“Completely normal,” assured Dr. Wilson. “After all, you haven’t used them for nearly seven months.”
“I use them every day,” said Debbie. “More than I’d like to.” Slowly Debbie moved her trembling arm, looked at the hand that only a few minutes ago had born such a deep scar. “It’s all healed up.”
“Healed up?” asked Ron. “There hasn’t been a scar on your hand since you’ve been here. A red mark appeared on it last night but it’s already faded, see?”
“I’ll want to get another EEG and a CAT scan,” noted Dr. Wilson, “but it can wait for a while. Let’s get Debbie back to her room for now, let her have some time with her parents.”
A moment later the orderlies assisted Debbie onto the gurney and back to her room. Her parents met her in the hallway. It was an indeed joyous reunion. Within Debbie’s room the strange revelations of another world were shared. Debbie’s parents weren’t quite prepared for what they heard.
“But you haven’t been anywhere,” said Christa, taking her daughter’s hand. “You haven’t been a slave working in a deep cavern somewhere. You’ve been here all along. You collapsed during that dreadful séance or whatever you want to call it. Your friend Leslie called 911 right away. You’ve been under a doctor’s care ever since. We’ve been with you every day since.”
“But Leslie isn’t here anymore is she?” retorted Debbie. “She has been my cellmate for weeks. She collapsed right there in the West Shore Shopping Center. Isn’t that true?”
Her mother seemed shocked. “Dear, how could you possibly know that?”
“Because that’s what she told me,” insisted Debbie.
Christa and her husband shared confused gazes. This went way beyond their collective experiences.
Ron rushed into Dr. Wilson’s office, catching the doctor on the phone with his contact at Martin International relaying to them the good news. Ron’s bewildered expression caused the doctor to cut his call short.
“Doctor, I’m sorry to bother you but I think you better come and hear this,” said Ron.
Doctor Wilson made his way with Ron to Debbie’s room and the story was told once more. Debbie seemed both frightened and agitated as she told the story for the third time, only this time in more detail and with Dr. Wilson and several of his colleagues in attendance.
“I didn’t imagine it all,” insisted Debbie. “I know the difference between a dream and reality.”
The story told, all eyes in the room switched from Debbie to Dr. Wilson. There was a long silence. For a moment the doctor’s gaze seemed far away. Then his attention focused upon Debbie.
“I believe you, though I cannot explain to you how such a thing could have happened,” he said.
Debbie seemed truly surprised. “You really do? You’re not just trying to humor me?”
“No, I’m not,” confirmed Dr. Wilson. “Your story explains so much about your condition. I think we need to get on with the EEG and the CAT scan. Perhaps they will tell us more about what happened to you. Then we’ll go from there. I’d like you to stay here under observation for a couple more nights before I send you home. Your mom and dad can stay here with you. I’ll make the arrangements. We need to figure out what is going on here.”
Debbie nodded. “Sure, doctor, maybe what you find out will help the others who are still trapped in that horrible place. There are so…”
Quite suddenly Debbie’s eyes took on a distant stare even as she slumped back into the bed. Immediately Debbie’s father was at her side.
“Debbie, Debbie,” said Tom, taking her hand in his.
She didn’t respond, she had slipped away once again.
The sound of her father’s voice faded away only to be replaced by the sounds of the subterranean cells of the drells. She opened her eyes on an all too familiar scene.
“No,” she whispered. “It was so real; it couldn’t have been a dream.”
She sat up on her stone bed, buried her face in her hands. Being here now seemed even worse than before. It was only then that she noticed that her hand no longer hurt. She quickly unfurled the bloody bandages to discover her hand; unscarred and whole once more. But how? She smiled. She knew how. It hadn’t been a dream, it was real and somehow she had been healed in the process. She pulled her glowing crystal from the bag and examined the scar on her arm that had been delivered by the taskmaster’s whip several weeks ago. What scar? It too was gone. She was a new person, strengthened and unblemished.
“Why are you up?” whispered Leslie.
Debbie turned to her cellmate who starred at her intently.
“They don’t give us enough sleep time as it is,” complained Leslie. “You’ll be in no shape for work in the morning.”
“I just had an incredible dream,” replied Debbie. “No, it wasn’t a dream at all.”
Leslie’s eyes became like two saucers. “Your voice, it’s so loud. Debbie, you got your voice back.”
In her excitement over the vanishing of the scars Debbie had failed to notice that. “You’re right.”
Leslie rose to her feet and took a seat beside Debbie on her bed. She looked at Debbie oh so carefully in the light of the crystal. She definitely looked different. Then Leslie focused her gaze on her friend’s hand. “Debbie your hand, that deep gash is gone. You’ve been healed.”
“Yes,” confirmed Debbie. “I don’t know if it’s a gift from God or if it was caused by what Dr. Wilson did. Maybe it’s both.”
Leslie’s confusion grew. “Who is Dr. Wilson?” She paused. “I think you need to tell me about this dream of yours.”
And so it began. The telling of the story went on for over half an hour. It was all so incredible yet Leslie believed every word. The proof was right there in front of her.
“And I’m back there on Earth too, alive?” asked Leslie.
“That’s what they told me,” replied Debbie. “I think you’re going to get a trip home too, just like I did.”
“If I do, I’m going to try and stay,” said Leslie. She paused for a minute. “But wait a minute; if we’re both here and we’re both there, well, how can that be? I mean, that’s got to violate some law of science, doesn’t it? I mean, you were taking AP physics, you know about all of that stuff.”
“Yes, I was,” confirmed Debbie. “It should violate the law of conservation of mass. I learned that back in AP Chemistry.”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “The brain speaks. But how can that be?”
“Debbie shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know we’re here. Look, we can’t tell anyone else about this, not yet. We need to make a plan. I think I might have found a way to get us home, this FENS machine that Dr. Wilson talked about. I know for sure that he’ll try to bring one of us back again. And when he does we have to be ready to make a plan to get everyone back.”
Leslie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but why didn’t you stay back there? I mean, why did you end up back here?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Debbie, “that will be something that Dr. Wilson and Ron will have to figure out. They’re real smart men, I mean they’re doctors. They’ll figure it all out eventually. But we need to keep a low profile until then. We can’t have the drells figuring out what’s going on.”
Leslie nodded. “I’ll keep your secret.”
“Better than you kept the secret about that tat I got at the mall?” said Debbie.
“Oh it was just a little one on your…”
“But word got out, didn’t it,” insisted Debbie.
“I promise not to tell a soul,” swore Leslie.
“We need to get some sleep,” said Debbie. “Your right about not being any good at work tomorrow.”
Leslie rose and headed for her own bed. Then she abruptly turned back toward Debbie. “But wait a minute Deb, I think you’re forgetting something. Won’t the others notice your voice and the healing of your hand?”
“I need to remember to only whisper around them,” said Debbie. “I’ll keep the bandage wrapped
around my hand.”
“But the scars,” said Leslie. That one on your right shoulder was a beauty. People are going to notice that it’s gone.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” replied Debbie. “The others are so focused on not getting a lash applied to them that I think my vanishing scars will be the last thing they notice.”
Leslie nodded and then returned to her bed. Still, she didn’t seem like she was ready to go back to sleep. She was just too wound up. So was Debbie. It was the better part of an hour before she faded off again. She had new hope. There was a way out of here, she knew that now. They had found new friends on the outside and she was certain that they were determined on breaking her and Leslie out of this joint.
Dr. Wilson looked on as Debbie was wheeled from the CAT scan lab. He shook his head sadly. What the hell had gone wrong? Indeed, he might have asked himself why it had all gone so right for a time. His conversation with the Langmuir’s had almost become heated at one point when they insisted that Debbie be placed back on the FENS instrument and the procedure repeated to try to bring her back again. He had refused. They needed to look at the data first before they went back and repeated the procedure. Performing it twice in a matter of only a few hours could have unforeseen consequences. They had eventually relented in their insistence but it had been begrudgingly. No, he needed to know why their victory had been so abruptly snatched from them, and that meant studying the data. Why hadn’t he done these tests immediately after the procedure when she was conscious and coherent? It had been a mistake to wait. He’d known it at the time and yet he had yielded to the pressure put on him by patient and parents.
“I don’t get it, doctor,” said Ron. “Why did she suffer a relapse?”
Dr. Wilson turned to his assistant a slight scowl on his face. “You’re asking the wrong question, Ron. What you should be asking is why it worked at all. In our most optimistic appraisals we’d expected to achieve an increase in brainwave activity, perhaps a return to a state of minimal awareness during this first treatment. But that’s not what we got, was it? And there is more. What else doesn’t make sense about what happened?”
“It didn’t take Ron more than a second to catch up with the doctor’s train of thought. “We’d focused the magnetic field to her cerebral cortex and we were about to send the RF signal into her frontal lobe, but we hadn’t initialized the beam yet. We were just about to do that when she became responsive.”
“Continue,” urged Wilson.
“According to your model nothing should have happened, at least not yet,” deduced Ron, “We hadn’t stimulated the affected region of her brain as yet.”
“So?” continued the doctor who still seemed unsatisfied with Ron’s response.
Ron hesitated. “So your model was wrong.” No that was the wrong word. “No, I mean to say still untested. It was that powerful magnetic field that brought her back.”
“But her brain has been exposed to a powerful magnetic field before,” countered Wilson. “She underwent MRIs several times during her illness.”
“But those magnetic fields were not as strong or as focused as the one used in FENS,” countered Ron. “The FENS field was two orders of magnitude stronger than the field employed by even the strongest MRI. No, even more than that. What we’re looking at is a totally unknown effect. Might the FENS magnetic field have drawn electrons from nerve synapses in surrounding areas of the brain into the affected area of the brain and stimulated it, forcing the synapses there to fire again?”
“That’s an interesting hypothesis,” noted Wilson, “one worth following up. But tell me, how do you account for her story of slavery, of drells and wulvers?”
“Pure fantasy,” replied Ron, “it has to be.”
“Is it now?” asked Wilson. “Beware of snap answers. Tell me, my friend, considering the state of her brain activity during these past seven months, could she have achieved a dream state, possibly REM state?”
This time Ron took a moment to respond. “No, not a chance, there was far too little brain activity for that. Dreams require a very active very vital brain, especially in the cerebrum.”
“So she didn’t dream it then. The only other option is that she just made it all up while she was sitting there?” retorted Wilson.
Ron knew that he’d been caught in the web of logic that the doctor had spun. Dr. Wilson seemed to love to do that to people. “I’m not sure,” he finally admitted.
Dr. Wilson smiled, though slightly, “Very well, you’re not sure. And then there is the other question. You yourself caught this one earlier.”
“How could she possibly have known that her friend Leslie had contracted the same affliction,” interjected Ron. “She even knew the details. If she had been in a coma during that entire time how could she have known that?”
“Very good,” said Wilson. “So how could she have made that up on the spur of the moment?”
“Maybe there were times when she approached consciousness and overheard her parents talk about it. Maybe it was even telepathy, ESP, I don’t know.”
“Telepathy,” said Wilson in a scoffing tone. “Now you’re the one dreaming up fanciful theories.”
“But the only other option goes against everything I’d ever believed in,” objected Ron. “I mean, alternate realities, mystical beings, magical crystal balls that can steal your soul, it’s medieval.”
Dr. Wilson chuckled. “Did you know that Einstein’s original equation of general relativity as it was published was wrong?”
That change in the direction of the conversation caught Ron off guard. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, it happens to be true,” assured Wilson. “His equation predicted that the universe should be expanding, he couldn’t accept that. It meant that at some point in the distant past all of the universe was much smaller. It implied that for our universe there was a moment of creation. If the universe had such a moment, a big bang, how was it created? It points to the possibility of God. Einstein felt uncomfortable about that. Therefore, he added an extraneous term to the equation to make the universe stand still. This act of magic on his part was later uncovered by Dr. George Lemaitre, who brought it to the attention of the scientific community at large. Einstein was disgraced. Einstein lamented that it was the worst blunder of his scientific career. If we don’t like where the data leads us throwing parts of it out to ease our conscience is not an option. Tell me, do you recall her mentioning a little girl by the name of Gwen.”
“Yes, I think so, the one Lukor showed mercy to,” said Ron.
“She also said she was from New Hampshire,” said Dr. Wilson. “Well one of my study subjects is Gwen Evans, she has symptoms similar to Debbie’s, is eleven years old, and just happens to be from Laconia, New Hampshire. Debbie’s parents didn’t know about her. I never mentioned it, yet Debbie knew. She described that little girl perfectly. And then there is this David she seems to care so deeply for.”
“Yes, I remember,” confirmed Ron.
“About three months ago I attended a conference on Hobart’s in Oakland, California. There I met a certain Tom Tomlinson. He spoke to me at some length about his son, David. His son sounds an awful lot like Debbie’s David. He is the right age and lives in California. Just another coincidence?”
“You told her that you believed her,” said Ron. “You really did, didn’t you? I mean, you weren’t just humoring her.”
“I don’t just humor anyone,” confirmed Wilson. “Her story answers so many of my deeper questions about her condition, even beyond her description of Gwen and David.” He hesitated. “Remember one of the more unusual symptoms of patients with Hobarts. They all have it but it has gone unreported in the literature. I told you about the marks.”
Ron nodded. “Yes I remember.” Then the reality hit him. Whip marks and scars from the leaching. Is it possible that what happens to their bodies over there is reflected in their bodies here?”
“Apparently,” was Wilson
’s response. “Don’t ask me how, I have no idea. I’ve been Debbie’s attending physician for the past three months. Regarding the leaching; remember she said they did it at regular intervals; every three weeks. Well as you might remember I told you that those bruise-like markings appeared on her body at regular intervals of 22 days like clockwork.”
“Not 21,” noted Ron. “Perhaps the days over there are a bit longer.”
“Possibly,” replied Wilson, “but there are also times when she experiences an accelerated heart rate, almost as though she were under stress. Whatever happens to her over there is indeed reflected to some degree on this side.”
“We’re talking like she really has a dual existence,” noted Ron.
“You have a better explanation?” asked Wilson. “If you suspend your disbelief of the incredible nature of her story, her explanation does meet the requirement of explaining the relevant observations I have made.”
“So where do we go from here, back to the FENS instrument?”
“No, not just yet,” said Wilson. “First I want to see if I can determine why the effects of the magnetic field were only temporary. Right now that doesn’t make sense to me. Then I want to study the data for a few days to see if I can piece some of our observations together into some kind of reasonable theory. Doing anything less could endanger our patient. We’ve come too far to start acting impulsively. Then, maybe, I will authorize another FENS treatment. Anyway, I want to have Karl look over the FENS instrument from headpiece to superconducting coil. He designed and built that thing from the ground up. No one knows it better than he does. I want him and Connie to give FENS a thorough diagnostic before we put Debbie under that thing again. We might well do that on Tuesday if I’m satisfied that we’re ready.”
Ron hesitated. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Do you mind if I take the weekend off? I’d like to follow up another lead, get another opinion. I’d also like to take a copy of the audio recording you made of Debbie’s story with me if that will be OK.”
That seemed to pique Dr. Wilson’s curiosity though he didn’t openly admit it. “Remember to stay within the bounds of doctor patient confidentiality; no full names or addresses.”
The Realm of the Drells Page 9