The Cairo Pulse — Extract

Chapter 8
As Dr Shore leaned over me to put the headset on, I tried not to steal a glimpse at the breasts that Bentley had pointed out to me, but failed miserably. Her perfume was sweet and earthy, which seemed appropriate; Cairo Shore would not entertain the slightest hint of citrus. I must have looked stupid wearing a hairnet peppered with little dots and half a mile of spaghetti hanging from it — apparently, each of those little dots contained a sensor that would monitor my brain activity. I glanced up to see Gizmo staring balefully through the glass window. She put her finger to her eye and then pointed at me, mouthing, “I’m watching you.”
“Okay, I’m going to put a wristband on that will monitor your pulse, then I’m going to cover your eyes, like I explained. Is that okay?”
It was like half-scientific experiment, half-weird porno film. “Go ahead. I’m okay.”
She placed the sleep mask around my head. “Right, just pop these in your ears you’ll hear white noise through them — like when your TV isn’t tuned in, but it won’t be too loud. I’m going to leave the room now. Any time you experience a significant change in your thoughts or the songs you’re hearing, just say it quietly to yourself –we’ll pick it up.”
“Roger that.”
Initially, the sensory deprivation was alarming, but after a minute or two I began to enjoy my own skin and the clothes that covered it, the contact between my body and the comforting softness of the recliner. I was inside myself, inside the humming aliveness of my own body, the clicking and whirring of my mind, dipping ever deeper and calmer into the centre of myself. Then I heard them talking, like I was in the test room and the lab at the same time. I wasn’t sure whether to mention it.

“Right, let’s just get a baseline. Oh, have you seen that, Giz? — that faint pulse coming from the left temporal? Whoa, what the hell’s going on here? Gizmo, I think the headset’s malfunctioning, either that or his brain’s doing the Fandango. What is the Fandango, anyway?”
“Mm. Now, that is strange. It could be a software problem, but it’s more likely to be the headset. I’ll go in and see what I can do.”
I imagined her investigating the headset like a gorilla about to embark on a grooming session. Hearing a song, I spoke as advised. “’I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass’ — Nick Lowe.”
She must have left the room because I heard her speak to Cairo. It was like the radio had been left on. “Shit. Do you think…?”
“Oh, it can’t be. Shall we send Vik in? Or is that stupid? Not very sophisticated, is it? Anyway, we need to fix the headset.”
“Oh, it’s just a bit of messing about — go on, let’s do it. Why don’t you send him in wearing a shiny space suit, floating on a hover pack? Would that make you feel more scientific?”
“Vik, will you just creep in there? Stand next to Gabriel for a few seconds then come back here.”
“Louis Armstrong — ‘What a Wonderful World’.”
“Okay, guys, now it’s my turn.”
I imagined her slipping off the high heels and tiptoeing through. I badly wanted to giggle.
“‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’. The Police.”
“Interesting, don’t you think, Giz?”
“One swallow doesn’t make a summer, my love. Nevertheless, you may well be right in your analysis. Oh, this is magic stuff, isn’t it?”
“Right, we need to iron these problems out or we won’t be able to track what’s happening.”
“Do you have the faintest idea how big this is? We might actually be witnessing the first documented case of a person whose brain interprets external EM fields as sound.”
“Of course, Gizmo. I’ll be taking all the credit, of course.”
“We’re going to have to do this a lot of times, but I’m guessing he won’t mind being your pet guinea pig.”
“Don’t say guinea pig, it makes me think of men in white coats cattle- prodding the mentally ill and putting LSD in squaddies’ tea. You are recording this, aren’t you?”
“I tell you what, why don’t you insult me?”
I was gliding peacefully in my own world, an inch from falling asleep when it happened, a sensation that a benign and wonderful presence was immersing me in divine serenity. Then it came.
“Hear My Song…”
I should have said it out loud — the first line of a song my granddad loved, but the impulse to speak was in a place so distant it was beyond my reach. I was consumed a second time.
“Hear My Song…”
The voices seemed further away.
“Bloody hell. Gizmo, have you pulsed him?”
“No, don’t be stupid, what’s the matter?”
“This screen’s like Blackpool Illuminations. Jesus, have you seen the left temporal? –it’s on fire. Why have you pulsed him?”
“I have absolutely not pulsed him.”
“Then why is it firing this pattern? Shut it down, we need to get that thing off him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cairo. We should wind down gradually and let him come out of it in his own time.”

Even though I heard them, it was in a disconnected way. For me, nothing existed but the moment and the moment was resonant and unblemished and quenching. A memory of Stephanie Cartwright, the supreme object of my fifteen-year old lust, swam across my mind. A gang of us had taken the train to the seaside one hot summer morning, enthused with mock confidence and rebellion. It was the day I’d planned to pick her off from the gaggle and disappear into the heart of the dunes. I warmed her up with tales of my long-dead mother; a subject that always guaranteed a girl would become velvet with sympathy and move closer. Stephanie Cartwright proved to be a pushover in this regard. Her lips had been full and yielding, her soft skin salt-baked shiny, I’d even dared to put my hands behind her back and undo the clip of her pink bikini top; that first touch of forbidden territory sending eternally etched shivers of ecstasy through my body. I’d so wanted to put my hand between her thighs, but hadn’t dared.
“Gizmo, the screen’s gone blank.”
“Mine too, all the systems are down. Bloody hell, I bet we’ve lost the lot. Right, I’d better go and sort him out.”
A moment later, Gizmo took the blindfold off. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the light and removed the earplugs.
“Still with us, then?”
I rubbed my eyes. “That was something else.”
She whipped the headset off like it was a viper ready to strike. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
