Terminal Lucidity

(4,587 words)

Angelo Torres set down the micro-drill, leaned back, and examined his work. Aside from the blood trickling out of the old woman’s skull, she looked perfectly at peace.

He grabbed a cotton pad and wiped away the crimson trail.

“That’s the last one,” he said, watching her vitals sift across the monitor. No jumps, no dips. Nice and steady. He dabbed at the wound until the blood ran dry, then he tossed the soiled pad away and peeled off his gloves.

To her son’s credit, he did not shy away. Angelo turned, saw a medley of curiosity and grief writhing over the man’s face. “Dave, if you need—”

He shook his head.

“The next part can be . . . unsettling,” Angelo said. “I don’t know if you want to see her—”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Really.”

Angelo nodded. Doing his best to mask a grimace, he stood from the bedside stool and shifted his weight to his left leg. The covers were still bunched up by the waist of the anaesthetized woman, a blemish on this little display of serenity. He folded them neatly beneath her emaciated neck and stepped back. Every box had been checked.

He turned to the prototype and pulled it close. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence—he knew that. A cold metal chassis crowded by buttons and screens, a tangle of coiled wires, and a high-voltage warning to boot. He’d seen the narrowed eyes, the clenching jaw as he wheeled it across the hardwood. He’d felt Dave’s cynicism, his skepticism—his regret.

And he’d fed off of it.

Angelo unraveled the wires with the patience of an old farmer mending a barbed fence. He slipped his hands inside a fresh pair of latex gloves, fastened the wire to a tiny electrode needle, and steadied it before the tiny hole.

Then, he pushed.

He pushed, and he pushed, and he did not stop pushing until he felt the squishy reverberation of cerebral paydirt. One by one, he slid the electrode needles into her brain until her withering face became a canvas of slithering silicone.

“Will all those wires be sticking out of her during the—” Dave paused.

“The lucidity phase? I’m afraid so.”

Angelo rolled back on his stool, typed a few prompts into the prototype’s input terminal. Screens flashed. The noisy whir of the fan picked up. He looked up at Dave. “Are you ready?”

Dave closed his eyes, exhaled through pursed lips. “Yeah.”

“Very well,” Angelo said. “Gather the family.”

Dave left the room. Angelo combed a sweaty hand through his thinning hair, leaned in close to the woman’s ear. “Come on, Gloria.” He watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

Dave led the family in through the door—kids first, ushered by the protective hands of their parents. A young girl started to cry. A boy covered his eyes. The adults grimaced, reproachful eyes flickering from Dave, to Gloria, to the prototype. They staggered forward, gathering around the foot of the bed in a haphazard semicircle.

Angelo gazed across the crowd. “The speed and emotional clarity of the re-animation can be striking. We typically see anywhere from three to eight minutes of lucidity—don’t feel rushed, but don’t be too greedy with your time, either.”

He swallowed, finger hovering above the activation button.

“Okay—here we go.”

Down it came. A finely-tuned surge of electricity rippled out of the machine, through the wires, and across the woman’s brain. Her eyes sprang open, clear as a polished mirror, and her pupils swelled.

“Dave!” She looked around, lips quivering. “I’m so happy to see you!”

“Mom!”

A chorus of voices spilled out.

“Grandma!”

“Oh my God!”

“Hello! Hello!”

The family bunched and closed around the bed. Arms reached out; hands touched. Tears flowed.

Angelo stood, squirmed back, and made his way around the bustling throng of happiness. It was not his to embrace. He was not welcomed, nor did he seek such welcome. His elation lay at some distant point in the future. There was no date, no appointment marked in his calendar, but the moment would come. Seeking refuge on a couch in the main foyer, he threw his head back, took a deep breath, and wrestled with the urge to pull out a cigarette.

The moment would come, he told himself, closing his eyes and sinking into the soft, plush cushions.

“Dr. Torres?”

Startled, he looked up into Dave’s bloodshot eyes. The commotion in the other room had settled into a quiet symphony of soft whispers. The family was still, arms wrapped around each other. She had died, then.

“I—I can’t thank you enough.”

Angelo grimaced and drew himself upright. “Honored to have helped, my friend.” He exhaled. “Now—”

“I mean, just . . . you should’ve seen her, doctor. I haven’t seen her like that in—God, I can’t even remember.”

“Remarkable, isn’t it? Now, Dave, when it comes to—”

Dave took a long, deep breath and squeezed his palms into his eyes. “It’s a miracle. Really.”

Miracle? The word cut him, unsteadied him. “That’s certainly one way to look at it.” He pressed his palms into his tired eyes. “Now, as we discussed, your deposit covers transportation and set up. Successful lucidity is an extra thirteen-fifty.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course.” Dave pulled out his phone and tapped, swiped, tapped.

Angelo’s eyes rested on his own device, awaiting the familiar chime and the glorious, green memo that shot dopamine into his brain like a cold beer in the blistering heat.

Ching!

There was no further business to conduct. Angelo lurched forward, trying to harness his momentum to get to his feet, but the couch seemed to grab onto his sweater with strong, invisible hands. “Dave, give me a hand, will you?”

Dave helped him up. The family dispersed. He removed the needles from the woman’s scalp and powered down the prototype. The chassis was warm under his hand, and he let the fan rumble a little while longer. Inside, inscribed across a microchip in a series of ones and zeros, lay a cache of data more precious than any sum of money.

The grind in his hip had softened to an ache. The prototype felt lighter, too. He lugged it out of the house, down the street and around the corner, where he’d stashed the rusting hunk of metal that got him from point A to point B.

* * *

“Flossie?”

Angelo deposited the cumbersome prototype against the wall and shuffled to the bathroom. “Florence? I’m home!”

No response—no surprise, and no matter, either. He called out over his shoulder while rummaging through the medicine cabinet. “Long day, Flossie. Long day.” He grabbed the bottle of anti-inflammatories and spun the top off. “I can’t wait for Corey to come back. Kid’s a pain in the ass”—he popped a pill and swallowed—“but he carries the equipment.”

The pain in his hip paled against the rumble of his stomach. “Just grabbing a bite,” he said. “I’ll be right in.” The kitchen was spotless, but the fridge was desolate. He pulled out some meat and cheese treading just above expiration with one hand, and grabbed the mustard with the other. Muffled melodies floated down the hallway, ghostly pleas to hurry up and come relax. He slapped the sandwich together, tossed it on a plate, and cracked open a beer.

The bedroom was bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun. Angelo brushed past the foot of the bed and plopped down in the rocking chair by the window with a heaving sigh. Washing down stale bread with cheap beer, he stared into his wife’s empty eyes. He regaled her with the story of another day, with problems met and problems solved, with thoughts that would have otherwise sunk from conscious to subconscious—as if the stroke had not stolen her faculties, but merely obscured them.

As if, somehow, she was listening.

He wracked his mind for something else to say, not quite ready to submit to silence. “Loving the outfit tonight, Flossie.” Something had to be getting through. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind.

“Nora always goes above and beyond, doesn’t she? Even cleaned the kitchen before she left.” He brought the beer to his lips. “Worth every penny, I’d say.”

He waited for a response—a grunt, a gesture, a shift of the eyes. But she just lay, staring, staring.

The music stopped. He set the plate on the bedside table and swapped the record for another—the next in a long, revolving cycle. She’d given music her life; maybe music could give it back. He leaned closer and clutched her hand, half expecting her to squeeze back. “We’re almost there, Florence. The money is steady. The research is good. I just need a little more data, a little more time. I promise.”

He guided her hand back down to the mattress. He leaned back, and before he could decide whether to make the long trip to his side of the bed, sleep was upon him.

* * *

Angelo limped through the bustling plaza, dodging impudent people and impatient drivers. The cane had been right there by the door, same spot it always was, but he could never convince himself to grab the damn thing—could never permit the notion that he needed it.

And how quickly a simple admission could spiral into defeat.

He walked up to Closure, Inc. and frowned. His darling was falling into disrepair. The windows needed a good clean, the flowers were all but dead. The bus bench signs had helped, but rent depended on foot traffic. He’d have to squeeze time in somewhere to—

The light in the back room was on. He swung the door open and hurried inside. “Corey?” he yelled, doing his best to conceal the desperation in his tone.

“Back here!”

Angelo tossed his keys on the reception counter, flicked on the OPEN light in the window. The hip was feeling better already. He walked to the back and found his assistant feeding the rats.

Corey looked up, then motioned to boxes spilling out of the closet and papers strewn across the laboratory benches. “This what happens when I’m not around?”

Angelo shrugged. “The flowers need you more than the rats. Good trip?”

“Yeah. Much needed.”

Angelo looked at the laptop propped open on the desk. “What are you working on?”

“Just going over the cases you had while I was gone.” He slid back into his chair and kicked his feet up beside his laptop.

“Mm.” Angelo pressed his lips together and skulked to the coffee maker.

“Any problems hauling that thing around?”

Angelo poured the boiling coffee into his mug. “Oh—no, no. The usual.” He added some cream, tore open a packet of sugar, and dumped it in. He stirred—waiting.

“Ange?” The grating of chair legs against the floor, footsteps.

Here it comes.

“You ran Terminal Lucidity on a stroke patient?”

He discarded the spoon, faced his partner. “I did. Corey, we’ve been through this.”

“Ange, it’s only been approved for degenerative condit—”

“Degenerative conditions, I know. So, what, we’re going to leave this whole subset of the population locked away in their mental prisons? Leave these grieving families without recourse? You should’ve seen these people, Corey. Tears and kumbaya all around.”

“That’s great,” Corey said. “But they’re not getting what they think they’re getting.”

“They sign the waivers—”

“Those are just covering your ass. You’re selling them something the prototype can’t do.”

Angelo waved him off.

“People are paying big money for a lucid experience. They want—” he groped for airborne words. “They want recognition. Real recognition. The gamma wave activity in traumatic inj—”

“Are you explaining to me how my own protocol works? Did you forget whose name was at the top of your thesis paper?”

“Ange, if they knew they were only getting surface-level recognition—”

Angelo slammed his mug down, sending speckles of coffee across the counter. “Please, they’re so caught up that they don’t even know the difference!” He shook his head. “If I was ever braindead in a hospital bed, I’d hope you’d have enough heart to send me off with a bang.”

“Do you hear yourself? We’re scientists, man.”

“Oh! Excuse me; you were gone so long, I forgot you were the arbiter of all moral questions. Were you thinking about this while you were riding the waves, man?”

Corey rolled his eyes. “Come on, Ange.”

Angelo advanced on him. “No. You know what? This is the problem with your generation. There’s no gray area. There’s no room for relativism. It’s all black or white, moral or immoral. You don’t have to think about keeping the lights on, you don’t have to think about mortality, you don’t have to think about—” He cut himself off. Flushed, he turned his back to Corey and grabbed his mug with a trembling hand.

“Think about what?”

“Nothing.”

“Listen,” Corey said. “I don’t need to know. But if we’re going to move forward together, we need to sit down and hash this out. We’re making headway, Ange. We just need to be patient.”

“Headway?” Angelo turned and laughed. “Poking and prodding around in rat brains gets us nowhere. We need real-time, human data. Every one of these patients brings us one step closer to solving this puzzle. I’m sure if these people could consent to that, they would.”

Corey stared at him like he’d been asked to conceal a murder. “You’re treating these people like guinea pigs.”

Angelo blew on the coffee, took a sip. “Corey, I have final say around here. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.” He turned to make another pot—it was going to be one of those days—and heard an incredulous laugh behind him.

“So much for gray area.”

Angelo whipped around and glared at him. And your mother? If you could have had one more conversation—

The words rolled into his mouth, but the chime of the front door stilled his tongue. He turned to face the prospective customer with a professional mask glued to his face.

A wiry man staggered in, eyes down, hands busy with a dusty, dirty cap.

“Hello, my friend,” Angelo said. “What can we do for you?”

The man took another step forward. He glanced up, and Angelo saw that he’d been crying.

“I need—my partner, she—”

His gaze fell back to the hat in his hands.

Corey stood up and walked around the counter. “Sir, why don’t you have a seat? Do you want some water?”

The man obliged. He downed the cup of water, and his trembling lips parted. “My partner—she’s not talking. It’s like, she’s there, but her mind’s all locked up. I need to get in. I need to get in there, you know?” Lines rippled across his forehead, tugged at his eyes. “Can you help me get in there?”

Corey took the empty cup from his hands. “It depends—”

“—But I think we can,” Angelo said, shrugging off Corey’s silent protest. “What happened to your partner?”

The man swallowed. “Car accident. Doctors did all they could.”

Angelo nodded. “I see. And her current level of function?”

“She can move if I help her. But, it’s like she’s in a fog, you know? Like, she’s looking, but she’s not seeing. You know?”

“Sir, can you give us a minute?” said Corey. He ushered Angelo to the back room with a glare and a jerk of the head.

Angelo smiled at the man. “One moment.” The fabricated warmth crumbled on the turn of his heel; he marched to the back with vitriol bubbling in his throat.

“Ange, no.”

“You’re going to let this wretched soul walk out of here?”

“You’re seeing green.”

“And you’re blind.”

“Angelo!” He took a deep breath, mashed his palms against his eyes. “Car. Accident. Trauma, hemorrhaging—” He shot a finger toward the thinly drawn blinds. “You heard the guy. He needs information. A bright smile won’t cut it this time.”

“Listen,” Angelo said. “I will make very clear the limitations. The risk, the cost, all of it.”

“The limitation is that it won’t work.”

“Success, in this case, is subjective.” Angelo turned and headed for the door.

“Ange, I won’t go with you on this one,” Corey said.

Angelo paused and sighed. “A shame.”

* * *

Angelo parked on the side of a street ridden with potholes, surrounded by dead trees and graffiti. He would have thought twice about leaving his car here, had it been worth more than his shoes.

The heat was unbearable. Sweat trickled down Angelo’s forehead, but the sun would not relent. Muttering and cursing, he lugged the prototype out of his car and hauled it up to the apartment’s shabby front doors. The anti-inflammatories might as well have been candy.

He sagged against the wall of the elevator cabin, chest heaving, droplets of sweat detonating against the bleached carpet. Up it went, all the way to floor eighty-nine. The stairwell doors lurched open. He stepped out into the dimly lit hall, dragged the prototype to the end of it, and rapped his knuckles on 89B.

The apartment door flung open, and—what was his name? Ritchie? Riley—looked him up and down. “She’s back here. C’mon.” No sooner had the guy opened the front door than he ran down the hall and vanished behind the corner.

Angelo coughed, clutching the doorframe with one hand and gesticulating with the other, trying to spare his lungs. “Got any water?” he managed. Riley paced back, peered outside the front door, and all but yanked him inside. “Riley,” he said. “It’s hot, and I’m old. Please, a moment.”

Riley’s face twitched. He looked—pale. Sweaty and pale. He motioned to the couch.

It was low.

Very low.

Angelo felt the heat rising into his cheeks. “A chair, if you don’t mind.”

Riley jerked his head sideways.

“Bad hip,” he mumbled.

The bastard really huffed, as if he’d just been asked for the shirt off his back. But he fetched a chair and a glass of water. Angelo sat down and leaned forward, sucking air through his nostrils and wiping his brow. He took the glass out of his jittery hands, and the water went down smooth.

“You going to be all right, old man?” Riley said.

“I’ll be fine.”

A phone rang in the other room. Riley about jumped through his skin before stiffening. “I need to take that,” he said. “And then we need to go.”

The reprieve did precious little for the thudding in Angelo’s chest. This was not the same man who’d staggered into his store hours earlier.

He took a deep breath and wrinkled his nose at the scent of rotting food. The windows were closed; the blinds were shut. Junk was piled in the corner. The laminate table was wiped conspicuously clean.

He swallowed, and the saliva all but scraped against his still arid throat. The empty glass of water stared back at him, but he dared not ask for another. He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Hey. I was completely wrong. I need you here, ASAP. 188 Hyperion Road, Suite 89B.

“No—wait-wait-wait!” Riley’s muted ravings filtered in from the other room, indecipherable.

He could leave. Right now. The door was mere feet away; he could grab the prototype, lug it to the elevator—

A loud crash rang out from the other room. His heart jumped in his chest. Some primitive instinct glued him to his chair.

He pulled out his phone. No response. A shadow fell over him, and he froze.

“I’m tired of waiting, old man. Let’s go.”

To hell with this. “Go get her ready. Here—” He retrieved an isopropyl pad from his pocket. “I need her scalp to be clean.”

Riley shook his head, motioned to the back room. “No. Get up, I’ll grab your shit.”

“No—wait, that’s not necessary—”

Angelo pulled out his phone and typed with little regard for legibility, imploring Corey to hurry as the prototype rumbled past him. He shoved his phone in his pocket and, stealing one last glance at the front door, followed his livelihood down the darkened hall.

Inside the bedroom, fear dissolved into familiarity. There was a sickly-looking woman, illuminated by the dim glow of an overhead bulb, staring past him like a baby transfixed by a lightshow. The prototype sat beside her, and every button was an invitation. In this tiny sliver of chaos, there was order. The woman and the machine were a match; all he had to do was bring them together.

He took his seat by the edge of the bed and got to work. Once the anesthetics were flowing and her eyelids hung heavy, he pulled out the micro-drill and laid out the assortment of needle electrodes. He turned, raised his drill to the woman’s face—and froze.

He lowered the drill and inched closer. A tiny hole, rimmed by thick, red scarring, sat just above her temple.

“You said it was a car accident,” he said, running his finger over the wound.

“It—it was.”

Angelo faced him. “I’ve studied brain damage for forty years. I know what a gunshot wound looks like.”

“What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference?”

Riley threw his hands up. “I couldn’t take her to a doctor! You gotta help her, man. You need to get me in there.” There was that pleading tone again.

Angelo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Listen, how about I return your deposit, you take her to the hospital, and we go our separate ways? Gunshot wounds, they—”

“No. No. You told me you could help.” Riley stepped forward, scowling down at him. His shaking hands curled into fists. “You told me.”

“I didn’t promise you anything. This—I mean, this changes things.”

Riley paced around the room, dragging his hands across his face and burrowing them in his slick, dark hair. He mashed his eyes into his palms, clenched his teeth, and—stopped. He straightened up and fixed Angelo with a dark, icy glare.

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No,” Angelo said. “I’m just—”

Riley settled his hand against something poking up from his belt, hidden beneath the folds of his baggy shirt. “Don’t fuck with me, man.”

Angelo threw his hands out in front. “Okay, okay. Just—calm down, okay? I will try. I’ll try.”

He turned to the anaesthetized woman, limp and indifferent to the drama unfolding around her. Riley’s coarse, ragged breaths were crawling down his neck. He picked up the drill with a trembling hand and tried to steady it before her head.

He made more holes in her skull, then he pushed the needle electrodes through, one by one. Not perfect, but under the circumstances, acceptable.

“Okay. What now?” Riley said, hovering over his shoulder like a specter.

Angelo tuned the machine. “We try.” It was impossible to say which memories would be hovering near the surface, but she would be happy. Of that, he made certain. He just hoped it was enough.

“Starting the procedure—now.”

A surge of electricity. Her eyes fluttered open; her lips twitched into a smile.

“Riley,” she whispered.

“Elsie!” He dropped to his knees and took her hands. “Elsie, Elsie; oh God, oh thank-you-thank-you-thank-you—” His head flopped down in her lap.

Tears welled up in Elsie’s eyes. “I’m so happy to see you!”

Angelo felt his stomach starting to unclench, felt the sensation returning to his limbs.

“Elsie.” —Riley looked up into her eyes— “Where’s the money?”

“What?”

“Where’s the money, Elsie? Where’s the money you stashed?”

“It’s—it’s—”

Angelo held his breath.

“It’s so good to see you again.”

His stomach twisted up into a cold, hard pit and sunk into oblivion.

“They’re going to kill us, Elsie!” He arched up, grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where’s the money? Think!”

“I—I—” She was shaking; her big eyes darted around the room, looking for an answer, looking for help, landing on Angelo and growing wider still.

She faced Riley and whispered, “I missed you.” His hands fell to her lap, and his head crumpled atop them. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Angelo backed up slowly. He groped along the wall for the doorframe.

“Again.” Riley lifted his head, fixed his reddening eyes on him. “Try it again!” Angelo felt the frame, turned, and ran. He looked over his shoulder—and bashed his shin into something hard.

A blinding pain surged through his leg as he crumpled to the ground. He crawled to the door. “Help!” he cried. He looked back—right into the barrel of a gun.

“Wait!” Angelo held his hand over his face as if it were coated in Kevlar.

“We’re dead,” Riley said. “You fucked us!” His finger trembled against the trigger.

“How much do you need?” Angelo said, squirming back from the barrel.

“What?”

“I can get you the money, just don’t shoot!”

The door burst open behind him.

A shot rang out.

His world shook and spun. His vision went blurry, and then it dropped out.

“Ange!”

The sound of two bodies smashing into each other, dropping and rolling and struggling, but he couldn’t pin any of it down, because he was vaguely aware of the bullet in his head, and the noises were distant, and receding, and small . . .

He felt it all slipping away, and he clutched on as tight as he could to the name—his wife’s name—fluttering through that black, empty void.

* * *

There was a spark.

He felt the flow of electricity dancing between his ears. Warm, cozy vibrations filled the space that was, moments ago, vacant.

Had he—died? No. If he were dead—then—then what was this?

He groped for a memory, some relic or touchstone that could lend credence to one theory or disrepute another.

“Angelo?”

Angelo—ah, yes! His name. Angelo Torres.

Wait. Who had said that? Right! There must be an entire world out there. He just had to let it in. Color and flowers and light and—people! A tickle of excitement coursed through him.

He opened his eyes and blinked the blurry world into clarity.

His heart dropped, just a little.

He was in a bed with white, sterile sheets and walls to match. Tubes hung down from noisy monitors and slithered into his skin. There were no windows. Just harsh, fluorescent lights. A man with short blond hair and a friendly smile stood at the foot of his bed, resting his hand on some monstrous device. Its wiry arms crawled up the bed, terminating somewhere around—

His head?

He squinted hard at the man, sharpening his contours.

“Do you remember me?” the man said.

Oh, yes! Sure he did. But how? From where?

“It’s Corey.”

Right! That’s it. “Cody—yes, hello!”

Something flashed across the man’s face. He glanced down, just for a moment. And then he swallowed, and the little spasm had gone. “I’ve got someone here to see you.”

Another visitor! Well, wasn’t that just—

The man stepped aside. Behind him, hooked up to the same ridiculous machine, was a woman in a wheelchair. Her eyes beamed, and she cupped her hands over her mouth.

“Florence!”

He was so happy to see her.