“Please, be careful. Can I do anything for you?”
“Um; yes, as a matter of fact; you can, if you would. I need several things from my purse.”
“I’m sorry Miss. I can’t leave. I can call someone to get it for you?”
“That would be great. Can you get in touch with Nurse, Ralph Walker? He is staff, on floor two. If you would, ask him to go to my nurse locker 203. He knows where it is. Ask him to bring me my large gray bag?”
“Yes Miss.”
He smiled and shut the door. Angie picked up the book again, stood up and quickly walked into a hallway out of sight to find a private spot to read. She didn’t turn on lights; trying to keep out of security camera’s vision. She intended only to glance into each room as she passed by; but, the first one was the doctor’s bedroom, and she couldn’t resist walking in. Behind the large bed was a magnificent bay window, overlooking the hospital atrium. His suite was enormous and had an adjacent bath, sunken tub and power rain shower. She began examining everything. Thoughts raced through her mind..
It all seems so comfortable, somehow; beautiful carvings in the bedposts. They look like those Egyptian/American Indian symbols; but its more than that; Déjà vu.
Then, she noticed a couple of photographs, on the night table and wall.
“Oh my, that’s me; that’s me in middle school; and that’s my medical school graduation. Dr. B. you were there, but why are these pictures here, like this?”
She pondered as she walked. Through the next door, she found a completely furnished research laboratory.
This has more equipment than some of the research sections in the Complex.
Directly across the hall from the lab was a computer room containing three suspended large paper thin transparent monitors and four L-shaped computers, sitting on a beautiful wrap around wooden desk. She touched and studied the side of the desk.
The same carvings as on his bed; fascinating…
One item on the desk was a solid gold paperweight, twelve inches high; a fish standing on its tail, with a dollar sign coming out of its mouth. The statue had a strange word etched on its base, Allenfar.
Each computer monitor displayed video, and an audio tape traced across the bottom of the screen. Each tape showed a different international time zone and displayed a different language. Two tapes were running characters that looked like the symbols carved in the desk and bed. Angie walked out and continued her exploration. Further down the hall, she found a second bathroom. There was just enough moonlight shining in, for her to sit down, open the book and read. There was no copyright or publisher described on the first pages. Page 5 just began, “The following is duplication record of subject J.A.S. instructed by Ever-Life examiners 10362 and 10365, Lab-202, Level-red 6, this day-3635996.46.”
After ten pages, she began to skim, but by page fifty, she whispered to herself, “My God, maybe that was Jack Sheldon in 309.”
Then, she saw a security camera in the ceiling’s corner, behind the sink, and thought, Dr. B., you watch yourself in the bathroom. This is not happening…
I know what I saw and what I heard tonight. Shit, what should I do? I have to tell someone. The guy in 309 did look like Jack Sheldon, one of the big three-Bellos, Jack and Rachel…Rachel…?
She looked up from the book.
…His wife; she is a doctor, she has to know something. I‘ve got to get out of here.
Angie walked quickly back out to the oval room. She put the book back on the shelf. Then, she poured another glass of water and sat on the couch, pondering.
“I need Ralphy. I know I can trust him. I know he will help; if not, then what?”
She looked around and fixed on a door in the foyer, just to the right of the front door. It was a thinner, smaller one, which she had mistaken for a closet. She walked over.
“It’s an elevator?”
She pushed the button on the wall, the door slid open, and she stepped in.
“Why Dr. B., a private elevator; according to this panel, there are sixteen floors to the hospital. Everyone knows there are only ten.”
She pushed number one on the panel, but nothing happened. She pushed repeatedly; nothing.
“Damn! Maybe Ralphy can fiddle with this thing. He is good with electrical stuff.”
Angie walked out and back down to the bookcase. She took the white book down again.
“The hell with it; what are they going to do? Dr. B said to give me anything I want.”
So, she took a breath and began reading from page one.
Chapter 8
Rachel & Jack
Only those who have lost true love can begin to imagine the emotions that flooded Rachel Sheldon. She awoke in ER-1, not knowing how much time had passed, with an overwhelming sense that she must get home. She called Matt from the room, even paged him several times, but he did not answer. Finally, against Bellos’s request, she decided to drive home. Driving was horrible. She pulled in the driveway, only to sit numb, shaking and thinking, I rushed home, to what?
She was still a bit foggy from the sedative. One second, she was in the car, and the next, she was on the couch in their living room. She sank into the cushions and closed her eyes. Then, her eyes popped open and she exploded up, off the couch, and began running through the house, with scattered thoughts. With mindless impulses, she began gathering and digging out photos of family history, friends and trips. She took them off the refrigerator, out of drawers, finding one snapshot here and another there. With her arms full of all shapes and sizes, and three albums, she dumped it all on the living room coffee table and sat, to catch her breath. Concentrating, she began making piles, and studying. Each photo took her back to their life’s special memories. Sadly, she sobbed and focused, fumbling and staring, thinking about each picture.
That’s Jack and me in our down stairs lab. What are you doing, silly?
This is one from the banquet, when we got the second check for the new funding, from Marion Brock. What a night that was…A lot of money, Jack. We never did finish the details of all that.
She looked again, and suddenly felt sick.
“My God, who is that in the background?”
She sunk her head back down into the cushion and closed her eyes. Then, as if struck by lightning, she shocked up and picked up that picture again.
“It can’t be! That has to be a mistake.”
She put the one picture aside and began rearranging others, looking for what could not be. She found three more photos.
“I must be going mad.”
She left the rest in piles on the coffee table and studied the four closely. Two were from Jack’s cell phone, one was from Rachel’s and one was from Marion Brock’s camera. She ran to their den and got their old family ‘computer pad’. It seemed hours for the damn thing to start. She screened, downloaded, enlarged and enhanced the four photos. Then the epiphany; there was no question.
Oh my God; it is Jack… He is there, and there, in the same photo twice.
She sat back.
Why didn’t I notice this before? He clearly appears twice in each of these. It has to be double exposure.
Her nerves went into overdrive and her hands began to shake.
Rachel Sheldon had four undergraduate degrees, two masters; and, she received her PhD in Microbiological Processing. On this day; at this time; in this intensity; she needed to bring every intellectual wherewithal she possessed, to make any sense of this. She began again slowly trying to reconstruct some terribly odd puzzle; and, it was looking like a nightmare of impossibilities. She picked up the computer and studied each of the pictures again. Frustrated, exhausted and tearful, she sat thinking. Finally, she collapsed back into the couch.
“Jack, what’s happened? This can‘t be right, for God’s sake!”
She stood up and paced the room.
“Shit! Jack, your research.”
She ran to the downstairs lab and muddled through his desk and files. She found his manuscript.
&nb
sp; “It has new pages, a lot of new pages…Christ, Jack.”
As she opened the book, she thought back to when he first told her about it…
**********
Jack had first created his theory decades ago. However, it wasn’t until March of the first year they met, when Jack shared his work with Rachel. They became so intimate so fast; he trusted her with all of it. She had stopped by Jack’s lab, to find him puttering with a microscope, and writing feverishly.
“Hi, Hon; it’s 7:30 p.m. I thought you would have hit me up for dinner by now.
“Hi Babe… I was going to. Just give me a minute.”
“Wacha doin?” She said with a flirty smirk. “Something I can help you with doctor, hmm?”
Jack smiled, looked up and squinted.
“Yes, you can tell me what you think. But; and I mean this; only if you’re willing to be serious. Then, I promise, dinner and whatever you want.”
“Hmm, sounds like I’ll pull out the chap’s n hat for you, Baby…Woo-hoo, cowboy!”
They grinned at each other. Then, Rachel changed her tone.
“Fine, what is it?”
“Something I’ve had on my mind, since I was a boy, really. It’s the reason I got into medicine. We all have our pets, and this is mine. I would like you to know about it; see what you really think.”
“Okay; but why the mystery?”
“I’m just possessive about it and haven’t shared this with anyone.”
“In that case; I am flattered, Darlin.”
Jack took a breath. “Okay, well; you know how we all talked in college about the Universe and life. You remember those days?”
“Yes, of course I do. My first real love was Ben Verona. He was so macho and smart, philosophically speaking. He knew all the theories of the time, about the Universe; oh my; but, BEN VERONA; just his name; I mean, NO, sorry.”
Jack giggled. “All right; just listen to me. When I’m done; then, you can do what you do.”
He couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
“I’ve been playing with my pet on a regular basis all these years, you know.
“Very funny…”
“My notion has always been that the human personality is a single chemical cocktail, derived from the ‘some total’ of impulses triggered, and shared by the various areas of the brain.”
Rachel made a quirky look. She cocked her head and tweaked one eye.
“Impressive if I wanted psycho babble.”
“Rachel, be serious; if you want me to tell you this.”
“Fine, I’m with you. Our personality is one great chemical cocktail.”
“Yes; I am trying to summarize, Honey. This sum total of memories, our personality, is stored as a chemical cocktail in our brain. Any inkling can be recalled at anytime by the mind, at any instant; just like a computer stores a primary operating system, for example, and then calls upon it to run a program. Our separate traits are some programs, and the demands our cells make, reactions to stimuli, are other programs. As these demands are satisfied, they are learned and stored as genetic information; but in the end, they are stored as chemistry, understand.”
“If that’s true, then I’m a glass containing one hell of a mixed drink.” Rachel giggled.
“Yes sort of, but where is it? And what’s the drink? Are you a screwdriver or bloody Mary? They taste very different. Listen Rach; I think I can define which drink you are, and extract the mix, so to speak. Then, I can move the mix to a different glass.”
“Okay Dr. Bartender Frankenstein, ooh.” Rachel composed herself, and then said, “Jack; Honey, are you serious about this; I mean…?”
“Listen to me,” he insisted. “The brain is a mechanism that does nothing more than send and receive electrical or chemical impulses. Whether it’s a body function, choice behavior, or thought; every action requires a synaptic signal. That signal is an instruction, directed by our memory; and, our memory is a record-a library, of knowledge, stored in the physical brain, as a chemical cocktail. As we add learning, the mixture changes, yes; but it is always there, in the same place. The challenge is to define the mix; and, if we can, we can, theoretically, extract it and move it.”
“Jack; Sweetie, let’s say I play along. How do you define the mix?”
“Well, first, fundamentally by reading and studying the electrical and chemical signals-the synaptic exchanges. I had to create or establish one synaptic alphabet. Frankly, I started with something like the old Morse code; and then, it evolved from neurology, to physics and back to chemistry. Anyway, I did create the new language. Finally, I translated that synaptic language into understandable chemistry.”
“‘Morse code’; that was used in the 1800’s; a very long time ago, they were telegraph taps-dots and dashes, SOS. I don’t think so. But, let’s say you did this. Where exactly is the language stored? And, even if you found it-our personality, how do you obtain it, extract it? How do you know you got it all and not just a portion. For Christ’s sake, Jack; Honey, come on?”
Jack had been trying to explain in the simplest of terms, but it wasn’t going well. So, while he listened to Rachel’s comments, he walked to his desk, pulled out a two-inch thick manuscript, from the bottom drawer, and handed it to her. Rachel raised her eyebrows and opened it to the first page.
“‘C.P.T.-Chemical Personality Transfer’; you wrote this?”
“You know me, Baby. My presentations are not stage worthy, all the time, so read. That is my journal and findings, the complete text of theory, hypothesis, equations and final formulas. It’s everything. I believe that it speaks to all your microbiologic questions. Just read a little; and then, tell me what you think.”
Rachel opened it to the middle and read a page. Then after a minute, she looked at Jack and flipped to the front of the book again. She sat down at his desk; and, after five minutes, she said, “Honey, can you get me some coffee and a donut, please? Then, get lost for a while, okay?”
Jack smiled and did as instructed. He went back to his microscope and writing, at the lab table. Rachel was mesmerized. After a half hour or so, Jack mumbled to himself, “I haven’t heard her ever say nothing this long, since I met her.”
Finally, she called to him, “You found where it is? Jack, okay; you write here, ‘any bodily function, whether cellular or thought, requires an impulse-a synaptic signal, to and from the brain. The mind instantaneously sends a directive to the hypothalamus, our brain factory that makes peptides’… Okay; then you say, ‘these peptides are manufactured, as cells or thoughts demand’…Okay, reading on…‘Then, they are instantly sent to direct or instruct behavior. At the same time, our mind imprints that directive, and the resulting behavior in a library of the brain for reference.’”
Rachel stopped and looked at Jack. “…Here…Yes…‘The library is constantly in a state of change from learning, but it stores the memory of the directive, and the result, in the same place. Our behavior, our memory is our personality in total. Although ever evolving, it is that record-that library, of repetitive impulses’…and then you say…”
“Jeez,” Jack interrupted, “it sounds exactly like what I told you before, hmm.”
Rachel continued. “To quote you, Jack, ‘I have located the primary personality vial to be 3.33 by 1.25 centimeters, and positioned .134 millimeters around the hypothalamus partially covering the hippocampus gland, tangent to the Pons…’”
“Pretty technical, huh?”
“…You further say, ‘It’s such an integral part of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum, it can’t be defined until one hour after death.’ …Jack, you sound like Descartes in old college philosophy. Are you trying to physically define the soul?”
“I suppose you could take it that way; but there is no physical limit to the personality, only to the chemistry. I’m not a philosopher, talking about ‘singular self-awareness. Don‘t be confused, Babe; chemistry is tangible, but how big is an idea, remember. It’s the link between quantum physics and microbiology
that enables us to define this chemistry. Honey, it’s 9:30; time for a good meal.”
Rachel thought for a second. Then, with her head still in the book, she replied, “So what? You started this. It’s Friday, and we can do whatever I want, you said.”
She fell into silent concentration again. After a while, she suddenly blurted out, “Jack, look at me!”
Jack jerked up from his lab chair across the room.
“I can’t believe this. Your equations and calculations-the physics, and the biology are solid. Are you serious? The implications are staggering. Even the results you have so far mean that, if you are right, we could define, isolate and contain a person’s personality chemistry. If we do that; and, considering medical breakthroughs; am I right; we could transfer a terminally ill person, into a healthy body?”
Jack grinned and walked across the room, around the desk and sat on it, facing her.
“That’s why I Love you so, babe; you are way ahead of me sometimes. Of course, it is a bit more complicated; but, summarily, it only took you two hours to get what it took me years to understand. And you haven’t read it all. Look at you.”
Rachel looked up at Jack with love, so excited.
“I see most of the proofs are good and solid. Others, yes, they could use some work; but, yes, I think…huh, I agree.”
Jack nudged her, and their eyes locked.
“I love you Rachel. I did from the first minute, the first argument. I can’t picture doing this, or anything else, in my life, without you, Honey.”
With those words and a tear, Jack reached down and opened the top drawer of his desk. There, glistening starkly at Rachel was a radiant 1.5-carat, diamond ring. Jack took the ring out and held her left hand gently. As he moved off the desk to her side, he knelt down positioning himself slightly between her legs.
“Rachel Anne Thomas, will you marry me? I love you so. Please be mine through all the good, bad, happy and hard times?”
Rachel’s eyes filled with tears, as Jack put the ring on her finger.
“Who knows, Rach; maybe together we can make everyone else’s time here better too, forever?”
Ever-Life the Two Book Set: The C.P.T Incident and Time Trust Page 6