Pulling The Dragon's Tail (7 page)

“Okay, Grandpa. But if I catch any fish, you
have to promise to gut them. Fish guts are really yucky.” She made
a huge frown with her tongue stuck out to drive her point home.

The footage seemed to have been taken by her
grandfather, the infamous scientist, Mitchell Hilliard. Noting that
she must have been about seven years old, she mentally calculated
the year was 2031; only one year before his fateful
disappearance.

Campbell had nearly fainted at her onslaught of
emotions. She quickly registered amazement and joy. With equally
astonishing speed she also felt painful sorrow and remorse. Some of
her happiest recollections were with Grandpa Hilliard, but they
also held the searing pain of separation. “My God, Grandpa! Could
thirty years have passed so quickly?”

The lake scene was cut off and replaced by
footage of young men and women talking with a much younger Mitchell
Hilliard, far more youthful than she had ever seen him. He appeared
to be leading some form of a group therapy session. If the
subtitles (11-15-2023) were to be believed, the recording had taken
place many years prior to the stress and strain of the media and
government witch hunt. The camera panned around the room and
focused on each participant as he or she spoke.

Then Campbell gasped as she stared directly into
the face of Nate Kristopher. Telling herself this was a trick, she
quickly cursed that she hadn’t had a vacation in years. Yet her own
eyes told her that this recalcitrant and rebellious patient
occupied the same room as her grandfather almost forty years ago.
How? She had no logical explanation. Somewhere, if one looked hard
enough, was always a logical reality.

* * * * * *

“What did CLUES indicate?” The director’s voice
rudely interrupted Devereaux’s daydream.

She winced at the thought Martinez didn’t ask
for
her
opinion. Through clenched teeth, she forced out her
best imitation of a confident psychobiologist. “My treatment team
and I have been on top of this case from the start.” She glanced at
the computer screen in front of her, scanning the medical record.
“Believe it or not, he first presented in my private office. In
collaboration with CLUES, I determined him to be delusional and
admitted him promptly. DNA testing was unable to provide any
matches. Although he claims to live in England, he may have been
homeless and a drug abuser for years for all we know. Due to the
nature of his psychosis and paranoia, we had to guess his age.
Based on immune response and the state of his biological systems,
we determined he is about thirty-three and one half years of
age.”

All tests fall within normal range for a male
with this type of psychosis although some of his neuronal patterns
show some unusual curvatures and pathways in the hypothalamus. His
hippocampus is fifteen percent larger than normal. He had been a
model patient up until this incident. He showed no undue resistance
to the Neuro Shock scheduled for this morning.”

Martinez’s eyes lit up. “Ah! Zero-hour times are
always opportunities to act out, especially for someone with a bit
of eccentricity in their presentation. Was anyone paying attention
to him?”

In other words, Campbell thought, who else could
be blamed?

“Sir,” Jentry said boldly. Everyone’s eyes
opened wide. Except for Keagan, no psychiatric technician ever
attended conference meetings, let alone talk in them. “Keagan and I
had just completed a patient room check only minutes before, and
all appeared normal. The only unusual thing was—”

Keagan glared at her. “Never share more than
what is asked for,” he whispered, his red mustache twitching.

Jentry’s eyes met those of Dr. Devereaux, and
for a moment she hesitated. Then stammering, she said, “The—the
only thing I have to say is that he was working on a peculiar
puzzle on his bed.”

One of the nurses chimed in, “We’re currently
reviewing those particular monitoring videos.” She hit a button on
her computer, projecting a holographic video image above the middle
of the table for all to view. “Nothing anomalous so far. Here’s the
puzzle incident Jentry mentioned.”

After several minutes observing Nate’s strangely
choreographed dance, the Director was as mystified as everyone
else. “Does CLUES have any idea what this patient’s doing?”

Campbell stewed.
There he goes again,
deferring our opinion to that of a computer.
“Well, Pablo,
CLUES didn’t predict our patient would act out now, did it? Maybe
CLUES has finally reached its limit,” she said sarcastically.

The room visibly darkened as storm clouds
gathered. New York City was beginning to look and feel a lot like
Miami—before that cosmopolitan city had been inundated by a rising
ocean.

Dr. Martinez bit his lip, more convinced than
ever that he was going to miss his 2:00 o’clock tee time. He posed
a direct question to the massive computer system. After a momentary
pause, CLUES responded, “Behavior falls within parameters for a
thirty-three and a half year old Caucasian male with
psychosis.”

Regaining some of her composure, Campbell
thought,
Come on you big behemoth, you’ll have to be more
specific
. She said, “That response wasn’t helpful. CLUES,
reconfigure the search parameters for patient Nate Kristopher in
room 1024, 8:52 to 8:59 a.m. on 5-14-2059. Assess the possibilities
of who he may have been trying to communicate with.”

A few seconds of silence followed while CLUES
did its work. The stern, authoritative computer voice interrupted
the silence. “There are two possible configurations to explain
patient’s behavior in regards to communication protocols. One,
psychotic patient was relaying and receiving communication to and
from a real source external to the hospital. Two, psychotic patient
was relaying and receiving communication to and from a source
contained only in his psychotic delusion.”

“Well”, stated Director Martinez, “we can
certainly rule out the first one. Psychotic people don’t have the
executive functioning capabilities to carry on that kind of
sophisticated and effective communication in the real world.
Besides, whom could he possibly be trying to contact?”

“Or who might be trying to contact him?” piped
up the young Dr. Saxby, up till now a quiet bystander.

Dr. Devereaux still wasn’t satisfied, as a
heretical thought entered her mind.
But what if he’s not
psychotic? If so, maybe someone was trying to contact him. They’ve
got to see that possibility for me to have any hope of convincing
them to postpone Neuro Shock
. “CLUES, please indicate if any
communication techniques, symbols or languages exist to account for
patient’s behavior.”

A few seconds later brought this response. “The
only possible match is if patient was using Morse code, a language
of short and long beeps or flashes for each letter of the alphabet.
Used by maritime, military and some civilian purposes, it fell out
of use approximately forty years ago due to improved cybernetic
communication methods.”

Campbell now turned to the director. “How can
you conclude that he couldn’t have communicated effectively? It’s
very tenable that Mr. Kristopher did communicate with someone in
Morse code. He at least had the wherewithal to communicate with a
fellow patient to coordinate a disturbance so he could steal a
computer.”

“Which still proves nothing”, said the director,
voice rising slightly. “Even if he saw someone outside his window,
whatever he was trying to say was no doubt just gibberish. My brief
perusal of the record indicates just such psychotic babble.”

She needed more evidence, and not just for her
assembled colleagues. Any credible evidence that Nate Kristopher
was reality-based—and living four decades earlier to learn Morse
code—was critical in how she assimilated that disturbing video clip
with her grandfather.

Campbell added sardonically, “So let’s go to our
resident expert in Morse code interpretation. CLUES, interpret the
flashes of light using Morse code.”
Don’t let me down, Mr.
Kristopher.

“Signals do not conform to standard Morse code
beeps and dashes.”

Campbell persisted, biting her lip savagely,
trying hard to hide her disappointment. “CLUES, now evaluate all
known spoken languages and calculate the message from Room 1024. Is
it congruent with a known language?”
Come on, Mr.
Kristopher
, she hoped silently,
give me a sign of your
sanity
.

Momentarily, CLUES answered, “Morse code signals
do not conform to any of the 2,289 languages, idioms and dialects
in the UN Language database.”

Martinez was growing impatient. “See! He spoke
gibberish! Now let’s get on with this!”

“I believe the computer’s answer was any
known
language
,
Director,” she said with a hint of
irritation
. Is it possible there are languages out there not in
the database?
She recalled the famous experiment from the 1960s
in which subjects presented with a feigned psychotic symptom and
were promptly admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Then they acted
completely normal. The staff continued to view all their behavior
through the initial diagnosis. Nobody questioned and nobody thought
to look outside the box. Campbell castigated herself for spending
all of her professional career inside the box of computer-analyzed
psychiatry.

“You’re trying my patience, Campbell”! Martinez
huffed.

OKAY, girl
, she told herself.
Follow
the evidence. Be scientific about this. I’m the only one, with the
possible exception of Jentry, with knowledge of the video Nate sent
me. Was this man outside the box? If he’s telling any part of the
truth about Grandpa, I’ve got to get him out of here. Now can I get
the treatment team to at least stop Neuro Shock without telling
them my evidence?

Sitting up straight, she boldly announced, “I
believe there’s too much doubt about the extent and nature of his
psychosis to proceed with Neuro Shock at this time. I need to get
more information from him first.” She glanced at the clock,
realized she was making him wait in her office
. Let’s see how
well he handles anticipatory anxiety.

With a mischievous grin, Keagan jumped into the
fray. “Are you insinuating that perhaps Mr. Kristopher is not
psychotic?’

“I mean,” and she leaned forward and put on a
disingenuous smile, “that until we acquire more information it
would not be prudent to proceed. A physician’s first rule is to do
no harm”.

Keagan’s bright eyes and taut body were like a
tiger ready to pounce. “You’re not sure if he’s psychotic. Isn’t
that it?”

Campbell returned his glare. “In my opinion, not
CLUES’ opinion, I cannot be sure if this patient is psychotic or
reality-based.” She swallowed hard. “Yet.”

Everyone around that conference table held their
collective breath. CLUES, the Computer Counselor: Learning,
Understanding, and Evaluation of Systems, was the long established
essential authority for psychobiologists, psychotherapists, and
treatment centers. Over a half century of data, mined from millions
of counseling sessions, psychiatric assessments, and brain scans
had been analyzed and formed the backbone of the comprehensive
system. The CLUES system was used by all leading hospitals and
doctors. Diagnosis and treatment had become very accurate, leading
to enhanced treatment effectiveness. The last significant proven
error by CLUES was over five years earlier, and that programming
error had long since been rectified. In other words, the artificial
intelligence program kept getting better and better.

Director Martinez blinked in disbelief.
My
God, does she know what she’s insinuating?

There are times to challenge established
paradigms with all of their entrenched tradition and this was one
of those times, Campbell concluded. Over a half-century earlier,
psychiatry challenged the Freudian view. It led to the total
discrediting of Freud’s fantastic vision of the working of the
psyche and onto more logical, scientific assumptions. In turn, the
biological model of psychiatry, with all its pill-pushing excesses,
eventually evolved into a psychobiological view of humans which
incorporated computer technology for accurate assessment and
treatment. But here was Campbell Devereaux, an acknowledged leader
in the field and a perennial champion of CLUES, questioning this
bastion of psychiatric truth.

The silence grew even thicker.

“Are you sure you know what you’re saying?” Dr.
Saxby’s question broke the silence, and was tinged with hope that
he had misheard his esteemed colleague.

She looked around the conference room, glancing
at each person. She knew they were all wondering what possessed her
to question CLUES, why this about-face. Two other thoughts also
pervaded her mind.
Grandpa, I’m doing this for you
. And,
Mr. Kristopher, I’m going out on a limb for you. It had better
be strong enough to hold the both of us
.

Only two, mutually exclusive, possibilities
existed. One was that Nate Kristopher had a grandiose delusion that
he was a youthful ninety-one years old. If so, that would keep
intact the unblemished record of CLUES. And the second, more
unnerving possibility, was that Nate Kristopher, or whatever was
his true identity, told the literal truth. That meant he really was
ninety-one, born twenty-two years before the new millennium. And if
true, CLUES had just committed a glaring error.

And far more important to Campbell, it meant
something had happened to create this man with apparently eternal
youth. She had spent a lifetime trying to forget about her
grandfather’s infamous role in history. Perhaps the alleged
experiment really had taken place, and really had worked. And now
Nate Kristopher was apparently connected to him.