“Clive.”
“Yes?”
“A Swedish elevator repairman did not discover the subconscious.”
“Danish. And we’re not talking about the subconscious. We’re talking about the assumption that all thought is coming from inside the house. J?rgensen theorized that a percentage of who we are is not just stimulated by external forces but beholden to them.”
“It’s not a theory; you’re talking about mind control.”
He shuddered, as if he’d bitten into something rotten.
“You do it every day.” He spoke through his teeth. “Your brain waves emit electromagnetic impulses that transfer energy to other people. It’s the power of suggestion. You’re doing it right now.”
“Then what am I thinking?”
“Nothin’ good,” said Vadis, under her breath.
“We’re not psychic, Lola.”
“How many people are involved in this?”
“A little over fifty.”
“Good God.”
“J?rgensen never thought one person could make another person do anything. But the influence we have over the consciousness of our fellow man has been exacerbated by technology. Much as we’d like to think of ourselves as hydraulic elevators, we are traction elevators.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, you founded a mind control cult with an espresso machine in it. I’m very happy for you.”
“It’s not mind control,” he said, struggling to keep his voice level. “It’s ethical persuasion, not coercive persuasion. We’re not keeping people here through fear and intimidation. It’s a combination of subliminal messaging mixed with meditation.”
“Still happy for you. But why am I here?”
He and Vadis exchanged glances. Clive nodded at her to speak.
“Okay, so if we see all of mankind as a single network,” Vadis began, grateful to have been passed the conch, “then you can inject enough energy into one part of the network and it has an impact on another part. Like pulling a thread. Like when your engagement ring ruins the cashmere sweater I lent you. For instance.”
“Some guy left that sweater at your house, you don’t even know who.”
“Not the point.”
“Vadis’s saying that we can use a marriage of holistic and technological techniques, positive and negative reinforcement, to encourage certain behaviors. Certain movement.”
Clive loosened his tie, as if warming up a studio audience. It was difficult to be around him when he was like this. It felt like being physically shaken.
“Do you need a whiteboard?”
“Imagine,” he said, ignoring me, “walking around this city in the hours before you’ve been told a hurricane is gonna hit. A breeze blows that is in no way different from any other breeze. Trash that is in no way different from any other trash spins in a circle that is in no way different—”
“I get it. Trash.”
“And yet!” he shouted. “Because you were told something is afoot, you can feel the city turning its many eyes to the same subject. The conversations change, the social media posts change. Collective energy can overpower individual energy, particularly if we can magnetize one specific individual. Which is where you’ve been coming in.”
“One more time?”
“Yes,” confirmed Vadis, “have been.”
I had a flash of running into Amos on the street. Hello, Stranger.
“This has been happening since Friday night,” I said.
Clive looked at Vadis, who nodded.
“It’s working a bit faster than we’d imagined, which is great.”
“And I’m the hurricane?”
“You’re the hole,” said Vadis, “the eye of the doughnut.”
“You’re our case study, our model.”
I put my head on the table and groaned. I watched the Magritte painting, waiting for all those men to move. Had I sensed them being shooed in my direction? Maybe if I was more in tune with my physiology, one of those people who quit social media because of the dopamine rush, I would’ve known.
“When did you decide I was the hole?”
“At the reunion dinner before last.”
“The jerk-chicken place?”
The memory of hot meat and scotch bonnet turned itself into acid in my throat. I caught sight of my reflection in the glass and forced myself to see beyond it, past the chandeliers, where filing cabinets were arranged like card catalogs. An Indian man in an argyle top and an older white lady with big jewelry walked by. They passed a Korean woman around the same age as the barista, wearing a white tunic and silver sneakers. They all greeted one another with a little bow, though less dramatic than the one Vadis and Errol had given Clive. The Korean woman wore gold-rimmed glasses and wheeled an AV cart with wires peeking out over the edge. None of them looked at us.