Against every bone in her body, Dr. Minett went to Dr. Volkov’s office as soon as Captain McCoy left the intensive care unit for his practice routine. Coffee could wait, as much as she needed it.
Dr. Volkov was sitting behind his desk, leaning forward with both arms resting on books and papers that he had been reading recently. Dr. Minett sat and crossed both her legs and arms.
“How can you explain what happened to Captain McCoy last night, Dr. Minett?” – Dr. Volkov was calmly focused on assessing the problem that they had to deal with in order to find a proper solution.
“The truth is… I can’t. There isn’t a diagnosis yet.” – Dr. Minett’s voice conveyed unease.
“So why don’t you tell me what you know?”
“I’ve just ran every possible test and none of them showed anything helpful so far. I’m working on finding a cause, but there doesn’t seem to be an easy explanation as to why the patient entered a coma or how he came out from it so fast.”
“What happened when he woke up from the coma? Did he talk to you?”
“When the patient came out from the coma, he started dreaming and it was like he had been sleeping like any other person. The rest of the night was normal, and so was the patient when he woke up.”
“Do you think the device has something to do with it?”
“It’s very likely that the device caused some unexpected injury to his brain, but I can’t jump to the obvious conclusion without ruling out every other possibility. I’ll monitor him closely until I’m positive I have an answer.”
Dr. Volkov started drumming his fingers on the book that had been below his right arm, looking at the book’s cover while stroking his chin with his left hand. After interminable seconds of uncomfortable silence, Dr. Volkov looked back at Dr. Minett and asked:
“Has Captain McCoy manifested any ability so far?”
“Apparently no ability has been manifested yet, but there’s still time for it.”
“Yes, I know.” – Dr. Volkov leaned back on his chair.
“Is there anything else you would like to discuss now?”
“No, you’re free to go.”
Dr. Minett sighed in relief. As she stood up and started walking toward the door, Dr. Volkov had an idea:
“Dr. Minett, one more thing:” – he took a deep breath while Dr. Minett halted and turned around – “you may have another patient at the ICU tonight.”
“A new patient?”
“Not exactly. We’ll talk about it later. You can go now.”
Dr. Minett decided not to think about Dr. Volkov’s strange answer before knowing what he had in mind. For the time being, her only concern was to get hold of a much needed cup of coffee.
***
Captain McCoy was sitting on a white plastic chair in his provisional practice room. A piece of wood that was once used as a clipboard and a white sheet of paper were placed on the white plastic table that he was sitting at.
The lack of a pen was an unintended reminder that the board and the paper were not there for writing. Such objects were there to be used as tools for the mind, indeed, but with a very different purpose.
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Captain McCoy closed his eyes and started inhaling and exhaling at a steadily slow pace as he tried to clear his mind of any thoughts. He opened his eyes when he felt that the chair was an extension of his own body.
McCoy took hold of the paper with his left hand and touched the object with the index finger of his right hand. He could feel the particles that made up the paper interact with the particles of his finger, but they were still repelling each other.
For the next five hours his finger kept bulging the paper. Eventually, Captain McCoy pressed the tip of his finger against the paper and did not notice any bulge. Instead, he saw a few tiny light beams circling around the area where his finger met the paper.
McCoy had finally managed to slow down the paper’s particles in order to allow his finger’s particles to go through. He carefully moved his finger forward until he could see its tip on the other side of the paper.
As beautiful and exciting that sight was, Captain McCoy knew that he had to stay focused until the movement was completed. He pulled his finger back with caution and did not stop until he could see that he was no longer touching the paper.
McCoy stood up from the chair, ran three yards, yelled and jumped with a spin while punching the air, mimicking Swedish former soccer player Tomas Brolin’s signature celebration for scoring a goal.
Upon hearing the shout, a guard that was passing by stopped and looked at the practice room through the observation window in order to check what was going on. He smiled at a poker-faced McCoy, nodded and kept walking.
Feeling slightly embarrassed for getting caught in the act of celebrating his achievement, Captain McCoy sat on the chair and resumed working on his first drill. He spent the rest of the day trying to get his finger through the paper faster and farther.
***
Dr. Volkov took a sip of black coffee while staring at the cover of a book on biocentrism, at which he had been looking since before talking to Dr. Minett about Captain McCoy’s incident.
A black man was sitting in front of Dr. Volkov, while five guards were standing between the subject and the door. Volkov was wearing a helmet that resembled a plasma globe, in spite of still not being sure whether it served its purpose.
“Good morning, Captain Armstrong. How are you feeling today?” – Dr. Volkov sounded unusually friendly but clearly phony.
“What do you want from me?”
“I wanna offer you a deal.”
“I still can’t read your mind through that stupid helmet, but I’ve been in this place long enough to know there are no deals here. What's the catch?”
Dr. Volkov still was not sure whether the helmet was really preventing Captain Armstrong from listening to his thoughts, but he chose to believe that the subject was telling him the truth, which gave him the confidence to bluff:
“You know what? You can either listen to what I have to say and get something of it, or you can walk away right now and pray to God that someday things will be different. Your call.”
“You can’t hold me here forever.”
“Wanna bet on it?”
Captain Armstrong did not believe that Dr. Volkov would actually do anything good for him. On the other hand, Armstrong knew that he had nothing to lose and that Volkov would not offer him any deal at all without being desperate for help. He decided to stay and see how things turned out.
“Alright. I’m listening.”
Dr. Volkov explained that there was a new subject in The Compound, one who was not there for the same reason as everyone else and did not know where the other subjects had come from. He then told to Captain Armstrong that the new subject’s brainwaves presented an unexpected pattern during his first night in The Compound.
“And what do you expect me to do?” – Captain Armstrong did not understand how he could be of any help in that case.
“I want you to watch Captain McCoy while he sleeps. If he does the same thing tonight, I want you to try and understand what’s going on.”
“You want me to read the mind of a brain-dead man? You gotta be kidding me.”
“Remember that he doesn’t stay in a coma for too long. I just want to know what happens before and afterwards. Can you do that for me?”
“Okay. What’s in it for me?”
“If you give me valuable information that’s proven to be true, I’ll sign your release and you’ll be out of here and back to the action in three months.”
Not only Captain Armstrong had to give Dr. Volkov some information, but also such information had to be verifiable and had to be true. Nothing in this task could be controlled or even influenced by Captain Armstrong anyhow, and the odds were that he would not find anything at all.
It seemed like a downright lost cause, but the possibility of being released from The Compound and surprisingly reincorporated into the Armed Forces ignited a spark in Captain Armstrong:
“Back to the Marine Corps, and not in a body bag?”
“Not back to the Marine Corps. You’ll be the first to join a new uniformed service. That’s all I can tell you for now. What do you say?”
The whole idea still seemed absurd to Captain Armstrong and he did not believe that Dr. Volkov would actually keep his word. Nevertheless, at the very least that deal would get him involved with new routines and give him a much needed perspective. He had to accept the offer.
“I’m in. I’ll be at the ICU tonight.”
“Great. I’ll call Dr. Minett in, so we can discuss the details”.