Nebuchad still matters. He is practically dead to his family and friends, a veritable vegetable as he is presented in a patient bed on the second floor of the Institute to visitors, the few times they come. It is usually his mother, and she has come once a month for the past five years to talk to him; she is sure that he can hear her voice. But the nice doctors always remind her that her son had been stricken by a medical mystery and there is no way to know if his condition will ever change. She is not aware that her son’s vegetative state is induced according to highly classified orders before he is released from the basement and placed in the room that the Institute makes her believe her son always occupies. She doesn’t know that her son speaks often when he is not in a bull spell, out to pasture and filling his stomachs. Nebuchad’s mother is hopeful that the condition of her son will change, she has faith that her God will restore him to the man she loved and raised, but the doctors are always reminding her that there is little reason to expect a positive outcome for Nebuchad, even with the best doctor on the planet working to help him.
Dr. Thomas Eakran hopes to cure a human being of the effects of his artificial drug that makes people susceptible to manipulation, but it is not an urgent matter. His dealings in the illicit drug trade have been lucrative and there isn’t really a market for the reversal of the drug’s effects. His drug is not widely available, it is mostly used by men hoping to either gain or maintain power, and none of them would be interested in reversing the effects of the drug in anyone they give it to. But Eakran has always been unsure of the exact effects on the human mind and Nebuchad was the first; he is the human afflicted with the effects of the drug the longest. He wants to cure Nebuchad because it is as an opportunity to know more, to understand human physiology better than ever before. And he would relish the chance to have Nebuchad explain his condition directly. He’d hoped that Nebuchad’s family would lose interest and stop coming to see him, and he was tempted to falsify death records for the young man, but Nebuchad had been referred for Eakran’s care and his mother had followed him attentively from doctor to doctor, never giving up hope for his recovery.
Eakran enjoyed interacting with Nebuchad’s mother. It was rare but sometimes he would wander into the room where the sleeping Nebuchad was watched over intently by the woman whose head was usually bowed in prayer. She is a small woman compared to Eakran and she seems to take comfort in his size; it’s easy to trust him, that he will keep her safe.
But these interactions have not affected Eakran’s approach to Nebuchad’s care. It is fascinating to watch Nebuchad change over time. He is mostly in the bull spells, but his ramblings have evolved, as though he has been learning a lot over the course of his ailment. To be clear, much of what Nebuchad says is nonsense to Eakran, but he had happened onto truths before.
Since the resurrection of Darker, Eakran’s understanding of his own existence has been altered, and he has found little comfort in things that normally bring him joy. He finds listening to the voice of Nebuchad very soothing. Recordings do not do the man justice, and often Eakran sits with him quietly in his room waiting for the next time he regains himself and opens his mouth to speak as a man.
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