Elite (9 page)

Still, Daniel was curious to hear what Richfield and the doctor had to say.

“Doctor Horchoff is one of the most brilliant minds in the medical profession today,” Richfield explained.

“Though the rest of the world may never realize it,”
Horchoff interjected.

Daniel looked at Richfield, then back at the doctor, and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, “Is this true?”

“It’s true Danny Boy,” Blank answered, reading either his facial expression or his mind. “I’ve seen the doc here do a lot of spectacular things.”

He hadn’t the slightest clue why the testimony of a borderline sociopath like Blank put his mind a little more at ease, but it did. He had somehow grown to trust the man, like a sort of older brother almost. Well – cousin maybe. Maybe it was the heart-to-heart they had after his first visit to Elite. The manner in which Blank spoke to Daniel was if he truly cared about his well-being. Daniel wasn’t sure whether or not it was all a front, geared toward creating a false sense of comfort within him – but if it was, it was working.

“Come on and sit down,” Richfield said as he wheeled another stool around from the far side of where he was sitting, placing it on the end of the table so that Daniel would be seated directly between Richfield and Doctor Horchoff.

Doctor
Horchoff was a scraggly looking fellow, and Daniel wasn’t sure if the scrubs and white lab coat he was wearing made his appearance seem more acceptable, or just made him even creepier. He carried a rather unkempt appearance, and looked to be in his mid-fifties. He had long, scraggly grey hair which was pulled back into a ponytail that extended down to his lower back. A number of renegade hairs had managed to break free of the hair tie that was making a gallant effort to hold his ponytail in place.

His face and skin tone gave the impression that the doctor had not spent a whole lot of time outdoors in the last century. He seemed very frail with ghostly white skin which was covered in grey stubble. His sunken eyes sat under his bushy grey eyebrows, magnified by his prescription lenses which were mounted on wiry silver frames.

Daniel took his seat at the end of the table, situated between Richfield and the doctor. Both men swiveled in their stools so that they could properly navigate the paperwork which sat on the table before them. Blank moved over to the wall behind Richfield and leaned his back up against it. He took off his hat and began spinning it around in his hand by the rim, as if inspecting it for abnormalities. Daniel would have guessed that it was a nervous gesture, except he didn’t believe that Mr. Blank ever felt nervousness.

From his appearance, one would expect
Horchoff to speak with some sort of Eastern European accent similar to Doctor Frankenstein. Instead, he possessed a rather mild tone in his voice, accompanied by a plain, mid-western American accent.

“So some of this is going to sound very strange to you, and also very scary,”
Horchoff began. “And I won’t lie to you, the idea of doing this procedure on a live, human test subject kind of scares me too. But I am extremely confident in my ability to not only perform this procedure safely, but with the desired results as well.”

“Just a moment Doctor,” Richfield said, raising his hand to cutoff the doctor. “Before we go any further Daniel, I’m going to need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

“Of course,” Horchoff muttered, as if disappointed with himself for almost revealing the details of the so-called “procedure” without first following proper protocol.

Richfield slid the papers across the table to Daniel. He was once again in modest dress, wearing a blue buttoned up shirt with the top two buttons undone, tucked into a pair of dark grey khaki-style pants that looked as though they could have been purchased from Penny’s. He did appear to have taken the time to shave this morning, but his hair was as greasy as Daniel had remembered it.

“This,” Richfield explained, “basically states that if you breathe a word to anyone about what you are about to hear in this room today, you will be in a lot of trouble.”

Richfield took a deep breath as he removed his hand from the form.

“Not to mention,” he added, “really have me pissed off.” Then he gave Daniel an intimidating ex-CIA killer glare.

Daniel wasn’t too concerned. He wasn’t going to tell anyone. He truthfully didn’t care
to
tell anyone about all of this. He could just imagine telling the story to his co-workers—they would think he had gone insane. The only person he could see himself possibly wanting to tell was Jordan, but he could keep it from her. God knows she had kept enough from him over the years.

“Even if I wanted to,” Daniel thought aloud as he began signing on the dotted line, “I wouldn’t have any clue
who
to tell.”

“You might change your mind after you hear this kid,” Richfield said as he took the NDA back and inspected it to make sure everything was in order.

Daniel had only lightly skimmed the agreement, actually digesting maybe an eight of it. He pretty much understood the concept of “non-disclosure.” He figured if he didn’t tell, he didn’t have anything to worry about.

Richfield completed his examination of the document and seemed satisfied.

“Okay Doc,” he said as he looked up at the doctor, “go ahead.”

“Yes,” Daniel agreed, turning his attention to the man to his left. “You were saying something about a super scary medical procedure you’d like to perform on me.”

Richfield smirked as he sat upright and folded his arms, waiting for Doctor Horchoff to continue with his lecture. Horchoff glanced back down at the paperwork that he had sitting in front of him, adjusted his glasses, and looked back at Daniel.

“Daniel,” he said with a curious expression, “how familiar are you with the way the brain operates?”

Daniel stared blankly, not sure how to respond. He was no neurologist, but he remembered a few things from biology classes he had taken in the past.

“
Uhh…” he replied, “the basics, I guess.”

“Well I’ll just go over some of the basic functions with you
which will help better explain to you what we are trying to accomplish with this procedure,” Horchoff responded. It was obvious that he had planned on giving Daniel a lesson on brain functionality ahead of time. In fact, Daniel was pretty sure that the doctor was excited to showcase some of his knowledge of neuroscience.

“Now the brain is broken into three main parts,” he explained, “The hindbrain in the back, the midbrain, and the forebrain in the front of our skulls.”

He paused for a short moment as if to decide how to best continue with his explanation.

“What we are going to be most concerned with today are the front and back sections. Now…” he swallowed and continued, “the back part of the brain, which is made up largely of the Cerebellum, as well as the Brain Stem, is where most of our involuntary actions are controlled. For example, respiration and heart beat
, digestion, and things of that nature.

“The front section of the brain – primarily the cerebrum – now that’s where all the good stuff happens.”

“The Frontal Lobe,” Daniel interrupted, showing some understanding.

“Well, yes, that’s a large part of it,”
Horchoff acknowledged. “See, the front part of the brain, as you probably know, is broken up into two hemispheres – the left and the right. Each of those hemispheres is then divided into sections, or lobes. The frontal, as you said, which allows us to plan, reason, and is also home to our imagination. The rear most portion of our frontal lobe is also quite important as this is the ‘motor area’ of our brains.”

“So voluntary movement,” Daniel jumped in again.

Daniel always made it a point to try and absorb knowledge wherever he could, and he for some reason felt an obligation to let Doctor Horchoff know that his words were not lost on him.

“Exactly, very good,”
Horchoff replied. Daniel couldn’t tell if he appreciated his input, or was annoyed by the fact that Daniel had once again interrupted his train of thought.

“Anyway,” he continued, “from there we also have the parietal lobes which are your sensory areas—so taste, touch, those sorts of things—the occipital lobe which processes images to memory and whatnot—and finally the temporal lobe which deals much with the ears and their related functions.”

Horchoff seemed pleased to have gotten through that bit of his lecture without incident.

He continued, “The highly-developed human forebrain is truly a marvel in its own right.”

“It’s what separates us from the animals, kid,” Blank suddenly contributed from up against the wall.

Daniel looked up and over at Blank who was looking back at him with a reassuring smile on his face.

“Precisely,” Doctor Horchoff said, trying to put the focus back on his educational monologue. “Then of course we have the Inner Brain, and this is also very important because this is where the hypothalamus is located.”

The pace of the doctor’s speech was beginning to increase greatly. Apparently he was growing bored with this little biology lesson and wanted to move on as quickly as possible to the good part.

“The hypothalamus is very important because this is where you feel emotions, and emotional responses. It is also home to the adrenal glands. Then we have the Thalamus which handles a lot of traffic going to and from the spinal cord as well as the cerebrum.”

He stopped to take a breath and allow his brain to catch up to itself. Something, Daniel knew, was not uncommon in people with an abundance of intelligence.

This time Daniel did not contribute his own commentary. He simply sat in silence, and waited for the doctor to continue.

And he did.

“Now—the brain communicates with itself as well as the rest of the body using neurons. These neurons are made up of axons, which send messages, and neurons to receive them. They communicate with a series of synapses, which allow for signals to be passed from neuron to cell. I’m sure you’ve heard of synapses before. And then of course this is all done with the help of neurotransmitters, which are essentially chemicals that are released across a synapse.”

He let out another abnormally large exhale, and took another moment to gather his thoughts. Once again, the other three men in the room remained silent.

“Now what I want you to remember for my explanation of this procedure,” Horchoff said, turning toward Daniel, “is the basic functions of these areas—cognitive thought and voluntary movements in the front, involuntary movements in the back, and the emotional and chemical functions in the inner brain, as well as the way the brain communicates with itself in the body.

“In the nineteen-forties, while Hitler was trying to create the perfect race of humans, one of his biological scientists developed a theory on how to connect every section of the brain so that it could communicate with every other section.”

Horchoff paused and stared at Daniel as if waiting for a reaction. Here, however, Horchoff had lost him.

When satisfied that Daniel was not fully grasping the concept,
Horchoff decided to clarify. “Essentially what he theorized this would do, would be to allow the subject to control every aspect of his bodily functions.
Everything.
From physical attributes, to mental acuity. Even increase and shut down sensory perception. There would be nothing going on in the subject’s body that they could not control through cognitive thought.”

This time Daniel gave him the reaction he was looking for.

Total control of one’s body.
That was some super human stuff right there.

He took a look over at Richfield to his right. He was still upright with his arms folded and facing the doctor, but Daniel could see that he was looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Wow,” Daniel finally said to break the silence. “That sounds pretty intense. What ever happened to him? Did he ever try it?”

“No,”
Horchoff answered immediately, as if expecting the question. “Unfortunately the war ended with the Germans losing.”

Horchoff
froze.

He looked up at Richfield with regret on his face. Richfield just let his head fall to the side. Daniel imagined he was probably rolling his eyes as well. Despite the way he had phrased it, no one in the room suspected the doctor of believing that it was unfortunate that the Nazis lost the war.

Once he was certain he wasn’t about to be chastised, he continued. “That is to say, his work was cut short, and when the Allies stumbled upon his research, they immediately discredited and locked it away, particularly because it represented the terrible things that Hitler stood for at the time. In fact, no one even knows the name of this scientist.”

Horchoff
nodded to himself as if he were satisfied that he had covered up his earlier slip-up. Daniel thought that the doctor probably supported a lot of the research the Nazis were doing during World War II. Not that he agreed with their mantra, he just found their ideas fascinating. They no longer represented the evil that they did over 70 years ago.

“Besides,” he went on, “he was limited by the technology of his time. There was no way he could have actually put his ideas to practice. In fact, the technology, not to mention a well-enough understanding of the human brain which would have led to a feasible medical procedure, hasn’t existed –
Ever –
Until now.”