Chapter 19. Insertion
When we got back to the lab the next morning, even though we had carefully spent most of the intervening time apart, we were like one person with two bodies. It's a good thing Nick had warned us so sternly about having sex, because it would have been so totally natural that otherwise I really think it actually could have happened.
Eating was interesting too. We had purposely taken things for dinner that the other one didn't like: I ordered calves' liver with bacon and onions, and Shep got red flannel hash. And sure enough, we could decide whose taste buds we were going to eat it with. I let him enjoy the liver, and he showed me how nasty it was. He showed me how to like the hash, and he let me show him how disgusting it was.
Everything was like that. We took turns shaving and showering and brushing our teeth, so that we could find out from inside what it felt like to be the other one. Even when we were asleep, I'm pretty sure I got in on some of Shep's dreams. When I dream of flying, I generally take off from the ground rather than jumping off something high.
We also just knew who was going to open the door or go through it first. There wasn't any of the awkwardness that you usually take into account so automatically that you don't even notice it, only we did now because it wasn't there.
Also, somehow the linking had done away with my apprehension about the insertion, because Shep saw it as this huge adventure and scoffed at my qualms. He was the one who asked the big question, though, based on my dad's theory.
"Nick," he said. "We've been thinking, and our folks were wondering. If something happens to these people we're—whose brains we're inserted into, like if they're in an auto accident, or somebody shoots them, what happens to us? If they die?"
"You don't have to worry," he answered, "because if anything—fatal should happen—if they're in a car crash, for instance, all we have to do is back up a little and pull you out before it happens." Aha, I thought to Shep. So what you told Aunt Jean is actually true. But—
"Suppose something bad happens while they're in the TSA, their TSA?" I asked. That was totally my inspiration and I got an internal pat on the back from Shep for thinking of it.
"Good question." Nick apparently agreed with Shep. "But oddly enough, bad things don't seem to happen to people in the TSA. You enter it, you come back, and no observable time has elapsed. We don't think you can do anything in the TSA that would adversely affect the you that goes back into the real world."
"But you can do things that have a positive effect!" I exclaimed. "You cured us. How does that work—how come we weren't back the way we had been when you reinserted us?"
"Good question," said Nick again. "I don't know." We were all silent for a moment.
"But wait," asked Shep. "Bad things can happen. What about having sex, here in the TSA? You said someone could die."
"Another good question," smiled Nick. "Maybe you should join our brainstorming sessions. Anyway, when the, the event in question transpired, the team in the lab knew that something was going wrong, and since unlinking is a delicate procedure that can't be done in an instant, the team didn't know what to do and in desperation simply transferred them back to the real world for about three seconds and then returned them to the TSA. And that was apparently enough to turn off the feedback loop.
"Which means that we don't know what would have happened if they hadn't been in the lab, under supervision. And we don't want to risk finding out.
"As far as we know, it's not possible to go back in time inside the TSA to before something bad happened—the TSA is outside time. You can return to the TSA the moment after you leave it, but you can't return to it before you've left it. If you go back to the real world to a time earlier than the time you entered the TSA—which we don't do as a rule because of the problems inherent in there being two of yourself in the world at the same time—you still can't enter the TSA from that time at a time within the TSA prior to the time you left it. There can't be two of you in the TSA. Is that clear at all?"
It was, actually, and we nodded.
"So you don't have to worry about your bodies, which you're leaving behind here in the TSA," he went on. "They'll just lie here on the gurneys for a minute or two, which is all the time that will have passed here, until you get back from World A."
"How will you know when to bring us back?" asked Shep. "If entering and leaving their TSA are essentially simultaneous to someone observing from this TSA—If entering and leaving TSA A, I mean, look simultaneous to you guys, watching from this TSA, how will you know when we've gone in and gotten the orders on how to murder Kirk A?"
"Yet another clever question," smiled Nick. "And the answer is, to us observing from our TSA, there is no way to tell whether a departure to and a return from the—that TSA have occurred. So we're going to insert you on the morning of the day that Kirk A died—he died that night, we'll put you in that morning. And we'll take you out twenty-four hours later. Then either you will have gone to the TSA and gotten your orders, or you will have killed Kirk A. And either way, you'll know how it's done."
"Killed Kirk A?" I objected. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."
"I misspoke," said Nick. "When I said 'you,' of course I meant the people you'll be hitchhiking along with. You won't have killed him, Yancy and Yarnall will have killed him. You will be there purely as spies, observers. You couldn't influence events even if you tried, remember. And afterward we will be—we hope we will be able to go back in at an earlier time and make it undone. Thanks to your help."
"They won't know we're there?" asked Shep.
"They won't have any idea," Nick assured us. "You will be locked in an invisible one-way bubble inside their minds, as it were. You'll be able to see through their eyes and listen to their thoughts, and you'll be able to communicate with each other, but you won't be able to communicate with them or control their bodies or make your presence known in any way, even if you should want to."
"These guys, Yancy and Yarnall, they're twins, right?" asked Shep.
"Yes, fraternal twins. Yancy is nine minutes older, so we're putting Mitch into Yancy."
"Okay." Shep looked at me. "Let's do it."
"Right," said Nick. "We're inserting you early in the morning, before they wake up, so you'll have time to orientate yourselves and settle in." He said "orientate," Shep said to me. Yeah, he's kind of part British, I reminded him. Meanwhile Nick quickly prepared two syringes. "Now lie down comfortably, and I'll see you again in approximately twenty-four subjective."