Having a lot of free time and a lot of money made this easier. Virtual reality systems had become awfully convincing by that point. She hired a team of programmers, as well as an aerodynamicist who specialized in the flight of birds, and they rigged up a system in a circus school down by Boeing Field where Maeve could be suspended in a harness from a web of cables that were reeled in or paid out so as to move her through three-dimensional space. A VR rig covered her eyes and fed her matching imagery—most importantly, moving images of imaginary wings, which she could see if she turned her head to one side or the other. Embedded in the same rig were sensors reading faint signals from her brain. Years earlier, such systems had advanced to the point where quadriplegics could use them to control wheelchairs or robotic limbs just by thinking, and Maeve had of course read all of the papers that had been written about the changes that took place in the patients’ brains as they got better and better at using those systems. There were drugs you could take and procedures you could undergo to enhance neuroplasticity. She tried them all, with effects on her personality and on their marriage that were, to put it gently, a personal growth opportunity for Corvallis. When he complained that she was becoming a different person, she reminded him none too gently that this was the entire point of what she was doing. More in that vein spilled out afterward. He got an earful about their first meeting in Moab, the first time they’d had sex, her long-unspoken suspicion that there’d been something a little odd about that encounter. Did C-plus have a thing for amputees? He could say in perfect honesty that he did not. But a helpless woman who needed saving? Maybe.

So he backed away and stopped sharing his opinions and his concerns about what she was doing. It was fascinating. Far outside the bounds of legit peer-reviewed research. More of a performance art project. But there were noble precedents for art leading the way and science following in its wake. Under the cover of art, she was able to take it to a place where scientists were at least willing to attend demonstrations at ACTANSS, watch Maeve “fly” through a simulated environment, and to look at the data visualizations where she and her staff showed data about what was going on in her brain.

From the very beginning, El’s people paid very close attention indeed. More than once, when Maeve began a new branch of her investigation, she found evidence that researchers based in Zelrijk-Aalberg had got there first. Which was hardly surprising. In life, Elmo Shepherd had been no fan of morpho-teleology. And in death, he was surrounded by a host of angels.

Book 2

Book 2

Part 8

Part 8

Chapter 43

Chapter 43