CHAPTER 1 – THE
OPERATION
An Eerie
Night
It was dawn in Lincoln Parish,
Louisiana but you wouldn’t know it. About the only visible light
was a strange glow that came from an abandoned section of the School
of Nursing, Building 47, at Grambling University. The bushes around
the building shimmered in the rain as the gray, screaming sky
refused to let the sun shine through the fierce thunderstorm that
tormented the campus.
Sheets of water slammed against the old
walls, leaking inside the neglected area. Wet spider webs covered
the high walls. Flickering lamps lit wet, steamy, ramshackle
offices and living quarters around the perimeters of the gutted wing
of the building. In the center was a sealed off room enclosed in
six inch thick Plexiglas. Inside the plastic walls a
state-of-the-art laboratory chocked full of advanced neurological
equipment hummed. The room was bright as day, illuminated by an
array of high powered lights focused on a makeshift operating
table. The dark grey graphite table looked like a big surfboard
with a mini refrigerator at the top.
Two men in surgeon’s gowns walked from
the damp quarters into the pristine room. One was tall and elegant
with pale skin and short, wavy brown hair. The other man was
shorter with a well muscled frame, sandy unkempt hair, a thin
scraggly moustache and a soul patch under his lower lip.
“You know Adam, once we start there’s
no going back.” The shorter man said.
Dr. Adam Solomon looked around the room
then fixed his gaze on the operating table. “Yeah John, I know.
Will’s life will be on the line so we have to do our best for him.
Are the computers programmed with the latest variables?”
John nodded, “Everything’s ready to go,
man. Let’s get the machines in place.”
Adam pushed one of three dishwasher
sized microsurgery machines, in place. Each machine had a thin
chromed mechanical arm angling up with a protruding black threadlike
tube containing stereotactic probes at the end of the chrome claw.
The machine was rigged by Adam to insert and release a microscopic
brain-lock bridge he invented. The second machine was a microscopic
high-energy precision laser. They called it the ‘micro-scalpel’.
The third, dubbed the ‘micro-sponge’, had vacuum and secretion
nozzles fitted into to its tiny tube.
John grabbed the micro-sponge,
carefully put it in place then winked at Adam.
Adam nodded confidently as John moved
the micro-scalpel into place. Adam was a master at appearing calm.
After all, it had been part of his job as a one of the top
neurosurgeons in the world. On the inside he was full of doubts.
He wasn’t a gambler by nature but he was about to perform an
incredibly dangerous, unsanctioned operation on his best friend—an
outrageous risk. If he was right, the procedure would change
everything in medical science. If he was wrong…
A woman in nurse’s clothes bubbled into
the room. She was medium height with a curvy build, ebony
complexion and long, curly black hair.
“DeAndrea,” Adam said, “where’s Janet
and Will?”
“Janet’s right behind me and Will is
taking his sweet time.”
Another woman in nurse attire came in.
She was tall, just under six feet, with an athletic build and
shoulder length strawberry blonde hair. “Will’s right behind me and
he say’s he’s ready.”
A tall, well built man with milk
chocolate skin and short black hair, wearing a white patient’s smock
walked in, closed and bolted the door shut.
“You made it baby,” teased DeAndrea, “I
thought you were going to turn chicken it took you so long.”
Will smiled and shook his head as he
strode to the graphite table and lay down. “Did I tell you that Dr.
Doom tried to get a restraining order on us?”
“Did she?” Adam said as DeAndrea and
Janet started methodically strapping Will to the chair, hooking up
the basic life support fluids and attaching an array of fifty
sensors all over his body.
“Yup,” Will said, “but she didn’t get
anywhere. You see, my family has friends in these parts that go way
back. No way she’s going to mess with us. This is my backyard,
people.”
“You go, Will.” John did a quick check
of his anesthesiology station.
Janet and DeAndrea started prepping
Will’s eye as John went to the computer station and turned on the
massive brain scan machine. It hummed and projected a tight mesh of
red and green stripes onto Will’s head.
“She tried to get DeAndrea fired too,”
Will continued, “but that didn’t happen either. Now I hear she’s
whomping up a mess of trouble for us back in Tennessee.”
“Uh-un, no worry there Dr. Thebodaux,
I’m still the Dean of this Nursing School.” DeAndrea said. “Irma
may be a queen at Vanderbilt in Tennessee but that woman ain’t got
no play in this state.”
Adam felt truly sorry for his former
friend. “After this operation we shouldn’t have to worry about Dr.
Irma Bloom anymore.”
“Dr. Bloom?” Will shot a sideways
glance at Adam. “No, like I said, it’s Dr. Doom.”
Adam edged the neurosurgery machines in
place near Will’s left eye then went to the main computer terminal
and checked Will’s neurological patterns.
“This feels weird.” Adam said. “It’s
reminds me so much of my old recurring dream except its Will on the
table and there’s no guy in a green robe in here.”
“Don’t look at me.” John turned on the
anesthesia drip. “I’m not putting on a glowing robe to make this
your special moment. You ready Will?”
“Ready.”
Adam smiled. John’s reference to his
dream jolted his mind back to the day he first had it. It was right
after he left his position as a premier neurosurgeon and took a
research position at DNATech.
Adam delicately put a tiny canister
into the brain-lock bridge insertion machine. This was it. “Go
ahead and increase the drip John. I’ll finish the final preps for
the instruments. Let’s get this right.”
Half a dozen cameras surrounded Will,
all from different angles. Display panels were strewn about the
operating area. Will watched the progress as the drugs dripped into
his body.
“I know you’ll get it right.” Will
slurred.
John turned up the anesthesia drip and
scanned the array of monitor panels. “All levels normal.”
Will’s eyes closed and his heartbeat
slowed down as he lost consciousness. John inserted a limited
airway device in Will’s mouth in case his breathing stopped.
Adam felt triumphant. “Scalpel.”
Janet slapped the thin knife into
Adam’s hand. He made a half inch incision below Will’s eyebrow to
access the eye socket where he would insert the threadlike probes
from the machines.
DeAndrea and Janet monitored Will’s
overall condition and ensured his cardio-vascular, respiratory,
brainwave and fluid levels were all normal. As Adam finished up,
DeAndrea edged the ends of the mechanical arms into their final
position, locked them into place and carefully depressed Will’s
eyeball to allow access to the brain through the back of his eye
socket.
“That’s it, perfect.” Adam secured the
retractor and reached for the long thin canula he had designed for
the surgery. He guided the canula containing the three wires over
the top of Will’s eyeball, then followed the optic nerve through the
gray mass and entered the part of the brain called the thalamus.
Adam manipulated the micro-scalpel with
the same firm precision he handled the surgeon’s knife. The trick
was separating tissue without cutting nerve endings.
“You’re doing great—perfect.” Janet
worked the controls of the micro-sponge.
“You too,” Adam said, “keep up the good
work.”
Finally, he got to the beginning of the
brain-lock sequence area. “That’s it! Adam said, “Isolate quadrant
1523. I’ll connect the device on the alpha cell. Now the real fun
begins.”
Adam looked at his watch, eight o’clock
in the morning, right on schedule. He switched to the insertion
machine that contained the brain-lock sequence bridge, moved the
device into place and started to perform the first cellular bypass.
“The first one is the most important.” His practice paid off.
Within a minute he’d attached the first neural input bypass
connector.
Suddenly, one of the life-support
machines started beeping, then another. John dashed to the computer
controls. “Involuntary muscles tightening in the neck. Heartbeat
acting up. His vitals are going crazy. Adrenaline just released.
Something’s wrong. His body doesn’t like this, but his brain waves
are normal. This is weird, man. What do we do?”
Will lurched forward violently, his
body stretching the restraints.
Adam pulled away from the controls of
the brain-lock bridge for a moment and froze. It was too late,
no going back. He clenched his jaw, “The cells in the
brain-lock sequence are fighting it. John, paralyze him—quick, if
Will makes one more move like that this could be over before it
starts.”
DeAndrea froze. “Please God…please. Don’t let him die.”
