“What is the next step?” she asked.
“Pinocchio Two,” Shipley replied. “As things stand, we’re limited to the medulla. The system can’t handle the Trigeminal and the Abducens. To go further, we want to bring somebody into the team with the kind of background you’ve had at Harvard—experience of connecting at the pons.”
Evelyn thought for a second. “That’s why the face and eye movements didn’t look right, isn’t it?” she said. “I noticed when Tom went to close-up. I pulled a face deliberately, but the holo was still smiling.”
Shipley raised an eyebrow at Corrigan. Corrigan nodded that he liked what he was hearing. “You’re right,” Shipley told Evelyn. “The face is dubbed, purely for effect. The computer fills in what it thinks is appropriate.”
They were saying that Pinocchio’s combined motor-intercept and DINS interface coupled in at the lowest region of the brain stem, the medulla oblongata, the main railroad of the nervous system, where the seventh through twelfth of the body’s twelve cranial nerves terminated. These were the nerves serving the body’s voluntary and involuntary motor systems, along with the sense of balance, which was what enabled body movements and sensations to be reproduced in the ways that Evelyn had experienced. (These nerves also handled speech, taste, and hearing, but those faculties were not subjects of the current research.) The remaining functions—jaw and upper-face movements, ocular motion, vision, and smell—were handled by the first to sixth cranial nerves, which synapsed in higher regions of the brain.
In particular, the fifth and sixth cranial nerves, known as the Trigeminal and the Abducens, both synapsed in the next region above the medulla oblongata: the pons. Shipley was saying that they now wanted to extend the coupling level up to the pons. Such a step could be in preparation for only one thing.
“So the eventual intention must be to add vision,” Evelyn concluded. That would require going further, to the thalamus, the next region above the pons. “You’ve already got hearing and speech, potentially, at the medulla—via the Acoustic, Glossopharyngeal, and Vagus. Extend from the pons to the thalamus, and you’ll have it all: full-sensory direct-neural.”
“Except for olfactory,” Shipley said, smiling faintly.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Evelyn checked herself. Smell was handled by the first cranial nerve. The most primitive of the senses, it was the only one to enter the brain above the thalamus and go directly into the cerebrum.
“Well, now you know what we’re up to here,” Corrigan said, sitting back in his chair. He turned an inquiring eye to Shipley. Shipley returned a nod that he was satisfied. Corrigan looked back at Evelyn. “I think we’ve heard all we want to. To hell with the bureaucratic nonsense—that can catch up later. There’s a place here for you if you want it. What do you say?”
After what she had seen, there wasn’t a lot for her to think about. But she didn’t want to appear too eager.
“What sort of longer-term prospects would we be talking about?” she asked.
Corrigan threw out a hand carelessly. “Unlimited. It could be the beginnings of a whole new research section dedicated to higher-level coupling. You could end up running it.”
That seemed good enough. “Confirm the figures in writing,” she said. “If there are no surprises . . . Well, yes. . . . I’ll take it.”
“Splendid.” Corrigan looked at Shipley for an endorsement. “Come on, Eric. Congratulate the lady, at least.”
“Pinder hasn’t confirmed the appointment yet,” Shipley reminded him.
“He’s the VP of R and D,” Corrigan explained to Evelyn. “He’s away today. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a rubberstamping thing.”
Shipley gave her a reassuring nod. “Joe’s right. You’re just the person we need. I don’t think there’ll be any problem.”
Over the remainder of lunch they talked about lighter things, asking Evelyn about her other interests and swapping personal anecdotes. Then they took her to meet Peter Quell, Pinder’s deputy. Apparently, Pinder was with a group visiting the Air Force Space Defense Command in California. Quell stood in for him by delivering some routine corporate messages about CLC being a caring company, and the career opportunities being unlimited for somebody who could fit in, after which they went to Shipley’s office and spent a half hour clearing up miscellaneous questions that Evelyn raised. That concluded the business for the moment. While Shipley stayed behind to catch up on what was happening in the lab, Corrigan had a cab called to take Evelyn back to her hotel and walked her back to main reception in the Executive Building. While they were waiting, he talked her into having dinner together that night, before she caught her flight back to Boston the next morning.