The Traveler's Return (Traveler Series 3)

by Dr L. Jan Eira

  “This is the little girl who came in to see Brent,” whispered Joseph to the cluster of parents. “What’s she doing here?”

  Shoulders shrugged. Mary and Jane strolled toward the child. The others followed one by one.

  “Why did you want to see the kids in a coma?” asked Mary. “Were you curious to see what they would look like?”

  “They’re not brain dead!” affirmed Alexandra. “Don’t make them DNR.”

  “How I wish you were right,” said Jane. “What’s your name?”

  “The doctors are wrong,” said Alexandra. “Their brain cells are not dead. Not yet. They will rejuvenate and produce norepinephrine and dopamine again. I can help.”

  Jane knelt down so her eyes were in level with the child’s. “How do you know that?”

  Louis slowly ambled closer. “Are you one of the travelers?”

  Alexandra’s eyes met his. “Yes. I’m here to help them.” Her little gaze scanned the parents and then rested back on Louis’s eyes. “The six of you must agree to let me channel your memory synapses so you don’t recall our conversations later.”

  “Why?” asked Joseph, approaching Alexandra. “Why do you have to do that?”

  “Harm could come to your people knowing about me,” said Alexandra. “I’m violating all kinds of rules talking to you.” Her eyes rested on Joseph and Mary. “But I must save Brent.” Her gaze rolled on to Louis and Jane. “Ellie,” she said, and then looked at Gus and Leona, “and William.”

  “I’ll agree to anything at all,” said Gus. “But please do what you can for our children.”

  “Tell us what to do,” said Jane.

  “Bring Dr. Monroe in here,” said Alexandra. “We’ll start with her. She must agree to help us. I need to perform brain surgery on the three patients. Furthermore, all personnel involved will have to agree to let me erase their memories.”

  “I’ll go get Dr. Monroe,” said Jane.

  “What about the other one?” asked Leona. “Can you save Valerie?”

  “No,” said Alexandra. “Valerie is beyond my help.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Valerie’s body was transferred to a stretcher with a body bag positioned on it. Once she was inside it, the bag was zippered up, concealing Valerie’s beautiful but pale features.

  “I’m Delilah, the mortuary tech. I’ll take Valerie to the morgue now, Dr. Rovine. Will you want her to have an autopsy?”

  “Nah,” uttered Tom, his word scratchy and uncomfortable. He touched the body bag containing his daughter, more tears streaming down his face. Delilah slowly wheeled the stretcher away, leaving Tom alone in the ICU cubicle. Numb. Weeping. Defeated.

  Alexandra sat on a chair in the waiting room; the parents scattered around her, some standing, some on one knee, and some simply pacing around; the wait for Dr. Monroe proving unbearable.

  Alexandra suddenly developed a new sensation, one she had never experienced. It was a profound weakness of her left lower extremity. What is this…she thought. This feeling in my leg? She gave the computer a thought command. “Computer, analyze my discomfort and derive best management options.”

  “Computing,” came the reply in her head, all around her oblivious to this exchange.

  The door into the waiting room opened and in came Dr. Monroe, followed by Ellie’s mother, Dr. Jane Januardy.

  “What’s this all about?” asked Monroe. “The teenagers are brain dead. There is nothing we can do to help them. Whatever we do will just prolong the family’s agony.”

  Alexandra tried to concentrate on the conversation, the discomfort and weakness in her leg becoming at times overpowering. “Dr. Monroe, my name is Alexandra, and I am an avatar.” She winced with a momentary jolt of pain. “I’m from another planet. This body you see before you is a vehicle for my…essence to exist on your planet.”

  “Thanks for being here, Alexandra,” said Gus, “and helping us save our kids.”

  Alexandra nodded. “I’m a scientist on my planet. I have the capability to recharge your children’s dying neurons.” The intense discomfort and numbness now affected her right thigh, this pain competing for irritation and soreness with her left lower leg. She tried not to react. “The prolonged coma depleted their neurons of neurotransmitters.”

  “I can’t advise this,” said Dr. Monroe. “It is untested. We can’t know the consequences of this procedure.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Joseph. “Without it our kids are dead, right?”

  “So, if we agree to the procedure, what’ll happen?” asked Louis, all eyes shifting from him to Alexandra.

  The aching in the lower extremities, which had become fleetingly unbearable, stifled Alexandra again. She endeavored to ignore it, wishing to avoid giving any signs of shortcomings. After all, at this time, it was imperative that the parents and doctors believe in her abilities to help the teenagers. “I need to enter your kids’ craniums and irrigate their brain cortices with—”

  “Perform brain surgery?” asked Monroe. “Out of the question. How can you know if your surgery, whatever it is, will do any good?”

  “With all due respect, Dr. Monroe,” said Gus, “this is our decision to make, not yours.”

  “These are extraordinary circumstances,” said Jane. “Alexandra is a scientist from a far-superior race, and she thinks she can help our kids. That’s good enough for me!”

  “I was hoping to perform the surgery with your blessing, Dr. Monroe,” said Alexandra, her message soft and nonthreatening. “I would like to avail myself of your assistance. But I will do it with or without you.”

  Monroe contemplated a long moment. “OK, what do you need? I’ll get the OR ready.”

  “If I could have a writing utensil and a paper, I shall provide a list of materials needed for my task,” said Alexandra. “But I must also ask that we not involve anyone else in the gathering of supplies or the procedure itself. I can do the operation at the bedside.”

  “What about the risk of infection?” asked Monroe.

  “There will be no infection,” said Alexandra. She winced under her breath, a spasm of pain going up her left leg. “But we must hurry. We must start at once.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Dr. Monroe and the parents split the list so as to facilitate the gathering of materials for Alexandra, most of which were available in the hospital, though some had to be procured in town.

  “How long will it take to get it all?” asked Louis.

  “Probably an hour,” said Gus. “Hour and a half at most.”

  Mary and Joseph volunteered to go to town and get the required unusual chemicals that Alexandra would fashion into a new drug. These included hydrocarbons, anthracyclines, arsenic-containing pyrrole molecules, orotic acid, and naftazone.

  “I can’t even pronounce some of these chemicals, let alone know where to get them,” said Mary, entering the car and sitting in the passenger seat. She scanned the list of requirements provided by Alexandra once again.

  Joseph sat behind the wheel. “We have to do this, Mary. Our child depends on it.” He started up the ignition and the vehicle came alive. “And remember our instructions not to let anyone in on the reason for this or to divulge anything about Alexandra or the other travelers.”

  “I know, I know,” said Mary. “Mum’s the word.” Her gaze shifted between the list of chemicals and her husband. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Universities’ chemistry departments, Dow Chemicals…” his words trailed off as he turned out of the parking lot and onto a busy street. “Places likely to deal with unusual chemicals and reagents.” He glanced at Mary, and then his eyes returned to the road. “We’ll find these things. We must!”

  And they drove on.

  Louis and Jane had been given the task of finding stones. They sought three types of igneous and one type of metamorphic rocks. Alexandra required rhyolite, monzonite, pumice, and orthoclase.

  Louis fancied himself a geology enthusiast, so he immediately vo
lunteered his service and his wife’s to this task. They were now in his car speeding toward the Rogers Quarry near Indianapolis, a place Louis had visited with Ellie before when she needed rocks for a school project.

  “What’s she going to do with rocks?” asked Jane.

  “She can make a drug to save our Ellie and the others,” said Louis. “That’s all I really care about.”

  “I agree!” said Jane, spying the trees rushing by. “How long until we get there?”

  “Forty minutes according to the GPS,” said Louis. “I bet I can beat that by at least fifteen minutes.”

  Meanwhile, the other parents, Gus and Leona, and Dr. Monroe went through the hospital looking for other materials Alexandra had asked for. Among many others, this included drugs available in the hospital’s pharmacy and a special radiofrequency generator used by electrophysiologists to perform heart ablations. All these things would be used by Alexandra to make a drug capable of regenerating the kids’ neurons and revive them back to normalcy. She spoke of splitting the atoms from the reagents to fashion the new agent. The other items would be necessary to develop the delivery system. The team was given strict instructions not to let anyone know about the presence of alien life on Earth, and they all had accepted the notion that Alexandra would be erasing all their memories of these specific events before her departure, once the three teenagers were healthy again. That was the deal. That was the plan.

  Back in the waiting room just outside the special neuro unit where the three teenagers lay nearly brain dead, Alexandra wondered about the new pain in her lower extremities. She had never experienced physical discomfort like this.

  “Computer,” she thought-commanded. “What is your analysis of the intense discomfort in my legs?”

  “My research indicates that your avatar is disintegrating,” whispered the unemotional computer voice in Alexandra’s auditory brain center. “The avatar has to be placed back in the rock formation in the cave for twelve hours so as to regain the failing mineral composition necessary for cohesiveness of its molecules.”

  “Computer, I don’t have that kind of time,” she instructed. “If I do that, the teenagers will die.” She took a deep breath. “How long do I have until I can no longer function?”

  “My calculations estimate that you will lose most functionality in four and a half Earth hours,” said the computer in her head. “At that point, you will be unable to ambulate or perform the operation to save the teenagers. Furthermore, you will become unable to retrieve carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and will cease to exit forevermore in six Earth hours.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Almost two hours went by before every team reassembled by the neuro unit’s waiting room with the materials Alexandra had requested. Despite god-awful discomfort all over her body, which at times paralyzed her momentarily, Alexandra used her computer and apps to manufacture a new drug that would restore the teenagers’ brain function. The remedy was in liquid form inside a canister, a dripping straw-sized tube attached.

  “I’m ready to perform the first craniotomy,” said Alexandra to Dr. Monroe. “I need your help.” Monroe nodded. The two went out of the waiting room, walking fast to the neuro unit. Alexandra had a pronounced limp as she ambulated.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to do this surgery in the OR?” asked Monroe.

  “No, we can do this at the bedside,” said Alexandra.

  “They’ll get a whopping brain infection,” said Monroe. “I can’t allow that.”

  “I have a way to prevent any infection,” said Alexandra, wincing in pain. “Don’t worry.”

  Monroe’s eyes went to each of the parents, who nodded in silence.

  “OK.” Monroe’s gaze drifted from Alexandra to the parents. “Stay here in the waiting room. I’ll come to you as soon as this is done.”

  The parents nodded nervously and Monroe and Alexandra exited the unit. When they arrived by the teens, Alexandra climbed on Brent’s bed first. “We need to create a hole big enough to infuse this solution into the meninges.” Her eyes found Monroe’s. “Please bring the electric cranial drill.”

  Soon, Alexandra dripped her liquefied prescription into the gap bored into Brent’s cranium.

  “How long will it be until the drug works?” asked Monroe.

  “About ten to fifteen minutes,” said Alexandra, putting the finishing touches on the bandage on Brent’s head. She climbed off Brent’s bed and attempted to reach Ellie. “Doctor, I need a hand, please.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Alexandra? I noticed your limp.”

  “My avatar is dematerializing,” said Alexandra. “We must work fast. I must succeed in reversing the comas.” Her little eyes settled on Monroe’s. “If I can’t do it, you must repeat these steps on Ellie and William. The same as what I did for Brent.”

  Monroe helped her up on the bed, and the procedure was repeated on Ellie’s head.

  “My hands are very weak, and I can hardly move my legs,” said Alexandra. “But I can’t stop now. We have one more to do.”

  With Monroe’s help, Alexandra got off Ellie’s bed and onto William’s.

  By the time the procedure was about to begin on William, Brent was beginning to move restlessly on his bed. Monroe signaled toward the boy, causing Alexandra to almost smile. And then Ellie opened her eyes slightly, she too converting from a comatose body nearly dead on a hospital bed to a twitchy person very much alive.

  “Doctor, I need your help,” whispered Alexandra. “I’m not sure I can save William. My hands are no longer maneuverable.” And with this, Alexandra fell to the side and off the bed. With her tumbled a flask off the bed breaking into smithereens.

  “Oh no,” cried Monroe. “The solution to instill into William’s cranium is all gone.” Monroe looked at the little albino child who lay prone, unmoving, unresponsive. Lifeless. “Alexandra, don’t leave us now. Without you, we can’t save William?”

  Chapter Sixty

  Within minutes, Brent and Ellie began showing more signs of reaching wakefulness. By then, the parents were in the room. Their joy was thwarted by the sorrow of not being able to save William, and of the uncertainty of what to do about Alexandra, the small albino youngster sprawled out on the floor next to William’s bed still unresponsive.

  Brent opened his eyes first and began looking around the room. “Where am I?” he said as he struggled to sit up in bed. “Where’s Ellie, William, and Valerie?”

  “Brent, I’m Dr. Monroe. Do you remember me?” Monroe’s gaze drifted from the six parents to Brent.

  Brent’s words were slow and hesitant. “Dr. Monroe?” He squinted his eyes and looked about the room. “Yeah, I remember you.” He looked at the next bed over. “Is Ellie all right?”

  “Yes, Ellie is going to be fine,” said Monroe. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t save William.”

  Brent tried to get up from bed but was too weak to do so. “I need help to get out of bed.”

  “You’ve been in a coma for several months,” explained Monroe. “You’ll be weak for a while. You’ll need rehab to get back to normal functioning.”

  A little girl’s groan came from between the beds then the words, “Rock. Cave.”

  “What was that?” asked Ellie, who had opened her eyes.

  “Ellie, it’s Brent. Welcome to the real world.”

  “What was that noise?” Ellie repeated.

  Monroe’s gaze met Ellie’s. “Alexandra fell off the bed, unconscious, a few minutes ago.” She took a deep breath. “Alexandra woke up briefly to say the words rock and cave. Not sure what that means.”

  “We have to help her,” said Brent. “She may be able to still save William. And maybe Valerie, too.”

  “Alexandra is nearly paralyzed,” said Monroe her gaze now on the avatar. “I’m not sure how to help her and I know she won’t be able to help anyone else in her present condition.”

  “What about Valerie?” asked Ellie. “What’s happened to her in Boston? What’s her pres
ent condition?”

  Monroe began to explain. “Her mother took her from—”

  “We know all about that,” said Brent. “How is she doing?”

  “I’m afraid she died during brain surgery in Boston,” said Monroe.

  “Valerie’s dead?” asked Ellie.

  “I’m remembering Valerie’s death now,” recalled Brent. “Alexandra told us in our dreams, remember?”

  “Now Alexandra is dying too,” said Monroe. She lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Brent struggled to make his muscles strong enough to lift himself out of bed, in vain. “We have to help Alexandra. I’m sure she can help William and Valerie. We must—” He let out a yell of desperation.

  “Dr. Monroe,” shouted Ellie. “Please get help in here. We need to attend to Alexandra, and get her to a certain cave.”

  “Yes, a cave we know only too well,” reiterated Brent.

  Ellie looked from Brent to Monroe. “Our mission is not over. It’s only been interrupted for several long months. We have a lot of work to do yet.”

  “One thing we learned from Alexandra and this very unusual past experience with the travelers is never to give up hope,” said Brent. “I have to believe there is still hope for William and Valerie.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The parents and Dr. Monroe were assembled at the teenagers’ bedsides. The reunion with the parents had been emotional to say the least, tears of joy and sadness overflowing. Thirty minutes had passed since the comas were lifted, and as such, Brent and Ellie were now able to sit up in wheelchairs, aided by pillows. Unfortunately, William remained in a full coma, the only sign of life being the beeps emanating from his heart monitor overhead. The respirator pushed air periodically into his lungs.

  Alexandra had regained consciousness and had requested assistance in getting on William’s bed.

  “Help me place my hands over William’s head,” she pleaded. Once her little hands were in place, Alexandra closed her eyes.