57
"OH, BEFORE I FORGET," Dempsey said. "I got this in the mail for you." He handed Paul a manila envelope, a question in his eyes. The envelope was from Roosevelt Medical Research Institute.
"Thanks. Just doing some neurological research." Paul tapped the side of his head, and Dempsey nodded understandingly. It wasn't entirely a he, Paul told himself.
With only five days before Vivien's arrival, Paul had only grudgingly taken time to have dinner with the Corrigans, and had explained he'd have to cut it short, get back to another late night of work—after talking with Vivien, he was more anxious than ever to finish the house and get the hell away. They'd eaten another of Elaine's excellent meals, and the Corrigans had insisted the three of them stay at the house when Lia returned with Mark. Paul had gratefully accepted the invitation.
Dempsey launched into one of his fascinating narratives, but Paul couldn't make himself focus on it. The letter from Stropes burned in his hand, and it occurred to him that he'd have no chance to read it later, at the carriage house, without Lia observing him. Willing the preoccupation from his face, he realized that for the first time in his life he was concealing things. Not a wise idea for a Touretter. You bottle up, you blow up, was the way Damon put it. But this couldn't wait, and he wasn't sure it was something he wanted Lia to know about. Not just yet.
After a few minutes, he excused himself, went to the bathroom, locked the door, and ripped open the envelope.
Dear Mr. Skoglund:
I received with interest your message concerning hyperkinesis and hyperdynamism. I am sorry I haven't had the time to return your call, but my free time during daylight hours has been very limited. Rather than disturb you with a late-night call, I am taking a few moments after hours to address your inquiry by mail.
By way of a disclaimer, I must tell you that my own field is the regulatory mechanisms of human autonomicfunctions, which bears only peripherally on HK/HD phenomena, and that while my interest is enthusiastic, I have not been able to devote the research time the subject deserves. Because reports of extraordinary physical speed or strength tend to have a hyperbolic quality, and because the state cannot be reproduced in laboratory situations, the topic is often regarded with skepticism in the scientific community. The phenomenon has therefore not attracted the serious attention it warrants.
To my knowledge the only two exceptions to the above are experiments in deliberately induced HK/HD carried out by German military intelligence during WWII, and the joint Army Intelligence-CIA project during the Vietnam War, both intended to produce men who could fight with "superhuman" strength, speed, and ferocity. The latter effort has received some attention in the press, but the details are shrouded in secrecy. We know little about the German effort beyond the fact that one by-product of their research was the synthesis of a compound related to methedrine, which the Reich gave to soldiers in a few theaters of war, with mixed results.
However, despite secrecy and skepticism, there is abundant evidence that under certain circumstances humans can move at speeds and with muscular force vastly greater than the norm.
HK is characterized by hyperactivity and extreme rapidity of motion. That even the average person is capable of motion much faster than we consciously use is demonstrated by a common reflexive response to everyday mishaps.
Perhaps you have had the experience of tipping a glass off the dinner table and catching it before it hit the floor. Commonplace, but bear in mind the glass is falling at 32 feet per second—from a 30-inch-high tabktop, therefore, leaving you about 1/13th of a second to notice the glass, calculate its arc, and move hand and arm in response.
This example of our latent reflexive potentials provides proof that the average human being has neuromuscular capabilities far beyond the needs of daily usage. It also illustrates the difficulty of subjecting these latent capacities to clinical testing. Our normal reflexive responses, not to mention the "altered states" of HK/HD, seem resistant to conscious activation. The inability of researchers to duplicate HK/HD activity in laboratory settings has understandably contributed to the medical establishment's skepticism.
Nevertheless, there is a large body of evidence that substantiates the existence of the phenomenon. The most well-known, probably, is the case of William Anderby, which was written up in Life magazine in 1946. Anderby was serving on a destroyer attached to a convoy in the North Atlantic during World War II. The Germans ran a bomb and torpedo attack against them, during which Seaman Anderby witnessed the destruction of several nearby ships. When a large bomb fell onto the forward deck of his ship andfailed to explode, Anderby picked it up, carried it rapidly to the railing and threw it overboard.
Anderby was 5'7" tall and weighed 152pounds, according to his enlistment records. The bomb was a naval armor-piercing bomb, weighing 610 pounds. If we additionally take into account that he had to wrest itfree from the crease it had made in the deck armor, and that (as witnesses swore before the admiralty board) he carried it "effortlessly," "ran" to the railing and '(flung" it overboard, we must acknowledge a demonstration of muscular strength far beyond that of a normal man—at least that of a normal man in a normal state.
This episode illustrates a typical feature of the HK/HD phenomenon: that HK/HD behavior is brought on by a specific "trigger"—a psychological catalyst. Seaman Anderby reacted as he did out of fear for his own life and concern for the lives of his shipmates. Precisely what the range of triggering emotions is, I can't say, but extreme emotional stress, often of imminent mortal danger or protective concern for loved ones, is the common denominator in most cases.
Displays of hyperkinesis and hyperdynamism seem to fall into two general categories. The most common is what I call reflexive HK or HD—that is, a momentary single act of supranormal strength, speed, or agility, brought on by a reflexive response to mortal peril or extreme emotional shock. Catching the falling dinner glass, though it hardly qualifies as HK, could be viewed as a minor demonstration, brought on by a tiny "spike" of subconscious urgency.
Rarer, and more interesting, are the prolonged or sustained displays, which / refer to as hysterical HK or HD. It is during these incidents that the most astonishing feats are reported. HHK/HHD is usually induced by anger, mortal peril, protective concern, etc., but there are also reports of the trigger being emotions of a more long-term and seemingly less urgent sort. One case I have researched appears to have as its stimulus a long-held, pathologically intense sibling jealousy.
I owe much to the research done by Dr. Frederick Simpson Wilkes, an English physician bom in 1881. Before his death in 1949, Wilkes recorded scores of incidents of "superdy namism," and did clinical work with about a dozen people who had displayed various degrees of HK/HD and HHK/ HHD. His science is somewhat dated, but his meticulous description of the incidents and his investigation into the family histories of HK/HD "carriers" are very helpful. (He demonstrated convincingly that there is an inherited trait, a propensity or tendency, in people who display HK/ HD, and that there are specific indications in childhood for HK/HD-prone individuals.)
He was fortunate enough to have interviewed several individuals shortly after reported hyperdynamic activity, and so could assess their physical and psychological conditions. His reports leave the reader with unforgettable images. One elderly gentleman ran through the wall of his house to lift away a farm tractor which had tipped over onto his adult son. In a grief-stricken rage, the old farmer also dismantled the tractor with his hands when he found his son dead beneath it.
According to Dr. Wilkes, HK/HD activity appears to be an inherited tendency, most common (if still very rare) in people of Scandinavian /Germanic descent. In his book, A Study of Superdynamism, he cites the well-documented tradition of the berserkers of Viking lore, who entered a state of irresistible killing frenzy during battle. The berserkers were used as elite bodyguards for Norse chieftains, or point menfor attacks; to cast fear into their enemies, they wore the furs and skulls of bears—thus the appellation "bear-s
hirts"—and wolves.
Norse sagas refer to the berserkers' "fire-rimmed eyes" and the "rage-stink" of their bodies, statements that give us excellent clues to their metabolic states—the bloodshot eyes suggesting radical increase in blood circulation, their odor suggesting the overload of arousal hormones in their bodies. They wielded weapons the average man couldn't even carry, many favoring battle-axes with which they would cleave armored enemy warriors in two halves, top to bottom. Or they dismembered them with their bare hands. Berserkers were usually isolated from their own comrades-in-arms because when the state was upon them they didn't distinguish between allies or enemies.
My own research is more technical than Wilkes's. While I do catalog new incidents as they are reported to me, and conduct limited investigation into these reports, myforemost effort has been to look into the physiological processes that would permit such extraordinary feats. Such expenditures of energy require appropriate biochemical and neuromuscular activities, and these I can project fairly well with computer models.
Without getting too technical here, I believe that the triggering sequence involves a form of epilepsy. Triggered by emotional stress, the seizure sends an extraordinarily powerful signal to the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. A cascade of neurochemical processes ensues, producing vastly altered activity levels. In HHK/HHD-prone individuals, I believe, these responses are greatly exaggerated by a rare combination of unusual electrical activity in the brain—the initial seizure—and neuroanatomical abnormalities that greatly amplify the response. The HHK/HHD is sustained for as long as the combination of chemical and neurological conditions lasts, and its degree depends upon a wide range of variables.
My guess is that this theory will eventually find general acceptance. However, the simple structural limitations of human anatomy are important to consider. Flesh is simply not as strong as wood or metal. I remain skeptical of many hyperbolic reports, because to believe them would be to deny the known material limits of our organism, requiring a "supernatural" explanation.
I hope the above has been of some assistance, and I thank you for indulging my own infatuation with this esoteric topic. Your letter gave me no specifics regarding the reasons for your interest; however, if you know of an incident of HK/HD, I would be gratefulfor information concerning your experience, for
my files.
Sincerely,
Michael Stropes, M.D., Ph.D.
Paul shifted his position on the closed toilet seat in the Corrigans' bathroom, and stood achingly, searching for the energy he'd need to put in another long night of work.
"Submit to the dahk side of The Fawce," he intoned. Stropes didn't sound at all like a crackpot. No such luck. It would be imperative to meet with him.
58
TUESDAY MORNING, MO AWOKE a little hungover. He'd come home Monday night feeling alternately high on Lia, Lia, Lia, and crazy fucked-up about Heather Mason. He'd found that he couldn't stand his apartment and went out to Paradise, a bar around the corner, where he drank three double screwdrivers before he thought to put on the brakes. He stumbled home, lay down in his clothes, woke up with a headache.
Getting drunk wasn't a habit you wanted to cultivate, but it hadn't been a total loss. Somewhere in there, he'd more or less banished the double guilts that had come over him. It was nuts to think he was responsible for Heather's suicide, even if her mother implied that Mo's questioning of her had dredged up her grief. It just wasn't so. She'd been a deeply troubled kid. If anything had driven her to her death, it was the memory of what she'd seen that night in August. Which Mo was trying to do something about.
And as far as Paul was concerned, Paul didn't own Lia. Lia could and certainly would make up her own mind about things. You had to believe that matters of the heart worked out the way they were supposed to, that if Paul and Lia didn't fully satisfy each other, then in the long run Paul would be better off with someone else. Anyway, what were you supposed to do if you were Mo Ford, thirty-five and single and lonesome as hell? If you wanted to be with someone exceptional like Lia, of course she'd have previous involvements of one kind or another. Of course somebody would have to get left out. Paul was a great guy. He'd find someone else in no time.
It seemed a little thin, but he was determined not to probe his conscience too deeply.
He took a long shower to clear his head and get rid of the cigarette stink left in his hair from the bar. When he came out, still dripping, he saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. It was a message from Lia: She had some things she wanted to talk with him about, very important, she didn't feel good leaving details on the machine, but could he call or stop in? "Actually, it'd be great if you stopped up here—we're always happy to see you." He called Highwood immediately, but no one picked up.
He dressed, called the barracks for his messages, then spent a few hours making calls from his own phone. By one o'clock, no breakfast yet and no lunch, his stomach was a high school chemistry experiment gone awry. He walked downtown to grab some lunch in a place with some fellow human beings in it.
The streets were so busy Mo wondered if some event were taking place, then realized it was just Christmas shopping. His nose had been to the grindstone so hard he hadn't looked up to remember the date: December 13th. He was musing cynically on rampant commercialism when Alice appeared next to him and took his arm.
"Mr. Morgan Ford! I thought that was you!" Alice had a pair of shiny shopping bags over one arm, a red fake-leather purse the size of a gym bag. In the sunshine, her piled-up black hair and makeup looked theatrically cheap. She wore a short red corduroy coat that showed off her killer legs in black tights and small, high-heeled boots. Alice, Mo thought, knew enough to underscore her strong features.
"Hi, Alice," Mo said. "Beautiful day, huh? Looks like you've been shopping. Beating the rush?"
"You don't call this a rush?" She fell into step beside him, still holding his arm. "Let me tell you."
"Haven't seen you at the club recently."
"I been there—it's you who's been someplace else."
"Ahhh," Mo growled. "Work's been eating me up. No time."
"Must be something exciting, Mr. Detective Ford. Sure it's work, not a lady friend?"
Mo laughed. "Just work, I assure you," he said. Then he regretted saying it: She might hear it as some kind of an invitation.
She looked pleased. "Listen, you had lunch yet? I'm starving. Let's stop and get a sandwich. You wanna take one of these for me?"
Mo accepted a gigantic string-handled shopping bag, let her steer him into a glass-fronted cafe with lots of green plants in the window. They stood for a moment behind a couple of other customers waiting for tables.
Alice was telling him about her mother, who lived in New Jersey with her third husband, who made good money but who needed bypass surgery. Mo was beginning to tune it out and was feeling his hangover return with a faint throbbing in his temples, when the woman in front of them turned around.
It was Lia. Mo's gut lurched.
"Mo!" she said. Her whole face brightened. "God, amazing! I was just in town to get some supplies for up on the hill and thought I'd treat myself to some lunch." Lia's eyes flicked almost imperceptibly, taking in Alice's arm, still through Mo's elbow, the shopping bags they both carried. "Hi," she said to Alice, "I'm Lia." She started to offer a handshake but then laughed at herself. "Guess you've got your hands full."
"Lia, Alice, Alice, Lia," Mo mumbled.
"Hi," Alice said.
A waiter appeared. "Table for three?" he asked.
"Are you up for company?" Lia asked. "Or, I don't at all mean to intrude, if—"
"Three," Mo told the waiter. Alice disengaged her arm.
They sat at a table beneath a fountain of fern hung from the ceiling. Mo made a point of taking the chair farthest from the seat Alice had taken, his back to the window. Lunch with Lia, alone, would be heaven. Looking at the two women, he couldn't believe the contrast: Lia with her heart-shaped face, her fi
ne cheekbones, her mobile lips and brows, her clarity and confidence. Her hair blown crazily and perfectly around her face. Alice with her unfortunate, powdered, plain face, hair piled and sprayed. The worst of it was that Alice was sharp enough to know when she was outclassed. She looked miserable.
"What brings you two downtown?" Lia asked.
"Shopping, lunch, you know," Alice said.
"You got my message?" Lia asked Mo. "There are some . . . developments we've got to talk about."
"Great," he said. He couldn't take his eyes off her. The light from the window fell on her so that she seemed to glow, more animate and clear than her surroundings.
"I'm sorry, Alice. Maybe I shouldn't assume Mo has told you about this, uh, situation at Highwood," Lia said.
"Yes, he's very close-mouthed about his work," Alice said guardedly.
"Lia is a real whiz as an investigator herself," Mo found himself saying. "Makes me feel like an idiot. Put a few like her in the BCI, we'd clean up the whole state in no time."
Lia put her hand on Mo's arm, just an offhand, momentary touch. "I wish it were true," she said to Alice, smiling, "but I don't mind the compliment." Mo couldn't believe himself. He had jerked, literally his whole body had moved, when she touched him. He was going nuts.
His reaction hadn't escaped Alice. She sipped from her water glass, brown eyes watching Mo, then quickly scanning Lia one more time. Then she set down her glass and gave a small nod, as if she'd decided something.
"Actually," Alice said, "you know what? I just remembered I've got an appointment in"—she checked her watch—"oh my God, in five minutes." She gathered her bags and purse, stood up. "It's been just lovely. Enjoyed meeting you, have a great lunch."
She walked out. They watched her pass the window, heading quickly back the way they'd come.
"I assume Alice wasn't keen on company for lunch," Lia said.