Altered States Page #4

any more of that sh*t into him...

...until you know more about it.

I've offered you the use of my lab

and all the rats you can cut.

That's as much as l want to be implicated

in your experiments.

You get your own dumb hamburger.

I already got my own date

I'm an hour late for.

I already did these first three.

You do the rest.

Well, well, well.

Couldn't resist, right?

Well, somebody's gotta keep

on eye on you two sorcerers.

What have you got in there,

some salt solution?

Ten percent magnesium sulfate,

for buoyancy.

- Weird, man.

- Excuse me, Mason.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Okay, you're fine.

Wednesday, January 7, 4:28 p.m.

Hey, this is terrific.

I'm on a plateau.

Went into beta like a shot.

No spindling, nothing.

Grasslands, savannas.

l feel...

...l am actually alive

and inside this landscape.

A density of woodlands

about a mile away.

Beyond that,

mountains that seem to be smoking.

Newly born mountains,

Cenozoic, latter Tertiary.

I'm in an edge area.

Utter tranquility, but alive.

Life in the trees. Life in the sedge.

Oh, my God...

...the birth of man. That's got to be it.

My God. There it is...

...a protohuman.

The first and original truly human form.

Tiny, perhaps four feet high,

completely furred...

...chimp-like, but erect.

No knuckle-walking. Shorter arms.

He's moving along so gracefully.

There's two, three of them.

Bipedal, tiny, little furred

humanoid creatures.

Got a chunk of lava

in their hands. They're...

...stalking or hunting something.

For chrissake.

Are you okay, Eddie?

I'm becoming one of them.

I'm no longer observing.

I'm one of them.

I'm killing- 'm killing a goat.

I'm killing...

I'm eating...

I'm eating the blood, hot flesh of a goat.

Are you okay?

Ho, ho, ho. Beautiful. Beautiful.

- Do you want to come down?

- No.

It sounded like he was having

a bad trip to me.

Some of these tank trips

can get pretty creepy.

What the hell was that?

You okay?

Beautiful.

- Do you want to stop this?

- No.

- Do you want me to leave you alone?

- Yeah.

I thought you said these things don't last

more than four hours.

- Lt's quarter to 9.

- He's coming out.

I don't like being out of contact

for these long periods of time.

I think he's in shock.

He must have had a seizure,

hit his head or something.

Now, hold on.

What do you want blood tests for?

- What's he say?

- "Buccal smear, blood for a karyotype...

...also pictures for

the Goodman and Sarich's lab.

Pictures of my neck, now, before l...

...reconstitute."

- Before he what?

Before he reconstitutes.

Then take his damn blood,

and maybe he'll let me have a look at him.

Do you mind if l examine your neck

for a minute?

- Any masses?

- No.

Oh, stop talking sh*t.

You trying to say

your hallucination externalized?

- What did he write?

- "Not common aphasia.

Time-space fallout

from the hallucination."

You are a f***ing flake, Jessup.

Get dressed.

I'm gonna take you to Brigham...

...and do a complete workup on you.

You are a very sick dude,

you dumb son of a b*tch.

I'll look down your throat,

do some films...

...get a CAT scan,

maybe an arteriogram...

...and I'd like an unbiased eye

to look at those EEG tracings.

What's he say?

"X-ray."

All right, finish up with him, Arthur,

and let's get him over to x-ray.

Be right back.

Is it possible it's mechanical?

Well, if it isn't neurological,

it's got to be mechanical.

I'd like some plain films of this guy's neck.

A PA, a lateral and oblique.

- Doctor, I'm backed up to my ass.

- Just take the damn pictures.

- This is an emergency.

- Okay.

Might be a TIA.

I guess we'd better not

tell Eddie he had...

...blood all over his face when he came

out of the tank. He'll claim it was...

...goat's blood from that goat

he was eating in his hallucination.

You know, you're really getting

as weird as he is.

Well, what do you think happened?

He's not the type

for hysterical conversion.

I'm thinking seizure.

He came out of that tank in a fugue state

and had blood all over his face.

He must have had a seizure

while in the tank...

...bit his lip while convulsing,

and is postictally aphasic.

I thought maybe he had a vascular insult,

a stroke, a flipped embolus...

...but neurologically he's intact,

so I'm thinking seizure now.

Hm.

Now you just take it easy.

None of us are so terrific

at reading x-rays.

What are you looking for?

Put these in an envelope.

Who's reading tonight in Radiology?

Dr. Wissenschaft.

I want someone reliable to look at them.

I'd rather not have everyone in on this.

It's bad enough we've got

this x-ray technician.

Are you all right?

I'm fine. I tried to indicate

this was just a transient thing.

A transient ischemic attack,

that's what it was.

- He's got his voice back.

- Lt wasn't an ischemic attack.

It wasn't a seizure.

You saw the x-rays, Mason.

There was something anterior to

the larynx, looked like a laryngeal sac.

That's strictly simian.

I obviously regressed...

...to some quasi-simian creature.

I'm gonna show these to someone.

You're reading them wrong. That's all.

No one is going to tell me...

...you de-differentiated

your goddamn genetic structure...

...for four goddamn hours

and then reconstituted.

I'm a professor of endocrinology

at Harvard Medical School.

I'm an attending physician

at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

I'm a contributing editor to the

American Journal of Endocrinology.

And I'm a fellow and vice president of the

Eastern Association of Endocrinologists...

...and president of the Journal Club!

I'm not going to listen to any more...

...of your cabalistic, quantum,

frigging, dumb, limbo mumbo jumbo.

I'm gonna show these to a radiologist.

- Do me a favor.

- Conclusion:
bilateral aspiration pneumonia.

- Do me a favor and take a look at these.

- What's the story of this case?

A 35-year-old white male, acute onset

of aphasia, no history of trauma.

What are you looking for?

It looks to me like the architecture

is somewhat abnormal.

Somewhat?

This guy is a f***ing gorilla.

Are you okay, Dr. Jessup?

Yes.

Ah!

Are you all right, Dr. Jessup?

I'm fine.

I just want to make a few notes.

Argh!

Mr. Daniel Craig,

Mr. Daniel Craig, please come...

Emily.

...to information, American Airlines.

My God, you look so marvelous.

How have you been, Eddie?

- Just fine. You?

- Fine.

Look, there's your dad.

Are you going to drive us

to our new house?

You bet your life.

Depending how nice you are...

...may even take you

to a Chinese restaurant.

Anyway, don't let anybody tell you

baboons aren't occasionally carnivorous.

I observed instances of predation...

...which involved the unmistakable

behavior of hunters.

A pair of baboons killed

a Thomson's gazelle and ate it.

There was even

a rudimentary communication...

...between the two baboons.

So I've become fascinated

with the work...

...being done on nonverbal communication

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