The world has changed, and not just for Wendy who has realized her abilities as an extremely powerful medium capable of seeing and interacting with the spirits of the dead.
The world is not as simple as it may have seemed just five to six years ago, when Wendy was still the receptionist at the IBF and the most exciting thing that would happen to her on a typical day was the chance to eavesdrop on conversations between doctors who treated patients with disorders or illnesses that made them do interesting things. Back then, it was exciting enough to assist doctors, but she was mostly a note taker and even if something exciting happened, she was only there to spectate.
Now, the IBF has visible CIA security on every floor and there is no area of the building that they do not patrol regularly, including the basement that had been the secretive laboratory of the infamous Dr. Thomas Eakran before he took an extended leave and most of his patients were discharged. Another doctor is in the basement now, Wendy doesn’t know them at all, but she has a constant reminder of Dr. Eakran in the patient Nebuchad Abed whose care she now supervises in the doctor’s absence.
Wendy is in the second floor laboratory of Dr. Sylvia Hansberry, wrapping up a session with the two women with diminished brain function caused by lobotomy. Dr. Hansberry has been working to improve their quality of life for years now with experimental treatments to restore the function that their lobotomies had robbed from them. Wendy recently studied the effects of electrical brain stimulation at MUSC in Charleston, South Carolina and the therapies she learned there seemed to have some positive impact, though the work was very slow going. Wendy would make detailed notes of interactions with the women in the afternoon after a morning of the brain stimulation and she had amassed logs and logs of observations that revealed some improvement over the course of their work.
After she helps both elderly women to their rooms, Wendy walks the hallway back to the lab. There are three guards at the end of the hall and they seem to be talking seriously. Wendy shakes her head and when she is in the lab, she looks around at the space that had been completely rebuilt and re-furnished with equipment after the incident last year that almost brought the entire building of the Institute to the ground.
It’s better, she decides; it’s been an ongoing internal debate since she returned to work after the incident. She liked Dr. Hansberry’s lab the way it was before. It was spacious with all the tools she needed to do her work, and Dr. Hansberry had her own office with a door she could close while she concentrated on her articles for medical journals. Almost a year after the incident, everything is still new and shiny, and Wendy has used all of the new equipment very cautiously for fear of being the first to put wear on anything. It is better, she thinks to herself, and she can give her patients better care because of it.
Dr. Hansberry’s office is open now, no door, but a privacy wall that allows her to separate herself, though Dr. Hansberry is happy to have easier access to exits from the laboratory in case of some emergency. The incident had left her squirrely and waiting for something dangerous to happen, even though she barely remembers the incident as it happened.
She leans silently against the wall to her office space and Wendy startles when she notices her.
“Still aren’t used to it?” Hansberry says.
“I guess not, but it’s better right? It’s the silver lining after everything, new equipment.”
Hansberry shrugs. “We had good equipment before. And everything didn’t have to be ransacked if we needed an upgrade.”
Wendy nods. That day, when she had turned the lab into a party, and two fugitives of the law destroyed a wall of the laboratory and nearly everything inside, was such a hard memory for her to summon. She hadn’t been herself at the time; she had been possessed by something that took complete control of her and she could not wrestle it back. As a medium, Wendy is very familiar with possession, but it was no spirit that took control of her, it was something she had never encountered before.
She hadn’t told anyone at the IBF this truth about the incident, and the whole thing was reported as an attempted kidnapping of a former patient of Dr. Eakran’s basement laboratory by superpowered convicts who had broken out of a jail in North Carolina. Eakran’s work is known to be top secret and it seemed to Wendy that the CIA worked very hard to keep the details of the incident fuzzy to everyone in the building. When they questioned Wendy, she let them tell the narrative of working peacefully before the attack by the criminals. The CIA was aware of the woman Alia’s return to the IBF, the former patient of the basement who had been missing since she escaped a top secret CIA facility in the Pacific Northwest, and they told Wendy that Alia was in their custody and had given a statement that justified the arrest of the criminals – who had been cleared of charges that led to their initial imprisonment in North Carolina, but where taken into federal custody a few months later.
She didn’t counter the narrative even though she knew all of it to be false. They had all decided that it was for the best so that Eakran and his crew of Earthlings, including Alia, could take a trip into space and across the universe. Wendy worried about the men the CIA had described as criminals. She knew them personally, Ivan and Clay, and they were friends who had arrived at the IBF that day to save her from the possession that threatened everyone in the building. And she knew that they were most likely not in federal custody because the CIA had lied about having custody of Alia. Wendy is dedicated to finding Ivan and Clay, only, she will need the help of more than just spirits because her time with Alia and Eakran had made her aware of the Constoriun of Human History’s Southern Zone headquarters near Durham, North Carolina, and Ivan and Clay were likely in their custody because of the extraordinary abilities they displayed.
“You ok?” Hansberry asks Wendy.
Wendy has been reviewing it all in her mind and she has lost track of her conversation with the doctor. When she isn’t in the IBF, she searches for others who can help her find Ivan and Clay, and when she isn’t interacting directly with her patients, her mind often drifts to that mystery.
“I’m ok,” Wendy says softly. “If it’s ok, I’ll take the rest of the day. I’ll be early tomorrow to prepare the summaries for you.”
Hansberry crosses the room and stands before Wendy, staring at her sympathetically.
“Of course.”
She wants to hug Wendy, but they ended their romantic relationship shortly after the incident and the two never spend time outside of work together anymore. Hansberry feels that Wendy blames herself for everything that happened, and even though she’s been extremely productive since the lab was rebuilt, Hansberry worries about how the whole thing has changed her. She doesn’t want to pry, but she makes sure Wendy knows that she is here to talk if she needs it
Wendy leaves the IBF and the ghost of a young girl named Stephanie accompanies her to her car.
“I still can’t find Kevin,” she says. “Your Great uncle and I have looked everywhere. He’s still out looking.”
“Thank you guys,” Wendy says breathlessly. “I know he’s somewhere, Eakran said he’s here. He must not want to be found, but we need him.”
“The elders may have found him,” Stephanie said. “we just have to wait to hear from them. We’ll keep looking.”
When she arrives at her home, her roommate of the past year or so, Aile, greets her from the kitchen. She enjoys cooking and Wendy is grateful that she lives with her since her release from the IBF basement where she was a patient of Dr. Eakran.
“You’re home early,” she says as she sits next to Wendy on the living room couch. The house is filled with the smells of a soup Aile has been cooking since the morning. “How’s Nebuchad?”
Wendy sighs loudly, “He’s fine. I didn’t really check on him today, I’ll be with him in the morning.”
“You look worn out,” Aile says. “You’re stressing too much over all of this.”
“Ivan and Clay haven’t been seen since last year, and I can’t even find Kevin. The spirits can’t find him.”
“They don’t know him, it’s no surprise. It takes time.”
“I just hate that Alia is gone, she could have found them already.”
Aile shakes her head. “She trusts you Wendy. You can find them, just don’t stress yourself out before we do.”
Wendy wants to relax, but everyday it seems that she is less likely to change anything and the story of the CIA becomes more true.
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