Chapter 15: Some Initial Tests and Preliminary Results

"Holy shit, you've got to be kidding me?"

"Nope. It's true. Cate thinks she's uncovered the key to how Alex activates people. But more than that, she thinks she knows how to detect who's a Seer and who's a Watcher."

Dr. Ryan Moore stood up, enthused at the prospects this brought up. He started excitedly pacing around the room.

"Man, this is a major break. We've been piecing things together for a long time, but ... So how does—"

"She thinks the key is that both the Seers' and the Watchers' main talent isn't their ability to detect emotions, instead it's their receptiveness to Alex's energy," Allison explained. "That's changed too, by the way. Now they're calling it BCM. It stands for Becky, Cate and Melinda, though think up a humorous mnemonic you can use to throw off anyone who may hear you use the term. Anyway, the idea is that Watchers, who they're now calling 'Seekers', react to BCM, but Seers respond more strongly to it. She thinks if Alex were to try healing Watchers, they'd heal a little faster, but Seers would heal much faster."

"Wow, they've been busy coming up with a lot of new stuff. Wait a minute," Ryan said, coming to a halt to address Allison directly, "you mean the only reason you girls were successful the other day was because you were treating Anh, who's a Seer. And that if she wasn't, you may not have recovered as quickly?"

Allison blushed, embarrassed she hadn't considered the idea. Now that she did, she realized what it implied. That if they'd tried to save someone else it could have been disastrous. She didn't know what would happen if they exhausted their own supplies of BCM. Would it mean they'd just collapse, or could they drain what they needed to survive? No, that thought was too scary. They'd consider it another time; she was here to discuss a specific topic.

"Yeah, I guess that's true. But it's a separate issue. The point is, a Seer's main ability is their heightened response to BCM, and Alex's isn't activating people or using his BCM, instead they're all tied together. What we think of as each one's strongest abilities, are really complete accidents based on their actual abilities. I think we've explained how Cate believes Alex's real ability is to create these linkages between different dimensions, and he created a path to somewhere with a much higher density of BCM. That's why he has so much of it. That explains why Alex is sick, because he's tapped into a source of BCM so strong that it's fatal to humans."

"That's a lot to take in. Yeah, you've mentioned the bit about Alex creating portals to alternate dimensions previously, but it wasn't all tied together like this is. But how does that apply to the Seers?"

"Well, if Seers respond to BCM to a higher degree, then the idea is Alex uses that to activate them. As you know, he creates two mini-portals in them, linking his own brain to theirs. By doing so, they get just a small amount of his own energy, but when he first creates it they get a sudden rush which is strong enough to cause the massive growth of new tissue required to produce both the visions and the telepathic connections. Thus both Alex's and the Seers' activations are a byproduct of his exposure to this high level of BCM, and that by exposing the Seers to it, they use it to rapidly adapt."

"OK, I get that, but you're obviously leading up to something else. What's this about a test?"

"Well, if everything I've laid out is true, then we should be able to test people's response to BCM to determine who may be a Seer, or even a potential Watcher," she said, using the older term since that's what Ryan was most used to.

"But if all humans have the same basic level of BCM, then how would you ... Wait, you mean expose them to Alex's BCM?"

"Exactly, but not quite. Alex's BCM level is too high, it would throw everything off. Any Seer who came across him would get activated. Instead, we remove Alex, but we use something that's been soaking up his BCM. We plan to use his underwear. It's cotton, so it's made from something which can absorb BCM and it's close to him, so it has plenty of time to absorb his energy."

"I can see that. But how do you measure the response?"

"Cate's newest idea is that the eye contact which seems to be so essential isn't really a necessary component of the actual activation. Instead it's a test. Alex needs to make eye contact to measure how people respond to his BCM. If he can detect a response, then they're able to respond to his activation. If they don't, then there's simply no sense in even attempting the activation process."

"Wait, so you're saying they can simply expose someone to Alex's used underwear, then measure their response to the BCM levels in their eyes?"

"Exactly. Just like you can measure whether someone's been exposed to certain drugs by their eyes' responses. If their pupils are dilated, they've been exposed to something."

"Yeah, it makes perfect sense," Ryan said, looking thoughtfully in the air. "It just might work."

"But that's the next step; we're planning a test on some relatives of known Seers. We plan to expose them to some samples to see how they respond. But there's a necessary preliminary step. We need to know what to look for. We figure we've only got a limited amount of people we can use to test, and we can't afford to waste the opportunity."

"That makes sense. If there are only so many relatives, and only so many are liable to have the necessary traits, then you couldn't afford to miss their response completely."

"That's where you come in, Dr. Moore," Allison told him.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, you didn't think I asked you to offer me a drink in the privacy of your office just to shoot the breeze, did you? We need you to reserve some time tomorrow. Cate sent all the undershirts Alex wore last week to us via overnight express. I can't conduct the tests myself, since there's a chance we might respond to the BCM ourselves and potentially miss the response we're trying to record. So we need you to make the history making first recording. You need to measure the first recordable reaction to BCM. Even though it's indirect, it would be the first measurement of BCM."

"Me?" he asked.

"Well, you and Becky. She's not about to miss this opportunity. And we'll use us Seers as test subjects. In fact, Liv is driving up tonight just so she'll be here tomorrow morning to be involved. This is a big event, and you're going to be the star. You're going to make history tomorrow morning. And what you determine is going to affect the future of a whole new race of humanity."

"Yeah, you're right, it will," Ryan responded with a starry far-away look to his eyes. "It will."

"It's a wild concept, but it sounds like a solid idea. I can see it working," Lists, Col. Lister Pendleton, M.D., said, also getting excited about the prospect of breaking new ground in this exciting new field.

"I thought it was worth mentioning to you," Caity told him. "After all, you were talking about trying to find a way to generate an independent source of BCM in order to do your own independent tests. This is just up your alley. You couldn't publish the results of any of your experiments, and you can't detail how you gained access to the material, but if this works, you'll have a measurable component to evaluate differences in the quantity of BCM."

"Yeah, this could be major. As I said, I'm not as concerned with publishing. I'm coming at this from an applied process. I'm interested in demonstrating how it can impact people's overall health and their recovery from specific health issues, thus I can do an end run around the traditional peer review process. As long as I can demonstrate a particular procedure has a higher success rate, there's no reason to justify it scientifically."

"Good, I thought you'd appreciate hearing about it. Hopefully you can use it to—"

"Oh, no, I won't be using it myself. I'm concerned with new treatment protocols. I'm looking at what Alex's approaches to medicine can teach us. I know we'll never have a sufficient level of it to accomplish anything, and I have no desire to prove its existence. If I could get access to some of those dirty t-shirts it would be a tremendous help. But basically I'd be holding it next to a lab culture to see how it impacts tissue growth. I'm more interested in the end result rather than in the underlying principles. My job is to heal sick warriors. If I can increase their survival rates with a fairly easy process, I'll be sitting pretty. But I'm not about to rock the boat by making wild unprovable claims. The military command wouldn't be impressed, and they'd yank me if I provoked any controversy."

"Well, the ultimate aim is to establish how it impacts people. They want to know why non-Watchers/Seers are attracted to him, and why many men get so angry at him. They figure if they have a method of measuring someone's reactions, then they can quantify how much BCM it takes to provoke a response, then measure the people's other physical responses to see how they correlate."

"Ah, that makes sense. Again, an excellent study, and one I'd love to hear about, but one without any ultimate benefit here," Lists replied. "Frankly, we don't much care who takes offense at Alex. If we have a sudden increase in Alex types signing up for the military, then we'll analyze the syndrome, but until then..."

Caity laughed. "I see your point. Anyway, I'll keep you apprised of what they discover. And if we can arrange it, I'll see if I can get you some samples you can use in your own testing. But the point is, once they determine how to do the measurements, you could use me, or any other Seer, to determine just what concentrations of BCM you're dealing with."

"That would help. After all, it's hard doing experiments with an invisible, immeasurable substance. But my main interest is figuring out how to vary naturally occurring levels of this BCM. So I'd like to see if I can boost it through natural means, so yes, a way to measure it would be invaluable."

"You realize this is most uncomfortable, don't you?" Allison asked.

"Hey, you volunteered for this," Becky responded as she finished strapping her in. The setup was basic. They'd moved the furniture in the loft to the sides and sequestered the other Seers to another loft space to await their turns later. Right now Becky was restraining Allison, and fastening a special tape to keep her eyes open so they wouldn't lose valuable information due to an unfortunately timed blink. Ryan was sitting behind a monitor which was showing a close up of Allison's eyes.

"OK, she's set. We can begin," Becky announced, as she got up and moved over by Ryan to watch the proceedings with him.

Allison was very uncomfortable. Not only were her eyes taped open so she couldn't blink, but she was also in enforced isolation, disconnected from everyone. Although there were three people in the room, Ryan and Becky were both focused on their tasks, and Allison wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone telepathically other than to signal Shani, who was stationed outside of the door, to send Melinda in.

The windows had been covered with heavy drapes to reduce outside distractions, and there were bright lights shining in her face so they could clearly see any changes in her eyes. Perhaps the hardest thing was to resist the impulse to talk to her sisters, the other Seers, who were as anxious as she was to know how this played out.

Her eyes were already burning from being kept open, and the experiment hadn't even started yet. Her chair was uncomfortable, and the lights were already making her sweat. She hoped she'd be able to sit still for the whole procedure, since there were multiple stages to it.

When Becky and Ryan were set, they signaled her and Allison sent a message to Shani, and a moment later the door opened and Melinda entered, carrying a wrinkled t-shirt in front of her. They'd laid out the loft so there was nothing between Allison and the door, and as Melinda entered Allison could hear the click of her heels. Allison tried not to react, but she was anxious about how she was going to respond. She could feel her eyes tearing up, she hoped it wouldn't impact the test.

They'd marked out the distances involved, and the floor was marked with measurements which Melinda called out as she walked at a measured pace towards Allison.

"Thirty feet, Twenty-five, Twenty..."

The footsteps sounded hollow in the sound deadened room, although there was still a mild echo from her heels on the hardwood floor as it reverberated against the distant walls. Allison could feel herself tensing up with each step Melinda took towards her. Melinda's steps, and her calling out the distances, were the only thing Allison could hear over the sound of her own heartbeat and her bated breath. She had to force herself to take measured breaths to maintain her calm.

Melinda drew closer and closer, and Allison couldn't detect any difference. Finally Melinda reached her, and she held the t-shirt up against her face. She took a deep whiff of the shirt, just to see if there was an olfactory element to the BCM, but she couldn't detect anything. Plus, even with her vision, she couldn't see anything on the shirt itself, even though Melinda positively glowed in the darkened room, her emotions dancing across the outside of her aura. Since her vision was technically independent of the light entering her eyes, the lights shining in her eyes didn't obscure her vision of her aura.

"OK, we got that one," Ryan called out. "If you're OK for another trial, we'll send her back outside so we can do another."

Allison tried to nod, but found she couldn't move her head, so she answered verbally instead. "Yeah, I'm OK. Let's get this over with. The sooner I can get out of this setup the better."

She watched Melinda walk the same distance, this time heading back out of the room, but this time she wasn't walking with the same measured steps. Allison could also see she was relieved to have finished the first step, so apparently Allison wasn't the only one feeling the stress of this experiment.

"You know, I'm still not sure why Cate couldn't have done this herself," Ryan commented. "After all, this is the kind of thing she's been dying to study."

"It's because she's with Alex all the time," Becky explained. "His presence would skew the results too much. If a Seer can detect him from miles away, then marking off the feet between the door and here wouldn't make much difference. She needed someone isolated enough to do the study, and she wanted it carried out by those without the specific 'S' gene, since she was afraid the Seekers and Seers might not be able to make an independent observation."

When Melinda entered again, carrying a different shirt this time, Allison felt her stress rise once again. But she immediately noticed Melinda seemed more anxious than she had been before. She didn't know if she knew something, or just surmised she held the right shirt. However, Allison couldn't determine anything as Melinda walked towards her. It wasn't until she was partway towards her that she could detect the faint glow of the shirt she was carrying, and a short distance later she could literally feel his presence on the shirt. Even at that distance, knowing and feeling Alex's essence on the shirt made her feel safer and more secure. That was enough to alleviate much of the stress she was feeling. Melinda walked the rest of the distance, and Alison still couldn't tell whether she was reacting any differently, but she could definitely tell this was Alex's shirt. She'd never concentrated on such a trivial item in such detail before, but it was hard to mask Alex's presence on it.

When Alex's sister stopped in front of her and held the shirt against her face, Allison tried to just close her eyes and soak in its energy, but of course her eyes were taped open. So instead she sniffed the shirt, but the act of smelling it didn't seem to either increase or lessen the effect she felt from it. Finally Becky got up and approached them. Melinda stepped back as Becky carefully removed the tape from Allison's eyes.

"I'm sorry we had to keep you strapped in for so long, but we needed the control sample so we can compare the two videos side by side. Melinda, you'd better get the shirt back. We can't leave those things exposed for too long, since we have no idea how quickly the BCM degrades."

Melinda hurried out, after placing the shirt in a plastic container. Allison knew she wouldn't be returning, as Ryan and Becky didn't want to be distracted by too many people watching them. Becky released the restraints and Allison blinked rapidly several times and stretched her hands and arms.

"I didn't notice anything, so I'm anxious to see the videos playing side by side," Ryan said as Becky returned to her seat beside him. They started the video as Allison was still getting herself together, but she was anxious to see this memorable event, so she hurried over to peer over their shoulders.

They watched the videos. It seemed strange to Allison, watching her eyes staring back at her as if she was a panicking prisoner in some slave-master's dungeon. The video seemed to run much faster than the actual experiment had.

"No, I didn't see any difference between them," Ryan said. "Maybe it's been too long. Maybe there's no observable difference."

"No, there was definitely a difference," Allison told them. "I could both feel and see the energy in the second shirt."

Ryan grunted, showing he wasn't convinced she could actually tell any difference, especially since he couldn't detect any difference in her physical responses.

"Don't be so sure," Becky cautioned him. "Let's review it again, just to be sure."

So they viewed the recordings one more time, and now that Allison was watching as well, she could see Ryan's point. She couldn't see any difference between the two videos, so she started to question whether she'd merely wanted there to be a difference between the two shirts.

"No, I still don't see a thing. Maybe it's simply not visible in the eyes. It might just be that the eye thing between Alex and his Seers involves something else. Plus, we have no idea how long cotton will hold BCM. Maybe it's already dissipated. Maybe by the time it gets here via overnight delivery it's been too long."

"I'm not ready to rule this experiment a failure yet, let's review it again and see if we missed anything," Becky insisted, even though Allison was having doubts about what she'd seen and felt herself. "Also, according to Cate's explanations, there's no other mechanism to transmit this information, so it would have to be something in the eyes, since Alex wouldn't be able to see anything else."

"You know, it might vary with the individual as well. Or it might even be a testing bias. Maybe if Allison knows she's being tested, she behaves differently than she would normally."

"I don't think so," Becky responded. "Otherwise Alex's procedure wouldn't be as dependable as it is, and he would activate people he'd already met. Since that's never happened, we can assume it's not subject to such variables, so let's just watch it until we figure out what's happening."

So they watched the video again. They ran through the entire tape another two times.

"I'm telling you, there's no response whatsoever. The entire experiment is a complete bust. There was no reaction."

"Hold on," Becky said. "I think I may be onto something. You're looking for something obvious. Something which Alex could easily detect from a distance. Hold on a minute," she said, as she pulled her purse up and started rifling through it. "Ah, here it is," she said as she pulled a small clear plastic ruler from her bag. "I use this at work to measure stuff from the displays on the computers. I think..." she said as she rolled the recording forward and then stopped it at a specific point. She laid the ruler over the image of Allison's eyes, though no one was sure just what she was measuring.

"OK, roll it forward now," she instructed Ryan, who did as she requested, moving it forward in slow motion.

"There, I'm not sure, but I think I've got something."

"I can't see anything, and certainly nothing which would be visible across a room or across a street. I think you're imagining things."

"No, it's the anticipated result, only it's not as clear cut as we'd been expecting. Look at the pupil. If you review it slightly, the edges of the pupil expand a tiny amount. It's only a fractional increment, but it's actually occurring."

"You may be seeing what you want, but even if it is true, how could that impact anything? How could Alex observe it from a distance?" Ryan objected, playing the skeptic.

"I think you're the one who's letting his feelings get in the way of his judgment," Becky responded. "You're disappointed you're not seeing the results you expected, but there's an observable difference here. The eyes are widening, not just as much as we think is required."

"You know, there's something else there as well," Allison observed, leaning over to point at the screen. "Run through the entire thing again and watch the intensity of the pupil, instead of how much it does or doesn't dilate."

Ryan, intrigued, did as she requested, and they watched it again as he ran through it in slow motion again.

"There, you see, there's a dulling of the color. I'm not sure exactly what's happening, but there seems to be something happening to the eye we can't quite make out, but the dark of the eye is getting less intense."

"That makes sense," Becky said. "If you'll remember, whenever someone meets Alex they have this wide-eyed glassy look. Maybe that's a part of the whole process."

"I'd always thought that was the result of observing his aura for the first time," Allison commented. "But it seems to occur earlier than that, since there's no overwhelming aura to account for here."

"You know, I think you've got a point there, Allison," Becky said, glancing at the other two. "We've been looking for something Alex could have observed from across a room."

"Or from across a city street, in the case of Mattie," Ryan reminded her.

"Exactly, but we're not taking into account the difference in scale here. In one case, Alex comes along and literally blows these girls' senses, overwhelming them, in the other we have his shirt from the other day, which has probably degraded. It's a matter of a couple grapes versus an orchard, or rather a few drops versus a powerful flood which sweeps everything else away."

"I think I see where you're going," Allison said, growing even more excited. "What's hard to note here would be much more pronounced if Alex was present. Even a tiny change would be apparent in that case."

"Now wait a minute," Ryan countered. "If that's the case, then why has no one noticed it before? If every Seer's eyes dilated like they were high on cocaine, then surely someone would have noticed it. I haven't seen any visible reactions in any of your eyes when he's around."

"There may be more to it than that," Becky surmised. "Assuming Cate's proposal is correct, and Alex activates someone fractions of a second after he detects a response in their eyes, maybe it counters the very effect we're looking for."

"That's logical," Allison agreed, "remember, he's hijacking the optic nerve and the visual cortex, even if what we're responding to isn't a form of light. Thus what we perceive as Alex's bright aura causes our eyes to respond as if we're exposed to a bright light. That would cause the pupil to contract. It would counteract the effects of our exposure to the BCM, masking its effects."