The Curious Case of the Missing Head

by Gabriel Farago

‘In essence, the brain signals transmitted by this device would allow the patient to communicate with a computer and control it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By simply thinking about it.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Unbelievable! I think Rebecca and I need a few minutes to digest this and have a chat,’ said Jack.

  ‘By all means. Take as long as you need. You can stay in here; I will be next door. If you have any questions, just call me.’ Greenberg walked to the door, stopped and turned around. ‘And one more thing,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t want to put more pressure on you, but you have to know this if you want to be fully informed.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Jack.

  ‘That disturbing episode you witnessed on the beach in Colombia was brought on by stress. That is also the reason I believe Professor Stolzfus has lost his speech. Stress can be a killer, especially in a patient like this. Can you imagine a more stressful situation for a man like him than what he’s going through right now? Being trapped in a body that isn’t even his own, totally isolated from the world?’ Greenberg shook his head. ‘Unless we do something about that soon, I firmly believe he will not last long. He will have another fit and die. What we need to do is give him hope. Hope is the strongest drug we have. I have seen it do remarkable things, many times. If you decide to go ahead and give your permission, we could tell Professor Stolzfus about this straight away and give him that hope right now. It’s up to you,’ added Greenberg and left the room.

  Half an hour later, Jack called Greenberg into the room. ‘Rebecca has made a decision,’ said Jack.

  ‘And?’ asked Greenberg, his eyes bright with anticipation.

  ‘It was a no-brainer really,’ said Jack, smiling affably. ‘The answer is a resounding yes!’

  ‘I was hoping you would say that,’ replied Greenberg, looking relieved. ‘Let’s go and tell Professor Stolzfus all about it, shall we? He should really hear this from you.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Rebecca. She walked over to Greenberg and held out her hand. ‘Thank you, Professor,’ she said, with tears in her eyes. ‘When will you be able to start?’

  ‘I already have. Come, let’s tell the patient.’

  65

  Stolzfus family farm, Ephrata, Pennsylvania: three months later

  Jack hired a car at Philadelphia International Airport and drove straight to Ephrata – a borough in Lancaster County – deep in Amish territory. A very excited Rebecca had rung him a week earlier telling him that Stolzfus was about to be released from the Greenberg Private Clinic.

  Professor Greenberg had made history with his revolutionary device that allowed his famous patient to communicate by thought with his computer. The life-changing operation to insert the small device into his brain had been a huge success, but getting used to the brain function had been rather slow and laborious even for a man with Stolzfus’s exceptional intellect.

  Special computer software programs had to be developed and a custom-made computer designed and built specially for him. This took time but while progress was slow, the results were spectacular. With each day, Stolzfus’s window to the world opened a little more, allowing him to step out of his intellectual prison and enter the world around him.

  Each morning since the operation, Greenberg had begun his day with a visit to Stolzfus to monitor his progress and introduce him slowly to his new reality. He even managed to persuade a leading wheelchair manufacturer to develop a new, custom-made motorised wheelchair that could be controlled through Stolzfus’s computer, which not only gave him mobility, but a certain amount of independence as well, because he could operate the wheelchair by giving commands just through thought alone.

  Stolzfus, a quick learner, had easily mastered the many new tasks and challenges involved in operating his new digital world made possible by artificial intelligence, and had embraced it with enthusiasm and humour. While his body remained completely paralysed, his brain flourished and his new electronic tools and gadgets allowed him to express himself with a speed and clarity not experienced before.

  Eager to get back to work as soon as possible, Stolzfus was constantly asking about the Genius Club and when he would be able to meet with his students to carry on his work on the theory of everything, which seemed to be consuming his mind. At the same time, Greenberg was desperately trying to shield his patient from stress, which could easily be triggered by disappointment or shock. Somehow, stress was the big danger. It was the big unknown that could quickly intrude, destroy all the hard work and reverse progress in an instant. It was the human, emotional part of the revolutionary project that was unpredictable and wasn’t governed by logic, cutting-edge technology, or the complex logarithms that had made this astounding breakthrough possible.

  Greenberg knew everything had its price and vulnerability, and stress was Stolzfus’s weak point. He therefore didn’t tell his patient that he no longer had a job, or that his former home at the Marshall Space Flight Center was no longer available and waiting for him. In fact, Stolzfus had been discarded by his former employer and was seen as an embarrassing liability, and therefore no longer of use or interest to his country. What Stolzfus didn’t know either was that only a modest pension had been provided for him with an allowance for a full-time carer to look after his needs.

  The astronomical cost of his rehabilitation had been financed and made possible in a completely different way. Rahima had set up her own charitable foundation and made Jack the trustee. Joining forces with Isis and her extensive charitable network, Jack had made Stolzfus’s rehabilitation and ‘Operation Caritas’ a priority, and the first two major projects of the foundation.

  The big problem Greenberg had faced was what to do with Stolzfus once the time came for him to leave the clinic. Then unexpectedly, Rebecca, who visited her brother regularly, came up with a unique solution that ticked all the boxes. Jack had been invited to come to Pennsylvania to see for himself what that solution was and how it worked. Rebecca had given him a specific date and hinted that there would be some kind of Amish celebration with a few surprises ...

  Jack knew he was getting close when he began to overtake the iconic black horse-drawn, closed-top buggies just outside Ephrata. It was the first indication that he had entered the Amish heartland with its beautiful rural landscape and picture-postcard farms. Another was the fact that there were dozens of pedestrians walking along the busy road, many of them women dressed in traditional attire on their way to market.

  As Rebecca had given him only vague directions to the Stolzfus family farm just outside Ephrata, Jack could no longer rely on satellite navigation and pulled over to ask for directions. A young, fresh-faced woman wearing a plain dress, grey apron, a cape fastened with straight pins at the waist and a black prayer cap bonnet on her head, put down her basket full of eggs and pointed to a group of buildings in the distance. She told Jack how to get there and wished him a good day.

  Rebecca had told Jack a little about the Amish way of life. As some of the best farmers in the world, their lives revolved around agriculture and religion. Toiling in the fields, raising livestock and growing their own food was seen not only as communing with nature, but doing God’s will. Their lives were governed by strict rules that hadn’t changed much since they were forced to flee from their Swiss homeland in the seventeenth century, to avoid brutal persecution by the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Reformers.

  As Jack drove through the farm gate and up a long driveway to a cluster of traditional pole buildings, he couldn’t help but wonder how a man like Stolzfus, who had left the strict confines of Amish life as a young man and turned his back on religion, could return to his roots as a severely disabled invalid being kept alive by the latest technology; something that was shunned by the Amish.

  Rebecca saw Jack pull up and rushed outside to greet him. ‘I’m so glad you could make it,’ she said, giving him a big hug. ‘And just in time. Zac hasn’t stopped talking about you
.’

  ‘Talking? What do you mean?’ asked Jack, frowning.

  ‘Wait and see. You are in for a big surprise, and you won’t believe who’s here as well. Apart from my brothers and their families,’ added Rebecca excitedly. ‘This is a big day for us all, but first let me take you to Zac; come!’

  Rebecca guided Jack to a large barn set a little apart from the other buildings. ‘My brothers fitted out this barn specially for Zac,’ she said. ‘They are carpenters and they even connected electricity. The town is quite close.’

  ‘I thought that was strictly forbidden?’ said Jack.

  ‘The elders made an exception.’

  As they approached the barn, Jack could hear voices. One in particular sounded strange and reminded him of the quirky voice of C-3PO, the golden droid in Star Wars. Rebecca stopped in front of the tall door and looked at Jack. ‘This would not have been possible without you,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘Thanks for everything, Jack. You are in for a big surprise; ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ said Jack and helped Rebecca open the heavy wooden door.

  Inside, the barn consisted of a single large room with massive posts holding up a timber-frame roof. It reminded Jack of a classroom in the country. As soon as he entered, Gizmo let out a little yelp and came running towards him, panting enthusiastically, to greet him. A group of people sitting in a semicircle facing a dais at the far end of room, turned around and looked at Jack. Jack recognised several familiar faces.

  The Genius Club; they are all here! he thought. Then his eyes went to the strange-looking wheelchair on the dais. With its large, illuminated monitor, two antennas and other gadgets mounted on its arms and back, it looked more like moon-landing gear than a wheelchair.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ commanded the strange voice he had heard earlier. ‘I am coming to you.’ With that, the wheelchair turned to the left, moved slowly down a ramp and came towards Jack standing at the door. ‘Good to see you could make it.’

  Speechless, Jack stared at the wheelchair in front of him. Stolzfus sat strapped into the chair with his head held up by a complicated, padded brace just as before. His hair had grown back, making his head look less severe and confronting. His face had filled out a little and a thin beard softened his features. The only thing that hadn’t changed were his eyes, radiating excitement and intelligence. ‘I can’t shake your hand,’ continued the voice. ‘But we are working on it. Welcome to my new world, Jack.’

  Feeling emotional, Jack turned once again to humour to overcome his shock. ‘Not bad,’ he said, recovering quickly. ‘Giving a lecture already. Looks promising. I thought I better turn up and see how that theory of yours is coming along, mate,’ said Jack, stroking Gizmo’s head. ‘I spent hours writing this stuff down, remember? And then I handed it to these guys here to see what it all meant. I hope they could make some sense of it.’

  Subdued laughter in the room eased the tension.

  ‘You won’t be disappointed,’ continued the voice. ‘We have quite an announcement to make. We were just waiting for you.’

  ‘Before we do that, allow me to explain what made it all possible,’ said someone in the back.

  Jack turned around and smiled. ‘You’ve been roped into this too, I see,’ he said and walked up to Greenberg to shake his hand.

  ‘Just like me,’ said Celia Crawford, who came over and stood next to Greenberg.

  ‘You too?’ said Jack and kissed Celia on the cheek. ‘This looks more and more like a press conference than the country picnic I was promised.’

  ‘Surprised?’ asked Greenberg.

  ‘You bet. Your patient can talk. Amazing!’

  ‘He can do more than that. Here, let me show you.’ Greenberg stepped out of the shadows and walked over to Stolzfus. ‘The device I showed you last time we met at the clinic was implanted into Professor Stolzfus’s brain, right here.’ Greenberg pointed to the top of Stolzfus’s head. ‘A simple procedure that allowed him to begin communicating with his computer. We had one specially designed for him. This is it right here. An amazing piece of electronic engineering; revolutionary stuff. In essence, the software that was written for this can cope with complex mathematical information that can be displayed on the monitor here, and via bluetooth on the large screen over there.’ Greenberg pointed to a TV screen behind the dais.

  ‘How?’ asked Jack.

  Greenberg smiled. ‘By merely thinking about it. It took a little while for our patient to master this, but as expected he was an excellent pupil. The results were quite spectacular and surpassed expectations.’

  As he shook his head, Jack noticed that Celia was furiously taking notes. ‘I’m gobsmacked,’ he said. ‘How does it work?’

  ‘Let me explain,’ said Greenberg. ‘It all began with Steven Hawking. When he lost his voice in 1986 – he was forty-four at the time – many technologies combined to develop a system that allowed him to communicate. At first there was a computer program called Equalizer, linked to a speech synthesiser made by Speech Plus. The synthesiser was mounted on the arm of his wheelchair, just like this one here.’ Greenberg pointed to Stolzfus’s wheelchair. ‘Only this one is much more powerful and can do much more. This early system allowed Hawking to communicate at a rate of fifteen words a minute. Professor Stolzfus can do fifty, and the number is growing. But the real breakthrough is the device implanted in his brain. At first, Hawking communicated with the computer by operating a mouse with his thumb. When the nerve deteriorated, making this impossible, a new way was found: a “cheek switch”, which was attached to his glasses. This ingenious device used a low-infrared beam to detect when Hawking tensed a cheek muscle and used this as a signal to operate the computer. Hawking became very adept at this and mastered this extraordinary procedure to such an extent, it allowed him not only to speak, but to send emails, surf the Net and write books!’

  Greenberg paused to let all this sink in. ‘And he did all this by merely tensing a cheek muscle,’ he continued. ‘But unfortunately, Professor Stolzfus here cannot even do that. He is totally paralysed and couldn’t possibly operate the Hawking system. So, we had to come up with something different. We did, and it is infinitely better. Why? Because it operates through thought and therefore does away with the need for any bodily motor function altogether.’

  Spontaneous applause rippled through the room. Smiling, Greenberg held up his hand. ‘The best way to show you all what this really means, is to invite Professor Stolzfus to make the announcement he’s been dying to make since we arrived here today.’

  ‘Thank you, Professor Greenberg,’ said Stolzfus formally and manoeuvred his wheelchair back onto the dais, his computer ‘voice’ sounding distant and strange, making the whole scene appear like something out of a science-fiction movie. Stolzfus positioned his wheelchair so that he could see everyone in the room in front of him. Gizmo jumped up onto the dais and settled down next to him, just as he used to do during lectures.

  ‘For me, to not only see so many people who are close and dear to me all gathered in one room, but being able to actually communicate with them, is more than a dream come true. It is a miracle that only a few short weeks ago seemed impossible.’ Stolzfus paused and looked at the people gathered before him.

  ‘On my left,’ he continued, are my three brothers and their wives, whom I haven’t seen for years. Standing behind them is my dear father and my sister, Rebecca. Without her dogged determination and unwavering support, I wouldn’t be here. Sadly, my dear mother passed away a few years ago; may she rest in peace.

  ‘Sitting right here in front of me is a group of very special people. Gizmo knows them well. They are without doubt some of the most gifted scientists in the world today and I feel privileged to have been allowed to collaborate with them on something extraordinary that will change the way we look at our universe, our past and our destiny forever.

  ‘You have just heard what Professor Greenberg had to say. It all speaks for itself. Without his genius, none of this would have been
possible. Thank you, Professor, you are an extraordinary human being.’

  There was another ripple of applause.

  ‘When Rebecca heard that I had collapsed in Westminster Abbey on June fifteen, after being poisoned,’ continued Stolzfus, ‘and she was given the runaround by the authorities, she turned to Jack Rogan for help. As the true friend he is, Jack dropped everything and answered the call. What he went through to find out what had happened to me is difficult to put into words right now, but you would have read some of it in Celia Crawford’s articles, which in no small way were instrumental in facilitating my rescue.’

  Stolzfus turned his wheelchair slightly to the right. ‘Thank you, Celia, for putting my story out there and bringing it to the public’s attention.’ Stolzfus paused and took a deep breath. It was strange to hear him speak without opening his mouth, or moving his lips. ‘And Celia will do it again, I’m sure,’ continued Stolzfus, who hadn’t lost his touch for the theatrical. ‘She will tell the world about what is taking place here today. And I promise you, my friends, it will change the world forever.’

  More applause came.

  ‘But back to Jack for a moment. In hindsight, perhaps the greatest and most far-reaching contribution he has made to what I’m about to announce, was to listen patiently to my often-incoherent ramblings from my imagination while I was incapacitated, about travelling through time and space. This allowed me to look at problems that previously seemed insurmountable, in different ways. And it provided that crucial missing link that eluded Hawking. Jack faithfully wrote down my calculations and complex equations without complaint, and did so for several days while we were prisoners on a ship heading to South America.

  ‘As it turned out, those very calculations and insights formed the basis of what was to come. Without them, I doubt the extraordinary breakthrough I’m about to announce would have been possible. And that’s not all. Jack delivered those calculations to my colleagues at the Goddard Space Flight Center – they are all right here in front of me – who immediately went to work and developed those ideas further and provided the framework for what I’m about to reveal. Thank you, Jack. You are what true friendship is all about.’