Mind Field
Part ONE
Arlo Chadwick figured in a well known case-history in neurological circles. He was a stage hypnotist, and a very good one. One night after turning a timid housewife into a burlesque artist in front of a audience at a night club, he was shot to death by the woman’s jealous mafioso husband. I was present at the autopsy...
Arlo had donated his brain to science, and as a neurologist I was interested in getting my hands on it. Chadwick’s feats of mind control with almost no preparation of a subject had fascinated many scientists. And when we learned via EEG that his brain emitted very unusual waves during hypnotism of subjects, we realized that there was some physiological reason why he was able to induce suggestion. This implied there was a biological capacity in the human brain for extrasensory powers, a belief scoffed at by most men and women of science including myself. Nonetheless, the implication was there and I wouldn’t be a scientist if I didn’t pursue it. Even at this time I may have been driven by baser intentions, but at the time I didn’t know it.
The hypnotist’s opened cranium lay upside down on the autopsy table, rocking about like an oyster shell on a tray. Few people really appreciate how beautiful the human brain is... and as Arlo’s stared back at me from his opened skull, I sighed in wonder. That consciousness could arise from that dull wrinkled mass of tissue... it was mind boggling... to coin a phrase. I set about removing the brain as Dr. Wexler performed his autopsy, droning monotonously into his microphone about entry and exit wounds.
Gingerly setting the specimen in a cooler filled with ice, I bid Wexler good day and went back to the lab. Normal procedure would have been to vivisect the brain and study the sections under the electron microscope, but I had decided to try studying the brain as a whole as much as possible before disecting it.
It was during the magnetic resonance scan that I first noticed something odd about the brain. Between the two halves of the brain, there were multiple filament-like connections. These were quite atypical, there is a normal connection between the right and left hemispheres at the brain’s base. These fine filaments were near the upper surface of the cortex and they numbered 40 in all. There seemed to be a pattern to their distribution, but it looked as though, based on the pattern I observed, there should have been many more links than 40.
Before long I was certain that these links were the key to Arlo’s power, and I suddenly came to terms with the real reason why I wanted the hypnotist’s brain. It wasn’t scientific discovery I was after at all, it was his power I wanted. To get it I would need to grow links in my brain like his, and from my observations, if I could grow more of them than he had, I would have more power than he had.
At that point the other neurologist in my lab arrived, Dr. Chan. Deborah was a beautiful Chinese woman. She was about five feet tall and had a terrific figure. I had lusted after her for a long time but she was already taken and I as well was married.
“How’s it going, Mitch?” she asked with a dazzling smile.
“Okay Deb.” I said with a depressed sigh as I innocently ran a gloved finger between the hemispheres of Arlo’s brain, destroying the tiny links.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, this is the Chadwick brain. You remember?”
“Yeah, I figured you’d be excited to be working on it, hell I would!”
“I was but so far I’ve turned up nothing unusual about the brain at all. I did a MRI and a few other tests. No weird lumps or odd folds. I was hoping for something obvious.”
“You’ll have to vivisect it and study the connections between the neurons.”
“I guess you’re right.” I said glumly. Actually I was delighted, once sectioned, no one would know of the brain’s odd connections that I had broken.
With a dull “plop” the brain slid into the Viviman dissector. This machine would section the organ into hundreds of paper-thin slices, which would then be mounted in clear plastic plates and numbered. The device would be cranking away until tomorrow so there was little else for me to do in the lab today, which was fine, I had legwork to do.
I said goodbye to Debbie, and caught a nice view down her blouse as she bent back over her work. The sight of her small, firm, breasts in a satiny-black bra was extremely distracting, but I tore my gaze away quickly lest she notice.
It was really quite simple. I had obtained all of Chadwick’s medical records and researched his life extensively. No one in his family had shown this ability so I doubted it was genetic. After a few weeks of study I had my answer. Back in 1972 Chadwick had suffered from a spinal injury. He made his debut as a hypnotist only a few months after leaving physical therapy. Before the accident, he had shown no such capabilities. I was certain that this event had something to do with his power, and as it turned out I was quite right.
Chadwick had been given a new variant of an experimental drug called Rejuvidal. Rejuvidal was supposed to enhance the efficiency of spinal tissue, which it did admirably and was therefore useful in the physical therapy which followed spinal surgery or injury. Two days into Arlo’s treatment it was discovered that it caused massive brain tumours as well and he was taken off the drug. It was not known if this new variant also caused tumours, but his doctors decided not to take the chance. The articles on Rejuvidal described the tumours as abnormal growths between the hemispheres of the cortex, causing migraine headaches, blindness, dementia and death in that order. The medical community lost interest in Rejuvidal after this and pursued safer drugs.
The key item was that Rejuvidal had to be taken constantly and in large doses for it to be useful as a spinal treatment. Since Chadwick had been taken off the drug prematurely, he had grown some filament links between his lobes and that was all. Possibly if he had continued taking the drug, the filaments would have grown into tumours. But, if he had taken extremely small doses regularly, it was quite possible that he would simply have grown additional filaments and not overloaded his cerebral neurons.
Now all I had to do was get my hands on Rejuvidal, which also turned out to be easy. Rejuvidal was simply a modification to the existing drug Calistidal. I could obtain raw Calistidal through Carolina Biological and perform the modification myself.
Within a week I had brewed up 10 grams of the Chadwick-variant Rejuvidal, in fact by using modern equipment this drug was far more refined than when Chadwick took it. A half-gram I cooked in the spectrograph just to make sure I had made the correct compound. 10 grams, or even 9.5 was more than I’d ever need. My calculations indicated that I should take 20 doses of 1 mg each, once a day for 20 days. By that time, my brain would have formed about twenty-five-hundred links, about sixty times as many as Chadwick’s. Based on what Arlo was able to make people do with forty links, I would be able to make them do just about anything I wanted. Why in just one day, I would form 125 links and be 3 times as powerful as Arlo! I took the first dose while watching Deborah Chan’s curvacious ass jiggle as she ground pineal glands from mice in a pestle. Her panty lines showed faintly through her gray pinstriped skirt. I knew then who would be my first test subject.
I slept poorly through the night and got to the lab very early the next morning. I needed to perform an MRI on my head and study the results before Deb got in. As I lay there on the scanner all sorts of worries ran through my head. What if there were side effects? What if it didn’t work at all? Within twenty minutes I knew that my brain had formed several interhemisphere filaments during the night. I didn’t bother to count them, but there were certainly MANY more than in Arlo’s brain.
Even at this early stage, I expected to be able to make harmless suggestions. I was not a hypnotist, and I was interested in controlling unwilling subjects, so I would not be able to give orders that people would not normally follow.
An hour later when Debbie arrived, I had already planned my first test. I turned the air conditioning on a little lower than usual and waited for the lab to get cool. As I thought she would, Deb donned her smock, as she does when the AC is too cool for her tastes. After she had been working for a while, I sat down at the microscope next to her and began studying section 42 of Arlo Chadwick.
In my mind I concentrated on the asian neurologist and issued a suggestion.
It’s warm in here.
Debbie showed no sign of having received my suggestion whatsoever. So I decided to try a verbal suggestion.
“Boy its warm in here.” I said as I got up and went to the thermostat (ostensibly to check the temperature.)
“Yeah.” Deb agreed absently, and shed her smock, hanging it on a peg by the door.
Her body was cold, but I had gotten her brain to think that she was warm.
For a half hour I enjoyed glancing at her stiff nipples poking through the silk of her green blouse. Eventually the suggestion wore off and she suddenly looked up from her work.
“God its freezing in here!”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
While the pretty young asian ran to get her smock and adjust the thermostat, I swallowed the second dose of Rejuvidal.
The next day started much like the previous one. When Dr. Chan arrived I repeated my test.
Its warm in here. I suggested mentally.
Immediately Debbie removed her smock and hung it by the door. Today she was wearing a black silk blouse which buttoned up the front and a black skirt.
Her immaculate legs were covered with dark nylons, and she wore black heels.
Deb always was a heck of a dresser, not very pragmatic, but definitely attractive. Again, because of the cool air, her nipples were erect beneath her blouse.
Its still too warm. You should take off your blouse.
Debbie got a lost look in her eye, started to reach for the first button of her blouse and then looked nervously at me. I pretended not to notice her.
Go ahead. Mitch won’t even notice, he’s too absorbed in his work. Besides, you’ve been good friends for a long time, and he’s seen you in a bikini at the company barbecue. How is this any different?
Seeming reassured, Deb unbuttoned her silky blouse revealing a bronze-colored bra. Her lovely tits stretched as she shook the blouse off and tossed it on a stool beside her. Her nipples strained at the satiny material from the cold air, and probably from a little bit of arousal at this state of partial undress. I admired her athletic torso while she worked, marveling at what I had been able to accomplish in only two days of treatment.
Boy its hot! You should take off your bra.
“Yeah right.” Debbie muttered as she shook her head, as if she had just thought of a preposterous notion. It was a ridiculous sight. This lithe, attractive chinese woman working at her desk stripped to her bra, discarding an idea as crazy. I wondered what would happen when my suggestion wore off.
It wasn’t until almost five in the afternoon that Deborah suddenly realized that she had removed her blouse. I had since turned the AC off so that the lab would warm up, I didn’t want Ms. Chan to catch a cold! She was looking down at her notebook when she suddenly realized that she could see her bra-covered breasts instead of a black silk top. I had long since turned my back to her so that when she came to, she would think I hadn’t seen her. I could still see her reflection dimly in the glass windows before me which separated the clean room from the rest of the lab.
She gasped and glanced around quickly, then snatched up her blouse and put it on hurriedly, looking a bit nervous.
Relax. He didn’t see you, he’s fallen asleep at his desk. It was pretty hot in the lab earlier and you noticed he was asleep. No big deal.
I emitted a few soft snores and Deb relaxed and took her time. Then she grabbed her smock and put it on before coming over to “wake me up”.
“Huh? Wha?” I muttered. “What? Oh jeez. What time is it?”
“Its five, Mitch, time to hit the road. See you tomorrow!”
Her eyes searched mine as if to check and see if I had noticed her earlier.
I feigned sleepiness which seemed to work.
“Umm. Okay Debbie. See you in the morning. yawn Goodnight.”
He never saw you.
Deb smiled, took off her smock, picked up her things and left for the day.