Valerie chimed in. “It seems that the traveler scientists wanted to warn us something was wrong without letting their soldier counterparts in on it.”
“Ellie’s discovery that the distance between Earth and the moon was also a clue for us,” said Brent.
William nodded. “After all, we now know that there were no real radio stations transmitting at the time since all people on Earth were in stasis.”
“I distinctly remember hearing the news about the Earth-to-moon-distance reports on the radio during the different time loops. I wrote it all on a rock—”
“Time loops?” asked Sidonia.
The teenagers described the evidence that the planet had been thrown into multiple time loops, or at least in their dream sequences. Brent and William described the strikes created on the cave’s floor back in Indiana by the neural depolarizer.
Lunch arrived and the group took a break to eat. Sidonia excused herself and left the room.
An hour later, Sidonia reentered the conference room and said, “I did some measurements and calculations, and indeed the distance between Earth and the moon increased, as well as between Earth and the other planets around the sun, all consistent with the passage of about two hundred and twenty years since we last assessed.”
There was a pause. Narrows nodded and took a deep breath. He looked at the teens. “Go on, please.”
“Each time, the travelers erased all our memories, and we started all over again,” said Valerie. “When I say we, I mean everybody on Earth. Everybody in our dreams.”
“At some point, it looks like something went wrong,” said Ellie. “The time loops became intertwined somehow.”
“We started over, but nobody else did,” said Brent.
Ellie thought for a moment. “It was probably the beginning of the scientist group of travelers sabotaging the process to avoid their soldiers taking advantage of us.”
“Yes,” said William. “The beginning of the end.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Breakfast had just arrived when General Narrows returned to meet with Brent, Ellie, William, and Valerie. This time he was accompanied by a small group of people the kids had not met before.
“I’d ask you how your night was, but forcing yourselves to stay awake all night is probably not a whole lot of fun,” said Narrows. “Probably not very rejuvenating, either.”
“No,” said Valerie. “We’re pretty tired. I need my beauty sleep.”
“This is Dr. Stewart,” introduced Narrows. “He’s the main oneirologist in the country. Maybe even the world.”
“Oneirologist?” asked Brent.
Stewart was a rotund man in his sixties, wearing a light-brown tweed jacket that didn’t quite go all the way around his plump belly. “I’m a neuroscientist at Cornell University,” he said. “I study dreams. And this is my team.” He pointed to and introduced one younger woman and two men.
“They’re here to help us figure out how to fool the aliens, and carry out your plan,” said Narrows.
“General Narrows filled us in about all you’ve been through,” said Stewart. “Dreams occur during a specific phase called rapid eye movement sleep, or REMS. We typically spend about two hours a night in REMS. So, if the aliens only communicate with you during dreams, we can let you sleep and monitor you for REMS. We have medications to eliminate REMS so you can sleep without tipping off the aliens of our plans.”
“Sleep sweet sleep at last,” said Valerie.
“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” asked Stewart.
“Ninety-three hours,” said Valerie. “Almost four days. When can we start?”
“Anytime you’d like,” said Stewart. “We set up a special sleep laboratory so we can monitor you for REMS. We’ll make sure the drug is working and you stay clear of REMS.”
“Please wake us up if need be,” said Brent. “It’s very important that we not dream. If we do, we won’t be able to control the content, and we may give the plan away to the soldiers.” Brent’s index finger pointed skyward.
“So, is there a way to tap into our dreams and control the output that goes out to the travelers?” asked Ellie.
“That’s been the subject of my doctorate thesis,” said the young woman who arrived with Stewart and the others. She extended a hand to Ellie first then the others. “I’m Della Martin,” she said. She was a beautiful woman in her thirties with blond hair and deep-blue eyes. “My field of interest is the bioelectrical components of dreams.”
“Della has been working on this for the last three years,” said Stewart. “She’s advanced our understanding of dream states significantly during that time. She’s created some nifty gadgets to measure the bioelectrical output from the brain.”
“I’ve studied the information and data Alexandra gave you kids,” said Della. “I think I can make it work, but I need a couple of days.”
“Let’s do this,” said William.
“For now, you kids need to sleep,” said Della. “And I need to begin recording, measuring, and analyzing your specific sleep brain waves. So we can get to work as soon as you’re done with breakfast.”
“We have set up all their equipment in a room downstairs in the basement,” said Narrows. “We have beds and everything else you need to get comfortable.”
“You four go to sleep, and we’ll do the rest.” Della smiled.
“We’ll wake you up in eight hours,” said Stewart. “By then we’ll have a better idea of how to control your brain waves during sleep.”
“Can you make that twelve?” asked Valerie.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As soon as the teenagers were awakened from their non-REMS sleep, they feasted on pizza, which they were craving.
“What about our families?” asked Ellie. “I miss my mom and dad. Wish we could wake them up.”
Brent gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Better not. Not yet.”
She nodded and stared at her empty plate.
“I feel bad that the last thing I told them was a lie,” said Ellie. “I told them I was going to stay over at a girlfriend’s house for the weekend, when in actuality I went camping with you two.” Brent and William gave short-lived wan smiles.
“We lied to our parents too,” said William. “We can apologize to them soon. As soon as this ordeal is over.”
General Narrows walked in with Dr. Monroe.
She began after they both sat down. “My team and I have created a concoction made up of several medications designed to place the four of you into a deep coma. This will suppress all of your dreams and brain waves.”
“Great!” said Valerie. “When can we begin?”
“You need to know that there are some potential risks,” said Monroe. “This is the first time we’ve chemically induced a human being into this deep a coma. And we’ll need to sustain that state until the aliens go away. It may be a long time.”
“We don’t have any choice,” said Brent. “If we don’t do this, the travelers won’t leave our solar system. They’ll continue to exploit us all with God only knows what kind of consequences.”
“And who knows what they will do to us,” said Ellie. “They’re powerful and way more advanced than we are.”
The teenagers gazed at one another for several seconds, culminating in a silent nod.
“Let’s do this!” resolved William.
“This country, no, this world thanks you kids for your sacrifice,” said the general. “You are all very brave!”
“We’re constructing an underground sleep lab,” said Monroe. “We’ll monitor you very closely as we go, and the place will be protected from radiation, brain waves, and as much outside interference as our present state of knowledge allows in case the aliens try to communicate with you.”
The four teenagers took a deep breath, and the conference room fell into an intense, almost eerie hush.
Ellie took a deep breath. “I’d like to record a message for my parents, just in case we…” Her words became mu
ffled and then silent.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Days passed while the team prepared for what had to be done. The teenagers were taken into the protected underground sleep lab and medicated with intravenous drugs to generate a sustained and deep coma, the deepest a human had ever been placed in. In this state, they had no brain-wave output at all.
Finally, it was time to let the families in on it. The eight parents were escorted into a conference room and asked to wait a few minutes. Soon, General Brandon Narrows and Dr. Lillian Moore arrived. Introductions were made, and all sat around the table. Narrows and Moore began the complex explanation of the events that so changed the planet over two centuries ago. Narrows emphasized the heroic nature of the four teenagers’ actions and how their contributions saved planet Earth.
“When can we wake them up?” asked Dr. Louis Januardy as soon as the drawn-out account ended. “When can I see my Ellie?”
“Dr. Januardy, you’ll be able to see your daughter in a few hours,” interjected Monroe. “But the recovery from the induced coma will take a few days, maybe weeks.” She looked at the multiple inquisitive gazes in the room. “You can all see your children in a bit.”
“I can’t believe all this time I thought my daughter and her friends were dead,” said Madeleine Rovine. “How could you keep this from us?”
“It was a matter of worldwide security,” said General Narrows. “It was necessary that no one know about our plan.”
“Dr. Monroe,” said Dr. Mary Smithson. “Your research in neuroscience is world renowned, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we have complete trust in you and your team. But we also realize that this induced coma probably has some potential adverse consequences, right?”
Dr. Monroe observed all the concerned faces for a long moment, her face unsmiling. “We have never done this with humans. Not to this degree. Not this deep. So, yes, there are a lot of unknowns. I feel it’ll be safest for your children to come out of their induced comas slowly. We’ll monitor every aspect of their reversal continuously and take it one step at a time.” She took a deep breath. “Ellie, Brent, William, and Valerie have been enclosed in a deep underground vault for a long time, receiving very powerful intravenous medications to suppress any and all neuronal activity. Their brains have literally been completely shut off for almost six months.” She took a deep breath and sipped from her water glass. “I know you’re all concerned for your kids. So am I. I will do everything in my power to make sure they come out of this all right.”
“Why were our children put in harm’s way like this?” asked Dr. Tom Rovine. “Were there no other viable alternatives?”
Dr. Monroe took a deep breath in preparation to tackle the tough question, but General Narrows’s hand touched hers and signaled that he would answer. “What we know so far is that the aliens from outer space came into our world on a peaceful medical mission to help Earth and its people. They saw that Earth was overpopulated and predicted this would end up impacting our planet’s health and then our solar system in the not-so-distant future. The effect of this is unknown, but my guess is that it might have had dire consequences for all humans. Unfortunately, soon after arriving here, the aliens accidentally infected Earth and its population with an organism that was very harmful to us. It caused sterility of all cells. The infection ended up killing a lot of people.”
“And why couldn’t we detect them?” bellowed Madeleine Rovine. “For that matter, why didn’t we know about this harmful organism?”
“They hid from us, parking their space station just outside our ability to detect them,” said the general.
Dr. Lillian Monroe resumed the conversation. “The sterilizing new organism became quite widespread. All living cells on Earth became sterile, that is, were rendered unable to reproduce. We had realized something was happening but decided to keep it hush-hush until we learned more. Our scientists were beginning to study the microbe, and efforts were initiated to come up with a cure. But all this was interrupted when the whole world was put into some form of stasis.”
“Stasis?” said Madeleine. “What the hell is that?”
General Narrows glanced at Monroe and took the lead once more. “The aliens have a weapon that is able to depolarize every synapse on every living thing on Earth. That essentially put all of us into a coma-like state. Remarkably, it also prevented aging. We were all asleep for over two hundred years.”
“How can that be?” asked Dr. Leona Baten. “That sounds surreal.”
“It is surreal,” said Dr. Monroe. “It doesn’t get any more surreal than that.”
“The aliens needed this time to learn more about us,” said the general, “how to communicate with us, and how to eradicate the infection they inadvertently passed on to us.”
“So where do our kids fit into all this?” asked Dr. Tom Rovine. “Weren’t they in stasis like the rest of the world?”
“No,” said Dr. Monroe. “The aliens needed feedback from Earth. I believe your children were chosen due to their high intellect. They were the ones who taught the aliens our language and whatever else they needed to know about the human race. They did all this through dreams, brain waves.”
“Dreams?” said Leona. “Brain waves?”
“So then what happened?” asked Dr. Jane Januardy. “How did we wake up from the stasis?”
Monroe answered, “When the aliens were ready, they got us out of stasis, and we all woke up.”
“When the aliens were ready?” asked Madeleine. “Ready for what?”
“What we know from your teenagers was that alien soldiers arrived in our constellation to rob us of the carbon dioxide,” said the general.
“The air we breathe out?” asked Louis.
The general nodded. “Apparently, this gas is impossible to make in massive quantities back on their world. They discovered we produce it as we breathe. They traveled here to steal it from us. Massive quantities of carbon dioxide placed around certain planets they were colonizing will provide an ozone-like layer that would protect their people.”
“But the soldiers couldn’t care less about the consequences to Earth,” said Monroe. “The scientists, however, disagreed. So they came up with a plan to fool the soldiers to think that every living soul on Earth died. Except for a man and a woman.”
“Adam and Eve,” said Narrows. “So they couldn’t obtain any more carbon dioxide in massive quantities for thousands of years.”
“With the help of the aliens and the most brilliant dream-scientists on Earth, we concocted the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible and translated it into dream brain waves, which we then fed to the aliens,” said Monroe. “They bought it and eventually left.”
“At that point, the alien scientists got us all out of the stasis we were under, and all is back to normal,” said Narrows.
“Well, not all,” said Monroe. “Several millions of people died throughout the world during this, but of course all of us would have died without their help.”
“When and how did people die?” asked Madeleine, the surprise on her face paralleled by all the others.
“The blizzard of six weeks ago,” said Narrows. “The temperatures dropped precipitously to record lows.” All nodded, their attention piqued. “People were told to stay indoors. Commercial flights were put on hold throughout the world. Then came the multiple massive earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis.”
“Yes, we’ve had a miserable few winter days. So?” asked Madeleine.
“The whole world had a miserable winter,” said Narrows. “We believe now those unusual, unexpected weather events were orchestrated by the aliens. And during that time, when most of the world’s population were indoors, time stopped for over two hundred years.”
Monroe tossed a wan smirk. “We believed then that people died from the weather or storms. We now think that the people who died probably did so because of or related to the infection we were given.”
“Or the state of stasis,” added Narrows.
“What do you mean?” asked Louis. “Why would stasis kill?”
“Consider this,” said Narrows. “As the wave of stasis was beginning, all engines and electrical appliances turned off. But despite the warning, some people were driving and even flying at the time. Most of them were killed during crashes; some people drove off cliffs.”
“But the rest of us, well over six billion humans, remained healthy and well until they woke us up,” said Monroe.
“Incredibly,” said Narrows, “we all woke up from stasis and went back to our lives not having had a clue about the alien’s interventions.”
The parents shared glances between themselves. A beeper interrupted the silence.
“I have a stat call,” said Monroe. She got up and used her cell phone to make a call. When she hung up, she said, “I have bad news.” The tension in the room suddenly escalated. “We found some brain abnormality in the four teenagers. Each of them has a mass in his or her brain. Please excuse me. I need to join my colleagues right away and analyze this. I’ll keep you all informed.” And she left the conference room.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The stretchers and all the medical equipment necessary to keep the deeply comatose teenagers alive had been carefully wheeled out of the chamber that had served as their home for the last six months. Their hideout appeared to have worked since the travelers had not returned to this or any neighboring galaxy, as far out as the telescopic equipment and surveillance paraphernalia could appreciate.
Ambulances had arrived at the private airport and loaded the four patients and the team of caregivers into the airplane that would fly them to Indianapolis. From there, ambulances had driven them to Memorial Hospital. A special neuro team directed by Dr. Lillian Monroe had remained at their side every step of the way.
Now, the teenagers were situated in their room, a large open space with four beds and all types of medical equipment necessary to take care of them. This newly created neuro unit also included a novel MRI device, which was incorporated to facilitate frequent scanning of their brains. This MRI used fluorescent molecular tomography and was built utilizing new technology specifically designed to help with the teenagers’ dilemma. It was this highly advanced machinery that had detected the mass inside the teens’ brains, the likes of which had never been seen before.
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