Page 158 of The Secret of Secrets

“Any word from Robert Langdon?”

“Thankfully, yes. He emailed. They’re both okay.”

Alex looked surprised. “He didn’t call?”

Faukman shook his head. Not yet, at least.

“And the In-Q-Tel investment list? Any luck finding crossover with Dr. Solomon’s work?”

“No. The AI gave me garbage data. Definitely not a fan.”

“I may have something for you,” he said, opening the laptop he was carrying. “I realized that your AI search would have flagged overlap with anything online that was written by Dr. Solomon, but not necessarily anything spoken—like audio-video content—so I ran a modified cross-reference and learned that both In-Q-Tel and Dr. Solomon have a unique interest in the science of…fractals.”

Faukman knew nothing about fractals other than that they often appeared as swirling designs consisting of infinitely repeating patterns.

“In the past three years,” Alex said, pulling out his phone, “Q has invested heavily in fractal technologies, while Katherine…” He launched a video and held up the screen for Faukman.

Katherine appeared, seated on a dais with several other speakers and the IONS logo behind them. “You ask an interesting question,” Katherine said, addressing someone in the audience. “Coincidentally, in the book I’m working on about human consciousness, I’ve written extensively about fractals.”

Faukman’s ears perked up.

“As you know,” she continued, “fractals possess an astonishing attribute: each individual section, when magnified, turns out to be an exact smaller version of the whole—an endless telescoping repetition of self-similarity. In other words, each individual point contains everything else. There is no individual…only the whole. A growing number of physicists now believe our universe is arranged like a fractal, which would suggest each person in this room contains every other person, and there is no separation between us. We are one consciousness. It’s hard to picture, I admit, but if you look up images of the Koch snowflake or the Menger sponge, or better yet, just read The Holographic Universe—”

“That’s the gist of it,” Alex said, stopping the video.

Faukman was uncertain. “Alex, I strongly doubt the CIA’s interest in fractals has anything to do with the interconnectedness of the universe and humanity.”

“I agree, but fractals play a critical role in encryption schemes, network topologies, data visualization, and all kinds of other national security technologies. Katherine said she wrote extensively about fractals in her book, so I’m thinking maybe she discovered something that compromised one of Q’s investments. It’s worth a look.”

“Fair point,” Faukman agreed. “I’ll dive in. I appreciate it.”

“Let me know if you find anything. Gotta run.”

The tech hurried back to his interrogation, and Faukman returned to his computer.

Outside, the rain fell harder.

Chapter 100

This is a veritable pharmacy of psychedelic substances…

Katherine felt dumbfounded as she stared into the refrigerator at the staggering array of potent drugs. In addition to several substances she did not recognize, Katherine saw vials of diethylamide, psilocybin, and DMT—the effective ingredients in LSD, magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca. She even spotted containers of distilled Salvia extract and MDMA—both illegal in these forms.

The presence of these drugs inside a VR lab could mean only one thing. Threshold is administering drugs in conjunction with state-of-the-art virtual reality immersions.

Dual-stimuli VR/drug therapies were strictly regulated in the medical field because their results were not yet understood. In many cases, the combined stimulation was so powerful that it altered the brain’s structure rapidly and in unpredictable ways. Neuroscientists had already begun to see startling structural changes in the brains of young people who combined computer gaming with designer drug use.

A new generation of thrill seekers now donned consumer VR goggles and spent hours smoking cannabis while floating virtually through space…snorting cocaine while riding a virtual roller coaster…or “edging” on various time-dilation sex drugs while watching VR porn. To no avail, countless warnings had been issued because the experiences were intensely addictive.

People don’t want to hear how dangerous it is…

Last year, Katherine had been booed when she spoke to an audience of tech-savvy gaming enthusiasts and explained that prolonged exposure to hyperrealistic first-person shooter games had been shown not only to shape people’s sensitivity to the graphic subject matter—but to rewire the brain’s structure, muting normal empathic triggers.

The boos grew louder when she informed them of new brain studies showing that voracious consumption of online pornography was physically altering young minds—“essentially growing a callus on the human libido” and desensitizing them to real sex. The result was that arousal, even in young people, could be achieved only with the assistance of a mind-boggling quantity and variety of stimuli.

Langdon stood beside her, scanning the vials and containers in the refrigerator. “What are the drugs for?”

“Specifically, I’m not sure, but some of these substances are no joke—powerful hallucinogens.” She looked around, her thoughts now racing. “If I had to guess, I’d say this room was custom-built for one purpose—to rewire a human brain.”