Extracted - Chapter 18 – Can I Ask You A Question – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 18 – Can I Ask You A Question – Part 2 of 2

 

As soon as everyone had concluded their lunch, the experts asked for Congressman Stiller’s daughter first, just so that the congressman and his family could get out of there as soon as possible.  When Nancy went into the room, both the congressman and his wife tried to go in with her.  All three men were quick to stop them.  So did Agent Rosenberg who was already in the room.

“You’re not going to allow us to be there?” Mike Stiller protested.  “Nancy is only twelve!  That’s illegal!”

“Congressman Stiller,” Curmett replied.  “Illegal or not has nothing to do with this.  National security trumps everything!  We were tasked by the president to determine if this situation could possibly pose any kind of threat at all to our nation’s security.  That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.  Don’t worry, we’re not going to browbeat those children or harm them in any way at all.  We just want to talk to them…as thoroughly as we possibly can.  And I mean thoroughly!  As we see it, those two children are the key to everything.  They’re the only ones who can unlock what we need to know.”

“Besides,” Doctor Blake told him, “Agent Rosenberg here will be sitting in on the entire process to make sure your daughter remains just fine.”

The three government men didn’t seem to be backing down, despite Mike trying to throw his congressional weight around.  It seemed the president of the United States had more weight than he did.  Nancy was soon sequestered with the three men, with Rosenberg sitting nearby to observe.

“Hi Nancy,” Curmett said to the young girl.  “I’m sorry this is taking so long, and I fear your portion is going to take even longer.  Most likely much longer.”

“We’ve got your school records,” Doctor Blake told her, “and we want to do some additional testing to see how much your school memory may have been affected.”

“But first…” Holfstrom said, “we’d like you to tell us everything you can remember, right from before you were abducted.”

“What I remember of being kidnapped?” Stephen inside of Nancy’s body replied.  “Nothing.  Not one little thing.  I went to bed in my own body…in Philadelphia!  And I woke up in this body, in a hospital in New York.  And I haven’t got the first clue how I got there, not to mention I’d really like to know how I can get back to my own body where I belong.”

“We’d like to see that too,” Holfstrom told him.  “Very much.  We just haven’t figured out how yet.”

“You said you were a physicist from MIT.  That means you’ve got to be really smart.  Figure something out!”

“I’m trying,” Holfstrom told him.  “Believe me, I’m trying.”

Curmett knew he had to move the girl along.  “Okay Nancy.  Tell me about waking up in the hospital.  What do you remember?”

Little by little, Nancy told them every tiny thing she could piece together from her time in the hospital.  Her constant dizziness.  Her confusion over who she was as her brain seemed to go back and forth between the two identities, and finally the dizziness subsiding as she was only Stephen, and not able to remember anything at all about being Nancy, other than a few brief glimpses of memories that had happened inside her hospital room.  Nothing more of Nancy was in her head at all.

The experts tried hard to probe into that, attempting to help her remember anything at all about being Nancy, but nothing they could think to try did any good at all.  As far as any of them could conclude, for all intents and purposes, Nancy simply wasn’t in the little girl’s head, but they had no doubts at all that Steven certainly seemed to be.  They had already listened to the testimony from everyone else telling them that Nancy was somehow Stephen and that Stephen was somehow Nancy, but now talking directly with Nancy and hearing her answers for themselves had them all quite disturbed.

After that, all three experts came up with questions for Nancy based on her school records, that they all figured she should know.  There were a few mistakes on minor things, but overall, it appeared they were dealing with someone far above the seventh grade level, including a semi-easy calculus problem that Holfstrom asked him to write out and solve.  Stephen inside of Nancy’s head had no problem solving it after taking pre-calculus in high school the year before.  Besides, he loved math, and he told them so.

Two hours later, Stephen walked out of the room and everyone took a break.  Then it was Stephen’s turn.  Stephen, who was actually twelve year old Nancy.  Instead of Rosenberg watching, this time Detective Nolan sat in on the proceedings.

After introducing themselves, Doctor Blake immediately asked, “What can you tell us about football?”

“I hate it!” Stephen told them firmly.  “It’s the stupidest game on the planet.”

Just that much alone told all three of them that they were dealing with a younger mind here.  As they had been doing all day, they led Stephen through a world of questions, picking apart his answers to get more detail, and prying into things that Stephen either had no clue about since they were questions that only the real Stephen would know, or giving them a wealth of information about things that he knew all about since they involved his prior life as Nancy.

When the school questions came, there were simply too many that Stephen couldn’t answer, especially the math questions.  Overall, Blake was guessing that they were dealing with a pre-high school kid here.  She was obviously bright, just not on a senior high school level.  Not even close.

Stephen walked out in a daze, and his entire family could only sympathize.

As they were walking toward the front of the resort on their way back to their rooms, they ran into the Stiller family who were all just leaving to go home.

“Wait!” Stephen called.  He started running.  He hugged his real father.  He hugged his real mother.  He hugged much longer his sister Emily.  And then he looked into Nancy’s eyes.  There were things he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

“Yeah,” Nancy finally said.  “I know.”

Nancy in Stephen’s big body, wrapped his arms around Nancy’s little body, and gave her a hug.  “I guess you’re my sister too,” he said.

“And your brother,” Nancy added.

Stephen laughed.  “Yeah.  I never had a brother before, even if it’s myself.

Nancy laughed, and the two of them separated.  Nancy started to get in the car when a thought hit her.  “Oh my God!” she screamed.  She turned quickly to look back at Stephen.  “Could it be that easy?” she asked.

“What?” Stephen replied.

“How to get us back in our own bodies.”

“How?” Stephen asked.

Nancy hurried up to the large boy and said.  “Hug me.  Just hug me tight.  Maybe something in our bodies will recognize our true selves and we’ll somehow switch back again.”

Stephen stared at her for only a moment, then reached out and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her so tightly that he picked her up and stood up straight.  Nancy, her legs dangling in the air, hugged him as tight as she could.

“I don’t feel anything happening,” Stephen told her.

“Me either.  Just keep trying.  Maybe think about wanting to be back in my body.  Try to picture your spirit moving from you into me.”

Stephen tried to do just that, squeezing Nancy so tightly he was in danger of seriously hurting her.  “I still don’t feel anything,” he said after a while.

“Me either,” Nancy said.  “Put me down, you’re killing me.  I can’t breathe.”

“Oh.  Sorry,” Stephen apologized.

“Wow, I’m strong,” Nancy said as she rubbed her sore breasts.

“You mean I’m strong,” Stephen corrected her.

“Yeah, and I’m…”  She didn’t finish.

“Me,” Stephen finally said.

Nancy hugged him quickly, then turned and hurried into the car.

“Nice try Nance,” her mother said.  “Really, nice try.”

 

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Curmett, Holfstrom, and Blake worked separately in their rooms for hours, pouring over their findings from all the interviews.  They would each spend a few more hours separately, then meet several times before taking their conclusions to the president.  That night though, they sat together in the back corner of the bar, quietly discussing their individual thoughts with each other before Curmett brought out Doctor Isabella Montcliff’s paper.  Over glasses of whiskey, they all read it.  When they were finished, Curmett looked at his two colleagues for their reaction.

“Damn!” Holfstrom said.  “She thought of a few things that I didn’t.”

“Me too,” Blake agreed.

“What scares me,” Curmett said, “is that she put all this together so easily, and it closely mirrors my thoughts on the subject.”

“Mine too,” Holfstrom admitted.

“This is just frightening,” Blake told them, “because I’m thinking along the same lines.  I just haven’t reached as many conclusions as you two…or I guess her.  I’ve been concentrating as hard as I can on the medical angle.  Just thinking about what it might involve to accomplish such a thing is…overwhelming, not to mention absolutely frightening.  Who could possibly do something like this?”

Curmett shrugged.  “The Chinese.  Russia.  Libia perhaps.  India.  North Koria.  Who knows.  With technology the way it is around the world, it could be anyone.”

“I personally don’t think that activist group is involved,” Holfstrom noted.

“The Planetary Eco Alliance?” Curmett said.  “Me either.  I’m sure it would take the resources of a major government or perhaps a large corporation to accomplish such a thing.”

“Have you heard of anyone working on anything like this?” Blake asked.

“Not exactly like this, but Russia and China are of course working on other mind expanding capabilities.  I’m sure we are too.”

“Could it be one of our corporations then?”

Curmett shrugged.  “Maybe, but it’s doubtful.  Believe it or not, we know more about what’s going on inside even the most secure facilities than most people would realize.  We have to know.  Again, national security is at stake.”

“What do we do?” Blake asked.

Curmett shrugged.  “Just what we planned to do.  We each work on our own thesis, then we meet and come up with our combined recommendation and present it to the president.”

“And where does that leave the kids?” Blake asked.

Curmett looked at him, then said, “In New York and Philadelphia.”

 

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That night, Emily was getting ready for bed when she heard the most frightening, horrendous sounds.  She rushed from her room and realized they were coming from Nancy’s room across the hall.  Inside, she saw Nancy kneeling on her bed, growling and yelling like a raving monster, while she pounded as hard as she could on her pillows with both fists.  Afraid to even enter the room, she ran as fast as she could for her parents’ room.

“Mom, Dad, come quick!  There’s something wrong with Nancy!”

Running quickly back to Nancy’s room, Mike and Wanda looked in to see the raging, growling Nancy still attacking her pillow with every bit of dire strength she had.

Mike put his arms out to keep his wife and older daughter from coming into the room.  “Nancy!” he yelled.  “What’s wrong?”  He nearly died when he saw her turn her head and look at him, her eyes…her entire face appeared to be raging.  Instead of saying anything, she let out a terrifying roar and went back to pounding the pillows on her bed.

“Stay back,” Mike said to Wanda and Emily.  Slowly and carefully, he approached Nancy who was still in such a rage.  “Nancy!” he said firmly, but calmly.  “Nancy.  Stop and at least tell me what’s going on.”

“I hate this!” Nancy screamed.  “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!”

“You hate what?” Mike asked, trying to take a step closer.

Nancy looked over at him, the rage still in her eyes, along with a wealth of tears.  “I’m not a little girl!  I’m a guy!   A big, strong, guy.”

“We know, Nancy,” Mike told her as calmly as possible.  “Can I sit on the bed with you?”

Crying now, Nancy nodded and turned sideways.  Carefully, Mike sat down beside her.  He was aware of Wanda and Emily coming closer, but not too close.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked softly.

“I’m not a girl,” Nancy repeated.  “I’m especially not a little girl.  I don’t know how to be a girl, and I don’t want to be.  I just want to be me again.  Me.  The real me.  A guy.  That’s what I know.  That’s all I know.  But what am I supposed to do?”

“We don’t know,” Mike said.  “None of us do.  But we’re trying to be as understanding as we can.  None of us can even imagine what you’ve got to be going through.”

Nancy nodded and wiped her running nose with her hand.  “It’s hard,” she admitted.

“I’m sure it must be,” Mike agreed softly.

“I had everything,” Nancy lamented.  “Now I don’t.”

“Everything?” Mike asked.

“Everything!  I had a car.  I had a girlfriend.  I had money.  I had all the friends in the world.  Everyone at school not only liked me, they respected me because I was such a good football player and so smart in all my classes.  Everything!  Now…what have I got?  Confusion, weak muscles and…”  She didn’t know how to finish, then looked over toward the shelf and said, “Stuffed animals.”

“Nance,” Mike said.  “We’ve got money.  We’re not poor by any means.  The rest is all things you can get again.”

“Not the body I had.  Not all my friends.”

“Not those friends, no.  But other friends.  New friends.”

“How?  Everyone is going to expect me to be a girl, and I’m not.”

“Not in your mind,” Mike told her.  “But maybe with a bit of work, you can fix that.”

“I don’t want to be a girl!” Nancy shouted and pounded the bed next to her for emphasis.

“We know, but maybe you can work towards some kind of happy medium or something.”

Nancy rolled her eyes and flopped backwards on the bed.  “It’s impossible,” she muttered.

“Who knows,” Mike replied.  “I’m sure it’s going to take some effort on your part, and probably some time.”

“A lot of time!” Nancy added.

“A lot of time,” Mike agreed.  “But I have no doubt that with that time, you’ll get there and hopefully, someday, be happy.”

“You’re talking like I’m going to be stuck this way forever.”

It was a moment before Mike could answer.  “Nancy, if we don’t find a cure…  If we don’t figure out how it happened in the first place, then we may have to face facts, you’re stuck with it.  Which means that we’re stuck with it too.”

“You mean stuck with me.”

“Yes.  You can say that.  But there’s no reason for you to be so negative about it.”

“Ugh!” Nancy grunted angrily.  A moment later she sat up next to him again.  “I really thought that hug thing today would work, but all I did was to make a fool of myself.”

Mike was surprised to hear her say that.  “Nancy, you came up with the first idea to try to get you two back together that I’ve seen yet.  And in my opinion, it was an absolutely great idea.  Who knew, maybe it might have worked.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No.  But still, it was the first and only idea we’ve seen so far.  That’s better than anyone else has thought of.”

Nancy rolled her eyes again.  “True!”  She flopped back on the bed again.  “What am I going to do?”

“We’re working on it Nance,” Mike told her.  “I promise you, we’re working on it.”