Nowadays, of course, he was usually accompanied by half a dozen support personnel when he did it. Mrs. Thorsen didn't seem to mind all those people traipsing through her yard. She lived alone now. It was a mystery how she could have so many dishes to wash, but she was always there washing them.

The trip to the park was a tricky, twisting affair that Cozzano's entourage had to accomplish in single file. Once they reached the broad open spaces of the park proper, they were able to spread out and walk in a group. Usually the entourage consisted of a couple of nurses, Myron Morris's home-movie crew, and someone from the Radhakrishnan Institute, connected back to a bedroom in the Cozzano house by a radio headset. On this particular day, Zeldo came along for the walk.

"You're walking. You're talking. Congratulations," he said.

"Thanks. It's nice," Cozzano said.

"If you keep improving the way you have been, then by sometime in mid June you should be essentially back to normal."

"Excellent."

"I'd like to know if you would have any interest in developing some capabilities that are better than normal."

This was a bizarre suggestion and Zeldo knew it; he was visibly nervous as he spoke the words. He watched Cozzano's face carefully for a reaction.

For along time, Cozzano didn't react at all. He kept walking as if he hadn't heard. But he was no longer looking around. He was staring down at the grass in front of his feet, trying to scorch a hole in the ground with his eyes.

After a minute, or so, he seemed to reach a conclusion. He looked up again. But he still didn't speak for another minute or so. He was apparently formulating a response. Finally he looked at Zeldo and said, nonchalantly, "I have always been a strong believer in self-improvement."

"I'm seeing my aunt Mary taking an apple pie out of the oven," Cozzano said. "It is Thanksgiving Day of 1954 at 2:15 p.m. A football game is going on the television in the next room. My father and some uncles and cousins are watching it. They are all smoking pipes and the smoke stings my nose. The Lions have the ball on their own thirty-five, second down and four yards to go. But I'm concentrating on the pie."

"Okay, that's good," Zeldo said, typing all of this furiously into the computer. "Now, what happens when I stimulate this link?" He swiveled around to another keyboard and typed a command into another computer.

Cozzano's eyes narrowed. He was staring into the distance, unfocused.

"Just a very fleeting image of Christina at the age of about thirty-five," Cozzano said. "She's in the living room, wearing a yellow dress. I can't remember much more than that. Now it's fading."

"Okay, how about this one?" Zeldo said, typing in another command.

Cozzano drew a sharp breath into his nostrils and began to smack his lips and swallow. "A very intense odor. Some kind of chemical odor that I was exposed to at the plant. Possibly a pesticide."

"But you're not getting any visuals?"

"None whatsoever."

"Okay, how about this one?"

"Jesus!" Cozzano shouted. Genuine fright and astonishment had come over his face. He half-slid, half-rolled out of his chair and dropped to the floor of the bedroom, landing on his belly, and crawled on his elbows so that he was half-hidden under a bed.

"Let me guess," Zeldo said. "Something from Vietnam."

Cozzano went limp and dropped his face down on to his arms, staring directly into the floor. His back and shoulders were heaving and sweat was visible along his hairline.

"Sorry about that," Zeldo said.

"It was unbelievably realistic," Cozzano said. "My God, I actually heard the sound of a bullet whizzing past my head." He sat up and held up one hand, just above and to one side of his right temple. "It was from an AK-47. It came from this direction, right out of the jungle, and shot past me. Missed me by a couple of inches, I'd say."

"Is that a specific memory of something that happened to you?" Zeldo said.

Cozzano's eyes became distant. He was staring at the wall, but he wasn't seeing it. "Hard to say. Hard to say."

"When you saw the apple pie, it seemed very specific."

"It was specific. It really happened. This was more of a fleeting glimpse of something. Almost like a reconstruction of a generic type of event."

"Interesting," Zeldo said. "Would you like to take a break?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind," Cozzano said. "That one really shook me up. How many more do we have to do?"

Zeldo laughed. "We've done three dozen so far," he said, "and we could potentially do a couple of thousand. It's up to you."

By the end of the day, Zeldo had stimulated more than a hundred separate connections into Cozzano's brain. Each one elicited a completely different response.

AN ENTIRE PASSAGE FROM MARK TWAIN MATERIALIZED IN HIS HEAD.

HE SMELLED THE ROOT CELLAR AT THE OLD FARMHOUSE OUTSIDE OF TOWN.

HE FELT AN OVERPOWERING SENSE OF GRIEF AND LOSS, FOR NO REASON AT ALL.

A COLD FOOTBALL SLAMMED INTO HIS HANDS DURING A SCRIMAGE IN CHAMPAIGN.

HE BIT INTO A THICKLY FROSTED CHOCOLATE CAKE. A B-52 STREAKED OVERHEAD.

HE SAW A FULL PAGE FROM HIS WEEKLY APPOINTMENT CALENDAR, MARCH 25-31, 1991.

SNOWFLAKES DRIFTED ON TO HIS OUTSTRETCHED TONGUE AND MELTED.

HE BECAME SEXUALLY AROUSED FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON.

AN OLD BARRY MANILOW SONG PLAYED IN HIS HEAD.

HIS CAR SKIDDED OFF AN ICY ROAD IN WINTER 1960 AND HIT A TELEPHONE POLE; HIS FOREHEAD SLAMMED INTO THE WIND-SHIELD AND CRACKED IT.

THE TINKLING SOUND OF ICE CUBES IN A GLASS PITCHER OR ICED TEA BEING STIRRED BY ONE OF HIS AUNTS.

HE TRIMMED HIS FINGERNAILS IN A TOKYO HOTEL ROOM.

MARY CATHERINE DID SOMETHING THATMADE HIM VERY ANGRY; HE WASN'T SURE EXACTLY WHAT.

"I have to quit," Zeldo said. "I can't type any more. My fingers are dead."

"I want to keep going," Cozzano said. "This is incredible."

Zeldo thought about it. "It is incredible. But I'm not sure if its useful."

"Useful for what?"

"The whole point of this exercise was to figure out a way to use this chip in your head for communication," Zeldo said.

Cozzano laughed. "You're right. I had forgotten about that."

"I'm not sure how we use all of this stuff to communicate," Zeldo said. "It's all impressionistic stuff. Nothing rational."

"Well," Cozzano said, "it's a new communications medium. What is necessary is to develop a grammar and syntax."

Zeldo laughed and shook his head. "You lost me."

"It's like film," Cozzano said. "When film was invented, no one knew how to use it. But gradually, a visual grammar was developed. Filmgoers began to understand how the grammar was used to communicate certain things. We have to do the same thing with this."

"I should get you together with Ogle," Zeldo said.

"You should have studied more liberal arts," Cozzano said.