Although it was just after 11:00 p.m. on Saturday night when the phone rang at Barbara Mason's house, she was not asleep . . . in fact, she was a long way from it. She was seated at her dining room table, books, papers, and medical journals littering the surface, with discard stacks on the floor in an arc all around her chair. Lines of exhaustion were etched on her face and there was a sense of desperation in the way she tossed the book she had been reading onto the stack beside her. The phone had interrupted her just as she was reaching for the next one, and she contemplated letting the machine pick it up, but then thought better of it. If someone was calling this late, it must be important. She rose hastily and waded through the clutter, picking up the phone on the secretary near the entryway door as it began its fourth ring.
"Dr. Mason."
"Mason?" a voice on the other end said hesitantly. "I was trying to reach a Bradford Manson. At least, I think that's what this says . . ." The voice had a decidedly British accent.
"Dr. Burroughs?" Barbara questioned hopefully. "Dr. William Burroughs from the Public Health Service Laboratory in Devon, England?"
"Well, whether this note says Manson or Mason, I believe I've reached the right person," the man replied, sounding much more sure of himself this time. "Yes, this is William Burroughs. And I take it you are the person who has been leaving frantic messages for me everywhere."
"Yes, I am," Barbara agreed. "I'm extremely grateful that you called. I know you weren't due back until late today."
"Just got in, as a matter of fact. But when I found written notes from three different people tacked to my front door and two messages on my home answering machine, including one from the medical school dean himself, telling me I needed to phone this number as soon as possible, I thought that perhaps I should make the effort. Now, what can a British ex-public servant do for a physician in the United States?"
"You can tell me everything you know about an incident that happened about five years ago in a small community in Devon known as Wychford."
The empty hum of the open phone line sounded loud in the resulting silence. Finally, Burroughs replied cautiously, "What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. What exactly happened? What were the physical manifestations on the patient? Were there any lingering aftereffects? If so, how long did they take to manifest? How did you treat them? How long did they persist? Anything you can tell me would help."
"May I ask what has triggered your interest in those events?"
"I have a patient who was there at the time and he's . . ."
"That's not possible," Burroughs said flatly.
"I assure you, Dr. Burroughs, I'm not making it up," Barbara replied stiffly, her weariness causing her to sound more harsh than she intended.
The protracted silence hummed between them for another long moment. Finally, Burroughs replied, "Tell me what you already know."
With an effort, Barbara controlled her impatience, as well as a growing sense of dread, and replied, "I know that my patient and his son were in Devon for a driving and fishing vacation in the fall five years ago. I know that an auto accident of some sort landed them in Wychford where they ended up staying while their vehicle was repaired. I know that a man by the name of Smallwood was a practitioner there and that he had been experimenting with some sort of microcomputer chip that, when implanted at the base of the skull, could be used to control behavior. I know that he enlisted the aid of a local businessman to manufacture the chips and that he used the population of the village as lab rats to test them. I also know that the businessman knew enough about how the chips were created to add a variation of his own which made them capable of turning the control population from placid and friendly into a ravening, murderous mob. What I do not know, is what happened to the test subjects in the years following the destruction of the project. I need answers, Dr. Burroughs, and I get the feeling I may be running out of time."
"There were rumors among the villagers of two tourists who had been in the area at the time of the incident," Burroughs mused slowly, "but we never knew if the story was true. The memories of the villagers were distorted by the effects of the chip and what they remembered was extremely unreliable. When no one else turned up sick, we assumed that either they weren't there or weren't affected. But it really doesn't matter. Your patient wouldn't have been affected unless he actually had one of the chips implanted, and if that were the case . . ."
"He did."
"WHAT? You're sure? And he's still alive?"
"What do you mean, 'still alive'?" Barbara demanded, feeling her chest tighten sharply.
"Dr. Mason, everyone in Wychford . . . everyone we ever knew of that had one of those chips . . . is dead. The majority of them died within a year of the closure of the project. We lost the last one about six months ago."
"No," Barbara whispered, as her knees gave way and she sank slowly to the floor. "How?"
"We were never able to figure out what was going on. The only thing we finally thought we were sure of was that the severity and speed of onset of the symptoms seemed to be tied to how long the patient had been wearing the chip and how often the violent transition from calm to manic had occurred. Also, some of the chips had been malfunctioning. Those people who had worn a chip that had malfunctioned and were fitted with new ones were the first to exhibit symptoms and the first to die. But even those people who hadn't worn them very long and who hadn't experienced the forced behavioral change eventually died. The children lasted the longest, and the last to die was a nine-year-old girl. All of the other members of her family died early on. Why she was able to hang on so much longer, we never could determine. In the end, we lost them all before we were able to find a way to stop it . . . all but your patient, apparently. You're absolutely certain he had one of those chips?"
"Yes," she replied with difficulty. "He had it for less than eight hours, but there was no doubt he was fitted with one. If you look closely, you can still see the scars on the back of his neck."
"Do you know if he was ever subjected to the transition?"
"Yes, he was. Only once, but . . ." she swallowed hard. "They turned him loose on his son . . . along with the rest of the population of Wychford. The boy had figured out what was going on and was trying to pull the plug. My patient was still in the crazed state when his son managed to get the chip off of him."
"Oh lord," Burroughs breathed. "Dr. Mason, I'm sorry . . ."
"The symptoms . . . " she half-sobbed. "What were the symptoms? Maybe that's not what I'm dealing with . . ."
"Anxiety and changes in behavior patterns were the earliest signs," Burroughs replied. Barbara could hear the pity in his voice now. "Volatile mood swings came next, along with the onset of unexplained weakness. Then, headaches and blurred vision, dizziness, blackouts, and eventually, total collapse, coma, and death. There were never any indicators that showed up in lab tests so we could never find anything to treat. It just moved forward like a steamroller and all we could do was watch helplessly as it ran it course."
"Life support?"
She could almost hear him shrug. "You can keep the body alive. Whatever was going on didn't seem to damage body tissue. But ultimately the brain shuts down as well, and once that happens . . ." He trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging. There really wasn't anything else to say.
"Your clinical notes . . . can I have what little you came up with?" she asked numbly.
"Of course. I kept all of my notes and I have them here. I'll overnight copies of them to you first thing tomorrow morning. I'll also contact my colleagues in the District Office of the Public Health Service Laboratory in Britain and ask them to send out copies of everything they have immediately."
"I . . . please . . . if it's not too much to ask . . . can you fax them to me? At least the clinical summaries? I'll be happy to reimburse you for the costs . . ."
"Do you have an e-mail address? My notes are in electronic form and I can e-mail them to you."
Barbara stared numbly at the brand new computer system that Race had installed earlier that day. "Yes. The . . . the address is bmason@quest.com."
"Do you have any file size limitations?"
"No."
"I'll start sending the files immediately and will ask the BPHS to do the same. They can handle electronic data transfer, as well." Burroughs hesitated, and then added gently, "I'm so very sorry, Dr. Mason. It sounds as though this patient is someone very special."
"We are a small, close-knit community, Dr. Burroughs," Barbara replied in a dead voice. "The loss of any member of it . . . particularly one as young and vital as this man . . . is a blow to us all."
"Of course. I'll get those records out to you right away. I wish you luck . . . maybe you can find the key that we couldn't."
"Thank you." Blindly, she fumbled the receiver back into its cradle and then sat on the floor, crying helplessly.
