TRIAL SUBJECT TWO IS NAMED FERGUS WILLSON. He’s eighteen. Freshman at a local community college. His file looks a lot more medical than Catalina’s, stuffed with charts and readouts and prescriptions dating back years. He’s diagnosed as having narcolepsy with cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, excessive daytime sleepiness, and night terrors.
I’ve heard of narcolepsy, of course, but don’t know a couple of the other terms. I open up the search engine on the fancy computer and type in cataplexy. Three hundred eighty-four thousand results. Scanning a few, I see that it is a condition that about seventy percent of narcoleptics suffer where they experience sudden muscle weakness triggered by emotions. I’ve seen something about this before on a documentary—if the guy laughed, cried, or was frightened, he just collapsed wherever he was, sometimes injuring himself pretty badly.
The entry for “hypnagogic hallucinations” makes them sound just as bad. They happen when someone is falling asleep and are so lifelike the person isn’t sure if they’re real. They can involve any, or all, of the senses. Although they can occur without narcolepsy, the hallucinations are more common and severe with narcoleptics.
I click on a link where people share their experiences with these hallucinations, and read one woman’s story where a huge, hairy spider was on her forehead. She not only saw it, but felt it—vividly—and since something called sleep paralysis can go hand in hand with the occurrence, she had to lie there motionless while it crawled across her face. I shudder, wondering which of the two conditions would be worse: falling down in public or being crawled on by hyperrealistic spiders.
Window number two on my monitor shows a tall boy with black hair. I check his vitals. Six four. The photo in his file shows an angry-looking guy with dark circles under his eyes. Underneath is a list of restrictions: no driving, sports, or work that involves dangerous materials. He has to live with another adult who takes responsibility for his safety in the home. In parentheses behind that clause is handwritten “lives with parents.” No wonder he’s angry.
The door to the lab flies open, and big man in a suit strides into the room. “Zhu. Vesper,” he acknowledges as they spring to their feet. As he marches around the circle of beds, they trail along behind him, explaining what happened and kowtowing in a way that leads me to assume this is Michael Osterman, the hospital director. He leans in to inspect one of the subjects, hands clasped behind his back as he maintains a safe distance from the sleeper. Finally, he turns to the researchers. “Well, we’ve got messes to clean up all over the clinic, thanks to the power cutoff caused by what the news is calling ‘a minor seismic event.’ So I have other crises on my hands. This one is yours to handle. What do you propose?”
“We’re consulting with Erwin Murphy at Mt. Sinai,” Vesper says.
Osterman nods. “Good thinking. You might want to try Frankel as well.”
Vesper heads for his computer, finds the number, and dials. The director glances my way but looks right through me as his gaze swings back to the researchers. Since I’m not important, I don’t exist to him. Good.
He gets in a huddle with the doctors and I hear the phrase “damage control.” They talk about what to tell the parents. The decision is made to meet with each parent or guardian individually to avoid “a mob mentality.” They’ll hold the meetings somewhere else; getting the news while seeing their unresponsive children would be too upsetting. It’s decided that Vesper will stay here and continue monitoring the subjects while Zhu and Osterman confront the parents.
Just before they leave, the beeping of the sensors accelerates like it did before, and they all turn toward the monitors. “What’s happening?” asks Osterman, with a note of alarm.
“Eye and heart activity acceleration,” responds Zhu. “It’s happened before. Brain activity remains flat.”
Osterman nods. “Just make sure we keep thorough records of everything that happens.” He and Zhu head out the door.
I’ve been keeping my own records. Jotting down times and events as they happen. Maybe it’s because I know so little about the science of sleep disorders, but I’ve already noticed a pattern, even if they haven’t.
I get up and walk over to one of several screens showing the polysomnographic readings. Vesper glances at me. “Is it okay if I look?” I ask.
He studies my face for a moment and decides it’s not going to make a difference. “Just don’t touch anything.”
It’s easy to find the place on the graphs where the eye and heart activity jumps. I stand and watch the lines spike up and down for almost one more minute before they plunge and become stable at a much lower level.
The initial plans were to have REM sleep for twenty-minute periods, alternating with fifty-minute NREM phases, both controlled by the electrical current being administered through the electrodes. But even after the electrodes were removed, the feedback from the subjects has risen and fallen in phases close to twenty and fifty minutes.
When Vesper wondered if they could be dreaming, Zhu cut that theory down and said their bodies were just responding to the abrupt interruption in electric flow. But none of them has mentioned the cycles falling into regular intervals. I really don’t think they’ve noticed, which I suppose is normal if they don’t think it can have any significance. But could it actually mean something?
I turn my attention to Vesper: his look of intense concentration prevents me from asking. I’m too scared he’ll jump all over me for distracting him. I’ll wait it out and see if the cycles continue. It’s only happened twice. It’s probably just a fluke.
I glance over at the seven unconscious bodies hooked up to the Tower and am struck once again with the sensation of being in an eerie science-fiction film. Like the sleepers are pod people, or space travelers held in suspended animation while being transported through galaxies. But these are just kids. They’re real people . . . in danger . . . lying a stone’s throw away from me.
I glance at the clock and estimate I have another half hour before anything else happens . . . if it happens. I sit back down in my chair, rifle through the folder, and find the section entitled “Trial subject three.”