Chapter 21

Friday, November 23, 1979

We did have our wedding ceremony with Tiffany this morning. It was beautiful as always. As we were going back into the house afterwards, Missy said, {Now, aren't you glad we gave her the ability to rejuvenate her body?}

{And a fine body it is,} I said as I pinched Tiffy lightly on the butt.

{God, it's hard to imagine how I looked just a few months ago and how I look now," Tiffany said.

{Speaking of bodies,} Sharon/Jude piped up, {Could we start looking for a body for me today?}

{I think that's a fine idea,} I said. {How about it, Cindi, would you go with us to look for a body for Sharon?}

{Can we eat some breakfast first? I used up a lot of energy the last few days. I'm starved.}

We all assured her we'd eat before we left.

The first place we went was Laurel Grove Hospital in Castro Valley. We parked near the Emergency Room entrance and went in that way. The ER wasn't very busy on the morning after Thanksgiving. There couldn't have been more than half a dozen people in the waiting room. We walked right on by them and by the nurses desk like we knew where we were going.

{I think we need to walk every corridor on every floor,} Cindi said. {We'll be able to pick up a brain that isn't functioning at short range, but I doubt we could do it from very far away.}

Do you have any idea how many corridors there are in even a moderately sized hospital? It took us quite a while to hike through. We found five people who were basically brain dead. Three of them were men and neither of the two women had a blood vessel of a size we thought would work.

{Where next?} I asked as we were walking back to the car.

{I don't think we're going to find what we're looking for in a hospital,} Jude said. {Hospitals move out patients that are brain dead to nursing homes or convalescent centers.}

{There's a nursing home here in town,} Cindi said.

{Let's head for that, then,} I said.

The nursing home turned out to be a bust as well. It was a large one, but almost all of the patients were elderly. Some of them were suffering from Alzheimer's, but no one was completely brain dead.

We stopped for lunch and while we were eating, I borrowed a phone directory and we looked for where to go next.

We went through three more nursing homes that afternoon and came up with nothing. We were a tired group when we got home, but we resolved to start looking again tomorrow.

We had a nice dinner that Bonnie and Tiffany had fixed for us, then retired to our suite. Tiffany attacked me as soon as we were in the bedroom. If Tiffy had had inhibitions before she was rejuvenated, they were gone now. We made passionate love with the whole family watching and helping.

Saturday, November 24, 1979

We visited two more nursing homes during the morning, then broke for lunch. The first place we visited in the afternoon was a convalescent center in Hayward.

The place was huge. We were walking down the second of six hallways when Cindi stopped abruptly. {Let's go in here,} she said. {I think this girl may be just what we need.}

We went into the room she indicated. There were two women in the room. One had to be nearly a hundred years old. She was senile, but her brain was still functioning. The other was a young black girl in her late teens or early twenties.

{Sharon, would you object to being a black woman?} I asked.

{Not unless I thought it would bother you,} she said.

{Honey, it's you I love. I don't care what color of body you're in. You know from being in rapport with me that I'm not prejudiced.}

{Guys, she is brain dead, but she has some other problems as well. We need to scan through and see if they could be fixed,} Cindi said.

Cindi was right. The girl had some spinal cord damage that would have made her a quadriplegic even if she had cognitive thought. The cognitive portion of her brain was in good shape and so were all of the memory areas. We scanned her brain thoroughly and couldn't find anything wrong. The blood vessel that controlled telepathy was as large as Cindi's.

{Sharon, I'm sure that if we can get you transferred into her brain, you could just ask the body to heal itself and it will. What do you think?} Cindi asked.

{Let's do it,} Sharon said. {Is that okay, Mike?}

{Absolutely. How do we go about this? We can't just have her get well here. There'd be too many questions asked.}

{Stay with her while I go to the nurses station,} Jude said. {I have an idea, but I need to scan one of the nurses to see if it'll work.}

Cindi and I stayed in the room while Jude went to the nurses' station. {Guys, it looks like what I was thinking about will work. The nurse here is filling out a form for me to release Shaniqua Rollins to private care. She thinks I'm Shaniqua's doctor.}

Cindi and I grinned at each other. {Okay, I just signed the doctor's name to the form. I'm going to have her call for an ambulance to take Shaniqua to our place.}

{What should we be doing, love?} I asked.

{Why don't you two go home and get the hospital bed moved down from Tim's spare room to ours. I'd suspect it may take a day or two to get everything done and we'll need the bed until then.}

{What about you?}

{I had the nurse put a phony address on the form she filled out. I'll ride in the ambulance with Shaniqua and make sure they deliver her to our place.}

{Okay, love. We're on our way.}

It took all of us to get that damned bed moved down to one of our spare rooms. We hadn't much more than got it set up when we saw the ambulance pull up outside. The two attendants got Shaniqua moved inside and onto the bed. They hung the IVs and we thanked them for their trouble. As they were leaving, Cindi implanted in their brains that they had delivered Shaniqua to the address shown on the form.

We had Carrie look things over and she said we had enough supplies left over from when Tim was on IVs to keep Shaniqua going for a few days.

Sunday, November 25, 1979

{How are we going to make this happen?} I asked as Missy, Jude and I were cuddled up, drinking coffee. {Shaniqua doesn't have a conscious mind there that you can go into rapport with.}

{Cindi and I have been talking about that,} Jude said. {Even though the mind that was Shaniqua is no longer there, there is still a conscious and a subconscious mind. It may take all of us working together, but I think we can still go into rapport with the mind that is there, even though it is blank.}

{When are you going to try it?}

{Cindi and I will try it after Cindi and Sharon are awake.}

After breakfast, Cindi and Jude/Sharon moved chairs into Shaniqua's room. {We'll see you guys later,} they told us, which I took to mean, "Leave us alone."

The weather was a little nippy, but Missy, Bonnie, Tiffy and I decided to relax in the hot tub for a while. The water in the hot tub was just fine. Some tubs I've been in have been so hot that I thought my skin would peel off after a few minutes. Fred had ours adjusted so it felt very hot as you were getting in, but you didn't have to get back out after only a few minutes.

We did a lot of cuddling and touching and playing while we soaked up the heat from the water. When we finally got out, we looked like a bunch of raisins.

After we were back in our sitting room, Beth came by and asked, <How are they doing with Sharon?>

<I don't know, hon. We were run out, > I said.

She asked for us to let her know as soon as we knew anything, so we assured her we would. After she had gone, Bonnie said, {I talked with John yesterday while you guys were out hunting for a body for Sharon. He said he has sold the last of our silver.}

{How much did we end up making?} I asked.

{We had 6,182,326 ounces when we started selling. John sad we averaged $41.00 an ounce. I haven't checked his figures, but he said it came to $278,075,366.00.}

{We made $278 million and the Hunt brothers lost their shirts. It seems appropriate, doesn't it?}

{Yeah, but old Uncle Sam is just waiting to gobble up a good portion of it. John says our tax guys have several ideas of how to lessen the tax burden. I told him to go ahead, as long as what they did was strictly above board. I don't want the IRS to even suspect there might be something fishy.}

{Amen to that.}

We sat there for a while, then Cindi came in and pushed Missy off of my lap so she could claim it. {What's going on?} I asked.

{Well, several things, actually. We managed to establish a rapport with Shaniqua's brain. Her personality, id and ego are gone. Some if not all of her memories are still there. There was some damage to the cognitive portion of her brain after all, but Sharon and Jude are fixing that right now.}

{How long is all of this going to take?} I asked.

Cindi giggled and said, {Don't try to rush it, Mike. This may take a few days before Sharon is on her feet in Shaniqua's body. The brain has to be fixed first. We can't speed it up because the body is getting it's nutrition through the IVs. After the brain is fixed, Sharon can move in. At that point, she can drink some of that energy drink and start repairing the body.}

{Okay. Keep us informed as to the progress. Beth wants to know too.}

{I'll go tell Beth now,} Cindi said as she bounced up and headed for the door.

{I wish I had that girl's energy,} I said.

The rest of that day was spent getting Shaniqua's brain fixed. Cindi and Jude came in at bedtime and crawled into bed with me.

We kissed and cuddled for a while, then Jude said, {Sharon is in her new body. The body is too weak to even bring it to consciousness right now. By morning, the IVs should have given her enough nutrition that she can wake up.}

{Was it a good idea for Sharon to move in this quickly?}

{Probably not. Cindi and I tried to talk Sharon into waiting until morning to move over, but she wouldn't listen. We did have a very good rapport established when she made the change, but I still worry a little.}

{How do you feel?} I asked.

{It's like you feel when we first come out of a very deep rapport. Part of you feels very good, but part of you wished you were back in the rapport. I'm going to miss Sharon being inside my mind at all times.}

I held Jude close and stroked her. Cindi snuggled up to the other side of her and did the same. I think all of us drifted off to sleep at the same time.

Monday, November 25, 1979

I slid out of bed early, even for me. I made a quick trip to the bathroom, then went in to the sitting room and got coffee started. Before the pot was finished brewing, my pregnant angel came in. I put my arms around her and held her until the coffee finished.

I got Missy and me a cup and we sat on one of the loveseats with Missy on my lap. {Good morning, love,} I said.

{Good morning. Have you heard from Sharon this morning?}

{No, I suspect she's asleep. When she is awake, we'll feed her some of that nutritional, energy drink, then she and Jude and Cindi will start working on her body.}

{I was so worried about her, Mike. Beth and Sharon were my two best friends before we all got together. I didn't want to lose her.}

{Yeah, I know the feeling. Maybe she'll be at a point she can talk with us this morning. I hope so.}

{What do you hope?} Jude asked as she came in and poured herself a cup of coffee.

{That we'll be able to talk to Sharon this morning,} I said.

{I don't think they'll be any problem with that. When Cindi and I left her last night, she seemed like she was well established.}

{You don't think there's any vestige of Shaniqua's personality left?} I asked.