Free Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion by Lee McGeorge Page A

were exposed to the unfocused and blurred light from a
cathode ray tube; he then connected the camera output to an
oscilloscope. When a standard TV signal was played the oscilloscope
showed a wide band of frequencies in use. When a Veraceo signal was
played, the bandwidth use showed a clear excess around 28 kHz. The
human eye may not be able to see Veraceo, but the oscilloscope sure
could.
    It saw something else…
Harmonics. Veraceo worked at 28 kHz but it produced harmonics at 56
kHz and 112 kHz.
    Harmonics… why hadn’t
he thought of that before?
    Why have one zero-light
image when he could have two or three at different frequencies? The
eye wouldn’t notice the difference, but if he ran three Veraceo
signals in sympathy with one another, it would turn the steady flow
into a powerful tsunami.
    He found Peter Fluorite
on the testing floor. “Peter, I’ve built something that I want you
to try and shrink and replicate.”
    “Si, Pátron. What’s on
your mind?”
    Brian took him into the
workshop and ran the Pittsburgh tape ahead of the detector. Brian
traced his finger across the oscilloscope display. “Veraceo works
on 28 kHz. I want detectors made so we’re not accidentally exposed.
We need a detector circuit that can see this 28 kHz resonance.”
    Peter looked at the
oscilloscope image. “That’s just a hacked camera, right? And all
you need is to know if there’s a constant squeal around 28 kHz? No
problemo. I should be able to fabricate a board in a couple of
hours.”
     
    ----- X -----
     
    Brian had three Veraceo
signal boards crammed into the signal generator housing. It was
time to test his theory of harmonics. Could people see three
overlapping signals at once?
    The first test subject
was a frail looking girl. Barely eighteen, with thin straw hair and
translucent skin. “Hi, what’s your name?”
    “Suzanne Webster,” she
said quietly.
    He sat her in the room
beside the workshop ahead of a television showing standard colour
bars. He turned on the new and improved Veraceo generator and stood
in the doorway behind the monitor. “I’m going to show you a film
about an art gallery,” he began. “When it’s finished I want you to
tell me that the story in the film is false.”
    He went back into the
workshop and played the tape then made himself a cup of coffee. The
men in the art gallery talked about their views on fertility and
the statue before them. When it ended Brian went back to the
doorway to find Suzanne staring at the screen in a state of
hypnosis. “Suzanne… SUZANNE? Can you hear me?”
    “Yes,” she whispered.
She was staring at the colour bars, unblinking.
    Brian realised now he
hadn’t turned off the Veraceo signal. A mistake, but perhaps
interesting in light of what he was seeing. He left the signal
switched on. “Suzanne, what did you think of the video you just
watched?”
    “You told me to tell
you it was false.”
    Interesting… she
answered like a zombie. Disconnected from the world. “But what do
you think? Was it true or false?”
    “It was true, but I
have to tell you it was false. You told me to say that.”
    The signal hadn’t
worked, at least not in the way it had before. Interesting that she
was saying what he told her to say. The bigger intrigue was the way
she stared unflinching at the screen. Mesmerized by the colour
bars. Her head was slightly tilted, her lips parted, her eyes fixed
and unblinking. It was like she was hypnotised. Her speech was like
she was talking in her sleep.
    Was she hypnotised?
    Was she under
control?
    Brian pondered her for
a moment. “Suzanne can you think of something personal, something
like a secret that you wouldn’t normally say out loud to a
stranger.”
    “Yes.” The girl’s eyes
were still locked on the screen.
    “Tell me your
secret.”
    “My uncle sexually
molested me as a child and I masturbate when thinking about
it.”
    Brian almost choked on
his coffee. Holy shit! That was far more than he bargained on; but
still