A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  “She’s not conscious,” Elena said. “It’s a surge of, eh, electrical activity after clinical death. It differs for different people, but it’s not, eh, unusual.”

  “C’mon, Morrison,” Roy said. “Keep your focus on Jackson.”

  I swabbed my hands over my face—over sweat, tears, and saliva—and sucked in a ragged breath. “Okay, Spore. Find the willdisc. I’m right here. We’re all waiting right here.” Then, more softly, I said, “Don’t go into the bloody wrong light.”

  The iCube remained dull. But the tiny nib, with its faint blue-violet glow, told me it was creating a conductive path for Torula to follow.

  The annotator issued his next pronouncement. “All electrical brain activity has ceased. Dr. Jackson has reached clinical dormancy.”

  Clinical dormancy. A term they coined to keep from referring to her as dead. I couldn’t think. Or move. Or breathe.

  A sound escaped me. It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t a sob. It was a primitive growl I had to violently stifle.

  The robotic arm inside the chamber swiveled and lifted a swaddle of thick, black cloth and laid it over her face, something I never saw happen during the test runs.

  I bolted out of my seat. “Why are you covering her face? She isn’t dead.”

  “No, she’s not,” Elena said, craning her neck so I could see her from behind the chamber. “It’s insulation from, eh, frostbite in the intense cold of the next few minutes.”

  The answer gave me some comfort. It was something one would only consider for a living patient. But the grim, monotonous tone coming from the EKG kept declaring something else.

  “Would someone turn off that blasted sound?” I called out into the room in general.

  The next instant, it was switched off.

  I sat back down and looked at Torula’s face, now draped in morbid black. “It’s okay, Spore. It’s for your protection. Now, you just have to make that iCube light up. So get in there.”

  By now, I figured, I had no need to raise my voice for Torula to hear me, so I egged her on with whispers and mumbled words. My brain managed to reassure me with some explanation as to how that could be possible.

  From somewhere behind me, I heard Roy’s angry tone.

  I glanced back right when Enrik pointed at his computer display—then mouthed the word “Nothing.”

  Roy glowered at him. “Whaddaya mean ‘Nothin’?’ All o’ those monitors were goin’ off the charts. Electrocardiogram, electrowhatnot, electrowhatthefuckever. What else do you fuckin’ want? A pop-up sayin’ ‘soul in progress?’ It ain’t gonna happen. All that crazy fuckin’ beepin’ shit?” He waved his hands in an angry swirl. “All that, put together, spells ‘soul gettin’ the fuck outta there!’”

  Roy stormed back towards his post tossing a glance at me, giving me a firm nod as if to say, “I got this.” Before reaching his seat, he paused, with a frown, and looked back at Enrik, then strode towards me to stand by my side.

  Having him there helped me breathe a little easier. I checked the wall clock that seemed to have been rigged to speed up; nearly ten minutes had gone by. I got up and surveyed the assemblage of experts, shaking their heads, arms folded, as they stared at their monitors. No one had any idea what would indicate the migration of a soul.

  Before I knew it, the annotator’s cold announcement came through the headsets. “Three minutes to Code Blue. Code Team, to your stations.”

  The medical team advanced, their crash cart at the ready. Enrik moved forward. “Please step aside, Bram.”

  I stood my ground, and the seconds ticked by in excruciating silence.

  “Jesus H.” Roy took on the stance of a boxer, dancing like a timid Muhammad Ali.

  “Listen to me.” Enrik raised his hand in a placating gesture. “We’ve given this our best shot. If we stop now, we can still bring Dr. Jackson back. We can still revive her and let conventional medicine have its chance.”

  I cracked my knuckles. “Medicine had its chance.” I had set the system up so that at the last second of Torula’s fifteen-minute window, the DNR would display on all their monitors.

  “Not with all it’s got to offer. Surgery can still work.” Enrik gestured towards the doctors. “Let the team bring her back now.” He took another step closer. The crash cart team inched forward.

  I moved to block their path and glanced at the clock—a time bomb hung high that wasn’t about to stop ticking.

  One minute left.

  My chest tightened. Jesus, Spore. I’ve done everything I could. Everything.

  Suddenly, I heard a few faint staccato beeps.

  All eyes shot to the iCube. But there was still no trace of the light that said Torula’s soul had found its way.

  “We have a . . . reading,” the annotator said, not quite as impassively, and made the declaration sound more like a question.

  I locked eyes with Elena standing right behind the glass chamber. “It’s the EKG,” she said. “It registered, eh, a—”

  “Heartbeat?” I staggered forward and stared at Torula’s chest.

  “Holy shit,” Roy said.

  “No, it’s not,” Elena said with a knitted brow, then paused as her assistant spoke into her ear. “It’s, eh, probably a stray electrical charge. Discharged earlier, but, eh, still running its course, and the EKG just caught it.”

  I cocked my head. A stray electrical charge? Or one last burst of electromagnetic energy that knew exactly where to go.

  My blood rushed as I lay my hand on the glass chamber. “Come on, Spore. You can do it. It’s time to change the world.”

  Absolute silence fell upon the room. And then, a bleep.

  My breath caught, and I had to blink a couple of times to believe my eyes. A sliver of light shone at the iCube’s base, then came the announcement: “iCube activation, confirmed. Transition, Stage Two, commence.”

  A subdued communal exhale of disbelief filled the room.

  “That’s my girl,” I said, letting out my own monumental sigh, and collapsed back into my chair.

  Roy slapped me on the shoulder and shook me heartily.

  The perfusionist and her assistants went into action, and the heart-lung machine hummed to life. “Now, we restore, eh, circulation,” Elena announced, looking at me, and I somehow saw her smile beneath her mask. “We have to make things colder, but we’ll take good care of her.”

  “Stage Two in progress,” said the annotator. “Cooling the chamber another three degrees.”

  I stared at Torula—her body crisscrossed by tubes, a unique combination of blood, biological antifreeze, and a drug cocktail being cycled through it, her face covered by a black cloth. She was cold. Without a heartbeat. With no trace of brain activity. But I knew—she was alive.

  62

  The Bleak And Black Cloth

  For its maiden voyage into the afterlife, NASA had a somber room of doctors, engineers, technicians, and scientists on a vigil—waiting for the telltale glow of Torula’s soul to light up a cube.

  Over nine hours had gone by since the procedure began, and she was still in clinical dormancy. The temperature in the Motown remained low and steady, a unique blood and chemical composition containing natural antifreeze and ketone bodies flowing through her arteries.

  An arm’s reach from Torula’s glass-encased body, I sat in a daze, riven in three. I needed to think, and grieve, and hope. I ached but couldn’t tell where. I had to do something but didn’t know what.

  “Transition at 95 percent,” came the much-anticipated announcement.

  Activity stirred in the room. It was past two in the morning. People who had dozed off in their seats were nudged awake; those slumped in their chairs sat up. Roy, who had wandered off, returned to his spot at the console table. Throats were cleared, garments straightened, and conversation, though subdued, came alive.

  Only a slim fraction of the iCube remained unlit. I leaned forward and squinted at the nib—Torula’s entryway into the willdisc—a ballpoint pen-like electrode t
hat swiveled whenever necessary to keep the conductive path stable. Though it had but a pinprick of a glow in blue-violet, it was enough to remind me of her eyes.

  You’re doing good. I’d stopped speaking out loud to her hours ago, but I hadn’t stopped talking. I can’t wait to see you again.

  I glanced at her face, still covered by the bleak and black cloth, and a vision of her flashed in my mind—of her eyes sparkling, her hair curling down one shoulder as she leaned closer to say, “We can make our own heaven here on Earth.”

  I laid my hand on the glass shield, in case it would help her hear my thoughts better. You’re doing it, Spore. You’re doing it right now.

  “Transition at 99 percent.”

  I pulled myself up and cracked my neck. We’re at the homestretch. Get ready.

  The iCube’s glow crept up, about to touch the brim. In those final seconds, everything fell to a hush—as though all ears strained to hear an angel whisper.

  The iCube issued its alert tone—a beautiful, harmonious, hope-filled hum that came with one brilliant pulse and settled down to a constant radiance.

  “Transition complete.”

  Applause issued from all around, and a potent thrill shot through me.

  Roy thrust his fist high in the air and shouted from across the room. “Fuck yeah!”

  Others went for more sedate expressions of approval.

  “Good going.”

  “Excellent work.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  The doctors and scientists expressed it to the floor in general. Perhaps, like me, they hoped—or believed—Torula could hear.

  Enrik came to my side. “Maybe congratulations are premature but . . .” His eyes glowed their cry of eureka. “Congratulations. That was one mighty great liftoff. Now I can’t wait for touchdown.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said, smiling wide. This was one thing I loved about NASA. We saw hope in every launch without losing focus on the landing. “But I suggest you hold the congrats until a bit later. We’re not done yet.”

  “Nope. We’re definitely not.” He nodded. “We’re going to be here quite a bit longer. This is a real tricky part. It’s in the warming up stage when irreparable damage to cells and tissues could occur. We have to take it slow.”

  The annotator continued with his updates as the temperature inside the chamber was raised in controlled increments. When Enrik had said slow, he’d meant slow. Time dragged on for nearly an hour before he instructed: “Phase Three Division, proceed to The Vault.”

  An entire console section, about half a dozen people, stood up and moved towards the exit. This first procedure had been conducted here because of the cryogenic setup and its liquid nitrogen supply. For the next stage, a special room in the basement proved more ideal. Completely encased in metal and steel-reinforced concrete, it would serve like a giant Faraday shield to keep Torula’s hyperwill safe and secure in case of any willdisc or iCube malfunction.

  Roy joined me and Enrik by the Motown. “The Vault. That’s the room you told me about, right? In the basement.”

  “Right,” Enrik said. “That’s where we’ll be taking the iCube. Five stories down.”

  Roy pursed his lips and squinted at nothing.

  “Is it the distance?” Enrik asked. “You said the iCube has enough power to last two days, so—”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s not the problem.”

  Enrik cocked his head. “Then what is the problem?”

  Roy paused then smiled, though he didn’t have a matching sparkle in his eyes. “Nothin’. It’s cool that Jackson gets extra protection until we can re-inspirit ’er.”

  I glanced at Torula’s cloth-covered face and smiled to myself. Re-inspirit was the term she’d coined for the procedure she was about to pioneer. You’re so good at making up words. You still owe me on what I should call the quantum of life.

  An attendant handed us each a set of fresh sterile wear. I moved to one side to put them on; Roy sidled up to me.

  “Yo, this Vault thing. Somethin’s been buggin’ me about it, and I didn’t realize what it was until now.”

  I paused as I put my surgical cap on. “So there is a problem?”

  “Your old friend, Franco. He’s been seekin’ you and Jackson out on ’is own. I was thinkin’ if we can’t find ’im, at least he can find you. But that’s not gonna happen if the two o’ you are shielded by some giant vault.”

  I strained to wrap my head around the issue, but my mind was too frazzled to handle more than one thought at a time. All I could think about now was seeing Torula’s hyperwill, safe and intact inside a glass chamber. “We’ll deal with it. Later.”

  Roy nodded and put on his fresh surgical wear; by the time we were ready, so was the rest of the team.

  “Stand by for all systems check.” After a long pause, Enrik gave a thumbs up. “All clear to open the Motown.”

  A fresh surge of adrenalin pumped through me. In mere seconds, technicians took charge of the cryogenic Faraday chamber. With a loud hiss, the seal of the cage was released, its hatch opened, and the bed frame eased out. Whatever cold was left inside cascaded to the floor in a curtain of mist that dissipated. The only thing keeping Torula’s body temperature down now was the fluid being pumped through her arteries.

  A pungent, earthy odor seeped through my surgical mask—an indefinable mixture of fear, drugs, and blood. A team of doctors moved in, blocking my view as they checked on Torula. I had to will myself to breathe as I waited.

  “Go for iCube retrieval.”

  After a short but torturous while, the medical team parted and made room for me to take the iCube. I moved close and reached out to remove the shroud of black that smothered her. But just as my fingers touched the fabric, Roy grabbed me by the wrist, and shook his head.

  “Let the doctors do that,” he said. “You don’t have to see ’er like this.”

  Enrik shivered and rubbed his arm briskly. “Man, that chamber’s freezing up the whole room.”

  “You’re imagining things,” said an engineer. “The residual effect isn’t enough to—”

  I jerked when the black cloth flew off Torula’s face and blew past us, as though yanked by an invisible thread. It landed at the foot of an attendant who jumped back and shrieked.

  “What the fuck!” Roy cried.

  I whipped around and looked at Torula on the white mattress, her eyes shut and sunken, skin ashen and tinged with a morbid blue, then I felt myself enveloped by the heady scent of lavender.

  “Do you smell that?” Enrik’s hand flew to his mask, as though to check if it was there.

  Roy stared wide-eyed at me. “It’s Jackson.”

  Goose bumps traveled from my scalp to my arms.

  “Madre mia de Dios.” Elena made the sign of the cross. “Get the cube and take her away.”

  In a daze, I detached the iCube and held it close to me.

  “Okay, she’s ready to go,” Enrik said. A technician pushed a trolley holding a metal case about two feet square and parked it next to the Motown.

  I cast a parting look at Torula’s lifeless body as the medical team surrounded her. Where are you?

  “In here, please.” Enrik rolled the trolley closer.

  I stood, transfixed, clutching the iCube. Was she floating around? Or safe in the box?

  “Bram, come on,” Enrik said. “It’ll be more secure this way.”

  The next thing I knew, I got a firm nudge against my shoulder, forcing me to take one step back from the trolley.

  Roy’s eyes flew wide open. “You shittin’ me?”

  “What’s that about?” Enrik asked.

  “I . . . don’t know.” I let out a baffled breath as I deposited the white box into the trolley. Enrik secured it with straps then shut the enclosure.

  A faint, rhythmic beeping instantly issued from inside.

  “Motherfrickin’ meltdown.” Roy looked at me in a panic. “That’s the low power warning.”

  “You said it was good for two
days,” I said.

  “Hell, I never figured she’d be doin’ cartwheels.”

  The beeping quickened, and Enrik pushed the trolley out through the doors. The three of us dashed down the corridors until we came to a stop at the elevators.

  The beeping intensified, and Roy hollered at the metal box. “Just try to relax, Jackson!”

  “It’s soundproof,” Enrik said. “In fact, it’s everything-proof. If this entire building blew up, she’d probably be the only one who—”

  “Did you say ‘everything-proof?’” I asked as fear gripped me.

  He shrugged. “Theoretically, yeah. But no one can foresee—”

  “Give me the cube.” I tore off my surgical wear and lunged for the trolley.

  Enrik raised his hand. “What are you doing?”

  “It started beeping when you closed her in,” I said. “Open the case.”

  Enrik shook his head.

  Roy’s eyes opened wide. “Shit, he’s right. Jackson’s claustrophobic. Let ’im take ’er.”

  The iCube’s beeping intensified.

  “She needs to sense us,” I said. “Open the goddamned case.”

  Enrik hesitated, his lips moving as though he were gnawing on his own thoughts. At last, he tapped in the combination that opened the trolley door.

  I expected the warning tone to subside, but it didn’t.

  “Damn it,” Roy said checking the battery gauge. “Power’s down to 3 percent.”

  “Goddamn it. I can’t believe this. We’re right back where we bloody started!” I grabbed the iCube.

  Roy rushed to the stairwell entrance. “This way.”

  Enrik blocked my path. “We’re five floors up. I’m not going to race down those stairs just holding that. And I won’t let you either.”

  I glanced at an elevator. “Oh, well—that one’s almost here.”

  Enrik turned to look at it. I dodged past him and into the stairwell entrance. Roy was waiting on the first landing down. “Let’s go!”

  Roy ran several paces ahead of me, Enrik behind me. I focused on the steps that zipped by below me. Don’t trip. Don’t fall. Flight after flight. Don’t trip. Don’t fall.