In the dark of the laboratory, Coburn starts the machine up to run diagnostics. The detector had been built out over several weeks into a larger platform onto which the rats were placed and the program run. By laying his head down on the platform he could run the program on himself by setting up the scan and reaching out to hit the enter key. He felt like he was faxing his mind but for two weeks now the process had seemed totally harmless. He had patiently watched the rats (as well as Richard and Carl and their minions) for four weeks and no side effects had appeared. Watching the diagnostics run across the computer screen he still marvels at its accuracy, and then, arriving at a crude text-based menu, he begins to set the machine up for a test run on one of the rats the way that Carl showed him. He waits for a moment, for the machine to begin its calibration of the detector and then he steps over to the rat cages and reaches for one nearest him.

((SHOCK! PANIC! MOVEmoveMOVE run nam ger hand in kek shadows GIANT)) He reels back from the cage in a sudden panic that knock him into the counter, print outs spilling, as the rat scurries around in its cage. His heart rate has jumped and he cannot shake the feeling that something massive was falling down on him. He could feel it. Breathing deeply he looks around the science arcade of lights for some sign of what had happened. It was that feeling of something just appearing out of his line of sight but massive like a bear. He puts his hand to his heart and tries to breathe deeply. Gathering himself, he shakes it off after a couple of minutes—its all the lack of sleep. He takes a final deep breath and looks to make sure that the machine had not been roughed up in the commotion. It seems fine and he steps back over to the cages.

((Hand face? unknown ab bac nervous nervous erv fear Coburn’s face Coburn’s hand reaching bars)) Stepping back from the cage like a magnet repulsed, Coburn covers his eyes with his hand. His vision had been momentarily blurred, coupled with other hazy images—his own face! Shocks of sensations, sparks of feelings, blips of images. He felt disoriented. Afraid. The lesion. The lesion was having some effect. But now the doorknob is jiggling ((work too late farv tired no work erkerk)) Carl! Coming in the door. Coburn steps quickly back over to the prototype and types in one of the diagnostic codes for the rats, obliterating his own scanning codes. The computer being churning out charts as Carl walks in and turns on the lights. ((SHOCK)) “Dr. Coburn—((worry Coburn’s face angry guilt)) —orking with the machine?” “Uh. Yes. Hope you don’t mind. ((Concern machine on desk humming looks okay)) I, uh, I think I know what I’m doing. I just couldn’t make time to look at it until after evening rounds, you see.”

((puzzlement works too fak hard sleep? tired too)) “Sure thing, Doc.” Coburn closes his eyes, to will away these foreign thoughts plaguing him—puts his hand to his head.

“You ((all right?)) all right, Doc?”

“Yes! God, you know, Carl. The start from you coming in the door ((scared him, gop me!))—I think I just really need to get to bed, you know?” The signals are absolutely exhausting, Carl’s thoughts crammed in with his own, with no warning, surfacing like cruise missiles. “Anyway, I—((seems weird sleep?)) I don’t want to get in your way if you’re here to work.”

“Okay. ((not mad good stern okay?)) You don’t have to worry about me though if you want to keep working with the equipment.”

“No! ((calm rabbit)) No. I mean, that’s okay. I should really head((work so par hard danger ref patient?))home. Coburn moves to the door, shots of his own backside making it hard to know where he is in the room. Images and feelings fade as he moves out of the room in to the hallway. It must be the electro-magnetic field. Yes! The rats, Carl, their electro-magnetic fields were setting off the RFID prions. But how could they be mirroring signals? He had to get home.

Read the whole thread: Brain->Wash, The Memory Thief

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