Merged

by Jim Kroepfl

  “I need to get out of here!” I yell as panic claws at me.

  “We can’t stop mid-session,” Dr. Sensitive says through the speaker.

  “I’m bleeding from my nose!” My heart is racing so fast it feels like it’s about to explode.

  “Kevin, listen to me,” Deborah says in a calm voice. “If we remove you now, it could irreparably damage both sets of memories. Can you hang in there a little longer?”

  My body is screaming for me to say no, but I don’t want to end up a drooling lump of flesh. I snort out my nose, blowing out a stream of warm blood. My throat clogs up, and I start coughing.

  “Hold your head still!” he barks.

  “I know you need to cough, but do it as gently as you can,” Deborah directs.

  I make myself cough in tiny bursts, and cautiously snort out the crap from my nose again and again until no longer feeling like I’m suffocating.

  “How are you doing in there?” Deborah asks.

  I’m covered in my own blood and snot and drool, but I say, “Better. I’m doing better.” I want to get this over with and sleep for three days. “How much longer?”

  “We’re almost halfway there,” Deborah answers.

  That’s all? I clench the stress ball so hard I expect it to deflate. I brace myself for more bad memories. Instead, in my mind’s eye I’m watching as a landscape is painted from start to finish. It’s gorgeous. I try holding onto the memory so I don’t forget how the painter made it look like the water is shimmering, but then the scene vanishes, leaving me wanting for more. I lick my upper lip. No fresh blood.

  I can endure this.

  Each morning, I’m greeted by Bat’s feet with toes like mushrooms. Even though I’ve never seen past his toenail fungus, in a way I’ve gotten to know Bat through his memories. He may be a great artist now, but he didn’t have it easy growing up. There aren’t any memories with friends. His mom is really nice, though.

  Over the days, the images of the life that isn’t mine get weaker. It feels as if the scientists are trying to hurry along the process, like Bat doesn’t have much time left. A horrifying thought rips through me. What if he dies before we’re done? Will I end up with a glitchy, half-a-dude in my brain? They ask if I can handle longer sessions. Despite the blinding headaches and the choking nosebleeds, I tell them I’ll work twenty-four hours a day if I have to.

  On the sixth day, we finish. God rested on the seventh, and I now understand why.

  Orfyn

  I’m standing in front of a nice-looking brick house along a quiet street lined with towering oaks, manicured lawns, and other nice-looking brick houses. Random cars slumber up the street while sprinklers spray lazy twists of water into the air. I look up, and the sun is directly overhead. It’s the middle of the day. Where is everyone? And, where am I? Three black crows fly past, cawing to each other, and a fat squirrel dashes across the traffic-less street.

  It finally hits me that I must be dreaming, but it feels more real than any dream I’ve ever had.

  The front door opens, and a guy sticks out his head, cautiously looking up and down the street. He carefully edges his way on to the stoop. “You coming?”

  He’s all-over fat, and his scruffy beard looks more about being lazy than trendy. He’s wearing stained slippers and a spotless Rangers jersey. It’s his eyes that throw me. They contain the wits of ten men, the sereneness of five monks, and the detachment of an indie musician. I don’t know how I’d begin to paint them. He stretches, exposing a furry Buddha belly, and smiles to himself. Then he goes back inside, leaving the door wide open.

  Normally, I’d never consider following a stranger into his house, but this is a dream. Nothing can hurt me for real. I think. Besides, he is a Rangers fan. Then I recall his eyes. Somehow, I know that everything will be okay as long as I follow those white orbs that seem to hold the secrets of the universe.

  I go in and enter a living room with a sagging, threadbare couch; a scarred, wooden china cabinet crammed with dusty knickknacks; and a rocking chair with a clean, white doily on the headrest. Rose-colored wallpaper with yellow and blue flowers covers all four walls, and on the floor is dirt-brown carpet that looks more dirt than brown.

  The guy calls out from somewhere, “Want a grape soda?”

  “Uhm, no. I’m good.”

  A cheesy photo of the guy when he was a chubby teenager hangs over the mantel. I always wanted to live in the kind of home where someone’s proud to show off a cheesy photo of me. There’s a framed photo on the fireplace mantle of a smiling woman. I’ve seen her before. Then it all snaps together.

  “Bat?” I call out.

  He rounds the corner. “Hey, Orfyn. Glad you made it.” He jerks his head toward the back of the house. “I want to show you something.” Bat lumbers down the dimly lit hall, opens a door, and disappears. When I finally get that he’s not returning, I follow and descend burnt-orange, shag carpeted stairs into what I expect to be a moldy smelling basement.

  Instead, I enter Oz.

  It’s awash with exploding colors and sharp-edged shapes. Dozens of paintings hang on the walls. Picasso, Ernst, and Klee. It feels like I’m seeing into multiple dimensions. I go over and take a closer look. They’re not prints! And they’re better lit than the ones in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  Hidden in Bat’s basement.

  I start to feel spinny. “I need to sit down.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Everything is chill in the Bat Cave.”

  He waves his hand to where two of the most comfortable-looking chairs I’ve ever seen wait in front of nine huge TV screens arranged in a square. He deflates himself into the left recliner. “Mozart, please.” Classical music fills the room, and the screens light up to display paintings I recognize—Titian, Warhol, Rubens, Hopper—and others that are new to me.

  “You look pale.” Bat thrusts his can at me. “Here, have some grape soda.”

  I sip the too-sweet drink and start feeling better.

  He kicks off his slippers and drops his feet—his hairy, hobbit feet—onto the footrest. “What do you wanna do today?”

  Lake

  I am a Nobel.

  I keep repeating it to myself, trying to summon the excitement I should be experiencing, because it’s a monumental achievement. I merged! When I told Deborah about late-thirties Sophie, the dated lab equipment, and how she was experimenting with octopus enzymes, the joy on Deborah’s face helped some. But my accomplishment feels itchy around the edges, because I wasn’t entirely honest. I fully planned to admit that Sophie thinks I’m her latest lab assistant, but as the words were forming on my lips, something stopped me.

  I want to give Sophie time to realize she now only lives in my dreams. I owe it to her because she did, after all, allow her consciousness to be implanted into my brain. And that excuse is partly true. But there’s more to it.

  Sophie’s and my situation is similar to strangers who have been shipwrecked on a deserted island. She’s going to appear in my dreams for the rest of my life, and if we aren’t compatible, not only will our interactions be miserable, the quality of our work will suffer. We need to build a relationship on our terms, not theirs. If I tell Deborah, they’re going to take control away from me. Sophie and I need to solve this issue ourselves. Because, of course, we will. We’re very intelligent women.

  As promised, they transferred me up to the Nobels wing, and I now have free reign of the unrestricted areas. And that’s an aspect of my reasoning, too. If I told them the truth, I’m certain I’d still be locked in that depressing room while they try to determine why Sophie doesn’t remember me. I beat the odds and merged, and now I’m going to help the person in my head understand what happened to her so we can discover the cure to Alzheimer’s together.

  I take a reassuring breath and pull open the door. Like the other areas in the complex, the Nobels’ dining hall more resembles a hospital cafeteria than someplace inviting, unless one conside
rs the red fire alarm on the wall as flair. The savory aroma, though, makes me realize how famished I am.

  The room could hold fifty people, with tables arranged for twos, fours, and eights. I suppose they’ve planned for the future, when there will be more of us Nobels living here. Today, though, there are only two sitting at a corner table.

  A petite girl with curled, long, blond hair and retro tortoise-shell glasses looks up from her sandwich. She gives me a huge, welcoming smile. The other Nobel, a boy with a bad case of acne, is shoveling food into his mouth. I’d swear he’s thirteen years old, but every Nobel is sixteen.

  Deborah explained that sixteen is the age when the brain has developed higher-order thinking skills based on learning taxonomies, but since the pre-frontal cortex won’t be fully developed until we’re twenty-four, it’s still receptive to the infusion of a second consciousness. At our age, we aren’t locked into a self-image of who we are and the person we’ll evolve into.

  I head over to them. “Hi. I’m Lake, the Nobel for Chemistry.” It’s exhilarating to say it to someone other than my mirror’s reflection.

  “I’m so glad you’re finally on this floor,” the girl says, gesturing to the seat next to her and moving aside a book. “My name is Juliette, but everyone calls me Jules. I’m Economics, and this is Marty. He’s Literature. Join us.”

  “Thanks.” I set down my tray while casting a sideways glance at Marty.

  Jules explains, “He’s not a big talker.”

  Marty continues to slurp up spaghetti, as if he’s accustomed to being spoken about in the third person.

  “Has Deborah showed you around The Flem?” she asks.

  “The what?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “I know it sounds gross. Alex started calling this place The Flem, and it caught on. I can’t wait for you to meet him. He’s so much fun.”

  I didn’t have many friends in high school. I could never relate to what they found important. Excitement vibrates through me. Things may be different here.

  “Wasn’t meeting your Mentor the best ever?” Jules asks.

  “It was extraordinary.” To keep the full truth off my face, I select a French fry and chew it to mush. “What are you both working on—am I permitted to ask that?”

  “Of course,” Jules says. “We don’t keep secrets here. I’ll be working on a theory to fairly distribute wealth among the masses, but I won’t start on it for a while. There’s so much I first need to learn from my Mentor, Sarah. And Marty’s novels will one day be heralded for creating a new social consciousness. Right, Marty?” She nudges him with her elbow.

  “Uh-huh,” he mumbles, without meeting my eyes.

  “Your focus is on Alzheimer’s, right?” Jules asks.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I pestered Deborah until she told me all about you.” She giggles. “My mom is always accusing me of being such a busybody, but I can’t help it. I find people so interesting. Don’t you?”

  I’m more fascinated with how chains of a molecule form the backbone of the DNA of every creature on earth, but we all have our predilections. “Sure. Where are the other Nobels?”

  “Probably sleeping.” Jules shoves aside her barely eaten tuna sandwich. No wonder she’s the size of an elf.

  “It’s past noon.”

  “Our sleep patterns are a little off,” she explains.

  “Off?” Marty says before stuffing an entire piece of garlic bread into his mouth.

  “Some of us are sleeping more than others,” Jules says. “But the longer we dream, the more we can accomplish with our Mentors, right?”

  I need to determine what’s considered the norm so the Darwinians don’t label me as lackadaisical, which in my old life would have been laughable. After Mom got sick, Dad had to leave the tour to take care of us. When his ex-band won Best Jazz Album of the Year days after Mom died, he retreated into himself. He’s never really reemerged. Since then, I’ve worked as many jobs as possible to help out.

  “How many hours have you been sleeping?” I ask Jules.

  “My Mentor is being totally fair.”

  “Thirteen hours today,” Marty answers. “So far.”

  No wonder he’s acting like a starving hyena. When Deborah suggested I get something to eat, I assumed it was because she wanted me to meet the others. Her true motivation may have been entirely different.

  “Is there a particular reason you’re sleeping that long?” I ask him.

  Jules says, “Time in the dreamspace is … Marty, you’re better with words than me. How would you describe it?”

  “Different.”

  I wait for him to expound, but he goes back to carb loading. I’d been led to believe this experience would be like going to school, but in reverse. At night, Sophie will instruct me on what I need to know. During the day, after I debrief with Deborah, I’ll complete the homework Sophie assigns. Once my Mentor considers me sufficiently trained, I’ll continue our experiments in the awake-world.

  “Do you mind sleeping that much?” I ask Marty.

  “It’s fine,” he says.

  Is he avoiding my eyes because he’s not being entirely truthful, or is he merely shy?

  Jules says, “The whole purpose of our being here is to continue our Mentor’s work. They aren’t slave drivers. They just want to spend as much time as they can being conscious with us.”

  I hadn’t considered that paradox. Every hour we’re awake is an hour our Mentors don’t, in essence, exist.

  “Sarah has given me a ton of homework, and it’s not going to get done by itself.” Jules picks up her book, Capitalism and Freedom. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

  I smile. “Me, too.” It feels like I’ve already made a friend.

  Jules flutters her fingertips as she leaves.

  Marty stands. “Eat when you can.” He grabs his notebook and follows Jules out the door.

  I know I agreed to remain here until I’m twenty-one, but I didn’t expect to sleep away the next five years. And what happens after I leave? The Darwinians said I could still have a career and a family, or do whatever I choose with my life. The significant difference for us Nobels, though, is we’ll always have the advantage of a second intelligence when it comes to our careers.

  But if I’m constantly sleeping, how can I lead a normal life?

  Mental slap. Just because Marty’s sleeping pattern is prolonged doesn’t mean Sophie expects the same from me. Jules’s Mentor sounds reasonable. Once we get past Sophie’s misperception of my role in her life, these are the issues we’ll figure out together. I’m certain tonight will be an entirely different experience. Why am I waiting? I can take a nap as soon as I finish eating.

  To put me into a food coma, I abandon my burger and grab a turkey sandwich for the tryptophan and a cup of chamomile tea to calm me. No one else appears while I finish my lunch. No one, such as Stryker.

  Was he able to merge last night? If I’ve been mistaken about the consequences of failure, then he—

  I shove away my doubt and replace it with positive thinking: Sophie will know who I am. Sophie will know who I am …

  Lake

  “I expected you this morning.” Sophie’s cigarette smoke writes exclamation marks in the air.

  She’s working on an ultra-thin laptop, which clashes with her eighties persona. Then, I notice the state-of-the-art lab equipment. Already, things are improving from our first dream session.

  “Sorry. I was debriefing with Dr. Deborah Duvaney.” She divulged that they’d been close. I look at Sophie expectantly, hoping her friend’s name triggers her memories.

  A line forms between Sophie’s thick eyebrows.

  I hold my breath in anticipation.

  Sophie taps the cigarette over an ashtray. “I’d appreciate more consideration on her part. Please inform her I run on a strict schedule, and I need you here on time.”

  “Did I mention I’m from Pittsburgh? I wo
n The American Chemistry Club’s award twice, and—”

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, but your tardiness has already put us behind.”

  “Dr. Weiss, do I look at all familiar to you?”

  “Why? Have we met before yesterday?”

  “Not technically, but—”

  “Then how would I know you?” She starts rubbing her temples, and beads of sweat form above her lip.

  As much as I want to reveal the truth, all indications suggest Sophie isn’t ready to accept the reality of our situation. For both of our sakes, I have to grant her the time she needs to come to terms with her new life. Otherwise, there’s the possibility the woman living in my brain could become insane.

  “Is there an extra laptop I can use to take notes?” I ask.

  “What’s a laptop?”

  I turn to where hers had just been. In its place is a boxy, tan monitor with a green screen, which only confirms I need to take it slow. Patience, unfortunately, has never been one of my virtues. “I’ll use this.” I grab a pad of lined paper and a pen off her desk while furtively checking out what else she may have changed.

  She reverted the lab equipment back to its archaic form, and a huge tank filled with live octopuses is on a counter. The cephalopods are different colors, and their arms move like fingers across the sand at the bottom. The items that were hanging on three of the walls appear the same, but there’s a new picture on the fourth. It’s of a tranquil lake with two white swans gliding across the water. I head over to take a closer look and read the poem.

  Because I could not stop for Death -

  He kindly stopped for me -

  The carriage held but just ourselves -

  And Immortality.

  Not the inspiration one would expect to find in a neuroscientist’s lab. But it wouldn’t be out of place in a secret research complex whose mission is to curtail death. The Nobels Program is providing Sophie with a second life, and when my body wears out, it’s feasible that her consciousness can be reinserted into another sixteen-year-old, mimicking immortality. Is she starting to remember?