The Visible Man Read online

  As I believe I already mentioned, research and development for the suit and the cream was financed by the second Bush administration, technically through standard grants but ultimately via the NSA.6 This was when I was in Hawaii. It started as an extension of optical camouflage, which originally came from the University of Tokyo, but—at Chaminade—we were more occupied with metamaterials. Now, to this day, I still don’t know if the original intention for the suit was warfare or reconnaissance. As you might expect, there was a lot of debate about this among the staff at the lab. There was always an issue over whether we could accept funding for this research if the suit and the cream were going to be used in actual combat, since that would essentially make them weapons. None of those eggheads wanted to be working on weaponry. They were overt moralists. It was a little different for me, partially because I was younger but mostly because this was not my first rodeo. I was young, but this experience was arguably my fifth or sixth intellectual undertaking: I had started in chemical engineering as an undergrad, but then I pursued graduate study in sociology and then—immediately following that—psychology. I dabbled in investigative journalism for two years. I was a capable musician. I was a pretty decent playwright. I attended a city planning workshop. I did some organic farming. I invested eighteen months of independent study in mathematics before seriously returning to hard science. I can’t think of any academic subject that doesn’t excite me, except maybe art history. So even though I was the youngest person in the Chaminade lab, my worldview was much more diverse. I’d already considered different levels of thought. I would never refer to myself as a “renaissance man,” although I suppose that’s precisely what I am. But virtually everyone else at Chaminade had never done anything outside of research, so all their individual concerns were a tad myopic and—frankly—unsophisticated. The big question for them, it always seemed, was the relationship between the unexplained motives of the military and their own personal involvement. Basically, they felt they could chase any technology as long as they pursued it under the guise of doing something good, or at least something neutral. In other words, if they made a weapon but did not know it was a weapon when they made it, there was no moral crisis. They refused to consider the possibility of someone misusing whatever we created; that was something they viewed as beyond their control. They were fixated on accepting all directives at face value, even if that information made no sense or seemed like an obvious lie. What they wanted, I suppose, was the proverbial “clear conscience.” But because the government would never directly say why they wanted cloaking paraphernalia, the whole project started to hemorrhage and collapse. Many of my colleagues felt that—because no one would directly tell us why we were trying to construct human cloaking elements—they were forced to infer that whatever we ended up making had no use at all. If no one told them what the cloaking was for, they looked at everything as an exercise. In their minds, having no espoused explanation meant the suit couldn’t be used for anything. I know that sounds crazy, but there was a certain silly logic to it: If something did not have an outlined purpose, then any use qualified as misuse, and that meant they’d knowingly be working on a project that was destined to be used improperly. Because, I mean—rationally—we all knew these theoretical suits were going to be used for something. All the grant contracts made it clear that this was not just a scientific inquiry, and there was so much money being poured into development that there had to be a definite product when we finished. The NSA wouldn’t throw that much money at an exercise. But nobody could get over the fact that we had no directive. In other words, if the military had told us anything about why we were supposed to develop cloaking technology, that would have been enough for most of my co-workers. I’m certain everyone at Chaminade would have been totally comfortable if the NSA had just fabricated some bogus memo about our intended purpose. It could have said anything. Just something on paper that stated, “This is why we want these magic suits.” They could have sent us an e-mail that said, “We want to use these suits to imbed soldiers in dangerous areas so that they can provide emergency relief to displaced citizens without visually notifying enemy personnel.” That would have been more than enough. For all I know, that might have been their actual intention! But because the NSA refused to give us anything quantifiable, people started to slowly abandon the lab on so-called ethical grounds. The first ones who quit did so for valid reasons, but—after a while—most people quit because one of their favorite colleagues quit before them, or because this fake philosophical problem provided an excuse to move back to the mainland, or because they were the kind of sheep who always did what everyone else was already doing. And this, of course, totally worked to my advantage. When the project was eventually eliminated, I was the only person left in the lab, so I just stole everything we had and finished the work in my apartment. I’m not generally a thief, but this was a special circumstance. Once I escaped the distractions, it took only three more years. Nobody noticed. This had never been a secret project, because the project never had a clear-enough purpose to keep secret. I just boxed up everything from the lab and put it in my car. Nobody asked me one question about all the shit I carried out, and all our collective notes and equations were on a shared computer network. And to be honest, even when the lab was at full strength, I’d done most of the work myself, anyway. I was the only one who immediately understood how important this was. And I’ve never minded working alone. I actually prefer it.

  [It was at this point that I interrupted Y____, despite our agreement. I tried to be straightforward, saying only, “I don’t understand what this means or where this is going.” At the time, I was being truthful. Read in retrospect, it seems all too obvious where this monologue was leading—but it only seems that way now because I know what happened later. I didn’t believe I was getting real information. I was mostly wondering why these specific fabrications were the lies Y____was choosing to tell.]

  I didn’t anticipate that you would get this, Vicky. And I hope that doesn’t seem condescending, because that’s not my intention. I don’t think anyone could understand this. I’m only giving you some background so that we can get to my real concerns, none of which relate to science. Look: I had a desire, and I built something that made that desire real. And there was a consequence to that. I suppose it’s not all that different than any artist who ever got what he wanted, only to discover it made things harder. My desire was to study how people lived when they were alone, and I developed a means to do that. It’s as simple as that. I don’t have any issues concerning the value or morality of the science. I just want you to know exactly what I did. Moreover, when we really get into this, I don’t want to waste our time going over the details of cloaking every ten minutes. It’s difficult to explain to a scientist and impossible to explain to a therapist. You’ll need to accept a degree of cognitive dissonance. You made it very clear that these sessions were for my benefit, and that I could dictate what we talk about. So I’m telling you what I want to talk about. Now, is that going to be a problem?

  [I assure Y____that this is not a problem, and I assure him that this will not become a problem. But I mention that it’s difficult for me to understand what we’re talking about if he’s not even willing to frame what we’re supposed to be discussing.]

  What part of this strikes you as “unframed”? Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really can’t make this any simpler than I already have. I know it’s complicated, but what I’m able to explain is limited by what you’re unable to understand. How about this: Imagine that you live alone. I know that you don’t, but imagine that you do. Imagine that you live a quiet, solitary life in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town. Now, imagine that someone else was inside that apartment. Imagine that a stranger had managed to get inside your residence, and that this stranger just sat there, silently, and observed you. This stranger would learn a great deal about who you really were, wouldn’t he? He would know you with a depth that only you can normally experience,
in a context devoid of artifice. He would see the raw ingredients for whatever recipe you use to create the public version of yourself. He would learn things he couldn’t unlearn. And maybe that would be tough on him. Maybe he’d feel sinister. Maybe he’d feel angry at no one in particular. Maybe he’d think less of himself.

  I feel differently about people, and I feel differently about myself. And I don’t think I’ll be able to reverse those feelings. So that, I suppose, is what I want to figure out. I want to learn how to manage who I am and what I can do. And I’m serious about this, so I’ll call you next week. I’ll call you.

  Goodbye, Vicky. I think this went well.

  END OF PHONE SESSION 1

  NOTES: This is going to be more difficult than anticipated. Y____’s problems may be beyond my faculties. He is mired in a profound delusion that’s now intertwined with his functional reality. It is not simply that Y____ cannot separate his real life from his imagined life; it appears that the real now takes direct cues from the unreal. I’m now skeptical of Y____’s scientific credentials, mostly due to his obsession with avoiding all scientific details before I even ask for them. My first goal will be helping Y____ accept and admit that he is not a scientist.

  I do, however, believe he spent time in Hawaii.

  A deeper problem is his preoccupation with other people (and what he seems to think that preoccupation means). His story about the teenager he watched through the window, for example, seems genuine—although it’s unclear why the music of Rush plays such a significant role in the anecdote. What’s even more confusing (and less plausible) is his emphasis on voyeurism motivated by academic curiosity. All signs point toward an extremely lonely person—a loneliness that has lasted so long it’s morphed into psychosis. If his description of being skipped ahead in school (not once, but twice) is true, that experience must be explored. Y____ needs to be jarred out of his own head. He’s a stubborn one. This will be a challenge.

  The Second Meaningful Phone Call

  APRIL 18 (Y____ calls office line, 10:05 a.m.):

  Vicky. Hello. How are you? I will assume you’re perfect. Now, I believe we ended last week with—

  [I stop Y____ from continuing. I tell him that I’ve spent a week thinking about his situation and I have some practical questions that must be addressed. Nakedly annoyed, he asks what these questions will focus on. I say, “The suit and the cream. I need to understand the suit and the cream.” He asks what I need to know. When I tell him I want to know everything, he sighs so melodramatically that it’s audible on the recording, almost as if this is a radio play.]

  We’ve already talked about this, Vicky. I’m not going to talk about it again. We went through the entire process weeks ago. Why didn’t you ask me these questions when I was explaining it the first time? This is not what I want to do. I don’t intend to send you envelopes of cash in order to teach you about molecular science. Why would I want that? Will you please inform me why I should send you money in order to help you pretend to understand something that’ll never make any sense to you?

  [I apologize. In retrospect, I apologized to Y____ too often in these kinds of situations, but I had no idea he’d use that against me. I asked if he would give me the Cliffs Notes version of how the suit and cream worked. He said, “I’m not surprised you’re a fan of Cliffs Notes.” When I told him that this type of response was insulting and sophomoric, he apologized.]

  I’m sorry if what I said hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if you inferred my joke differently than the way it was intended. That was not my intention.

  [Recognizing a window of vulnerability, I again ask if he would provide a rough sketch of the suit and the cream. Again, he sighs cartoonishly.]

  Okay, sure. I don’t see how this will do any good, but fine. Here, in simplest terms, is what we were working on in Hawaii: Are you familiar with Philip K. Dick? Have you ever heard of a book called A Scanner Darkly? They made a movie about it, too. An animated movie, which I didn’t see. Doesn’t matter. Basically, it was a futuristic novel about drug enforcement, and the police officers in the book wear something called a Scramble Suit. In the book, a Scramble Suit is this superthin material that a policeman wears over his body like a membrane, and it’s made from some kind of malleable quartz lens, and the idea is that the suit allows you to look like a million different people interchangeably. Essentially, it makes someone look like everyone and no one at the same time. This is totally fiction, of course. It’s totally impossible. But evidently, that book was the seed for an idea, at least from the military’s perspective. They wanted us to make a suit that would make someone impossible to see, or at least very, very difficult to see. No one at Chaminade was told this directly, but we all sort of understood that this novel had been the genesis. We talked about it among ourselves. I mean, the type of person who worked in this lab was the same type of person who read a lot of Philip K. Dick novels. And you’d be surprised how often the military operates like this. They get so many ideas from bullshit like Star Trek and Arthur C. Clarke and World War Z. At one point they were trying to genetically engineer a Wookiee in Greenland. I’m not kidding. They wanted to build an army of fucking Chewbaccas for hand-to-hand warfare in arctic climates. They tried for ten years. I have photographs. One of my colleagues allegedly had hair samples, but it just seemed like regular yak hair to me.

  But, regardless … it was like this: We were instructed to make these cloaking suits, although—as I said before—none of us really knew why. And obviously, you can’t make a fabric that disappears on its own. That’s nonsense. But we came up with a concept that immediately felt semiplausible: What we needed was a sheer suit that reflected light, but was covered by a viscous fluid. This fluid would capture the light and move it. The elements within the fluid are something we refer to as metamaterials, because the components are smaller than the wavelength of light. Are you understanding the premise? Do you remember talking about this before? We called this theoretical fluid “ozone fluid,” because it was loosely modeled after the way the ozone layer traps ultraviolet rays: Light would pass through the cream, but it wasn’t reflected out. This was where A Scanner Darkly actually played a role. There are certain natural elements—quartz being one of them—that naturally bounce light back toward its source, almost like a mirror. And if you combine a specific sequence of these elements, they each refract a universal light source at varying wave distances. So that was what we infused into the cream: The cream is filled with crystallized metamaterial that reflects light capriciously. But the surface of that cream provides resistance. It’s like the suit has its own visual atmosphere. This, obviously, was the key—the key was developing a cream that allowed light to pass through its membrane, strike the surface of this highly reflective suit, bounce, and then bounce again. But it couldn’t refract at a right angle. It had to refract at an angle that was either obtuse or acute. Because what we were trying to do was make this light move. We wanted to move it one hundred and eighty degrees from the point of origin. Our hypothesis—my hypothesis, really, because I did all the heavy lifting—was that there would inevitably be a pool of light at the opposite pole of whoever was wearing the suit, since the refraction would be happening from both sides simultaneously and at the same speed. That pool of light would overcome the cream’s resistance and become our quote-unquote “third-party visual.” This was the plan.

  Is this making sense? Any sense at all?

  Now, what does that mean in a three-dimensional world? It basically means that any third party looking at a man wearing the suit would see whatever was directly behind that man. If the man in the suit was standing in front of a brick wall, the third party would see the bricks. These bricks would only be a reflection, but they’d match the rest of the wall. It would be an imperfect match, but close enough to fool anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for.

  Does that satisfy you?

  [I say, “Not really.”]

  Of course it doesn’t. How could it? I’m already
dumbing this down to a level where it barely makes sense to me. Seriously, Vicky—don’t concern yourself with science. I don’t know why it matters to you, anyway. Here’s all you need to know: At Chaminade, we constructed something akin to a ninja suit. They almost looked like a child’s pajamas. In my apartment, two years later, I finished the translucent cream. It took another ten months to concentrate that cream into a mist so that I could apply it as an aerosol. That was harder than I thought it would be. In many respects, that was the hardest part. The only way I could do it was by trial and error. I don’t even want to think about that period of my life. It was incredibly tedious. But like I said—these details are not your concern.

  Now, if I put on this ninja suit, and I shave my facial hair and I put on a pair of goggles, and I spray down the suit and my hands and my feet and my face with this concentrated cream, an optical illusion occurs. You won’t be able to see me. Instead, you will see what’s directly behind me, and you’ll interface with that false image at the speed of light. And like I said before, because this process unnaturally bends the light source, my fabricated image will be a little off. It will be less sharp and less vivid. The difference is roughly similar to the disparity between high-definition and standard-definition television, if that helps your imagination. The match won’t be perfect. But it will be close enough.