Jack Splinter was desperate to speak and meet with Oliver. He had phoned, e-mailed and sent multiple texts. With great interest from Sir Nigel Bell-Smith Oliver needed to get in touch, Jack really felt there was a deal on the table. Development opportunities and six figure investment figures were being bandied around. He could not understand how on earth Oliver was not responding. Jack studied his latest draft text trying to think what lie he could make up next to try to secure a positive response from Oliver. He wished he had kept a record of Oliver’s address and on reflection decided he was hasty when he angrily dumped Oliver’s file after the rejection of the CarTalk proposal.
Jack Splinter was desperate to speak and meet with Oliver. He needed to understand what was happening to him and why he was changing. He needed to know what he had been exposed to in the laboratories below St Thomas’ hospital. Jack needed the medical advice only Oliver could know. An explanation on the Tempus Genesis experiments and how witnessing them could bring such torment. He needed Oliver to tell him what treatment to seek.
At first it was just a low tone ringing in his ear, ear wax possibly, tinnitus perhaps. Then the whispers arrived, soft whispers, which over a few days became louder and clearer. Then it was the voices, clear and precise and knowing. Then warnings and worst of all being taken and the visions. Opening his eyes to see the old grey men who would interrogate him. Their instructions to him to heed their warnings, urging him, compelling him to take action.
Jack’s wife had moved out. At first she could just about bear the preoccupation. Then she tried to be caring as she felt him slip away from her into a depression. Then the signs of madness and the rage, the frightening rage and his snarling distorted features. Her GP advised she moved out for a little while and a referral was made to the mental health services. The crisis team assessed him and Jack held it together, just enough, leaving the team with no reason to detain him in a mental health unit.
He agreed to his wife staying away. Jack stopped working and his GP signed him off on sick leave. Jack was visited every night and his call to duty incandescently chanted to him. He didn’t sleep and he ate rarely. Hygiene and grooming left home around the same time his wife did.
Jack was possessed by the visitors grip on his soul and sanity. The glint of insight that shone into his mind told him to seek out Oliver, to secure help to save him from the final descent into full blown madness. The voices that echoed around his head agreed that finding Oliver would be a good thing for them all.