Isle of Noise

by Rachel Tonks Hill

  It transpired that Nelson, if indeed that was his real name, was wanted by the police for a series of gruesome murders. He was a monster, known for mutilating his victims with tools and knives. Before fleeing my offices and while I was deeply unconscious he had carved patterns into my face and arms with a knife, marking me forever. I was lucky they found and hospitalised me when they did.

  I'm told that my mind was unhinged, jarred from its moorings so violently that I was unresponsive for days. The mind is delicate and fragile. Once my faculties began to return to me, it was more than a week until I was able to speak again.

  The Institute came for me the next day. I was wheeled out of the building and bundled into a black van, whisked away out of the public eye before I could make any foolish statements to the press.

  I am held in the solitary wing of their London premises, and I doubt I shall see the sun again. The Institute guards its secrets jealously and they are harshly unforgiving. If I live, I will never again have access to another's mind.

  If I live.

  ***

  TROPHY KILLER NABBED – JUSTICE AT LAST

  Local police report the long-anticipated capture and arrest of the madman known as the Trophy Killer, now identified to be one Mr. Stephen Nelson. It would seem that the Killer's 10-month reign of terror has come to an end and he will at last be brought to justice.

  Nelson was captured fleeing from the scene of his latest crime, an assault upon local hypnotist and known eccentric Dr Jeffrey Armitage, who has been hospitalised suffering from 'severe mental anguish' according to hospital doctors who stated his condition remains 'stable' but declined to comment further.

  Dr Armitage is the latest in a long line of victims attributed to Nelson, including solicitor Daniel Henderson, 30, and schoolgirl Lucy Holmes, 17. It is unknown how many others' deaths can be attributed to Nelson, but in a signed confession he has claimed responsibility for at least six murders committed this year. His victims were violently mutilated and were missing several body parts, presumably removed and kept by Nelson as trophies.

  A spokesperson for the police has stated that Nelson was raving & screaming in strange tongues when apprehended and that he had fought with 'the strength of ten men'. He attacked the constables with heavy canisters he had reportedly taken from the doctor's office, causing many injuries but luckily no fatalities. When asked about the contents of the canisters, Nelson's bizarre demeanour and any possible narcotics-related explanation, our source could not go into details, but he stated he feels 'confident' that Nelson will hang within the year.

  WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS DOOR KNOCKER?

  Families living on Elm Street have complained of mysterious goings on over the past few nights. At two minutes past midnight, four resounding knocks can be heard at the door of each residence on the street. When the puzzled family answers the door, there is no one there.

  'It is a nuisance,' said Maureen Hendly, 73. 'Mind you, it is quite a comical sight, everyone in the street at their doors staring at each other like any of them did it.'

  Supernatural forces have been discounted as it is likely the work of children.

  ***

  Like a Circle in a Spiral

  Rachel Tonks Hill

  The headaches were getting worse.

  Natima rested her elbows on the desk and gently massaged her temples to try to ease the pressure inside her skull. It didn't work. She knew it wouldn't work before she did it because nothing worked any more. Still, she checked her phone and dug some pills out of her bag. She was taking everything she could get over the counter but the drugs weren't even touching the pain. The only reason she was still taking them was because she was afraid the pain might get worse if she stopped.

  By this point she'd tried everything she could think of. She'd taken every kind of over the counter medicine in every possible combination. She'd rubbed lavender oil on her temples and paid through the nose for a completely ineffective massage. She'd even tried some weird menthol stick that had only made the pain worse, if that was even possible at this point.

  Her colleagues had noticed by now. How could they not? She was irritable and lethargic. She wasn't participating in meetings or submitting reports and she had stopped speaking to most of them weeks ago. Several well-meaning and motherly characters had suggested she go see a doctor, but Natima knew she couldn't. Conventional medicine didn't know that the problem she had even existed, let alone know what the solution was.

  How long had it been at this point? Weeks? Months? Natima didn't know. The passage of time became a little fuzzy when you were in constant pain. The only thing she knew for sure was that she'd not slept properly in so long that she was starting to hallucinate.

  She hadn't always been like this.

  ****

  Natima Kanakaredes had once been a promising young researcher with a bright future ahead of her. She'd barely finished her PhD in neuroscience when the Institute had recruited her. They were well connected, well-funded and were at the cutting edge of scientific investigation in a field related to her degree. She knew next to nothing about their reputation, but she hadn't been able to turn them down. Not when they were offering her the opportunity for some exciting research, a lucrative salary and her own office.

  Her parents had been so proud of her, their budding academic. They'd always had high hopes for her. They had always wanted her to overcome the racist bullying she'd suffered early in her schooling and excel. When she'd gotten such a well-paying job straight after her PhD they had been delighted; they both knew how hard it was to get ahead in academia. Now they were just patiently hoping that Natima would settle down and present them with a grandchild or two.

  It was lucky that her parents didn't ask too many questions about the nature of the job, because it would have been difficult to explain. Her first few months at the Institute went by in a blur. A flurry of meetings, presentations, training and lots of background reading; there was so much to learn that it was mind boggling. Natima had gotten her PhD in neuroscience and she thought she knew a thing or two about how the human brain works. If the things she was reading were to be believed, her studies to date had barely scratched the surface. The Institute had access to information she hadn't known existed, couldn't have dreamt of. The things they could do with the human brain were straight out of a science-fiction movie. It was a real challenge getting her head around all this new information. And then she had to learn how to operate the technology they used to study the brain. Natima could scarcely have imagined all the things the Institute could do. The technology they had was nothing short of amazing.

  The first time she actually stepped inside someone else's mind was an experience she would remember as long as she lived. It was a five minute training session, supervised by three people and entering the mind of one of her well trained colleagues. But nonetheless it was incredible. To know another person's thoughts, to access each of their senses and know the world as they did. That was incredible enough. What was more incredible was how mundane this was to the institute; these techniques were well established to the point of being routine.

  The group Natima worked for were investigating potential applications of the technology. Which meant that a lot of the things they were working on had never been done before. Or, if they had, they'd never been done successfully. Most of the time this involved a lot of frustration and their experiments had a high failure rate. But the failure and despair was punctuated with incredible highs when they were met with success.

  Natima had been at the Institute around six months when they were brought an interesting case. Eileen Li had been involved in a hit and run four years earlier and had suffered massive brain damage. She had been in a coma, on a ventilator ever since, her parents unwilling to say goodbye to their only child and pull the plug. They had exhausted every option conventional medicine had to offer, and several experimental treatments as well. So they had approached the Institute to see if there was anything they could do. They were well connec
ted, friends with some acquaintance of one of the higher ups, and they'd asked for this as a favour. Mr and Mrs Li wanted to know if it was possible to contact their daughter using the Institute's technology. They wanted to know if their daughter was still in there, if there was any chance of her ever waking up or if they should say goodbye and let her go.

  There had been previous attempts to make contact with comatose patients, but nothing you could call successful. What records there were of these attempts were sparse on the detail. Something had happened around the time of the First World War, but all the documents about this event were sealed. Everything was classified and only available to people extremely high up in the organisation. Classified documents did little to curb the rumour mill, and the word was that someone had gotten killed trying to enter the mind of a coma patient. That was why everything was locked up so tightly. The name "Lewis" kept cropping up, but little more than that.

  But the Lis were wealthy and their contact within the Institute sufficiently high up to authorise another look at this particular problem. Scuttlebutt was that they had promised a significant donation to the Institute, no matter the outcome. So the higher-ups had made the decision to okay the project.

  Despite the failure of all previous attempts to contact the unconscious, all the groups working at the Institute were eager to get their hands on this case. Everyone was excited about revisiting something that had failed in the past with the hope of improving on past results. Ultimately it was Natima's supervisor who won the bidding war and Eileen Li came to live in their lab.

  Natima and her group spent weeks preparing for the first incursion. She was heavily involved in researching Eileen's background, and nothing was left out; the details of the accident, the extent of her injuries and exactly what medical techniques had been used before. All this information affected the fine details of the procedure they had planned, and what precautions they would take. Ensuring the safety of the researcher was of paramount importance.

  Because of her integral role in preparing for Eileen's procedure, Natima was offered the chance to be the one who went in. She knew that she was too inexperienced for an incursion like this. She was barely out of her training and could count on her fingers the number of times she'd actually entered someone's mind. But she was pleased and flattered to have been asked, and she didn't want to let her colleagues down. So, against every instinct telling her otherwise, she accepted.

  Still, every conceivable precaution was made. The incursion was planned right down to the tiniest detail, down to the millisecond even. Scan after scan was taken of Eileen Li's brain and compared to earlier scans to track any changes. Scans were taken of Natima too, as well as a full medical examination and extensive blood work. She was put on a special diet and exercise regimen to ensure she was in peak physical condition. Safeties and redundancies were meticulously installed. Worst case scenarios were considered and planned for. Natima and her team of assistants ran simulation after simulation, test after test and practice run after practice run. They all knew exactly what was expected of them at any given moment, and what to do in case of an emergency. Months of preparation went into the first incursion into Eileen Li's mind, and this was just the initial exploratory session.

  It should have been safe.

  Despite all the preparation, Natima couldn't quite shake the feeling of apprehension when the day of the procedure finally arrived. She put it down to inexperience and the knowledge that such attempts had been made before. She tried to reassure herself; the technology had made massive amounts of progress since the last time this had been tried, and she trusted her assistants.

  Natima spent all morning in preparation for the incursion. Another barrage of scans and other medical tests were carried out, checking that nothing unexpected had popped up since the last tests. She wolfed down a high carb meal an hour before the procedure, and personally went through all the safety checks. With half an hour to go she retreated to her office to prepare her mind with a spot of meditation. She found it hard to calm herself down. After all, she was a young scientist, standing on the brink of a major breakthrough in her field. This sort of thing could make or break her career. It was difficult not to be nervous.

  One of her assistants came to get her an hour before the procedure. Eileen Li was already in the lab hooked up to every conceivable form of medical monitor. Natima double checked that everything looked good and then sat in the reclining chair next to Eileen's hospital bed. She lay back, put her feet in the stirrups and tried to fight down her fear as she was strapped in. Next she was hooked up to several machines; to track her respiration, heart rate and blood pressure. There were also machines to check her blood chemistry since maintaining particular levels of certain neurotransmitters was of critical importance. A neural monitor was attached to her skull, and various electrodes applied to strategic places on the rest of her body. A cannula was inserted and several different drugs were injected. They pumped in drugs to calm her down, drugs to alter her brain patterns to make them more receptive for the transfer. Finally they gave her an anaesthetic, designed to shut down the conscious mind but not the unconscious one. As her eyes fluttered closed, Natima forgot to be nervous. She heard the machine roar to life just as she lost consciousness.

  And then there was nothing.

  At first Natima felt like she was floating in a void, like a single consciousness in an empty universe. She wondered if this was how God had felt before Creation, and then she sternly told herself to focus on the job. She relaxed and just floated, allowing Eileen's mind to make contact in its own time. After a while, she felt the other woman's consciousness bleed into her own, and the darkness resolved into colour. The landscape Eileen Li's mind had chosen was, appropriately enough, a hospital. Looking around, Natima realised it was the ICU ward where Eileen had stayed before she was moved to the Institute. That was a good sign. It indicated that she'd been conscious of her surroundings on some level.

  Experimentally, Natima flexed her arms and found that she had a full range of movement. That was promising as it meant that the integration was complete. Her consciousness now existed entirely within the mind of Eileen Li. The ICU was completely empty. There were no patients in the beds and no medical staff attending them. That was odd. Normally a person's mind was populated by various people. They would all be aspects of their own personality, or representations of people they'd known. If Eileen's mind was empty of these representations, it meant that there wasn't much of her consciousness left intact.

  Natima set off to explore the hospital, wanting to find out if there was a representation of Eileen's core consciousness somewhere within this mind-scape. If there wasn't, it meant that there was no hope for the patient. The lights were on but nobody was home. Natima was desperately hoping that wouldn't be the case, not just for the sake of her own career. She wanted very badly to give Eileen's parents the hope they needed.

  The hospital was built on private land, and featured an expansive lawn that ran down a gentle slope towards a lake. The garden was eerily silent; no people, no animals. There weren't even any insects scuttling around underfoot. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, but there was no wind. Natima had seen pictures of the hospital while she was doing her research. Everything here was an accurate representation but it was all just slightly off. There was no life. She knew that didn't bode well.

  Natima found Eileen Li sat on a bench next to the lake, just staring out at the water. Natima sat herself down quietly, observing her subject. Time passed, and Eileen turned to face Natima. She seemed startled to find someone else in her world.

  "Hello Eileen," said Natima softly. "My name is Natima, I'm here to try to help you. Can you understand me?"

  Eileen nodded.

  "Can you speak?"

  It took several attempts, but at last Eileen Li croaked out a single word: “Yes.” Natima made a mental note: language abilities intact.

  "Do you know what happened to you, Eileen? Do you remember?"

 
; "I... was in an... accident," said Eileen, her speech improving quickly. "The car... I didn't see it in time and it hit me. It hurt." She paused, appearing to be deep in thought. "Am I dead?" she asked. "Is this Heaven, or... something."

  Memory and understanding of religious concepts, thought Natima.

  "No, you're not dead. You've been unconscious since the accident, in a coma."

  "Yes... the hospital. That's where we are now, isn't it?" Natima nodded the affirmative. "But... if I'm in a coma, then how are you talking to me?"

  Natima had been expecting this. Human minds are extremely inquisitive, and have an instinctive dislike of intrusion. The assumption was that if there were any higher cognitive functions left intact, the patient would start to ask questions. The subject would realise that their mind was essentially being invaded and they might even get aggressive. They might even try to forcibly eject the invader, which could cause all sorts of damage to the researcher. This was something the Institute had wanted to avoid, and preparations had been made accordingly.

  Eileen Li's physical body had been anaesthetised, and a counter-agent to adrenaline injected. The hypothesis was that this would keep the patient's instincts in check long enough for Natima to reason with the higher consciousness. So far it seemed to be working; Eileen looked wary and a little afraid, but didn't seem to be preparing to fight or run.

  "I'm inside your mind," said Natima, keeping her voice quiet and calm. "Try not to panic, Eileen. We have technology that allows us to step inside another person's consciousness. We're not really at the hospital, this is just a representation that your mind is creating. It's allowing us to interact, to talk as if we were in the real world. Your parents asked us to try to contact you."

  "My parents?" asked Eileen. "Are they OK?"

  The mention seemed to distract her from the fact that her mind was being invaded by another consciousness. This was exactly what it had been intended to do.