bob, if you cut out the bit about us being engaged, and all the stuff about going off for a romantic swim, what does it sound like?”
“A couple at the Institute volunteered to test just how close they needed to be to pick up each others' thoughts in the pool. The result was that they didn't hear anything until they were practically in a close embrace. They claim that for decency's sake they abandoned the experiment having made this discovery.”
“That sounds mostly OK to me,” Karen said. “We're not identified — plenty of couples here, and we were practically in a close embrace, but can we make it ‘even when’ instead of ‘until'?”
“I guess so. You didn't hear or feel a thing?”
“I only felt a growing sense of numbness.”
“That could be a factor, actually,” Sarah said. “All right, children, if Karen and George won't do it, then I'm not going to do anything as undignified as squeezing into that tank, but I'll lure Pete into the town pool and see what we can prove, OK?”
“Oh, it's OK. As long as it's a quick check and the water's nice and warm I'll try again. Just no innuendo or romantic swim, OK? And don't say it wasn't scientific conditions, because I don't think there's any other reason that'd get me into that contraption.”
“What did George think of it?”
“I'm going to have to be convincing,” Karen admitted.
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[George love?]
[Yes?]
[They think that because the water was so cold it might have affected the results. Kate turned the temperature down, didn't realise there was a heat pump, apparently.]
[She didn't see the big dial reading heat pump output temperature?]
[Apparently not.]
[So I need to get within millimetres of your beautiful body in a tight fitting swimsuit again?]
[Yes, George. If you think you can.]
[It's not that I can't do it, Karen, you know that. It's a question of can I do it and keep my thoughts under control.]
[George, your love for me is more powerful than lust. You know that, I know that. And if you need to be reminded of that in the middle of the night sometime, then by all means wake me up to talk and we'll pray together.]
[Thank you, Karen.]
[You know that it's entirely appropriate that we desire each other, just as it's appropriate that we demonstrate our love by helping each other withstand it.]
[I know. So why do we have an engagement longer than a week?]
[To give us a chance to tell people, of course, and because it's custom.]
[Silly custom. We've told people, haven't we? It's not like we're going to discover anything about each other that will stop the marriage.]
[Plus I can't wear the dress while I still have these crutches, George. And I do want to wear the dress. And for you to do your witness bit.]
[I love you, Karen.]
[I love you too, George. So, back into the tank?]
[You get in first, please.]
[Of course, I wouldn't want to tempt you beyond reason, George.]
[It sounded like there was some idea of temptation within reason there, Karen.]
[Not really. Just, I was thinking that it's been a long time since we hugged, and I like your hugs, George. If water really stops feedback...]
[You'd like to just try hugging and see if we can?]
[Yes. Is that bad?]
[Well, being half naked and risking triggering feedback doesn't sound like the most sensible idea, my love. But if we trigger it we can always hide, as long as we don't totally lose our heads, you know, like John and Sarah did.]
[I did ask Sarah about it. They were married, pretty sure that they'd be alert enough not to strip off there and then in front of the whole church, and so they enjoyed it for what they thought was a second or two.]
[Hmm. Whereas we're considering being relatively private, already pretty much
stripped off, and seeing if we can enjoy a hug without feedback?] George asked, suspiciously.
[Yes, urm, totally different. Perhaps it is a bit too much like playing with temptation.]
[I think so, Karen. Let's do some fully clothed hugging while hidden some time, and avoid the possibility of massive feedback. You know how proximity and degree of contact makes it worse.]
[It could be totally unstoppable with that much available skin, you mean?]
[I think the best way to test that is wait until we're married, Karen, don't you?]
[You're on. Sometime in total privacy. Just in case we need to help the feedback along.]
[Karen!]
[George, we're going to be married soon. We need to talk about these things.]
[I know. Just not immediately before I get the chance to caress bits of you
I mustn't.]
[Sorry. I'm not exactly helping you resist, am I, putting all this temptation your way.]
[I wonder if I should talk to John.]
[It sounds like a very very good idea. Did you hear about his first wife at all?]
[Only that she was killed in Clear Sky mall attack, like Sarah's parents.]
[Sarah found a picture of her once, found it impossible to imagine how he even noticed her.]
[Sarah's not bad looking, Karen! Nothing compared to you, of course.]
[Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. I expect John would say the same about me. But his first wife's appearance was up in the glamour model, film star levels.]
[I never thought glamour models looked that special, but OK, I get your point. Partly. Where are you going with this?]
[He was about your age, marrying someone the world (George Kray excepted) would consider a woman of exquisite beauty, who also happened to have great social skills and a brain capable of a PhD. I expect he can give some advice in handling temptation.]
[You're trying to convince me that I've got an easier challenge?]
[No, George. Just that his hormone levels were almost certainly as high as yours.]
[I think you should talk to Sarah more too. Your hormones seem fairly excitable too.]
[Let's just think about that delightful contraption instead of anything else. That is not romantic, is it?]
[No.]
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“So, final version is as before until the challenged bit and it now continues like this.
“To address this issue, a couple at the Institute volunteered yesterday afternoon to settle the question once and for all of just how close they needed to be to pick up each others' thoughts when in the pool. The result was that they didn't hear anything even when they were practically in a close embrace. They claim that for decency's sake they abandoned the experiment having made this discovery.
Actually, to be fair and honest, and to show you the lengths to which they're willing to go in the interests of science, I will describe the apparatus which they subjected themselves to at great amusement to the rest of us and embarrassment to themselves. They were each tied, upright, to a separate piece of nylon fence material held taught in a frame. This was to make sure that the separation between them could be measured with reasonable accuracy.
Then, their respective frames were moved progressively closer together in the water. We tried to hold their heads above water and succeeded most of the time. I might add that they were back to back to keep them in the dark about how close they were and for anatomical reasons I don't need to go into. When they were within three millimetres of each other, in other words when the two pieces of nylon were touching, they still couldn't hear each others' thoughts. They tried holding a metal pipe, which would transmit their thoughts more than a metre above water, and the result was the same.
Only when we cut holes in the net and allowed them to hold both hands and touch feet did they report that they could just about hear each other, but it was very hard. In case anyone's wondering if the nylon had anything to do with it, the answer is no.
I don't need to tell you that you'd certainly notice someone that close to you in a real situation. It therefore seems that one of the best places to be in order to keep your thoughts to yourself is in a swimming pool. This is Bob McDaniel, reporting to you from inside the Institute.”