Free Passage by Connie Willis Page A

ER but had gone somewhere else. Far. “That far country from whose bourne no traveller returns,” Shakespeare had called death.
    “The greatest level of activity is here,” Richard was saying, “next to the Sylvian fissure in the anterior temporal lobe, which indicates the cause may be temporal-lobe stimulation. Temporal-lobe epileptics report voices, a divine presence, euphoria, and auras.”
    “A number of my subjects describe auras surrounding the figures in white,” Joanna said, “and light radiating from them. Several of them, when they talked about the light, spread their hands out as if to indicate rays.” She demonstrated.
    “This is exactly the kind of information I need,” Richard said. “I want you to come work with me on this project.”
    “But I don’t know how to read RIPT scans.”
    “You don’t have to. That’s my department. I need you to tell me exactly the kind of thing you’ve been telling me—”
    The door banged open, and a nurse clattered down the steps. Joanna and Richard both made a dive for the landing, but it was too late. She’d already seen them.
    “Oh,” the nurse said, looking surprised and then interested. “I didn’t know anything was going on in here.” She gave Richard a winsome smile.
    “You can’t get through this way,” Joanna said. “They painted the steps.”
    She arched a speculative eyebrow. “And you two are waiting for them to dry?”
    “Yes,” Richard said.
    “Is Mr. Mandrake still up there?” Joanna asked. “In the hall?”
    “No,” she said, still smiling at Richard.
    “Are you sure?” Joanna asked.
    “The only thing in the hall is the supper cart.”
    “Supper cart?” Joanna said. “Good Lord, how late is it?” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, my gosh, it’s after six.”
    The eyebrow again. “Lost all track of time, did you? Well, have fun,” she said, and waved at Richard. She clattered up the stairs and out.
    “I had no idea it was this late,” Joanna said, wadding up the energy-bar wrapper and sticking it in her pocket. She stood, gathering up the Frappuccino bottle and the apple core.
    Richard ran up two stairs and turned, blocking her way. “You can’t go yet. You haven’t agreed to work with me on the project.”
    “But I already interview everyone who comes into the hospital,” Joanna said. “I’d be glad to share my transcripts with you—”
    “I’m not talking about those people. I want you to interview
my
volunteers. You’re an expert at, as you said, separating the wheat from the chaff. That’s what I want you to do: interview my subjects, separate out their actual experiences so I can see how it relates to their RIPT scan maps.”
    “Their RIPT scan maps?” Joanna said, bewildered. “I don’t understand. Very few people code in the hospital, and even if they do, you’d only have four to six minutes to get your scanner down to the ER, and—”
    “No, no,” he said. “You don’t understand. I’m not observing NDEs. I’m manufacturing them.”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur. I did not mean to do it.”
    —M ARIE A NTOINETTE, AFTER SHE HAD ACCIDENTALLY STEPPED ON THE EXECUTIONER’S FOOT WHILE MOUNTING TO THE GUILLOTINE
    Y OU MANUFACTURE NDE S ? You mean, like in
Flatliners?”
Joanna blurted out, and then thought, you shouldn’t have said that. You’re alone in a stairwell with him, and he’s clearly a nutcase.
    “Flatliners?”
Richard said, horrified. “You mean that movie where they stopped people’s hearts and then revived them before they were brain dead? Of course not. Manufacturing’s the wrong word. I should have said simulating.”
    “Simulating,” Joanna said, still wary.
    “Yes, using a psychoactive drug called dithetamine. Wait, let me start at the beginning. Mr. O’Reirdon coded, and we got his NDE on tape, so to speak, but, as you can imagine, I wasn’t eager to publish that fact. Mr. Mandrake’s book had just come out, he was on all the talk shows claiming the