by Stan Mason
Ratcliffe closed the file in front of him, removed his reading glasses, and looked up at the ceiling as if seeking divine providence. After a short while, he returned his attention to his visitor.
‘There must be a source of supply and demand,’ he insisted in disbelief. ‘There has to be! Are you telling me that this country of sixty-six million people can only find a thousand or so recipients worthy of having their lives extended by thirty or forty years? It beggars belief! If so, it’s a pretty poor show! No... I think you ought to extend the range of your searches to find them. I mean there are so many young people who are homeless, living in cardboard boxes at night time in doorways, especially in the London area and in other main cities. A broadcast on the radio the other day predicted that over twenty thousand people are homeless in Britain... most of them are probably young. Surely that’s where your next supply can be furnished. And there’s another angle. Some people would be willing to give up their bodies for cash. I don’t suppose you’ve tried that tactic, have you?’
‘No, sir,’ responded Jordan glumly, cringing under the wave of criticism directed against him. ‘The reason we haven’t spread out wings on this issue is the need to establish total secrecy. Once we embark on wayward tactics, the truth will be known to the public. We don’t want that to happen.’
The Minister moved his head from one side to the other in a casual manner as if he didn’t care before coming to the true reason for summoning his subordinate. ‘That’s not the reason why I’ve asked you to come here,’ he revealed candidly. ‘There’s a Government-run unit in a location near Leeds where some brilliant scientists are let loose to work on unusual projects. One of them, by the name of Franco Germaine, has come up with a doosey. He was extremely interested in the body exchange programme but was puzzled by the fact that the heads were never transferred when the bodies were swapped. He considered that there had to be a possibility whereby the whole of each individual was transferred with the exception of the brain. That was a remarkable discovery to say the least. It means that the recipient receives all the body and the head of the donor. But not the brain An eighty-five year old man can emerge from the cubicle looking forty years younger with a completely different face.’
‘Wouldn’t that make his family and friends suspicious?’ cut in the government agent with concern. ‘I mean they wouldn’t recognise him.’
‘He could always say that he underwent cosmetic surgery,’ ranted the Minister blandly. In his wisdom, Germaine worked on a procedure by which it could happen and he succeeded in coming up with a theory.’
‘A theory!’ gasped Jordan, nto wishing to upset the other man. He could hardly believe his ears that another kind of experiment would be added to the exchange programme.
Ratcliffe ignored the interruption and carried on in full flow. ‘As you are aware,’ he went on in in a boring tone, ‘the medical profession has always been baffled by the workings of the brain in toto. They can identify all the parts of it but some areas are beyond their ken. Germain has discovered a part of it that no one has recorded before. He calls it the Censory Cortical. It’s located between the temporal lobe and the cerebellum.. Apparently, in technical terms, it’s a conjunction between that, the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. The latter is the part of the brain below the thalamus which regulates, body temperature, hunger, thirst, and other autonomic activities. The pituitary gland is attached to the base of the vertebrate brain with secretions that influence growth, metabolism and maturation. He’s not actually certain that if a person’s an artist, he will retain all the talent he gained in his lifetime. However his notes indicate that it is possible to retain both talent and drive after the exchange process has taken place.’
Jordan stared at the Minister in the silenced that prevailed trying to absorb the information before speaking. ‘Are you really telling me that the head and body of a young person can be exchanged with that of an older person so that the recipient will look exactly the same as the donor and retain all the knowledge he gained throughout his life.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ retorted the Minister flatly with a satisfied smile.
A frown appeared on the face of the government agent as a horrid thought entered his mind. ‘Does Germaine identify what the state of the brain will be on transference. I mean part of it will be retained by the donor. Will this be the part which resulted in criminal activities? I’m not sure that the right part of the brain can be exchanged. What happens to the mind of the donor? Does he become reduced to that of a child with practically no knowledge whatsoever, having to learn to read and write all over again?’
‘Come off it!’ rattled Ratcliffe angrily, his blood-pressure rising at the question. ‘Most of the prisoners and those mentally disturbed can’t read or write anyway. They’re a burden on society, costing the taxpayer a fortune for their keep. It’s ridiculous. Far better to get rid of them once and for all!’ The veins on his forehead stood out as he continued his tirade.
‘But all this is only theory!’ bleated the government agent, trying to stem the flood from the dam which was beginning to swamp him. ‘None of it has ever been put to the test.’
‘They’ve done it with monkeys... chimpanzees no less! That’s where you come in. I want you to make certain that the operation works. Germaine had developed a machine which he’s nicknamed ‘Capella’ which is, apparently, significant in retaining all the other parts of the brain I mentioned. It will be fitted at head height inside the cubicle. At the same time the current is switched on, a special beam of radiation will be sent through the Capella allowing a complete exchange to be made.’
Jordan twisted his face as he pressed his lips together with an element of disbelief.
‘Do you really want me to go ahead with this experiment?’ he asked nervously. In his mind he prayed that he was dreaming... that it was all a nightmare... but it was too much to hope for.
‘I thought I made myself clear!’ challenged the Minister bluntly. ‘I want you to start the full exchange the moment the Capella machine’s delivered. I’d like your report immediately after the first run. Is that clear?’
Jordan nodded his head although he was outraged by the order. How could the Minster subject human-beings, whatever they had done to others in the past, to an experiment of such a horrid nature. It mean that
Every part of the body of those being exchanged would be transferred to the other person, with the exception of a tiny part of the brain which encapsulated the criminal element in those serving life sentences. As the idea was only a theory, it was practically certain that things would go wrong especially with such a delicate process affecting both the volunteer and the donor. Yet the cold-hearted Minister of Science demanded that he, Alan Jordan, should be responsible for carrying out all future body exchanges by this method. It had already started to weigh on his shoulders like a giant yoke. He felt like an assassin ready to undertake a contract on people on his list for an experiment that he didn’t believe would work. However, despite his reservations, there was little that he could do about it. If he failed to react according to the order of the Minister, he would be out of the loop for promotion for the rest of his life, branded as irresponsible and unsuitable for duty. Subsequently, the die was cast!
Three days later, two Capella machines were delivered to the laboratory. They were small units, the size of a tiara, which were fitted inside the cubicles. The government agent had arranged fro two people to be exchanged and they were injected with the serum and put into place. The metal coats were placed over their bodies and everyone stood back with baited breath to see whether or not the theory worked in practice and the complete body exchange took place.
When the recipient, an old man by the age of eighty-eight years of age, named Matthew Thomas, was removed from the cubicle, he was placed on a chair with a large blanket wrapped around him. To everyone’s amazement, the body exchange had wo
rked perfectly for he had assumed, in total, the body of the donor. He became the centre of attention as the scientists waited patiently for him to recover his senses to the full. It took almost ten minutes before he came round to stare at the scientists bleakly.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked inquisitively.
Jordan sighed with relief that the man was compos mentis, able to talk cogently. He stepped forward with a concerned expression on his face. ‘What’s the capital of France?’ he asked quickly.
Thomas stared at him looking somewhat puzzled. ‘There are two answers to that,’ he responded. ‘Paris is the geological one; ‘F’ is the other one.’ He burst into laughter at his own joke and then licked his lips which had become dry in the exchange.
‘What was the name of the horse of Alexander the Great?’ persisted the government agent to make certain.
The recipient thought for a moment, closed his eyes, and then replied. ‘Bucephalus,’ he muttered. ‘I think.’
‘And what’s nine times nine?’
‘Eighty-one,’ replied the man. ‘What’s going on. I would have sharpened up my knowledge if I knew I was going in for a quiz.’
There was a roar of approval from the scientists who regarded the experiment as a total success. One of them brought out a bottle of champagne and poured the liquid into a number of glasses. Nothing untoward seemed to have affected Thomas in the experiment and, despite the fact that he looked exactly like the other man had done when he first went into the cubicle, his senses and knowledge appeared to be intact. All the fears that had built up in the government agent’s mind were vanquished in an instant. They all relished the champagne but after a while, Jordan tugged on Thomas’s sleeve as he held up a mirror in his hand.
‘I think you should be prepared for a shock, Mr. Thomas,’ he told him candidly. ‘You’ve turned into a young man of forty-two. Just look at yourself.’
The man raised the mirror to stare at himself and took a pace backwards without speak for quite some time. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed eventually. ‘I look like the young man who exchanged his body with me.’
‘And you’ve still retained your faculties,’ cut in Jordan. ‘You were famous for marketing in your day. How do you feel about it now?’
‘Marketing... yes,’ returned Thomas tiredly. ‘I can think of three products that ought to be presented to the public,’ he went on. ‘Better still, I have a great idea how they can be promoted.’
The government agent could hardly suppress his delight before turning to the donor who was seated a little further away. The man had been a mentally disturbed patient suffering from manic depression, being cared for in sanatorium. As a result, it was extremely difficult to determine whether the man had recovered from the exchange. Jordan realised that a man with such problems was the worst kind of person to exchange with anyone but he happened to be the only one available at the time.
Jordan contacted the Minister for Science without delay, informing him of the success of the experiment.
‘I recognised that you had certain reservations about Germaine’s theory when you were in my office,’ declared Ratcliffe with overbearing confidence. ‘You really must accept the decisions of those in control, Jordan. We know where we’re going.’
The government agent ended the conversation as fast as he could, replacing his mobile telephone into his jacket pocket. He doubted very much whether the Minister of Science had a clue as to what was right or wrong with regard to anything that affect the human race. The man clearly had no conscience, however Germaine could be regarded as a genius for the experiment had proved to be a gigantic success. Subsequently, most of the desperate problems Jordan had anticipated were rapidly fading from his mind. Yet he still doubted the decision to go ahead with the Capella machines. It was true that only time would tell if his assumptions were correct. He was sure that it would leave behind a host of disappointed people who disliked their appearance and had difficulty facing themselves each morning in the mirror. For those who gave up their bodies, they would probably go back to their childhood... unable to read or write to live a very sad and daunting future for the limited number of years left to them!
***
One week later, a series of incidents stemming from a benign source started a train of events that almost upset the apple cart. Starting from an innocuous beginning, it heralded disaster in due course to thos who wee not even involved in the first place.
The incident began at the Gresham Asylum in East Anglia, which was set in a beautiful scenic place near the sea where Terence had been accepted as a mentally disturbed patient. He had been admitted after a number of medical examinations by doctors and specialists since he was fourteen years of age and he had remained at the asylum as a patient over the past nineteen years. He had just celebrated his thirty-third birthday and was beginning to read and write. The reason for his serious malaise was an unfortunate fall from his bicycle in which he landed directly on his head. Following the accident, his mother had noticed a serious degree of retardation in the boy but, worst of all, she recognised a defect in his nature which led towards advanced sexual behaviour whereby he began to attack young girls with sexual intent. It soon became clear that an impulse in his brain caused him to establish an erection whenever he came in the company of the female sex, irrespective of their age, and he tried to rape them. That trait alone was embarrassing for his mother to say the least as more than often she had to pull him off her female friends. With younger girls at school, he would lure them into his bedroom on the pretence of showing them something of interest, then he would attack them, tearing off their clothes, in an attempt to force himself upon them. In effect, had he not been admitted to Gresham Asylum, his state of mind would have ensured that, as he grew older, he would have become a serial rapist without realising that he was doing anything wrong. A short while after his entry there, his mother contracted ovarian cancer and she died within a year. He would have been left there without any visitors had it not been for his mother’s sister, Aunt Eliza Braithwaite. She visited him diligently every fortnight although he hardly ever recognised her as a result of the heavy medication meted out to him to prevent him from attacking the women in the asylum.
The last time she arrived there, she toured the asylum but, to her surprise, she was unable to find her nephew. She turned to a nurse and asked her where he might be. She took him to a small room where an old man sat on a chair, his body shaking like a person with Parkinson’s disease, staring vacantly at one of the walls.
‘That’s not my nephew!’ remonstrated Mrs. Braithwaite, irritated at the ostensible error. ‘Terence is only thirty-three years old and he doesn’t look like that at all. This is someone else.’
‘I’m afraid it is him,’ returned the nurse sadly, hardly understanding herself how the man had become so old in such a short space of time.
‘It isn’t my nephew!’ insisted his aunt angrily. ‘I told you, Terence is thirty-three years old. This is an old man. It’s not him!’
‘I think you’d better talk to the Matron,’ suggested the nurse realising that Mrs. Braithwaite was not going to leave without a proper explanation.
They walked speedily along the corridor to the Matron’s office where Eliza entered and was offered a seat.
‘I think you’ll need to sit down and have a strong cup of tea, Mrs. Braithwaite,’ stated the Matron bluntly, staring at the visitor’s face as she tried to find the right words to appease her. The Government sent an order for us to send Terence to one of their laboratories,’ she admitted freely. ‘He went there as a young man and returned the next day in the state he’s in now. I’m not able to tell you any more.’
‘Why not?’ demanded the aunt irately.
’Because I’ve not been told anything more,’ came the reply.
’But that man must be eighty-five years old. What happened to my nephew. Somehow he’s been r
eplaced and using Terence’s name. My nephew was learning to read and write the last time I came here and he was doing quite well. The man who replaced him is a zombie with every fibre of his body trembling like a leaf. I don’t understand what’s going on!’
‘I don’t know either, Mrs. Braithwaite,’ returned the Matron glumly. ‘He was taken away and brought back thirty hours later in the state he’s in now... old and totally mindless. No one has revealed what happened to him and that’s a fact. It’s a hush-hush affair operated by the Government.’
‘I’ll give them hush-=hush!’ spat the aunt with fury building up inside her. ‘They have me to contend with! I’m not letting his get swept under the carpet, I assure you!’
She left the asylum after seeing her nephew once more although it was not surprising that she failed to recognise him or to understand what had happened. Something was definitely wrong... definitely strange... and she intend to get to the bottom of it! The matter kept rolling around in her head like a bee buzzing inside it. How could a young man of thirty-three years of age with the mental ability of a child of six turn into an old person, looking completely different, with no brain at all? It was inconceivable and she realised that the sight of her nephew in such a poor state caused her to suffer a terrible shock to her system.
After she had gone, the Matron stared at the mobile telephone on her desk wondering whether to contact Jordan to advise him of the situation. She thought twice about it hoping that she had lied her way out of the matter successfully and then decided to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment to see whether Mrs Braithwaite caused any waves. There was no point in starting the hares running when Flint’s aunt might not pursue her quest.
