Dr. Frederick Cousins has always been plagued by the reality that he is likely to develop Alzheimer’s at a much younger age than the norm. He is almost forty now and the hour glass was emptying to fill the foreboding side, which meant his time was almost up. He was nearing the age when his grandpa started forgetting things. His father had sat him down when he was a teenager and told him about the sad decline of his father and how it was likely to start soon for him too. The man had cried and Cousins had never seen his father cry before, and he told him the sad news that it was likely Cousins would develop Alzheimer’s in his forties because the disease seemed to be hereditary. And sure enough, Cousins watched his father lose himself and he was haunted by the reality that it would someday be is own fate.
He decided to be proactive and that is how he got into medicine. Science taught him that anything was achievable with time well spent on a problem, and he prospered in his chosen career, fueled by his determination to break the cycle of heredity.
When he first came to work for Dr. Eakran, he was convinced that a brilliant mind like his could solve the Alzheimer’s problem. Over time, Cousins came to doubt that Earkan was interested in curing anything. He seemed more concerned with understanding maladies and he enjoyed watching them play out and documenting his observations.
Then Eakran murdered Dr. Donna Moss, his partner who had worked by his side for years in Eakran’s loyal service, and Cousins became a prisoner of his own employer.
Recently, Eakran came to him with tears in his eyes and he expressed a deep sense of remorse that Cousins did not know he was capable of, and Eakran explained in plain words his origins and mission on Earth.
“This planet has taught me the value of life and I mean that in many senses of the words. I have seen wonders on this planet that I could not fathom before I traveled here. I have not fully appreciated my position here, but the future will be different. And I know that it will be hard for you to let go of the past, but I hope that you will at least hear my vision.”
Cousins was reluctant and then he spoke with Maria and the man Darker and he could muster trust enough for them to continue his work in the basement without alerting authorities to the many crimes he had witnessed.
He appreciated the chance to get back to his patients most of all and he finds real solace knowing that Maria had delivered on Nebuchad’s prophecy, that she would save the patients of the IBF basement.
“You were locked up in this room?” Alia asks. Aile is next to her. They stand in one of the patient rooms that is about the size of a prison cell and amounts to solitary confinement, though every room has a TV and some have generic landscape paintings.
“For months, yes. I know, I knew before, that the conditions we kept you all in were inhumane, unethical, but we were doing big things and that seemed to justify it then. I had my doubts and things came to a head after you left. Donna is dead. He killed her in front of me. I can hear her sometimes, apparently she’s haunting the basement right?”
“She’s torturing him,” Aile says flatly.
“I could run to the police, I could try to get Eakran locked up, but then who looks out for the patients?”
“She’s not gonna leave you alone,” Aile says. “My relatives refuse to fight her, she’s a peaceful spirit, she just wants to make sure you don’t forget how we all got here.”
“So tell her we’ve all had a change of heart,” Cousins says to Aile and then he yells at nothing in particular, “we’re all doing the best we can! Torture them! They’re working with him too.”
“What’s the plan now doctor?” Alia asks, genuinely hoping for an answer to make it all make sense.
“It’s this. What we’re doing. Eakran had a lot of lost cause patients that he was basically keeping on life support just to spectate, for observation. Some he cured, miraculously of course, and we’re debating the ethics of letting the greater population in on the medical breakthroughs at his disposal. The man could single handedly revolutionize human medicine, and he wants to. He wants to help. He needs people like me to make sure it goes well.”
“He mentioned that,” Alia says looking at Aile. She nods, Aile and Eakran had discussed his vision to change the world and it seems like a good idea, though how does an alien out themselves on a foreign world? What’s the best way to help the most amount of people without causing a panic?
“You really trust him to do all this?” Alia asks. “You believe he’s that man now? From mad scientist to savior of mankind?”
“I don’t trust him, but I’m ready to die for my sins if it comes to that. In the meantime, I will use his knowledge to help as many people as I can.”
Alia and Aile leave Cousins in the room and they sit in Aile’s.
“He’s in hell,” Aile says. “Moss is always with him.”
“How is she here?” Alia asks. The two sit on Aile’s bed and Alia is suddenly eager to talk about the spirits. “Do you know that?”
“When a body dies, the soul is released. The soul is like the body, it can look like the body it was in, but it’s made of different stuff. Invisible stuff I guess, unless you can see it. But the soul can go to a lot of different places when it doesn’t have a body. Some don’t have a choice where they go, but most can wander around I think. Some stick around here.”
“So Moss is choosing to be here? She’s not trapped or anything?”
“Not as far as I know. She’s all about revenge on Eakran though. She’s blind to everything else. Cousins has a plan Alia, you saw it right?”
Alia nods solemnly. “He’s gonna kill Eakran, or try anyway, and very soon. I wonder if we should intervene?”
“He’s not a killer, but that ghost can push him. He’s right on the edge. I say we save him from a bad influence.”
Alia frowns. “Eakran doesn’t deserve our intervention. We were his prisoners.”
“Aww Alia, if only we had the luxury of being petty. You know what’s at stake here. We can help him shape a new world. It might be bullshit, but if it’s not, I want to be there.”
“When did you get all soft?”
“I’ve been through a lot, and maybe if the world were different, I wouldn’t have had to go through so much. I don’t know. This all has to be for something right?”
Alia nods. It is something to contemplate, though it seems that Cousins is reaching the end of his fuse.
Alia speaks with the other fifteen or so patients still left in the basement, and it seems that Eakran really is a different man and his basement has a whole new purpose. She even speaks to Giovanni who has always been a gentleman to her, if not detached and very formal.
“Have you ever been to any other floor of the Institute?”
“I’ve only ever seen it from the outside. You all never took us anywhere but outside through the service entrance.”
Giovanni nods, “Well I can take you up if you’re interested.”
Alia shrugs and follows Giovanni to the elevator. They take it up to the first floor and the doors open on a sleek reception area. They don’t leave the elevator.
“There’s not much to see here,” Giovanni says as the door closes and they ride up to the second floor. When they get off, Alia feels as though she has entered a hospital. There are patients in beds, doctors and nurses busy in their jobs, and Giovanni leads her around the hallway.
“This is where the clinical trials happen. This is the Institute for Brain Function, so every trial here deals with some aspect of the mind.”
“Did Eakran tell you to give me a tour?” Alia asks.
“He suggested it if you were interested. It’s important that he change the context of this place for you. He hopes that you will choose to stay longer. We can go up to three. It’s where long term patients live so that their doctors can constantly monitor the effects of their research on patients.”
“Like what Eakran was doing in the basement?”
“With much more oversight and transparency of course.”
When they exit the elevator on the third floor, Alia sees Wendy almost immediately. They walk out into a large hallway and she can see Wendy through the large window of the laboratory where she seems to be having a good time. The last time she had seen Wendy, they were working to reverse the resurrection of the man Darker, and then time was reset and Alia has no idea how much of it she would remember.
The hallway is a shiny hardwood and the entire floor is austere like a boarding school, but the laboratory where Wendy laughs and smiles is ornately decorated. There are violet streamers taped to the ceiling and they drape down in big half circles. Sparkly tinsel also hangs from the ceiling giving the laboratory a glittering resplendence. There are balloons and Wendy tosses them around with two older white women.
“I know her,” Alia says to Guovanni as she walks into the laboratory. “Wendy!” she says happily.
Wendy hadn’t noticed Alia when she entered the room and she is surprised by the visitor.
“You’re just the person I wanted to see,” Wendy says gleefully. “What are you doing here?”
“Just visiting the old Alma mater,” Alia jokes, “it’s always so different when you come back after graduation.”
“I was just thinking about you, it’s a crazy coincidence that you’re here. Isn’t it nice in here? We decorated it ourselves. It’s good to enjoy a laugh every once in a while. Come, play with us. These are my patients, Mildred and Helen.”
Alia can’t help but get lost in the levity of the room. It is a simple peace, laughter and streamers and glitter, and even Giovanni finds himself bouncing balloons and smiling.
Alia has experienced this enough to know that something is off; the fact that Giovanni is smiling is the biggest clue. She is being manipulated, and so is her friend Wendy. It may have something to do with the large cocoons that line the back wall of the laboratory that are also draped with streamers; they are over five feet tall and have the appearance that they were spun by a spider’s webbing. It may have something to do with the unconscious doctor in the back office attached to the lab. But Alia chooses not to panic. She will slowly unravel the mystery and make sure no one is hurt in the process.
“She can hear you Alia, you have to relax,” Wendy says. Alia doesn’t realize it, but they have been laughing and playing for hours by the time Wendy says this. “You are powerful, but she has you now. And you will be the perfect bait.”
“Wendy, whatever this is, we’ve dealt with worse. You’re stronger than this. Tell me what’s going on.”
Wendy raises a hand to push a line of tinsel that glitters over her head. “I’m just being happy for once, Alia. And these women that been through so much, they so happy and we can be like this forever. That’s what she say.” Wendy’s face hardens. “I just have to make you scream. And when you do, your boys will come running. Then we get to be safe and happy forever. You won’t ever have to scream again.”
Alia backs away toward the door. Giovanni is doubled over on the floor in laughter and the old women point and laugh at him.
“You can’t escape her once you come inside,” Wendy says ominously. “No one does.”
PRL Serials 