BOOK 1: SERENDIPITY / CH. 17:COOLING DOWN
John knocked on Kate's door. Arwood opened it. “What's the news?”
“Sarah's awake, all seems OK, but Janet wants her to not move and yet to be cooler, Kate. I'd rather not be the one who takes her dress off.”
“Why-ever not? You're engaged, aren't you?” asked Teresa, who John hadn't seen until then.
“Engaged isn't married in our book, plus we don't want Sarah to use her gifts until we're sure she's OK. And if we get too close then we get a sort of telempathic feedback.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Fine, John, I'll go,” Kate said, getting up. “just as long as I can tease you about this later.”
“Nothing I can say will stop your teasing, Kate, so I might as well give you more ammunition. Also, could you stay with her? I've got a client coming soon.”
“OK. You'd better get them to talk with Teresa about the whole disclosure and ethics thing first, since she's here.”
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Kate eventually managed to help Sarah out of the dress, not an easy task since Janet had restated her concern about keeping Sarah's head still, and she also rearranged her slip so that it wasn't all crooked. “It's a good thing John wasn't doing this, even his mighty will power might have succumbed to temptation.”
“I'm not sure if his will power is so great, Kate. I think he's just got a proper respect for the forces of biology and avoids getting too close to them before what we both know is the right time. I've seen those forces at work in my friends. They were so sure they could handle them that they got close to the edge, and several of them ended up regretting it. John stays away from the edge, and I respect him for it. I'd like to be that sensible, but I find myself flinging temptation at him because I feel so safe with him. It's not sensible, it's not wise and it's not kind. Actually, I feel that I'm demeaning both of us by it.”
“But isn't it that you're testing your intuition? Seeing if he's really as safe as you feel he is?”
“Maybe. But he's not God, he's not perfect. Why do I treat him like he is?”
“Like he's God, or like he's perfect?”
“Like he's perfect. But I know he's not. He can be really infuriating sometimes.”
“But still he's your Mr. Right.”
“Oh yes, even when he's running away with an idea that's full of wrong, he's still Mr. Right.”
“You know, maybe that's what made me think of when I lost James. He was my Mr. Right.”
“But those things he said about you! He can't have really been your Mr. Right, that doesn't fit.”
“It does in context. Really, they were pretty well aimed in fact.”
“How on earth were you being treacherous? I won't quote the rest.”
“Oh, you remember that sound-bite? Well, you see, James, Pete and I used to be the committee of the atheist society at the university. Then Pete started to really enjoy debating with the Christian union president. Who just happened to be quite a pretty girl, as well as knowing enough to run circles round his increasingly feeble arguments. I'm not sure if it was the prospect of romance that made him waver or if he really found her convincing. But anyway, he became a Christian but was still on the committee. He thought it was an excellent opportunity to share his new faith, I guess. So the rest of us decided that we'd only talk to him about committee stuff, but we'd shun him otherwise. Then, I guess I was curious and I wanted to know what had convinced him, so I asked him.”
“So James caught you breaking faith with the cause, talking with his arch nemesis? And that's why he dumped you?”
“Sounds rather a silly reason to ruin both our lives, doesn't it? Especially when you add that part of my reason for rejecting God so long was to prove to myself that I wasn't a traitor. I worked that out the other night, after dredging up that memory.”
“Oh, Kate. I think you need a hug and I'm not allowed to move. So, that's what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Sort of. If I was only holding onto disbelief because of pig-headed stubbornness, where does that leave me?”
“I think only you can answer that one, Kate. But John did point out to me, oh ages and ages ago, it must have been last Friday, there are only really three logical positions you can take regarding God.”
“I think I know what you're going to say, but go on.”
“Rejection of God, which ends up as atheism once you've rejected all of them, honest enquiry, or accepting Him on His own terms.”
“You're going to upset some agnostics if you say that too often.”
“But agnosticism is either honest enquiry or it's a cop-out for people who don't want to commit themselves one way or another, at least as far as the Judeo-Christian God is concerned. Saying that we can't know about God is all very well if you're discussing a deist first cause who then goes and hides, but the God of the Bible is very much into self-revelation. The so called convinced agnostic is either ignoring that aspect, which is pulling the wool over their own eyes, or rejecting that concept of God.”
“You don't need to convince me, Sarah. I'm not going to turn into an agnostic. But am I really going to turn into a smug ‘I've got it all worked out’ Christian?”
“I don't know. I hope you're not. I mean, I haven't got it all worked out. I'm pretty sure John and Arwood haven't either. I've always thought that people who think they'd got it all worked out had a small idea of what ‘all’ is.”
“So what have you committed yourself to, Sarah, what ideas make you leap up and down for joy or give you a sense of peace, what makes you glad about your faith? Why should a stubborn old atheist like me, now maybe considering honest enquiry, consider your religion before, say, Buddhism? What's so special about your idea of God?”
“I don't know how to answer that, Kate. Some of those questions seem off-course, and as for the other religions, I can't say I've really studied the hundreds of different belief systems out there. I can give you a Sunday school answer, but I haven't checked it out in great detail.”
“Go on. I never went to Sunday school, so what's childish to you might be insightful wisdom for me.”
“Why ask me, not John or Arwood?”
“Well, for starters I've grown too used to metaphorically sticking my fingers in my ears saying, 'Nyer nyer, I'm not listening' to John over the years, plus he's probably scaring a client away right now about the whole mindreading thing. I really should have cancelled that appointment like the ones earlier in the day, but I was hoping we'd get it all sorted out on time. Arwood's probably left, and that leaves me making sure you don't move, cook, freeze, or go roaming with that wonderful mind of yours.”
“And, why else?”
“You sure you're not mind reading me, girl?”
“Fairly. I just say why else because you said you wanted to talk to me with Arwood and John right there in the room.”
“Because from what you've said, you've only just started taking it seriously. It's all relatively new to you, you're thinking on the spot, not giving answers you've given a hundred times before. I value that, I guess. Or maybe just because it's less embarrassing a climb down.”
“OK, Kate, I'll try and answer. Um, most religions, as far as I know, are about human efforts. Either to make the world safer, if you look at the whole bribing-the-sea-gods-to-let-you-have-safe-passage thing, or to reach some kind of better mental outlook, or to make sure you earn enough good marks so you don't fail the final exam.”
“Yes, that sounds like all the ones I've heard of.”
“Then I guess you really weren't listening to John. Because Christianity is different.”
“OK, I must admit I've heard people say that Jesus saves people, but then they go on about avoiding sin just like the other religions. Jesus saves, Allah is merciful, and so on.”
“But as far as I understand it, a Moslem has to do an awful lot of good deeds before they stand much hope of reaching Allah's standard, and I don't even know if they know what the standard is.”
“Whereas you Christians do?”
“Yes. It's perfection. An average of 100%.”
“With rounding you mean, so 99.5% and above?”
“No, I don't, sorry. If you want to earn your ticket to heaven you need an entirely spotless life. And no pride either, which would be the killer for most people if they managed it.”
“I've heard of having standards, but isn't that crazy? Your heaven is going to be empty, girl. I know your John's not a bad guy, but even you admit he's got faults.”
“Yes, he's got faults, I've got faults. In a bit of the Bible I read on Saturday it said something like ‘no one is good enough for God's glory’ That's why we get so excited about Jesus. God died in our place so he wouldn't need to punish us.”
“But that doesn't make much sense, Sarah. If God sets the standard, why does He need to work round it? Why not lower the standard?”
“I think it's about consistency. The Christian God is consistent, and He is ruler of the entire universe. He doesn't go around saying, ‘Oh, let's set gravity at half strength today.’ Otherwise we'd be in a really scary place. He isn't like that, and He deserves honour and respect. When we disobey Him, mistreat each other, think we're more important than He is, it's like spitting in His face and telling Him to get lost, to get out of our lives. He can't do that without banishing us. He doesn't change the rules, but He does love us, the Bible makes that clear. And, well, you try to explain what's gone on in John's life and mine without involving God.”
“That last one is an interesting argument. But let's stick to God being consistent. How is it consistent to say you love people and let people get murdered? I always thought that was a good argument when I was a student.”
“And you've not heard a single good answer in all your decades since, but want me to come up with one?”
“Actually, I've heard the of the free-will argument, but why? Why allow freedom of will which can cause so much pain if you still want worshippers who leap to your every whim?”
“I don't think God is that narcissistic, Kate. I don't think He wants us to leap to meet His desires. He wants us to express our own love for Him, in our individual ways, because that's how we can be our best selves. Think of a Jazz band or better a whole orchestra, playing together for the sheer joy of it and also because of their love of you, because they want to make beautiful music just for you. Would you rather that, or a bunch of robots playing perfectly but without any feelings? Or you yourself, Kate: would you give up your ability to have made mistakes and learn from them? I believe that in heaven we won't be free from the ability to sin, but that we'll finally be free from the desire to sin. That after a lifetime resisting it we'll finally be released from that pressure to ruin our lives, or say things that hurt the ones we care for. I'm not long into this third decade of my life, but I know I'm really looking forward to it already.”
“Thank you, Sarah. I need to think about things more, I think. But I understand better now how you managed to get John to come out of his mental monastery. You can be pretty convincing when you want to be. I like what you said about the orchestra.”
“I did have a bit of help there. I can't claim that thought for an original composition.”
“Oh, you'd read it somewhere?”
“Actually I had a little glimpse of it at church on Sunday. During the hymns, my crowd noise was transformed into a united song of hearts and minds and voices praising God. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever ever experienced. If you'd mentioned my crowd noise pain, then I'd have said that my years of it was worth less than a minute of that joy. And I didn't just get one minute. Each hymn was different, each verse was different. Each was beautiful — flawed but beautiful, just a taste, Kate, just a tiny taste of heaven. Enough to reassure me that it's all worth it. No matter if it costs me my family again, my health, my love for John, then still I will serve my God, for there is nothing the world can offer me that is better than Him.”
“And for the rest of us mere mortals, what do we get to reassure us of that reality? How can an ordinary man or woman who doesn't have your direct line to heaven find that sort of religious experience, that sort of reassurance?”
“There's some old old hymns I remember singing when I was little, Kate. They were hundreds of years old, but they speak of a normal Christians experience of God. A line from one was, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus, all our griefs and toils to bear.’ Then there was something else about worry, then ‘take it to the Lord in prayer.’ And there's another one, ‘Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.’ And another one which I needed help to understand, about being trapped in a prison of sin and then God calling them and I remember the next bit: ‘my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee.’ That's the sort of thing that long lasting Christian poets write about, Kate. I guess it resonates with normal Christian experience. I know it felt a bit like that when I prayed on Friday night.”
“Can I ask you about that? If your God is so great to be with, what happened between you being little and at church and you being challenged by John for what, half-hearted faith?”
“More like a critical attitude towards people who took their faith seriously. John pointed out that it wasn't exactly clear thinking to believe in an almighty God but not take Him seriously. It was like a light going on in my head.”
“So you woke, went forth and followed?”
“Actually, John walked me home, I told God I'd been a stupid girl and could I come home please, and read rather a lot of the Bible. Certainly enough to know that God was happy I'd stopped being so silly. As for what happened in the middle, well I wasn't exactly pleased with God for letting me be left here without my parents. And then there was an idiot of a preacher during my first week at university, who convinced me that I didn't want to go near the Christian union.”
“What did he say?”
“He was outside the library, where I'd gone for some quiet. I didn't quite hear all of it, but I heard enough. He was sure that no real Christians had died during the Clear Sky shopping centre attack, because a. it was God's judgement on that temple to money, b. it was on Sunday, so good Christians would have been at church. (Which was just plain wrong, it was Friday.) And c. that if there had been Christians there then God's Spirit would have warned them to flee the coming attack. At that point I asked the librarian to get his loudspeaker turned off, because he was disturbing the peace of the library and insulting my parents’ memory. I'm not sure which argument won, but he went quiet fairly quickly.”
“Knowing university librarians, it was probably the former. So, what would you do now?”
“If I heard someone preaching that again?” Sarah laughed. “I'd send good Sir John into battle for me, of course, that's what knights are for, isn't it? Actually, I think I'd probably get up on stage and try to correct him before he did any more damage.”
“And if he didn't give you the microphone?”
“I'd probably start by telling him and everyone in earshot that he was teaching falsehood and was distorting the gospel of grace, that suffering was part of the normal Christian life, things like that. And if he tried to physically move me, well, I did learn rather a lot of judo in my self defence classes.”
Janet stuck her head round the door and said, “I'm going to run another scan on you soon, Sarah. Are you still feeling hot?”
“No, pretty chilly actually.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“As long as you're not freezing, I'd prefer it that way for now. Can you stand it?”
“I'm not sure about standing, I mean you're not letting me move, are you?”
“Only because you tried to boil your own brain. Any pain now?”
“I'd classify it as a the sort of headache which I'm able to ignore in good company. So as long as Kate keeps talking to me, then I'm OK.”
“I'm glad to see you're in a good mood. What have you two been talking about?”
Sarah flicked her eyes towards Kate, not wanting to reveal the subject if Kate wasn't happy to talk about it. Kate answered, “It's my fault, Janet. I've finally admitted that I might have an immortal soul, and Sarah here has been trying to save it. No, that's not fair really, I've been interrogating her about her faith and she's been answering very well.”
“Kate the hard-shelled atheist is beginning to crack? Can I join in the conversation while I check Sarah again?”
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And so it was that when John arrived, he found the three of them deep in discussion about the doctrine of the Trinity. Sarah was still lying on her back on the bed, but she now had a pillow under her head. The slip she wore covered her well enough, but he realised that he was seeing more of her than he had before. “Hello, beautiful, what's the news, except that Kate here is letting strange new thoughts into her mind?”
“Isn't he nice?” Sarah asked Kate. “He freely admits that Sally was the most gorgeous creature ever to have graced the planet but he still drops little tokens of encouragement to me like that.”
“I think you've won him all right, Sarah. Enjoy your victory knowing that he's never even noticed another woman in the past decade,” Janet sighed theatrically, then added, “Now you're here, John, I'd really like to do some confirmation tests. But since Sarah shouldn't be the subject, I was wondering if you would be willing to be tested for how much oxygen or energy or both your brain uses, and where, when you start using this gift. Would that be OK?”
“Yes, sure, um what sort of things would you like me to do? And do I need to wear one of Horrace's horror masks?”
“Yes, afraid so. The full franken-helmet. I'd like to test you at rest, then answering some questions that should trigger different bits of your brain, and then I'd like you to use your gifts in its different modes, so we'll get someone to think at you. And then we'll find some innocent victim for you to scan, I guess only for a second or two to be on the safe side. Sarah would be OK if she doesn't reciprocate. Then if that all looks good, I'd like you to get a few seconds of data with you and Sarah communing or thinking together or whatever it is, so I can see what the different levels are.”
“OK, that sounds like a fairly comprehensive test. Sarah, Kate, any thoughts?”
asked John.
“Let's get data for the peace mode too,” suggested Sarah.
“What's that one?” Kate asked.
“Oops, didn't we tell you? Last night we found we can concentrate on peace, which seems to turn off our gift. We were thinking it might protect Sarah from the crowd thing.”
“Then that's an interesting one, a very interesting one indeed,” said Janet, as she got Horrace's most complicated contraption ready. It was a prototype helmet that combined far more functions than the traditional EEG helmet could be used for. It would let them measure just about everything that happened in John's brain simultaneously. It wasn't pretty or light though, and the mass of cables attaching it to the support systems would have made it an ideal prop in an early science fiction film. It couldn't actually be worn at all, but was raised up and down by a small crane. John felt himself edging away slightly. “Isn't that the one they used to cook the turkey last Christmas?”
“Well, yes, but I did make them clean it very very well afterwards.”
John wasn't reassured. “And now you want me to put my head into it?”
“John, the only way they got the turkey to cook was by bypassing all the relevant protection circuits and putting in a massive radio frequency amplifier. It was part of a testing setup to make sure that the RF didn't get to the electrodes.”
John was still slightly baffled, but thought he'd picked up the key point. “So it can't cook turkeys now?”
“No, John,” Janet said, feeling a bit like when she babysat her five year old nephew, “they took away the turkey cooking bits.”
Sarah picked up on the tone of voice and laughed. “Isn't he adorable? One day we'll let him play with our grown up toys, but maybe not just yet. So Janet, it's a combined NMRI scanner and EEG headset? I thought that it had been proven they weren't compatible. How did they solve the eddy currents from the field coils? And the headset itself holds the main magnet? How did they manage to get a uniform field?”
Before Janet could answer, John asked, “Did you understand any of that, Kate? I think I've just been insulted and blinded by science in one sentence.”
Kate grinned, “Yes, John, that's right. It's possibly called bonding. Now please trust the nice clever scientists and put the turkey cooker on, will you?”
“Yes John, please get on with it. I'd really like to be able to move soon, and these tests should happen first,” Sarah added.
“OK, love. Sorry for being so dense. It's just that that turkey cooked really quickly.”
“John!” all three warned in unison.
It took a few minutes to get the headset properly adjusted to John's head. Then the various sensors, magnetic fields and blood flow detectors were brought on line. Slowly the first set of resting data was collected. Given John's apparent state of mind, Sarah suggested that before Janet started on the questions it might be a good idea for him to try focussing on peace first. Janet agreed it was worth a try. “OK John, I hope you're ready. I'd like you to find some peace if you can.”
John tried to relax whatever he relaxed, and direct his mind's eye to peace. He agreed that he needed it. He'd had a stressful day, and it was going to stay stressful unless he could calm down. He hadn't relaxed yet. “This is silly, sorry, I guess I'm a bit too stressed to think of peace right now.”
“Oh John,” Sarah chided him, “I've just been quoting ‘Take it to the Lord in prayer’ to Kate. How about praying?”
“Good idea,” and John thought about that song and in his heart he took all his worries and concerns to His Lord. He soon found that it really wasn't so hard to relax. Focussing on peace, he once again felt the reassurance that all would work out for good, and he knew that healing peace was restoring his mind to how it should be. He dropped back to normal much restored.
“Hi John, interesting traces there,” Janet reported. “Can you answer some questions now?”
“Sure, that's why we're here.”
“OK, Kate, would you mind being assistant and ask John these questions while I watch what's happening?” And she brought up a list of questions on the display. And so John was asked questions that focused on his memory, analytical skills, spatial awareness and so on. Eventually Janet let him rest. For a while. Then it was time for some uses of his gifts.
“Kate, can you please think something boring at John.”
“Boring, you say?”
“Yes, I don't want to get some kind of emotional or intellectual response which hides what we're looking for.”
“OK, here comes stuff you know, John.”
[One plus one is two, two plus two is four, Australia is a big country, Antarctica is cold.]
John repeated it back.
“Excellent. Now, was there anything about that that might have triggered some emotions John?”
“Well, Sarah once talked about considering going to work in Antarctica, and I presume she's cold now too.”
“OK John, that would explain that spike then. I've got a baseline for you racking your brain for fiendishly tricky questions, we'll call the first rest time being stressed, but this last period has been much more like normal resting. Your peaceful mode was interesting because your brain practically turned most of itself off. Except I can't call it sleep as you still showed patterns of conscious thought, also there was more bloodflow than normal. When you listened to Kate I couldn't see much difference to normal listening. Now, can I ask Sarah to think of something not too exciting for John to read?”
“OK, I'm ready, I think.”
John focussed on Sarah. She was trying to think of a neutral scene, but her arms and legs were getting numb and she wasn't at all comfortable.
“If you want emotion free then can we give Sarah a blanket please, and um, if she can't take a little walk then she needs a bed-pan soon.”
“John! That's my call, not yours!” Sarah said indignantly.
“Sorry, but it's true, isn't it?”
“Yes, now shut up about it or I'll thump you.”
Janet joined in, “John, you just can't say things like that! As punishment, you get your eye holes closed and I'm going to play white noise at you for a while.”
True to her word, John's ears were filled with noise that while not painful, certainly stopped him hearing anything else, and through the holes he'd been able to see out of until now he saw Janet's hand reaching towards him and then darkness.
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“Shall we let him out now?” Janet asked, once necessity had been dealt with. Sarah grinned, “Well, he's been there a while, so he might have learned his lesson, and I guess you've got lots of lovely resting data now.”
Janet turned off the noise. Kate said, “OK, John, if you promise to be good then we'll let you see again too. But you mind what you say from now on.”
“Yes mum, I'll be good, promise,” said John in his best approximation to a little boy's voice.
“Does that count as being good?” asked Sarah.
“Let's get on with it, shall we? I want to see what you did to yourself, Sarah.” John responded. “OK, then we'll leave you eye flaps shut. We'll get less stray signals if that's all right with you. You shut your eyes anyway, don't you?”
“Yes, OK, you can leave me in darkness a bit longer. Sarah, are you ready? Something boring I guess.”
“Ready.”
Sarah was thinking of a time when she'd been climbing up a hill somewhere, on a misty day. It was a long way to the top, and she remembered being disappointed that it was still misty when she got there. She'd hoped it would be clear.
“Lot of effort for no view, love,” he said. “I hope you got something that time Janet.”
“Oh, yes. Increased bloodflow and big spikes in brain activity. John, did you have any emotional response?”
“A bit of compassion or pity. Sarah climbed up a hill in search of sunlight and a good view and all she found was fog. Speeking of which, can I look out now, please?”
“Yes, sure. Hmm, looking at the dip in oxygenation levels you were doing a lot of metabolism there.”
“So, next test?”
“How about you try to do what Sarah was doing, but not for long. Maybe 5 seconds?”
“So who tries to lie to me?”
“I'll do it, John,” Sarah said.
“OK love, you start talking, I'll start peeking.”
“My name is Sarah Jemimah Smith, I'm 32 years old, my favourite colour is purple.”
And so on for five seconds. John found it easy to see her untruths. “What a load of lies! Jemimah was your favourite doll when you were little. You don't like the colour purple because you had to eat purple cabbage once and you hated it. I'll have to remember that.”
Janet was looking in amazement at the data coming off her display. John found he wanted more air around his head. “Janet, it's getting hot in here, can I come out for a bit?”
She quickly got to her feet and released the latches and lifted the helmet on its crane. “OK John, I want you drinking lots of cold fluids right now, and if you don't mind, please take off your shirt.”
“Well, OK, if you insist.”
“No talking, cold drink and bare skin please.”
“Hey, my leg's buzzing me.”
“Low blood sugar alarm?”
“Yes.”
“Right! On the bed next to Sarah's one, please.”
“Um OK, that scary?”
“Possibly. Don't try that again, OK?”
“Now let's give you a quick scan on this machine,” and she expertly put the coils around his head, moved Sarah's bed to one side and slid his bed into the scanner.
“Hmm, blood vessels wide open. No inflamation yet. Oh! John, go into into peace mode, please, and try and stay there a while.” John wasn't sure how long ‘a while’ was, but then he didn't have much concept of time while he was focussed on peace anyway. He focussed on peace and found it. Unlike before, as well as the sense of peace, he was aware of a sense of uncomfortable warmth, and that the cool peace was enveloping it and taking it away. When he'd seen the last bit of it go, he dropped back to normal.
“Hi John, welcome back.” Sarah was there, dressed once more, the others had disappeared.
“You're up! How long was I gone for?”
“About half an hour. Janet did some maths and decided I didn't need to freeze any more, and my brain was back to the right shape too. John, if what Janet found is right, that is one scary use of our gift.”
“Go on, I'm listening.”
“Your leg buzzer goes off to tell you your blood sugar's dropped, yes?”
“Yes, it does if I do something silly like running up a hill.”
“John, according to some things Janet knows and other things we checked, a human doing something silly like running up a hill does about 750W of real work, while using somewere like five times that amount of energy to do it. But you can't keep it up. You normally use a hundred watts staying alive, and your brain usually uses about twenty watts of that. I don't know why your leg buzzer went off. You weren't using as much as you would going up a hill. But from what Janet saw, the energy use in your brain was something like 200 watts, ten times normal. She's not sure exactly, because it was too much for the instruments.”
“So we did fry our brains?”
“I got close, John. We got close. 200 Watts into the active bit of our brains — about ten percent — for fifteen seconds, well it would raise the temperature of that much water by five degrees. If you have five degrees of fever then you're either very very sick or dead. Even your five seconds was like heating part of your brain to fever temperature.”
“So, how are we having this conversation?” John asked
“Because the heat didn't just stay where it was. Fortunately our brains aren't in separate bits. The bits that got hot are connected to the rest of the brain, so we get some protection. Plus the blood that goes around the brain would move some of the heat away. So, I've got an idea. Let's not do this again.”
“But the normal, short scans?” John asked.
“They're only a second or two, John. Perfectly safe as long as we don't do them often.”
“Often meaning more than once a minute or once an hour?”
“I think anything less often than once every couple of minutes should be fine, John.”
“But we now have some results that say we can't be thought police.”
“Yes. Oh, Kate said you had a client? Did they run away at disclosure?”
“Not quite, but they did moan about needing time to process this and why had we let them come out only to present them with this scary stuff. You know Kate's stand on not saying who has the gift? Well it sort of helped the client. I was able to say that it was two out of our staff of twenty, except one of them had just almost passed out from trying to use their ability for a whole 15 seconds and was recovering still. And they'd both agreed to be bound by the ethics policy, and no one would be read without full informed consent. No, I wasn't at liberty to say who, but that didn't make any difference, since they weren't in any position to give informed consent yet, were they? And in the end they were happy to have their session.”
“Wow, that's great.” Sarah said.
“Yes, and you know what else is great?”
“No, you tell me.”
“Firstly, that you're OK, since that's rather important. The second is that I love you very very much. The third is that while I was focussing on peace I felt aware of a nasty hot spot but the peace was taking it away. I waited until it had gone and then came back.”
“And you didn't hear us discussing how long you should have to recover?”
“No, why?”
“Because we did some guesses about heat flows and things like that and came up with the thought that half an hour of peace-rest should be plenty.”
“Interesting. Congratulations on guessing right.”
“Congratulations on finding a diagnostic mode for overheat that actually makes
the gift a tiny bit safer to use maybe.”
“But it does rather make me wonder, Sarah. What is this gift for? Why does anyone need it? How does it serve the Church?”
“Not our business to worry about those, really, John. It's up to us to learn how to use it safely and ethically and not be afraid to obey God.”
“Urm Sarah, that reminds me. I was frantic with worry about you and so while you were out I was checking on you every minute or so. I guess technically I was breaching the ethics statement.”
“Good job we've not signed it. I was checking on you a few times too. We've never been in peace mode that long, and I was getting worried.”
“So we were both technically naughty, and morally justified. Let's sort the technicality out. You have my permission to scan me any time you are worried about me, my love.”
“And you have mine, my beloved.”
“So do we need to modify the ethics statement?”
“I think so. We're not going to consult a lawyer about how we use this gift, John, not in a crisis situation. If we think there is some reason for concern, we're going to use it, ethics rules or not.”
“We probably need a crisis or emergency clause in there. So, shall we go and tell Kate that we've got to work on it some more?”
“Yes, I think so, but not now. Let her have the evening to think on other things, John. She's got a lot of thinking to do.”
“I heard you talking about the Trinity. Not a usual topic of interest for Kate.”
“You know, she's been rejecting Christ all these years without any concept of what salvation means, John?”
“But I've tried to explain it to her, numerous times.”
“But she didn't have ears to hear, John. She herself said she tuned out as soon as you started talking about God. Though she didn't quite use those words.”
“Praise God she's listening now!”
“Amen,” said Kate from the doorway.
“Uh, hi Kate,” said John, nor quite knowing what to do when your boss has just overheard you talking about her.
“Hi Kate, I was just telling John here you'd admitted tuning him out for years. Can I tell him what your exact words were? They were so expressive.”
“I'll tell him myself. I'm afraid John that for the past I don't know how many years, whenever you or anyone else started talking about God I stuck my metaphorical fingers in my ears and said, ‘Nyaah nyah, I can't hear you.’ Sorry, rude of me, and not incredibly clever.”
“I forgive you, Kate, as long as you don't do it to Sarah here.”
“Hmm, but according to Sarah, it's not just your forgiveness that I really need, is it?” Kate countered.
“Well no, but the good thing about God is that He makes promises and keeps them.”
“You know, I remember why I always found it so hard to debate with you Christians.”
“Why?” they both asked.
“Because of your incredibly annoying habit of talking about your concept of Divinity as though He existed and you knew Him like you knew Bob across the road.”
“Who's Bob?” Sarah asked. “What's he like? I've never met him.”
“He doesn't exist! He's a metaphor, a theoretical construct useful in this conversation!” said an exasperated Kate.
“Oh well then, I know God a lot better than I know Bob across the road. How can you know a theoretical construct, John? I've never met one.”
John felt he needed to give Kate a little nudge towards understanding. “Kate, before you pull out your hair in frustration, please do listen to what Sarah's just said, and realise that she's only partly teasing you.”
“Eh? Err. Hold on a moment,” Kate struggled.
John held on — to Sarah's hand. [This isn't what she meant, John.]
[I know, but I like holding your hand.]
[Silly man. I like holding your hand too.]
“Hey, no secret planning,” Kate protested.
“Sorry, but we weren't planning, honest,” John said, turning red.
“Then what was this sneaky holding hands thing then, not to mention the blush reaction?” Kate demanded.
“Well, you said 'hold on,' and it reminded me it had been ages since I'd held Sarah's hand.”
“I did tell him it wasn't what you meant, but we were just agreeing that holding hands was nice.”
“Oh, so the blush was at ill-timed kanoodling?”
“Yes, Kate,” they admitted, still holding hands.
“Oh, there's nothing so crazy as being in love. Unless it's the spin on the ball you just sent me, Sarah. You're claiming that the reason that you speak about God as though you've met Him is that you have. And therefore no argument from my atheist history is going do shake you in that. Is that right?”
Sarah answered, “Not right now, no. If you'd been very convincing two weeks ago, you might have managed to get me to admit that I was just hanging on to belief in God because it was from my parents or something like that. But I think I would have known I was agreeing to a lie because it was easiest the thing to do, and I wouldn't have been happy.”
“So you two are sitting there in the sure and certain knowledge that atheists are wrong, whereas the atheists are sitting in their huddles convinced that you're sharing a delusion. And where am I?”
“I don't know, Kate. Was that a metaphorical question or was that a request to help you know your own mind?” Sarah asked.
[Is this what our gift is for, John?]
[Pass.]
“Hmm. If I ask you to scan me, and you tell me what I'm thinking, which I then use that to base a decision on, then that whole process has got all sorts of potential uncertainties built in, doesn't it?”
John answered, “Yes. It does. I don't think it would help you long term. But if we read you, and then you told us what you thought you were thinking, we could just answer yes-no questions about it. Would that be different?”
“So you'd be able to say, yes, I have geniune doubts about atheism, which we know, and that I haven't decided to follow your God yet, which we know. I don't see it helping.”
“Except this exercise has let you put a yet into your last statement. Which I find encouraging.”
“Oh, be encouraged. I'm almost convinced. But something's holding me back. I'm probably so embarrassed about it that I'm hiding it from myself. I don't know what it is for the life of me.”
“So, you could spend a few weeks of psychoanalysis trying to ferret it out. Or we could have a quick peek, and tell you what that slippery thought is,” Sarah said.
“But we'd try ever so hard not to use anything we learned to influence how we talked to you about our faith. Though it might be hard,” John said.
“Actually, Kate,” Sarah said, “I've got an idea you might want to think about before you decide. John, put your shirt on and go for a little walk, will you. I want to have a woman to woman talk with Kate here.”
“Oh, I'm allowed up? Why didn't you say?”
“I don't know. Call it revenge for earlier, and if you don't leave I'm going to get cross.”
“OK, I'm leaving!”