Still, some of the experiments and the resultant modeling were suggestive; calpain buildup seemed to alter brain-wave function, for instance; and this fact and others gave him ideas for further investigation. He began to read intensively in the literature on the effects of calcium-binding protein levels, on corticosteroids, on the calcium currents in the hippocampal pyramidal neurons, and on the calcification of the pineal gland. It appeared there were synergistic effects that might impact both memory and general brain-wave function, indeed all bodily rhythms, including heart rhythms. “Was Michel experiencing any memory troubles?” Sax asked Maya. “Perhaps feeling that he had lost entire trains of thought— even very useful trains of thought?”

Maya shrugged. By now Michel was almost a year gone. “I can’t remember.”

It made Sax nervous. Maya seemed in retreat, her memory worse every day. Even Nadia could do nothing for her. Sax met her down on the corniche more and more frequently, it was a habit they both clearly must have enjoyed, though they never spoke of that; they simply sat, ate a kiosk meal, watched the sunset and pulled up their color charts to see if they would catch another new one. But if it weren’t for the notations they made on the charts, neither of them would have been sure whether the colors they saw were new or not. Sax himself felt that he was experiencing his blankouts more frequently, perhaps some four to eight a day, although he couldn’t be sure. He took to keeping his AI running a sound recorder permanently, activated by voice; and rather than try to describe his complete train of thought, he just spoke a few words that he hoped would later key a fuller recollection of what he had been thinking. Thus at the end of the day he would sit down apprehensively or hopefully, and listen to what the AI had captured during the day: and mostly it was thought that he remembered thinking, but occasionally he would hear himself say, “Synthetic melatonins may be a better antioxidant than natural ones, so that there aren’t enough free radicals,” or “Viriditas is a fundamental mystery, there will never be a grand unified theory,” without having any memory of saying such things, or, often, what they might mean. But sometimes the statements were suggestive, their meanings excavatable.