Dissociative personality disorder has its skeptics; those who refuse to believe what can’t be easily seen or proven, measured or quantified. Skeptics complain that a person could be pretending, simply adopting new personas on a whim for various motives. These skeptics bare a shocking resemblance to climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists who think that because the world doesn’t conform to their expectations, someone must be lying to them. Or that everyone else who does not share their opinion of reality is a sheep being manipulated and blinded to the obvious truth by a pervasive and stifling politically correct hive mind that seeks to maintain docility and order through the propagation of lies. It’s scary to think that the reality we accept could be an elaborate lie that is carefully constructed by shadowy powers, using the masses as pawns in their game to maintain wealth and influence and maybe even I would refuse that truth because ignorance in that case is definitely bliss if I am fortunate enough to enjoy the comforts of the present. But what if those who doubt and question, who stoke fear and undermine a working status quo, are merely sheep themselves, the victims of aspiring powers who want to wrest whatever control and influence that may be available by giving a face or origin to their ills in the form of a shadowy underbelly that has robbed them of their freedoms? The mounting tensions in this country have been corralled into a movement that is responsible for the propulsion of a man to a position that many think he is unqualified for, and even if he loses, he has gained a following that will still support any move he makes in the future because he has validated their version of the truth. This man who claims to care about the will of the people who are disenfranchised and being taken advantage of would do to his followers what he accuses the establishment of doing. The more you think on it, the more mind boggling it becomes.
Maybe it’s best not to dwell on it. What is worthy of thought is the struggle of one Nebuchad Amir, who seems to have lost his mind and is currently under the care of specialists at the IBF who have agonized over his case for months because it was caused by an unknown drug that the CDC is worried will spread around the country and cause similar symptoms in many others. The closest diagnosis that his doctors can ascribe to his symptoms is dissociative personality disorder, or that was the closest until recently. There was a time when he talked as though he was an interstellar being aware of alien civilizations scattered throughout our universe, and then he would be silent and mirror the behaviors of a grazing bull unable to speak. Now, he is just that bull and his doctors are more confused than ever about the true effects of the drug that he took and the need for answers has become critical. There is a new patient being admitted to the IBF today and she took the same drug that was found in Nebuchad’s system, something familiar to the doctors, yet so foreign in composition that it might as well have an alien origin.
“We got another analysis back from the lab and nothing, nothing new anyway. They’re scratching their heads just like we are. Maybe it’s time to admit that this drug isn’t from Earth.” Dr. Frederick Cousins is frustrated at his desk in the IBF basement that is covered with papers he has scattered around. He’d hope that having a new subject would give new insights into the drug that he may have missed in Nebuchad’s case, but he is not so lucky.
“Alien drug, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we encountered down here.” Dr. Donna Moss says, standing over Cousins’s shoulder. “But the CDC needs answers, who cares where it came from. How do we explain what’s happening and are there any counter measures?”
“Nebuchad’s behavior has been different since Alia left. You’ve noticed it right? He hasn’t spoken a word.”Cousins says thoughtfully.
“What are you getting at?”
“Maybe all that alien talk wasn’t him.”
“You think it was Alia controlling him? You know we were never able to substantiate those abilities.”
Cousins stands, frustrated. “We know that it’s possible Donna. And Alia did a lot of talking about aliens. There’s a woman here who has proven capable of mind control many times over. So we can scrap the dissociative personality theory. What if the drug turns people into empty vessels so that they can be easily manipulated? I’m sure the new patient hasn’t said anything since she got here.”
“That’s a theory, but you said Maria controlled you and you didn’t take the drug. Why would they need the drug if they have mind controllers?”
“That’s a good question. But from what I know about Nebuchad, he took the drug from someone he trusted. He was in a fight with some club owner who probably paid to take him out. This is one way to do that.”
“So what, it’s like a roofie? Why not just use that, I’m sure it would be much cheaper,” Moss says incredulously.
“What if the people giving these out don’t know exactly what they are? Think about it, an extremely complex chemical structure that had to be manufactured in a lab, whether on Earth or not. Someone’s doing tests, trying to see the effects of the drug on humans. And if it does make us susceptible to mind control, then maybe they have world domination on their mind.”
“Wow, we’re really spitballing here…”
Cousins is obviously exasperated. “I don’t know what else we can do. The effects on Nebuchad seem to be irreversible with any science available to us. Maybe it’ll wear off eventually, but I don’t see any solution. The only thing I can recommend to the CDC is that they find the source and eradicate it as quickly and as quietly as possible. We can test the mind control theory though.”
“With Maria?” Moss asks. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We don’t need Maria. In fact, we shouldn’t use her, she has a demonstrated ability outside of the human norm. You said we were never able to prove it with Alia, right? But if she was able to control Nebuchad then maybe it wasn’t a part of her very impressive skill set. We should see if we can control Nebuchad’s mind, just us regular humans.”
Maria does not regret the journey that brought her to the IBF. Sure, she has spent a lot of lonely days in a room that feels more like a cell with each passing day, but she has learned so much about herself and even about the doctor that she had pursued that led her here. It turns out that she can control the minds of some people, and the doctor himself may be one of the aliens she encountered as a child. If she can believe the ramblings of a woman who had been institutionalized for much of her life; but Maria is inclined to believe her. The woman, Alia, reminded Maria a lot of herself, even though their only encounter was a brief one. She could see the conviction in Alia’s eyes as she warned her that Dr. Thomas Eakran was an alien and she believed Alia when she said that she had a vision of Maria’s abduction in her youth. Maria understood what it was like to tell a crazy story that no one believed and she was relieved to meet another person who understood her. She feigned skepticism at Alia’s rantings to the doctors, but she knew that she had made her way to the place that would give her every answere she had searched for since she was a girl. She was more eager than ever to meet with Dr. Eakran and she knew that the demonstration of her ability to control minds guaranteed that meeting, but she had no idea how long she would have to wait for it to happen.
In the meantime, she watches the TV on the wall in her room and she journals. She enjoys the time she gets outside to sit under the sun. She even convinced the doctors to let her interact with other patients, though they have limited contact to the women who were closest to Alia, the women named Elia and Aile. She appreciates that she can speak Spanish with Elia and she reminds Maria of her mother. Both women struggled to complain about the things that bothered them having been brought up to keep quiet and soldier strongly through whatever adversities arose. Maria’s mother, Selma, had raised her on her own, and even when she was tired from working hard to support the two of them and her feet ached from standing at her factory job all night, she would smile and tell Maria that anything was possible and she could have the world if she was brave enough to work for it. Elia had experienced a lot of loss in her life, Maria could see it, but it was as though she didn’t know that she was upset about it. She told Maria about the circumstances that led her to institutionalization and it was clear that she did not comprehend why her sons had insisted that she needed help in the first place. “They say my husband died,” Elia told Maria in Spanish, “but I know that he is out there still doing his job and he will come home to me any day now. It’s cruel what they did to make me forget him. You know they put a body in a casket and had a funeral and everything? So cruel. I love my boys, and I know they love their father, but they wanted me to believe a lie for reasons that I cannot understand.” Maria understood that it is extremely hard to let go of someone that you love, but after realizing that all of the patients at the IBF were very special cases, she believed that Elia was probably right to trust her intuition. If she felt that her husband was still alive somewhere, it was possible that she had some unexplained power that convinced her of that truth.
Aside from time with Elia and Aile – she did not communicate much with Aile who had taken the transfer of Alia very hard and refused to be communicative in her absence – Maria mostly interacted with the man named Giovanni who was technically an agent of the CIA, though he was assigned specifically to security of the basement level of the IBF. It was clear to Maria that the basement of the IBF was a research facility unto itself and Giovanni had close ties to the types of cutting edge research that Dr. Eakran conducted there having been a former patient himself. Giovanni and Maria got along very well and it was his seeming immunity to her ability of mind control that necessitated Giovanni’s handling of her. It was Giovanni who conducted experiments on behalf of Moss and Cousins that were designed to test the nature of her abilities. She knew that Dr. Cousins was afraid of her and she had hardly even seen him since their first encounter. Imagine her surprise when she is lying on her bed, enjoying a documentary on the migration of the monarch butterfly and she hears a knock on the door, and when she looks through the glass, it is Dr. Cousins.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you think I’m a monster or something?” Maria says.
“I’m sorry, I know I treat you like I’m afraid of you, but that’s because I am. I know my colleague Dr. Moss seems to be very comfortable interacting with you, maybe she is just primed for this stuff, but it’s crazy to think that a human being has your ability. But you deserve respect and dignity like everyone else and I apologize if I’ve made you feel subhuman or abnormal.” Cousins is sincere.
“I get it,” Maria says. “It’s all very strange. You came just to apologize?”
“Not exactly.” Cousin admits. “I want to ask for your help. I’ve been analyzing your brain scans and lab results hoping to compare your physiology to that of our Aliarum patients. And I discovered something that you must know, something that I haven’t told Moss. I fear that if I tell her, she would insist that we keep it from you.”
Maria is intrigued. “Please, doctor.”
“First, let me explain that the tests of the biochemical make up and neurological function assessment of our Aliarum patients show that they are very similar to one another, though dissimilar to the average population.”
“Their brains work similar to one another, but not to the average person, right, I get that.” Maria says.
Cousins is impressed. “You study science?”
“I’m an Eakran groupie, of course.”
“Well, I assumed that the source of your ability would be similar, that you fit the Aliarum pattern but manifested a different cognitive ability as a result. Technically, the Aliarum here are capable of the same abilities that Alia claimed; presience, mind reading, and telepathy; but only Alia could demonstrate the ability to perform all three. Elia has demonstrated mind reading abilities and Aile has precognitive abilities in a very limited scope that we can prove. Alia claimed that she had the ability to control minds, though she was never able to demonstrate it as clearly as you have. Which is why I assumed you another variation of the Aliarum. But your tests reveal something different.”
“So what is it, how can I do this?” Maria asks.
“I’m sorry that I cannot say for sure Ms. Moreno, nothing is conclusive.”
“That can’t be all you have to say about it,” Maria says. “You came to talk to me for a reason.”
Cousins looks around as if paranoid that their conversation may be interrupted, then says, “Your brain chemistry is a mystery to me. There are compounds present in your brain that are apparently naturally produced at this point that are not human.”
“So I’m an alien?” Maria laughs.
“No, not at all.” Cousins says. “As a matter of fact, the tests seem to confirm the story that Alia said when the two of you met. It appears to me that you were drugged by aliens. The patient Nebuchad, the drug that changed him and is boggling all scientific explanation, shares compounds with the compounds I found in your brain. It appears you were dosed by the same person, or alien, or whatever.”
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