Chapter 7
Emmitt Sheehan, six years old, born in 2306, was in a body cast. His neck was braced and secured to his head by rods and bolts. He was so badly injured, it was the Doctor’s opinion he would be better off dead. His family was dead, killed in the accident. He defied expectations and persisted. He overheard snippets. He’ll never walk again. He’ll be a ward of the state. That sounded ominous. This was not the life he had signed up for. This was too hard. How could he do his mission alone? One Nurse, quietly at night, came to him in one of his rare lucid moments as he begged for pain killers. Her name was Loxy Bliss. She seemed like angel to him. Just her touching his forehead eased his pain. He asked to make it all go away.
Bliss held a conversation with him at his level, but she also held a conversation with him on a subconscious level. Her uniform spoke to the unconscious soul. She was privy to the conversation, but maintained the surface connection while the others spoke to the ‘Passenger.’ Jung did most of this conversation. Even though the Doctor said he would never walk, the Doctor couldn’t say this with absolute certainty. People had been known to overcome worse. Uhura came to him inner music and love. Every effort was made to console this soul and convince there was so much to learn here. But he was stuck. This was not the way it was supposed to be. So he was offered an out. He jumped. His soul went to a party waiting to greet it with compassion, and Garcia stepped up to the plate.
He found himself alternating between his body and this new one. He was still attached to his body. He had become adjusted to a multiplicity long ago, while jumping through time, having had mind melds where he had switched places, and being aware of clones and other lives.
“Fuck,” Garcia told Bliss. “This is much harder than you told me it would be.”
“It didn’t say it would be easy,” Bliss said.
Garcia found himself with Bliss a lot in the beginning. Jung counseled with him, exploring the psychological meanings of the accident to Emmitt. They analyzed the loss. Uhura gave him music. Sacagawea told him stories. Chan taught him about channeling Chi. They did Tai Chi together. Tesla taught him how to use his mind, to go anywhere in his mind. He could have an engineering workshop in his mind that was so perfectly detailed he would not be able to distinguish between this and reality. Harister would come sit with him, and just listen to him complain. House offered insight in bizarre ways. But Bliss reminded him of his innated abilities to heal.
“That’s Vulcan genes. I don’t have them. Emmitt is completely human,” Garcia complained.
“We are not our bodies. We are not our brains. We are not our genome,” Bliss said. “How the hell do you think placebos work if it’s only all chemical reactions all the time? You can change this. You can control this. Change your brain, change your life. Your brain is plastic. The thoughts you hold, the models you incorporate into your paradigm, these constructs will build the neural structures you need to tune into a greater awareness. Write fiction, and store it in your body.”
Garcia had no choice. He could lay here and suffer, or he could start engaging the suffering. He engaged it. He asked for less medication. A device on his forehead read his thoughts and allowed him to speak through the computer. He learned to open apps and write. This paralleled his life with the Garcia’s, in that as a child prodigy, he had written music and stories. He did this again. His pseudonym became Tammas Parkin ArblasterGarcia. He wrote stories of a parallel universe where things were vastly different. They were popular. People read them. His critiques were harsh, but that only increased the popularity of what he wrote. The psychological team used this as further evidence of him being deluded by fantasy. He of course, didn’t tell them that he talked to beings that they couldn’t see or hear.
“I will walk again,” he said.
Evidence of delusions. He moved a toe. They were astounded, but this didn’t mean what he thought it meant. He eventually came out of the casts. The neck brace was removed. The artificial vertebrae had taken. The body accepted them. Fingers moved. He learned to give himself a fever trying to just oscillate his muscles. There were psychologist that were impressed with this, but knew the autonomous system could be more consciously engaged; he had access to biofeed and neuralfeedback, so, yeah yay Emmitt, but this did not mean he would walk again.
“How the hell did you expect Emmitt to overcome adversity if all you could do is tell him what he can’t do!” he snapped one day at the Doctors doing the rounds. It was a slip. He spoke of Emmitt in the third person. The Doctor was about to comment on this when the nurse pointed out: “You clenched your fists!”
From that point forwards, Garcia put more effort into owning the name Emmitt Sheehan. He couldn’t be seen as crazy and have a future career in Starfleet. That was his goal. He would be the best of the best again. The more he focused on this life, the less aware he became of his other self. Bliss assured him this was okay. He could give in to this complete, and when it was over he would wake up back in his body. Sophia would keep his body and brain functioning. Sometimes he would sleep here and be awake there. His invisible counselor would engage him. He began to think this was his dream, and that his pseudonym Garcia, was just a tulpa, and avatar he used to navigate a fictitious world. He wondered if Stephen King had this sort of relationships with his pseudonym and all the characters he wrote. Jung said, “King is probably the healthiest soul I ever met.” “That’s insane,” Emmitt said.
“What’s insane?” The nurse doing the rounds asked. She stopped. “Did you just speak, with your voice?”
She called the Doctor. He demonstrated he could speak.
“This is unbelievable,” the Doctor said.
“I want to get up,” Emmitt said. His voice was soft, unpracticed.
“Not going to happen,” the Doctor said.
“Robotic exoskeleton,” Emmitt said.
“No,” the Doctor said.
Doctors and nurses came and went. They were in charge of his life and acted as proxy parents. He was six. He had no say. He was aware of his body in growing degrees. He felt as if he were stuck in sleep paralysis. He could drift from his body and see the room around him from various positions. He did not think he was actually leaving his body. He assumed it was the equivalent of a dream state and that his brain had rendered virtual model that he could navigate. There was little known ability of the brain to be able to learn to see with hearing. Blind people could learn to see the world, in three d, better than eye sight in terms of navigating physical object, by making clicking sounds. In essence, it was human ecoholocation. He had it. He didn’t have to see with his eyes. He didn’t have to even make a sound. He allowed his brain to just accept the sounds he heard, and the echoes that came with it, and he could close his eyes and see the world rendered. He suspected this is what made it possible to navigate the dream world. Using his eyes fixed his position, but navigating with sound, that opened up a different map. Dreaming life was still attached to the world with sound. He constructed his theory and offered it as paper for getting into a college. He was accepted.
His nursing home provider was angry that he managed to get around the safety protocols and interact with people outside of his domain.
“You’re six years old,” the Doctor said. “I am the adult. I am your Doctor. You do another reach around and I will cut off your access.”
Occasionally volunteers came to visit people in the nursing homes. One lady, by the name of Guinan came in one day. The nurse was going to introduce her to Emmitt, but she found Emmitt out of bed, on the floor, and injured from falling. The nurse called for help and staff came running.
“Don’t touch me!” Emmitt snapped. “Let me do this. I am going to walk again, damn it.”
He was sedated, put in bed, his arm went into a cast again, and, he was secured. No one understood how he had managed to turn himself over, much less go the distance needed to fall out of bed.
The next day and Admiral arrived.
“Hey, kid,” he said. “My name is Leonard McCoy. I am Doctor. I hear you want to walk.”
“You’re not McCoy,” Emmitt said.
“I am not?” McCoy asked.
In his ear, only he could hear it, “This is not the same universe you remember. It’s all changed.”
Emmitt recovered. “Why would anyone so famous come see me?” “We have a mutual friend. Guinan,” McCoy said.
“I don’t know anyone named Guinan,” Emmitt said. That was true. Emmitt didn’t. “If it’s okay with you, I am going to take over your care. If you want to walk again, by God, I will help you,” McCoy said. Emmitt began to cry. “Thank you!”
In Emmitt’s alternative history fiction, Garcia was the pseudonym, and Jon Harister was him. He had been careful enough to change the names of his characters. Kirk was Aeneas, a Hornblower character revitalized- who had been in love a great warrior, Dido- a figure who had to die for the federation to come about. All of Aeneas relationships that followed were him trying to connect to aspects of Dido. There was a Spock character. McCoy was House MD in the stories. Characters brought to life out of history and fiction by sophisticated tech, tech on the verge of being magical, to save the galaxy.
Emmitt met Spock. He was afraid that Spock would see through him to something deeper. Spock practically ignored him. The avoidance was so palpable that he began testing it, and came to the conclusion there was definitely a subconscious, cognitive block that was preventing him from establishing a deeper relationship with Spock. There was no need for them to have a relationship, except now that Emmitt was living with McCoy, his adopted father, there would be times like these. Funny how theme seem to repeat. Unlike before, though. He actually lived with McCoy. He wondered if everyone in the universe had a theme that fit into a musical score so that everyone was recognizable and they could only come together when the scores fit.
Even before he learned to walk, he was confounded by sexuality. A part of him realized it was because he was already an adult, having had many relationships. Part of it was being locked out of his body. Sleep paralysis increased sensations that tended to open erotic pathways in the brain. Dreaming itself activated the Eros response. Focusing on healing activated the Eros response. He had not been able to hide this from his nurses. One of the psychiatrist prior to McCoy explained it as an artifact of trauma sexualizing him early.
“You’re over reaching a bit there,” Emmitt had argued. “It could just be I like this nurse.”
“That’s inappropriate on so many levels,” the nurse said.
“Kids do have fleeting, biologically driven sexual impulses that increase in frequency with time” the psychiatrist had said. “This is normal.”
It didn’t feel normal. Garcia had a hyper libido, and he thought Emmitt’s was level was pathological. Then again, he had been so bored lying in bed, with only his fantasy life to motivate him. He heard Bliss soften it: ‘this is normal. Bring compassion into it.’ But there were added complexities that he didn’t factor. He was attracted to older females. 18 and above, no ceiling. He would not be able to legally engage them until he was 18, which meant he had to suppress and sublimate. Meditation was only half as good a clearing lust. Running helped. Yoga exasperated it, but he needed that to remain flexible. Though there were peers he would find attractive, because of his own history, ethics, and clear knowledge of being an adult in a child’s body- he would not engage his peers. He believed engaging his peers prior to 18 was taking advantage of people not ready for his intensity. Consequently, the moment he became of the legal age of consent, he had experienced so much repression of desire that he nearly went crazy- going from abstinence to reckless at warp speed.
Against all odds, and all medical resolutions, he learned to walk. They made a medical case study of him. There have always been anomalies in healthcare, sudden remissions, inexplicable recoveries. His improvement wasn’t unheard of, they just didn’t understand it, and with their medical science and knowledge, they wanted to find out where the anomaly was so they could fix it.
Emmitt told them once. They dismissed it. “Choice. I, consciously, overcame. Not alone. I had help from a higher power. Call it spirit, or super conscious, which is like the subconscious, the body always responds to love and patience.”
The answer was too metaphysical to hear. He was just another anomaly.
Emmitt learned to run. He became obsessed with physicality, taking on yoga, various forms of martial arts, soccer, and hockey. He had an inexplicable aptitude for game play. He won more often than not. He took risks. He was frequently injured. He seem to heal unusually fast. He tested out of basics and went to college. By the time he finished his PhD in Transpersonal Psychology, he was a licensed medic and nurse practitioner, and was accepted into Star Fleet Academy. He had a solid reputation of being a womanizer. He didn’t see it that way, as he genuinely cared for every person he spent time with, and though he was brutally honest, feelings seemed to always get in the way. His biggest relationship at the time with a peer by the name of Marta. He was actually interested enough in her that he would have tried to be monogamous, except that reality fell away when she caught him dead to rights with a girl name Corlina. Another consequence of this was that her friend Corey became an adversary. He hated Emmitt for taking advantage of Marta’s feelings for him.
It was in his Star Fleet academy that he became aware of the fact there was no Jean-Luc Picard. He felt an incredible sadness and went looking for him in real life. Bliss came to him and informed him- “This universe doesn’t have a Jean-Luc, Emmitt.” She was calling him Emmitt now. Sometimes she told Garcia who told him. She used to speak to Emmitt as if he were Garcia. Emmitt had increased in solidity as a personality, different from Garcia. More reckless in many ways. Garcia and Bliss tempered him. “There should always be a Picard,” Emmitt rebelled. In his spare time at the Academy, often burning precious sleep time, he wrote stories about Picard. He placed him on the Stargazer that had gone missing, no explanation. He mythologized the Stargazer and a fictional Picard. Whatever it was her wrote, it had resonated on a deep level with Marta. She had come to him as a fan, wanting friendship, and he took to the next level. And though he knew after doing so he should end the other relationships, in the presence of the others, he didn’t have the ability to say no. He could see how some of them were using him to get needs met. One lady just loved the Uniform and wanted a life married to an officer, even if that life meant he was away for years at a time. Some liked his celebrity status. One girl wanted to be the heroine on the cover of a book. She wanted a whole series for her to personify. Interestingly, he was good at picking people that were not interested in long term relationship, but had agendas he could subtly manipulate. He justified it, just below conscious levels of thought, that they were using each other. He never bought gifts, no flowers, no candy. He didn’t celebrate birthdays. When asked why, he would give a scripted answer, “I am not grooming you for a relationship. You either want to play, or you don’t. That’s it. No expectations. You spend time with me, or you don’t.” One of them protested- “I want to know I am special.” He responded- “I am spending time with you; that means your special.” She laughed- “It might mean that, if you weren’t spending time with other girls.”
Directly after the breakup with Marta, there was an increase in the number of hook ups. He didn’t try to psychoanalyze the why, and Garcia’s voice was distant. He couldn’t hear Bliss at all.
A reconciliation with Marta occurred when Emmitt joined in a bar fight to help her and Corey. They were in a bar fight was with Nausicaans; they were getting their assess kicked. Nausicaans are stronger than human, but fighting isn’t all about strength. There are martial art styles and tactics that can use the strength, weight, and momentum of stronger, larger opponents. Emmitt also had the secret knowledge of having fought Nausicaans in a past life. Emmitt was on the edge of winning the fight when one of them cheated. Emmitt was impaled through the chest by a pool stick. He felt like he had done this before. He even recognized Micceal who screamed victory in his face as he held the pool stick. Emmitt Sheehan shish-kabob. Emmitt laughed; Micceal seemed confused. He found himself in a room with Bliss. “It ends here?” “No, you got to go back,” Bliss said.
Amanda was with Bliss. “Yeah, not getting out of the contract that easy.”
“Easy?” Emmitt asked.
Emmitt woke from the anesthetic, laughing. He saw two multiple worlds. Amanda in white, meeting him clouds saying she was God, ‘You’re dead.’ That pathway had a choice involved. Lots of choices. He could stay dead, and go with her to where ever it is souls go, or, he could go back and live the life of a man with an artificial heart, or he could time step back just prior to the affair and stay out of it. There was another room with just Bliss, but she wasn’t counseling Emmitt, she was counseling Garcia. He was privy to, but not understand of, their relationship. There was a room in between where he and Garcia were working together to figure out how to keep the story going. What else could he do but laugh at the craziness of it all.
“What’s so funny?”
It was McCoy asking him. He took inventory of the room. Corey was there. So was Marta. He went to sit up, but a Doctor to his right pushed him back. He knew her. He didn’t know how he knew her.
“Doctor Crusher?” Emmitt blurted out her name.
“In the flesh,” Crusher said, not bothered by the fact she was known. Almost everyone at the academy that had ever been injured knew Crusher. “And I’ll be damned if I am going to let you move about before we ascertain your body has accepted its artificial heart.”
Emmitt touched his chest. “Oh,” he said. “That explains that.” “Thank you,” Corey said.
“Yes, thank you,” Marta said.
“Seems only fitting, I broke your heart, I should actually get one,” Emmitt said.
“Everything’s a joke to you?” Marta asked. “You nearly died.” “Nearly,” Emmitt said. “Am I cleared for duty?” “No!” Crusher and McCoy said.
“Why?” Emmitt asked. “I feel fine. You used tissue regenerator to increase connectivity. If you want the body to accept this heart, you don’t want me lying around in bed thinking about it. I need to move.”
“You’re always on the move!” McCoy said. “Stand still for a moment.” “No. There is so much to do and so little time,” Emmitt said.
“You don’t have to do it all,” McCoy said.
“You’re right, but I just can’t lay here,” Emmitt said.
“What’s so damn important?’ McCoy asked.
“He’s schedule for the Kobayashi Maru,” Corey said.
“No,” Crusher said. “Absolutely not. You can reschedule.” “No, I can’t,” Emmitt said. “It looks bad.” “I will give you a note,” Crusher said.
“I will not miss it,” Emmitt said, clearly. “Look, I can sit in the command chair just as well as I can sit in my room. It’ll be fine.”
“The Kobayashi Maru is one of the most stressful tests anyone can face at the academy,” McCoy said.
“Nonsense. It’s a simulator,” Emmitt said. “I got this. So, unless you’re declaring me unfit for duty, and you block my access with a Klingon security task force, you can bet your ass I will be there for my tour. You can release me with an AMA caveat.” “You’re being unreasonable,” McCoy said. “You’re not immortal.”
“I am not,” Emmitt said. “But this is important to me. I only get two more shots at this, and rescheduling counts as one of my shots. That, and I really like the crew I picked.
Some of them are graduating. I won’t get this particular team again.” He implored them. “This is a once in life time opportunity. I promise. It’ll be okay. You can both be there with me.”
“I’m getting to old for death. Crusher, you want to go?” McCoy asked. “I hate the Kobayashi Maru,” Crusher said. She turned to Emmitt. “It’s a simulator. But people still get hurt. It’s stressful.”
“I got this,” Emmitt assured them. “I won’t fail it again.”
“You want to bet?” McCoy asked. Corey wanted in on the odds.