"Mr. Talbot?" The face at the door was round and pale in the half-light of the hallway, like a specter peering into the gloom of the corridor. The man squinted his eyes behind heavy-rimmed glasses. His shiny scalp had a fringe of thin gray hair and the shadows of a day's growth of beard covered the sagging folds of his lower face. He wore a white surgeon’s coat. He held Henry's gaze for only a moment then looked toward the floor, as if embarrassed.

"Are you Wertheimer?" Henry asked, staring at the man in the white lab coat.

The man shook his head. "I am Doctor Harrison. I am in charge of the laboratory." Harrison spoke in a high-pitched voice. He motioned for Henry to pass through the door.

"I didn't know the procedure required a doctor," Henry said, blinking his eyes to get used to the glare of the bright lights.

Doctor Harrison moved past him toward the center of the room where an operating table stood, like a solitary island, bathed in the brilliance of a large fluorescent overhead light. A collection of shiny metal operating instruments was arrayed on a tray beside the table. A faint odor of antiseptic permeated the air.

"Inserting the computer chip is a minor surgical procedure, but it is surgery, nonetheless," Harrison said. He turned quickly around and glanced at Henry before returning his gaze to the floor. "I am a doctor - there is no danger in the procedure, I assure you."

"Why the straps?" Henry eyed the wide leather restraints that hung ominously from the sides of the operating table.

The doctor continued to fuss with his instruments. "Your motor functions are disengaged as they would be if you were dreaming, but if we did not restrain your movements, you might still thrash about as if you were having a nightmare."

"What if I wake up?"

"The computer chips include a sensor. If your brain wakes the chip shuts off. You cannot be both awake and in the neurostory at the same time, I assure you."

Henry nodded. "When do we begin?"

"Right now." Harrison nodded in the direction of a second door. A young man in a white lab coat similar to Harrison’s entered the room.

"Morning!" the young man cheerily greeted Henry. He strode rapidly across the room and extended his hand. "Norman Demme," he said as Henry took his hand.

"You are Doctor Harrison's assistant?" Henry asked.

"Doc does the implantation," Norman answered, still smiling broadly. "I'm in charge of the electronics. I make sure the chip doesn't overload your system or that it's not so weak that you start dreaming right over the story. I also monitor the output from the chip so I know when the story is over."

"And the chip actually uses input from my brain as part of the story?" Henry switched his gaze from one man to the other.

Doctor Harrison continued to busy himself with his surgical equipment, but Norman smiled eagerly back at Henry. "That's the beauty of neurostories. They use feedback from your own nervous system to provide sensations to the character in the neurostory. That way it seems as if you're really doing and feeling everything that is going on. Hell, you really are!"

A thin smile crossed Henry's face. "You sound as if you've tried the procedure yourself."

"You bet! I've done Michael Jordan, I’ve done Terminator, and," Norman winked, "I’ve even done a couple of sex stories. It's better than the real thing."

Henry's expression became concerned. "But my story is unique, isn't that correct? I paid a lot of money to have it made. I don't want some off-the-shelf thriller going on in my head."

Norman shook his head, still smiling broadly.

"It's unique, all right. Mr. Wertheimer got the best writer for this one. This story is yours, Mr. Talbot, just yours. No one but the writer even knows what the plot is."

Henry nodded. "Good." He glanced at Doctor Harrison who was standing patiently beside the operating table. "Let's do it."

***

Henry’s mind was drifting. Doctor Harrison’s injection was a mixture of muscle relaxant and tranquilizer and already Henry’s arms and legs felt as if they were weighed down with lead. He was not sure he could have moved them even if he hadn't been restrained. He hated to be confined and he would have fought the procedure but he couldn’t summon the energy. He let himself relax.

The implant surgery had been painless because of the local anesthetic. Dr. Harrison explained that he couldn't put Henry to sleep before the surgery because it was necessary to perform a series of tests with the subject awake. First he had Henry flex various muscle groups so Norman could make sure the computer was picking up signals from Henry's central nervous system. Then Dr. Harrison had shown Henry a set of cards depicting a variety of emotional scenes, from naked women to grisly remains of bodies. Henry knew he was supposed to react with either lust or horror to the photos and he tried to generate the appropriate reaction, but Norman complained that the chip was getting only weak signals. Henry knew the problem had nothing to do with the chip. If he could feel normal emotions, Henry wouldn't be here looking for the ultimate emotional jolt…the one neurostories were supposed to provide.

Norman adjusted the chip's sensors. "This is as high as it will go," he explained, a hint of anxiety in his voice. "If you were older or less healthy, this could be dangerous, but I don't know how else to make sure you get the full sensory experience. If you don't, your own brain could override the program and you'll get a mishmash of dreams instead of a coherent story."

"Don't worry," Henry said. "Just begin the story."

Dr. Harrison shook his head and rolled his eyes at Norman, but the young man continued to make his adjustments.

Now, with the tranquilizer and muscle relaxants taking effect, Henry felt himself drifting. The figures of the two men began to fade. He felt their hands touching him, but it was as if the body they were manipulating was that of someone else. Their voices were distant, their words indistinct. Soon all he could see was a black tunnel, at its end a bright light. The light moved closer and suddenly he was somewhere else.

***

***

He tried to open his eyes, but a voice that was on the verge of panic told him to relax. When he attempted to raise his arm, he felt the sharp pain of a leather strap slicing into his wrist.

"Don't struggle, we'll get you out of there as soon as we can. You're going to be all right," said a different voice. This voice was higher pitched than the first, but its owner was also terrified.

"Should we remove the implant?" The first voice asked.

"Christ, we have to. We can't take him to a hospital with that thing stuck in his head. Wait until we get him out of the restraints, then we can flip him over and take it out."

"Hospital? Why do we have to take him to a hospital?"

"What else are we going to do? Jesus, I knew you shouldn't have turned up the gain like that! We're in deep shit."

"It’s not my fault. Why are you acting like it was my fault?" the other man pleaded. "Wertheimer will have me killed if he thinks I caused this."

"Keep your mouth shut, Norman!" The one with the high voice hissed.

The sharp pain in his left arm lessened as he felt the strap being removed, followed by the one on his right arm. He blinked his eyes. The bright lights blinded him at first, but then at his feet he could see two men in white coats desperately undoing the straps on his legs. Where was Jennifer? Who were these men? They were dressed in white coats, like doctors. The lights and the smell were those of an operating room, but the two doctors had talked about taking him to a hospital so this couldn’t be a hospital.

He struggled to move his arm. Although his arms felt leaden, using all his will he was able to raise first his right hand, then his left.

"Don't move Mr. Talbot, " the high pitched voice said. "We have to remove the implant before we can let you off the table. Then you need to go to a hospital. We'll take you there."

The doctor was clearly talking to him. The name Talbot didn’t sound familiar, but he was still disoriented. He remembered almost nothing. And his chest had felt as if it was bursting apart. Even now, his heart was pounding; the sound of his blood surging in his ears, deafening.

"I had a heart attack?" he asked the young man who as working over him.

"Christ, you scared the hell out of us. If old Doc here didn't know CPR, you'd be gone now. Shit man, your heart stopped for almost five minutes. It's a wonder your brain is still working at all."

"Shut up, Norman!" the other doctor shrilled. "Don't worry, Mr. Talbot, your brain is just fine. You're gonna be fine."

His brain wasn’t working fine and he wasn't taken in by the doctor's reassurances. Everything in his mind was jumbled. Images flashed through his mind: a beautiful girl, an apartment, and a view of the library.

"We want to turn you onto your stomach," came a voice from behind his head. He looked up and saw an anxious, balding, fat little man with glasses looking back at him. The man's face was beaded with sweat. "The implant. I need to remove it, Mr. Talbot," the man said.

He felt another pair of hands on his side, rolling him over. He was too weak to resist. As he rolled onto his stomach, he saw a metal table laid out with an array of surgical instruments. His eyes fastened on the scalpel.

The fat doctor was standing next to his head with a syringe in his hand. Suddenly these men’s aim was clear to him. They were going to drug him.

As Doctor Harrison bent over him and tested the syringe, the patient reached out and grasped the scalpel. With a mighty effort he brought the scalpel up and, willing his body to respond, rolled onto his back then used his last ounce of strength to thrust the blade upward into the surprised doctor’s face. As the scalpel pierced the doctor's eyeball, the patient shoved the blade deeper, twisting it savagely. Harrison screamed and clawed at his attacker’s hand. The patient pulled the blade from the doctor's bloody eye socket and as the screaming surgeon put both hands to his eyes the patient swiped the thin, sharp blade across the doctor's exposed neck. Only a small red line appeared at first as the surprised surgeon stared with his one good eye at his assailant then grasped his own neck just in time to catch a river of blood pumping in arterial spurts from his severed carotid artery.

"What in the hell?" Norman Demme shouted in stunned disbelief. He watched in horror as his co-worker fell to the floor at the side of the operating table. Demme was still leaning over the patient. With one quick movement the patient jammed the bloody scalpel into the man's chest. The young man stepped back then stared in wonder at the stream of blood pumping from the center of his shirt. The patient lunged again, plunging the scalpel deep into the young man's chest a second time then rolling off the table and onto the floor himself.

With the scalpel protruding from his chest, Norman took three steps away from the table, clawing desperately at the handle of the metal blade then collapsing onto the floor, twitching violently in a pool of his own blood.

The patient felt himself for wounds. He was covered in blood, but it was not his own. He seemed to be intact, with nothing broken and no open wounds, although his head felt as if it was filled with sludge and his arms and legs still felt heavy. His heart still pounded in his chest, but the searing pain was gone and the rapid heartbeats were more regular. Slowly he raised himself onto all fours then reached out and pulled himself up, using the operating table for support.

Where was he? The two men he'd killed were dressed like doctors and one of them had been about to operate on him. The doctor had talked about removing an implant. He touched the back of his head and felt a gauze bandage over a small protrusion. Something in him told him to leave it alone. Forget the implant, he thought. His first order of business was to get out of here.

Staggering as he walked, he crossed the room and opened the door. Ahead of him was a long, dark hallway. He couldn't see what was at the end, but it didn’t matter. He had to get away. His head was swimming and his feet felt as if they were stuck in sand. He walked slowly down the dark, damp corridor, catching himself against the walls when he started to fall and willing himself to keep going. When he reached the end of the corridor he opened the door and was bathed in bright sunlight.

He was on a street in an industrial neighborhood. He scanned the street in both directions, but no one was in sight. Glancing down, he saw that he was covered in sticky, red blood. He had to get out of there and he had to change his clothes. Across the street was parked a shiny, black Jaguar sedan. He forced his tired body to cross the street.

The car was locked. He knew he could get into the car, but a vehicle this expensive would have a sophisticated alarm and, even though no one else seemed to be in the neighborhood, he didn't want to set off any bells and whistles right now – not looking the way he did and with two dead bodies inside the building across the street.

He searched his pockets, hoping for something that might let him get into the car and disable the alarm before it went off. To his surprise, he fished out a set of car keys…Jaguar car keys. Was he so disoriented that he'd forgotten what his own car looked like? He'd worry about that later. He tried the key and to his relief, it worked. One push disabled the alarm and a second unlocked the doors. He got inside the car and put the key in the ignition. With a roar the car started up. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he had to get away from where he was now. And he knew one more thing: his name was Carlos and he had a mission… though he couldn’t remember what it was. He floored the accelerator, and with a powerful surge, the car took off down the street.

In the alley between the buildings across the street a soiled, tattered old man, his brain fogged by last night’s cheap wine and Sterno, pulled his blanket of grease-stained newspapers back across his bloodshot, hollow eyes. He had seen the blood-covered, wild-eyed figure emerge from the building across the street and get into his shiny black car, looking right past the old man and seeing nothing. The old man knew he should get up and run – leave the alley and never return to this neighborhood of visions and horrors – but instead he wrapped his cocoon of newspapers even more tightly around himself and lay there, shivering, the only witness to the beginning of a city’s nightmare.

Chapter 2

Nyles Monahan sat in his rumpled brown suit, the diminutive detective’s eyes closed as he rocked back and forth in his chair. With the door shut he couldn't hear the efficient squish of the nurses’ rubber soles bustling down the corridor or the squeak from the wheels of the carts and stretchers trundling past the door. He heard only his wife’s breathing. Slow, steady - what had they called it? Coma breathing. The regularity was mesmerizing, like the deliberate beat of a funeral dirge.

Without warning, the rhythm of her breathing quickened, causing him to open his eyes and stare at his wife's face. Across her chest the sheet was rising and falling with each breath. The more he watched the more he was sure that she was breathing more rapidly. He felt his tired muscles tense. He tried to quiet his anticipation, remembering that the doctors had told him not to hope. But doctors could be wrong. A month ago they had confidently predicted Cloris would recover completely.

Her breathing had become rapid and shallow. Nyles got out of his chair and moved with his usual cautious walk to the side of the bed. Cloris' eyelids began to flutter. Her hand, which lay stretched alongside her body, moved ever so slightly. Nyles touched the back of her hand, lightly at first, brushing the skin, then he put his fingers in hers. Was it his imagination or did her hand tighten around his?

Suddenly, Cloris' eyes were open. She gazed up at Nyles, a startled expression on her face. Her grip tightened on his and her mouth moved, as though she was trying to speak but, like a voiceless automaton, no sound emerged. She blinked in the bright light of the room. Her gaze left her husband's face and searched the room, registering what seemed to him like surprise at her surroundings. Was she trying to struggle to a sitting position?

Nyles felt his heart pounding. He reached for Cloris' shoulders, slipping his wizened, bony hand beneath her back so he could help raise her head. As soon as he touched her she swung her gaze back to Nyles and stared at him…the same startled, questioning look. Nyles stared into her eyes.

"Cloris, can you hear me?"

He searched her face for a sign of recognition.

"Are you there?" he whispered.

Her eyelids closed and he felt her body relax. Removing his hand from behind her head, he allowed her to sink back into the pillow. He watched her breathing slacken until she resumed the slow, steady, pace he had gotten used to during all those hours of waiting by her side. He felt his own body become heavy again, his pain almost unbearable.

Persistent vegetative state. That's what the doctors had told him. After four weeks, the chances of Cloris emerging from this condition had dropped to less than one in ten.

Persistent Vegetative State. Nyles’ heart sank every time he heard the phrase. How could anyone use the word vegetative to refer to a human being? But was Cloris still human? Was she alive at all? He'd been told that her cerebral cortex was damaged beyond repair. But there were times that she was awake, times such as the one a moment before when Nyles could swear that she responded to sounds, to touch, or would turn toward someone who entered the room. According to the Chinese-American neurologist who'd patiently tried to explain Cloris' condition to Nyles, persons with this condition had no cortical function, meaning that they were unconscious and unaware. Despite their wakeful condition, these patients, like Cloris, saw, heard, and felt nothing.

Nyles sat back down and buried his face in his hands. Dr. Chen had said that a combination of drugs and alcohol had shut down Cloris’ brainstem functions, stopping her heart until the paramedics jolted it back into activity with an intravenous injection of epinephrine. By the time her heart had finally begun to pump the oxygen-carrying blood back to her dying brain her cortex had been decimated, leaving nothing but sensory and motor functions with no consciousness of experience, no memory, no sense of self…no Cloris.

Nyles knew Cloris hadn't been trying to kill herself, at least not consciously. She'd taken the fatal combination of gin and Seconal at a cast party celebrating the fifteenth year of the successful soap opera in which, for the last ten years she'd played a regularly featured character. Nyles knew that both he and Cloris drank too much and Cloris' drinking had been getting worse. The Seconal was to help her sleep, but increasingly she had been taking it during the day to relieve her anxiety.

Anxiety about what? Not money; they weren't rich, but they were certainly comfortable. Their house was paid for; they both had steady jobs. Sure, Nyles worked a lot. Police work was like that, but he'd been a policeman when they'd married thirty years ago.

He and Cloris had no children. Her first pregnancy, ten years ago, had resulted in a defective child, discovered within a month of conception and aborted, but that had turned out to be her last opportunity. Was that when the anxiety had started?

Nyles looked over at his wife. Her eyes were open again and she was staring at the ceiling. Persistent Vegetative State. He hated the name.

"I thought you'd be at work, Detective."

Nyles hadn't heard the door open. He recognized the soft voice of Dr. Chen.

Nyles stood, his wrinkled suit hanging loosely on his shrunken frame. He’d lost weight since Cloris had been sick. He extended his hand. "It's hard to leave her," he said helplessly, feeling self-conscious as soon as the words left his mouth.

The Chinese-American doctor avoided Nyles’ gaze and nodded. "Your wife appears to be with us at times, but it is an illusion. It is difficult to accept."

"She seems to respond, to have some sense of where she is, " Nyles said quietly, a hint of hope in his voice.

The physician moved toward the bed, speaking as he walked past Nyles. "As I said, it is an illusion. Our PET scans have told us that there is not enough viable cortex to support consciousness. She is awake, but nothing is being recorded. She is like a computer with all the programs erased."

"You can be so sure?"

Dr. Chen nodded. "There have been many cases with this diagnosis. I am afraid your wife is not unique."

"Does it ever reverse itself?" Nyles knew he was asking the same questions he had asked hundreds of times before. He couldn’t stop himself.

Dr. Chen sighed. He turned and looked at the tired, drawn, face of the skinny detective. "I cannot say never, but, after four weeks, it is very rare to emerge from this state. As I’ve explained to you, there is only one possibility of bringing your wife back." Dr. Chen began moving a small penlight back and forth in front of Cloris’ eyes. Her gaze remained fixed straight ahead.

"And that possibility could also kill her isn’t that right?" Nyles asked, his voice strained. The thought of Cloris dying terrified him. But would it really be worse than the way she was now?

"The drug is experimental. We have used it in cases where there has been loss of brain tissue because of cerebral vascular accidents – strokes - but never with someone with as much neuron loss as your wife has. The effects are unpredictable. In essence the drug enhances the effectiveness of the still-healthy neurons by increasing their metabolism. The neurons will either double their output, which just might be sufficient to bring your wife back, or they will explode with the excess energy. In that case, I’m afraid the result will almost certainly be death."

"And if she does awake as a result of this drug, will her brain be intact?"

Chen shook his head. His face looked sad. "Not intact. There has been too much damage. But she will be awake. How much function she will have, we can’t say. She will be able to speak and move. How well she will be able to think is unknowable."

"You mean she could be retarded?"

Chen sighed again, as though the topic was am immense burden. "As I said, we cannot predict her condition. She has suffered a lot of damage."

"How quickly does the drug work?"

"Not immediately. Death, if it occurs is usually immediate, but the return of function, if there is any, may take days, even weeks."

"And she can’t stay here in the hospital?"

"The procedure is not surgical. It is also experimental. I’m afraid your insurance company and the hospital cannot extend your wife’s stay if you choose to go ahead with it. Either way, within a few days she will no longer qualify for a hospital bed. Your insurance covers a nursing home…or you could get nursing care at home, but that would be difficult for you."

"She's my wife. She belongs at home with me."

Dr. Chen turned. He glanced at Nyles then strode across the room. "In her present condition you would be better off if you did not think of her as your wife any more," he said as he left the room.

At Chen’s words, Nyles’ depression flared into anger. Then who is she? But his words were only thought, not spoken. He sank into the chair and put his head back in his hands. What was he to do?

The beep from his pager interrupted Nyles' reverie. It was his partner, Rafael Carillo. Nyles pulled out his cell phone. He moved next to the door and spoke in hushed tones. He still felt like his wife was present.

Nyles listened silently as his young partner informed him of a double murder in the international district.

"One of those black market neurostory shops," the young Mexican-American detective said. "A customer came in for an appointment and found the two attendants dead. One of them was a doctor."

"Any witnesses?"

"A derelict was sleeping on the sidewalk across the street. He claims to have seen a man covered in blood leave the building earlier this morning."

Nyles got the address. "Ten minutes," he told Rafael. "I'll meet you there."

Nyles turned back to Cloris. He still felt guilty when he left her to go out on a call. Maybe he should have retired last year when he turned fifty-five. If he had it to do all over again, he'd retire…insist that he and Cloris go somewhere. Maybe if he'd done that this wouldn't have happened. Or maybe if he had it to do all over again he'd make the same mistakes. He tried to shake himself free of his thoughts. He'd learned a long time ago that life couldn't be lived over again and if you beat yourself up every time something might have been your fault you'd never survive. It was a lesson he'd had to learn as a cop. Every cop learned it. But this was Cloris. And Cloris' illness meant the end of their life together. For the first time in his life he wasn’t sure if he wanted to survive.