Synopsis-Part 4, Page 4

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    In technical terms, they explain, this all results from temporarily reprogramming your NR2B gene cluster by means of NMDA protein blockers and substitutes, “biological software routines” for consciousness—a regimen of hypnosis and pharmaceuticals they say you, Reddy and Sherlock (close friends of yours in real life) underwent at the outset of your adventure. These brand-new, experimental drugs, manufactured by a biotech firm the i21/Camelot chairman owns, enhance recently acquired memories and suppress others—including any knowledge of the technology itself.
    Well, it certainly worked. You truly had no idea. Your preparation, which took place over 48 hours, was similar to that of an actor intensely getting into character. The one big difference being that, by the end of it, you thought it was for real. After “acquiring” a new background and identity based on “pseudo events,” a packet was actually delivered to a “halfway house” where you quickly became absorbed in “Lord Hanover’s” correspondence and audiotape. You really did download information from simulated Web sites, actually watched a fake BBC documentary, talked to Farnsworth on the phone, made reservations and attended to other routine matters in advance of your “trip.” Of course, you never flew or stopped over anywhere, but “artificial memories” duped you into thinking you did.
    “Bringing you back” to your real life and authentic memories has previously been accomplished by showing you diaries and scrapbooks filled with personal memorabilia, photos and clippings. One sure-fire method is a powerful synchronicity—two or more seemingly unconnected events that happen simultaneously. What people in normal states of consciousness would call “coincidences,” but in truth are “psychic events” enable one to switch instantly between mindsets, where, as the company name suggests, two realities fold into one scene. But, they caution, they never know—and cannot be told—in advance what will work. For the technique requires completely random occurrences. Your scrapbooks and diaries reveal that you are a jack of several high-tech and show business trades; you have lived all over the world under multiple identities; you frequently undergo abrupt and radical life-style changes, to say the least. Currently you are a “scenarist,” VR creator and game developer based in Japan. It’s amazing to read, but so far you’ve drawn a complete blank. Next, they try recounting memorable stories from your past—how, for example, you once brought a gorilla to a job interview. But as entertaining as these vignettes are, none seem to work. At least not completely. Throughout, you experience momentary sparks of recognition and flashbacks, when for example a passage you’re reading from your diary eerily parallels a conversation the i21 staff is having across the room. As it did with the French, an audible voice in your head translates whenever your colleagues speak Japanese. But too much time passes and full recollection does not occur. Something is dreadfully wrong on this occasion.

    A visit to your cottage in staff quarters reveals what it is. In an underground passageway, you chance upon Farnsworth and the two Japanese managers in the midst of a conversation about you. Hidden from view, you overhear how they’d secretly added wild mushrooms to the food served throughout your stay. They may have been poisonous, of the psychotropic variety, or completely harmless—your enemies aren’t sure. But scary enough is hearing what they’d hope to accomplish. And how they plan to wreck this production. Then a voice in your head assures you that none of those mushrooms were poisonous and recommends countermeasures you should take. It is a stunningly brilliant plan.
    Moments later, when you enter your cottage, the inexplicable happens: your thoughts rush headlong into the maelstrom of another mindset as you find yourself standing inside to a similarly furnished residence you once occupied in Tokyo. There, you relive a memorable evening with the imagine21 music composer, during which you dazzle him with the apartment’s built-in special effects. Returning from that three-hour flashback, you find the real composer standing before you, assuring you that no more than thirty minutes has passed.

Well, there’s no longer any doubt in your mind about this other you. Certain now of the strong bond that exists between you and Ray, you divulge your plan to give les saboteurs a taste of their own hallucinogenic medicine. He thinks it’s hysterical and can’t wait to get started. You haven’t fully recovered but now definitely feel you’re coming back in stages.

Back in the lab, you outline your strategy, which requires the team quickly to assemble a series of powerful illusions. Scripts are hastily written, voices recorded, music assembled and costumed characters filmed. Then “RenderRama” (thirty networked computers) takes over to process the data, giving everyone the chance to reassemble and once again try to bring you back. This time the focus is no longer on your past but instead returns to the just-completed scenario. You want to see if several unsolved puzzles might be psychic markers that “the other you” left behind in hopes that it would later trigger full remembrance. You review events and soon uncover several anomalies. For instance, why in the world would a portrait of a dead Japanese emperor be hanging on this set? Why did The Village Journal publish brain twisters (and obviously clues) that were never used in your scenario?

    The answers are fascinating and, oddly enough, all interconnected. The disparate incidents and topics finally meld into the long-awaited synchronicity.
    Which hits like a psychic earthquake.
    Mentally, you’re swept into an event from your own past, deep in the heart of Texas, speeding down an expressway, wondering whatever happened to an old friend you’d said goodbye to twenty years ago and haven’t seen since. Suddenly, her name appears on a passing billboard. A moment later, your cell phone rings. It’s the woman herself calling from a nearby airport where she’s changing planes.
    Which, in a manner of speaking, so are you.
    In the course of reliving this experience, you learn how you discovered your long-lost uncle, Stuart, who really is a British noble.

Meanwhile, inside the imagine21 stage-set, a psychic battle of comic proportions is unfolding. One of les saboteurs has been lured into a room where the busts of famous composers come to life to hurl inanities at him while Beethoven’s Ode to Joy pours forth in glorious quadraphonic. The other is trapped inside the armory where a series of brilliantly executed theme-park illusions utterly convince him that he is being instantly teleported to other parts of the manor. Both suffer nervous breakdowns. But it is Farnsworth on whom the grandest tricks are played. Everywhere he runs in the manor, Uncle Stuart, you and your old pal Emperor Hirohito appear in paintings, woodcarvings and mirrors, sometimes winking at him, sometimes singing the old Police refrain: “Every step you take / Every move you make / I’ll be watching you.”

His mind blown to smithereens, Farnsworth is then duped into committing an unforgivable affront to the Camelot chairman and the president. They instantly terminate the butler’s employment and have him deported. Once again, the i21 crew is reminded how the company’s top execs have but a passing fancy in anything being produced at Camelot. Their abiding interest is in the scenarios being lived here. Everyone’s now sure they have some secret way of knowing, of actually watching everything behind the scenes—from further behind them. Eventually you do return and collect your wits. Your i21 crew fills you in on the successful launch of your revenge scheme and the madness that ensued. Eventually all adjourn to a huge cast party in the Falstaff. The next day, i21’s “Manor House” production receives the final go-ahead from the Camelot chairman, and thus ends our story.