James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

They got a name for the winners in the world… call me Vincent Paulo.

Vince was trying not to get too excited, but if this new technology for the blind did everything Chuck said it could, Vince would literally be looking at life through a new porthole.

Fuck that door.

Sam stopped, and so did Vince. They were at the entrance. Chuck pushed the intercom button and announced their arrival. The receptionist’s voice crackled over the speaker, a buzzer sounded, and Chuck opened the door. Vince stopped him before entering.

“Hey, I want to thank you,” said Vince.

“No need, dude.”

“Just… really. Thank you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The only man who had lost more than Vince in that explosion had been Chuck. McKenna’s body had been consumed in the blaze. Two months later Chuck’s wife was gone. Police had found Shada’s overturned kayak floating in a section of the Florida Everglades that was crawling with pythons and alligators. An empty bottle of Valium and a suicide note were in her car. Her body was never recovered. Not once had Chuck even hinted that Vince had dropped the ball while he was out of the country, that Vince could have done anything to prevent the tragedy. Indeed, watching Chuck rebound through his work had been a real source of inspiration for Vince. Eleven months after McKenna’s death, the fledgling data-mining company that had been sucking cash out of the Mays family was turning a profit. Six months ago, Chuck sold out to a media conglomerate for eight figures and formed a new venture-MLFC Inc.-which to most folks was an acronym for Mays Laser Fast Computers. It was over beers that Chuck and Vince had come up with the name My Last Fucking Company.

“You’re a good friend,” said Vince. “I mean that.”

Chuck sniffed the air like a golden retriever, then did his baritone Sam-the-dog voice. “Hmm, the shit’s really gettin’ deep here. Can I go inside and wipe my paws?”

The receptionist greeted them in the lobby and took them to the computer lab. It was a room like any other to Vince. He heard the hum of fluorescent lighting overhead. He felt the cool draft from an AC duct on the wall. It was actually too cool-a sign of how many computers they were trying to keep from overheating-yet Vince was perspiring with anticipation. Finally, Dr. Adam Feldman joined them. Feldman had a PhD in neuroscience, hours of experience with a device called Brainport, and the good sense to cut the small talk short. He quickly launched into business.

“The basic premise here,” said Feldman, “is that you see with your brain, not with your eyes.”

“Which means I’ve seen a lot of the inside of my skull over the past three years,” said Vince.

“I meant that all sighted species see with their brains,” said Feldman. “All the brain needs is the input. In your case, the eyes can no longer transmit. That’s where Brainport comes in. Could you remove your sunglasses, please?”

Vince always wore them. To the office, at the beach, inside the house. He even wore them on his rock-climbing vacation last August. He heard a panting noise as he tucked the sunglasses into his coat pocket.

“Is that Sam or me?” asked Vince.

Dr. Feldman chuckled. Vince figured he wasn’t the first blind man to get a little giddy over this device.

Feldman described what he was doing each step of the way, partly to educate Vince, partly to help him relax.

“These special eyeglasses I’m putting on you have a small video camera mounted on the nose bridge. The camera acts as the eyes to gather visual information. The images are transmitted wirelessly in black, gray, and white to this handheld computer,” he said as he slid the device into Vince’s hand.

It felt slightly larger than an iPod. “Okay. But I’m not seeing anything.”

“Hold your horses there, cowboy,” said Feldman. “The computer will translate the visual information into electrical signals. Let’s turn it on.”

Feldman guided Vince’s thumb to the switch. Vince pressed it and waited. “I’m still not seeing anything.”

“Vince,” said Chuck, “One step at a time, all right?”

The anticipation was even beyond his first step onto a battleground as a marine, at least a million times greater than his first time with a woman. Well, maybe not a million. He took a breath and said, “Sorry, guys.”

“No problem,” said Feldman. “Just to give you some idea of what’s going on, Brainport is built on the concept of sensory substitution, which means that when one sense malfunctions, another sense can compensate, serving as a stand-in. Even a blind person walking down the street with a cane is basically using a form of sensory substitution.”

“Been there, done that,” said Vince. He reached down and patted Sam on the withers. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’m keeping you.”

“You raise a good point,” said Feldman. “I don’t want to overstate the device. It’s meant to supplement the cane and the guide dog. The idea is to help you perform everyday tasks that may seem simple to the sighted, such as reading street signs and searching for empty seats on a bus. A little additional information will make your life easier and safer.”

“Tell him how you’re studying it here at the institute,” said Chuck.

Vince couldn’t see him, but somehow he knew Feldman was smiling. “Again,” he said, “we’re talking about sensory substitution. Imagine a Navy SEAL with superhuman senses similar to those of owls or snakes.”

“Are you saying I have to walk around sticking my tongue out at people?”

“No. But you’re on the right track. The tongue ultimately replaces the eyes in transmitting visual input to the brain. That camera mounted on your glasses acts as your eyes, the visual images go to the little computer in your hand, and the computer translates the visual information into electrical signals. Those signals are transformed into gentle electrical impulses that end up on your tongue.”

“How?”

“The lollipop,” said Feldman.

“The what?”

“It’s an electrode that you hold in your mouth to receive the electrical signal. The white portions of images become strong impulses, the gray become medium impulses, and the black result in no impulses. The tongue sends these impulses to the brain, where they are interpreted as sensory information that substitutes for vision. The whole process works in much the same way that the optic nerve in the eye transmits visual information to the brain.”

“That’s great if it works. What do you think about that, Sam?”

The bushy tail brushed Vince’s ankle as it wagged.

“You ready?” asked Feldman.

“Beyond ready,” said Vince. “Bring on the lollipop.”

At noon the following day Jack was having lunch near the federal courthouse at a Japanese restaurant called Sue-Him, Sue-Her, Su-shi-truly the kind of place that could whet the appetite of Washington lawyers, as long as the waiters avoided the obvious jokes about sharks eating raw fish.

The case of Khaled al-Jawar v. The President of the United States of America was heard in the same courthouse opposite the National Gallery of Art where, in that other world before 9/11, a grand jury had heard the sordid details of the Monica Lewinsky affair and Judge John Sirica had sorted out the Watergate scandal. Jack had elected not to have his client testify via secure video feed from Guantanamo, arguing that it was the government’s burden to justify the detention. By eleven thirty, the hearing had ended and the judge had issued her ruling from the bench.

Neil Goderich was on his third cup of sake, furiously drafting a press release.