Search for the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Abby giggled. “Well, I am female. Apart from that I always thought I was pretty normal. Although I do remember reading something about the correlation of left-handedness and learning disabilities. And don’t left-handed people die younger?”

  “Could be they’re just clumsier than the norm, in a world that’s set up for right-handers, and hence they’re more accident-prone. Look, love, you don’t have to do this. Or you can watch me do it and then decide. Kevin’s a smart guy, and he knows what he’s doing. Plus he has no preconceptions: he’s only looking for evidence that can be replicated. That’s science. And he’s not rushing to publish a paper on it—on us. Anyway, it’s your call.”

  Abby felt slightly reassured. “Thank you. I want to do this, but I guess I’m just nervous.”

  “Do you have some kind of machine phobia?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve had various X-rays in the past, at the dentist, and once in high school when the doctors wanted to make sure I hadn’t broken my ankle playing lacrosse. I don’t get claustrophobic in tight places. So it’s not that. I’m just being silly.”

  “Abby, you are in no way a silly person. Maybe you’re having a premonition?”

  Abby stared at Ned. “Are you joking?”

  His expression sobered. “I don’t know—am I?”

  Abby threw off the covers and swung herself out of bed. “I’m going to take a shower, and then we’ll eat breakfast, and then we’ll go brave Kevin’s machines. Okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll go make more coffee.”

  “Oh, and I’ve got to call Leslie, unless you want to do it.”

  “About what?” Ned asked, looking confused.

  “About Ellie and me painting the guest bedroom tomorrow?”

  “Oh, right. I can call her. Did you have any particular time in mind?”

  “No, as long as there’s enough daylight to paint by. Morning is fine. If Leslie’s okay with it, tell her to remind Ellie to wear clothes she doesn’t mind getting all painty.”

  “Will do.” He walked down the hall to make the call, and was back in under a minute. “Leslie’s fine with that. She or George will drop Ellie off in the morning about ten.”

  “Great. I don’t know how much we’ll get done, but we should get a good start on it.”

  Chapter 25

  An hour later they were on the road, heading for this mysterious lab that Kevin was borrowing. “I still haven’t seen your place, you know,” Abby reminded Ned.

  “I keep forgetting that. It’s not like I’m hiding anything. And I don’t have some big fancy office, and I don’t beat my employees. Pick a day to come over and I’ll show you around.”

  “You know anything about the place we’re going? What’s the name?”

  “Better you don’t know, so you can’t implicate anyone. And I’ve never been there—I know the company only by reputation. I don’t know anyone in management there, but I know they’re well-funded and they publish regularly in reputable journals. That explains how they can afford MEG. Whose main application to date has been localizing sources of epilepsy, and studying autism and developmental disorders. I can throw a lot of jargon at you, but I don’t think it’s relevant. To put it in the simplest terms, we want to see what lights up when and where—or if—you experience what we’re calling a psychic event.”

  “And we’re creating one of those how?” They did need something to test, didn’t they?

  “You touch something that belonged to a relative that has produced one of your ‘seeings’ before, and then we compare the result when you touch something that has zero connection to you.”

  “I didn’t bring anything like that. And most of them aren’t exactly portable.”

  “Well, then, we can touch each other—we know that works. The machine can filter out external factors, like eye blink and heartbeat, but it’s important that your head remains very still. And of course the room and even the building are constructed to prevent random movement that could mess up the readings.”

  “Wow, you have been doing your homework!”

  “I like to know what I’m getting into. You don’t have any metal objects in your head, do you? Or anywhere else?”

  “Only dental fillings. Is that a problem?”

  “I’ll ask Kevin.” Ned was silent for a few moments, watching the road. “You do know that epilepsy is a seizure disorder?”

  “Yes, I think I knew that. Why?”

  “There are some people who believe that psychic experiences are in fact small seizures, that may not otherwise be apparent.”

  “Okay.” Abby thought briefly. “But what triggers those, if they are seizures?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not saying I believe the theory. But it’s kind of a chicken and egg question: it’s the seizure when you see these people, but there seems to be some physical contact necessary to set off the seizure which enables you to see them. So we’re still back to looking for a precipitating factor, which may lie outside of you, and you just happen to have the right receptors for it.”

  Abby filed that idea away for further thought. “You mentioned autism too, didn’t you? I’ve been thinking that if someone on the autism spectrum has trouble processing an overload of stimuli, that could just as easily be electrical signals, couldn’t it? In my case, I see very specific, focused events, but that person would see or hear or feel an overwhelming jumble of impulses, and would have to shut down for self-preservation.”

  “That makes sense to me, but I haven’t studied it. It may be that there’s also a part of the brain, such as where language and communication skills lie, that fails to develop normally in autistic children. But nobody’s found a physical cause—diagnosis usually comes from psychological observation of a person’s behavior.”

  “Do you consider that science?” Abby asked.

  Ned hesitated. “I’d rather be able to point to something physical, but the symptoms are pretty consistent and observable.” He pulled off the highway onto a surface road, followed it for a short distance, and turned into a driveway. “We’re here.”

  Kevin was waiting for them in the parking lot, leaning on his car and looking cheerful. He was a far cry from a science nerd in a white coat with pocket protectors—but Abby was immediately ashamed of herself for stereotyping. And then she wondered if somehow that was connected to what she and Ned had been discussing: Kevin was a brilliant scientist (or so Ned told her), so why did her internal image immediately jump to a shy and awkward person with limited social skills? Kevin might be focused on non-typical subjects, but he was anything but shy and awkward. Or, to carry the thought further, was obvious intelligence a different kind of manifestation of psychic ability? Were really smart people just better at reading other people’s cues—or were they actually reading minds, on some level?

  Abby shook her head to clear it, then climbed out of the car. “Hi, Kevin. Here we are!” Nothing like stating the obvious. Apparently she was still nervous.

  “Glad you two could make it,” Kevin said. “I’ve really been looking forward to this. Just don’t tell anybody else about it, okay?”

  “Got it,” Ned said.

  Abby wanted to ask why, but she assumed that Kevin’s friend in the lab might get in trouble for “lending” his expensive mega-machine MEG to outsiders. “Sure, fine,” she told Kevin. “What do we do now?”

  “I’ve got the pass code to get into the building, and Joe’s waiting for us upstairs. This baby has to be housed in a special room that’s magnetically shielded to reduce certain outside noises that just mess up the results. So MEG lives in an all-aluminum and mu-metal room.”

  “Uh, mu-metal?” Abby asked. They weren’t even in the building and she was already confused.

  Kevin took pity on her and explained, “Mu-metal is a nickel-iron soft magnetic alloy with very high permeability suitable for shielding sensitive electronic equipment against static or low-frequency magnetic fields.”

  Like that helped, Abby thought. “Thank you. I gue
ss. I’m not going to find it at home, am I?”

  Kevin laughed. “Of course not. Hey, Ned, she’s not much of a techie, is she?”

  Ned looked pained. “No. But she’s the one with the psychic ability, and that’s what we’re here for. We going in?”

  “Well, yeah.” Kevin grinned. “Follow me.” At the front door he punched in a multi-digit code, which let them enter a high-ceilinged atrium with lots of glass and what appeared to be free-floating staircases. Not the place for an agorophobe or an acrophobe, Abby thought, but she had no problems with open spaces or heights. Or with claustrophobia, as she had told Ned. Abby, stop it! You’re trying to distract yourself. How scared are you?

  “Where do we go now, Kevin?” she asked.

  “Second floor. Stairs okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Kevin led the way at a brisk pace, and Abby and Ned followed, up the stairs and all the way to the end of a long corridor to MEG’s lair. Kevin punched in another code, then pushed open the door. “This is the MSR—that’s the magnetically shielded room. Hi, Joe,” Kevin greeted the man waiting for them. “We all set?”

  “Kevin,” Joe said, “you might at least introduce us.” Unlike Kevin, Joe looked like Abby expected a scientist to look: white coat and serious glasses.

  “Oh, right, sorry”—although Kevin didn’t look sorry at all. “Joe Briggs, this is Abigail Kimball and Ned Newhall. I told you about them, and why I wanted to borrow a few minutes of MEG’s time.”

  Joe eyed them all with little enthusiasm. “‘Borrow’ might be technically correct, since you haven’t told me whether you intend to compensate me. But we can discuss that later. I can give you half an hour, and I need to stay here in case anything goes wrong.”

  Kevin was shaking his head. “Ah, Joe, you still don’t trust me. But of course you can stay and watch—she’s your baby. Just don’t tell the feds.” When Joe looked dismayed, Kevin was quick to add, “Just kidding. We are doing nothing illegal. I simply want MEG to scan these two people’s brains.”

  “Do they know what they’re getting into?” Joe asked.

  “Why? Do they have to sign some forms?” Kevin countered—without answering the question.

  “Well, technically . . .” Joe began.

  “Joe, if anything goes wrong, it’s on my head,” Kevin told him firmly. “No one will hold you responsible. So, how do we get the ball rolling?”

  Joe sighed. “Who’s going first?”

  “I will,” Ned said, stepping forward. “Abby’s a little nervous about it, and I want to show her it’s safe.”

  “Of course it is. Miss, uh, Abby—why don’t you sit down over there, where you can watch?”

  Abby sat obediently while Joe flipped switches and turned dials on a control panel. MEG itself—herself?—looked like a kind of space-age dentist’s chair on the bottom, with a huge kind of free-form block above it. At the base of the block was a small circular insert, which in turn had a deep indentation, presumably for a human head.

  Joe pulled something from a drawer. It looked oddly like an Egyptian wig, but made up of squares which looked like some kind of computer chips. “The is the SQUID sensor array. It has a hundred and two silicon chips and three hundred and six measurement channels.”

  Well, at least she’d gotten the silicon chip part right, Abby thought.

  “So that’s what reads your brain, uh, emissions?” Abby asked.

  “Exactly, and transmits them to our computers, which in turn translates them into visual maps. Ned, you ready?”

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Where do you want me?”

  “Sit in the chair and I’ll place the SQUID cap on you and connect it.”

  Abby watched as Joe tinkered with the fit of the cap, and then settled Ned in the seat. He jiggered with the angle of the top part of the machine until he was satisfied.

  “All set. You good to go, Ned?”

  “I am. I need to keep my head still, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You get a baseline reading first?” Ned asked.

  “We do. Then Kevin told me you wanted to test something?”

  “Yes—I want Abby to touch me.”

  Joe looked perplexed, but all he said was, “Just as long as she doesn’t jostle you. Keep the head steady at all times.”

  “All right.” Ned smiled at Abby, then settled himself more comfortably in the seat. Joe started fiddling with more knobs and dials, at an array a few feet away. Kevin came over and peered over his shoulder.

  “Look normal so far?” Kevin asked.

  “Normal is a relative term, Kevin,” Joe said stiffly. “Could you give me a bit of room?” Kevin stepped back.

  After a few more seconds, Joe said, “Ned, I’ve created a magnetic contour map, and SQUID is reading it fine. Let’s let her run for a couple of minutes, and then you can try your test with Abby.”

  Abby watched while nothing happened. Nothing obvious, at least—she assumed the computer was recording all sorts of things she couldn’t see. Ned sat still, and the MEG machine whirred around him. Joe stared at his computer screen.

  Finally Joe said, “Okay, Abby. Come closer—carefully—and touch Ned’s hand. Will that be enough to trigger . . . whatever it is you’re looking at?”

  “It should be,” Kevin said.

  She stood carefully and walked across the floor to stand in front of the machine. Ned kept his eyes on her face but he made sure not to move. Abby reached out and laid her hand on his.

  “Oh, wow—there!” Kevin pointed to the computer screen. “See the right temporal lobe light up? Does it hold steady or fluctuate? Abby, keep your hand right where it is. If we’re lucky we can refine the location.”

  Abby could feel the current that flowed between her and Ned, despite all the distractions in the room. She smiled at him and nodded. “How long do we stay like this?” she asked.

  “Give it a few more minutes, to make sure it’s a stable reading,” Joe said, his gaze not leaving the screen.

  Abby let her mind drift. So there was something observable about their connection. Interesting. Was it direct, brain to brain, like a wireless connection? Or was it some kind of current that passed through their bodies, linked at their hands? That would take more and different experiments, wouldn’t it?

  “Okay, I think that’s enough,” Joe said, looking pleased. “Abby, step back. Ned, give me a sec and I’ll disconnect you so you two can switch places.”

  That was accomplished in two minutes, and when Ned extricated himself, Abby settled into the seat. Ned leaned over to say softly, “It’ll be fine. I didn’t feel a thing until you touched me.”

  Chapter 26

  Joe fitted the SQUID array to her head, and Abby found it was surprisingly light and flexible, even thought it looked like a weird piece of medieval armor. If it was used with children, the light weight would be important to them. All in all, MEG seemed like a very friendly machine—which sounded silly. It merely picked up signals that you weren’t even aware you were sending. That probably covered a lot of territory, but Abby could see quite a few potential applications. But that was for later. Right now she was sitting in this chair-thing looking for something very specific: the site of psychic signals coming from inside her head. If that’s what really was happening.

  “Can I shut my eyes?” she asked.

  “As long as you don’t bounce around or dance a jig, you can do about anything,” Joe said. “You ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Abby told him. She could hear the click of a keyboard as Joe input something, but she couldn’t feel anything different in her head.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see both Joe and Kevin hunched over the computer screen. “There,” Kevin said suddenly. “Same focus as in Ned’s scan.”

  “Let’s see if it holds steady,” Joe said cautiously.

  Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. No one spoke, until Kevin asked, “Did you bring any item that set you off before, Abby?”<
br />
  “Mostly they’ve been things that are a bit too big to carry around, like a chair or a painting or a tombstone. Nothing as simple as a piece of jewelry or an article of clothing. And I don’t know if Ned has told you, but it can’t be just anything that belonged to an ancestor. It has to be something they were in contact with or close to in times of extreme stress. That seems to leave the strongest imprint.”

  “Yeah, I see the problem,” Kevin said. “So I guess we’re back to the touch thing?”

  “Kevin, you said you saw sparks when we touched,” Ned said. “Are you going to try to get a reading for yourself? Obviously you’re responding to something, but it may not be the same thing we are.”

  “Good point. Depends on how much time we have. Joe?”

  “We’ll see. Okay, Ned—you touch Abby the way she touched you.”

  Ned walked toward the machine and smiled at Abby. She smiled back. Ned reached out his hand and—

  Abby’s world erupted into flashing lights and fragments of sounds, and then she passed out.

  • • •

  Coming back to consciousness was like swimming through black sludge. Abby could hear people talking in low voices. Ned. What’s his name—Kevin? And the other guy, Joe. They sounded worried.

  “We should call somebody,” Joe said urgently. “I’m responsible for MEG and whatever happens.”

  “She’s only been unconscious for a couple of minutes,” the voice that she thought belonged to Kevin said.

  “I don’t care how long it’s been or hasn’t been,” Ned said more loudly. “She shouldn’t be unconscious at all. You both told me it was safe.”

  “It is!” Joe protested. “You tried it first. We use it on children, for God’s sake. I’ve never seen anything like this.”