Neil shook his head. 'Always so literal… We arranged his sham execution, making sure he recognized it by providing the cues he expected. But instead of killing him we simply put him under—deep under. Then we transferred him to a specially prepared sensory deprivation tank, pumped him full of MDMA variants and opiates, gave his body some time to acclimatize, then woke him up.'

'So what happened?'

'He awoke to nothingness, no sound, no light, no smell, no touch, and higher than a fucking kite. He tried screaming, thrashing, and all that—a brain in sensory limbo automatically attempts to generate feedback stimuli—but we'd induced motor paralysis to better prevent him from sensing himself. Besides, he had no choice but to feel good with the mickey we'd slipped him. When the MRI showed us his visual centres spontaneously lighting up, we introduced him to God.'

'You what?'

'We introduced him to God, this ultra-slick intelligence specialist from Bahrain. Ali Baba literally thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Let me tell you, when God's asking the questions, people answer.'

The horror had to be plain on his face. That and the confusion. Neil always seemed to speak to different parts of your head, to broadcast on multiple frequencies—it was one of the things that made his company at once so entertaining and nerve-wracking. But this?

'And…'

'And nothing. The guy was a dud. But after we refined the techniques, especially when we began channelling their hallucinations with VR interventions, we learned plenty, trust me. From the theo-terrorists, at least. The eco-terrorists were tougher nuts.'

'So that's what you've been doing all these years?'

'Christ no! That's how I started. After the preliminary success of the SenDep program, I was identified as a rising star. They transferred me from the psychomanipulation division to the neuro. They opened the vault, good buddy, and let me wander the wonderful world of black ops.'

Thomas lowered his beer. 'The NSA has a neuro-manipulation division.'

'You're surprised? Why do you think places like Washington or Beijing are infested with spies? Because that's where the decisions are made. Wherever important decisions are made, you find spies. And ultimately—' he tapped his temple with a finger—'this is where all the decisions are made. So why not?'

Thomas poured two more shots and handed one to Neil. 'Because it's immoral,' he said. 'And just plain creepy.'

'Immoral? You think it's immoral?'

'Fucking A, I do.'

Neil scowled and smiled at once. 'Weren't you the one always arguing that morality was a sham? That we're simply meat puppets deluded into believing we live in a moral and meaningful world?'

Thomas had nodded. 'Ah, the Argument.'

The Argument. Its mere mention seemed to open a pit in his stomach. Evidence of an old atrocity.

'Well,' Neil had said, 'we are talking about terror suspects here.'