The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(33)

Dorothy felt goose bumps on her arms, a tingling in her spine as she recalled reading that article and how they used the term: anamnesis. She hadn’t thought about the concept of inherent knowledge since her college philosophy days. Then she chewed her lip as she remembered trying to explain Plato’s theory of memory to Louis. That, combined with the speculative nature of the Alzheimer’s report, only made her sound a bit unhinged, like a zealous convert. He regarded her as though she’d fallen in with the last holdout Scientologists in town, or was about to run away to some new minimalist ashram tucked into one of Seattle’s tony bedroom communities, bent on giving up their worldly belongings for the prospect of enlightenment.

“There’s a reason why this place is in some tiny office in Ballard,” Louis argued. “And that reason is: they’re charlatans. I hate to be the one to tell you, but if they’re really, seriously what they claim to be, why aren’t they in some biotech center with hundreds of scientists and billion-dollar budgets?”

Dorothy had no answer, just scars on her arms and a lifetime of suicidal ideation.

At first, Dorothy thought that perhaps the humble nature of the facility was designed to hide it from prying eyes, or to afford local celebrities and businesspeople a measure of discretion. There were no press releases and no online presence. The business model of Epigenesis appeared to be exclusively based on word of mouth. Those facts, mixed together and seasoned with Louis’s doubts, created a recipe for suspicion. She only hoped that the secretive nature of this place was because of its treatment methods and not a way to fly below the radar of litigious clients who’d been cured of their bank accounts.

Another Native woman in a lab coat opened the door into the lobby and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Shedhorn. You must be Dorothy Moy. The lab sent over a report on your blood work, and everything looks great. Come on back.” Dorothy looked around, realizing there was another explanation. The doctor was indigenous and had the benefit of transitory sovereignty. Many tribes had given up their reservations in return for the right to claim any building or compound that they owned as an extension of their nation. This building was like a Native embassy. Unencumbered by the regulations of the mainstream medical community, Epigenesis was free to offer radical medical procedures.

“Welcome to my humble treatment center,” Dr. Shedhorn said. “I’m not sure how much your therapist told you about what I do here, but my success rate is fairly robust. Eighty-two percent of my patients have been relieved of their depression, anxiety, debilitating phobias, even PTSDs—within six months. I’ve been over your files and your medical history, and I think I can help you a great deal.”

Dorothy followed the doctor, admiring her thick hair that was tied up in a bun. The doctor led her to a windowless room with a chaise-type lounge, IV stand, pulse oximeter, and a sleep study monitor with a chest strap and surface electrodes.

“All I know is what I’ve read online,” Dorothy replied, looking up at the ceiling, which was comprised of thousands of LED lights, honeycombed with arrays of fiber optics. “Something about Alzheimer’s and lost memories. That and my partner keeps insisting that you inject everyone with a virus. The way he talks about it, one would think you were hastening the next global pandemic.”

Dr. Shedhorn raised an eyebrow, then suggested that Dorothy get comfortable. “He’s not wrong—I do use a live virus, but it’s not quite so menacing.”

Dorothy stretched out on the chaise, which was surprisingly warm and conformed to the shape of her body as a nurse joined them.

“As your therapist may have told you, I led a series of Alzheimer’s trials that involved people with a genetic predilection for the disease,” Dr. Shedhorn explained as the nurse put gel on the electrodes and gently affixed them to Dorothy’s neck, face, and temple. The metal felt cold, like being dotted with an ice cube. “I had those subjects spend extensive mapping sessions inside an MRI machine, while I asked questions—who they are, where they were born, specific memories about marriage, family, and career—their happiest moments, their saddest. While they were asked to ruminate on those moments, the MRI was busy taking magnetic snapshots of their brain activity.”

The doctor fit the chest strap across Dorothy’s torso and slipped the pulse oximeter onto her forefinger. Dorothy listened and drew a deep breath.

“Take a first kiss, for example.” Dr. Shedhorn smiled.

Dorothy remembered the first time she’d kissed Louis, or more aptly, when he kissed her on their first date, an awkward meeting at a bougie coffee shop that was also a feline adoption agency where dozens of rescue cats had the run of the place. Dorothy was allergic and sneezed immediately after their lips touched.

“As that kiss happens, the amygdala stores the emotions of that event. The occipital lobe stores the visual. While the cerebellum stores the physicality—the smell of perfume, the taste of lipstick, the warmth of skin, the sound of birds in the background.”

Dorothy’s nose seemed to itch.

“The MRI captures the thousands of areas in the brain that collectively fire at once to create that memory. We call that snapshot an engram. By cataloging engrams, I was attempting to create a rough backup of a subject’s formative memories.”

Dorothy thought of Annabel. How her daughter felt in her arms.

“A few years later, at the first sign of Alzheimer’s, those subjects were injected with a benign virus designed to attach light-reactive proteins to the surface of neurons in the brain,” Dr. Shedhorn explained as the nurse prepped Dorothy’s wrist and asked her to relax as she inserted an IV stent into a vein and taped the tubing to her arm.