Brains

  “Pierre will be in your office on Tuesday for his pre-operative visit. By the way, we have not told him of your relationship. Probably best not to bring it up. Think it over, Dr. Overbridge. Here is my number.” He handed him a business card. No name, no logo, nothing except a phone number. “I also wanted to ask you a question. How many dog cages did you see in the lab?”

  Overbridge stared at him. “I have no idea.”

  “Think about that. You did not count them.”

  Maxwell escorted Overbridge back to the elevator, which they rode down to the garage. The same two men were there waiting, and they loaded him into the car and headed back to Manhattan.

  ◆◆◆

  Overbridge's head was spinning. He ran through the data over and over, trying to decide if this was more completely an opportunity or a disaster. It was, as he had pointed out, illegal. If he were discovered doing such a thing, that would be the end of his career, and could conceivably actually mean arrest and imprisonment. That really did not bother him. He would only get caught if surgery did not go well or if there was a complication. He did not tolerate complications in any case. And it was true that as he had become absorbed into the presentation, he had lost the compulsion to count.

  Somewhat to his surprise, he was noticing a feeling that had been missing in his life for many years. Passion. Passion like that which had once consumed his life. To ride motorcycles. To teach residents. And, most of all, to save brains. Passion that had started to ebb several months before the accident, and had finally been extinguished in that hospital in Grenoble. He felt a thrill. His decision was made.

  Chapter 13

  Sunday, October 16

  New Jersey

  Cameron was awakened by the sound of the tailgate being opened. The lid of his crate was pulled up and he was greeted by the same face he had seen on each stop of the journey. He had lost all track of time, but surely had been lying there for many hours. He was starving and thirsty.

  “You stink.” The man wrinkled his nose. He removed the chest restraint, and then took a large box-cutter from his pocket, and expertly cut through Cameron’s clothes, leaving him naked except for his shoes. The laces were cut through, and the shoes pulled off and thrown to the ground. Three more men helped to pull the crate out of the truck bed, so that it and Cameron were upright on the floor of the garage. The wrist and ankle straps were then removed, and he was efficiently propelled across to a steel door with a small window, which was opened and he was thrown inside. The room was tiled, with a drain in the floor and shower head in the ceiling, too high for him to reach. Without warning, the shower started, and a loudspeaker instructed him to clean himself. He was willing. At first the shower was warm, almost hot, but after a few minutes the water turned to ice, and he was shivering when it stopped.

  The door opened, and a large towel and a paper jumpsuit were tossed in, along with a pair of slippers. Cameron dried himself and dressed. Immediately the door opened and the four men pulled him out and frog-marched him into another room. This room looked exactly like the jail cell in a hundred prisons, stainless-steel toilet with a sink built into the top, steel cot bolted to the floor, thin mattress, thin blanket, thin pillow.

  “El jefe will see you in a couple of hours, so just relax.” His captor tossed a sandwich on the cot. “Enjoy.”

  Cameron was not about to argue. He was pretty sure it was Sunday, and he had not eaten since Friday on the boat. He wolfed down the sandwich, and drank from the sink. He then stretched on the cot and closed his eyes.

  As he had for the entire trip, he berated himself repeatedly for his stupidity. His only real question was why he was still alive. The clue was in Perez’ message to “enjoy your legs.” He thought back to the “patient” discovered in the Isla Sofia facility, with his story of having had his spinal column severed. Maybe Perez would be satisfied to paralyze him, and would then let him go. Somehow he doubted it. It was more a question of how long he would keep him alive and tortured. No, if he did not escape, he was a dead man. That much was clear.

  His current quarters did not present many opportunities for escape. He figured he would be taken to see Perez in a couple of hours, and if they maintained their pattern of moving him un-manacled, with just four men, he would at least have a chance. Particularly as he was being fed, and was reasonably rested. Despite his recent stupidity, he was a fit, trained operative, and if he could keep his wits about him, favorable options might present themselves.

  By evening, the promised audience with Perez had not eventuated. Instead, Cameron had been treated to some entertainment, so to speak. His cell was fitted with a flat screen attached to the ceiling, well out of reach, placed so that when he was lying on the bed, it filled his vision. Up to now it had been dark, but now it sprang to life.

  The first video showed a man being roughly strapped face down on an operating table. Cameron recognized it from the island facility. He also recognized the rig which was screwed into the back of the man's pelvis with two-inch framing screws and a drill. The man was writhing and screaming, clearly wide awake. Once the rig was in place, a large hammer was used to give a powerful blow to what looked to be a standard one-inch wood chisel, driving it deep into the man's spine. He shrieked, then apparently fainted. This video repeated over and over for what seemed to be a couple of hours, the volume loud enough that Cameron was unable to distract himself, and he found that he was mesmerized by the horror in front of him.

  Next was a scene similar to what he had seen from the tie-tack camera, with the same man, his bald head covered with needle electrodes, the wires snaking into a cable that disappeared off camera, and another cable attached to his back. He was clearly trying to move his legs, with some success, but the movements were clumsy and tentative.

  The final video started with a smiling Perez, who explained that, although promising, the needle scalp electrodes simply did not give the quality of signal needed to really optimize the spinal interface. Fortunately, another solution had been found.

  An operating room appeared, the now-familiar man lying on an OR table, clearly anesthetized. The room looked like any modern operating theater, with the usual anesthesia machine, several computer monitors, and a team of surgical staff in blue sterile garb. The head of the bed had a semicircular ring attached, and the patient's head was being scrubbed with betadine, following which it was lowered into the ring. Four stainless-steel bolts were then applied, just above the ears and at the back of the head. The surgeon tested for stability by attempting to rock the skull, but it was firmly in place. The back of the table was flexed, and the patient was put into a seated position. The entire table was then lowered so that the head was at waist height. More betadine was applied, and sterile drapes were attached to the frame, so that now all that was visible was the top half of the head, which reflected the brilliant overhead lights, and the face down to the upper lip.

  The camera shifted to directly overhead, and an incision was made just above the frame, going neatly around the back of the scalp from temple to temple. An electrical device was used to stop the bleeding, which was initially considerable. This same instrument continued the cut all the way to the bone. First with a metal scraping tool, and then with thumbs and fingers, the scalp was peeled off of the skull from back to front, and inverted over the top of the head inside-out, covering the face. This reminded Cameron of one of his junior high school friends who used to invert his eyelids to gross out the girls.

  The skull gleamed brightly. A vibrating saw, like the one Cameron remembered his orthopedist using to remove his cast as a child, made a cut all the way around the skull. The skull was then separated from the tissue below, surprisingly easily, Cameron thought, and removed. Again, the bleeding points were burned with an electrical device.

  A white membrane, which pulsated slightly, was all that was left covering the brain. Cameron knew this was called the dura. This was slit open, and peeled back to reveal the entire top half of the brain. The wire mesh cap that
Cameron remembered all too well was then snugged down over the brain, and the rim tucked under the inside of the skull, where a complicated device was repeatedly fired around the circumference, apparently securing the screen in place, the thick cable protruding out the back. Running down the center of the cap was a white plastic strip an inch wide, and the dura was pulled over the mesh to that strip, where it was glued in place. The scalp was flipped back into place, and sewn back together, followed by staples finishing the skin. Cameron noted that the skull was not replaced.

  The scene then cut to one of the man, now fit with the helmet Cameron recalled, again working on his walking.

  Perez, still smiling, appeared, and explained that, although the concept was good, there were technical difficulties still to be worked out, and so far, none of the subjects had been able to survive more than a few weeks after the placement of the wire-mesh implant. He was delighted to have a new patient to help with the research. He was confident that the next several months would be more than Cameron could have ever anticipated.

  The remainder of the night, he was left to sleep, which, surprisingly, he actually did, determined that he would be alert and ready when they came for him.

  ◆◆◆

  Monday morning breakfast came. So did lunch. Between them, Cameron was treated to another showing of the videos of the night before. He supposed it was designed to make him afraid, hopeless. Instead, he was able to look inside himself and find a calm, assured power that fired his will.

  The four men opened the door to the cell, and he saw the truck across the garage, tailgate open, man-box waiting. A burly man grasped each arm, and he felt the nose of a pistol in his back as the fourth man led the way. He was hyper-aware, taking in every detail of his surroundings, feeling the cadence of their gait. He struggled slightly, feeling the power behind the iron grips holding his elbows, rigidly preventing escape, and he saw how it would work. They would be expecting him to twist, or to fall, or to kick. All of their collective strength was aimed at preventing those moves. Instead, calling on his old gymnastics training, and using the guards' arms for support as he would have the parallel bars, he suddenly slammed his body back, crashing the back of his head into the following man's face with a crunch of nasal bone and cartilage, while flinging his legs forward and up, all the way over the top and back around onto the man who was now sprawling backwards. The force of the motion in this unexpected direction tore his arms free, and as he came down on the bleeding man, he was able to roll in a smooth motion and wrest the gun from his hand, firing into the two other men, who were trying to twist back towards him. They were down before they could reach for their own guns.

  The lead man, however was spinning and drawing his weapon. Cameron was already rolling to the left, the truck shielding him from the other man's aim. He crawled around a support pillar, and took stock. They were in a standoff, with no clear offensive move available to either man. One of the side guards was definitely dead, having caught a round full in the face, and the other was making a terrible gurgling noise as he breathed. The pistol's owner was groaning and bleeding, but starting to move. Cameron had a clear field, and put a round into each of the two men. No use having some half-dead hero making him all the way dead.

  The other man was behind the truck, and out of view. Cameron was considering his options, when the truck suddenly came alive with a roar, and accelerated towards the overhead door, which had started up. The driver did not wait, but crashed through the half-open door, losing the top half of the cab in exiting. Which was fine with Cameron. He could already hear sirens, and figured the local police force would be arriving with all sorts of annoying questions forthwith. He quickly rifled through the three dead men's pockets, and to his delight found his wallet and ID. He ran out through the ruined door in his ridiculous jumpsuit and slippers just as the Newark PD arrived.

  Two hours and ten thousand phone calls later, the FBI contingent of the Homeland Security Anti-Terrorism cooperative unit had secured the building and taken over the investigation. Newark PD had been politely booted out.

  Santiago had dumped the ruined truck a few blocks away, and was on a PATH train into Manhattan before the police had the wherewithal to button up the area. Not that shutting down public transit in greater New York during rush hour was a viable option.

  He made the call to Perez. It was extremely unpleasant. Extremely.

  Chapter 14

  Tuesday, October 18

  New York

  Dr. Overbridge walked into his consulting office at precisely 10:00 a.m. Pierre Lemieux was seated in a wheelchair, a sport/racing model, and he was wearing thick gloves. He had the immense arms and shoulders of the para-athlete.

  Maxwell was in a chair next to him.

  Lemieux pulled off a glove and extended a hand. “Hello, sir. Thank you for agreeing to do this. I have been dreaming of walking again since I was ten. Let me show you what I can do.” He pulled a laptop from the satchel next to him, and booted it up. He put on a glove with a thick cable, which was tethered to the laptop, and also reached around and fished another cable from behind his back, which he also attached.

  Using complex hand gestures, he demonstrated first extending one leg, then the other, and after standing with some help from Maxwell, he used the gaming glove to cause his legs to move into an awkward shuffle-step forward.

  “This was how I prepared, how the computer learns which nerves move which muscles. I can walk these short, wobbly steps with computer commands. With scalp electrodes, I can walk all the way across a room. I know that, with a direct cerebral interface, I will be able to walk. Maybe even to run. After twenty years of being tied to this thing.” He splayed his fingers and his right leg kicked at the chair.

  Overbridge stared at him a long minute.

  “The risks of surgery are infection, bleeding, permanent brain injury, and death.”

  He rose and left the room.

  ◆◆◆

  Autopsies were Mitzi's business, and she spent all of Wednesday with the three corpses supplied to her by Cameron's efforts before meeting up with him at a surprisingly depressing Starbucks.

  “What did you learn?” he started.

  Mitzi waved her hand like she was swatting a fly. “Boring. Other than that they were healthy men in their late twenties of probable Latino lineage, who died as a result of very obvious gunshot wounds, there's really nothing to say. Their prints did not show up in the computer files. Their teeth were not well cared for and did not have any interesting dental work. One of them had had an appendectomy, and from the look of it, not in the States, but that's not very specific. More importantly, what have you learned?”

  “Learned?” he snorted. “I learned, after several hours of intense study, that the DDO's outer office is a room even less interesting than a prison cell. I learned that I am no longer to have anything to do with Perez or this case. I learned that my next several months will be spent analyzing TSA efficiency reports, looking for ways to improve through-put at airports without using any kind of profiling. I'd say that I learned more today than I have in any prior single day of my career.”

  “So,” Mitzi asked, “have you got any ideas regarding what Perez is really up to?”

  “Yes, he is using Nazi war criminal methods to do human experiments to figure out how to walk again.”

  “That just doesn't add up,” Mitzi leaned forward and jabbed him with her finger. “Why is he covering the entire cortex with his mesh? And given what you told me, I can't see how it would work anyway. There is no way the operation you described would ever be viable long-term. All that foreign material in the brain, no skull, no way to control the leakage of the spinal fluid. This can't be the endgame. I can't imagine Perez is really getting ready to have the top of his head opened up in order to walk. And walk poorly.”

  “I can't talk about it anymore,” Cameron said. “I nearly died this week, not to mention last week on Isla Sofia. I'm done. I'm doing as I'm told.”

  “Y
ou do that,” Mitzi snapped. “Just make sure you answer your phone when I call.” She rose and hurried out into a cold rain, pulling her thin raincoat around her.

  She kept turning it over and over in her mind. There had to be a reason for the whole-cortex mesh. Certainly it was to provide an interface to a computer from every area, but why? What practical purpose could there be to cover everything? Motor and sensory functions really only took up a small portion of the surface of the brain, less if your focus was only from the waist down. This mesh covered it all – audio cortex, visual cortex, even the pre-frontal cortex, where complex reasoning took place. To need all that was simply illogical, and certainly Perez himself did not need anything of the sort. But this kind of criminal obsession could only be for personal gain. Nothing else would motivate the vast expenditures of money and resources they had encountered.

  At this point, she absent-mindedly stepped into a puddle which hid a pot-hole, and before she could stop herself, she was flat on her face in the street, drenched, and was barely able to crawl back to the curb before a taxi sped past, sending up a rooster tail that covered her again with frigid spray.

  Shivering, she pulled out her phone to call for an Uber, but it was cracked and soaked and would not turn on. She stomped and cursed, then smashed the phone repeatedly against the corner of a nearby building, over and over until the glass front was completely destroyed and the delicate innards were leaking out like the circuits of a damaged Terminator robot. When she could think clearly again, she stared at her ruined phone. There was a Verizon store on the next block, and she sloshed her way over, and spent the next ninety minutes obtaining a new, waterproof Samsung, vowing to leave Apple behind forever.

  When she came out, the rain had stopped, and she walked home, still puzzling.

  Chapter 15