Page 169 of The Secret of Secrets

“I just didn’t want to get into it. And it was quite a long time ago.”

“No wonder Finch panicked last night,” Langdon said. “Gessner probably told him that you not only rebuffed her request for a signed NDA but rejected her request for an advance copy of the manuscript, and she must have reported that you’d also blatantly lied about never having applied for a patent! Finch would have suspected you were jockeying for personal gain and preparing to publish some kind of bombshell exposé.”

“Well, we can publish it now,” Katherine said, motioning to the classified binder in his hand. “Complete with PALM of an implanted brain. Pretty conclusive proof.”

“What is PALM?”

“Photoactivated localization microscopy—a brain imaging technique. Threshold genetically encoded their artificial neurons with fluorescent proteins so they could, in effect, see them…and track their growth. Clever idea—theirs, not mine.”

“Wait, are there images in this binder?! You didn’t—”

“You took it away too fast,” she said, holding her hands out for the binder. “I’ll show you.”

Langdon thrust the binder eagerly back into her hands. Despite their evidence that the CIA had stolen Katherine’s idea and was building artificial neurons, Langdon had seen no actual proof that Threshold was doing human trials. This could be it…

“Here’s a good one,” Katherine said, laying the open binder on the counter before them.

When Langdon saw the image, he felt both repulsed…and vindicated. The colorful photo resembled a computer-enhanced X-ray of a human brain inside a skull. What was horrifying, however, was what else was inside the skull with the brain.

Beneath the bone of the skull, a surprisingly large computer chip was nestled into the brain tissue. Attached to the chip a cord snaked to an illuminated mesh of fluorescent threads that seemed to be woven into a lacy, weblike cap, similar to a hairnet, and pulled down over the top of the brain.

“That neural mesh,” Katherine said. “My idea.”

Langdon looked on in amazement as she flipped through various images, graphs, and notes monitoring the implant’s progress over time. The records were startling, but the bigger shock came when Langdon noticed the tiny footer at the bottom of every page.

PATIENT #002 / VESNA

“Sasha…” Langdon whispered, his worst fears now confirmed. What have they done to you?

Langdon felt sickened to see the thick mesh of tentacles spread out over Sasha’s brain like some kind of parasite. Ironically, he and Katherine had broken into Threshold to find incriminating evidence…only to learn that the single most incriminating piece of evidence was on the outside, inside Sasha Vesna’s head.

I hope the ambassador has located Sasha, he thought, again sensing it was time to go.

“Whatever Ms. Vesna has in her head,” Katherine said, “it does a lot more than cure epilepsy.”

“Is there anything here that describes what the chip does?”

“Nothing specific,” Katherine said, flipping pages. “This binder is all about neural integration, and I have to admit, I am amazed they’re achieving integration so quickly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Integration between chip and brain,” she said. “Once you lay an artificial neural mesh on a living brain, the two elements need time to fuse into one system. Neural plasticity is a miracle, but it doesn’t happen overnight. For a brain to synapse fully with a neural implant would take at least a decade—maybe two. It’s one of the big obstacles I mentioned in my grad thesis.”

“What did you propose as a solution?”

“I didn’t,” Katherine replied. “There is no solution but to wait. Biological growth takes time. Evolution takes time. And yet somehow…” She studied a series of graphs, shaking her head. “They’ve accelerated the process with remarkable speed. In a year, they’ve done what should have taken at least a decade. The question…is how?” She kept flipping pages, passing one on which appeared a tiny headshot of a younger Sasha Vesna with long blond hair.

“I have a different question,” Langdon said. “If Sasha is patient number two…”

Katherine glanced up. “Right, then who is patient number one?”

She immediately began flipping backward through the binder, looking for information on patient number one, who Langdon assumed was most likely the Russian epilepsy patient, Dmitri, from the same institution as Sasha.

“This is strange,” Katherine said. “I don’t see any section with data on any other—oh, wait—here it is. It’s much shorter. I missed it.”

The section included assorted data, graphs, and a similarly eerie X-ray of the subject’s brain showing an implanted chip and neural mesh.

The footer read: