“I don’t see why not,” replied Emma.
Another swiped door opened and Emma found herself in a much less clinical environment than Pablo’s strange world. A slender, blonde girl looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at them.
“Sonia, I’d like you to meet Emma,” said Fred. “She joined us last night.”
Emma put out her hand to greet Sonia, but just before they touched she was suddenly aware that the word ‘baby’ had entered her mind, although it was really more like the word in capital letters, as if it was being shouted in an e-mail. Sonia was looking down at her bump and smiling.
“Gosh, that was you, was it?” asked Emma.
“YES!” came the reply inside her head.
“I can see that you’ve hit it off,” said Fred. “You’re obviously very receptive to Sonia’s psi energy which isn’t surprising given your empathic abilities. When Sonia first started here, psi release needed extreme cold or heat to trigger it, but now she can will it in a normal, non-stressful situation. However, it’s still limited to single words which people usually experience as more of a feeling than real speech. I’m sure she’d enjoy spending more time with you.”
The message “LIKE!” inside her head confirmed that. Sonia and Emma exchanged smiles and shook hands although the latter etiquette clearly wasn’t necessary.
“I can’t wait to see what you’ve got in the next room, Fred,” said Emma.
“Actually, it’s your turn, Emma,” said Fred. “And I’d like you to meet someone who’s particularly interested in your ability.” He swiped the door to another room.
“This is our eye lab and the wizard in charge is Dr Petros Kyriakides. He’ll explain all this equipment and the tests he has in mind.”
A handsome bearded man came across the lab to greet them, holding out his hands as if to crush them in a bear hug. He kissed Fred on the lips before turning to shake hands with Emma.
“So, is this the amazing Dr Jones my husband has told me so much about?”
“Husband?” asked Emma, surprised and amused by the unlikely pairing.
“Er, yes,” said Fred, going rather red. “Petros and I had our civil partnership ceremony a few months ago. I’ve told him to be more discrete but you know what Greek men are like.”
Dr Kyriakides laughed.
“I think I’m going to like your husband,” said Emma.
“Excellent, excellent,” said Dr Kyriakides. “Fred, I suggest you go off to do some paperwork or whatever MI5 officers get up to when they’re not disturbing beautiful ladies in the middle of the night.”
“Okay, dearest, I’ll be back in an hour,” said Fred. “Take good care of Emma; she’s a special lady.” He left the room.
“Now, Emma, let me explain the equipment we have here,” said Petros. Over here we’ve got the Ocular Coherence Tomograph which generates a 3D image of the macula, which is the central part of the retina. Next to it, there’s the Heidelberg Retinal Tomograph which uses a laser to scan the posterior segment of the eye and is particular useful for examining the optic nerve. Finally, there’s a high resolution camera for intraocular angiography so that we can get a detailed picture of retinal blood flow.”
“It sounds as if you’re expecting to find something unusual,” said Emma.
“Possibly,” said Petros. “I certainly have some ideas about your ability which I’d like to explore. And I’ll need to give you a small injection of fluorescein so that we can do the angiography.”
“That’s the dye, isn’t it?” said Emma.
“Yes, it’s completely harmless but fluoresces in response to particular wavelengths,” said Petros. “First, I need to take some images of your fundus. If you could sit on this stool and put your chin on the rest, I’ll start the camera.”
Emma put her chin in place and stared straight ahead into the camera. She was aware of various noises and things moving in front of her.
“That’s curious,” said Petros. “Without the dye, we wouldn’t normally expect to pick up any signals apart from a bit of autofluorescence, but in your case, the camera is picking up a bright spot right in the centre of your retina at a wavelength of about 200 nanometres, which is outside the normal visible range. It’s almost as if you’ve got a solid-state laser in the centre of your retina. Let’s try adding the dye.”
Petros inserted a butterfly needle into the back of Emma’s left hand and injected a small amount of the fluorescein.
“Okay, now I’ll take a few more images,” he said.
Emma saw flashes of blue light.
“Well, as expected, I’m seeing the dye fluorescing at 490 nanometres, but I’m still seeing the 200 nanometres spot and if anything it’s even more intense. And the image I’m getting of the blood vessels isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before,” said Petros. “Let’s move over to the OCT machine.”
As before, Emma put her chin on a rest and stared into the machine looking at a small green square. Petros examined each eye in turn. Once he’d completed the scans, he turned a monitor screen so that Emma could see the results.
“There’s clearly nothing wrong with your eyes in any traditional diagnostic sense, so no signs of macular degeneration or anything like that,” Petros said. On the contrary, what the OCT is picking up is markedly enhanced blood flow to some structure in the centre of your retina where cones would normally be found.”
At that point, Fred returned. “Have you found anything?”
“Yes, it’s been most, er, illuminating,” said Petros animatedly. “Emma has an anatomical structure in the centre of her retina that’s actually generating a wavelength just outside the visible spectrum. It’s really quite extraordinary. The nearest thing the structure resembles is the photophore found in marine animals like some cephalopods, but to find such a thing in a mammal is quite unbelievable.”
“So, Petros, do you think this is the explanation for the evil eye?” asked Emma.
“I think you’ve hit the nail on the head”, said Petros.
Emma and Fred left Petros to ponder the results of the tests and walked back down the corridor to the stairs.
“Fred, one thing I don’t understand is why the people watching me didn’t intervene when I was younger, as in the case of Pablo and Sonia, for instance?” asked Emma.
“Well, it’s generally our policy to let abilities develop without interference unless there’s some critical event, which was the case with both Pablo and Sonia. In retrospect, we probably should have intervened following your near miss on the top of the multi-storey car park, but that could have deflected you from your career in medicine and the development of your empathic skills. We could also have intervened following the death of the vicar or after the incident in the classroom, but you’d have just ended up a Pablo or a Sonia with a single, unusual ability and under MI5's microscope for the rest of your life. For reasons we don’t fully comprehend, there’s a synergism between your genetically-defined ocular ability and your personality-driven empathic skills and that’s not something we’ve ever seen before. But now it’s time for lunch, which I think you’ve well deserved.”
August 2005, two days later
Emma and Fred were sitting at the breakfast bar in her kitchen. She was relieved to be home despite the concerns voiced by Professor Cuthbertson that she might be kidnapped. Before leaving The Manor, there’d been another video conference and Jemma and Tim had invited her to stay when she had a free weekend. It was agreed that Fred would stay with her in the house and basically be her bodyguard until things settled down. All the locks had been changed and a hi-tech alarm system installed.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, Fred, but what happened to Tony?”
“No, that’s okay. He was pretty high maintenance, really. I loved him but he was still more in love with Michael than me. But I could live with that. Unfortunately, he developed acute myeloid leukaemia and died whilst he was having chemo.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Fred,” said Emma. “Were you working for MI5 back then?”
“No, it was after his death that I signed up with MI5,” explained Fred. “I’d been in the Territorial Army and had a PhD in physics plus language skills, so the transition wasn’t difficult.”
“And you met Petros on the job, so to speak?” asked Emma.
“Yes, love at first sight,” said Fred. “I’ve always had a soft spot for hairy Greeks.”
They both laughed.
“Actually, the two days in The Manor was a real eye-opener for me, and particularly when Petros went through the results from the scans,” said Emma.
“I thought you’d find it helpful,” said Fred, “but you ought to know that MI5 will probably want you to sign the official secrets act and do some work for them from time to time.”
“I half expected that,” said Emma. “Just as long as it doesn’t interfere with my medical work. And speaking of which, I need to make some phone calls to my colleagues in the Foundation as they’re probably wondering where I’ve been the last few days.”
“Okay, but remember that walls have ears,” said Fred.
“You mean that someone could be listening?” asked Emma.
“Something like that,” said Fred.
Emma went next door into the sitting room where she had a desk that served as her home office. She thumbed through a rolodex for the phone numbers for Michael Moore and Janna Roit. She dialled the two numbers for a conference call. Both answered more or less immediately suggesting that they were probably waiting for her call.
“Hi, Michael, hi, Janna,” said Emma. “Sorry if I’ve been incommunicado for the last few days but I needed to recharge my batteries. What’s been happening in my absence?”
“Good to hear from you, Emma,” said Michael. “We were a bit worried that e-mails weren’t being answered. A couple of therapists have had cold feet and dropped out, so we’re down to just four now. We’ve got some office space sorted and there’s room to store the equipment. Janna’s had a reccy of the wards to identify some suitable candidates.”
“Hi, Emma,” said Janna. “I’ve concentrated on surgical and oncology wards so far. The medical and nursing teams have been briefed, so I don’t anticipate major problems. I’ve given them the start date of Monday, 5
September.”
“Excellent, Janna and Michael,” said Emma. “Let’s keep in touch by e-mail with updates, but otherwise I’ll see everyone in our office in two weeks’ time. Thanks for all your hard work.”
September 2005, two weeks later
Emma was finding the eighth month of pregnancy hard work and squeezing herself into a NHS lift at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday was only asking for trouble. Fred had wanted to come to the hospital with her but she’d persuaded him to take the day off for some retail therapy with Petros. Apart from one non-clinical member of staff who smiled at her, all the other occupants of the lift seemed to regard her condition with disdain, almost as if her healthy fecundity didn’t belong in an institution where illness was the norm.
Getting out of the lift like a pea being popped from its pod, she saw a temporary sign that read ‘OAE Pilot’. She found the office and was impressed by the amount of space they’d been allocated. Michael, Jim, Janna and the OAE therapists were already seated at the table and looked eager to get going.
“Morning, everyone,” said Emma easing herself into the only vacant chair.
“Gosh, you look ready to pop,” said Michael with his customary jocularity.
The other occupants laughed and looked sympathetically at her.
“Righto,” said Emma, “I suggest we pair up and allocate cases. So, who’ve we got today?”
By the end of the week, the OAE team had got into the swing of things with the therapists generally finding it possible to work unaided and simply letting the augmented empathy and neurobiofeedback work their magic. Fred had stopped by on a few occasions to check on security issues and Emma’s general well-being and seemed satisfied by what he found. When Emma arrived on the Friday, she discovered that one of the therapists had developed food poisoning overnight so she agreed to see a patient herself. The patient was an American called Robert in his 40s with pancreatic cancer. His wife was by his bedside most of the time and wanted to be present for the therapy.
Emma found him in a side room that was usually set aside for private patients. She glanced briefly through the window set in the door. Her patient to be was leaning back against the pillow and his face had the sallow look typical of terminal illness. From time to time a grimace of pain crossed his features. There was a wheelchair next to his bed which helped to define the extent of his disability. His wife appeared younger than him and was wearing a full-length coat. She was looking at him intently and holding his hands. A touching scene, Emma thought. She knocked on the door and went in.
“Good morning, I’m Dr Emma Jones,” she announced. “You must be Robert.” She went over to his bed and shook his hand. “And this must be your wife.”
“Hi, doctor, I’m Chantelle. We’re so grateful that you’ve come to see Robert as the pain is just eating him up.” She grasped his hands and smiled at him.
“Okay, Robert,” said Emma. “Let me explain what the therapy involves. What I’m going to do is look into your eyes and visualise the pain centres in your brain. Then I’m going to imagine cutting the activation of those areas and then project that instruction into your brain using my eyes. You won’t feel anything but it should ease the pain. Do you have any questions before I start?”
“No, doctor,” he whispered. “I’m ready.”
Emma arranged her chair so that she was directly opposite Robert and at the same level.
“Okay, Robert, eyes wide open, please.”
As Emma looked into Robert’s eyes she had a fleeting recognition of having seen his eyes before. Before this thought could be processed any further she was aware of something being held firmly against her nose and then she lapsed into unconsciousness.
“Well, that was almost too easy,” said Bob. He climbed out of bed and took off his dressing gown to reveal medical scrubs.
“Yes, like taking candy from a baby,” said his ‘wife’. She took off her coat to reveal a nurse’s uniform.
“Right, let’s get her in the wheelchair and out of here,” said Bob.