Authors: Paula Bradley
When the flash of light suddenly appeared, Winters came around to the side, revolver in his hands, hammer cocked, finger on the trigger, left hand bracing the right. Mariah seemed to be in no danger, but he’d be damned if he could see what was in that light.
He attempted to touch it but he hit a soft, impregnable barrier. Maybe that was why she didn’t respond to Raphael’s voice—the barrier was probably soundproof. He’d seen this scenario once before, Mariah engulfed in a blinding light. The only difference was he was closer and this light had a blue tint to it.
Grinding his teeth, he growled, “Raphael, move back in case I have to shoot something.”
After what seemed an hour, but was more like two minutes, they both heard the soft sucking sound as the light collapsed to a pinpoint and then vanished. The expression on Mariah’s face was enigmatic.
And then without warning, her eyes rolled up into her head and she crumpled to the floor.
Thomas instinctively reached out to grab her, but he had obeyed Winters and had stepped back so he couldn’t get to her before she collapsed.
Winters bent down, gun dissolving back into its holster as he felt for her pulse. It was steady and strong.
Relieved, he locked eyes with Raphael and said quietly, “She’s okay. Get an ambulance here.” It seemed to wake Thomas out of his shock, because his cell phone materialized in his hand and he was punching in 911. Winters stood, opened the back door, and bellowed for the agents both in and out of the house.
When the paramedics arrived, the two men breathed a sigh of relief. Unconsciously, they had been watching Mariah’s chest rise and fall.
Joseph Brambila had been a paramedic for over twenty years. Crusty and cantankerous like an Army sergeant, he was training Melody, yet another rookie, and his patience was strained.
Everyone had asked him why he didn’t go back to being a fireman and rise in the ranks to Captain, at least. And why he gave up being a fire fighter to go back to paramedics.
Truthfully, he loved this job. He felt that running into burning buildings to carry out the living and the dead was better left to the young bucks. At forty-one, he was still relatively young by today's standards and in great shape, but he knew his limitations.
As he ran into the doorway with Melody on his heels, he assessed the situation. Two men standing, one woman down. Falling to his knees, he checked her pupils and found them responsive. She was breathing normally, if a bit on the shallow side.
Meanwhile, Melody had the blood pressure cuff curled around the subject’s upper arm and was taking a reading. She glanced at Joseph and said, “One hundred over forty-five.” Low, but not dangerously so.
He slipped a finger pulse oximitator on her index finger and turned his attention to the two men. “What’s her name and what happened before she passed out?”
Winters drew in his breath sharply, bad thoughts swirling through his head. He should have called for an FBI doctor. This guy kneeling beside Mariah was a civilian and didn’t need to know the particulars. Even knowing who his patient was put her in jeopardy, never mind the publicity.
Without hesitation, he looked into Brambila’s eyes, his being flat and cop-like, and said quietly, “I assume there’s a patient/doctor confidentiality agreement in the fire department?”
Bristling, Brambila’s blue eyes turned frosty. “Of course, detective. It’s a given.”
Without hesitation, Winters said, “Her name is Mariah Carpenter and she just collapsed.”
Joseph’s eyes widened for just a second, but his professionalism took over. He asked all the appropriate questions (had she eaten anything before passing out, was she allergic to any medication, had it happened before, etc.).
Receiving all the answers he needed, he moved her gently onto a board. He and Melody then lifted her onto the gurney. Brambila sprang the lift mechanism to chest height, and disappeared through the doorway, informing Winters and Raphael that she was going to be brought to St. Vincent’s Hospital.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, tell me all about our famous patient.” Doctor Menachim Silverstein, Chief of Staff at St. Vincent’s Hospital, slouched in his worn leather chair. With his hands folded across his flat stomach, he gazed benignly over his wire-rimmed glasses at the four senior members of his staff grouped around the conference table.
It was either incredible luck or divine intervention, but the news media never found out that Mariah Carpenter had been admitted to St. Vincent’s two weeks ago. He would make the announcement once he felt he had all the facts associated with her condition.
The paramedics had notified the emergency room of their impending arrival and of a strange electrocardiogram. When the ambulance pulled up in front of the emergency doors, Lydia Burdick, the head ER nurse, met them, doing a double take when she saw who was on the stretcher.
Wide eyed, she turned to the person next to her, eager to share the news. It happened to be Doctor Arthur Bouzane, Chief Resident, Orthopaedics, still seeing patients in the Emergency Room. Even though he felt he didn’t need to, he prudently warned Lydia and the paramedics not to divulge the identity of their famous patient. Art called Manny Silverstein immediately, sure his Chief of Staff would want to know who had been brought in.
He was right. Manny told him to seal off the ER exam room where Mariah was held. If Art felt a life or death situation existed, he should perform the necessary procedures himself. He also asked Arthur to get the other staff members to the ER as quickly as possible, informing them that they alone should perform all tests and maintain strict control over the documentation the tests would produce.
Disconnecting, Manny bolted out of the house dressed in his blue sweats, barely able to contain his impatience during his twenty minute drive to the hospital.
Arthur Bouzane cleared his throat as he shifted in his seat. Manny’s eyes swiveled in his direction. With a wave of his hand, he said, “Okay, Art, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
Without preliminaries, Art Bouzane began. “Ordinarily, when a patient is brought in comatose without signs of trauma, we don’t do skeletal X-rays. However, while assisting me, Lydia noticed something unusual about Ms. Carpenter’s hands and brought it to my attention. I’ll get to that film in a minute.”
He picked one of several X-rays he had brought and held it up to the light. “This is a film of her right leg. We found new growth on the femur, approximately a quarter of an inch: double that for the tibia.
“So we took a picture of the left leg. Duplicate amount of growth. She’s grown three quarters of an inch with no excessive production of anterior pituitary hormones to suggest gigantism. It looks like she’s having an unusual growth spurt, especially for someone her age.”
He held up another film. Even without a fluoroscope, everyone could see the shadows formed by the differential transmission of X-rays passing through the optically opaque subject.
“This is the right hand.” Art removed a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat as he pointed to the thumb. “The first metacarpal and proximal phalanx is elongated, also due to new growth. The distal phalanx is unchanged.
“However, note the new bone after the IP joint. It’s a middle phalanx, or second knuckle. Which, of course, the thumb shouldn’t have. The thumb is now only an inch and a half shorter than the index finger.”
The pen shook slightly as Art shifted it to point at the little finger. “The fifth metacarpal and proximal phalanx has shrunk here, although not from disease or amputation. The ‘pinkie’ is now approximately half an inch shorter. There are no changes to the second, third, and fourth digits.”
Art laid the X-ray down as though it would shatter. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he concluded, “As a practicing evolutionist, I was flabbergasted, to put it mildly. Conservatively, we might have preliminary evidence of the theory that postulates the disappearance of the little finger, and the elongation of the thumb. It’s only supposition, but many evolutionists believe this might be what the hand of
Homo sapiens
would look like a million years from now.”
The only sound in the conference room was the muffled roar of the air conditioning compressor. Manny Silverstein broke the silence by leaning back in his chair, his fingers laced behind his head as he closed his eyes and murmured, “
Oy, vey
.” After thirty seconds of silence he opened his eyes and looked at Doctor Aubrietta Ward, Chief of Neurology. It was all she needed: her words came out clipped and rapid.
“Results of the lumbar puncture: no indication of cranial pressure. IV infusion of iodinated contrast agent in conjunction with CT X-ray: no congenital anomalies in the skull or spine, and no masses in the brainstem or spinal cord. Cranial MRI: no evidence of subclinical brain edema or cerebral contusions. Cerebral angiogram: no aneurysms or arterial venous malformations.
“That out of the way, on to the anomalies. The electroencephalography, for the purpose of brevity and simplicity, shows brain wave patterns dissimilar to comparative mammals. The additional activity is, possibly, a combination of beta and delta waves. This would be conclusive evidence that her brain is performing at a level never seen before.”
Aubrey looked up from her notes and glanced around the table. Everyone’s eyes were locked onto her. She cleared her throat, her voice becoming a bit louder.
“Now, results of my neurological examination on the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. When performing a task, certain segments of the cerebral cortex can be shown, in color, to be activated using this. It detects slight increases in blood flow in these areas beyond what is necessary to keep tissue alive. In Ms. Carpenter’s case, segments of the brain that normally show no activity are now stimulated ... and appear productive.”
“Aubrey, dear,” Menachim said, smiling at her, “I’m a simple country doctor who has forgotten most of these fifty dollar words.”
Softening, Doctor Aubrietta Ward said wryly, “Mariah Carpenter may be sending and receiving on a restricted channel.”
Everyone in the room laughed. Manny grinned, nodding for her to continue.
Dr. Ward became serious again. “Scientists know that a disproportionately small amount of the brain is actually used. We have charted the areas of Ms. Carpenter’s brain via the FMRI and are astounded at the number of active segments. There are documented cases of individuals who, after severe trauma, can retrain some of these unused areas to assume the function of a permanently damaged one. Yet, questions about these segments are still largely unanswered.
“I can assure you that Ms. Carpenter is
not
using these areas for retraining purposes. We assume she must have tapped into at least one of them to take her innate psychic ability to an unparalleled level because of the irrefutable evidence; the kidnapped children she has found.”
Aubrietta paused, but it was not for the sake of drama. It was difficult for her to put her professional reputation on the line. Nevertheless, she had been raised to stand up for her convictions even when it meant criticism in the eyes of her colleagues.
“I won’t even begin to speculate on what she is currently able to do. Nor would I want to theorize on what she will be capable of doing in the future. What I can tell you, gentlemen, is that there is a marked difference between the results of the scan taken when she first arrived and the one taken yesterday.”
She hesitated then concluded in a rush. “Mariah Carpenter is stimulating new areas of her brain even as she lies comatose.”
Dr. Silverstein cleared his throat and glanced at Lincoln Brown, Chief of Cardiology. Lincoln pushed his glasses up and began without preamble.
“I saw the results of Ms. Carpenter’s electrocardiogram taken in the ambulance. I assumed something was wrong with their equipment. So I repeated it. Myself. And got the same results.”
Lincoln Brown’s speech was always in staccato. He was a man not usually given to wordiness, so he disseminated information in short, to-the-point bursts of information. If a semi-automatic rifle could talk, it might sound like Lincoln Brown.
Taking a deep breath, he continued. “No sense getting bogged down with things like QRS morphology, P, T, and S waves, etc. Both ECGs showed two sets of waves. As if it was a piggy-back heart transplant.”
He stopped abruptly, glancing down at the papers before him, once again pushing up his glasses. Lincoln Brown shook his head and brought up the ECG tape. “These are the different waves that comprise the ECG. They represent the sequence of depolarization and repolarization of the atria and ventricles. There are P waves, a QRS complex, ST segments, T waves, and Q-T intervals. You don’t need to understand what they mean to understand what’s happened. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
They chuckled. Dr. Brown produced a rare smile as he pushed his glasses up again. “What this shows is two distinct and complementary sets of waves. Like what you see in the aforementioned piggy-back heart transplant. However, Ms. Carpenter never underwent a transplant.
“So I decided to try something a bit more sophisticated. A single-photon emission computed tomography, a/k/a SPECT. The image is obtained by a gamma camera. It acquires multiple 2-D images from multiple angles. Then a computer is used to apply a tomographic reconstruction algorithm.
That
yields a 3-D dataset.” He paused again, but no one thought he was being dramatic, not after watching him subconsciously shake his head in bewilderment.
Dr. Silverstein leaned over and said quietly, “Don’t worry, Lincoln. We’ll believe anything you have to say because we don’t know any better.”
That got the anticipated laugh from everyone, including Dr. Brown. He had extraordinary news, something that might have gotten him branded a serious mental case and laughed out of his practice, but he was among friends.
“Anyway, to make a boring presentation less tedious, Ms. Carpenter has two hearts.”
If ECG electrodes had been attached to every person in the room, there would have been a universal spike.
In the deafening silence, Dr. Brown spoke. “Her ‘regular’ heart is working at peak efficiency. The newcomer is attached to the ascending aorta. It looks exactly like the big one. It’s just one quarter the size. And it functions with the same proficiency as its partner. It’s very strong. It may even be self-sufficient. I believe it is self-sufficient.”
Pushing up his glasses one more time, he said quietly, “The little heart is beating at forty-five beats per minute. It has affected the original one, regulating it to beating forty-five beats per minute. Oxygen and blood are flowing at a super rate.”
Manny bowed his head, his chin nearly resting on his chest. It was either getting better and better or so much worse, depending on your perspective. He wasn’t quite sure which one he leaned toward right now.
No one smiled. No one questioned Lincoln Brown’s results. All eyes turned in unison to the only physician left to present his findings. No matter how strange, confusing, and inexplicable their results had been, it was as simplistic as learning the alphabet in comparison to what they knew they were about to hear.