Part 4 – Confident
October 23, 2004


1: Jake

10:37am
T minus 7 years, 9 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes

Max was sitting on the leather couch, trying to look relaxed, and failing beyond miserably at it. He wasn't fidgeting, but was just one minute away from giving his fingers free rein. His right leg silently drummed the floor, in a subconscious way of saying he didn't want to be there. Black sweater, blue jeans, and black and white sneakers, Jake didn't think he'd ever seen Max so uncomfortable in his own skin. It had been almost two years since they had accepted their deal with Dave, and this routine scan was, well… routine. Why was Max so nervous?

"Is something… bothering you?" Jake tentatively asked, leaving the preliminary report on his computer unfinished as he turned his attention to the jittery 21-year-old in front of him.

"No… Nothing…" Max evaded, his body going motionless, even holding his breath. His eyes were 100% focused now that he had been called to attention.

"Because… we could reschedule, you know?" Jake pointed out, completely closing his laptop, giving Max every cue that he could leave.

"No, no. Please. It's okay…" he said, slightly nervous again. Something was going on, and now Jake was intrigued.

The first MRI Jake had been able to perform had come six months into their work, and it had been Max who had volunteered. It always was Max who volunteered to do everything, maybe as a way to ease Isabel and Michael into things. Maybe to prove it wasn't dangerous. Most likely, it was just because he was Max.

Now he and Max did one every month, simple tests to see if there was any physical change since they were practicing their mental abilities every day, stretching their limits. Michael and Isabel were more reluctant to show up—maybe every other month—but Max always came.

They went through the motions in silence. Something was weighing heavily on Max's mind, and Jake idly wondered if it would show up as an odd beep on the scan. The first time Max had laid down on the table, Jake had had to wait fifteen minutes before Max was reasonably calm. Jake knew it wasn't that Max didn't trust the machine, or trust that what was going to happen was harmless; rather that he'd had terrible memories about being treated as a specimen and not as a patient, plus years of untold fears about places like this.

"You okay?" he asked one last time as he finished attaching the last electrode. It was only the two of them in the lab, and Jake had all the time in the world to do this. This time, Max hesitated; his mouth opened slightly, probably unconsciously. Then, thinking better of it, he simply nodded.

The test was simple enough to follow, but challenging enough to mark subtle changes. Right at the point where Max's eyes would comfortably look up, was a tennis ball suspended by a cord. Max would first change its color, then its shape, then its density, and lastly he would mentally hold it in the air. And repeat everything a second time, while keeping it suspended with his mind. The fact that he couldn't use his hands to guide his energy added a higher degree of concentration.

It was as much a test to see how far they have come stretching their mental muscles as it was to see if there was any physical changes to the brain. Michael always cheated to show lower progress. Max probably did, too; he was just less obvious about it. Isabel was somewhere in the middle. The three always got results around the exact same graphics, probably as a result of rehearsal and planning amongst themselves, but Jake had developed a formula to compensate for the lack of trust in his methods—and his ethics—and it was against that scale that he would measure them each month. Or each time they would allow him a peek into the inner workings of their minds.

On the monitor, Jake watched Max as he looked at the ball, but Jake could tell he wasn't really looking at it. He was anxious, and his body readings were starting to betray him. Max had done this twelve times already, and except for that first time, he'd always gone through the motions in a composed, slightly eager way. Just the same way Liz would listen to Jake explaining to them what the results were telling him. They wanted to know, Max and Liz, and Jake was more than happy to explain it to them. Michael was way more eager to know about the practical uses Ray came up with, something Maria and Kyle also shared. Unfortunately, Isabel didn't seem to be eager at all. She just did as she was told but her heart wasn't in it.

"Ready?" Jake asked over the intercom. Through the soundproof headphones they used for these sessions, Max heard Jake's question and nodded again, this time really looking at the ball.

Jake started the machine, intently looking at the monitor as Max started the test's first cycle. Thirty seconds into it, the ball stopped changing colors. In the brain scan monitor, the parts that would usually illuminate stopped doing so, and other parts started to look like fireworks on the fourth of July. The digital lines that monitored brain activity went crazy—just not the usual ones. Jake turned to look at Max, who was yet again looking-but-not-really-looking at the ball. He looked almost lethargic, though his biometrics indicated he was simply in a state of rest.

Far more worried than intrigued, Jake spoke again. "Max?"

He snapped out of it instantly. Max jerked a little, almost as if he were falling into himself, shutting his eyes tightly. The whole incident hadn't lasted more than ten seconds.

"Max?" Jake worriedly asked, stopping the MRI. Leaving the space where the monitors were, he hurried up to release Max from the cylindrical chamber. Max had yet to respond.

"Max?" he all but shouted as Max was panting. It would be only a matter of minutes before Liz burst through those doors, a part of him fleetingly imagined.

Rising his hand blindly, Max waved him off, his eyes still shut. He sounded as if he were trying to contain… sobs? Still on his back, Max's hands covered his face, as he was shaking with the effort of staying still.

Jake stared at him, wanting to ask, to comfort, but without a clue as to what had caused this emotional reaction. Silently, he watched as Max regained control of his breathing. Relieved and yet wanting to strangle Max for the scare, Jake had no option but to patiently wait for Max to explain. A couple of minutes later, Max opened his eyes, haunted by something only he saw.

"I shouldn't have come," he stated in a flat tone, looking at the ceiling. Jake didn't have time to answer as Max continued, "God, I knew it would happen… but I just—" he stopped, letting a long sigh out, letting emotion leak into his voice. "I'm just glad I did."

Later, much later, when Jake would see the few results he'd gotten, he'd see how the memory centers had flared to life with an appalling brilliance, giving him a good idea of how strong these episodes were. But in that moment, when Max slowly sat up, all Jake knew was that something had fundamentally changed between the boy who had entered the room, and the man who was sitting in front of him now.

"I need to talk to someone, Jake, but I need to know this won't be a mistake. That it won't leave this room."

There was so much tiredness in that voice, Jake inwardly flinched. He'd heard that voice in himself, long ago, when he had needed to talk to someone about everything that had happened to him, everything he had lost, and the only one he'd had was a too-young Dave, who wasn't able to give him the guiding hand he so desperately needed. Now he had a chance to guide someone out of that abyss. He wasn't sure if he was up to the task, but he'd be damned if he didn't try. He nodded.

"About two years ago… I started to have very vivid… episodes. Flashes. Memories from life on Antar," he finally admitted. "They are random, and short, and so… so real."

Jake swallowed. Max looked at the floor. The heart rate and temperature monitors were still attached to his body, and the doctor in him wondered what his MRI session was missing right now. Moving forward, he reached with practice ease for the circular attachments. Whatever this was, it was not going to be comfortably done while sitting or standing in this room.

"You had one of those episodes right now," Jake calmly stated, understanding what had Max reacted to.

"It was my father's funeral," he solemnly said. "I've been having glimpses of it all morning long. Usually it takes a few days before the full scene comes, so I thought I was going to be… safe."

It wasn't a surprise, but it still hurt Jake's pride to know they still considered him unsafe.

"I'm sorry," Jake quietly said, "about your father," he elaborated, even if he knew this had nothing to do with Philip Evans. There was pain in Max's eyes. Jake understood that, although this event had happened decades and decades ago, for Max's mind, it had just happened. The emotions were just as raw as if the king of Antar had just died.

The king is dead. Long live the king!

If Antarian tradition was like Europe's medieval one, then Max had just been placed on a throne.

"Zan's father," Max said after a minute, once Jake had finished with the process of freeing him from the little, circular sensors. Standing up, they both walked back into Jake's office. "That's the problem, they're not my memories, but I'm trapped in them, feeling them."

Entering his office, Jake shed his lab coat while Max took a seat. Max wasn't nervous any more, but his conflicted state of mind was not exactly an improvement. "I need them to stop," he said, "I need to get them out of my head."

Are Michael and Isabel having them too? Jake wanted to ask. Instead, he sat next to Max, who for once didn't flinch.

"Don't run from them," Jake quietly advised. Max turned distressed eyes to him. This was not what he wanted to hear. "I don't know why they are happening now, or how long they're going to last, or what you'll see, but Max, I know they'll haunt you if you don't let them come freely. They won't just go away."

Max shook his head. "They are so real," he insisted, anguished, "so much that when they are over I'm left wondering if that's reality and this is the dream."

Jake slowly exhaled, and even more slowly placed a hand on Max's shoulder. "I'm real, Max. This place, my couch… your wife? We are real. But most importantly, you are real, you hear me?"

Max's eyes snapped at the mention of his beloved Liz. And then the fire that shone in his eyes subsided. "She doesn't know," he confessed. "How can I tell her that sometimes I wonder if I dreamed her up? She's the best thing in the world that has ever happened to me, and I doubt her existence?"

Jake slightly smiled. "Are you doubting she's real now?"

Max shook his head. "No."

"Just while you are coming out of one of those memories?"

He nodded slightly, almost afraid of admitting it aloud again.

"Don't you think it's normal? I mean," he amended when Max's face despaired, "the disorientation that you feel. That's quite an emotional blow you received just now, I can only imagine what it feels like every time this happens. You cannot blame yourself for doubting your surroundings."

"I never doubt them when I'm there, that's the problem. I never wonder about my human life… this life. It just doesn't exist. Please, Jake…" Max whispered, "make them stop."

It broke Jake's heart to see Max doubting his grip on reality, on what was meaningful. It broke him more knowing that the answer was still no. People wanted to forget all manner of things, and yet the only thing modern medicine and psychology had achieved was getting memories back, not taking them away.

Taking a second to think how to phrase this, Jake looked Max in the eye. "What's the worst that can happen if you do remember?"

Max's entire body tensed up, ready to flee. Closing his eyes, he went motionless again, his muscles taut. "I'd lose myself," he quietly answered, probably voicing his worst fear. "I'd wake up one morning, and I would have forgotten about my life. About Max Evans." Opening his eyes, he slowly turned to look at Jake. "Or even worse, I'd still remember who Max Evans is, but I won't really care. About him or Liz, or anything in this life. I'll want that other life more."

"Do you? Want it more? Right when they are over, and you don't know which is the dream, do you want it more?"

Max did not answer immediately. "I don't know," he said at length. "I don't want either in that moment. I just don't know which one is real. There's not enough time to want one over the other."

"Okay, fair enough," Jake agreed. He didn't have a master's degree in psychology, and he doubted very much there was any book written with advice on how to deal with past lives on other planets… Or maybe there was… The world was a strange place after all. "Let's look at the other side of the coin, now. What's the best case scenario?"

Max swallowed. "There is none," he said, dejected, pleading with Jake to understand the terrible hell he was finding himself in.

"There is much value in anyone's life, Max. Those memories, Zan's memories if you'd like, they are a window to a man who had a very special life. He was a ruler, however briefly. He lived in another world, had other goals in his life, maybe the same as you. Maybe he was shy and had to get over it, fast. Maybe he had bad days, and good days, and loved his family just as much as you do. Don't you think, just for a moment, that there might be value in you learning about his life?"

Max had never thought of this before. The perplexed look told Jake as much. "Maybe Zan is not your enemy, Max. Maybe you can make him a long-distance ally." Maybe you can make this work without losing yourself.

Maybe. Just maybe.


2 : Dave

2:57pm
T minus 7 years, 9 days, 1 hour, 3 minutes

"How was the session? Anything interesting?" Dave absently asked over the phone as he had Jake on speaker. He had finally found an actual track on the elusive hacker who had been tantalizing him for almost two years now. And he had every intention of following it to the boy who was behind that keyboard.

Jake's silence, however, stretched for far too long. Dave stopped typing, his eyes going to the phone, trying to picture Jake on the other side. "Jake?"

"Oh, sorry. Anything interesting? Regarding Max?" Jake repeated Dave's questions.

"Yeah," Dave answered, now his hands off the keyboard.

"He's getting faster. I… well, he was distracted with Isabel's birthday, I think, so he just rushed through it."

Another birthday, another touchy day, Dave thought, completely forgetting Jake's absent-mindedness. Completely missing that he was lying. Next year, Dave promised himself, next year I'll let them roam the Earth. I just need to prove they are ready.


T minus 7 years, 9 days, 53 minutes


AN: The preview for reviews was nice :D I'll keep sending them from now on ;)