As Captain McCoy entered the office and took a seat, Dr. Volkov opened the top drawer to the left of his desk, grabbed a photograph and offered it to Ben with his left hand:
“I think you should have this.”
McCoy seized the object and noticed that it was a picture of Susan and Claire. Ben felt astonished as he realized that the girl in the photograph was identical to the daughter that he had in some of his dreams about Sue.
“You're not gonna believe what I'm about to tell you.”
Captain McCoy started telling Dr. Volkov about how he had been dreaming about Susan long before he met her, ever since he was a teenager. He also mentioned that Claire was his daughter in some of those dreams, and that he had stopped having that sort of dream since his involvement with Susan.
Dr. Volkov did expect that, upon seeing a photograph of Dr. Minett and her daughter, Captain McCoy would start talking about his dreams. That part of the plan had been accomplished.
Nevertheless, the revelation that McCoy had been dreaming about Minett years before the device was implanted into his brain came as a surprise to Volkov. What he thought was a side effect had actually always been there.
Dr. Volkov thought that maybe Captain McCoy stumbled on the mechanism that allows gravity to flow from one universe to another, which would mean that it is possible to open a portal for inter-universal travel.
“What you just told me is amazing, and I believe every single word of it.”
“You do? So there's an explanation for all of this?”
Dr. Volkov nodded with excitement and started explaining:
"The thing we call consciousness or soul is an energy made up of branes. That energy is boxed in the brain from birth to death. When we die, such energy leaves the brain towards hyperspace and might be absorbed in a parallel universe by our respective doppelganger. That energy may also be conserved in the same universe and distributed to the brain of a newborn baby, but that's not the point now."
"What?"
"Try to picture your consciousness as a ball of light that will leave your brain when you die. Now, try to picture hyperspace as this sheet of paper, and these two circles I'm drawing as two separate universes. Now try to picture that ball of light leaving one of these circles, in which you lived, then going to some point above this sheet, and finding a duplicate of you in the other circle, something like finding a new home to dwell in as a guest and keep existing somehow."
As Captain McCoy nodded, Dr. Volkov resumed:
"The beautiful thing is that you're doing it while you're still alive, on a short-term basis. I believe that, somehow, the branes of your consciousness found a way to fluctuate between parallel universes and retain some memory of your corresponding doppelganger. Simply put, your dreams were recollections of your life in an alternate universe!"
"My dreams were real?"
"Yes! And I think you subconsciously chose the universe in which you already had Susan."
"That explains why I knew things about her from my dreams."
Dr. Volkov proceeded:
"You stopped dreaming about her when you were together because your consciousness no longer needed to fulfill some kind of yearning by visiting your doppelganger's mind in an alternate universe."
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"Now that she's gone, do you think I can start dream-travelling there again?"
"I suppose you can. Let me offer a deal: I help you go there again, and you help me find out how you do it."
"What about my mission?"
"You'll keep your practice routine during the day. We'll work on our project at night."
Dr. Volkov had been planning experiments on Captain McCoy since the day that Captain Armstrong confirmed that the McCoy Event had happened two nights in a row. By the time that Volkov decided that Dr. Minett was an obstacle that had to be removed, the only thing that he was missing was the willing subject.
Hours later, Captain McCoy was lying on a gurney in the intensive care unit with electrodes in his head, just like all the nights before. This time, however, a dreamachine was placed atop a portable table that was positioned at a distance of three inches from his nose.
Dr. Volkov told McCoy to close his eyes, turned the lights off, turned the dreamachine on with the remote control that he held in his left hand, and sat on a chair beside the light switch.
As the regular flashes of light were produced by the stroboscopic lamp, Captain McCoy started seeing the colors red, white and blue fluidly mixing and taking the shape of something. When it looked like his vision was going to make sense, McCoy had to open his eyes and throw up.
The following night, when Captain McCoy walked in the intensive care unit, he found Dr. Volkov sitting on a chair beside an isolation tank where there used to be his gurney. Beside the isolation tank there were an empty bathtub and a filled water tank, both connected by a hose.
“What the hell is this?” - an astounded Captain McCoy asked, pointing at an elliptic, white plastic receptacle with an acrylic porthole-type door.
“Tonight we'll try a sensory deprivation tank. It should help you achieve altered states of consciousness.”
“And what's the bathtub for?”
“I need you to take your clothes off, wear that shower cap and take a shower. Wash yourself with soap. Rinse clean.”
Captain McCoy followed Dr. Volkov's instructions without further questions. Thereafter, Volkov placed a waterproof electrode cap in McCoy's head, handed him a pair of earplugs and explained:
“I need you to wear the earplugs and get in the isolation tank. You'll float because of the magnesium sulfate, so don't worry about drowning. Just try to keep your mind clear.”
Trying to ignore the wires that connected his cap to the electroencephalography equipment, Captain McCoy took a deep breath, glanced at Dr. Volkov, who was sitting back on his chair, and asked:
"Do you believe in God?"
"I believe in a universal wave function from which everything else follows."
"I'll take that as a yes."
Captain McCoy got in the tank and experienced the total absence of light and sound. Now in a state of relaxation and lacking spatial perception, McCoy felt like his body and the water were the same thing.
As Captain McCoy's arms and legs started generating electricity inside the tank, Dr. Volkov noticed a spike on the electroencephalography readings, which was followed shortly by flat lines.
The electric currents flowed through McCoy's body and traveled through the wires of the electrodes that were touching his head. The electroencephalography screen exploded before Volkov could have any reaction.
“No! My research!” - Dr. Volkov shouted with both hands on his head as he jumped off his chair. He ran to the door, with tears rolling down his face, and yelled to the paramedics that were standing outside: “Help!”
The paramedics rushed in, removed Captain McCoy from the tank immediately and subsequently started cardiopulmonary resuscitation followed by defibrillation. However, they did not succeed. The subject was dead.
Dr. Volkov did not accept the fact that Dr. Minett failed to report to him that Captain McCoy's body generated electric currents before his consciousness traveled to an alternate universe.
Filled with anger and frustration, Volkov started to shout swear words in Russian while punching and kicking the isolation tank.
***
Ben and Sue were strolling along snow-covered Bryant Park, in New York City, holding Claire's hands. At the Nikola Tesla corner, Ben saw a tall white man with unshaped black hair and a stubble beard, wearing eyeglasses.
“Did you see that man that just passed by?” - Ben asked Sue.
“No. What about him?”
“He looked familiar... I guess I've seen him before...”
THE END