The Book Keeper (22 page)

‘No questions, thank-you Dr Thomas,’ I answered, wondering how much the good doctor knew about my implant, and would he be killed if he knew too much information?

I held out my hand to shake his.  He took it and I nodded to him
in thanks.

The soft pillow cocooned my head as I look
ed out the window at the bright blue sky.  How long would it be?  How long would it be until I discovered my new mind reading ability?  Would it be activated by an electrical impulse, a chemical drop to my eye, or will it fuse with my own blood vessels and nerves using the own body’s combination of electrical and chemical processes in the nervous system?  Only time would tell.  And only I would know if it happened.

I ran my hand through my hair. I was free to leave the hospital institution.  It felt surreal.  I had walked in completely human in every way.  And now I leave with a piece of technology fusing itself
into the intricate electrical system of my body to work as one with my own neurons.  What would I be classified as now?  A cyborg, a neuro-techno freak, a tech-med-borg?  What would it take away from me, and what would it give to me?  At least I would be the only one to know if it worked.  And then at least, I could work with it, or shut in down in denial.

Play the game.   Play it better.

I grabbed my backpack and hurled it over my shoulder.  Then promptly left the hospital.  The rays of the sun attacked me like a spotlight in a search and rescue operation.  Except I wasn’t missing, or lost.  Shielding my eyes with my sunglasses, I lowered my head and stepped up the pace to the waiting taxi, and promptly arrived at my apartment in no less than twenty minutes.

The aromatic smell of a roast dinner cooking in the oven greeted me, reminding me of the infuriating fact that I was under surveillance.  My heart took a nose dive at the disappointment of reality.  This was my life.

I ate dinner alone, accompanied by the bloody book on the table. Another reminder of the reality that I had walked out on a perfectly beautiful woman.  I rested my head in my hands.  My life was such a mess.  I pinched the top of my nose between my eyes between my thumb and index finger as I squeezed my eyes shut.  Pain seared through my right eye. Reality check again. 

The good doctor said that I would feel like this – downtrodden and beaten. Bed and sleep was the best place for me right now.  A place where I would be oblivious to everything that I hated about my life right now.  A place where I felt no pain, no joy, just the peacefulness of sleep and a state of being unconscious to reality and the emotions presently suffocating me.

Within two minutes, I was surrounded by the cloak of darkness with sleep descending upon me like a thick fog, until I was conscious no more.

Bliss.

Sleep was meant to be bliss, total consciousness of life voided.  Nothing to worry about.  Nothing to mess up your brain.

But t
he world was spinning, alternating between black and white images and colour.  Peoples expressions, natural disasters, the sun peeping through the dark ominous storm clouds unleashing violent bolts of lightning, and the precious birth of babies surrounded by angelic wings of love.  Then there was vision of me dispersed throughout the dream sequence.  I was standing alone, the wind blowing my unkempt dark brown hair as I stood atop a mountain looking down at the world, confused and frustrated by the mess, and distressed by the screams for help by humanity.

But I couldn’t help them.  I looked down at my chest and found a huge gaping hole where my heart should be.  It was gone.  I was alive, yet not.  I closed my eyes, praying for heavenly intervention for the earth and its inhabitants.   Then I fell to my knees and sobbed, my hands covering my face.
At once, a bolt of lightning descended from the cloudless sky, and struck me. The impact was sudden, violent and loud inside my brain, like a gun being discharged.

I opened my eyes in horror, and then a
sharp pain in my chest seized me.  So much for a blissful sleep logging out of reality.  It turned out to be more savage during the state of subconsciousness.  I ran my hand over my face, wiping off the perspiration that layered my skin like a mask.

I sat up in bed and immediately placed my hand over my chest, making sure that it was complete.  I lowered my head, closed my eyes and felt the steady beating of my heart.  I smiled to myself, amused by my sheer stupidity.  I am still me, and the mind reading implant can’t change that.
I won’t let it.  I squeezed my eyes shut as a sharp pained shot through my right eyeball, and then receded.

Breathing deeply, I headed for the shower to wash away the nightmare, and the fear that struck at my very soul.

The day washed over me in a blur as I struggled to focus my vision, the headaches coming and going.  It went on like this for twenty-eight days.  And then I went to see the good doctor for my eye service.

The sterile consultancy room was dimmed as I entered. He appeared before me as if by magic, briefly startling me.  He held out his hand greeting me, I took it in mine and nodded briefly to him.

‘Mr Darcy.  How is our magnum opus?’ he questioned, studying my eye in close detail as if it was the only important part of my being.

‘As
Dr Thomas described it would be, but I believe the fluctuations between perfect vision are becoming less prominent,’ I answered honestly, eyeing the good doctor, reading his body language, wondering if I could trust him.

‘Good Mr Darcy.  Sit in this chair while I exam the progress of healing, and it’s cohesion to your own molecular structure,’ he instructed, manically
focused on my right eye, as if it were a being of its own.

His obsessive focus fascinated me.  His  attention to detail, and fussing over of notes and illustrations annotated with medical abbreviations was peculiar to say the least – much like that of a person with obsessive compulsive disorder.  He did not speak as he examined me, but moved with quick precise movements proceeding through test after test, his facial expression unreadable, almost robotic like.

Then he sat back on his chair and folded his arms across his chest,  and stared at me.

‘It is unbelievable Mr Darcy, but it is ready.  The implant has become one with you in remarkable time.  It could never have been predicted to fuse so quickly.’

Nervousness washed over me instantly as he said those words.  I needed more time to assimilate the fact that I had a mind reading device working as one with my mind.

I wasn’t ready.

The good doctor stood and walked away from his chair, unlocked a drawer and removed a pair of glasses. He returned to me, his face serious.

‘These,’  he started and then ran his fingers over the black frame of the slim design
spectacles, ‘glasses, will engage your mind reading technology.  Without the glasses you are a person without ability.’  He handed them to me and indicated for me to put them on.

‘But you must wait for an electrical reaction in your brain
signaling your oneness with the device.  It will come to you as a brilliant flash of light, and the sound much like a gun blast.  There is no knowing when this will occur, or even if it will occur,’ he added.

‘Will this reaction occur during consciousness or subconsciousness?’ I asked.

‘It is not known Mr Darcy.  This whole implant technology is a first.  It is only predicted that this may happen based on knowledge in biomedicalnanotechnology, and the electrical circuit of the human body.  Have you already experienced something such as this?’  he asked, looking at me sideways.

‘No,’ I lied. ‘But I will be in contact with you once it occurs,’ I added.

‘
Ensure
that you inform me of the occurrence as soon as it happens.  It is a vital piece of information in the study Mr Darcy,’ he added, his voice aggressive.

Play the game.  Play it better.

‘Any questions before you leave Mr Darcy?’ he asked, his voice cooler now.  He did not wait for me to respond to his question. ‘I will see you in four weeks, unless you experience the fusion, and then I will see you immediately, no matter what time or day.  Is that understood Mr Darcy?’ He looked into my eyes with a threat.  I narrowed my eyes at him, understanding him perfectly, and nodded.  I was not a person to him.  I was an experiment.

The coldness of the door handle reflected the coldness of the heart of the good doctor.  He was no longer good. He had changed his
demeanor.  Was this his true self, or had something occurred to cause this change in his personality? What ever had caused his change in personality, I did not intend to find out.

Chapter  17

The bloody spectacles sat beside the bloody book on the table. Both had two things in common. I avoided them, and I hated them.

I don’t do books.  I don’t do girls, and now, I don’t do mind reading glasses.

I lied my way through the next five eye doctor appointments, convincingly telling him that the fusion had not occurred.  His impatience and frustration grew with each appointment, as did his copious note taking.  The appointments grew shorter with each unsatisfactory outcome, until at the last appointment he simply sat and stared at me with his arms folded over his chest, disappointment covering his face like an ugly mask. He breathed in deeply, then stood and led me to the door, his shoulders slumped, his eyes lowered to the floor.  The good doctor had cleared out of his mind, and the desperate doctor had entered, intent on finding a positive outcome no matter what it took.

I almost felt sorry for him.  He had been a pawn in this game as much as I was.
And although this was where we were innocently connected, I could not involve him in my plan of deception aimed at CAI.  In my own way I was protecting him with my deceit of lies.

The stupid revolving doors mocked me as I entered the
CAI building for the first time since the transformation.

The reception area on the 2
8
th
floor where my office was located had not changed, except my office.  I no longer had admittance to it.  It was locked.  I about turned, re-entered the elevator and travelled one level below to the sterile, white reception area.  White girl, Mia greeted me.

‘Good afternoon Mr Darcy.  Mr Rubin is waiting for you.  Enter his room at once,’ Mia squeaked in her bubbly fake voice.  I looked at her and bowed my head in affirmation of her direction, then with quiet confidence entered the room of the man whom I despised the most in the entire world.

His red high backed leather chair was turned toward the window, facing away from me as was his arrogant repulsive manner.

‘Mr Darcy, long time no see,’ he boomed as he turned in his chair towards me. ‘Sit!’ he commanded, charm oozing out of every pore
- not.

Play the game. Play it better.

I sat on the said chair. He came and sat on the chair opposite me, ominously close, looking into my eyes, searching for signs of the implant for sure.

‘What am I thinking, tell me,’ he threatened in a low voice, barely audible to human hearing.

I blinked slowly and appeared to focus on reading his mind, furrowing my eyebrows and narrowing my eyes after a short while.

‘Nothing Mr Rubin.  The good doctor said that it would take time.  As yet, I have not had success with the implant.  I am still having trouble with my eyesight, and may have to wear glasses for focus.  And you, have you been able to read minds with your Mind Reading Device?’ I questioned him, my voice calm, non-threatening.

He stared at me as though I had just stabbed him in the chest with twenty knives, twisting each one of them individually.

‘Because of you Mr Darcy, I almost died, and am now blind in my
right eye, because of you.’  He was seething, his face grew red with fury and he spat as he talked.

I could not stop my face from reacting from his admission of terror with his own experience. 

‘You were thoroughly informed of the risks of the technology Mr Rubin before you took it upon yourself to trial the MRI. You also signed the disclaimer on the contract. I am sorry that his has occurred to you.  It is also possible that I will also lose my sight,’ I lied to him.

He breathed out deeply, his shoulders relaxing.

‘Get out of my office Mr Darcy.  You disgust me.  The only time that I ever want to see your face again will be when your MRI is working, or when you are dead,’ the venom in his voice was clear, his eye piercing me like a dagger.  His malice was making him as ugly as sin.

I stood and bowed to him slightly before I turned on my heel and left his sanitized freezing psychotic office.
  His eye burned into my back like the fire of hell.

As I briskly walked past Mia I smirked at her.

‘Good day Mr Darcy,’ she chirped in her squeaky voice, and then cleared her throat, signaling to meet her at the club tonight 9pm.  Then she sipped on a glass of water covering her coded message to me. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.

The icy wind blew through to my bones as I exited through the stupid revolving doors.  And there was the taxi waiting for me.  Obviously as hated as I was, I was still the corporations most valuable
employee.