Tempus Genesis

by Michael McCourt

Mary, Minnie and Jamie huddled next to a large concrete pillar, one of many that supported the large square fourteen story hospital. St Thomas hospital in Lambeth was the next riverside building west of the County Hall and almost opposite the Houses of Parliament. The three friends waited at one of the corners that faced out onto the River Thames.

  “Where are they?” Mary asked of no one in particular.

  They were trying not to look suspicious and awkwardly tried to look relaxed each time a jogger passed by. It was approaching ten pm and Oliver had asked them to meet Jenny and him at this point.

  Mary continued, “We shouldn’t be doing this, we will all get booted from college, disciplined by the GMC, struck off even.”

  “No we won’t, medicine has always sailed close to the wind with ethics, to secure advances,” Jamie said countering Mary’s concerns.

  “Bollocks,” Mary argued back, “Oliver is going to undertake research that isn’t regulated, doesn’t have ethical approval, isn’t licensed or funded.”

  Jamie looked down.

  Mary quizzed him, “Jamie? What have you done? Have you given Oliver money for this?”

  Jamie smiled innocently, “A couple of thousand, that’s all, it’s helped him to buy the base enzymes and chemicals for his agent thingy.”

  “But you must have got them illegally Jamie, Minnie did you know about this?”

  “Don’t look at me, I know nothing,” Minnie said defending himself.

  “And a bit of equipment as well,” Jamie added.

  “Equipment?” Mary asked.

  “He didn’t say what, just equipment.”

  “We are in such deep shit,” Mary said as she ran her fingers through her hair looking round for help from an invisible helpful person.

  Minnie wanted to say something suitably foolish to try to lighten the moment but he too had reservations. If I’m anxious he thought this must be seriously dodgy.

  All three faced away from the building, rooted to the spot Oliver had described so precisely for them to wait upon. None had noticed they stood in front of a glazed fire exit with obscure glass panes. The entire ground floor was largely floor to ceiling height glass and the door was easily lost in the design of the building. None saw the opaque outline of a figure arrive at the door from the inside.

  They stood in silence, looking up and down the River front for Oliver and Jenny approaching. A bar on the inside of the door clicked and the door sprung open rapidly. Mary gasped as she turned quickly in fright, Jamie and Minnie too spun around whilst reeling back from the unexpected intrusion into their anxious wait.

  “Are you coming in or not then?” Oliver asked from within the shadows of the stairwell he stood within.

  “You bastard,” Minnie said.

  “Oliver, what on earth are you up to?” Mary asked angrily.

  “Come in and I’ll show you,” Oliver replied.

  The three entered the building and Oliver re-sealed the fire exit from the inside.

  “Come on,” Oliver said as he led the way down steep and dimly lit concrete stairs that wound down two or three flights or so.

  “Not many people know about the lower ground floors under the hospital,” Oliver explained, “it houses storage, some animal experiment areas, an overspill for the mortuary.”

  Oliver moved quickly down the stairs, relaxed and alert, quite the opposite to his anxious friends who reluctantly followed him. Once in the bowels of the building they made their way through the eerie maze like corridors. It was almost entirely dark lit only by emergency lighting. They turned one corner and they could hear the sound of animals moving in cages behind the doors of the discrete animal testing laboratories.

  In the farthest reaches of the hospital basement, at the end of a long thin corridor one room stood out. A dim light glimmered through its half paned door. Oliver approached the door, he held up a hand for the others to stop. He waited a moment and then gave three knocks, paused then two more on the glass.

  “You even have a secret knock, nice touch Frankenstein,” Minnie commented.

  The door opened and Jenny welcomed them in to the room. Once inside they looked around. The room had been used to operate on and test pigs, to study the effects of fire, gunshot wounds, to help advance medicine for troops injured in battle. It smelled vaguely farm-like but appeared surgically clean. It had a DRE surgeon’s power procedures chair that could be inclined from flat to seating. Clean steel treatment trolleys were either side with packs of sterile hypodermics, syringe pumps, IV lines and cannula placed on the trolleys shelves.

  At the head of the medical chair and trolleys were an ECG machine and a portable brain scanner (which was yet to be fully licensed and mass produced). A final trolley had equipment for taking bloods and generating hematology reports.

  Oliver had a digital video camera set up, linked to a widescreen TV on a stand. A laptop was set up and switched on, it had internet connectivity and was also linked through to the video camera. On the large desk where the laptop was Oliver had Dyers research and his own papers carefully organised for ease of access.

  On the far side were sinks and Oliver had even thought of tea and coffee making facilities and a microwave. A small fridge was beneath the worktop. Off the room was a toilet and shower facility. In one corner two small sofa beds were positioned. Oliver was clearly planning to be in this for the duration.

  “How on earth have you established all this down here, without getting caught?” Mary asked disbelieving what she was seeing.

  “We learned a new way of getting things done in Vietnam, ‘Money Talks’,” Oliver said mocking Vans finger rubbing signs.

  “You’ve bribed someone?” Mary asked with her head on one side.

  “Hired somebody’s silence I think is a nicer way of putting it,” Oliver replied.

  “Impressive set up,” Jamie said.

  Oliver updated his friends, “We’ve already run some initial simulations, run through the procedures. Jenny’s proved herself a very able assistant.”

  Jenny smiled. Mary shook her head. Minnie played with the camera and Jamie slapped Oliver on the back.

  “Well we’re all fucked having seen this set up, so let’s get started, what do you need us to do?” Jamie asked.

  Minnie interrupted before Oliver could start issuing instructions, “I have one question?”

  “Yes,” Oliver said.

  “Does that fridge have beer in it?” Minnie asked.

  Oliver laughed, “Yes, help yourself, Jamie, I need to be hooked up to the ECG and have the cannula, pump and IV line set up. I’ve prepared several batches of differing strengths of Dyer’s regression agent 42A though I’ve refined it significantly. I’m ready to try administering a dose of the serum.”

  Minnie loudly opened a can of beer and took a long drink, attracting the attention of his friends. He beamed a smile, “This is like watching some fucked up head banging movie.”

  Minnie drunk some more beer from his can.

  Oliver continued, “Mary if you could take bloods and do a baseline hematology analysis, Jenny if you could begin recording, Mary would you take notes as well.”

  Minnie spoke once more, “Phone an ambulance when his head explodes, mop up his brain, forensically clean the crime scene.”

  “Are you going to be helpful at all?” Jenny asked Minnie.

  “Probably not.”

  “Lazy shit, look lock the door, help me film,” Jenny instructed. Minnie put down his can and joined the increasingly serious atmosphere before him.

  They worked well together, setting Oliver up on the surgical chair which they inclined three quarters back. Over the next thirty minutes he had baseline readings of his heart and brain, his bloods taken and the IV infusion system set up with a venflon butterfly cannula taped to the back of his left hand. The syringe driver rested on his lap with a dose of Agent 42A ready in its chamber.

  “I can’t believe I am doing this,” Mary said breaking the business like work that had been ta
king place.

  Oliver reassured them all, “Relax, this will be fun, pleasurable and it will ultimately help Jenny. Let’s enjoy the ride.”

  “What makes up the agent then?” Jamie asked tapping the chamber on the driver where the thick clear fluid was.

  Oliver explained more of what he now knew, “Thiamine, serotoin, dopamine, other enzymes related to neuro-transmission. The serum is based on the blood profiles of psychics who could regress. Dyer discovered these unlock the memories in the DNA. They also amplify the experience, so some part of you actually goes back, your energy actually transfers between two points, the here and now and the past. In effect you’re in two places at once, you sit on someone else’s genes, people in the past play host to your visits. Like Jenny says, you look out from behind their eyes.”

  Oliver went into his pocket and pulled out an elastic band. He took scissors and cut the band so it was just one long piece. He demonstrated Dyers theory by scrunching and stretching the band whilst he explained.

  “Look If I scrunch up this rubber band between my finger and thumb, and we imagine that represents me now, the agent comes along, when you inject it, and helps a piece of you, back into the past, to another point.”

  Oliver stretched the band out between his hands.

  “With you’re energy suspended between the two. Jennie says she can control how far the band stretches. We’ll see what this serum can do for me.”

  Mary remained sceptical and concerned, “Okay, what if the band snaps or, the here and now end, breaks free and goes over to the past end?”

  Mary flicked the band in Oliver’s left hand making it snap back to his right.

  “That won’t happen,” Oliver said.

  “Like totally fucking outrageous Ol, I’ve got to see this baby fly,” Minnie said shaking his head enthusiastically.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Oliver said and laid back on the surgical chair. He closed his eyes and operated the syringe driver, the serum oozed through the IV line towards the cannula and entered Oliver’s venous system.

  The camera rolled and the room fell quiet. Minnie studied Oliver’s image on the widescreen TV. Oliver laid still with the pump rested on his lap, his hands relaxed by his side.

  They waited. Jamie was about to speak when the regression agent kicked in. A trace of blue static skipped across Oliver’s face, he screamed and went rigid, his head arched back and his spine lifted from the surgical power chair.

  “Oh my god,” was all that Mary could utter.

  “Pulse rate rocketing,” Jamie said as he followed the ECG trace.

  Oliver’s eyes opened then rolled back, his body went flat down and his head moved back into a more natural position. Oliver’s skin tightened across his face, then a shudder commenced shaking every bone in his body, his epidermis faded to a moon grey and Oliver emitted a low hissing moan.

  “Mary prepare the diazepam, twenty mils,” Jamie advised.

  “I’m on it,” Mary worked her way through a hypodermic pack and phial of Diazepam and drew up a shot.

  “Oliver?” Jenny asked trying to raise a connection with him.

  Mary stepped forward but stopped as a smile came across Oliver’s face.

  “Some ride,” he said.

  “Pulse settling down, eighty, seventy five,” Jamie commented reading the trace out loud.

  Oliver would never have believed what he had just experienced. This was more than his wildest fantasies had anticipated ever since his ideas on regression began. He had the experience of dropping a thousand feet in a few seconds, falling through white and blue swirling light and matter. He felt he had passed through a genetic cosmos, a mysterious system concealed from the human eye. Oliver compared the journey to a roller coaster, he felt barely able to steer himself but after a few seconds it seemed natural to speed up or slow down. All he had to do was step off now to join a soul, one of billions that floated in constellations in this universe of minds, memories and time.

  Oliver opened his mind’s eye and was stunned by what he saw. Oliver looked out through a mans eye, he could feel him breathing, touch his very senses. He looked out and could feel the air on his skin, smell the scents which flowed around him. It was a medieval scene before him, dirt tracks, a street scene. Women walked up and down the street in different forms of clothing, simple plain wool tunics for the poor, the peasants, more fashionable surcoats and skirts for those of a higher class. Men wore robes and long coats that fell to the instep, pointed hats and ornate gold draped about their neck. Oliver surmised he was in a wealthy district, with shops either side of the narrow street. The peasants appeared to be serving the wealthy, carrying bags and goods and walking some steps behind their noble leaders. Oliver could see a blacksmiths, a shop selling clothes, jewelry, he could hear harp music somewhere in the distance. He could see the man he was with was wearing the finest clothes, he smiled pleased he was with someone of a certain class.

  “Are you okay?” Jamie asked, prompting Oliver to check in with his friends back in the cellar of the hospital.

  “I’m fine. Just fine. It’s real Jamie. I can smell, feel, this mans life, I selected him. I knew how to stop and choose him. Jenny you’re right.”

  “It’s wonderful isn’t it Oliver, where are you?” Jenny asked.

  “I should have done a crash course in history, medieval times, London possibly, very narrow streets but it’s quite built up. Very busy.”

  Oliver stayed with the man observing his progress. His host came upon a handsome woman, dressed smartly. Oliver listened to the exchange, his host had a refined voice as did the woman;

  “Good day to you my Lord, I trust you are well?”

  “My health is very good thanking you. I am hoping to find some fine flowers for you for this evening.”

  “So you and Lady Williams will be joining us for dinner, I am pleased.”

  “We are very much looking forward to your hospitality Catherine, I’m still full from the last meal you served us.”

  Together the Lord and the female laughed. Oliver smiled at the experience, this was bigger than anything ever he thought.

  Oliver recalled aspects of what he saw and asked Mary to make notes, “Okay we are turning down a side street, Shipmaster Lane, he is a Lord, I’ve picked well, his dress looks expensive from what I can see reflected in the glass of shop windows. You’ve all got to try this.”

  “No thanks,” Mary muttered under her breath.

  Oliver watched his host as he turned down a quieter street, suddenly leaving the bustle behind them. Must be a good flower shop Oliver surmised. The street had small alleys off, was less well presented and he sensed a quickening of the noble mans pulse.

  Both Oliver and his host were taken by surprise when the figure lurched from the shadows towards them.

  “What on earth?”

  The Lord was startled as an old vagrant peasant lumbered towards him, an arm outstretched before him to halt the Lord’s progress. Oliver noticed the roughness of his skin, it’s misshapen appearance and he thought he noticed blue hues across his filthy brown eyes.

  “Not a step closer peasant or I will take my stick to you.”

  The peasant quickened his step in response, suddenly nimble and before the nobleman could react the peasant had grabbed him by the throat.

  “My God, put me down you ragbag.”

  The Lord struggled with the man but Oliver could feel great strength from the weak looking vagrant. He drew the Lord close to him, Oliver thought he might strike with his head onto the Lords nose. He drew the nobleman’s face close to his dirt engrained face and they touched nose to nose. Oliver could see and smell the vagrant he was up so close. What he said next left Oliver cold and afraid. The peasant spoke slowly, deliberately.

  “Subject Oliver, we know you are in there, watching.”

  The Lord struggled.

  “You my man are drunk, unhand me now, I will have you locked up.”

  The peasant did not falter but continued his ins
tructive advice.

  “Heed our words subject Oliver, we are past warning you. Go home and leave this alone.”

  And with that said the peasant collapsed at the feet of the Lord. The nobleman kicked him hard, stepped over him and walked on.

  Shocked Oliver pushed the panic button, whatever that was, he wasn’t sure how he did it but he rapidly returned to his present self sat within the laboratory he had created.

  Oliver sat upright rapidly, his eyes came down and he gasped for air, “Jesus.”

  “Are you alright?” asked Jamie.

  “Has something frightened you?” Jenny asked as if familiar with fear when regressing.

  Oliver gathered himself and though he was back he was still pale, “no, I am okay, it is just the rush, it takes your breath away. It is a very powerful experience. This is big, this is so fucking big.”

  Oliver swung his legs off the power chair, “but enough for tonight, for the first time, we should all go home.”

  The four friends and Jenny moved quietly around the room, all somewhat stunned by what had occurred. Jenny checked Oliver was okay and he gave her a reassuring rub on her back. Together they closed down the night’s single experiment, all of them uncertain where this might take them.

  28.