Recursion(25)

The doctor says, “Two-point-two-milligram push of sodium thiopental, away.”

Helena divides her attention between the night-vision feed of the tank’s interior, and the screen the doctor is studying, which shows Reed’s pulse rate, blood pressure, EKG, and a dozen other metrics.

“Blood pressure dropping,” Dr. Wilson says. “Heart rate descending through fifty beats per minute.”

“Is he suffering?” Helena asks.

“No,” Slade says.

“How can you be sure?”

“Twenty-five beats per minute.”

Helena leans in close to the monitor, watching Reed’s face in tones of night-vision green. His eyes are closed, and he displays no visible signs of pain. He actually looks peaceful.

“Ten beats per minute. BP—thirty over five.”

Suddenly the control room fills with the sustained tone of a flatline.

The doctor shuts it off and says, “Time of death: 10:13 a.m.”

Reed looks no different in the tank, still floating in the saltwater.

“When do you revive him?” Helena asks.

Slade doesn’t answer.

“Standing by,” Sergei says.

A new window has appeared on the doctor’s primary monitor. Time Since Heart Death: 15 seconds.

When the clock passes one minute, the doctor says, “DMT release detected.”

Slade says, “Sergei.”

“Initiating memory-reactivation program. Firing the stimulators…”

The doctor continues to read off the levels of various vital signs, now mainly associated with cerebral oxygen levels and activity. Sergei also gives an update every ten seconds or so, but for Helena, the din of their voices fades away. She can’t take her eyes off the man in the tank, wondering what he’s seeing and feeling. Wondering if she would be willing to die to experience the full power of her invention.

At the two-minute, thirty-second mark, Sergei says, “Memory program complete.”

“Run it again,” Slade says.

Sergei looks at him.

The doctor says, “Marcus, at five minutes, the chances of bringing him back are virtually nonexistent. The cells in his brain are dying rapidly.”

“Reed and I talked about it this morning. He’s ready to face this.”

Helena says, “Pull him out.”

“I’m not comfortable with this either,” Sergei says.

“Please just trust me. Run the program one more time.”

Sergei sighs and quickly types something. “Initiating memory-reactivation program. Firing the stimulators.”

As Helena glares at Slade, he says, “Jee-woon pulled that man out of a drug house in one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco. He was unconscious, the needle still hanging out of his arm. He would probably be dead right now if it weren’t—”

“That is no justification for this,” she says.

“I understand how you could feel that way. I would again ask, all of you, to please just trust me for a little while longer. Reed will be perfectly fine.”

Dr. Wilson says, “Marcus, if you have any intention of reviving Mr. King, I would suggest you tell my doctors to pull him out of the chamber immediately. Even if we get his heart to start beating again, if his cognitive functioning is gone, he’ll be of no use to you.”

“We aren’t pulling him out of the tank.”

Sergei rises and heads for the exit.

Helena leaves her chair, following right behind him.

“The door is locked from the outside,” Slade says. “And even if you were to get through, my security detail is waiting in the hall. I’m sorry. I had a feeling you’d lose your nerve when we reached this moment.”

The doctor says into his microphone, “Dana, Aaron, pull Mr. King out of the tank and begin resuscitation immediately.”

Helena stares through the wall of glass. The doctors standing by the crash cart aren’t moving.

“Aaron! Dana!”

“They can’t hear you,” Slade says. “I muted the testing-bay intercoms right after you started the drug sequence.”

Sergei charges the door, ramming his shoulder into the metal.

“You want to change the world?” Slade asks. “This is what it takes. This is what it feels like. Moments of steel, unflinching resolve.”

On the night-vision feed from inside the tank, Reed isn’t moving a muscle.

The water is perfectly calm.

Helena looks at the doctor’s monitor. Time Since Heart Death: 304 seconds.

“We’re past the five-minute mark,” she says to Dr. Wilson. “Is there hope?”

“I don’t know.”

Helena rushes to an empty chair and lifts it off the ground, Jee-woon and Slade realizing what she’s doing a half second too late, both men launching from their seats to stop her.

She brings the chair back over her shoulder and hurls it at the one-way window.

But it never reaches the glass.





BARRY





November 6, 2018

His eyes open, but he sees nothing. His sense of time is gone. Years could have passed. Or seconds. He blinks, but nothing changes. He wonders, Am I dead? Draws in a breath, his chest expanding, then lets it out. When he lifts his arm, he hears water moving and feels something sliding down the surface of his skin.