resonating form of experience; but what we have now has grown from resonance to neurological. It reaches out to us through the screen to directly stimulate the cortex of the viewer. This is a new form of television. This is the video-word made into a tangible experience.” “Television as a drug,” Barry quipped. “It’s more than just a drug. I believe that when properly harnessed, massive doses of Veraceo signal could be transformative to other fields. Education for example. Imagine if we could sit children in front of televisions that program their minds at a deeper level than can happen in a traditional classroom. Imagine if Veraceo could reprogram the minds of criminal offenders. This is special, Barry. Veraceo-Two is a game changer.”
----- X -----
A new cassette arrived from Pittsburgh along with a letter from Deborah, the S&M expert. The cassette was marked ‘Trial 12 - Double Interracial - CLEAN, NO VERACEO’. With it came a note that read, ‘Brian, we’ve learned a lot about what works and this is our most powerful tape yet. We watched it with Veraceo-2 set at ten percent, but even at that low level the impact was profound.’ He’d been giving some thought as to how to make the Veraceo-Two signal change in strength and devised an ingeniously simple solution. It began by connecting an audio test-tone generator to a reel-to-reel audio recorder. Ordinarily, this would record a single audio tone onto the tape; but if he kept one hand on the recording gain control, he could turn the knob one way and the volume of the recorded tone would rise. If he turned it the other way the volume of the tone would fall. The idea was he could watch the programme and make an audio recording of a tone that rises and falls in volume, then later use that recording as a control track to adjust the level of Veraceo. He prepared playback of Double Interracial and set the Veraceo-Two signal generator to twenty percent. The video began. The theatrical plywood set had been replaced and now looked like real walls painted dark red. The Punisher figures had been updated too. Now they wore looser fitting oilskins with hoods that hid their eyes. The back wall was covered in a steel mesh connected to ominous electrical equipment. It looked like it could give electric shocks. The camera tilted down to a naked couple on the floor, a black man and a white woman. They were seated back to back and trapped within a tortuous double collar that contained some kind of choking mechanism; only one of them could breathe at a time. One had to slide their neck back which tightened the collar on the person behind them. The couple were carefully trying to pace their breathing between them. One of the Punishers whipped the man making him jerk, the action in turn squeezing the woman’s throat. It gave a powerful and immediate reaction and Brian felt his hand almost involuntarily turn the audio gain lower to reduce the volume of the recording tone. The woman took her turn in breathing and the other punisher grabbed her breast in one hand and her hair in the other to make her shriek. It was erotic and Brian turned the volume louder. For fifteen minutes they whipped the couple. The victims choking and crying, the woman’s face becoming bright red. All the while Brian adjusted the audio gain, the reels slowly rotating and the test tone recording at varying volumes. When the film finished he breathed out heavily and went for a walk outside to calm down. It was exhausting but exhilarating in equal measure. For the remainder of the afternoon he spent time building an electronic filter that could interpret the reel-to-reel audio and use it to adjust the Veraceo level. It was simple enough in theory but building the electronics took the best part of six hours. Once finished he duplicated the Double Interracial tape whilst embedding the now dynamic Veraceo signal. He would try it later, once any lingering effects from the day’s work had worn