location of the soul. We were trying to see if we could bring one back. We thought if we could come up with a way to make the chemical change permanent, we could administer this treatment when someone died and, putting it simply, sort of bounce the soul back into the body.”
“So you wanted to raise the dead.”
“Not exactly. We wanted to revive people at the moment of death. When the heart stops, you use a defibrillator. But when the soul stops, or if you prefer, when the brain stops, that’s when our treatment would come in. Bertel called it ‘seizing the soul back.’ If we could maintain the chemical reaction, then death wouldn’t take place, unless of course the body was unable to function. But medicine offers so many interventions. We already have organ transplants, engineers are working on mechanical replacements, and cloned organs are liable to have future applications. So, if we could just keep the soul viable long enough, maybe we could extend life, possibly for decades.”
“Wow,” Austin said. “No wonder Bertel thought someone might be after him. This could revolutionize medicine—and life as we know it! It could be worth millions. Billions.”
Julia put both hands to her head at this new revelation. “Right. I never thought about that.” She shook her head. “Actually, I was going in another direction with this: I’m thinking maybe I didn’t just bring Dr. Bertel’s
heart
back with the defibrillator. I’m thinking maybe I brought something more back. You see, after we got the chemical reaction with PCP, we realized we needed some sort of external physical catalyst to maintain an electrical impulse, as well. We hadn’t started any testing yet, but among the possibilities I suggested was an electrical charge. Austin, Dr. Bertel was dead for several minutes, and it’s unusual for someone to come back after that long. But if he were on drugs, like you suspected, and if those drugs were from our lab, then there’s a remote possibility the added electrical charge might have …”
“Bounced back his soul? I don’t know.”
“Wait, I’m not finished. Let me show you something.” Julia walked into the next room, grabbed a heavy book off her coffee table, and brought it back into the kitchen, where she set it on the table with a thunk.
Austin spun the book so the title was facing him and read,
“The Devil Takes a Body: When Science Can’t Explain Superhuman Behavior,
by Doctor Caleb Bertel.” He looked up at her. “Exactly. This is where I got my theory. How did such a logical girl end up working with such a nut?”
“All geniuses can be a little nutty,” she said. “Anyway, a scientist has to keep a mind open to all possibilities. And so does a detective, don’t you think?”
“Fair enough.”
“So, keeping an open mind …” She flipped the book open to a bookmarked page covered with underlines and highlighter, with scribbles in the margins. “Read this.”
Austin silently read the whole page, a wrinkle of concentration on his forehead. Julia waited, unconsciously bobbing in her chair in rhythm with the ticking of the kitchen clock. When he finished reading, he looked up at her, his face unreadable. He looked back at the book, ran his finger through the text until he found what he was looking for, and read aloud.
“Although modern psychiatry has debunked most cases of demonic possession as mental illness, there have always remained those few cases that cannot be categorized. We may presume that modern diagnostics simply has yet to identify some mental and emotional syndromes or their causes. However, medical practitioners, therapists, and scientists cannot ignore the fact that 2.3% of patients who experience a sudden onset of nonspecific psychosis have exhibited no previous symptoms of mental illness, do not come from families with any history of mental illness or notable dysfunction, and have been unable to identify any precipitating trauma.
“Meanwhile, some of the
“So you wanted to raise the dead.”
“Not exactly. We wanted to revive people at the moment of death. When the heart stops, you use a defibrillator. But when the soul stops, or if you prefer, when the brain stops, that’s when our treatment would come in. Bertel called it ‘seizing the soul back.’ If we could maintain the chemical reaction, then death wouldn’t take place, unless of course the body was unable to function. But medicine offers so many interventions. We already have organ transplants, engineers are working on mechanical replacements, and cloned organs are liable to have future applications. So, if we could just keep the soul viable long enough, maybe we could extend life, possibly for decades.”
“Wow,” Austin said. “No wonder Bertel thought someone might be after him. This could revolutionize medicine—and life as we know it! It could be worth millions. Billions.”
Julia put both hands to her head at this new revelation. “Right. I never thought about that.” She shook her head. “Actually, I was going in another direction with this: I’m thinking maybe I didn’t just bring Dr. Bertel’s
heart
back with the defibrillator. I’m thinking maybe I brought something more back. You see, after we got the chemical reaction with PCP, we realized we needed some sort of external physical catalyst to maintain an electrical impulse, as well. We hadn’t started any testing yet, but among the possibilities I suggested was an electrical charge. Austin, Dr. Bertel was dead for several minutes, and it’s unusual for someone to come back after that long. But if he were on drugs, like you suspected, and if those drugs were from our lab, then there’s a remote possibility the added electrical charge might have …”
“Bounced back his soul? I don’t know.”
“Wait, I’m not finished. Let me show you something.” Julia walked into the next room, grabbed a heavy book off her coffee table, and brought it back into the kitchen, where she set it on the table with a thunk.
Austin spun the book so the title was facing him and read,
“The Devil Takes a Body: When Science Can’t Explain Superhuman Behavior,
by Doctor Caleb Bertel.” He looked up at her. “Exactly. This is where I got my theory. How did such a logical girl end up working with such a nut?”
“All geniuses can be a little nutty,” she said. “Anyway, a scientist has to keep a mind open to all possibilities. And so does a detective, don’t you think?”
“Fair enough.”
“So, keeping an open mind …” She flipped the book open to a bookmarked page covered with underlines and highlighter, with scribbles in the margins. “Read this.”
Austin silently read the whole page, a wrinkle of concentration on his forehead. Julia waited, unconsciously bobbing in her chair in rhythm with the ticking of the kitchen clock. When he finished reading, he looked up at her, his face unreadable. He looked back at the book, ran his finger through the text until he found what he was looking for, and read aloud.
“Although modern psychiatry has debunked most cases of demonic possession as mental illness, there have always remained those few cases that cannot be categorized. We may presume that modern diagnostics simply has yet to identify some mental and emotional syndromes or their causes. However, medical practitioners, therapists, and scientists cannot ignore the fact that 2.3% of patients who experience a sudden onset of nonspecific psychosis have exhibited no previous symptoms of mental illness, do not come from families with any history of mental illness or notable dysfunction, and have been unable to identify any precipitating trauma.
“Meanwhile, some of the
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