by Brian Toal
In his hospital room, Todd groaned and shifted in his sleep, his hand coming up and across his face as if to shield himself from a blow. His recovery had been slow, his waking hours still minimal and limited in productivity, but the part of him that had been so severely touched could feel its presence and was afraid.
"Is he awake?" Sharon whispered as Chris' eye stared up at her, the iris a deep blue, in the pale night-light. She bent down towards him. "What’s he doing?" Her tears forgotten as she watched his left eye, the other still closed in sleep, rotate in its socket to watch her every move.
She felt a pull as if a magnet was invisibly pulling at the scalp of her forehead, gently but irresistibly drawing her forwards.
Beth spoke from behind her. "Sharon I don't like this.”
"Yes." Sharon answered dreamily, she felt like she wanted to lay down in bed with her son and place her head next to his own. To hold him. To join him. To become one with him.
She put one knee on the bed, about to climb up and beside her son.
"Sharon, stop it!" Beth spoke harshly, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her backwards, shattering her mesmerisation.
A high pitched moan escaped Chris' mouth as his eye rotated upwards to stare into her face once again. Then suddenly, there was an explosion of pain and pressure within her skull. Her vision blurred as she began to sag onto her knees, her arms useless and limp at her sides. There was an alien communication between herself and her son. A twisted rush of energy emanating from his prone body. She collapsed onto her knees at the end of his bed - like a sacrificial victim - allowing the pain to grow within her head. Dimly she was aware of Beth stepping around her and over to Chris' side.
Beth brought her hand down hard across Chris’ face - once, twice. “Chris wake up!" Grabbing his limp body in her hands and shaking his shoulders roughly. "Wake up!"
The pain was unbearable, Sharon’s vision blurring as her eyes were forced upwards and outwards by the increasing pressure within her head. She struggled to move her hands and body, to move from the energy that grew within her...
Then it ended. Cut off.
Replaced by a scream from her son.
Sharon looked up to see Chris' arms wrapped around her sister’s shoulders as she leaned over him on the bed.
"Oh, Aunt Beth! I dreamed I was going to kill my mom!" Chris wailed.
Sharon still knelt by his bedside and as Chris lifted his head over Beth’s shoulder and looked down at her, his eyes were wide with panic. Then he stretched his hands out towards her and screamed, "Mom, I was going to kill you!"
SIX - THREE
As Aaron Murance drifted off to sleep, having finally calmed his excitement with two straight shots of Jack Daniel's, the MRI pictures of the foreign strands woven throughout the boy's brain were firmly emblazoned in his thoughts. New and totally foreign Axons, the pathways for information to move from one area of the brain to another, infiltrated and connected large areas of the boy' brain.
His initial exhilaration at his discovery of the child's telekinetic ability had long since faded. So had his thoughts of medical fame. He knew he would have this boy as a patient for only a short time. Already, the calls he made tonight would be arousing interest in facilities he knew existed, although he had little knowledge of their accountability. Sometime soon, some hard-faced, determined individuals, with impeccable credentials would arrive to remove the boy from his care. He had tomorrow and maybe the day after to satisfy his own curiosity.
It was also unlikely he would ever be able to publish what he discovered. The changes that had occurred in that boy's head could only have occurred through one path. Intentional intervention of an intelligence and method far beyond the capabilities of any known medical facility. The colleagues he had contacted tonight would eventually reach that same conclusion themselves. His time with the boy would be extremely limited.
The welcoming comfort of sleep had barely eased his thoughts when the phone rang, awaking both him and his wife sleeping next to him. As he pushed himself up on his elbow and reached for the phone on the bedside table, his initial thought was, the call would be about his son, in trouble with the law once again. His twenty-four-year-old son had abandoned the business major he had been pursuing for the last three years and had taken full time to the streets of Detroit. His playful experimentation with cocaine and crack having become a full-time obsession. Twice, in the last three months, Aaron had received a late-night phone call from the police downtown. But tonight, as he reached for the phone, and remembered the preceding evening, he knew that this call would not be about his own son.
"Dr. Murance! Thank God!" The female voice that came through the receiver was a voice he recognized from only a few hours ago.
"What is the problem Mrs. Rutherford?"
"Chris needs to return to the hospital! He almost killed his mother."
Aaron flung his feet to the floor, the cobwebs of sleep evaporating from his mind. "What?"
"He almost killed Sharon!" Beth repeated. "He’s panic stricken and says he can't go back to sleep or he could lose control entirely."
"He was asleep, when this happened?"
"Yes. He says something is interfering with his mind. He’s terrified, Doctor. He needs help."
"He attacked his mother in his sleep?"
"No, not him! I’m convinced Chris was not aware of what he was doing. He was asleep, but his left eye was open and it was definitely tracking Sharon. He says there is something interfering with his thoughts and he can’t go back to sleep. He’s afraid he’ll try to kill his mother again.”
Aaron thought rapidly. The new Axons in the boy's brain connected directly with the Striate Cortex, the area of the brain responsible for optic reception, and as well the Autonomic system - which controls the physical movement of his eyes. When the boy was asleep, the conscious control of the input and movements of his eyes would be lost. The new functioning of the brain would have entire control over their actions and since the foreign Axons linked the optic centre with the rest of the brain - possibly it would control his telekinetic ability as well.
"Take him to the hospital right away and bring him up to my office. I’ll meet you there and don't let him go back to sleep. Chris is probably right, he would be unable to control his ability if he goes to sleep."
"We’ll be there in half an hour," Beth responded, hanging up the phone."
SIX - FOUR
Aaron Murance beat the family to the hospital, not that he lived any closer. He was just more determined to arrive at his office before them - he had one important task to accomplish before they arrived.
He had torn off his night clothes, answering his wife's concerned questions as best as he could as he pulled on yesterday's clothes. Aaron was in medical research and not since his intern days had he answered emergency calls at the hospital. Grabbing his suit coat off the back of the chair he whispered goodbye to his wife, then he rushed down the stairs to his car. The 2:30 am traffic was almost non-existent as he pushed his New Yorker up to seventy-five down Woodward, flashing through two red lights before he made the right turn into the Doctors' parking lot. The parking lot attendant, munching on a meatball sub, watched in silent amazement as the doctor leapt over the hand railing from the parking lot and rushed through the doors into the hospital. Aaron did not keep medical supplies in his office. Rarely, in his line of research did he have need for medication of any sort. Most of his research was done through post-mortem dissection or tests conducted when he stepped in during scheduled brain penetrations by other surgeons. His portion of research was done during a pause in the actual performance of the operation. He did have access to the hospital pharmacy however, and this is where he hurried before heading up to his office.
The older pharmacist sitting behind the counter looked up in surprise as Aaron barged into his domain, his face red from exertion, the top three buttons of his shirt hanging open. Aaron took his hospital drug card out of his wallet and placed it on the counter. "Twenty-
five milligrams of Midazolam," he said, trying to control his breathing.
The old pharmacist reached for his drug card and looked up at the doctor quizzically. "What are you trying to do Doc, anaesthetize a buffalo?"
Aaron forced a smile onto his face, "Not quite." He had already thought of a deliberately vague answer for requesting such a large dosage of injectable anaesthetics, "but I expect to do several penetrations within the next day or so."
"Oh, really." The pharmacist turned away, his dis-interest in the doctor’s schedule apparent.
"Give me three auto-injectors as well." Aaron called after him, referring to the specific type of injector that automatically injects a chosen amount of medicine into a patient without the need of preparing a syringe.
The pharmacist replied with a wave of his hand, shortly returning with three cardboard tubes containing the auto-injectors and the anaesthetic in a small glass bottle. Running Aaron's card through his scanner, thereby identifying which and how much medicine was issued to him, he handed the articles across the counter. "Getting an early start?" He asked, as his eyes took in the doctor's disarrayed clothing.
"No, just leaving, but I thought I’d get ready for when I return this afternoon."
"Oh, right. Well, have a good sleep Doc." The pharmacist resumed his seat behind the counter, picking up the magazine he had put aside.
"Thanks." Aaron pushed his way through the door and resumed the run up to his offices.
Just down the hall from his office, closed and dark in the early morning was a private washroom used by the doctors and secretaries that had offices on this wing. Extracting his key ring from his pocket, Aaron opened the door and stepped inside, flipping the lights on as he entered. The washroom consisted of a single toilet and washbasin, and to protect the user from unexpected interruptions, there was a twist lock attached to the inner surface of the door. Aaron twisted the lock and removed the Midazolam from his pocket. From his other pocket he removed one of the auto-injectors. The auto-injector he held in his hand was an enclosed capsule which injects a predetermined amount of fluid, without the need to press a plunger. Press the tube against the skin, depress the black button on the end - and for the squeamish the job is done - the tiny needle jabs through the skin, squirts in the injection and it is all over in less than a second.
He quickly removed the back end of the ejector and filled it with the twenty mg of the anaesthetic, then paused and added five more. Midazolam is a powerful neuro depressant. He figured twenty-five milligrams was probably too much anaesthetic for Chris' body weight. But, if he had to use the auto-injector, he wanted an immediate response. With twenty-five milligrams of Midazolam the boy would be unconscious and his brain functions incapacitated in the short period of time it took for his blood to circulate once through his body. If Chris went into coronary arrest, because of the high dosage, the emergency department was only an elevator ride away.
Aaron activated the auto-injector driver and put the tube into his suit-coat pocket.
SIX - FIVE
Beth, Sharon and Chris arrived at Aaron’s door only a few minutes after he had returned to his office. Both Beth and Sharon had a look of haunted panic about their faces, although Chris looked remarkably controlled and almost surreal with his carefully regulated composure. Possibly he is the only one who can relax, Aaron figured, as only he knows if he is about to do something unexpected.
"Tell me, Chris, what you felt, just before your Aunt woke you up." Aaron asked, as the three sat themselves around his desk.
Chris drew a deep breath and, like a speaker about to address an audience, glanced individually at the three adults. "I was dreaming I was using some sort of machine, I don't know what it was, because I couldn't see. It was like I was in a big black tube and everything was dark. I couldn't see anything, I only knew what I had to do, but I couldn't see if I did it or not. And there were people talking to me, saying things, confusing things. Telling me to do stuff. One of them..." He hesitated looking at his Aunt,"...one of them spoke like Uncle Charlie speaks...not that I could actually hear his voice, but it was like the way he usually says things, you know, short and choppy sentences."
Beth turned towards him, "My husband is returning to Detroit this morning. He had to stay behind at the mining camp because of an accident they had there."
"An accident like Chris had?"
"No, nothing like that. It was a train accident."
Aaron nodded, "so these voices were telling you to do things. What sort of things?"
Chris paused, thinking. "I don't know exactly. It was all muddled and mixed up. The one like Uncle Charlie kept asking where I was, where I had been, who was there with me. Another voice seemed like it was angry. It kept telling me to do something and I was trying not to, and it kept telling me to smarten up or something like that. Like I was in school and the teacher was saying 'come on you know what to do, don't waste class time'. It was really weird. I've never had a dream like it.”
"Then what happened? After you heard these voices."
Chris continued, his voice a monotone, his eyes partially closed. "I saw my Mom and Aunt Beth standing beside me. But it was different like...like they were different people. People I didn't know. I knew they were Mom and Aunt Beth, but they...they were like strangers. Unpleasant, scary strangers. I didn't like them!" Chris' voice choked up and he turned towards his Mom, sitting beside him. "And Mom I love you!" He flung his arms around his mother and hugged her tight. "And I would never want to hurt you."
Sharon held her son tight. She too could feel a lump in her throat. But the feeling of an impending, horrible death was still too recent. A death that would have been caused by her own son. Gently she spoke, "Chris tell the Doctor what else you felt."
Chris slowly disengaged himself from his mother and turned to face the doctor, snuffing at his tears. "I thought they were bad and were going to hurt me and so I...I thought about my Mom's head and...how it would look if...if...I pulled it apart!" Tears were streaming down his face. "But I couldn't, every time I tried to make a picture, a picture of my Mom, my real Mom would appear instead. Pictures where she is sitting beside me on my bed talking with me just before I go to sleep or helping me build sandcastles on the beach or driving me to school. Like part of me was saying - you hate her, get rid of her and another part of me was saying - no, you love her!" Chris' sobs increased in volume as he looked miserably at the Doctor, " And then I woke up and Aunt Beth was hitting me!" Chris finished, his shoulders heaving. "And now I can't go back to sleep, because I’m afraid I’ll think the same thoughts again."
Aaron steepled his fingers in front of him, thinking. It sounded like the boy had developed a sudden case of split personality. But coupled with horribly dangerous abilities.
"And you Mrs. Rutherford," he turned to address Beth, "You slapped him awake when you saw your sister was in pain and mesmerized by her son?"
"Yes, it was too scary. I knew something was wrong with Sharon and Chris was looking right at her. But it wasn’t Chris, it was his one eye. It looked totally lifeless, but all the time following Sharon’s movements, even when she fell to the floor. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I see... I can understand why you felt you had to do something.” He turned to Chris, "Chris up until this evening did you have any other dreams similar to this one?"
Chris shook his head, wiping at his tears.
"And you say, until you saw your Mother and Aunt, your dream was vision-less? You had no visual records of what you were feeling?"
Chris shook his head again.
Aaron continued, his face a frown of perplexity, "that is extremely odd. Dreams are a visual experience, sometimes only in black and white and sometimes of low resolution, but always visual in nature. Yet you state, the first part of your dream was conducted in a featureless tube."
"Yeah," Chris answered rubbing his hand across his nose. "It was all black, I only heard things, but I didn't see anything."
Aaron was
silent for some time, absorbing yet another disquieting fact, then he shook his head, abolishing it from his thoughts. He knew now that he had to ask the question he had been dreading and would determine his future course of action. "Chris, you’re upset right now, and that is understandable. But do you feel any sense of a lack of control? Could something unexpected happen as we speak?"
Chris sat still for a moment as if monitoring the functions within his body. "No. I can tell if I’m going to do something, because I always see pictures of what I’m going to do. But if I go to sleep again...." He left the thought unfinished.
"Well, I can certainly prevent you from sleeping for a few more hours," Aaron began. "Very shortly the day staff will arrive and we’ll run the most extensive batch of tests I can possibly think of to see if we can determine a way to disable these new axons that have developed." He paused, rubbing his eyes as if to clear away some unpleasant thoughts. "Look..." he began, "normally I don’t share technical data with patients. It doesn’t seem to do a lot of good, as usually they are only interested in my prognosis. But, because of the circumstances I think it’s important you all have a good understanding what is occurring within Chris' head. Do you want me to continue?"
Sharon nodded. "I think it’s best we know the facts."
Aaron sighed. "Okay. We did two procedures a few hours ago. An MRI and an EEG. I'll get to the EEG and what we learned, in a minute. But, as I mentioned last night, Chris has hundreds, possibly thousands of growths within his brain unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. These growths, like thin tubes that closely resemble the natural axons in the brain, seem to have attached themselves to some very specific areas. Not random at all. When you tell me Chris was watching you while he was asleep - I can believe it. An area of the brain called the Striate Cortex, which contains both his primary and secondary visual areas, is massively penetrated with these new axons. These same invaders have connected the Striate Cortex with the Autonomic System and Chris' Premotor Cortex. The Autonomic System controls, among other things, the physical environment of the eyes - when they blink, how tight they focus, how many tears are produced, everything except where to point them. The Premotor Cortex directs the movement of the eyes as well as orchestrates the neck muscles so that an object can be tracked. However, it needs conscious direction from the Hippocampus. But..." Aaron leaned back in his chair, trying to construct his discoveries into simple phrases. "The Hippocampus - where it is thought decisions are produced because of its links with memory, sensory input etc. - is also massively infiltrated. So, the areas of Chris' brain responsible for sight, the muscles for moving his eyes, his ability to track objects and his decision-making processes all have been linked together. Consequently, it is entirely possible that Chris could be asleep but his eyes could be open, functioning and receiving data."