Ramen and Rolexes

Chapter Five: Conductive Paste and Two-Way Mirrors

The basement of the Behavioral Sciences building smelled of ozone and pine-scented industrial floor cleaner.

Room B-114 was essentially a concrete box painted high-gloss eggshell. Two vinyl recliners faced a heavy pane of polarized glass. Between them sat a folding table holding a plastic pitcher of room-temperature water and a stack of standardized logic puzzles.

Ray dropped his backpack. The heavy canvas hit the linoleum with a dull thud. He sat on the edge of the right recliner. The vinyl squeaked. He dragged both palms down his face. His fingers smelled like stale french fry grease and heavy-duty dish soap.

Julian stood in the center of the room. He still wore the olive-green coat. He unzipped it precisely halfway. The nylon crackled aggressively in the dead quiet of the acoustic-tiled room. He walked up to the polarized glass. He tapped it with one knuckle.

"One-way observation," Julian said. "They are likely logging our baseline biometric markers right now."

"Don't tap the glass."

A graduate student walked in. He wore a faded band t-shirt and held a plastic clipboard. He looked at Ray’s grease-stained jeans, then at Julian’s crinkling coat, and dragged a hand through his unwashed hair.

"Phones in the lockbox," the grad student said. He pointed a capped pen at a metal safe bolted to the cinderblock wall. "No caffeine. No sugar. No sleep for forty-eight hours. If your heart rate drops below forty-five beats per minute for more than sixty seconds, the alarm goes off. If you close your eyes for more than three minutes, the alarm goes off. If you stand up and try to leave the room, you void the stipend."

Ray pulled his cracked phone from his pocket. He dropped it into the metal slot. It clattered against the bottom.

Julian retrieved a heavy, gunmetal-grey smartphone. No case. Ray had seen a tech blog estimate the prototype cost at around three grand. Julian slid it through the slot.

The grad student set a plastic tray on the folding table. It held two bundles of colorful wires and a tub of grey paste.

"Sit back," the student said.

Ray leaned back. The recliner clicked into its second position.

The grad student dug a wooden tongue depressor into the tub. It came out coated in a thick, grey sludge. He pressed it into Ray's scalp, right at the hairline. The paste was freezing. It smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol and copper wire.

The student taped a flat metal node over the paste. He moved to the temple. More cold paste. More surgical tape.

Ray stared at the fluorescent light panel on the ceiling. A single dead moth was trapped inside the plastic casing, its wings casting a faint shadow on the diffuser.

"What is the viscosity of the conductive gel?" Julian asked.

The grad student paused with the tongue depressor halfway to Julian’s head. "It's standard EEG paste."

"Does it contain parabens?"

"It conducts electricity." The student slapped the paste onto Julian's crown.

Julian didn't flinch. He watched the student’s technique in the reflection of the two-way mirror.

Ten minutes later, they were both wired to small, black telemetry boxes. The wires draped over their shoulders like multicolored dreadlocks.

The grad student picked up the clipboard. "I need verbal confirmation of the intake forms. Ray?"

"Yeah."

"Pre-existing conditions?"

"No."

"Average hours of sleep per night over the last week?"

Ray looked at the dead moth. "Four."

The student made a checkmark. He turned to Julian. "Julian?"

"Yes."

"Pre-existing conditions?"

"None."

"Average hours of sleep?"

"Eight point five. On a specialized orthopedic mattress calibrated for spinal alignment."

The grad student stopped writing. He looked up from the clipboard. He stared at Julian’s wired head, then down at the crinkling fifteen-dollar coat, and finally at the impeccably clean white sneakers that cost more than the grad student’s car.

"Right," the student muttered. He checked a box. "Income bracket."

"Under ten thousand," Ray said.

"Julian?"

Julian looked at the mirror. Then he looked at Ray.

"Zero," Julian said.

The pen scratched against the paper. "You have no income?"

"I am currently unemployed," Julian said. His voice was perfectly level. "I have no salaried position. I rely entirely on preexisting resources."

Ray closed his eyes.

"Keep your eyes open, Ray," the grad student said automatically.

Ray opened them.

The student checked the final box. He walked to the door. "Baseline starts now. I’ll bring terrible cafeteria food in six hours. Use the puzzles if you start fading. Don't touch the nodes."

The heavy acoustic door clicked shut. The deadbolt slid into place with a loud, metallic chunk.

Silence filled the room. The overhead air vent hummed. It pushed out air chilled to exactly sixty-eight degrees.

Julian reached up. He carefully touched the bundle of wires trailing from his left temple. He traced the plastic coating all the way down to the black box clipped to his belt.

"Zero income," Ray said to the ceiling.

"Technically accurate. I do not earn a wage."

"You own a building in Manhattan."

"A holding company owns the building. I merely possess a majority stake in the holding company."

Julian sat down in his recliner. He didn't lean back. He sat straight up. The nylon coat crunched loudly. He picked up the top logic puzzle from the stack. He unclipped his silver fountain pen from the collar of his t-shirt.

"Forty-eight hours," Julian read from the top of the paper. He uncapped the pen. "The hourly breakdown of the two-hundred-dollar stipend equates to roughly four dollars and sixteen cents per hour."

Ray shifted his weight. The vinyl stuck to the back of his shirt.

"I am currently earning four dollars and sixteen cents an hour," Julian said. He looked at the silver nib of his pen. "This is my first wage."

"Don't spend it all on discount winter wear."

Julian lowered the pen. He looked at the two-way mirror. His reflection stared back—a young man with a trust fund, wired to a machine, wearing trash-bag nylon, sitting next to a guy who smelled like dish soap.

"I should take off the coat," Julian said.

"You're wired in. You can't."

Julian tugged at the plastic zipper. It moved an inch and snagged on the internal nylon lining. He pulled harder. The fabric resisted. He let go.

He picked up the first logic puzzle. He began to write. The silver nib scratched heavily against the cheap copy paper.

Ray watched the wires sway slightly with Julian’s hand movements. Red. Yellow. Green.

The air vent kicked into a higher gear. A draft hit the back of Ray's neck. He pulled his arms inside his t-shirt, crossing them over his chest. He looked at the digital clock mounted above the mirror.

47:51:12.