Who's the Real Todd?, Ch. 38

The nurses had come running at the sound of his screams followed shortly by Michael McBain. Blair had gotten out of the way as they tried to ascertain the cause of Samuel's pain. Michael turned to Blair and asked. "Did he say anything before he started screaming."

"He said there was a noise driving him crazy and he tried to cover his ears, then he just started screaming. My God, Michael, what is it? Isn't there something you can do to help?" She reached into her pocket looking for a tissue and felt the jar the implant was in, the jar appeared to be vibrating. "What the..." She brought it out of her pocket and the implant almost seemed alive. "God in heaven" Blair screamed and the jar fell to the ground, breaking

Everyone watched fascinated as the implant was vibrating and slowly began to move across the floor towards Samuel's bed. No one moved, all of them frozen in shock, watching the implant when suddenly Samuel's scream rent the air again and Michael realized the closer the implant got to his patient, the more pain was felt by Samuel.

Blair mobilized the minute Todd screamed.  She moved to crush the offending chip but found herself stopped by Michael. "But it's causing him pain, it's still hurting him."

"Blair, wait we don't know what would happen if you crush it. You could kill Samuel." Michael and she watched as it continued to slide closer and Samuel was beginning to arch in agony. One of the nurses grabbed another jar and scooped it up, but it just brought the chip that much closer to Samuel and he started to seize. Michael suddenly realized that the chip was trying to reach Samuel's brain. "Dear God there's still a part inside!" He yelled, " Get that damn thing out of here now!" The nurse gingerly held the jar and swiftly exited the room.

As soon as she left the room Samuel collapsed and was still. Michael spent the next minutes checking his vitals, once again he was out like he had been when Blair had brought him in, but his heart was beating strong. Michael ordered an immediate cat scan and told the nurse to call his team again he was pretty sure he was going to have to go back in. As the nurses prepared Samuel for the trip to get a cat scan, Michael walked over to where Blair was holding her husband's hand.

"I need to examine that implant, Blair. I've ordered another cat scan I think something got left behind. I don't understand how this thing works, but it's still connected to whatever is in Samuel. You go with Samuel for the scan and I'll talk to you in a few minutes." Michael took the implant and headed to his office. When he got there he locked the door and went to the cabinet behind his desk and got his high-powered microscope. He took the Jar and with tweezers extracted the now inert implant. Putting it on a slide he positioned it under the microscope and began to thoroughly examine it.

It was an incredible piece of machinery and it obviously had its own power source but how was it possible that it could still be active to anything inside Samuel. He remembered how difficult it had been to remove and he had attributed it to the scar tissue around it from the initial insertion. Now he wondered if he had been mistaken. It was clearly deteriorating. Could something have broken off and not been noticed? He slowly examined the top and then each side finally turning it over to examine its underbelly. He gasps as he saw the very fine wires like prongs that would fit in some matching plug. That plug and whatever was attached to it still remained in Samuel and was still active. What scared him was that even unplugged the two parts were still sending and receiving. It must have something to do with the implant's internal power source.

He had likened the implant to a spider the first time he had seen it and now he couldn't help picturing a spider atop its egg sack connected by a fine-spun line attached to its underbelly as it sent egg after egg down the line. Could something like that still be embedded in Samuel's brain, a sack of incredible nanobots gathering information and sending that information back up to the mother chip? The technology was light years ahead of anything he had read about in the journals. Whoever had designed this, had connections to something very top secret. This was diabolical. Michael took the implant and returned it to the jar and locked it away in his safe. He needed to go tell Blair his findings and take a look at the scans. He had an idea about what he was looking for. Now he just needed to extract it.

Michael joined Blair at the cat scan room and told her his findings. Then he went to check on the scans. He realized why it had been missed as soon as he saw its location. The plug and sack had been placed carefully and deliberately in a fold that separated the occipital lobe from the temporal lobe. The information from those two lobes would have been immensely interesting if someone wanted to find out everything about a particular person. They were the lobes that processed vision and protected the memories and perceptions one experienced daily.

Michael stopped and checked on Samuel as he was wheeled out and then they set off for the operating room. It bothered Michael that Samuel still had shown no signs of rousing. Time was an issue now, the longer Samuel was out, the more damage might be occurring. Blair insisted on being with Samuel once again and the nurse took her for a mask and gown as Michael prepared for surgery, the Heart Surgeon arrived and was told of the development and he too scrubbed in. The lights were turned down except those above the table as Samuel's head was set securely and Michael reopened the site and his equipment was put in place. With little time to waste, he began his surgery.

Michael put in the tiny camera and began to make his way to the site where he had removed the implant he did a quick check to make sure all of the incisions were sealed and could see no sign of infection then he came to the place he thought the plug might be residing. He carefully felt inside the crevasse going slowly so as not to damage any more cells. Then the camera found it. It was astounding. There were multiple wires twisted and bundled running down into the brain and near the top of the crevasse they all merged into a plug with openings that matched the wires Michael had seen on the underside of the implant.

Using the grabbers attached to the camera he tried to grab the wires and give them a pull but suddenly all the instruments went haywire. Michael couldn't stop now he had to rely on the doctors and nurses around him to keep Samuel alive, his job was to get that thing out. Using his laser he carefully followed the wires down till he found the device, it looked like a conglomerate of cells surrounding a central core. He didn't know how the thing worked but his guess was that somehow each cell absorbed information from the neurons in the brain and fed the information back to the chip. Once again he found himself having to pull but this time the device gave way. He quickly removed it and closing the temporary flap over the surgical site, he began to assist them as they worked to bring Samuel back.

Blair couldn't believe it for the second time in two days she watched them trying to restart Todd's heart.

Todd stood there next to Blair watching them work on his body it was kind of like watching from inside his mind but this time things didn't hurt. He looked at Blair and knew she was petrified, and he hated that all he had was the last several months together. Then he began hearing the hateful laugh again, it began to surround him. Why couldn't he even have peace in death? The laughter sounded close so he decided to go find it. He turned to Blair and said "I love You. I always have and always will, in this life and the next. You complete me." he tenderly tried to kiss her cheek and then he went to find the one he hated the most.

He was walking toward the sound and it was getting louder but then he noticed it was getting stifling. He found himself looking at a house he had hoped never to see again. The laughter was coming from inside. Todd entered the house, he suddenly felt icy cold but the air was blistering hot. Todd walked toward the laughter and there Peter sat surrounded by his women.

Peter glanced up at him "Ladies it seems we have a new arrival but this one you don't need to worry about. This is my failure of a son. The mighty Lord Heir. Oh and let's not forget he's a Rapist and a murderer too. I have plans for this one. He and I are going to get reacquainted." He began laughing and then his ladies joined in and soon the laughter was deafening.

The laughter beat down at him and suddenly Todd found himself struggling on the floor trapped once again by Peter, The man looking down laughing as he finished zipping up his pants and those words "This is all you're good for, you're a disgrace as a son, now you know your real place."

Todd knew this was hell but his father was wrong. The cold around him expanded beating back the heat and pushing his father away. He stood and faced the man, Peter seemed smaller almost insignificant. "You're wrong. It's you who deserves this place. You're nothing but a small-minded pervert who delighted in hurting everyone around you. You took your anger out on me and tortured me because you could, I was a helpless child. In doing so, you made me stronger than you. I'm not worthless I have a family and friends something you never had. Look at you. You're nothing but a shriveled wasted excuse of a man who existed on the pain of others. This is your hell. Wallow in it." As he spoke, Peter shrunk and became almost unrecognizable as his true deformity of mind showed him the man he really was. Todd felt the pull in his heart and he knew the love of his life was calling him home. He turned and walked away going back where he truly belonged.

Blair watched as the time kept slipping by. They had worked for so long and still had gotten no response from Todd. She saw Michael looking at her and she knew what he was going to say. She rushed to Todd's side, the nurses falling back looking at her sadly. NO! She couldn't lose him, not like this. Life couldn't be that cruel.

Michael came up beside her as Blair hugged her husband. "Blair, I'm sorry there's nothing else we can do. This last attack was too much for him," he ordered the team to back off and give Blair her few moments, then they would do the closing of the surgery. He looked at the offending piece of implant that had taken a man's life. In more ways than one. If the story, he had heard from his brother that morning, was true. Samuel had lost eight years because of that implant and had just begun to get his life back. He glanced sadly at Blair.

Blair clung to Todd weeping. "It's OK. I know you tried, you just couldn't take any more. I understand, no one has suffered or taken as much as you have in the last few months. You rest now. I'll make sure Carlo and Ivan are punished. When you see our son, you tell him mommy loved him and when the time is right we'll all be together again." her tears were flowing down her cheeks as she smoothed his hair, "I don't want you to worry about me. I'm going to be alright. I came alive again when I found you in Paris. You did that. You opened yourself up to me, finally letting me in. All those years apart and they disappeared with one kiss. I think that morning in the car when you woke me and I looked into your eyes, I saw the man who told me he loved me. I remembered how hard it was for you to trust those feelings but you trusted me, and even though I broke your trust, you never stopped loving me."

Images of the terrible fight after he found out about her initial lie and how hurt he had been. The hateful words that had been flung back and forth at one another and had almost ended in his attack on her. Somehow they had gotten past that and found their way back to each other. There had been so many times when they had fought and made up and then she had done the most hurtful thing she could do. She had sent him away for the sake of the children. Blair was sobbing uncontrollably. If she had never sent him away they wouldn't have lost those eight years. "I'm the reason you got caught in Mitch's web.  Please forgive me. I won't let you be forgotten again. When I'm finished everyone will know the truth about you, the real truth. I promise you, my love. I want them to know about the man who loved his family more than life itself." She stifled her tears and took a deep breath and leaned in to kiss her husband goodbye. His lips felt so cold but she lovingly caressed them with her own. She recalled their first kiss. He had started then stopped afraid to go that step with her, but she had moved ahead and kissed him. That had been all that was necessary to ignite the passion between them. Todd had responded that night with an intensity that had left her breathless. She wanted just one more kiss like that and tasted her tears as she kissed him when she felt pressure being returned. My god, she must be imagining it, she was sure he was kissing her back. She paused and looked up into the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. Two gorgeous hazel eyes were looking at her and her heart expanded two-fold. She looked lovingly into his eyes and returned to smothering him in kisses laughing and crying at the same time. TODD WAS HOME.

Michael and the Heart Surgeon had been quietly talking in the corner about the procedures used during surgery, documenting everything. They hadn't officially called the time of death because of Blair, even though Michael had noted it on the chart. They were startled when Blair started laughing and crying at the same time and then they heard the monitors. Michael and the surgeon rushed to Blair's side, surprised to find their patient staring up at them.

Blair gave Todd one final kiss and moved out of the doctors' way and Todd's eyes followed her. The Doctors nodded to each other and as the heart doctor checked out Todd's vital stats the surgery team moved back into place to complete the surgery that had been interrupted by Samuel's death. Michael worked quickly to close the site properly to ensure that no contamination had entered the site. He used only a local anesthesia, not wanting to take the chance of further problems that general anesthesia might generate. Samuel seemed in a semi-conscious state and Michael was concerned about how much more damage had been sustained from the lack of oxygen.

Michael finished the surgery and then he picked up the second implant and deposited it in a jar. He touched Samuel's shoulder and Samuel's eyes turned in his direction. "Samuel, you're in surgery because there was still a piece of the implant in you and it triggered your pain, it's out now. I don't want you to worry about it and don't try and talk. You need to take it easy now. You were clinically dead for a number of minutes and we'll need to check you out after you've had a chance to recuperate to see if there are any lasting problems from that. You rest now."

Michael walked over to Blair and talked with her for a short time then he took the device and took it to his office to put it next to its other half. He couldn't believe what he saw next the two jars moved toward each other till the jars were touching and then the implant literally seemed to crawl up the side of the jar and the plug in the other jar moved attempting to attach itself once again to the underside of the main implant. It was downright creepy. He locked the safe. He knew he was going to have to give the implants to Blair for their case but he felt disgusted that she would even have to touch the items that had almost killed her husband. He made the decision to find a container for her to transport them in so she wouldn't have to look at them.

Blair sat next to Todd afraid to take her eyes off him. She couldn't believe he was still with her. When she had looked into his eyes the world stopped. Time ceased and she was on the bed once again looking up into his face wishing that everything that had happened before and everything to come would stop and they would simply be flying high where no one could reach them. It had been the moment of moments for them. Today it had all come flooding back. She reached up and caressed his hair enjoying the feel of it between her fingers. Then she found those same fingers tracing the scars on the side of his face. Mitch had almost taken Todd's eye with his cruelty. Now Carlo and Ivan had almost taken Todd's life because of money. She'd had enough. It was time to get even and she was going to do anything she could to see that Todd got his revenge.

Todd began to stir and moan a little bit. Blair had been told to alert the nurse as soon as Samuel showed any sign of coming around so she pushed the button and the nurse came running. Blair had gotten up and was trying to get Todd to awaken but he just seemed locked in one of his many nightmares again. She hated feeling so helpless. "Samuel you can wake up now, you're safe. It's me, Blair. You don't need to hide any longer. We've got our proof.   Wake up so you can go get Carlo." It was no use, neither the nurse nor she could get him to wake up. They would just have to wait until the dream ran its course.

Todd found himself going down that corridor again. Like all the other times before he was encased in bandages. But strangely he felt pretty alert. Something had changed. He realized he could make out more things in the hallway. The artwork on the wall hadn't been in any previous dreams. He recognized it. It was "The Scream" how apropos. Only Kipling would get a perverse pleasure out of hanging something like that in his hall. They continued just a little farther and the Door to Kipling's lab appeared. He was wheeled in and Kipling was once again waiting for him.

Todd felt a shiver of fear pulse through him as he knew what was going to happen next. Once again the doctor asked about Peter and once again Todd convulsed in pain but then he was beside himself in the dream, watching, but no longer participating. He watched as Kipling took that awful pleasure in watching him writhe in the chair. He looked around and saw the machinery attached to his head and then the wires attached and being fed into something grotesque in shape, it almost looked real. It had ceased to be a nightmare and he realized it was a memory.

The memory faded and he felt the air blowing over him, he could feel the sheets that he lay on. He was back in the hospital, the image of his father Peter shriveling before his eyes a distant memory. He could hear movement beside him and knew someone was standing near. Slowly he opened his eyes wondering if the latest venture into his brain had made him lose all sight and was surprised that it was just the opposite. He could actually see, well somewhat. Everything was blurry and out of focused, but he had color and more shape than before. He gingerly turned his head to the side of the bed he had heard movement coming from and he made out a shape, one he knew very well. She was the reason he was here.  He tried to speak but at first, nothing came out.  He was so dry, he tried again. Whispering he called to his wife. "Blair".