“I’m not a misanthrope. I just think humanity can do better, and I’m angry that it has chosen not to."

“Dr. Otto Brohm?” Charlie asked, testing the water.

An old man sat hunched over ten yards in front at a publicly donated recycled green bench, legs crossed, sketching Mt. Tamalpais in the distance.

Charlie felt the correctional officer give him a dubious glance from behind, suddenly conscious of his sunglasses hanging from his mint polo and the saddle leather folio under his right arm.

“You two take as much time as you need; dinner won’t be until five. There’s tables over there,” the guard said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Otto said.

“You got it, Einstein,” the guard said with a whistle.

“So, you’re the science reporter?” Otto barked, still sketching.

“That’s right, I’m Charles Colgate from the Times.”

“A crusader for the truth.”

“Something like that. I was expecting a bit more security at this place—there aren’t even any fences.” Charlie said, looking around the perimeter.

“It’s a minimum-security prison. Everyone knows the consequences are far worse if you run. Look at me; I’m on vacation.”

“I can see that. Do you mind if we get started?”

“Yes, I suppose. One moment.”

Otto finished the outline of a treeless patch near the peak, then closed his sketch pad. The two walked over to a picnic table under a large Valley Oak where another prisoner was seated nearby, polishing a pair of wing-tipped shoes and reciting stock prices—Alcoa up 15%, Coca-Cola down 20%. Charlie unbuttoned his folio and propped up a tablet screen with a portable keyboard. Otto positioned himself on the bench with an impatient scowl, his chaotic grey hair and bird’s nest of a beard moving around like clumps of seaweed in shallow water. Charlie tapped through to a screen with a large play button.

“Do you mind if I record?” he said.

Otto nodded in agreement.

“OK, great. Thanks again for agreeing to talk with me.” Charlie gave a perfunctory smile. “Here I am, talking to Dr. Otto Brohm, the world-renowned Berkeley Neuroscientist and inventor of the now ubiquitous LATR procedure that has, and I think this is fair to say without hyperbole, revolutionized our lives.”

“Can you make sure the requests for these interviews stop coming?” Otto interrupted. “I can already tell that I would like you to be the last insufferable parasite I talk with.”

Charlie bristled. “I can only speak for the Times, Dr. Brohm, not others.”

“That doesn’t help.”

Stay focused, Charlie.

“Well, again, thanks for agreeing to speak. I was hoping you could start by telling me a bit about your life. What brought you to Neuroscience, and how did your career take shape?”

“Alright then.” An awkward pause swept across the clearing. Charlie watched Otto’s sharp but weary mind cycle through the years, trying to find a beginning.

Otto began in a tone of detached nostalgia. “I grew up in the Midwest in a city that saw its heyday about a hundred years ago. It was a manufacturing hub with farms just on the outskirts, very pleasant. My dad worked in a warehouse for an auto supply company, then owned a shop, and my mom was a high-school Chemistry teacher. They were good parents—we had our problems like any family, but looking back, it could have been a lot worse. My dad was obsessed with work, scrounging for any money he could get, which was not much. My mom was an intellectual. She would have been a doctor if that was encouraged or even allowed in those days. It was sometimes confusing why they were together at all, but they shared a quirky sense of humor.”

“And you had a brother as well, right?”

“Yes, Paul. We were close.” Otto’s detached look turned sharp.

Charlie noticed a slight twitch above Otto’s beard in his pronounced cheekbone.

He felt the urge to ask another question but saw the memory of something raw bubble up in Otto’s deep-set Austro-Hungarian eyes and stopped.

“Just as I was about to graduate high school, he hung himself in our bedroom.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said like a doctor trained not to show emotion.

“Yes, well, as you come to learn, all the beautiful and genuine things in this world have a habit of dying early, so all we’re left with is sycophants and social climbers like yourself.”

Charlie’s leg bounced beneath the table as he pushed down the urge to rebut. “What happened?”

“Paul and I used to roll old tires down the hill near our house and try to jump through them. He was good at everything—I was good at nothing, but he loved me as if the opposite were true. It is all the stuff you would expect from a Midwest hero of a boy. We still don’t really know why he did it, but I suspect it was a combination of things. My dad wanted him to run the shop, but he wanted to leave and go to school—maybe do something creative. He had a ton of friends but no one he was close with. I think secretly he hated himself because he felt like he could never be, or didn’t want to be, successful in the way everyone expected – you know: running the business, sitting on the town council, playing golf on the weekends at some local country club.”

“And his death was a turning point for you?” Charlie said, working toward the narrative for his story.

“Oh yes, very much so. I became obsessed with the mind—how it works, what we believe about it that is wrong, and what we believe about it that is right. I just couldn’t believe something so luminescent and brimming with life could house such darkness. I studied Psychology and Biology at our state school as a memorial to Paul and never looked back, as they say.”

“Interesting.” Charlie typed, feeling Otto’s stare that somehow felt indifferent and judgmental at the same time.

“Must you type if you’re recording?”

Charlie looked back, annoyed. “It helps me think. I’m more comfortable when it’s me and the computer crafting the story.”

“Yes, well, I’d enjoy this a lot more if you weren’t glued to the screen.”

Charlie gave a courteous smile but didn’t respond. Shouts from a Bocce game floated over from the recreation yard.

Otto smirked. “You know, I’ve read a lot of your work.”

“Is that right?”

“You’re a ‘technology is the answer’ guy—one of these new age worshipers that believe all the world’s problems can be solved by computers.”

The hairs on Charlie’s arms stood; his posture closed. “I guess that’s right. I believe technology is the only tool humans have to improve their lives, so yes, you can call me a believer.”

“And it was, of course, why you kept pestering me. You wanted to know why the inventor of the first neuro-native chip chose to burn down his life’s work?”

“You got me,” Charlie joked, holding up both hands in surrender.

That and the fact that this interview should put me in line for editor.

Otto leaned forward, wild-eyed and curious, and asked if Charlie had kids and a wife. Charlie told him he had two and that they were great, even though Isabel was a picky eater and Eliot was struggling with math. Otto launched into a long philosophical monologue about how a child’s mind develops. “You see, like adults, they grow when they experiment—this takes active thought. But technology can discourage such activity—it can make us passive.” Otto’s rant ended with a matter-of-fact statement that seemed far too mystical for the hard-nosed scientist. “Kids were never my path,” he concluded to a far-off, uninterested God. Charlie made sure he looked like he was listening.

“So, let’s skip ahead a bit,” Charlie said several minutes later. “Can you tell me about how your research into thought replacement evolved? It started when you came to Berkeley in your forties, correct?”

Otto’s attention drifted to the rolling hills in the distance. A ladybug climbed onto his hand, and he gently lowered it down into the dirt while Charlie prepared to type.

“Ah yes, my life’s work. As you probably know, after my work with Dr. Julius, I studied depression and mental health for years, trying to understand the brain activity of my patients. One of the areas I studied was negative thought patterns—that is to say, thoughts that are destructive, repetitive, and triggered by something. These patterns form the foundation for mental illness or health, really any behavior.”

“Interesting.” Charlie nodded.

“Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re prone to a specific type of cognitive distortion called mental filtering—this is where you take one tiny negative event and focus on it exclusively, ignoring—or filtering out—all the rest. One day, your wife tells you in jest that she wishes you made a bit more money. Now, instead of passing it off as a harmless joke, you begin to obsess over how she has reminded you of your inadequacies—comments about the kids, work, and goals you never accomplished. You focus on all the small, maybe accidental, hurtful things she has said and forget all the times she has been kind or loving. You work yourself up so much that you come to believe she doesn’t actually love you. So, you find a young woman at work and have an affair. The affair causes you to be depressed and anxious. Even more so if it ends your marriage.” Otto opened his arms in a ‘do you see?’ gesture.

“Makes sense.”

“Now, it’s oversimplifying to say these patterns are the only variables contributing to mental health—there are genetic factors as well as brain chemistry—but research has shown that these patterns are immensely powerful. In some ways, the brain is just a tool that moves between patterns—some good, some bad. As Buddha told us many years ago, ‘We are what we think.’”

“I see,” Charlie said, still typing.

Otto’s enthusiasm hit its stride as he continued. “So, our research focused on these thought patterns—where they occur in the brain, what their effect on patients was. At the same time, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy had been around for years. This is where a patient learns to recognize a negative thought pattern, challenge, and then replace it. It had been proven effective in many cases, but it took a long time and much arduous work. In many cases, people chose not to do it and suffered.”

“And this is when you came to the idea of the chip,” Charlie said, having the revelation himself.

“Yes, of course. What if, instead of a person identifying their own negative thought patterns, a computer did it? It’s much more efficient—faster, more thorough; we would have more control—all of the benefits that come with our latest advancements. And due to my work exploring the different regions of the brain, I was able to produce the trigger. I could tell the computer when and where a pattern was emerging.”

“Huh,” Charlie said, immediately regretting having such a dumb response.

“So, from there, we launched into two decades of experimentation. I met and worked closely with my partner Lawrence, who I’m sure you know well.”

“Ha, yes, Larry Charm—the CEO of NCorp. I don’t know him, but I’ve written about him.” Charlie took a breath and relaxed his shoulders to take a break.

“I bet you two would get along nicely. He’s also a soulless tech-worshipper.”

The jab landed with a thud between them. Charlie shook his head. “You know my colleagues warned me about you. They mentioned you were kind of a misanthrope.”

“I’m not a misanthrope. I just think humanity can do better, and I’m angry that it has chosen not to.” Otto sniffed.

Charlie immediately regretted his combative remark. They both became silent momentarily and watched a Red-shouldered Hawk circle a nearby hillside.

“So, you find that you can replace thought patterns, then what?”

“Well, this all happened over many years—back and forth with experiments, grants, and so on. I was focused on how the procedure might help the mentally ill, but Lawrence went down a different path. He discovered that embedding our chip into people’s brains wasn’t just a way to replace negative patterns; it could change anything. We could recognize any thought—self-esteem, sexual desire, ethical concerns—and then replace it on the fly, and remember, thoughts manifest as behaviors. Not only that, but we could also override conflicting thoughts. Another example: let’s say you’re tired of being number two at work. All you have to do is find your conscience and replace it with unchecked ambition toward your goal. A couple of months later, you sabotage the other guy’s project, and voila, you’re promoted. These new connections rewire your brain in subtle ways because people tend to adhere to the expectations of their circumstances, even when the replacement is removed. The intervention augments your original life—this is where the name comes from: Life Augmentation through Thought Replacement, LATR.”

“Amazing…”

“Yes, I know, it’s fascinatingly simple, yet almost impossibly complex.”

“But you believe this procedure should be outlawed?”

“I have never said that!” Otto slammed his fist against the table.

“I apologize.” Charlie jerked back.

“I suppose I should expect to be painted as some sort of anti-science conspiracy theorist quack after all the perverse actions of Van Dorn and Charm.”

“I don’t want to paint you as anything, Dr. Brohm.” Charlie held his hand up in a sign of peaceful surrender, acknowledging Otto’s pain.

“You’re referring to Christian Van Dorn, the dean of the Cognitive Sciences school at Berkeley, correct?”

“Yes, the sniveling, back-handed rat’s penis that he is.”

Charlie turned his head down to laugh.

“By the time of our human trials, it was clear we had something—patients made remarkable changes very early on. One woman, who was in an abusive relationship, left her husband within months of the procedure. This was when Van Dorn and Lawrence began their coup.”

A flicker of regret flashed across Otto’s face. “What happened?” Charlie said softly.

“Oh, I think you know, Charles. They stole my work and made themselves rich! Since the school held the right to the IP, they could do anything they wanted. Lawrence was made the CEO. They moved forward with marketing the procedure to consumers against my wishes. I wanted to use it to help depressed people get their life back on track; now it has been made into an operation to help whining rich people ensure they get the few small things they haven’t already been given.”

“That’s being a little harsh,” Charles joked. The image of his doctor circling the location in his brain where the procedure occurred popped into his mind.

“It is mental plastic surgery. They charge a couple hundred thousand dollars and let people choose what they want to change about their lives without any real work. The wayward son can now be made into an overachiever by his rich father for the right price.”

“But it has helped thousands of people,” Charlie said defensively.

“It also widens the gap between the rich and the poor. And perhaps most importantly, it robs people of a fundamental right—to have their minds go down the wrong path, to make mistakes and then learn from them.”

“I disagree. I think your discovery has changed our world for the better.” Charlie crossed his arms in a stubborn rebuttal.

“Well, you’re an idiot.”

They stared at each other, each unsure if the other wanted to continue. Otto’s face was ragged and cynical. A fire beneath his skin crept up through his bloodshot eyes. Charlie looked aside, thinking about the second mortgage he proposed to his wife to finance the procedure and what it might do to improve his chances of becoming editor.

“Van Dorn, Lawrence, and I had screaming matches so loud, his assistant bought earplugs.” Otto laughed.

“So, you fought it?”

“Oh yes, yes. I tried to use my role to convince investors that the procedure should be restricted to diagnosed mental illness only, but no one listened.”

“Which is why you felt like you had no choice?”

“That’s right. I understood where it was all leading, so one night, after a cocktail hour, I walked across campus to our lab. We were right next door to the Chemistry building, so I went in and found all the flammable liquids I could—Ethanol, Benzene, and such—and brought them back. I yelled across the rooms to make sure no one was inside, then lit the building from the front vestibule. They found me sitting across the lawn on a bench, under a streetlight, in my old grey lecture suit, watching the flames consume the building.”

“You must have known it wouldn’t accomplish anything?”

“Oh yes, but I wanted to make a statement. Losing for something good is better than winning for the corrupt.”

Charlie stopped typing.

Otto relished the sun on his face.

“So, Dr. Brohm, what is it you want people to take from your story?”

Otto’s face hung in thought. Charlie guessed the barnacled old scientist was trying to decide if he should answer with sarcasm.

“If there is a message, it’s this: science and technology only exist to help us understand the world and create better lives for ourselves. They are not ends, you see. They can empower us or create more suffering—it is our decision. And, if we don’t choose correctly, we will destroy ourselves.”

A defiant, optimistic spirit blossomed unexpectedly inside Charlie. He thought about how stories always turn at unexpected moments.

“You know I’ve been thinking about having the procedure myself.”

Otto’s wrinkled skin folded under his eyes as his lips turned upward.

“Yes, I suspected as much.”

“And I know there may be side effects, but I, I don’t know…” Charlie tapped the bench with his knuckles, avoiding Otto’s gaze.

Otto jumped in, “It might interest you to know that due to changes in the operation to make it more popular, it now only has a 99.5% success rate. The other half a percent end up as vegetables. With those odds, I hope you like being fed through a straw.”

Charlie laughed in disbelief, then closed the computer.