prologue

 

 

Prologue

 

1:26 a.m. October 15 2007, Helena Montana

 

Kevin took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, letting Garrett adjust the intravenous then take the child’s vital signs. The smell of disinfectant they had used to sanitize the homemade operating suite was still strong but it couldn’t cover the scent of death in the room, nor the strong odor of deep ground penetrating into the room from the tunnel.

The boy’s back rose and fell rhythmically with the hiss-rasp of the ventilator.

He peeled off the Neoprene gloves and tossed them in the bin beside the utensil table. Bone fragments clung to the plastic liner. Little pieces of healthy osseous tissue. But they weren’t what bothered him. It was the form, so small, frail and fragile, still open and bare on the other table, across the room, and the ungodly thing that he had done to it, that tore his soul inside out.

               He looked down at his shoes. Something he’d always done after surgery, ‘It will keep you humble’ his instructor had told him eons ago in medical school ‘Too many good doctors get thwarted by their ego’. But except for a few pieces of pink tinged bone they were clean. The operation had been a fairly bloodless. It shouldn’t have been, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been. But nothing was normal anymore. And looking at the form in front of him Dr. Kevin Aldwell realized, as the burrowing emptiness began its feast on his soul, that nothing would ever be normal again.

He turned away. His research based life had not prepared him for such inner torment.

 “You’re going to have to help me with this.” Came a voice from behind him.

Dr. Aldwell cringed. Garret Sawyer was a brilliant surgeon, and research assistant, but his grasp of the emotional side of things was strongly lacking. Even more so than his.

“Kevin! I can’t turn him over myself, you are going to have to help me.” He repeated.

Kevin took another deep breath and turned back around. Garret was staring at him expectantly. To him this had been just another step toward their goal, and the next logical step for Kevin’s work of the past ten years.

“Wait. Before we turn him over give him another dose.”

“We only have three left.”

“There’s more at the clinic.”

“Yes but not prepared, they’re still frozen.”

Kevin, growing frustrated with the argument, turned his attention to the child on the make shift operating table. “We’ve got time to prepare them.” He lifted the stethoscope that

was dangling from the regulator on the oxygen tank, put the plugs in his ears and listened to the child’s lung sounds.

“He needs one a day…” Garret persisted. “ …while he’s in the coma. It takes three days to prepare. We only have three doses left. What if something happens? What if we drop one?”

 Kevin straightened up and pulled the diaphragm from the child’s back.  “I don’t want to take the chance. There has to be enough cells to bind the severed tissues together.”

“I understand that.” Despite his objections he walked over to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the room and withdrew the rack of carefully capped test tubes from the second shelf. He walked, almost tip toed, back to the counter. “What about too much?”

“That’s not important. There’s a lot of area to cover. We can’t risk any possible gaps, his recovery has to be complete.”

“And the tumors?”

“The tumors only develop when a significant length of nervous tissue needs to be completely grown. We’re not doing that here we’re merely reconnecting already existing tissue.” Kevin waited while Sawyer readied the needle then swabbed the site with alcohol.

“Warm it first.” He warned. Then slowly let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss. If Kevin had been on the other side of the table he would have done it himself and saved himself the argument. But instead he had to wait, wait and instruct.

Sawyer rolled the fluid in the test tube gently between his two palms until the chill from the refrigerator was gone and the temperature of the fluid more closely matched the temperature of the room. Then swabbed the skin again and injected the yellowish fluid into the port they had placed under the skin at the base of the back of child’s head.

 “What about the scaring?” Garret asked after he removed the needle.

“There shouldn’t be any. The steroids should assure that.”

“And his memory?”

Kevin looked away, hiding the hope in his eyes from Sawyers cynical inductions. “It may return.”

“It didn’t in the lab, not with any of the animals.”

Kevin turned back, frustrated with Garrets persistence with the possible down side of what they had done. As a second year ob/gyn. resident, had it not been for Garrets extreme intellect Kevin would probably had rejected his application for assistant, not on conflict of residency choice, although Kevin had been looking for a neurology resident, but on the sheer grounds of coldness.

But Kevin had needed someone who could keep a secret and protect their projects. Someone who’s ways weren’t governed by the rules and regulations of present society. Someone who could see the big picture, like he could, and not let the temporary set-backs sway them from their goal. All of this apparently came with a price.

 Empathy.

 In truth, Kevin knew, it had been Sawyer’s resourcefulness that had allowed them to get so far. He worked night and day getting them what they required to continue their work. There was nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t obtain. Nothing he wouldn’t do. His dedication was limitless.

But right now Kevin wanted something besides dedication, he wanted forgiveness, and not from Sawyer but from the small form on the table in front of him.

 “That was habitual memory. They just couldn’t run the mazes. We had no way to test their abstract memory.” Kevin couldn’t contain himself any longer. He slammed his fist on the edge of the operating table, and let his voice rise in sync with his anger. “What is your

problem!? If I remember correctly you were all too willing to perform this operation on the Spencer child two years ago!”

“And if you had let me I would have…..If it doesn’t return?” Garrett persisted.

Kevin, having released, calmed. “Then he’ll make new ones.”

“He won’t know you.”

“He’ll be alive.”

“All of this means keeping the clinic open a while longer.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just thought that you…you should be prepared. The longer we stay open the more we risk exposure.”

“I am prepared.” He didn’t care anyway, not anymore, he thought to himself.

“Fine. Come on, help me roll him over. I have to take him off the anesthesia. He’s been under for seventeen hours.”

Seventeen hours, Kevin Aldwell felt as if he’d been in some sort of trance. Like it hadn’t been him who had performed the operation but some sort of force that had taken over his body and controlled his hands.

Dr. Aldwell stepped over to the table and looked down. He helped Sawyer roll the small figure that lay between them, onto his back.

Looking down at the small face Kevin told himself he had done the right thing. In truth they both would have died.

“There were no grand parents? An Aunt or Uncle?”

“None. Parents were killed in the accident. The child had not been buckled in. He had been thrown from the car and struck his head on some debris by the side of the road. He was brain dead when they found him.”

Kevin nodded and looked over at the small closed bucket beside the operating table. Kevin had been at the hospital gathering the items he would need for the surgery when Sawyer had brought the body in and prepped it for the procedure. Now seventeen hours later, and despite the profoundly damaged tissue, Kevin wondered if there was anything he could have done to save the boy. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

“How long had he been on life support, including transport time?”

“Two days, six hours, eleven minutes.”

“EEG?” He asked trying, but knowing full well that it was too late, to quell his wary conscience.

“Several at the hospital. All flat.” Sawyer said as he readjusted the tubes leading to the boys neck. A tinge of excitement rang in his voice. “You know it had to be a child.”

Kevin tried to ignore him but Sawyer persisted, “It’s the sutures, we couldn’t have done it so cleanly without the sutures being so pliable. It wouldn’t have been so easy with an adult.”

Kevin looked at Sawyer, the man was almost bubbling over with excitement.

“Shut up.” Kevin said flatly, and adjusted the respirator tubing leading into the boy’s mouth. He checked the boy’s pupils, they were slightly dilated from the anesthesia but responsive.

As he looked down for a moment Kevin almost wished he had let him die. He’d known for some time that he would never see his son’s face again. Not the one he was used to, not the one who played through his mind when he remembered how things used to be. He’d known since that night.

 His son, my God, his son. But it was the only way he could think of to save him.

But had he saved him? He wondered. What had he saved? He touched the small hand. It felt cool and dry, and unfamiliar, very unfamiliar.

He took off his surgical gown and walked over to the other side of the room. Then stopped and looked mournfully at the form on top of the second gurney. He bent slightly and removed the plastic bag from underneath and began to unfold it.

His work was not yet done.

 

Prologue

 

1:26 a.m. October 15 2007, Helena Montana

 

Kevin took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, letting Garrett adjust the intravenous then take the child’s vital signs. The smell of disinfectant they had used to sanitize the homemade operating suite was still strong but it couldn’t cover the scent of death in the room, nor the strong odor of deep ground penetrating into the room from the tunnel.

The boy’s back rose and fell rhythmically with the hiss-rasp of the ventilator.

He peeled off the Neoprene gloves and tossed them in the bin beside the utensil table. Bone fragments clung to the plastic liner. Little pieces of healthy osseous tissue. But they weren’t what bothered him. It was the form, so small, frail and fragile, still open and bare on the other table, across the room, and the ungodly thing that he had done to it, that tore his soul inside out.

               He looked down at his shoes. Something he’d always done after surgery, ‘It will keep you humble’ his instructor had told him eons ago in medical school ‘Too many good doctors get thwarted by their ego’. But except for a few pieces of pink tinged bone they were clean. The operation had been a fairly bloodless. It shouldn’t have been, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been. But nothing was normal anymore. And looking at the form in front of him Dr. Kevin Aldwell realized, as the burrowing emptiness began its feast on his soul, that nothing would ever be normal again.

He turned away. His research based life had not prepared him for such inner torment.

 “You’re going to have to help me with this.” Came a voice from behind him.

Dr. Aldwell cringed. Garret Sawyer was a brilliant surgeon, and research assistant, but his grasp of the emotional side of things was strongly lacking. Even more so than his.

“Kevin! I can’t turn him over myself, you are going to have to help me.” He repeated.

Kevin took another deep breath and turned back around. Garret was staring at him expectantly. To him this had been just another step toward their goal, and the next logical step for Kevin’s work of the past ten years.

“Wait. Before we turn him over give him another dose.”

“We only have three left.”

“There’s more at the clinic.”

“Yes but not prepared, they’re still frozen.”

Kevin, growing frustrated with the argument, turned his attention to the child on the make shift operating table. “We’ve got time to prepare them.” He lifted the stethoscope that

was dangling from the regulator on the oxygen tank, put the plugs in his ears and listened to the child’s lung sounds.

“He needs one a day…” Garret persisted. “ …while he’s in the coma. It takes three days to prepare. We only have three doses left. What if something happens? What if we drop one?”

 Kevin straightened up and pulled the diaphragm from the child’s back.  “I don’t want to take the chance. There has to be enough cells to bind the severed tissues together.”

“I understand that.” Despite his objections he walked over to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the room and withdrew the rack of carefully capped test tubes from the second shelf. He walked, almost tip toed, back to the counter. “What about too much?”

“That’s not important. There’s a lot of area to cover. We can’t risk any possible gaps, his recovery has to be complete.”

“And the tumors?”

“The tumors only develop when a significant length of nervous tissue needs to be completely grown. We’re not doing that here we’re merely reconnecting already existing tissue.” Kevin waited while Sawyer readied the needle then swabbed the site with alcohol.

“Warm it first.” He warned. Then slowly let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss. If Kevin had been on the other side of the table he would have done it himself and saved himself the argument. But instead he had to wait, wait and instruct.

Sawyer rolled the fluid in the test tube gently between his two palms until the chill from the refrigerator was gone and the temperature of the fluid more closely matched the temperature of the room. Then swabbed the skin again and injected the yellowish fluid into the port they had placed under the skin at the base of the back of child’s head.

 “What about the scaring?” Garret asked after he removed the needle.

“There shouldn’t be any. The steroids should assure that.”

“And his memory?”

Kevin looked away, hiding the hope in his eyes from Sawyers cynical inductions. “It may return.”

“It didn’t in the lab, not with any of the animals.”

Kevin turned back, frustrated with Garrets persistence with the possible down side of what they had done. As a second year ob/gyn. resident, had it not been for Garrets extreme intellect Kevin would probably had rejected his application for assistant, not on conflict of residency choice, although Kevin had been looking for a neurology resident, but on the sheer grounds of coldness.

But Kevin had needed someone who could keep a secret and protect their projects. Someone who’s ways weren’t governed by the rules and regulations of present society. Someone who could see the big picture, like he could, and not let the temporary set-backs sway them from their goal. All of this apparently came with a price.

 Empathy.

 In truth, Kevin knew, it had been Sawyer’s resourcefulness that had allowed them to get so far. He worked night and day getting them what they required to continue their work. There was nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t obtain. Nothing he wouldn’t do. His dedication was limitless.

But right now Kevin wanted something besides dedication, he wanted forgiveness, and not from Sawyer but from the small form on the table in front of him.

 “That was habitual memory. They just couldn’t run the mazes. We had no way to test their abstract memory.” Kevin couldn’t contain himself any longer. He slammed his fist on the edge of the operating table, and let his voice rise in sync with his anger. “What is your

problem!? If I remember correctly you were all too willing to perform this operation on the Spencer child two years ago!”

“And if you had let me I would have…..If it doesn’t return?” Garrett persisted.

Kevin, having released, calmed. “Then he’ll make new ones.”

“He won’t know you.”

“He’ll be alive.”

“All of this means keeping the clinic open a while longer.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just thought that you…you should be prepared. The longer we stay open the more we risk exposure.”

“I am prepared.” He didn’t care anyway, not anymore, he thought to himself.

“Fine. Come on, help me roll him over. I have to take him off the anesthesia. He’s been under for seventeen hours.”

Seventeen hours, Kevin Aldwell felt as if he’d been in some sort of trance. Like it hadn’t been him who had performed the operation but some sort of force that had taken over his body and controlled his hands.

Dr. Aldwell stepped over to the table and looked down. He helped Sawyer roll the small figure that lay between them, onto his back.

Looking down at the small face Kevin told himself he had done the right thing. In truth they both would have died.

“There were no grand parents? An Aunt or Uncle?”

“None. Parents were killed in the accident. The child had not been buckled in. He had been thrown from the car and struck his head on some debris by the side of the road. He was brain dead when they found him.”

Kevin nodded and looked over at the small closed bucket beside the operating table. Kevin had been at the hospital gathering the items he would need for the surgery when Sawyer had brought the body in and prepped it for the procedure. Now seventeen hours later, and despite the profoundly damaged tissue, Kevin wondered if there was anything he could have done to save the boy. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

“How long had he been on life support, including transport time?”

“Two days, six hours, eleven minutes.”

“EEG?” He asked trying, but knowing full well that it was too late, to quell his wary conscience.

“Several at the hospital. All flat.” Sawyer said as he readjusted the tubes leading to the boys neck. A tinge of excitement rang in his voice. “You know it had to be a child.”

Kevin tried to ignore him but Sawyer persisted, “It’s the sutures, we couldn’t have done it so cleanly without the sutures being so pliable. It wouldn’t have been so easy with an adult.”

Kevin looked at Sawyer, the man was almost bubbling over with excitement.

“Shut up.” Kevin said flatly, and adjusted the respirator tubing leading into the boy’s mouth. He checked the boy’s pupils, they were slightly dilated from the anesthesia but responsive.

As he looked down for a moment Kevin almost wished he had let him die. He’d known for some time that he would never see his son’s face again. Not the one he was used to, not the one who played through his mind when he remembered how things used to be. He’d known since that night.

 His son, my God, his son. But it was the only way he could think of to save him.

But had he saved him? He wondered. What had he saved? He touched the small hand. It felt cool and dry, and unfamiliar, very unfamiliar.

He took off his surgical gown and walked over to the other side of the room. Then stopped and looked mournfully at the form on top of the second gurney. He bent slightly and removed the plastic bag from underneath and began to unfold it.

His work was not yet done.

 

 

Prologue

 

1:26 a.m. October 15 2007, Helena Montana

 

Kevin took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, letting Garrett adjust the intravenous then take the child’s vital signs. The smell of disinfectant they had used to sanitize the homemade operating suite was still strong but it couldn’t cover the scent of death in the room, nor the strong odor of deep ground penetrating into the room from the tunnel.

The boy’s back rose and fell rhythmically with the hiss-rasp of the ventilator.

He peeled off the Neoprene gloves and tossed them in the bin beside the utensil table. Bone fragments clung to the plastic liner. Little pieces of healthy osseous tissue. But they weren’t what bothered him. It was the form, so small, frail and fragile, still open and bare on the other table, across the room, and the ungodly thing that he had done to it, that tore his soul inside out.

               He looked down at his shoes. Something he’d always done after surgery, ‘It will keep you humble’ his instructor had told him eons ago in medical school ‘Too many good doctors get thwarted by their ego’. But except for a few pieces of pink tinged bone they were clean. The operation had been a fairly bloodless. It shouldn’t have been, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been. But nothing was normal anymore. And looking at the form in front of him Dr. Kevin Aldwell realized, as the burrowing emptiness began its feast on his soul, that nothing would ever be normal again.

He turned away. His research based life had not prepared him for such inner torment.

 “You’re going to have to help me with this.” Came a voice from behind him.

Dr. Aldwell cringed. Garret Sawyer was a brilliant surgeon, and research assistant, but his grasp of the emotional side of things was strongly lacking. Even more so than his.

“Kevin! I can’t turn him over myself, you are going to have to help me.” He repeated.

Kevin took another deep breath and turned back around. Garret was staring at him expectantly. To him this had been just another step toward their goal, and the next logical step for Kevin’s work of the past ten years.

“Wait. Before we turn him over give him another dose.”

“We only have three left.”

“There’s more at the clinic.”

“Yes but not prepared, they’re still frozen.”

Kevin, growing frustrated with the argument, turned his attention to the child on the make shift operating table. “We’ve got time to prepare them.” He lifted the stethoscope that

was dangling from the regulator on the oxygen tank, put the plugs in his ears and listened to the child’s lung sounds.

“He needs one a day…” Garret persisted. “ …while he’s in the coma. It takes three days to prepare. We only have three doses left. What if something happens? What if we drop one?”

 Kevin straightened up and pulled the diaphragm from the child’s back.  “I don’t want to take the chance. There has to be enough cells to bind the severed tissues together.”

“I understand that.” Despite his objections he walked over to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the room and withdrew the rack of carefully capped test tubes from the second shelf. He walked, almost tip toed, back to the counter. “What about too much?”

“That’s not important. There’s a lot of area to cover. We can’t risk any possible gaps, his recovery has to be complete.”

“And the tumors?”

“The tumors only develop when a significant length of nervous tissue needs to be completely grown. We’re not doing that here we’re merely reconnecting already existing tissue.” Kevin waited while Sawyer readied the needle then swabbed the site with alcohol.

“Warm it first.” He warned. Then slowly let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss. If Kevin had been on the other side of the table he would have done it himself and saved himself the argument. But instead he had to wait, wait and instruct.

Sawyer rolled the fluid in the test tube gently between his two palms until the chill from the refrigerator was gone and the temperature of the fluid more closely matched the temperature of the room. Then swabbed the skin again and injected the yellowish fluid into the port they had placed under the skin at the base of the back of child’s head.

 “What about the scaring?” Garret asked after he removed the needle.

“There shouldn’t be any. The steroids should assure that.”

“And his memory?”

Kevin looked away, hiding the hope in his eyes from Sawyers cynical inductions. “It may return.”

“It didn’t in the lab, not with any of the animals.”

Kevin turned back, frustrated with Garrets persistence with the possible down side of what they had done. As a second year ob/gyn. resident, had it not been for Garrets extreme intellect Kevin would probably had rejected his application for assistant, not on conflict of residency choice, although Kevin had been looking for a neurology resident, but on the sheer grounds of coldness.

But Kevin had needed someone who could keep a secret and protect their projects. Someone who’s ways weren’t governed by the rules and regulations of present society. Someone who could see the big picture, like he could, and not let the temporary set-backs sway them from their goal. All of this apparently came with a price.

 Empathy.

 In truth, Kevin knew, it had been Sawyer’s resourcefulness that had allowed them to get so far. He worked night and day getting them what they required to continue their work. There was nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t obtain. Nothing he wouldn’t do. His dedication was limitless.

But right now Kevin wanted something besides dedication, he wanted forgiveness, and not from Sawyer but from the small form on the table in front of him.

 “That was habitual memory. They just couldn’t run the mazes. We had no way to test their abstract memory.” Kevin couldn’t contain himself any longer. He slammed his fist on the edge of the operating table, and let his voice rise in sync with his anger. “What is your

problem!? If I remember correctly you were all too willing to perform this operation on the Spencer child two years ago!”

“And if you had let me I would have…..If it doesn’t return?” Garrett persisted.

Kevin, having released, calmed. “Then he’ll make new ones.”

“He won’t know you.”

“He’ll be alive.”

“All of this means keeping the clinic open a while longer.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just thought that you…you should be prepared. The longer we stay open the more we risk exposure.”

“I am prepared.” He didn’t care anyway, not anymore, he thought to himself.

“Fine. Come on, help me roll him over. I have to take him off the anesthesia. He’s been under for seventeen hours.”

Seventeen hours, Kevin Aldwell felt as if he’d been in some sort of trance. Like it hadn’t been him who had performed the operation but some sort of force that had taken over his body and controlled his hands.

Dr. Aldwell stepped over to the table and looked down. He helped Sawyer roll the small figure that lay between them, onto his back.

Looking down at the small face Kevin told himself he had done the right thing. In truth they both would have died.

“There were no grand parents? An Aunt or Uncle?”

“None. Parents were killed in the accident. The child had not been buckled in. He had been thrown from the car and struck his head on some debris by the side of the road. He was brain dead when they found him.”

Kevin nodded and looked over at the small closed bucket beside the operating table. Kevin had been at the hospital gathering the items he would need for the surgery when Sawyer had brought the body in and prepped it for the procedure. Now seventeen hours later, and despite the profoundly damaged tissue, Kevin wondered if there was anything he could have done to save the boy. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

“How long had he been on life support, including transport time?”

“Two days, six hours, eleven minutes.”

“EEG?” He asked trying, but knowing full well that it was too late, to quell his wary conscience.

“Several at the hospital. All flat.” Sawyer said as he readjusted the tubes leading to the boys neck. A tinge of excitement rang in his voice. “You know it had to be a child.”

Kevin tried to ignore him but Sawyer persisted, “It’s the sutures, we couldn’t have done it so cleanly without the sutures being so pliable. It wouldn’t have been so easy with an adult.”

Kevin looked at Sawyer, the man was almost bubbling over with excitement.

“Shut up.” Kevin said flatly, and adjusted the respirator tubing leading into the boy’s mouth. He checked the boy’s pupils, they were slightly dilated from the anesthesia but responsive.

As he looked down for a moment Kevin almost wished he had let him die. He’d known for some time that he would never see his son’s face again. Not the one he was used to, not the one who played through his mind when he remembered how things used to be. He’d known since that night.

 His son, my God, his son. But it was the only way he could think of to save him.

But had he saved him? He wondered. What had he saved? He touched the small hand. It felt cool and dry, and unfamiliar, very unfamiliar.

He took off his surgical gown and walked over to the other side of the room. Then stopped and looked mournfully at the form on top of the second gurney. He bent slightly and removed the plastic bag from underneath and began to unfold it.

His work was not yet done.

 

Prologue

 

1:26 a.m. October 15 2007, Helena Montana

 

Kevin took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, letting Garrett adjust the intravenous then take the child’s vital signs. The smell of disinfectant they had used to sanitize the homemade operating suite was still strong but it couldn’t cover the scent of death in the room, nor the strong odor of deep ground penetrating into the room from the tunnel.

The boy’s back rose and fell rhythmically with the hiss-rasp of the ventilator.

He peeled off the Neoprene gloves and tossed them in the bin beside the utensil table. Bone fragments clung to the plastic liner. Little pieces of healthy osseous tissue. But they weren’t what bothered him. It was the form, so small, frail and fragile, still open and bare on the other table, across the room, and the ungodly thing that he had done to it, that tore his soul inside out.

               He looked down at his shoes. Something he’d always done after surgery, ‘It will keep you humble’ his instructor had told him eons ago in medical school ‘Too many good doctors get thwarted by their ego’. But except for a few pieces of pink tinged bone they were clean. The operation had been a fairly bloodless. It shouldn’t have been, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been. But nothing was normal anymore. And looking at the form in front of him Dr. Kevin Aldwell realized, as the burrowing emptiness began its feast on his soul, that nothing would ever be normal again.

He turned away. His research based life had not prepared him for such inner torment.

 “You’re going to have to help me with this.” Came a voice from behind him.

Dr. Aldwell cringed. Garret Sawyer was a brilliant surgeon, and research assistant, but his grasp of the emotional side of things was strongly lacking. Even more so than his.

“Kevin! I can’t turn him over myself, you are going to have to help me.” He repeated.

Kevin took another deep breath and turned back around. Garret was staring at him expectantly. To him this had been just another step toward their goal, and the next logical step for Kevin’s work of the past ten years.

“Wait. Before we turn him over give him another dose.”

“We only have three left.”

“There’s more at the clinic.”

“Yes but not prepared, they’re still frozen.”

Kevin, growing frustrated with the argument, turned his attention to the child on the make shift operating table. “We’ve got time to prepare them.” He lifted the stethoscope that

was dangling from the regulator on the oxygen tank, put the plugs in his ears and listened to the child’s lung sounds.

“He needs one a day…” Garret persisted. “ …while he’s in the coma. It takes three days to prepare. We only have three doses left. What if something happens? What if we drop one?”

 Kevin straightened up and pulled the diaphragm from the child’s back.  “I don’t want to take the chance. There has to be enough cells to bind the severed tissues together.”

“I understand that.” Despite his objections he walked over to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the room and withdrew the rack of carefully capped test tubes from the second shelf. He walked, almost tip toed, back to the counter. “What about too much?”

“That’s not important. There’s a lot of area to cover. We can’t risk any possible gaps, his recovery has to be complete.”

“And the tumors?”

“The tumors only develop when a significant length of nervous tissue needs to be completely grown. We’re not doing that here we’re merely reconnecting already existing tissue.” Kevin waited while Sawyer readied the needle then swabbed the site with alcohol.

“Warm it first.” He warned. Then slowly let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss. If Kevin had been on the other side of the table he would have done it himself and saved himself the argument. But instead he had to wait, wait and instruct.

Sawyer rolled the fluid in the test tube gently between his two palms until the chill from the refrigerator was gone and the temperature of the fluid more closely matched the temperature of the room. Then swabbed the skin again and injected the yellowish fluid into the port they had placed under the skin at the base of the back of child’s head.

 “What about the scaring?” Garret asked after he removed the needle.

“There shouldn’t be any. The steroids should assure that.”

“And his memory?”

Kevin looked away, hiding the hope in his eyes from Sawyers cynical inductions. “It may return.”

“It didn’t in the lab, not with any of the animals.”

Kevin turned back, frustrated with Garrets persistence with the possible down side of what they had done. As a second year ob/gyn. resident, had it not been for Garrets extreme intellect Kevin would probably had rejected his application for assistant, not on conflict of residency choice, although Kevin had been looking for a neurology resident, but on the sheer grounds of coldness.

But Kevin had needed someone who could keep a secret and protect their projects. Someone who’s ways weren’t governed by the rules and regulations of present society. Someone who could see the big picture, like he could, and not let the temporary set-backs sway them from their goal. All of this apparently came with a price.

 Empathy.

 In truth, Kevin knew, it had been Sawyer’s resourcefulness that had allowed them to get so far. He worked night and day getting them what they required to continue their work. There was nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t obtain. Nothing he wouldn’t do. His dedication was limitless.

But right now Kevin wanted something besides dedication, he wanted forgiveness, and not from Sawyer but from the small form on the table in front of him.

 “That was habitual memory. They just couldn’t run the mazes. We had no way to test their abstract memory.” Kevin couldn’t contain himself any longer. He slammed his fist on the edge of the operating table, and let his voice rise in sync with his anger. “What is your

problem!? If I remember correctly you were all too willing to perform this operation on the Spencer child two years ago!”

“And if you had let me I would have…..If it doesn’t return?” Garrett persisted.

Kevin, having released, calmed. “Then he’ll make new ones.”

“He won’t know you.”

“He’ll be alive.”

“All of this means keeping the clinic open a while longer.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just thought that you…you should be prepared. The longer we stay open the more we risk exposure.”

“I am prepared.” He didn’t care anyway, not anymore, he thought to himself.

“Fine. Come on, help me roll him over. I have to take him off the anesthesia. He’s been under for seventeen hours.”

Seventeen hours, Kevin Aldwell felt as if he’d been in some sort of trance. Like it hadn’t been him who had performed the operation but some sort of force that had taken over his body and controlled his hands.

Dr. Aldwell stepped over to the table and looked down. He helped Sawyer roll the small figure that lay between them, onto his back.

Looking down at the small face Kevin told himself he had done the right thing. In truth they both would have died.

“There were no grand parents? An Aunt or Uncle?”

“None. Parents were killed in the accident. The child had not been buckled in. He had been thrown from the car and struck his head on some debris by the side of the road. He was brain dead when they found him.”

Kevin nodded and looked over at the small closed bucket beside the operating table. Kevin had been at the hospital gathering the items he would need for the surgery when Sawyer had brought the body in and prepped it for the procedure. Now seventeen hours later, and despite the profoundly damaged tissue, Kevin wondered if there was anything he could have done to save the boy. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

“How long had he been on life support, including transport time?”

“Two days, six hours, eleven minutes.”

“EEG?” He asked trying, but knowing full well that it was too late, to quell his wary conscience.

“Several at the hospital. All flat.” Sawyer said as he readjusted the tubes leading to the boys neck. A tinge of excitement rang in his voice. “You know it had to be a child.”

Kevin tried to ignore him but Sawyer persisted, “It’s the sutures, we couldn’t have done it so cleanly without the sutures being so pliable. It wouldn’t have been so easy with an adult.”

Kevin looked at Sawyer, the man was almost bubbling over with excitement.

“Shut up.” Kevin said flatly, and adjusted the respirator tubing leading into the boy’s mouth. He checked the boy’s pupils, they were slightly dilated from the anesthesia but responsive.

As he looked down for a moment Kevin almost wished he had let him die. He’d known for some time that he would never see his son’s face again. Not the one he was used to, not the one who played through his mind when he remembered how things used to be. He’d known since that night.

 His son, my God, his son. But it was the only way he could think of to save him.

But had he saved him? He wondered. What had he saved? He touched the small hand. It felt cool and dry, and unfamiliar, very unfamiliar.

He took off his surgical gown and walked over to the other side of the room. Then stopped and looked mournfully at the form on top of the second gurney. He bent slightly and removed the plastic bag from underneath and began to unfold it.

His work was not yet done.

 

Prologue

 

1:26 a.m. October 15 2007, Helena Montana

 

Kevin took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, letting Garrett adjust the intravenous then take the child’s vital signs. The smell of disinfectant they had used to sanitize the homemade operating suite was still strong but it couldn’t cover the scent of death in the room, nor the strong odor of deep ground penetrating into the room from the tunnel.

The boy’s back rose and fell rhythmically with the hiss-rasp of the ventilator.

He peeled off the Neoprene gloves and tossed them in the bin beside the utensil table. Bone fragments clung to the plastic liner. Little pieces of healthy osseous tissue. But they weren’t what bothered him. It was the form, so small, frail and fragile, still open and bare on the other table, across the room, and the ungodly thing that he had done to it, that tore his soul inside out.

               He looked down at his shoes. Something he’d always done after surgery, ‘It will keep you humble’ his instructor had told him eons ago in medical school ‘Too many good doctors get thwarted by their ego’. But except for a few pieces of pink tinged bone they were clean. The operation had been a fairly bloodless. It shouldn’t have been, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been. But nothing was normal anymore. And looking at the form in front of him Dr. Kevin Aldwell realized, as the burrowing emptiness began its feast on his soul, that nothing would ever be normal again.

He turned away. His research based life had not prepared him for such inner torment.

 “You’re going to have to help me with this.” Came a voice from behind him.

Dr. Aldwell cringed. Garret Sawyer was a brilliant surgeon, and research assistant, but his grasp of the emotional side of things was strongly lacking. Even more so than his.

“Kevin! I can’t turn him over myself, you are going to have to help me.” He repeated.

Kevin took another deep breath and turned back around. Garret was staring at him expectantly. To him this had been just another step toward their goal, and the next logical step for Kevin’s work of the past ten years.

“Wait. Before we turn him over give him another dose.”

“We only have three left.”

“There’s more at the clinic.”

“Yes but not prepared, they’re still frozen.”

Kevin, growing frustrated with the argument, turned his attention to the child on the make shift operating table. “We’ve got time to prepare them.” He lifted the stethoscope that

was dangling from the regulator on the oxygen tank, put the plugs in his ears and listened to the child’s lung sounds.

“He needs one a day…” Garret persisted. “ …while he’s in the coma. It takes three days to prepare. We only have three doses left. What if something happens? What if we drop one?”

 Kevin straightened up and pulled the diaphragm from the child’s back.  “I don’t want to take the chance. There has to be enough cells to bind the severed tissues together.”

“I understand that.” Despite his objections he walked over to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the room and withdrew the rack of carefully capped test tubes from the second shelf. He walked, almost tip toed, back to the counter. “What about too much?”

“That’s not important. There’s a lot of area to cover. We can’t risk any possible gaps, his recovery has to be complete.”

“And the tumors?”

“The tumors only develop when a significant length of nervous tissue needs to be completely grown. We’re not doing that here we’re merely reconnecting already existing tissue.” Kevin waited while Sawyer readied the needle then swabbed the site with alcohol.

“Warm it first.” He warned. Then slowly let the air out of his lungs in a long hiss. If Kevin had been on the other side of the table he would have done it himself and saved himself the argument. But instead he had to wait, wait and instruct.

Sawyer rolled the fluid in the test tube gently between his two palms until the chill from the refrigerator was gone and the temperature of the fluid more closely matched the temperature of the room. Then swabbed the skin again and injected the yellowish fluid into the port they had placed under the skin at the base of the back of child’s head.

 “What about the scaring?” Garret asked after he removed the needle.

“There shouldn’t be any. The steroids should assure that.”

“And his memory?”

Kevin looked away, hiding the hope in his eyes from Sawyers cynical inductions. “It may return.”

“It didn’t in the lab, not with any of the animals.”

Kevin turned back, frustrated with Garrets persistence with the possible down side of what they had done. As a second year ob/gyn. resident, had it not been for Garrets extreme intellect Kevin would probably had rejected his application for assistant, not on conflict of residency choice, although Kevin had been looking for a neurology resident, but on the sheer grounds of coldness.

But Kevin had needed someone who could keep a secret and protect their projects. Someone who’s ways weren’t governed by the rules and regulations of present society. Someone who could see the big picture, like he could, and not let the temporary set-backs sway them from their goal. All of this apparently came with a price.

 Empathy.

 In truth, Kevin knew, it had been Sawyer’s resourcefulness that had allowed them to get so far. He worked night and day getting them what they required to continue their work. There was nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t obtain. Nothing he wouldn’t do. His dedication was limitless.

But right now Kevin wanted something besides dedication, he wanted forgiveness, and not from Sawyer but from the small form on the table in front of him.

 “That was habitual memory. They just couldn’t run the mazes. We had no way to test their abstract memory.” Kevin couldn’t contain himself any longer. He slammed his fist on the edge of the operating table, and let his voice rise in sync with his anger. “What is your

problem!? If I remember correctly you were all too willing to perform this operation on the Spencer child two years ago!”

“And if you had let me I would have…..If it doesn’t return?” Garrett persisted.

Kevin, having released, calmed. “Then he’ll make new ones.”

“He won’t know you.”

“He’ll be alive.”

“All of this means keeping the clinic open a while longer.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just thought that you…you should be prepared. The longer we stay open the more we risk exposure.”

“I am prepared.” He didn’t care anyway, not anymore, he thought to himself.

“Fine. Come on, help me roll him over. I have to take him off the anesthesia. He’s been under for seventeen hours.”

Seventeen hours, Kevin Aldwell felt as if he’d been in some sort of trance. Like it hadn’t been him who had performed the operation but some sort of force that had taken over his body and controlled his hands.

Dr. Aldwell stepped over to the table and looked down. He helped Sawyer roll the small figure that lay between them, onto his back.

Looking down at the small face Kevin told himself he had done the right thing. In truth they both would have died.

“There were no grand parents? An Aunt or Uncle?”

“None. Parents were killed in the accident. The child had not been buckled in. He had been thrown from the car and struck his head on some debris by the side of the road. He was brain dead when they found him.”

Kevin nodded and looked over at the small closed bucket beside the operating table. Kevin had been at the hospital gathering the items he would need for the surgery when Sawyer had brought the body in and prepped it for the procedure. Now seventeen hours later, and despite the profoundly damaged tissue, Kevin wondered if there was anything he could have done to save the boy. But it didn’t matter now. It was too late.

“How long had he been on life support, including transport time?”

“Two days, six hours, eleven minutes.”

“EEG?” He asked trying, but knowing full well that it was too late, to quell his wary conscience.

“Several at the hospital. All flat.” Sawyer said as he readjusted the tubes leading to the boys neck. A tinge of excitement rang in his voice. “You know it had to be a child.”

Kevin tried to ignore him but Sawyer persisted, “It’s the sutures, we couldn’t have done it so cleanly without the sutures being so pliable. It wouldn’t have been so easy with an adult.”

Kevin looked at Sawyer, the man was almost bubbling over with excitement.

“Shut up.” Kevin said flatly, and adjusted the respirator tubing leading into the boy’s mouth. He checked the boy’s pupils, they were slightly dilated from the anesthesia but responsive.

As he looked down for a moment Kevin almost wished he had let him die. He’d known for some time that he would never see his son’s face again. Not the one he was used to, not the one who played through his mind when he remembered how things used to be. He’d known since that night.

 His son, my God, his son. But it was the only way he could think of to save him.

But had he saved him? He wondered. What had he saved? He touched the small hand. It felt cool and dry, and unfamiliar, very unfamiliar.

He took off his surgical gown and walked over to the other side of the room. Then stopped and looked mournfully at the form on top of the second gurney. He bent slightly and removed the plastic bag from underneath and began to unfold it.

His work was not yet done.

 

Author's Note

any feedback would be helpful