The whole thing reminded her of the dummy’s head in her apartment, her own fear. Had the monkey done it on purpose? Realized that this was his way out? Mars Bars had been, according to Alex at least, a relatively happy monkey who liked his treats and comforts. More probably, she thinks, he simply hadn’t had the ability to understand his situation. Which makes her think that maybe, in a way, everyone is like that. How are we all not just monkeys? Primates playing around with things we don’t understand, congratulating ourselves at being able to predict things better and better but irrevocably tainted by our primate-like nature, by the fact that we are evolved beings viewing only that tiny sliver of reality which maximized our fitness values. How was science not just better eyes for seeing more of the spectrum, or smaller fingers for manipulating more accurately, sonic amplifiers for greater hearing, logic an extension of our primitive reasoning abilities, statistics to pick up on correlations in nature better than we naturally could, and so on—just tools to supplement our bodies so we could survive a bit better, a bit longer. How was science not merely a collection of mental prostheses? And that’s so problematic, she thinks, because how could this trumped-up ape, aided only by some mechanical devices strapped to its limbs to extend its senses and a few calculating devices to extend its thinking, all modifications built on a limited foundation anyways, discover the real truth about the fundamental nature of reality? Maybe that’s horrible, or maybe that’s wonderful and beautiful, she thinks. Because to solve this great mystery of consciousness we therefore need something qualitatively different, as if the history of science has actually all been children playing with toys on the floor, and while I don’t know what consciousness is, my hope, my unsupportable hypothesis, a beautiful dream worth having, is that it’s a phenomenological signal, a qualitative bonfire etching itself onto reality. That people are transmitters and that consciousness is a radio to God. And it’s sending up our thoughts, always sending up our thoughts . . . all the feelings of the people passing me, everyone in the city, the entirety of the world, going up now, each conscious moment a kind of prayer, a rain in reverse . . .

There had been some sort of accident. Melissa Goldman had been waiting outside the recording room to greet Karen, her face lined with worry. As Karen approaches she decides to consciously break the normal workplace boundaries and takes Melissa’s anxious hands in her own. The two women stand this way as Melissa fills her in on the situation. Throughout, Karen can hear a low murmuring of voices from within, the quiet phonetic downward turns of instructions at an autopsy.