At First Touch (2 page)

After yet another awkward introduction, Preston was dismissed and I was shooed off to the bleachers, clutching a paper detailing the expectations of the class. As students began filing in from the locker rooms, a few friendly, more confident people came up to introduce themselves. I played the shy card and kept my responses pleasant, but to a minimum, attempting to be as blandly forgettable as possible. Finally, the class began and the students became wrapped up in the complexities of badminton and I was free to ruminate in peace.

The whole scene was so breathtakingly familiar I nearly cried. Just one more group of people I couldn’t be myself with, couldn’t get close to, couldn’t find friends in. One more school, one more town, one more state that would never be home, just a stopping off point before I was forced to pick up and flee yet again.  Unwillingly, my mind drifted to the day four years ago when I awoke in the hospital and realized I would never have a normal life again.

*                                              *                                              *                                  *

The first thing saw when I opened my eyes was my father’s concerned face. His beloved, weather-beaten features were blurred by the dryness of my eyes, but I could still read his shock and relief.

“Oh honey,” he choked, voice trembling with emotion. “You’re awake.  Oh God, you’re awake!”

I glanced around me, slowly becoming more lucid. I was hooked up to so many wires and machines I briefly thought I’d been turned into the Bionic Woman.

“Daddy, what’s going on? Where am I?” My 12-year old voice was thin and hoarse, as though it hadn’t been used in a while. His eyes shone and he bit his lip before he answered me.

“Sweetie, you were in an accident. You’ve been…in a coma…” he broke off as he succumbed to tears and lifted my frail hand up to his cheek, weeping openly as he kissed the palm and held it tightly. More than the word ‘coma,’ his behavior startled me. My father had always been affectionate, but rarely this emotional. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him cry before.

“What do you mean? What…?” My voice shattered as it happened for the first time.

There’s no way to describe the sudden attack on my mind that took place as my father took my hand. It was as though some switch in my brain was thrown and a deluge of information poured itself into me, straining at the edges of my mind, stunning my whole body into rigid shock. Suddenly I was bombarded by images, words, tightly wound strands of data that stormed through my consciousness and filed themselves away with sharp precision, leaving me breathless and shaken. It had only lasted a few seconds, but when the paralysis faded I stared up at my father with new eyes.

“Mommy? MOMMY! Where’s Mommy?” I screeched, suddenly overwhelmed by a memory of her funeral that hadn’t come from me. “She’s not dead, SHE’S NOT DEAD!” I screamed, trying to scramble out of bed, my eyes pleading with my father to tell me it wasn’t true.

He simply looked shocked for a moment and then pressed me back down on the bed, tears streaming down his face as he tried to quiet my rising hysteria. Another memory that wasn’t mine crashed through my consciousness.

“I’ve been in a coma for a year?” My voice was hollow with disbelief and I could feel my hands beginning to shake uncontrollably. Dad’s eyes widened with alarm and he quickly ducked his head out into the hall to call for a nurse.

“Honey, calm down, it’s ok. You’re awake now, and you’re going to get better; that’s all that matters.” He sat down in the hard-backed chair at my bedside and took my hands in his. “Shh, baby, shh.” He sat there talking quietly to me, telling me that my cat was still alive and doing fine, how my grandparents called every day; slowly he reminded me of who I was and what I had to look forward to. Finally the shaking in my hands stopped and I was able to breathe normally, closing my eyes and trying to make sense of what had just happened. Dad seemed to be of the same mind, because he posed his next question cautiously.

“Sweetheart, how did you know about your mother?”  He was still holding my thin hands in his warm, callused palms, and without understanding how, I knew that those calluses had been formed from lifting stones and laying mortar over the past six months; he had lost his job at the insurance company and was forced to work in construction. Why did I know that?

“I don’t know, Daddy. I think…I think you told me.” I frowned, unsure how to explain that startling moment when my mind seemed to link with his and take in so much information. He gave me a confused look and rubbed his five o’clock shadow with his fingers.

“Honey, I know I didn’t tell you. I was trying to figure out to work up to telling you, since I knew it would upset you.” He shook his head. “No, baby, I didn’t tell you.”

I felt tears well up in my eyes, feeling disoriented and grieved that my mother was dead, that somehow a year was gone from my life, and now I had some new strangeness to cope with. Dad saw the tears and brushed them away, giving me an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, baby. It doesn’t matter. The doctors said you might be able to hear what we talked about even though you were unconscious. It’s probably just something your mind dragged up.” He patted my hand reassuringly and looked off to the hallway, brow furrowed in thought.

As I looked up at him, feeling so lost and seeing him look so worried and sad, I wished I knew what he was thinking so I could say something to bring us closer. A strange rush blew through my head and once again it was filled with more than my own thoughts.

‘Oh, God, what do I do? Is this some side-effect from the treatment? She seems so strange…the way she’s looking at me. I don’t know what to say to her. Dammit, where is the doctor?’

I gasped and Dad whipped his head back around to look at me.

 ‘
What is it? What’s wrong with her? What did I do?’

“What do you mean, Daddy? What did you do?” I asked, my voice thin and wavery with fear. He blinked down at me in surprise and opened and closed his mouth awkwardly for a moment.

“W-What? I didn’t say…out loud…” He broke off as the long awaited doctor came in the room, followed closely by an eager looking youth with a coffee stain on his white jacket. Dad stood up and motioned for the doctor to speak with him in private while the white jacket came over to me and began surveying the machines I was hooked up to, making notes and grunting at his findings. I strained my head to try and catch a glimpse of my father and the doctor, but the white jacket stepped in front of me with a friendly smile.

“Well, hello there. We’ve never formally met, obviously, but I’ve been checking on you every other day for the past few months. I’m glad to finally see you with your eyes open.”

He reached out and took my wrist in his hand, feeling for the pulse below the thumb.

With a jolt that froze my whole body, I felt my mind switch on, and the assault I had experienced when my father first touched me rampaged through my brain again. The man’s mind came smashing past all my own thoughts and worries and a new onslaught of data filed itself away in the recesses of my mind. Just as quickly, it was over, and my body was released from its static posture. I looked around wildly, expecting to see some change in my environment that would reflect what had just happened, but everything was the same, only a second had passed and yet my mind somehow felt larger and fuller.

‘
8,9,10,11,12,13…’

I glanced up at the white jacket, expecting to see him counting, but his lips were closed and unmoving. At the same time I was aware that his name was David Evans and he was a medical student assisting Doctor Friech in his experimental drug study. The girl in front of him, me in fact, was the only successful treatment thus far.  Squinting up at him, I realized I knew much more about David Evans; I knew his mother’s name, his bank account number, his thesis on the study of neurotransmitters, and everything he ate for breakfast.

I started breathing heavily, panting in fear, my hands shaking wildly again, just like they had with my father. What was going on? Why did I know these things? What was wrong with me?

‘What now? She shouldn’t be experiencing any physical symptoms. Geez, what’s with her eyes?’

“My eyes? What’s wrong with my eyes?” I cried, my voice sounding panicky and breathless.

Evans looked startled and bent over me, still clutching my wrist between his fingers.

“What? I didn’t say anything about your eyes,” he said calmly, though his expression betrayed his concern.

‘God, what have they done to my little girl? Have I made a mistake? What can I…’

“TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!” I screamed, bolting into an upright position, my heart beating frantically, painfully, tears flooding my face. And suddenly my mind was quiet. As though by simply telling it to turn off, my brain had shut down whatever part was sucking up everyone else’s thoughts. Because that’s what was happening, I had no doubt. Even in my disoriented state I knew the thoughts I was hearing were not my own and that somehow I had acquired an immeasurable amount of information from my father and David Evans in just a few seconds, all from their touch.

When my father and the doctor ran to my bedside to see what had happened, the doctor placed his bare hand on my arm and it happened all over again. And again when the nurse came in. And the specialist that Doctor Freich called in. And my grandparents the next day when they came to visit.

Every time someone touched me I was immediately flooded with all their memories, knowledge, and thoughts. With a single touch their minds were opened to me and my own simply drew everything in and filed it away for future use. 

By the end of the week I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, but I knew what had happened to me.  

I had been in a terrible car accident with my mother. We had been driving home from a piano lesson when a drunk driver swerved into our car and knocked us off the road; Mom lost control and we crashed into a transformer. She died on impact. I sustained multiple injuries and was electrocuted. By the time I was brought to the hospital, I was already in a coma and after six months, my remaining brain activity had decreased to the point that the doctors were suggesting my dad pull the plug.

Desperate to hang on to some part of his family, Dad had sought out every specialist in the country, ending up transferring me to a hospital in Boston where Dr. Freich was working on an experimental treatment involving neuro-enhancers and ‘brain-computer interface’ technology.  The treatment involved boosting my neurological development with drugs and using his special computer to try and regenerate brain cells.

Well, it worked.

It evidently worked really well, because I knew all of this without being told. I knew everything about the treatment, the technology, and the research behind the experiment because Dr. Freich put his hand on my arm when he examined me for the first time. Not only did I know everything about my recovery, I learned his life history, everything he’d ever picked up at school, even his cheats for winning at Tetris. And this happened with every other person who touched me. I learned everything they had ever known, finding that simple physical contact allowed me to download their entire minds.

It didn’t end there. 

It wasn’t long before I figured out that once I had ‘downloaded’ someone, so to speak, we maintained an open connection and I could take a peek into their heads any time I liked, hear their thoughts, see what they saw.

It was frankly terrifying. I was sure I was losing my mind, that I had left a coma for some schizophrenic alternate reality. My father was sick with worry since every time someone touched me I started screaming uncontrollably and complained about the voices in my head. It was another month before I crawled out of my bruised psyche and began to control my new abilities.

I managed to convince my father what had happened to me fairly easily. It was weird; his first reaction was just relief that I hadn’t suffered some kind of psychotic break, not that I was now a mind-reading freak. Still, it was his idea to hide what had happened from the doctors. It was too late to prevent Dr. Freich or his assistant Evans from knowing something was different about me, but they couldn’t possibly understand the full extent of my uniqueness.

Dad was scared they would want to keep me around to study and do tests on for the rest of my life and none of that sounded appealing. Dr. Freich was already beginning to ask suspicious questions and the equipment I was still hooked up to was giving off abnormal readings. So, with Dad’s help, I slowly began to develop parameters for my ability.

I found I could call up any piece of information I wanted at any time, like opening a file on a computer hard drive. Before long I managed to turn off my connection to others’ minds. Like that first time I was bombarded by my father’s and David Evans’s thoughts, I found that with concentration, simply willing the voices to turn off was enough to free me from the link; not unlike closing a window on an Internet browser.

After another few weeks, I was healthy enough that Dr. Freich could no longer claim I needed to remain in the hospital. We left immediately, and my father and I moved back home to our apartment in Manhattan.

Things got worse for me.

Knowing every secret, every thought, every hidden desire of the people I had spent my entire life around became an unbearable burden. Dr. Freich called almost every day, wanting me to come back in for tests. He tried to make arrangements to come see me in New York. Before long, it became obvious we would have to cut all ties to friends and family and start over if we were going to keep my secret safe. So we said our goodbyes and I learned to wear gloves and avoid touching people at all costs. I did select a few specific individuals to download, such as karate instructors, college professors, computer specialists, and as many physicians as I could get my hands on. So, by the age of sixteen I was a repository of more knowledge than any human has probably ever possessed; and I had plenty of room left.