“All right,” he says, rolling back a little in his chair. “I don’t want to make assumptions.” He turns slightly to look at a screen.
Indranie winks at me and whispers, “We wouldn’t want that, would we?” I return her smile as if I understand. I am used to doing that when speaking in English.
“Neurotransmitters are like messengers in the brain. They transmit across synapses from one neuron or nerve cell to another,” Dr. Deng begins.
“What is the message they are sending?” I ask.
“Well, it could be lots of things. It could be pain, or it could be pleasure. It could be for a muscle to move, that kind of thing.” He waves his hand dismissively, as if pain and movement are unimportant.
“When someone is experiencing anxiety, or grief or fear, or any combination of emotions triggered by a traumatic event, neurotransmitters are released. Specifically, at least for our clinical trial, these are corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH, norepinephrine, and cholecystokinin, or CCK, which in this case act as anxiogenic or panicogenic substances.”
He turns away from me for a moment, so I sneak a glance at Indranie for a hint of what his words mean, but she is frowning at her phone.
“Conversely, also of import to our trials are the anxiolytic agents the body produces. Serotonin, I’m sure you’ve heard of,” he says, adjusting one of the monitors he peers into. Beside me, Indranie muffles a sigh. I wonder if she’s heard this before and finds it boring, or maybe, like me, she doesn’t understand it.
Dr. Deng turns in his chair and rolls over to me. Under his white lab coat, he wears another heavy sweater, a mix of blues and greens and grays. When he peers into my face, I see little red hairs mixed in his white beard. He is bald, but I bet when he had hair he had a lot of light, maybe even red, hair. “But there are lesser-known neurotransmitters such as gamma-aminobutyric acid, also known as GABA. Unlike those other neurotransmitters that trigger adverse reactions in the sympathetic nervous system, serotonin and GABA have a calming effect.”
“Okay, Dr. Deng. You lost me about three alphabet soups ago,” Indranie says. “And while Marisol is definitely smarter than me, I’m not sure she is following as much as you’d like. So, can you break it down for us?”
Instead of answering, Dr. Deng lightly taps the bandage on my forehead. “How does that feel, Marisol?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“Okay, good! And your incision?”
At my blank look, Indranie steps in. “On your neck, Marisol, the surgery. How does it feel?”
I run my finger along the line, a few centimeters long, of raised skin. Indranie removed the bandage this morning, saying in a few weeks’ time, I’d barely have a scar.
“It doesn’t hurt too much.”
Dr. Deng smiles broadly. “Excellent! She’s a very good candidate,” he says, looking at Indranie.
“I sure can pick ’em,” Indranie says with an expression that is almost a frown.
“To continue. There are three components to our experiment. The implant, which acts as a sort of receiver of those neurotransmitters, ah, those messengers that come from the donor.”
I try to focus on Dr. Deng, but I am hungry. Indranie promised after this last test that we could have lunch. Gabi and I barely ate this morning. I was too nervous, and Gabi was angry that she’d be on her own again today, even though Indranie got the Harry Potter book out of her car. Gabi wants to go out and see Washington, DC, but Indranie says she’ll be too busy to take her.
“What does donor mean?” I ask.
“Well, donor usually refers to someone who is giving something. Like a person who donates an organ or blood,” Indranie answers.
“But this donor is giving me something they don’t want, right?”
“Yes. Or, rather, something they are not able to withstand,” Dr. Deng says.
Withstand. It’s such a strange word. With = con and stand = pararse. But it doesn’t mean standing with. Or does it? When something is very heavy, very painful, maybe withstanding means that you stand up, even with that pain? I don’t know. Thinking about the word makes me feel both better and worse.
“The second component, the sister component, is the transmitter. It implants, also subdermally, into the donor patient. That device is responsible for relaying the anxiogenic material to the receiver,” Dr. Deng continues.
“Anxiogenic means something that causes anxiety,” Indranie says in a too-loud whisper. I think she is teasing Dr. Deng, but he does not seem to notice.
“And the third component is the CTS device itself.”
Dr. Deng pulls a white box out from under the padded table. He opens the cover as if he is opening a present, or a box of chocolates. But there is only a circular white object, like a very simple pulsera.
“We call it ‘the cuff,’” Indranie says in a teasing tone that I can tell from Dr. Deng’s face he doesn’t like.
“What is a cuff?” I ask. I thought a cuff was part of a shirt, but I don’t think that can be right.
“It’s not a cuff—that makes it sound ordinary,” Dr. Deng sniffs, “when it’s really an extraordinary piece of medical equipment.” He takes the pulsera out of the box, and it opens on a hinge. It is glossy and white, thin and cold-looking. “The implants only transmit and receive information about the neural activity of one person to another—not much use on its own. But the CTS allows for that neural activity to be experienced by the receiver and alleviated from the donor. Not only that, but the anxiety-inhibiting neurotransmitters, like serotonin and GABA, as well as dopamine and adrenaline, although they don’t work in the same way, of course—”
“Of course,” Indranie whispers under her breath.
“—allow the donor to absorb the anxiety-inhibiting neurotransmitters from the recipient.” Dr. Deng takes my foot in his hand. I almost laugh—it reminds me so much of going to Zona Rosa as a child to try on shoes. He opens the pulsera like a clamp and settles it around my ankle, closing it with a click. There is soft padding inside the cuff so I don’t feel the cold sharpness of the metal.
“It’s a polymer alloy clad in superlight metal sheeting. It should be comfortable. How does it feel?” he asks.
“It’s okay. Fine,” I say.
“Not too heavy?”
I swing my leg a little. I’m surprised at how light it is.
“It’s good.”
“Wonderful!” Dr. Deng exclaims, looking at both of us with expectation. I feel as if I should clap. Praise him like I would praise Gabi when she won a medal in her swimming competition. I expect Indranie to laugh or say something funny, but her face is serious.
“It’s truly remarkable, Dr. Deng. The CTS device will ease a lot of suffering.”
“Exactly!” Dr. Deng shouts as he rolls his chair back to his computer.
“Do I need to understand how it works for it to work?” I whisper to Indranie.
She slowly shakes her head. “I don’t understand how the sun works, but it’s there for me every day.”
* * *
I lie down in what Dr. Deng calls a scanner, which is a narrow bed that slides into an open tunnel. I have to be absolutely still while in the scanner. The top of the tunnel is only a few centimeters away from my nose, and I feel like my chest is being pressed down, even though nothing is touching me. The scanner makes sounds like knocks on a door, and at first it makes me jump. Dr. Deng reminds me to be still. I concentrate on my feet, which are outside of the scanner. If my feet can be free, then I can be free too—that’s what I tell myself.
* * *
I come out of the scanner and sit up on the table.
“Almost done. One more scan with contrast and that’s it. Drink this.” He hands me a thick, white liquid that tastes a little like paper. I lie down again in the scanner, but almost immediately, I know something is wrong. I turn my head, which feel
s heavy with stones.
“Dr. Deng?” Something about my voice must alarm Dr. Deng because he gets up from his wheeled chair, moving quickly to me.
“What are you feeling?”
“Like I’m going to be sick.”
“Okay, it’s okay. It happens sometimes.” He injects something into the suero on my arm. I feel cold for a second, then the nausea subsides.
“Better?”
I nod.
“Why don’t I take Marisol to get a drink of water, Dr. Deng? I think we’re done with the scanner for now, right?”
Dr. Deng nods absently. “She might have an intolerance to the contrast. But we may not need that additional scan.”
“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.” Indranie helps me get off the table and gives me the pole to hold on to. It’s a pole on wheels that holds a clear bag of whatever medicine is going into my arm. Everything here is on wheels, I think dizzily. I don’t feel in danger of throwing up anymore, but I do feel strange.
She gives me a paper cup of water. It tastes like metal. I frown.
“Everything tastes funny at first. Keep drinking; it will get better.” I finish the water and feel more like myself.
“We’re going to run some tests, Marisol. But no more scans and X-rays today. Part of the test is to see how the device feels while you’re wearing it. After a while, you should stop noticing it,” Dr. Deng says. I put my legs together, and the pulsera barely touches my other leg. I can feel it, but it doesn’t hurt or pull at my leg.
“At the same time, we’ll be testing the receiver in your cuff.”
“Is this what makes the feelings go into someone else?” I ask Dr. Deng.
Dr. Deng is not paying attention to me. He is watching a monitor above my head.
“Is the bracelet—”
“Call it the CTS,” he interrupts. “Or the cuff, if you have to.”
“Is the cuff the machine that makes, um.” I try to put my words in order, to use the same words they used. “That transfers the trauma?”
“Your cuff is the receiver. The partner cuff is the transmitter, but they look the same.”
There is so much I don’t understand. I know Indranie has told me I don’t need to understand, but I feel as if I should at least try. “Why does it go on my leg? Why isn’t it on my neck or near my head? I don’t have emotions on my leg,” I say.
“You are full of questions, aren’t you?” Indranie asks, her eyebrows raised.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I think I’m supposed to be sorry. “But I thought about it last night, how one person’s grief could be passed to another person, and it seemed to make sense if the two people were wearing helmets or something.”
Indranie puts her hand on my shoulder. “That would make sense, I guess. But this is how the technology is designed. And I don’t know a lot of people who would want to walk around with helmets on all day.”
She smiles, and it feels like a slap. I feel like I’ve said the wrong thing, made a fool of myself, and it makes me angry.
“Have you got any other questions for Dr. Deng? Let’s see if we can stump him.”
I only shrug.
“Well, I have a question for Dr. Deng. Can we go to lunch? I’m starving! And I bet Marisol is too. She’s got a hangry look to her, am I right?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dr. Deng says coldly. I don’t know what she means either, but I pretend to, so that I can be on Indranie’s side.
“I mean, are we free to go?”
“Yes,” Dr. Deng says, giving the cuff on my leg a quick look before going back to the monitor. I wonder what secrets the cuff on my leg is already telling him. Then I remind myself that I have the receiver. Someone else will have the transmitter. Someone else will give their secrets.
“Come on,” she says. “You can change into your clothes, then we can find some lunch.”
* * *
“What about Gabi?” We carry our trays from the cafeteria out to a little patio area. Indranie nudges me toward a long table where a young man, un soldado, in a dark green army uniform sits alone. I think he’s going to say something when Indranie sits so near to him. But his eyes are closed, his head dipping down like he’s falling asleep. I don’t know why Indranie wants to sit here, unless she knows the man. Maybe she only feels bad that he’s alone.
“Your sister has somehow convinced my assistant, Traci, to take her out for a drive in her Audi TT RS.”
I sit down. “Is it safe?”
“Oh, she’s safe, all right. Traci values her Audi more than her own life. They will be fine.” And Gabi will be thrilled, driving in a fancy car through the streets of the capital. It seems incredible that we are here when only days ago, we were traveling in the back of a truck, facedown against rust and dirt, covered with old blankets.
“What is the date?”
“April eighteenth,” Indranie says.
That’s much later than I thought. I try to do the calculations in my head, but we took so many buses, walked so many kilometers, and stayed at so many safe houses, I couldn’t keep track.
“And we’ve been here, with Dr. Deng, three days?”
“That’s right. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. It feels like so much time has gone by and not any time at all.” Pink petals from the trees are raining down onto the stone patio. It’s pleasant here, and I’m eating my favorite American food—grilled cheese with tomato and bacon. But suddenly, like I am someone’s puppet, I feel my stomach shrink and pull. I can’t eat. I’m cold all over, as if I can no longer feel the sun on my skin. Something is building inside me, a rolling ache. For a moment, I don’t know what will come out, a scream or a laugh. Then I burst into tears.
Indranie watches as tears roll down my face. I must disgust her. Here she is, doing all these things for me and Gabi, and all I do is complain and cry. She must hate me. I wonder if Dr. Deng hates me too, then realize that he must. He only talks to me because I’m useful for his experiment. I scrub at my face with a napkin and blow my nose to stop the crying, but there’s a well inside me that is overflowing. I try to stop, but I don’t seem to be able to. An office worker takes her lunch to the trash and leaves. I am making her leave. I’m spoiling her time, making things worse for everyone.
“Take a deep breath, Marisol.” Indranie watches me, but not with disgust, at least I don’t think so. She’s got a little notebook out on the table, next to her untouched salad. “How do you feel?”
“Sad,” I wail. “So sad and I don’t know why.” The tears come harder, the well endless.
“What else do you feel? It’s important you tell me.”
I suck air into my lungs to speak, but that only makes more tears. “I feel like something bad has ha-happened, something t-terrible, and I’m too late to stop it.”
I stand up, making the table shake.
Gabi. I run for the door, even though my brain is telling me that she is fine, that she’s not even in the building. It makes no difference. Nothing touches my panic. I blink and for a second I see bursts of red and yellow and hear a boom so loud that I lose my balance. Every blink of my eye brings more colors that hurt my head.
There must have been an explosion. I feel dust in my eyes, on my face, in my throat. It mixes with the sweat running down my body. I am on the hot ground, staring up at an orange sun.
Then I’m not. I’m slumped against the door to the outdoor seating. There is no dust, no orange sun. I pull at the door handle. I have to get to Gabi before everything collapses.
Indranie grabs my arm, but I push her away. Why is everyone moving so slowly? Don’t they feel the catástrofe? The building is going to fall down around us.
She takes my head in her hands until I have no choice but to look into her eyes, listen to her urgent whisper.
“It’s not real, Marisol. I
t’s just part of the test.”
Chapter 7
What?
“The feelings you’re experiencing are not yours. They belong to another test subject. Someone who is wearing a transmitter cuff.”
My thoughts are confused, running in many directions. “You said I was the first to do the experiment.”
“You are the first to be the receiver in the experiment. Someone else has to be the donor, remember? You are still very important,” she says, handing me another napkin.
“What happened to him? The other test subject? Why does he feel like this?”
The explosions of color and sound that made me panic a moment before are gone, like waking up from una pesadilla. My heart still beats like a frightened rabbit.
The tears finally stop and I wipe my face. I look up, expecting to see concerned faces or people staring. Either no one notices my crying, or they pretend not to notice.
“He doesn’t feel like this, not anymore,” Indranie says. “You aren’t sharing his feelings—you’re taking them away, at least for a little while.”
When Dr. Deng explained the cuff, I understood what I was supposed to do, and it felt like a very small thing to do. Take someone else’s grief. But I’m trembling with the feelings that still run through me. I can remember the heat, the echo of an explosion, but even that feels like a memory of a nightmare. I might throw up.
“What about the colors?” I ask, remembering the blinding reds and yellows that crowded my mind.
Indranie becomes still, and her back straightens. I have said something wrong.
“Did you see something? During the transfer, did you have visual input?” I don’t know what she means, but I know, from the way she asks, that it’s a bad thing. I make my English sound a little broken, as if I chose the wrong word.
The Grief Keeper Page 6