by Roddy Murray
Have a plan and stick to it, Frank remembered someone telling him once, and that night he stuck to his task. He had started by making it crystal clear to the barman that all the drinks were going on the tab for his room. An instruction he started repeating unnecessarily as the night wore on. At first he was good company and a welcome distraction to the business folk booked into the hotel. Then he became a bore they could do without and many of them headed early to their rooms. After that he became a danger to their well-being and finished as an incident number with Lothian and Borders police who were eventually called when the barman refused to serve him any more drink, resident or not. By the time the police arrived though the drink had caught up with him and he was a danger to no one.
A voice at the back of his head kept repeating: “Don’t start a fight with the police."
He even said it out loud at one point, much to the relief of the two police officers who arrived to deal with the incident. They had eyed Frank with professional caution when they arrived at first and were very relieved when he sat down, told everyone he loved them all and fell asleep. They took sufficient details to cover their backs and then woke Frank up and help him to his room. He managed to land on his bed already in the recovery position and they left when the night manager promised to ensure his safety through the night.
The next day Jim arrived to collect Frank as arranged and was surprised when he didn't appear. After a while he popped inside to reception where a relieved night manager was waiting for him with a blow by blow account of Frank’s antics the night before, albeit no blows had been struck. Jim had instructions to collect Frank each morning and deliver him safely to Nebus Biosciences Scottish Research Facility, a duty he took seriously. As a result he headed up to Frank's room with the daytime manager who was armed with a master key.
They opened the door to the room and looked in. The bed looked like it had been hit by a tsunami but was empty. Taps were running in the bathroom, so the receptionist, by agreement with Jim, headed back to his post. Jim shouted "Hello" and headed into the room.
Frank came out of the bathroom dressed in slacks, a blazer, collar and tie. Or that was Jim's first impression until he realised it was someone about the same size and build as Frank but it wasn't him.
"I'm Paddy," said Paddy in a not unfriendly tone. "Who are you?"
"I'm Jim," said Jim. "I'm here to drive Frank to the Nebus plant."
"He'll be one hour late today. Is that a problem?" Jim surveyed the room and decided what ever had happened to Frank was serious enough to cause a delay and one hour didn't seem too bad in the circumstances. This guy Paddy sounded like he had it under control and Jim didn't fancy arguing with him anyway.
"Nope," said Jim. "I'll square it with the lab guys. Everyone sleeps in some time or another."
"Cheers mate," said Paddy and returned to the bathroom.
Jim headed for his vehicle, spoke to David advising him that Frank had slept in and was running about an hour or so late and picked up his paperback. David wasn't best pleased but these things happened. They would just have to work Frank a bit later that evening. It was no "biggy".
Jim read on, oblivious to the drama continuing in the hotel as Frank endured his second cold bath and drank the endless glasses of water and coffee Paddy handed him.
Paddy had been wakened the night before from a deep sleep by an incoherent idiot on the other end of the phone. After a minute or two he realised it was Frank and that Frank was as drunk as a skunk. After endless ramblings about how good a mate Paddy was and how they should have gone out in a blaze of glory in their army days, shooting from the hip like Butch and Sundance, Paddy managed to get Frank to give him some clues to his whereabouts.
After a few more minutes of rambling Paddy could picture the scene. Frank had been bored. There were no single women about and someone else was paying for all the drink he could consume. Whoever was paying for the drink was to blame for Frank being bored, so fuck them, he'd get pissed. There had been a discussion which had become an altercation and the police had been called. Nobody had actually got hurt, yet, but Frank sounded like he was talking himself into correcting that particular oversight. At his work Paddy dealt with people all the time who were suicidal. It was a fairly easy switch to deal with someone who was homicidal.
After getting Frank to promise not to leave his room till Paddy got there, he'd dressed, explained the situation to Mary and headed out. Mary had been used to Paddy getting called out during the night when he was still in the army and was sleepy enough to accept it for now even though he was a civilian. "Frank needed help, the CO wanted to see him, the boys were fighting downtown, Kuwait had been invaded." Whatever. "Just as long as I can go back to sleep."
Paddy had sorted it all each time (Kuwait, admittedly, with some help) and come back safely to her. This was just another midnight callout.
Paddy drove as swiftly as he could without getting stopped for speeding and made it to the hotel. Luckily some other guests arrived from a late night in town just as he was wondering how to get in without attracting any more attention on what had clearly been a lively night for the staff.
He made his way straight to Frank's room. It had taken him 30 minutes to wake Frank and get him to let him in. What he found wasn't encouraging. The room smelled badly of containing a drunk. The bed clothes were everywhere but on the bed. A glass table top was smashed, as was a cup and saucer. Worst of all Frank had immediately fallen unconscious again on top of the broken glass.
Paddy's only gentle action of the night was to carefully lift Frank's slumped body away from the glass and remove three pieces which had stuck to his side. Thereafter he dropped him and left him to sleep it off for a while. The room came next and a fingertip search for all the pieces of glass and shattered pottery. This took a long time but was achieved quietly.
A quick look at his watch after that, showed Paddy the time was now 7 am. Time to get to work on reviving Frank. A cold shower restored some vague signs of life but only just. A cold bath followed which worked better. Then coffee followed by water in the remaining glass.
Frank failed to respond to the words of encouragement from Paddy who then repeated the whole routine. Frank started to show signs of wanting to kill Paddy who took this as a good sign. Another cup of coffee and a violent vomit and Frank could talk English again after a fashion.
Again Paddy decided he was making progress. He also managed to find out that Frank was due to be collected at 8.30. Looking at his watch he knew he would not make it. No problem. He can phone in sick once he was coherent enough or reschedule the transport. For now he had to get the drink out of Frank and avoid anything which would jeopardise his future sobriety or his paycheck from Nebus, in that order. It wouldn't do any harm if Frank could apologise to the hotel staff for his behaviour. The police could be dealt with in due course if necessary. For now though, all Frank could manage was, "fuck off you old bastard," but even that was progress.
By the time Jim arrived Frank was in his third bath which was at least slightly tepid as a reward for being more polite to Paddy. He had eaten and kept down a bacon roll and was now able to say sorry when Paddy hit him. The cuts from the glass were mercifully shallow and had stopped bleeding during the first cold bath. From years of experience, some at least of it personal, Paddy had estimated one hour was needed.
Just 63 minutes after Jim had sat back in his vehicle Frank arrived at the passenger door fully dressed and looking mainly alive. Admittedly he was a lot whiter than usual and not his usual jocular self but Jim was happy enough to have his passenger and to be able to head for the plant. He decided on balance not to talk about football that day.
Chapter Sixteen
Bobby shook hands with Blaine as he entered his office and motioned for him to sit down. He looked him up and down in a professional way and said, "You seem to be dealing with things very well so far. How do you feel?"
"I feel better for the rest at home,” repl ied Blaine honestly. "I still
get tired and still have the pains where you'd expect but overall I'm not too bad."
"Good," said Bobby. "The better your health at this stage the better all round. As we both know that won't last for ever and we need to move quickly with the next stage. In simply terms we need to record a full map of your brain's activity, in every possible situation. We need to do the same for movement and memory. This takes time but we have developed methods to do much of this while you sleep. Once we have a full record and have checked it thoroughly we will be ready to go."
"Talk me through this word 'go' in detail please," said Blaine with his eyes straight on Bobby's face.
"Okay. Once we have a complete record of you and a complete record of the donor we lie you both down, wire you up and stop the brain for a split second. We start it up again but feed your records to the donor and his into you. The result is both waking up conscious and aware as before but having swapped bodies. It's as simple as that."
To Blaine, it suddenly didn't sound that simple and doubt was again flooding into his thoughts.
Bobby could see it and continued: "This will be the fifth time we have carried out the procedure and all the others were successful. I won't claim it is routine: It is not. It is a revolutionary method of prolonging life but we can do this and for you it is the only option available."
"And for the other poor son-of-a-bitch?"
"He has been well compensated and is convinced he can beat the cancer. Either way he is up and running with the recording of his brain activity and is raring to go. He would be upset if anything got in his way now."
Bobby waited to gauge Blaine’s reaction. After a pause Blaine nodded and said: "Well then, what are we waiting for?" with what he hoped was more conviction than he felt inside.
After that Blaine felt as if he had lit the blue touch paper on a firework but forgotten to stand back. He was whisked round D Section in a blur of activity. Medicals, questionnaires, fittings for equipment to get wired to, what seemed like, every bit of him and no time for lunch. Not that he noticed. It was an impressive set up and was full of people who seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
The day disappeared in a flash until he found himself back at the apartment exhausted. Delores was there waiting for him and he longed to bring her in on the secrets of what lay ahead but knew he could not. Not yet. That would have to wait till everything was done and she could see for herself what had happened. If anything went wrong the plan was still to leave her and Beth in complete ignorance of what he had tried.
Delores could see he was exhausted and decided to spoil him a bit. He looked like he needed it tonight. She ran him a nice hot bath and poured a selection of essential oils into it that she bought for that specific purpose. She undressed him and helped him into the water then bathed him like a child eventually stripping and joining him in the water. They stayed there till the water started to cool, soaping each other down and giggling like kids. She got out first, quickly dried herself and again helped him out. His movements were laboured as he climbed out of the bath; partly from his illness but mainly she realised from fatigue. This whole thing was draining him.
Dinner arrived and they ate together. Unlike the evening before they didn't talk much, both lost in their own thoughts. Afterwards Delores took his arm and walked him to the bed.
To save him any embarrassment she said, "No excitement tonight for you. Doctor’s orders. You get a good night's sleep and I'll see you back here tomorrow evening." They kissed each other full on the lips but not in the usual lingering way and Blaine crawled gratefully into the bed alone. Delores pulled the covers up to his chin and tucked him in. He was asleep before she had even collected her coat and handbag.
The next day started earlier for Blaine but he had slept well and took a vague interest in the recording equipment to which he was wired up. The day passed as he carried out a selection of basic tasks while standing, sitting, walking or lying down. Nothing too taxing he thought, suspecting that wouldn't last, but for now, being politely ordered around suited him. It was distraction enough from all the conflicting thoughts rushing around in his head. He wondered if the machinery could record them or even make sense of them for him, and laughed.
Bobby was there throughout the days of testing and recording. All his American staff seemed to know what they were doing but nobody seemed as confident or knowledgeable in Blaine’s eyes as Bobby. He would stand beside staff members and question them or advise day in day out. A tweak of a dial here, a twist of a knob there; he understood it all. He also took time to explain much of what was going on to Blaine, reassuring him after each session and showing him a graph of red areas which he explained summarised what had still to be mapped and recorded.
"When all of that is green," he explained to Blaine, "and we've triple checked it, we'll be ready to go."
Blaine found himself at the start and at the end of each day studying the graph carefully for progress. He knew he was exhausted easily these days and the pain he felt in his stomach and neck appeared to be getting slightly more noticeable. But something else was slowly gripping him as the days went by. It was excitement. No other word for it. He found the whole prospect exciting. Doing nothing meant dying young, he knew, so in that sense this course of action had been forced upon him, but to have the chance to be at the forefront of scientific
advancement was exciting.
The childish enthusiasm of it surprised him as it overtook the feelings of fear. He was part of a team making history here. The fact that it would also save his life was good and getting a super fit body to replace his own dying carcass was a bonus too. All that though, was secondary to being part of a group which was close to playing god. Bobby had explained they were upping the pain killing drugs which he had to take and there might be some delusionary side-lines, dizziness and nausea. Blaine hadn't paid much attention and didn't necessarily factor that in to his new feelings. He knew that he felt good about what was going to happen, all of a sudden though.
Chapter Seventeen
The day was one of the longest Frank could remember. David and his team had a lot planned for the day and they were none too happy at the delay. David was about to criticise Frank as he arrived but took one look at the expression on his face and thought better of it.
Co-ordination was Frank's initial problem over and above his mood, pallor and dry mouth. A number of tasks had to be repeated and the readings they were getting on the computers at first were largely unusable. Polite requests to repeat actions seemed unwelcome and when they wired Frank up for a test carried out whilst lying down he fell asleep and was difficult to waken.
As the day wore on, however, Frank became a better subject and some of his old humour returned. He swore less and was able to get most tasks right first time. David cheered up too and his team made best use of what data they could get, filling in more of their graphs with green instead of red.
Bernie seemed particularly unimpressed with Frank and he guessed that he had blown any chance there, and also that it was obvious to all concerned that he had been on the bender of a lifetime which might jeorpardise all their work. Most of all Frank just wanted to get back to his hotel room and sleep.
Eventually his wish was granted and he was dismissed for the day. As it was later than usual he gave the canteen a miss and headed for Jim's transportation service. Jim looked at Frank and gauged that he was in a better state than he had been that morning.
"Big night," he inquired cautiously.
"The biggest for a while," said Frank, prepared at least to make small talk. “Just don't mention football."
Jim took the advice and kept the banter safe and low key. The journey took longer than usual as they hit the rush hour traffic which did Frank's hangover no good whatsoever. After what appeared to be a lifetime, and after one stop for Frank to throw up they made it to the hotel. Jim bid Frank a cheery goodbye and headed off. Frank went straight to his room and collapsed on the bed.
The next day was a day
of apologies for Frank, starting of course with Paddy. Frank had only a vague recollection of Paddy arriving but knew he had worked enough magic to save the contract and Frank's blushes. The hotel staff came next, followed by the team at Nebus. A visit to Doc Gibson had been arranged to check that the drinking session had had no long term effects on Frank's health or the accuracy of the programme. Bernie had calmed down but not enough to take up the offer of a date anytime soon.
By the end of the day Frank felt sufficiently redeemed to have returned to his usual optimistic self as he returned to the hotel. The following day would be his last at Nebus if all went well and the red had all turned to green. There wasn't much red to go and everyone had seemed pleased with the overall progress made to date. Even Dr Bobby had put in an appearance in the late afternoon to praise everyone's efforts. He had taken Frank aside and in a friendly and conspiratorial way had advised a visit to D Section was planned for the following evening. He had said it such a way that it sounded like a reward. If section D built women like the American model he had seen then maybe it would be worth a visit.
Either way Frank was in the home straight. Half the fee had already been paid into his account, the other half had been promised the Monday after he finished. Nebus had even agreed to pay the sundry invoices he had submitted for "clothing purchased". Nobody had mentioned the minor incident at the hotel, or the police or the drinks he had bought for everyone who was in the bar at the start of the night. Drinks added to his room bill. A bill which included some damage to furniture. They were very generous here and fortunately very forgiving. All he had to do now was tidy up some recording the following day and pay a late visit to D Section. All in all, a walk in the park.