Extracted - Chapter 23 – Psst! I Can’t Tell You This – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 23 – Psst!  I Can’t Tell You This – Part 2 of 2

 

Christopher Faucet rang the front doorbell to Judith Rameriz’s home without calling first to tell her he was coming.  It was a few minutes before the door was answered, and Faucet had to push the button a second time.  Eventually though, Judith appeared.

“Chris!” she said.  “What brings you out tonight?”

“May I come in?” Chris Faucet asked.

“Sure,” Judith told him as she held the door for him.  “Drink?” she asked as soon as he was inside.

“Maybe that would be good,” Christpher told her.

“Chris!”

Faucet turned and saw Ben walking toward him.  “Ben.  You’re here too?”

“I’m often here,” Ben told him.  “What can we do for you?”

“What poison do you prefer tonight?” Judith asked.

“Whiskey,” Faucet told her.  A minute later, he took a much needed sip of the drink.

“Is something wrong?” Judith asked him.

“I don’t know,” Faucet replied.

“Then what brings you out?” Ben asked.

“After our…discussion last night,” Faucet began, “I had the strangest thought hit me today.”

“Oh?” Ben said, suddenly very interested.  “Some additional theory I hope.”

“Nothing like that…I think,” Faucet replied.  “Although it very well might be something for future discussion with the group.  I’m really not sure though.”

“What is it?” Judith asked, also curious about it.

“Please don’t get offended,” Faucet said, “but I need to ask you if you’ve ever used your water processer down there, on anyone other than your friend Hector.”

Judith and Ben were both surprised.  “Used…” Judith started.  “What makes you ask?”

Faucet shook his head.  “I just had the strangest thought today, that’s all.”

“And what’s that?” Ben asked.

“What would happen if you…let’s say extracted a human soul with your machine, and then instead of putting it back into the same person, put it into someone else?”

Judith looked to Ben before answering.  “Put it into someone else?”

“Yes.  What might happen?”

Ben shook his head.  “I don’t have any idea.  You Judith?”

“No.  Although I wish I did.  What made you think of it?”

“Something…weird.”

“Weird?” Ben asked.  “We’re talking about working with human souls that are neither matter nor energy but something else.  How much weirder can it get?”

“A lot I’m afraid, but then the human psyche can come up with the strangest things sometimes.”

“Something you’ve come across?” Judith asked.

“Kind of,” Faucet agreed.  “I had a patient once.  Actually, I saw him one whole time, although I sort of saw his mother twice.  The patient however was a teenage boy named Stephen who had a multiple personality disorder that was, well, somewhat unique.”

“In what way?” Ben asked.

“This boy, a teenager in high school, somehow got it into his head that he was actually a young girl named Nancy from New York.”

Ben and Judith looked at each other, then back at Faucet.  “It does sound a bit off the wall,” Ben agreed carefully.  “But what does that have to do with Hector?”

“Nothing,” Faucet admitted.  “But I haven’t gotten to the strange part yet.  After seeing the patient that one time, a few days later I had an FBI agent practically push her way into my office demanding to see me, and she wanted to know all about the boy’s multi personality diagnosis, but then she asked me if I was aware that there was a girl somewhere up in New York who believed she was a boy named Stephen from Philadelphia,  with the exact same first and last name of my patient.”

Ben and Judith looked at him with their eyes practically bulging out of their heads.

Very tentatively, Ben asked.  “And…was there a connection between them?”

“Who knows,” Faucet admitted.  “It really is way too fantastic to believe such a thing would be possible.  It’s just that, after you told me everything last night, I couldn’t help but think, what if your machine could have been used to do that to the two people involved.  Switch their souls into each other.”  Faucet waited for an answer, but both Judith and Ben were doing nothing but staring at him.

Ben stood up and paced back and forth before turning to Judith.  “Stephen thought he was Nancy and Nancy thought she was Stephen.”

“That’s what he seemed to be saying,” Judith agreed.  “If so…”

“Yes,” Ben replied.  “That would mean that somehow the memories and identity had to have been transferred to at least some extent.”  He turned to Faucet.  “Doctor, did either of the kids have any knowledge of their true selves?”

Faucet was surprised by the question.  “I only saw the boy, and only once, but he claimed to have no knowledge of his real identity at all.”

“How amazing!” Judith said to Ben.  “The underlying personality was somehow completely overwritten.”

“Could be,” Ben agreed.  “But how?”

“I’ve got no clue,” Judith told him.  “But still, weren’t we wondering if something like that, or even similar might happen?  Confusion at the least?”

“Something like that,” Ben agreed.

Faucet listened to them carefully.  “You’ve thought about this before,” he realized.  “The group just never mentioned it while I was here.  You’ve all moved on to other issues instead.”

Judith and Ben just turned to look at him, somewhat annoyed, then they looked back at each other.

“I wonder how complete the switch turned out to be,” Ben said to her.

“I’m wondering if it’s going to be permanent,” Judith told him.

“Another good question.”

“But how can we find out?” Judith asked.  “We were never able to find anything on it before.  Nothing.”

“No.  That’s always been the problem.  We never knew.”

Faucet was getting confused.  “You both talk like you’ve got more knowledge about this than you were letting on.”  And then it hit him and he had no choice but to ask.  “Did you do that to someone?  Did you actually try that on someone?  Although I guess it would have to be two someones in order to swap their souls around.”

Judith stood up and headed for the drink table.  She reached out and grabbed Faucet’s glass from his hand.  “I need a refresher,” she told him, not asking if he wanted one.  Ben followed her to the drink table and helped her pour fresh drinks for everyone.  Chris could do nothing but watch them, and wait.  Two minutes later, Ben and Judith came back and Judith handed the fresh whiskey to Faucet.  She took a seat, but Ben continued to stand.

Judith took a large sip of her own drink then looked up at Chris.  “My son Joshua was arrested not long ago.  He was convicted and sentenced to fifty years in prison for murdering someone he didn’t murder.  “Our local District Attorney…”

“Marsh,” Ben supplied.

Judith nodded.  “He made a major campaign issue over it to get himself reelected to his position.  There was just one major problem with it all.  Despite Josh getting convicted, Marsh somehow managed to do it without having one shred of credible evidence against him.  And no amount of pleading or anything else was able to sway him from his course.  I was proud of my son, Doctor Faucet.  Very proud.  I still am.  He was one of the founding members of the Planetary Eco Alliance group.  He dedicated his life to doing good for this planet.  My own efforts towards that goal centered around clean water for everyone.  Josh simply had bolder aspirations than I ever did.  Whether you care about this planet or not, it needs our help.  Josh was simply trying to get that point across.  But instead, they arrested him for someone’s murder instead of looking a bit further to figure out who really did it.”

Chris had been a psychiatrist long enough to know when to not say anything and just listen.  This was Judith’s story, and it seemed she was going to take the long way around to get to the facts that he was interested in.

“As you can imagine,” Judith continued.  “I was…angry, to say the least.”

“Furious would be more like it,” Ben suggested.

“Yes.  That too.  Marsh had deprived me of my son who I love very much.  Marsh stuck him in prison where I have to go through the worst proceedings in the world just to talk to him, and I can’t even touch him anymore.  He’s there…but he’s not here.  Marsh, illegally took my son away from me.  Nobody I complained to about it though would listen.”  She paused for a break and several sips of her drink, then said softly, “So I decided to get some revenge.”

Faucet was shocked.  Revenge?  Suddenly, he could see where this was going.

“We had no idea what would happen of course,” Judith told him.  “Not a clue.”

“In fact,” Ben added, “we thought that the most likely result would be that nothing would happen at all.  And afterwards, that’s exactly what we thought had occurred.  Nothing!”

“But now you’re here telling us that the most drastic result possible occurred,” Judith continued.  “More drastic possibly than even death.  Although…I’m not so sure about that.”  She looked up at Ben.  “If both personalities are still there, except in the wrong person, then at least they’re there and available.  Not simply gone forever.”

“True,” Ben conceded.  “We simply never found a way to discover if anything happened with them or not.”

“It hasn’t been that long since we did it,” Judith reminded him.  “Only a few weeks.”

“Yes.  Really, not much time at all.  And it’s so short that who knows what will happen to those kids in the future.  It’s possible that their own personalities could reemerge somehow and reassert themselves.  Possibly pushing out the overlayed personality.  We simply don’t know.”

“But how were the original personalities wiped out in the first place?” Judith countered.  “How?”

Ben shook his head.  “The soul.  And as we’ve discussed time and time again, souls possess memory.  In this case, perhaps more memory than we realized.”

“And, it sounds like the souls could be stronger than we ever thought as well,” Judith added.  “It did sound like they each dropped their respective memories into the new host.”

“I wonder,” Ben said, considering that.

“What?” Judith asked.

“I wonder…” Ben said again.  “If…maybe…”  He looked straight at Judith.  “Could it be possible for the soul to possess the entire record of someone’s identity?”

Judith considered that, then said.  “Who knows.  We don’t know how complete the overwritten memories actually were or what holes and gaps existed.  Without a chance to fully study those kids, we really don’t know anything at all.”  She turned quickly to Faucet.  “Is there any chance at all that we can at least talk with your patient?  It could lead to…who knows what kind of discoveries about the human soul.”

Faucet had been listening to them both in disbelief.  They had actually done it.  They had actually used their water process to remove two souls, and then swap them around.  And now they were wanting…what?  They wanted him to continue the horrible act that they started.  He shook his head.  “I only saw the patient once, and that’s all.  When the FBI agent came into my office to ask if I knew about the other patient, the girl, the family decided to drop me as the boy’s therapist.  I’ve been…cut out of it.”  Another thought hit him.  “Um…a few days ago however…”

“Yes?” Ben asked.

“I got a visit in my office from someone who claimed to be the president’s National Security Advisor.  Mr. Kermit or something.  I don’t remember.  He had two other men with him, the MIT Physicist I mentioned at the meeting and a doctor who specialized in neurology.  All three of them demanded to know all about that patient and my diagnosis.  They even had a court order to make sure they got it.  But all I could tell them was that I was very certain that the only correct diagnosis for the boy’s case was some form of multi personality disorder.  Of course, tonight, you’re telling me how wrong I was.”

Ben shrugged.  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said.  “We don’t know if the soul simply covered up the old personality so that it can reemerge in the future, or if it wiped the slate clean, so to speak.”

“All I can tell you,” Faucet said, “Is that I no longer have access to that patient.  And I never had access to the girl.  What made you choose them anyway?”

Judith shrugged.  “Revenge,” Judith reminded him.  “We told you that.  Marsh fixed it so that my son is there, but he’s not really there, and I decided to try to do the same.  And it sounds like it worked out better than I imagined.  Marsh’s son is there, but at the same time, he’s not there.  He’s someone else…like my Josh.”

“But what about the girl?” Faucet asked.  “What about her?”

“We looked at it as another small act of revenge,” Ben told him.  “Congressman Stiller was a total ass because he thought our water treatment system was bad for the planet and did everything possible to keep it from being accepted.  It wasn’t until we had to pay for expert after expert to test it and give their opinions before he finally backed off.  Since then, we’ve proven positively, time and time again, how good our system is.”

“And the next generation of it that we’re developing now will be even better,” Judith told him.  “In fact, we’re building it so that it will work from solar power alone.  We may even package the solar panels with it.  Imagine how something like that would be for some of those God forsake places that lack clean water.”

Faucet didn’t really care about the water treatment thing.  He only cared about the machine down in the basement that had the capability of removing someone’s very soul, and putting it into someone else!  “So you considered it an act of revenge against the congressman too, just because he raised a few concerns about your process.”

“It was more than just a few concerns,” Ben pointed out.  “A lot more!”

Faucet didn’t know and didn’t care.  “But in the end, it was revenge against both of them.”

“Except, we didn’t really believe or even know if switching their souls would have any effect at all,” Judith said softly.  She looked up at Ben.  “I’m not sorry,” she said boldly.  “Not one bit.”

“Huh!” Ben agreed.  “Neither am I.  That system was our life’s work.  For all of us!”

“And Marsh convicted my son, when he was innocent!” Judith added.

Ben looked to Faucet.  “That’s the story.  Now what are you going to do with it?”

Faucet’s head was spinning a bit.  He briefly thought about it, then replied, “I don’t know yet.  I really don’t know.”