Spark

by Catherine Friend

  “Why are you interested in this anyway?”

  “It is one of the last great mysteries of the body,” he crowed. “I want to solve that mystery.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the beauty of the whole thing. It is a mystery. Shouldn’t it stay that way? Why do I need to know what part of my brain is me?”

  Dr. Rajamani sat back suddenly. “Why would you not want to know?”

  “Because I’m more than just my body. My personality, my thoughts, and my dreams are created by my conscious mind. It’s magic how our brains do that.” To be honest, before that moment I’d never given much thought to this topic, but I liked that one part of the human mind was still a mystery. I liked that my consciousness was all mine, and was housed in my body, and that it ran the show. “Besides, if you locate this part of who we are, won’t people start treating it like other organs, to be studied and fixed?”

  “Oh, yes, all that and more. But I am interested in something much greater, something most radical.” He patted my knee confidentially and leaned forward. “Once I locate the conscious mind, then I can transplant it.”

  “Transplant it?” My words came out as a squeak.

  Dr. Raj placed the last electrode. “What if your body is dying? Why not transplant your brain and its consciousness into a storage vessel? You could live forever.”

  “That’s a freaky idea.”

  “No, no. Did you not watch the old Star Trek TV shows? I saw one when I was a child that created in me the desire to do this. The explorers find a race of people whose bodies have died, so they stored their consciousness in these oval eggs that flashed with color and light.” He shook his head, face aglow with the memory. Another crack of thunder surprised us both and he smiled. “I love storms.”

  “I thought thunderstorms were rare in London.” I watched as Dr. Raj fiddled with his equipment.

  “Not in the summer,” he replied.

  A flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by crashing thunder directly overhead. I considered the old equipment, now plugged in. The only step left was to connect my electrodes. “Is it safe doing this in the middle of a thunderstorm?” Surely the answer had to be “no.”

  Dr. Rajamani considered my question, then waved dismissively. “Yes, yes, of course. These buildings are old, but they have been grounded sufficiently to protect us. Not to worry!”

  Dr. Raj then connected each electrode to the big green box with all the speedometers. “I built this equipment myself,” he said. “It may not be beautiful, but it will do the tricks and treats, since I am making do with a most pathetic budget.”

  A tiny shiver of fear slid up my spine. I’d assumed the university had sanctioned the experiment, but what did I know? Maybe a professor could conduct crazy-ass experiments without getting approval. I closed my eyes briefly, trusting that Chris would not get me into anything dangerous.

  “My experiments are less orthodox, shall we say, than most. But you are not to have fear. Now I ask you to describe the experiment so I know you know what is going on.” Another crack of thunder seemed to come up through the floor.

  “You’re trying to locate the consciousness in the brain. You’ve hooked me up to a machine that will record the activity when I use various parts of my brain. And just to clarify, you are not, at this time, attempting to remove or in any way transport my consciousness.”

  Dr. Rajamani laughed, a short seal bark. “That is most correct. Our brain is made up of lobes and cells and dendrites, but it also contains you, the person that exists within your body, the spark of your consciousness. I am not transporting that today because I do not know where it is. To isolate the location of our thoughts, of our consciousness, the core of who we are, I will activate…” He waited.

  My mind spun as I tried to recall his words from the National Gallery lecture. “My glee cells?”

  Dr. Raj smiled. “Your glial cells. I believe the secret to our consciousness lies with the millions of glial cells in our brains. Glials were once considered nothing more than bubble wrap for the brain, but now we suspect they do so much more. Your glial cells might, when electrically charged, reveal their secrets about our consciousness.”

  “Electrically charged?” My mouth felt dry.

  “That is what the electrodes do—deliver a minuscule electrical charge enabling us to better see what is going on inside there.” He knocked gently on my skull. “I am telling you, glials and electricity are the key to everything. Imagine the various parts of your brain as an orchestra tuning up. It is chaos until the conductor steps up and sets the beat. The conductor is your intralaminar nuclei, which set up an electrical oscillation. When the oscillation reaches forty hertz, consciousness happens! Is this not amazing?”

  He lost me at intralaminar nuclei. I nodded. “Totally.”

  Dr. Raj opened a small flat box, pulled out a syringe, and ripped open the plastic wrapper.

  My throat tightened. Damn it. Chris had better appreciate the sacrifice here. I strained to see the size of the needle. Thank God it was small. “I see it’s time for your magic serum.” Dr. Rajamani patted my arm reassuringly. “It is most certainly nothing to be frightened of. It will simply heighten the responses of your consciousness so we can see the results more clearly. The GCA, or glial cell activator, is necessary for the experiment because it provides a slight electrical charge to cells that normally do not conduct electricity.”

  I forced myself to return his smile. One GCA injection, twenty electrodes, and a thunderstorm. Nothing to worry about.

  The injection was swift and painless. By the time I opened my eyes, Dr. Raj was tossing the needle into a biohazard waste bin.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I blinked. “Weird. Very weird.”

  “That is normal,” he said. “The effects will wear off soon.”

  The hair on my forearms stood straight up. “Dr. Raj, I feel really weird, as if I’m….” I couldn’t find the words. “As if I’m full of static electricity.”

  He frowned. “Really?” He glanced at his big green box and shot to his feet, muttering something in what I presumed to be Hindi. He began checking the electrode connections.

  The little speedometer needles had all sprung to life and were reaching nearly all the way to the right, as if a car were pushing one hundred miles per hour. “But the equipment’s not on,” I said. “How can that be?”

  Dr. Raj unplugged the machine, disconnected it from the three laptops, then reconnected everything. The needles shot up again. “I do not know. The electrodes must be faulty. I will replace them.”

  I shivered as he applied the new electrodes, hoping we’d exchange a spark of static to drain the electricity coursing through me, but no. And when I closed my eyes, it was as if a door had blown open somewhere. How did I know that? If you were sitting in a room with your eyes closed and someone opened a door, you’d feel the air currents change; a breeze would brush against your skin. Smells would enter; sound would change. I felt all of that sitting on the folding chair in Dr. Raj’s lab. A door had opened, and I wanted it closed.

  The new electrodes behaved the same way—they measured an electrical current coming from my brain even though Dr. Raj wasn’t sending any current through them. It was as if I were generating the current myself.

  After a few minutes, my vision cleared and my alarm faded. The freaky feeling receded, even though the needles remained in the red zone. “Dr. Raj, I’m feeling better. I’m okay.”

  Dr. Raj leaned close. “Are you sure?”

  “Everything seems more…intense, but I’m okay.”

  “Good,” he said. “We will proceed. You might have had a slight reaction to the GCA.” He turned on the machines, clicked a few keys on the computers, then began asking me questions from a thick stack of papers. I sighed. I was going to be here a while.

  After some questions, Dr. Raj scribbled in his notebook, then asked more questions—about the weather, some math problems, about movies, books, names of British prime
ministers, of which I knew only one—for another thirty minutes. Thunder still boomed outside; after a particularly bone-rattling clap, Dr. Raj’s gaze swung toward the indicators. His eyes widened. “Good gods, your glials are lighting up like fireworks.”

  I licked my dry lips. “Is that why the electrodes are kind of tingling now?”

  Dr. Raj looked at me in alarm, which wasn’t very reassuring. “Tingling?” he said. He tapped the keyboard, muttering to himself. “You should not be feeling the electrodes. You say they are tingling?”

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should stop now, since there’s such a huge storm. Maybe the lightning—”

  “I have never seen glials react this way. I wonder if I am misdosing the GCA.”

  Okay, that was the last straw. Between the thunderstorm and Dr. Raj’s confusion over the GCA dose and the electrodes burning my skin, it was time to leave. I knew it, my consciousness knew it, and since we were one and the same, the decision was unanimous. “I’m no longer feeling comfortable doing this. Please unhook me.”

  Still entranced by the data on his screen, the professor nodded but didn’t look up.

  “Unhook me now.”

  I finally got his attention. As he reached for the dial to shut everything off, the loudest thunderclap yet sent an earthquake of a tremor through my Birkenstocks. Sparks flew from the old equipment with a sickening snap. My entire body buzzed, and I clutched at an electrode, trying to rip it off, but suddenly everything moved in slow motion. All sound faded. The world disintegrated into a black sea of nothingness as I was yanked upward, drowning in an upside-down ocean. I fought the current, but it was too strong. The sky sucked me in.

  Chapter Four

  I tried moving, but my legs resisted, as if bound by ropes or heavy fabric. With my eyes squeezed shut against the nausea, I tried again, this time succeeding in rolling onto my side. Something musical hit the floor nearby; must be rain given the smell and the mist settling across my skin. Voices spoke to me, but from behind a wall too thick to penetrate.

  “Dr. Raj?” I managed to whisper. “Chris?”

  The storm. The huge spark. Had the equipment exploded? Was I dead? Hands tugged on my arms, tugging impatiently. “I’m trying,” I muttered. “Have you called an ambulance?” I opened my eyes a crack to see a woman bending over me.

  “Are you unwell? What manner of play is this?”

  For an emergency technician, the woman was unusually abrupt and impatient. I forced my eyes open. “Please call Chris Johansen. Her cell is….” My brain struggled for the number. “Use my phone. It’s in my pocket.”

  “You are making no sense at all. Her majesty sent you to complete a task, and she expects you to return quickly. You may be her pet, but you can still incur her wrath.”

  As I sat up, I realized my legs had felt bound because of yards and yards of a heavy fabric were lying across them. A dress. Blue brocade with silver trim. I groped at my waist, chest, and hair. Someone had changed my clothing and dressed me in a wig and headdress. The woman pulling on my arm was dressed in the same manner. I clutched at my aching head. How had I gone from Dr. Raj’s lab to an Elizabethan costume event?

  “Come, you must return to the Queen.” The woman helped me stagger to my feet, but the wet dress slowed me down.

  Shocked at the weakness in my legs, I leaned back against the wall. “Damn, that GCA crap really packs a punch. Who brought me here? Does Dr. Rajamani think this is funny?”

  We were under the covered edge of a small, outdoor courtyard. Rain pounded the cobblestoned floor and bounced off two wooden chairs. Was it still Monday morning? How much time had passed? Surely Chris must be worried about me, since we’d planned to meet at the Wilkins Portico for lunch.

  When I inhaled deeply, a sharp pain burned across my ribs. I clutched at my body and discovered I was bound by some sort of corset. Then I bent over and vomited onto the cobblestone walk, spitting out as much of the acrid taste as I could before I wiped my mouth. Damn it.

  Clucking in disgust, the woman once again grabbed impatiently for my arm and managed to pull me down the walkway. “Her majesty sent me to find you, and I have done. I am not going to endanger my own position here for one of your childish pranks.” Shorter than me, and quite stout, the woman looked about forty, with deep fissures along her mouth and nose that were unsuccessfully hidden under a layer of chalky cake makeup. “I will deliver you back to her chambers and then you are on your own.”

  We entered through a thick, planked wood door, then hurried down a dark corridor, lit only by candles on wall sconces every ten feet or so. We passed through a number of richly decorated rooms, and I thought at once of the sets for The Tudors, the Showtime series about King Henry VIII and his six wives. Was I on some sort of movie set?

  But when the woman hurried us past a window, I yanked myself free and peered through the mullioned glass. I was too stunned at the sight to even gasp. I was in a building that rose a few stories directly above the Thames. To the left was the familiar curve in the river, and beyond it rose St. Paul’s Cathedral, only the spire was taller and more slender. I could just see the roof of the White Tower, the central feature of the Tower of London. Dozens of white swans floated in the river, despite the rain. When I pressed my left cheek to the pane, I could see Westminster to the right. But everything else about the London skyscape was wrong. Where was the Tower Bridge, the Gherkin building, the London Eye?

  I stepped back, rubbing my eyes. What the hell was going on?

  “Make haste,” the woman snapped. She latched onto my wrist and pulled me into a warm room lit with a gilded candelabra suspended overhead that blazed with candlelight. Six women, all dressed in some version of the costume I wore, sat on stools or on the floor, each bent over a sewing project. With their skirts spread wide, the women looked like elegant flowers that had collapsed into themselves. The room smelled of burning candle, body odor, roses, and cloves.

  I stumbled over the hem of someone’s skirt as the woman yanked me one more time, then released me. The woman sank into a deep curtsey. “Ma’am, as you requested I have found Lady Blanche and brought her to you. She was in the eastern courtyard.”

  A woman sat on a wide chair, its wooden back elaborately carved into a scene of battling lions. She leaned over the table beside her, eating the last of some sort of meat. Dressed in green fabric shot through with silver, the woman was younger than me—mid twenties?—yet she practically vibrated with the same sense of privilege I’d seen at my uncle’s country club years ago. She wore an excessive number of ropes of pearls around her neck, as well as a ruff of delicate white lace. Her sleeves ended in matching ruffs. A pearl headdress held back pale red hair tight with curls.

  Judging by the red hair, pale skin, and long, slender fingers, the woman was obviously playing the role of Queen Elizabeth I, and since the actor was young, she must be playing the period shortly after Elizabeth had taken the throne at age twenty-five. In the United States there were murder mystery parties. Did the UK hold Life in Elizabethan England parties?

  “Dear Blanche, how lovely of you to grace us with your presence,” said the woman in the broad chair. “You have been gone so long, we thought that perchance you had decided to seduce one of our courtiers.”

  The women in the room laughed.

  I scowled. Why were they calling me Blanche? And why did they think this was some sort of joke?

  “Although, from what we hear about most of the men, very little time would be required to consummate the act.” The actor grinned wickedly, as if hoping to shock me.

  I stepped forward. “Listen, you all look lovely. Your costumes are stunning, and you—” I motioned to “Elizabeth.” “You even bear a remarkable likeness to the Queen, at least from the paintings I’ve studied in the National Portrait Gallery. So congratulations.” I gave a slow, insolent clap. “But I’m done. Point me toward the exit. I have no wish to keep playing your games. And my name’s Jamie, not Blanche.”

  Both of �
�Elizabeth’s” brows arched. Her smile frosted over. “Games? Hell’s gate, we see no games being played at the moment. And your name is certainly Blanche and we sent you on an errand. Has our Master of the Horse yet returned from his hunting trip?”

  From my Tudor obsession, I knew that Elizabeth’s Master of the Horse was Robert Dudley. Elizabeth had loved him her entire life, but no one knew for sure if they’d ever consummated the relationship. I admitted to being a little curious to see the actor portraying Dudley, since he’d been considered one of the most handsome men at Elizabeth’s court—tall, dark, and broad-shouldered.

  I rested my hands on the fabric flaring out from my hips. “Much as I’d love to meet your Dudley, I’m serious. Where are my real clothes? My cell phone? I intend to call the authorities and have you all arrested for kidnapping. And I’ll have Dr. Raj arrested for reckless experimenting.”

  The tittering laughter turned to murmurs. “Arrest us? For kidnapping?” The room seemed to hold its breath until “Elizabeth” threw back her head and roared. “Ah, dearest, you are amusing us again. Lord Cecil is our Spirit, Dudley is our Eyes, and you are our Spark, the flash of humor and soul in our life.”

  The woman who had dragged me to the room stepped forward. “Ma’am, I found Lady Blanche on the ground, with a bruise on her head.” When the woman motioned to my forehead, I reached up and touched what was indeed a tender lump. “Blanche is not amusing you,” the woman said, “but is perchance injured in some way from her fall.” The look the woman shot me made it clear she hoped for major brain damage.

  The Elizabeth actor rose to her feet and gracefully crossed the room with more speed than seemed possible in these restrictive dresses. She lightly probed my forehead with long, cool fingers. “Poor dear, you might be befuddled after all. Here, you shall sit until you have fully recovered your senses.” The woman urged me down into another carved wooden chair and then tucked a shawl across my shoulders.