“We can upload an animal’s perceptions,” Kacia said. “Using brain sensors. For example, I can capture a portion of a cat’s consciousness and then view it with a headset exactly as if I am the cat. Ultimately, this will help us to learn how different animals perceive and what they remember—basically, how they think.”
Bix tingled with sudden alertness.
“The technology is still very crude,” Kacia said. “But already, there is controversy: Are we crossing a line by breaching the mind of another sentient creature? Are we opening a Pandora’s box?”
“We’re back to the problem of free will,” Eamon said. “If God is omnipotent, does that make us puppets? And if we are puppets, are we better off knowing that or not?”
“To hell with God,” Fern said. “I’m worried about the Internet.”
“By which you mean an all-seeing, all-knowing entity that may be predicting and controlling your behavior, even when you think you’re choosing for yourself?” Eamon asked with a sly glance at Rebecca. He’d been flirting with her all night.
“Ah!” Tessa said, seizing Cyril’s hand. “This is getting interesting.”
3
Bix left Ted and Portia’s apartment ablaze with hope. He’d felt a shift in himself at points during the discussion, an arousal of thought that seemed familiar from long ago. He rode the elevator down with Eamon, Cyril, and Tessa while the others lagged behind, looking at some plaster reliefs Ted had bought on a trip to Naples decades before. Outside the building, Bix idled in a circle of small talk, unsure how to break away without seeming rude. He was reluctant to let it be known he was heading downtown; would a Columbia graduate student live downtown?
It turned out that Eamon was walking west and Cyril and Tessa were taking the train to Inwood, having been priced out of the neighborhood around Columbia and unable, as assistant professors, to get faculty housing. Bix reflected guiltily on his five-story townhouse. The professors had mentioned that they were childless, and one side of Cyril’s wire-rimmed glasses was held together with a paper clip. But there was a crackle of conductivity between these two; apparently, ideas were enough.
Buoyed by a sense that he could go anywhere as Walter Wade, Bix strode in the direction of Central Park. But the half-bare trees silhouetted against a sallow sky put him off before he reached the entrance. He wished it were snowing; he loved snowy nights in New York. He longed to lie down beside Lizzie and whichever kids had been washed, by nightmares or nursing, into their oceanic bed. It was after eleven. He doubled back to Broadway and got on the 1 train, then noticed an express at Ninety-sixth and switched, hoping to overtake a faster local. From his Walter backpack, he unearthed another disguise element: the copy of Ulysses he’d read in graduate school with the explicit aim of acquiring literary depth. What the tome had delivered concretely was Lizzie, in whom （through a calculus Miranda Kline surely could have explained） the combination of James Joyce and waist-length dreads provoked irresistible sexual desire. The calculus on Bix’s end had involved a pair of tan patent-leather boots that went higher than Lizzie’s knees. He’d kept Ulysses as a romantic artifact, although its worn look derived more from the passage of years than rereading. He opened it randomly.
“—Eureka! Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka!”
As he read, Bix began to feel that he was being watched. The sensation was so familiar from his normal life that he was slow to react, but at last he looked up. Rebecca Amari sat at the opposite end of the subway car, observing him. He smiled at her and raised a hand. She did likewise, and he was relieved to find that it seemed okay to sit apart in friendly mutual acknowledgment. Or was it okay? Maybe it was antisocial to follow several hours of lively group discussion with a distant nonverbal greeting. Bix so rarely had to contend with questions of ordinary social etiquette, he’d forgotten the rules. When in doubt, do the polite thing; he’d internalized this dictum from his scrupulously polite mother too decisively to unlearn it. Reluctantly, he put away Ulysses and crossed the car to Rebecca, taking the vacant seat beside her. This felt instantly wrong—they were touching from knee to shoulder! Or was total body contact the norm for people who took the subway? Blood flashed into his face with such force it gave him vertigo. He rebuked himself: When mundane social interactions became heart-attack-inducing, something was wrong. Fame had made him soft.