Chapter Ten
The Second Week
Jayne Middleton’s body trembled. She lay in the bed twitching as if she was suffering from a mild electrical shock, which in some respects she was. Her movements weren’t violent, but they were vigorous and persistent. Lots and lots of tiny twitches brought on by the program that the Crays were now executing.
The bandages and stitches had been removed from Jayne’s head, and the bald patch at the back of her head where the implant had been inserted was now clearly visible. Her scalp was still red and bruised looking around the wound, but new hair growth was already evident. A small socket was attached to her skull at the same point. A cable plugged into this socket went up and along the wall before disappearing through a hole into Matthew’s lab next door.
Matthew watched Jayne intently. Every so often he would stroke her hair, moving it to cover the socket and bald patch. Or he would pull up the sheet which kept slowly working it’s way down as Jayne moved about. It had been like this for five days now, ever since the Crays began the task of identifying the pathways that linked Jayne’s brain to her nervous system.
Sandra came in and stood by the bed, staring at Jayne. Sandra was forty-one, about five-foot-two, with short dark hair and a happy, friendly face. She had two grown up children (one of whom was married and expecting), was divorced for five years now, and had already booked her holiday to the South of France. Matthew had found all this out within a very short time of meeting her. He liked Sandra, and the two of them had got on well together right from the start.
Sandra shook her head. “It’s not natural,” she said to Matthew in a very strong Mancunian accent. “I know you mean well, Matt, but it makes me shiver watching her moving about like that. What are you doing to the poor girl?”
“Don’t worry, it’s just the way the program works,” Matthew replied. “Up to now, the Crays have only been refreshing the neural pathways in Jayne’s brain with a very low electrical charge. Now they are using a much more stronger electrical charge to select and activate a single neural cell in Jayne’s brain. This triggers all the pathways that are connected to it. Some of these pathways lead to nerve endings that control Jayne’s body. The electrical charge is now strong enough to stimulate these nerves. The Crays then monitor the feedback from all the other neural cells in Jayne’s brain, some of which may also have nerve endings connected to them. It’s a bit more complicated than that, because one neural cell may trigger several others, and the Crays have a devil of a job sorting out all the responses they get back.”
Sandra had wished she had never asked. She should know better by now. But one of the things she liked about Matthew was that he was always straight with you. Whatever you asked him, he told you. He never fobbed you off, assuming that you were too thick to understand. “But how do you know what each nerve does?” she asked him.
“Knowing exactly what’s been triggered doesn’t matter for now, what does matter is identifying the nerve endings that respond, and then matching them up to the neural cells that were first triggered.”
“It matters to me,” Sandra said indignantly as Matthew went back to his keyboard. “I have to clean up every time she has a little accident, and so far she’s had three of those little accidents this morning, and they’re all your fault!”
“Sorry, Sandra,” Matthew replied apologetically. “It won’t last much longer, I promise.”
Sandra wagged her finger at him. “Good! Just so long as you know that you’re in my bad books,” she told him.
Matthew smiled. He had got to know Sandra very quickly, far more quickly than the other nurse. Julia was young and beautiful, a real eye-catcher, and she was always joking and making wise cracks. But Matthew had found it difficult to get to know her properly. Unlike Sandra who was always open and chatty, Julia never talked about her private life or how she felt, or what else was happening to her outside work. It was as if she didn’t exist outside working hours. Maybe that was because she was on at night while Sandra was on during the day. A pity, really. It would have been nice to get to know her better.
Sandra had turned her attention to Jayne while Matthew was deep in thought. She was used to his silences, and put it down to a lack of sleep. First, she checked Jayne’s temperature and her pulse, then she looked over the monitors and life support machines that kept Jayne alive. Finally, she began changing the nearly empty drip for a new one she had brought with her.
Matthew watched her. Or more correctly, he watched Jayne as Sandra tended to her. Now, Julia was beautiful, he had to admit, and if she had been more friendly he might have got to like her more. In fact, he always thought that blondes were his type. But Jayne was something else.
There was something about Jayne that had caught Matthew’s attention from the moment he had first seen her. Even in a coma, with pipes and tubes everywhere, she was still beautiful. A dark haired beauty who was almost the reverse of Julia. And as she lay, serene in her bed, Matthew had grown more and more attracted to her. As the Crays had continued with their program, Jayne’s eyes had occasionally fluttered and half opened. She had dark brown eyes, like her long hair. One day soon, she would open those eyes properly, and see him, Matthew was sure of it. And he couldn’t wait for that day.
“How did you get her arm to move, then?” Sandra suddenly asked, breaking into Matthew’s thoughts.
“What?”
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Sandra said in mock annoyance, her hands on her hips.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
“Yeah, mooning over bright eyes I’ll bet!”
Matthew went slightly red. “I was not!”
“Oh, yes you were! Tarty cow!”
“Sandra!” Matthew exclaimed, only realising now who Sandra was actually referring to. Except for the first day, Sandra and Julia only ever met when they changed over shifts, but Matthew was well aware that Sandra wasn’t too keen on Julia. “You hardly know her, Sandra. You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“You hardly know her, either!” Sandra replied, and wagging a finger at him again, she went on, “I’m telling you, Matt, you’re wasting your time with that one. There’s more to her than meets the eye. She’s never been a professional nurse, that’s for sure. Oh, she knows her stuff, alright. But she does it all slightly differently, not like someone with experience, someone who’s done it all before. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could chuck her. If you ask me, you’d be much better off with this one in bed than you would be with the likes of her.”
Matthew glanced at Jayne. Her teeth were chattering and there were beads of sweat on her face and brow. The exertion the program the Crays were executing was taking it’s toll. Jayne’s body had been under stimulation for nearly a week now. Matthew had been with her most of that time, retiring to his apartment for no more than four or five hours each night. But Jayne had had no respite. How her muscles must ache. As he stared at her in the bed, he wondered if Sandra knew how much closer to the real truth she had been with that last remark.
“But we don’t know much about her, either,” he said, becoming thoughtful once more.
Two weeks he had known Jayne Middleton. And during that time he had spent almost every waking hour with her. Always he was near her, close to her. He had watched her for hours during the night. Watched her sleeping and breathing. Watched her face and body. There were many occasions when he could have taken advantage of his position and moved the sheet aside and looked more closely. But he never had. He remembered how he had seen Jayne’s body on that first day, and the way the technicians had treated her so callously, and how it had upset him. He could never treat her like that.
Sandra wiped Jayne’s brow with a face cloth. “The poor thing, you’re tiring her out,” she said.
Matthew sighed. “It won’t last much longer. And it gets easier after this.”
“Is that when you think she’ll wake up?”
“I hope so.” God, how he meant those words.
/> Sandra stood with her hands on her hips again. “Well, are you going to answer my question, or not?” she demanded.
“What question?”
“Oh, mercy!” Sandra exclaimed, rolling her eyes heavenward. She repeated her question again. “If you don’t know what all the nerve thingys are connected to, how did you make her hand move?”
“Oh, yes! That’s easy! I moved her hand and fingers about and monitored which neural cells responded. Then I stimulated the same neural cells with my mini-computer. It took a while for me to program my computer to move her hand and fingers properly, but the Crays will do it much quicker, you’ll see.”
“I know I’m going to hate myself for this, but how? They’ve been at it for five days, and so far all they’ve succeeded in doing is make my job harder.”
Matthew grinned at her. “What they learn they don’t forget. When they’re finished this program, I’ll start them on the next one, and that’s when you’ll see something.”