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Door Candy by Bryony Marsh "You are gonna love this shit, bud. My finest and weirdest yet!" Jamie should have been a great pharmacologist - and in a sense he was, only he didn't work for any of the major drug companies. He'd dropped out of the degree programme as soon as he'd "learned enough", and instead he spent his time inventing new and crazy highs. Matt, his roommate, looked at the proffered substance with some skepticism. It looked like burnt toffee. "What is it?" "I don't have a name for it yet," Jamie pondered. "How about you try it, and you can propose a name for it?" "Well, what does it do?" "I think it's a hallucinogen." Jamie shrugged. "You think! You don't know?" "I'm not sure. Maybe it shows different people different things, y'know?" "Is that even possible?" "Yeah. I could tell you that it binds to the 5-HT2A receptors, if you want the science. Or we could just say it opens doors that have rusted have rusted up solid in a lot of people's minds." "You said that about Peyote." "And mescaline. At one end, this molecule is very similar to those critters... but it's got more of a psycho-spiritual kick to it." Jamie was in danger of going off on one of his evangelical drug rants. Knowing from experience that the quickest and surest way to shut him up was to take the drug, Matt popped the substance in his mouth, and made a face. "This tastes nasty!" "Yeah, I haven't had time to fix that." Jamie spread his hands apologetically. "Just try to swallow it quickly." Matt did so, and was somewhat relieved to see Jamie take a piece of his own, and swallow that. "How long before it kicks in?" "Just minutes." Jamie crossed the room to ensure that the front door was bolted. Then he fetched two bottles of water and tossed one to Matt. "You should hydrate." "So," Matt's voice betrayed a little nervousness as he spoke: "If it takes different people in different ways... what did you experience?" Jamie sat down, hard, his vision beginning to swim at the periphery. So soon? Maybe it hadn't been long enough since his last dose? Maybe the chemical was still in his system, or he'd become more susceptible to it now. Maybe the drug wasn't evenly concentrated through the whole of the batch, and the piece he'd eaten was particularly potent. "I..." he shook his head and tried to order his thoughts. "I always meet with my spirit guide. Or maybe guardian angel. We've had some long conversations, I think. Something about red ice." "Sounds random. Insightful?" Matt twisted the cap off his bottle of water, with fingers that felt a little bit numb. Jamie didn't reply. He was staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Matt shrugged, and mechanically swallowed two thirds of the bottle of water. The remainder spilled onto the carpet, unnoticed. +++ There was almost no sensation at all. A soft, cushioned surface beneath, and a very soft pillow that he had sunk right into, so that it covered his ears. There was a monotonous background hum that might be an air conditioning unit. The light was low, like late evening, and he couldn't focus on anything, or even make out any shapes. Am I wearing a mask? Yes... that was one possible explanation. He felt a constriction about his head, consistent with wearing something like skiing goggles. Skiing goggles with a lens that was frosted? He tried to reach up, to remove the mask, and met resistance. His arms were encased in tubes of some kind. Attempting to learn more, he deduced that there were gloves on his hands. "What the hell?" His voice sounded strange. It was muffled, but it seemed... thin. Too high. He thrashed about. His legs were free to move, so he kicked out, meeting nothing that he could push against. He shouted for attention. Again, the disturbing, high voice. That was strange. Presently, he felt a hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch: it had come as a shock, because he had so little in the way of stimulus. "Bathroom break?" It was a woman, speaking to him. "What the hell is this?" he asked in his muffled, too-high voice. The woman asked again: "Do you need the bathroom?" A bathroom break seemed like a good idea. He didn't feel as if he needed to go, but if it meant he'd be released... "Yes." The woman reached across him and fussed with something, and finally opened the tubular restraints that held his arms. He tried to pull the mask off his face with his fat, gloved fingers, but she slapped his hands away. He tried a second time. "You know the rules!" she said, sternly. "I really don't," he objected. "Bathroom?" "Okay." She helped him into a sitting position, and then swung his legs out of the bed. Matt guessed that the woman must be as big as him, which was very unusual. She was strong, too. His feet met the floor, and a pair of simple slippers, like you might get in a hotel. When Matt didn't immediately slip his feet into them the woman tutted, and raised each foot, as if she were putting shoes on a child. Then she tugged his arms, clearly wanting him to stand. He did so, briefly, but had to sit back down again. Something was wrong: his balance was off, and his body felt bizarre. Normally a regular at the gym, Matt was alarmed at the apparent effort of rising from the bed. He felt weak... flabby. How could he be fat? "Have I been in an accident?" he asked, in his strange, piping voice. "Ssh. No talking." His captor pulled him up from the bed once more, and this time he was able to stand, swaying a little. He was still trying to cope with these strange sensations when a new imposition was made upon him: headphones, or perhaps ear defenders were put in place, muffling all sound. "What the fuck...?" No reply. The woman gripped him firmly by the elbow. This helped a little with the balance issue, and he found he was able to shuffle, under her guidance. Edging forward, Matt sensed that they were leaving his darkened room and heading into a brighter corridor. They moved along this, and presently a familiar smell of disinfectant told him the purpose of the room they were entering. He was led into a cubicle, where the woman took one of his hands and unfastened a buckle at the wrist that held the bulky glove in place. She did the same with the other, and then drew them both off. Next she took the headphones off. "Five minutes," was all she said. She left the cubicle, and Matt heard the door bump as it swung into place. He quickly reached up to grasp the 'ski goggles' contraption, and pulled it off. His vision was restored, but brown hair spilled into his face. "What the fuck...?" he whispered to himself, but this was only a mild precursor to the hammer-blow that threatened to shatter his mind. He was wearing pink pyjamas, with a floral pattern, and within... was somebody else's body. Undeniably, a woman's body. He had large, soft breasts; soft, somewhat pudgy arms. Wide hips, and a rounded belly. His thighs were chunky, too. Matt conducted a frantic survey of this new body, prodding and staring closely at it, before concluding that it simply wasn't him, and never had been. And yes... he was all woman now, he discovered. How? Why? He had no idea at all, but he needed answers. He burst out of the cubicle, ready for a fight. The woman he'd imagined as his captor was in her twenties, and didn't look like any kind of jailer. She looked... retro. A plaid skirt and a cardigan; bright red lipstick, and permed hair. Seriously? "Martha...?" the woman began. "Fuck you," Matt growled, making the woman gasp. He glanced around the washroom, but it contained no mirrors; just some holes in the wall above a row of wash basins, where the mirrors must have been removed. Matt made to leave, but the woman sought to stop him. "Get out of my way," Matt growled, and she blanched. She stepped aside, but then followed him into the corridor, calling for help. Matt stalked down the corridor, to where it widened out into a reception area, of sorts. There was a desk with a Rolodex, and a Remington typewriter. A man rose from behind the desk. "What's the problem, ladies?" he asked. Matt couldn't even begin to explain the full magnitude of what was 'wrong' as he saw it, so his captor began first. "Martha's gone crazy! She's saying... horrible things... and she threatened me." "Martha?" he prompted. So: that was the name that came with this body. "What the hell is this?" Matt asked. "You don't remember?" "Remember what?" "You volunteered for the experiment," the man began, but Matt interrupted him. "No I didn't. Wait... what experiment?" "The sensory deprivation experiment," the man said, anxiously removing his glasses and polishing them momentarily. "Sensory..." Matt spread his hands. "Firstly, no I didn't. Secondly, that still doesn't explain all this other shit. Like this body, or all the retro junk." "Body?" The man's Adam's apple bobbed nervously. "Retro?" He glanced at the other woman, who indicated she had no light to shed on the matter. "This 'experiment' is over!" Matt declared, hating how shrill and hysterical his voice sounded when he was trying to be forceful. "If you leave now, you won't get the twenty dollars," the man cautioned. Matt laughed in his face. "Fuck you, and fuck your twenty dollars!" "Young lady! There is no justification for using language like that on campus!" - this from an older man who had just arrived on the scene. Matt whirled to face the newcomer. He appeared to be in authority here. "Who are you?" Matt demanded. The man blinked. "You don't remember?" "This again?" Matt asked angrily. "No, I don't. I never volunteered for some kinky vintage madhouse shit. And now I'm leaving." He felt an overwhelming need to flee, and lunged towards the door. Although his pudgy body wasn't anything like as athletic as he was used to, he'd caught his captors by surprise. Through the door, he found a stairwell, and started down. "Martha!" The three were in hot pursuit. "She's delusional; we mustn't let her escape," the older man called. The younger one caught up with her and grabbed at her flailing arm as she turned on a half-landing, to charge down another flight of steps. Sheer momentum broke the grip, but Matt had lost control of the unfamiliar body, and went crashing down. His head struck the floor, and his vision swam. Blackness engulfed him. +++ Twenty dollars a day had seemed like a pretty good deal when Martha signed up for Dr Hebb's experiment. She sometimes struggled to concentrate when she ought to be studying, so what better way to focus her mind than to volunteer for Dr Hebb's isolation test? She had a term paper to complete in the near future, and all she'd done was some initial reading: perhaps she could plan out the document in her head while she was paid to lay in bed? That was the plan, anyway. Martha and her friends knew that a lot of the first group of volunteers hadn't even lasted through the night, but that just made them curious. Some of the boys said they thought they'd seen angels, ghosts, flying saucers... it all sounded very exciting, if a little hard to believe. Halloween was only two weeks away when the second set of volunteers were asked for, and Martha signed up as the result of a dare. She'd changed into sleepwear and entered one of the isolation rooms willingly enough. Louise Majors had talked her through it all: how stimuli would be kept to a minimum, and that she wouldn't be allowed to communicate with others for up to three days. That there would be only short meal and bathroom breaks, and so on. Now she was in disgrace, or very nearly. It seemed that Dr Hebb wasn't going to pursue disciplinary action against her, as she had obviously become hysterical as a result of the experiment. They had a kind of unspoken agreement, it seemed: she wouldn't make a fuss about the accident that had left her in the infirmary (she had no memory of it, anyway) and he wouldn't say anything about her outburst of foul language (which, again, she didn't remember). Her friends sat with her at lunch, discussing their own experiences in isolation. "I stayed up all night before we went in," Eddie declared. "I listened to the radio until the closedown, and then I drank coffee and read a book. I guess I slept through most of the day, but after twenty-four hours, I'd had enough." He flourished a crisp twenty dollar bill, and smiled. "Thank you, Doctor Hebb!" "You didn't get bored at all?" Martha remembered the crushing boredom, and the inability to organize her thoughts enough to think through her term paper. "Well, a little bit... but I went back over what I'd read the night before. It was even more vivid in my imagination. Kind of interesting." "What did you read?" Joy asked. "Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles," Eddie replied. Joy made a face, and Martha snickered. "Hey," Eddie objected: "Never mind criticizing my taste in modern literature: what about you, foul-mouthed one?" "Oh. You heard about that?" Martha shifted uncomfortably. "Louise says you'd better apologize to her," Maxine put in. "What came over you?" "I honestly don't remember," Martha sighed. "I had the strangest dream - then I woke up in the infirmary with a shocking headache, and a bump to match." "Tell us about the dream?" Eddie pressed. "Alright. But this is a little embarrassing..." Martha began. Her friends glanced at each other, and encouraged her to continue. "I think I must have drifted off to sleep, and when I woke up I wasn't in bed anymore, but sprawled on a couch, in a room I've never seen before. But that wasn't the weirdest part." Martha stopped, obviously uncomfortable. "Go on," Joy prompted. "What was weird?" Maxine asked, "It can't have been as weird as my conversations with my dad, surely." (Maxine was convinced that she'd been talking to her father for hours, while she took part in the experiment.) "I... wasn't me," Martha said, reluctantly. "Who were you? Barbara Ann Scott?" Joy giggled. "I don't know who," Martha agonized, and decided to reveal the troubling secret: "I was a man." "Whoowie! I wouldn't want to be your subconscious, eh?" Eddie laughed. Martha looked pained. "C'mon now," Maxine glared at Eddie. "Let her tell the story." Haltingly, Martha did so. "There I was, in this room. On the couch was another guy: shabbily dressed, and muttering to himself. I think he was a reefer head, or something, but I was glad he wasn't properly awake because I was really scared." "Scared of what?" Joy was intrigued. "I don't know - except that everything was wrong. Everything: I'd just found myself in this... this body that wasn't mine, and in a room I'd never seen before. I felt that if this guy woke up, he'd know I wasn't meant to be there, and I was afraid." "So, what happened?" That was Eddie, unmoved by Martha's confession of fear. "I got up, and looked around, being careful not to wake the guy. It was quite a fancy apartment, with a view over Sherbrooke. At least, I think it was Sherbrooke, but some of the buildings were wrong. It was a tall building, and I've been and checked: it doesn't exist. Except in my imagination. In fact, a lot of the things I saw only exist in my imagination." "Such as?" Joy prompted. "There was a television, but it was huge! I mean, the screen was maybe three feet wide, and impossibly thin. You went to see that demonstration of television in science week, right? Well this had a far bigger screen, and no cabinet. It wasn't much more than a picture frame, really." "It must have been a screen for a movie projector," Eddie said skeptically, but the girls shushed him, and Martha continued. "I wandered into the kitchen, and all the food packets were wrong. Some of them were similar, but not like ours. Also, there was another one of those thin television tubes in there, only smaller." "A television in the kitchen!" Joy exclaimed. Martha shrugged. "I know it's crazy! I'm just telling you what I dreamed. And this one was switched on. The picture was in colour!" "I'm telling you it's got to be a movie projection," Eddie said again, but was interrupted by Maxine. "What was showing on the television?" Maxine asked. "It was... like a newsreel... only crazy. Everything was reported at a breakneck speed. Some drama, I suppose." Martha pondered, and added: "There were helicopters, and it said our troops were fighting in... no, I don't remember where... but it wasn't Korea. It was more like a desert." They all pondered this, then Eddie looked straight at Martha. "What aren't you telling us?" "I don't have to tell you anything if I don't want to," she countered. "Okay, suppose I tow this one alongside for a bit... you found yourself in the body of a man, and the most interesting thing you found to do was go and look at food packets in the kitchen, eh?" Joy lit up at the thought of some scandalous insights. "Tell us about your body, Martha!" "I was... tall," she conceded. "It was hard to stand up, at first, but... the body was muscly." Joy and Maxine grinned. Eddie looked uncomfortable: he never exercised. "Very muscular?" Joy asked. "Not like a football star... but fit. You would have liked him," Martha considered. "Although his haircut was all wrong. It was just a crew cut." "You saw your face!" Maxine was intrigued. "Who was it?" "Nobody we know. Just some guy." Maxine leaned close and whispered, "Did you touch his... your... thing?" Martha blushed, and Maxine laughed. The others guessed what had been said, and were amused at her expense. In reality, Martha hadn't done anything of the kind: with all the weird things she had seen, it simply hadn't occurred to her. "What ELSE did you do?" Eddie asked pointedly. Martha scowled at him. "I never even left the kitchen. I started feeling really dizzy about then," Martha said. "I think I collapsed on the kitchen floor. When I woke up I was in the infirmary - and back to being me." "So you honestly don't remember going crazy in Dr Hebb's experiment?" "I don't," Martha admitted, "And that's kind of scary, too." The bell rang, signalling the end of their lunch break, and they headed off to their classes. +++ "So, how was it?" Jamie asked. Matt had a pounding headache, and a lump near his temple. He had found himself on the kitchen floor, and was unable to decide if his injury had been sustained as a result of falling in the apartment, or... elsewhere. "That was... weird," he said. He supported his throbbing head with his fingertips. "As promised," his roommate acknowledged proudly. "Yeah, but there's weird and then there's... I dunno. It wasn't good." "Not a bad trip! Not you! Surely..." Jamie had a theory that hallucinations were fundamentally karmic in nature: good people had good trips, and vice-versa. Matt told him everything that he had experienced. "Woah," Jamie exclaimed, impressed. "That kicks my conversations with my spirit guide into perspective. But tell me more about the older guy." "Uh... glasses. White shirt and a thin tie. Face, kind of craggy. Hair receding at the temples a little bit. Accent like a bluenose. I'd guess he was maybe fifty. Jamie grinned. "I think I know who you mean." He reached for a laptop, and called up some images. "This guy?" There were a mass of mostly black and white photographs on the screen. Most showed a far older man, but there were a couple that Matt thought he recognised. "That could be him..." Matt read the name. "Donald Hebb? I've never heard of him." "But I have," Jamie explained; "He was a professor of psychology: we had to study his work. 'Neurons that fire together wire together' according to Hebb. It's a little bit simplistic, but not a bad model of how the brain works." "Okay, wait... he WAS a professor?" "Yeah. He retired in the seventies; died in the mid eighties, I think." Jamie "I guess that explains the old typewriter. I must have dreamed my way back to the sixties..." "I think earlier," Jamie told him. "Hebb was right here at McGill for a long time, but the experiment you described is notorious. He devised it back in the fifties." "Notorious?" "Yeah," Jamie confirmed, grimly. "Nowadays it's common knowledge that his work was military. Maybe even funded by the CIA; the sensory deprivation thing was related to brainwashing and prisoner interrogation." "That's... kind of dark, Jamie." "Sure. Quite a few of his student volunteers went a little bit crazy - this Martha won't have been the only one to act strangely after some time in isolation." "Unless it wasn't her," Matt reflected: "because it was me." Jamie grinned. "I think you, my friend, just became a time traveller." "That's impossible," Matt objected. "This is why I dropped out of university," his friend grumbled. "All they ever do is teach you what's impossible and what can't be done. Haven't you learned anything from me?" "I've learned not to let you fix me a drink," Matt replied. "That was one time!" Jamie objected. "And it was in the cause of science. Besides, you'd just split up with Helen, and I think you needed it." "Yeah, well... maybe. But this one... this wasn't so good!" "But not a bad trip," Jamie scratched thoughtfully at his stubble. "You're not the type." "I dunno: it was pretty bad. I got chased by a trio of people who'd kept me strapped down in a darkened room, and probably wanted to put me back there..." "Well, if you don't like the place that the stuff takes you to, just leave it alone. I'm not going to force you to go back there." "What do you mean, 'go back there'?" Matt was confused. "Well, it's complicated..." Jamie tried to express a half-formed theory. "Those doors that it unlocks in your mind; they open more readily the next time. That might just be down to chemical residues acting as binders, but I don't think so: I think it's like learning a skill, or a language. You've been shown a new route, and you'll be able to travel that way again, if you want to." Matt found the idea hard to accept. "You can't mean that there's a chance I'd experience episode two of the same dream, if I took more of this 'door candy' of yours?" "Hmm," said Jamie. "Not a bad name. Not bad at all. Let's use it as a working title. And it might be that you'd get episode two, yes. All I can tell you is that on each of the four occasions that I've used it, I've experienced pretty much the same thing: I meet with a being called Astar, who sits in a garden and talks in complicated allegories."" "Maybe you just have no imagination and always get the same trip," his friend needled. "Well... maybe. We'll find out the next time you use Door Candy." "I don't think I want to," Matt replied. The idea nagged at him, though. He read up on Dr Donald Hebb, and even went so far as to identify the model of typewriter that he had seen, and the fashions of the period. If it had been a dream, his subconscious knew a lot more about history than his waking mind. He talked it over with Jamie. "I can't really have gone back in time," Matt objected. "Can I?" "I don't know. If I were you, I'd be digging out yearbooks for McGill in the 1950s, to see if there was a fat chick called Martha." "Too bad I never got a look at her." "Yeah, well... if you're curious you could always try going back." Normally willing to try any new experience, Matt surprised Jamie with his reluctance. "I don't know," he said, "It doesn't feel right. It feels like a violation." Jamie was clearly disappointed, but he didn't press the issue. Two days later, he presented him with a stack of photocopies. "What's this?" Matt asked. Copies from the yearbooks for 1951, 1952 and 1953. I thought you might recognize somebody. Matt flicked through the pages, examining each face. The man from the reception area he couldn't find, but one of the students looked familiar. "That one!" Matt exclaimed, and read the name beneath. "Louise Majors: she was the one that took me to the bathroom!" "Score one more point for time travel rather than drug-induced dreaming," said Jamie. Which stack is she in?" "The 1951 set. Why?" "To see if there's a girl called Martha, I guess." There was. Martha Wilson: she looked plain, but friendly... and distinctly chubby. Looking at her, Matt felt something like a supernatural dread. Had he really inhabited that body? He shivered. Jamie didn't pick up on this at all. He was keen to "conduct another experiment" to prove that Matt was time-travelling. He wouldn't let the subject drop, and every few minutes, he would come up with some new reason why Matt should subject himself to another dose of Door Candy. "The way I see it," he said at one point, "you're the first man in history to have a chance to learn something." "And what's that?" "The nature of the female orgasm, my friend!" Matt was not impressed by this or any other argument in favour of a repeat experiment, and said so. "Why me, anyway?" he complained. "And why her, this Martha Wilson?" "I imagine that she was particularly vulnerable," Jamie suggested. "The doors in her head were opened by Hebb's experiment, at a time when she had none of the regular stimuli that would keep her anchored in reality. You won't have that advantage next time, but the residues of the Door Candy might have primed you to repeat the experience. If you ever manage to get through to her again it'll probably begin when she's asleep, or something." Although he didn't want to invade Martha's privacy again, Matt was interested enough to try to find out what had happened to her in later life. Had she recovered from the trauma of Hebb's experiment? It seemed not: no Martha Wilson appeared on any list of graduates for the 1950s. "So she quit her course! People do..." Jamie opined. Of course, he was a dropout himself. Matt wasn't satisfied, though, and insisted that they dig deeper. The student records were confidential, but after three days Jamie stumbled upon something in the college paper. Martha Wilson, it appeared, had been killed in a traffic accident on Rue Sainte- Catherine. Further digging showed that there had been a court case in which the Wilson family had alleged that their daughter had been affected by the psychological experiment that took place shortly before her death, but the case had been dismissed. Matt was surprised to find how much he was disturbed by the death of somebody he had never even met - but somebody that he increasingly came to accept that he had 'been', albeit only for a short while. He felt some kind of connection, but couldn't put it into words. He tried to understand more by reading a few books by people who claimed past lives, but gave up in disgust: they had nothing in common with his experience. Usually reluctant to simply dismiss anything paranormal as impossible, even Jamie thought that the authors of the books on past lives were delusional. That line of inquiry led nowhere. Matt knew the date of Martha's death from the newspaper account, and Jamie was able to guess at the date when Martha was likely to have entered into Dr Hebb's experiment. According to their best guess, the two events were twenty days apart. Jamie looked at Matt meaningfully. "I'm not going back there," Matt objected. "You might not even be able to," Jamie said. "We don't know that the Door Candy will work on you the same way again, and we don't know that Martha would be receptive when she's not in sensory deprivation. Also, there's no reason to be sure that time travel involves moving back in time by a fixed amount: a day elapsed here might not equal a day back there." "But I get the feeling that you want me to try," Matt said, reluctantly. "Fuck yeah! If I thought I could travel in time, you couldn't stop me!" "But..." Matt struggled to explain himself. "Taking over her body... it's a violation!" "And it might save her life!" Jamie pleaded. "It's been about two and a half weeks for us. Who's to say you couldn't drop in on Martha, check the date and keep her away from Rue Sainte-Catherine. Or write her a note, or something. Shit, what if she comes here when you go there? I could keep her talking until the danger is over." Matt's jaw dropped. "What? You think she might?" "Well I was in no condition to tell you what happened last time. I was communing with Astar, remember? Maybe she came here. It's no crazier than you going there." "You're not serious..." Matt scratched at his stubble. "You think she might have been here, in my body." "Doors lead both ways, bro'." "Shit..." This possibility made Matt feel less bad about invading Martha's body again, if it was even possible. Had she been here, in the 21st century? In his body? You didn't need recreational drugs when real life threw up questions like that, Matt reflected. "Alright," he said at last. "Let's try to save the chick." Jamie smiled. "Good man. Good luck." Once again, Jamie sat on the sofa, equipped with a bottle of water and a fragment of the vile-tasting Door Candy. Jamie didn't plan to partake this time, but rather to act as an observer and to offer any assistance he could. Matt regarded the small piece of Door Candy. "Is this enough?" he asked. "Yeah," his friend replied. "You've already unlocked the door once before. You just have to give it a little nudge. Plus we can always up the dose if nothing happens." "Okay." Matt swallowed it, and washed it down. "Here we go again. Maybe." "You have no idea how envious I am, my time-travelling friend..." Jamie began, but Matt cut him short. "Just make sure I get home again." Jamie started to formulate a reassuring reply, but Matt didn't hear him. He'd already slipped away through the doors of his mind. Jamie watched his friend closely. His breathing was slow, and deep. After an initial sweat, he seemed a little clammy and became cold. Jamie fetched a blanket for him, but no sooner had he put it in place than Matt gasped and sat bolt upright. "You again! Matt exclaimed in a not-quite-Matt voice." He stared, wide- eyed. Jamie regarded his friend for a long time before he replied. Tentatively: "Martha?" The reaction from his friend - or the body normally inhabited by his friend - confirmed that this must be so. He... she... stared at Matt's hand as if seeing it for the first time. Or maybe the second. He... she... looked absolutely terrified. "What have you..." There was a long pause. "Why have you done this to me?" Jamie spread his hands. "I think that you've become twinned with my friend Matt. He got drawn into an old experiment of Donald Hebb's. Maybe you were having an out of body experience at the time. I don't know... but Matt found his way into your life, for a few minutes." "Matt." The familiar-but-alien person on the couch studied its hands again, closely. "This is Matt?" "Yes." A simple reply seemed safest. "I've been here before," the stranger said, dreamily. "You have?" "Yes. You were asleep. Over there." Jamie thought through the implications. "Was that about two and a half weeks ago?" In an uncharacteristic display, his friend's tongue peeped out of the side of his mouth, as Martha thought hard. "Yes, about that." Jamie tensed. He didn't want to reveal the reason for their latest experiment if he didn't have to, so he changed the subject. "It's, what, 1951 for you, right?" Again, the wide eyes. "Are you trying to tell me this isn't 1951? Don't you think you've scared me enough?" Martha showed that she was no pushover when she was scared. Jamie held up his hands. "I don't want to scare you... but it's 2012, here." Matt/Martha sprang up, sat back down hard, and then got to her feet more cautiously. She took a moment to balance, and then walked carefully towards the window. The same view greeted her as on her previous visit. "Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph," she said, in her strange, gravelly voice. Then: "I want to go home." "Okay," Jamie agreed, "but it's going to take time. Matt took an experimental drug to switch places with you. You might have to wait until it wears off." "A drug? What drug?" Martha had the fear and loathing of drugs that virtually all wholesome kids from the 1950s had. "It's... just a recreational drug. We call it Door Candy. The first time Matt took it, he ended up in the middle of Dr Hebb's experiment - instead of you." Martha pondered this, sifting through the implications before she spoke. "So he was the one who swore at Louise Majors! And who fell down the stairs and got me hospitalized!" Her hand flew to her temple, and was surprised to find that the new body also had a sensitive spot. "Yes, and I guess you hit his head, as well." "Is that what I have to do to get home? Hit my head?" Martha looked as though she might try just that. "No! At least, I don't think so. Just sit. Relax. Matt's body will metabolise the Door Candy soon enough, and you'll probably snap back to 1951." "And will you promise me that you'll never do... this... again?" the familiar, unfamiliar friend asked. "Okay. No more Door Candy. Nobody can make it except me, so I can guarantee that Matt won't ever get another piece." Matt/Martha pondered. "How do I know I can trust you?" Jamie thought for a moment. "How about we strike a deal?" "What's this deal, mister drug pusher?" In another alien gesture, his friend folded his arms. "Hey, I'm not a pusher. I just like to experiment. And I was thinking... if we get you back home, you might be able to make some investments for me. And for you, of course." "Investments? What?" "Put some money into companies that have done well in the last half century." "Such as?" "I dunno. Tim Hortons would be good - but I'm not sure they existed as far back as the 1950s. Molson, of course. Standard Oil, maybe. If I tell you what to invest in, back in 1951, you can just sit back and collect the dividends." "And how does this scheme benefit you?" "Well you could, I dunno... leave me some money in your will? I mean, when you don't need it anymore..." His friend's eyes widened. "Am I dead?" Jamie regarded her, and decided against complete honesty. "Look, it's the year 2012 here. For you it's what... 1951? So if you were still alive, you'd have to be over eighty..." "Eighty! But that's impossible! I'm... Oh." Matt/Martha sat down again, looking lost and scared. Eventually she spoke. "Can you tell me what's happened since 1951?" This, at least, was something that Jamie could do. "Well, the rest of the 1950s was a good time to be Canadian," he began. "An economic boom, if I remember my history. Things down in Cuba are about to kick off, in your time, culminating in the Cuban missile crisis, although it never actually turns into a war. Apart from that, it's a peaceful time. You're gonna see the maple leaf adopted as our flag in... what... the mid sixties, I think. And the Americans will put a man on the moon in 1969." Matt/Marth's eyebrows shot up, but Jamie hurried on. "Quebec never actually breaks away, although a lot of people act like dicks for a time. We hosted the Olympics here in Montreal in 1976, although that was before my time of course. People keep on getting richer, and having babies. There's thirty-five million of us, now." "In Quebec?" Matt/Martha was aghast. "No... in Canada as a whole." "Oh." There was a long pause. "I'm sorry, but... prove it." "Prove what?" Jamie scratched his head. "Any of it. All of it. Just... sorry, but it's hard to believe." "You already took a look out of the window..." Matt/Martha considered. Then: "I'm going down there." "I'm not sure that's a good idea," Jamie objected, but Martha wouldn't be dissuaded. In Matt's body, she was a little bit larger than Jamie, and he didn't fancy his chances of restraining her, if she wanted to make a fight of it. Reluctantly, he assented. "Can I take this bunnyhug?" she asked. "It looks cold outside." "It's yours. Matt's. Take it." She pulled on the hoodie, and they went downstairs. They went for a walk through the university campus, although this made Jamie uncomfortable. He kept hissing at Martha that her mannerisms were too feminine, and would attract notice. Martha had to concede that Jamie wasn't trying to kid her, and the year really was far later than 1951. The vehicles looked impossibly sleek, and there were far too many of them (Jamie agreed on this point). The fashions were all "wrong", Martha said... and some of the architecture was simply astounding. At the Memorial Hall, she looked at the stained glass windows that had only just been installed in her time, but now showed the effects of more than half a century of traffic fumes, and had moss growing here and there. She shook her head, in wonder. On Rue McTavish, she noticed a red and white sign. "Tim Hortons," she said. "You mentioned them, didn't you?" "It's just a chain of coffee and doughnut shops," Jamie explained. "Fine! Let's have a jambuster," Matt/Martha exclaimed. Was she beginning to enjoy her adventure in the 21st century? She linked her arm with Jamie's and began to lead him toward the coffee shop. He extricated himself, looking pained, and gave her a meaningful look." "Oh. Sorry," she replied. "I didn't think." "Have a look in Matt's wallet?" Jamie suggested. "I've only got a few dollars on me." "It's only coffee and doughnuts," Martha objected, but did as she was told. She fished out the unfamiliar banknotes, and stared at them in wonder. "There's a small fortune in here!" she said. "You're forgetting the effects of inflation in the last sixty years," Jamie corrected her. "But we can afford a meal, sure." Martha ordered a "double-double" where Matt would have had an espresso. She decided against a doughnut when she saw the slices of cake on offer, ordering something Matt would never have eaten. Jamie had a latte, and watched his friend's body stuffing itself with sugar. There was a reason why Martha was a chubby girl, he realised. She looked a little bit disappointed. "Not the best I've ever had," she grumbled, although she made sure she ate every last crumb of the cake. "Well either we lost the art of cake-making sometime before I was born," Jamie pondered, "or you're not enjoying it as much in Matt's body because you have a different set of taste buds." Martha pondered this. "What does Matt like to eat?" "I dunno," Jamie reflected that he'd never really seen his friend treat food as anything other than fuel. "Bacon, maybe?" Martha made a face. "He doesn't know what he's missing!" she exclaimed. Jamie was just glad to have 'Matt' off the streets, where they were less likely to run into somebody they knew. Martha seemed to have been calmed by her sugar intake, and more inclined to talk. They discussed once again the idea of a time-traveller's ability to invest in things that were known to succeed. Martha once again insisted that the body-swapping adventures had to end. "No problem," Jamie assured her. "I'll tell Matt I can't make any more Door Candy. I'll tell him that another batch wouldn't work the same way." "Will he believe you?" "Most likely. If you show up here again then you'll know that I didn't keep my word." "If you're lying to me, I'll..." Martha stumbled, wondering exactly what she would do. "If I'm lying to you," Jamie soothed her, "then you don't have to share when you get rich, do you?" As much as she wanted to distrust this strange man whose reckless experiment had brought her far into the future, deprived even of her own body, Martha could see no harm in agreeing to what he proposed. At the very least, it gave him an incentive to help get her back where - in fact, when - she belonged. Jamie persuaded her to return to the apartment, on the grounds that he wasn't sure how long the transference of consciousness was going to last, and he didn't want to be left trying to cope with a passed-out Matt. "The last time you switched, you both ended up with a bump on your heads, don't forget," he said. "I just hope he's taking better care of me this time," Martha frowned as they got up to leave. Then: "I need to... you know: visit the bathroom," Martha hissed. It had been a big cup of coffee. "Just make sure you go in the right one," Jamie whispered, indicating the doors with a tilt of his head. Martha looked terrified. "Come with me?" "No! Jesus..." Jamie squirmed. Reluctantly, Martha went into the men's room. Taking quick, horrified look at the urinals, she decided to enter a cubicle, and there she fumbled with the unfamiliar button fly. She sat to pee, fascinated and horrified by the male equipment she had uncovered. A virgin, Martha had never so much as touched a penis before. She wiped at it with toilet paper, relieved that her touch didn't seem to do much to the alien thing. Pulling her underwear back up was strange, as she didn't know quite how the thing should lie. Where previously she hadn't given it a thought, it now felt somewhat constricted and uncomfortable, but she didn't know what she could do about that. She flushed, went out into the more public space and washed her hands. Twice. It seemed even colder when the left the coffee shop, and Martha thrust her slightly damp hands (or Matt's hands) deep into the pockets of the hoodie that she called a 'bunnyhug'. A piece of paper in the right pocket crinkled. Martha pulled it out of the pocket to smooth it, and recognised the letterhead of the McGill Tribune. It was a photostat of the student newspaper, and if the date was to be believed, it was from a few days in her future. Her eyes snapped to the bottom of the page, where she saw her photograph - one she hated - and a second later, she had read the headline. Jamie didn't react fast enough to stop her, but recognised the piece of paper all the same. "You shouldn't have read that," he began. Matt/Martha stared at him in a mixture of fury and horror. "Liar!" Martha accused. "You've... killed me!" "No!" Jamie struggled to find the words to explain. "It's... we can change it! That is, I think we can. Matt went back to stop it happening!" Martha felt like a prizefighter, stunned by too many blows to her head. She blinked back tears and shook her head. His head. "Liar," she said again. She was wondered if this 'Jamie' was the devil himself, sounding so reasonable while he tempted her with promises of wealth, if she would just trust him. As her father always said, "if it seems to good to be true..." It was the year 2012, and Martha's father must be long dead. She, herself, was long dead. "I can't go home!" Martha exclaimed, and in a blind panic pushed Jamie away with all her might. The strength in this unfamiliar body surprised her. Caught by surprise, Jamie flew backwards, and landed badly. Martha seized the opportunity this offered, and ran. She didn't know where she was going; only away from the liar that had talked of stock markets, coffee and cake, when he should have told her that her life was in danger. That her life was over, in fact. 'Matt' made a strange sight as he ran down Rue McTavish, sobbing and running clumsily but determinedly, as if the devil himself was after him. Martha zig-zagged onto Sherbrooke and then Metcalfe Street, hoping to shake off Jamie. Jamie wasn't nearly as fit as Matt, and this combined with the head- start meant that there was no way he could stop Martha. She dodged through the traffic on Sherbrooke with a recklessness that Jamie couldn't match. He stopped, doubled over and breathing hard. "Shit," he said, and looked left and right for a pedestrian crossing. By the time he reached Rue Sainte-Catherine, a crowd had already gathered, and 'Matt' was pronounced dead at the scene. It seemed 'he' had attempted to dash across that street as well, but had been struck by a car and flung through the air. Death was instantaneous, all the witnesses agreed. Jamie stumbled away from the scene in a daze, vaguely aware that the police would likely be calling at the apartment. There were things he would need to conceal - particularly when an autopsy revealed drugs in Matt's body. Matt's body. Matt's corpse. What a thought! Jamie was amazed that he was able to think so clearly; so ruthlessly. He'd mourn, he promised himself... if he could just get out of this situation. Could he do anything to save Matt, armed with his unique knowledge of time travel? Unlikely, he was forced to concede, since the only known time traveller was now dead. Was this inevitable? Did the exchange of consciousness mean that Matt's death became unavoidable, in the same way that both Martha and Matt had previously shared a bump on the head? Had he sent Matt to his death? Time enough to figure that out, later. First, Jamie had to clear a few things out of the apartment. Any lingering residues of drugs wouldn't be a problem since if the police chose to investigate it would be because toxicology showed Matt to be a drug user... but Jamie needed to distance himself from any potential accusation that he had supplied the drug in question. Jamie managed to hold himself together just long enough to conceal that fact, and then he broke down and wept for what he had done to his friend. That was probably no bad thing, as it meant he didn't have to feign surprise when the police came, looking for a means of reaching Matt's next of kin. Jamie explained that he'd already been told the news by a mutual friend, and that was that. As it transpired, the metabolised remnants of Door Candy weren't enough to arouse suspicion on the part of the coroner, who reported that Matt was an occasional drug-user, but that this didn't appear to have been a factor at the time of the accident. They called it an accident. Jamie's grief was accompanied by fear that his part in Matt's death would be uncovered, but it never was. As the weeks wore on, the fear slithered away and only the dull ache of grief remained. When the funeral was over and done with, and when Matt's relatives had taken away his things, Jamie's thoughts finally turned once again to Martha's fate. He realised that Matt's trip to 1951 might still have been successful. Had Martha survived somehow? Jamie returned to the McGill archives, to look for news of Martha's fate. He found that the old student newspaper now contained no news of a traffic accident on Rue Sainte-Catherine. In its place was a fatuous article about 'Communists on Campus'. Jamie searched through the entire paper, and through everything else he could find that might have carried the news. Using the Internet was no help at all: searching for news of an accident on Rue Sainte-Catherine showed nothing for 1951, and far too many hits for 2012; a story that he really didn't want to read any more about. It seemed that Matt had succeeded. Martha Wilson hadn't died in 1951. But what had happened to her? She still didn't appear in the graduation list for her class, and that was strange, but Jamie didn't know how to solve the mystery. He asked for the librarian's help. "Assuming this is THE Martha Wilson you're interested in," the librarian said, "I'd say a lot of it would be in one of her biographies. Or you could just start with Wikipedia. I assume there's a good page on her." Jamie blinked. Martha Wilson, he reflected: the name should have been familiar. Probably one of the richest people in Montreal, her name appeared on buildings all over Canada, associated with projects she had funded - but the most commonly-discussed aspect of her character was her uncanny sense for the stock market. Jamie borrowed a couple of biographies, and started to read. He found both to be unauthorized, and highly speculative in places. There seemed to be a fascination with the fact that she was 'mannish', and that she had never married. There were hints (but never more than hints) that she might be a lesbian. The photos in the books showed black and white plates of a skinny, 1930s childhood in Winnipeg, and then the pudgy, bookish teenager that she had become. Martha with friends during her studies at McGill in the 1950s... and then nothing until she was in her mid-thirties, appearing much more lean and purposeful. A chapter explained how Martha had left her university course due to ill health. There had been a 'psychotic episode' and it was unclear whether this had led to her suffering a blow to the head, or vice- versa. Shortly thereafter, Martha had developed amnesia: a fascinating case, according to the doctors who had treated her: she remained lucid, although her knowledge was very patchy, with gaps filled in with fantasies and tall tales. She failed to recognize her friends and even her parents. Of course she didn't, Jamie thought, although he hardly dared to believe it: she wouldn't recognise her parents if she wasn't Martha, but Matt, stuck back in 1951. She spent a long time under study at the Allen Memorial Institute, it was reported: the same facility where Hebb worked. "Jesus!" Jamie breathed. "Matt won't have liked going back there..." There was a payout from McGill, related to the accident in which she had received a blow to her head; not a lot of money (1950s compensation was miserly compared to the excesses of later years) but a sum that was meant to help Martha when she was eventually discharged from the hospital, since it was felt that she was unable to work. Instead of 'prudently' putting the money in the bank, she invested it on the stock market... and the rest was history. Martha Wilson could do no wrong: she backed all the 'right' companies in Canada, and south of the border she invested in emerging technologies. Her wealth multiplied when she anticipated the Vietnam war, the Oil Crisis, the end of the Soviet Union... the later chapters in both biographies were just superlatives about money, and didn't interest Jamie very much. He skimmed through them, and realised belatedly that neither book said anything about her death. He tried Wikipedia, and... "Jesus! She's still alive!" It took quite a lot of ingenuity simply to find out where she was nowadays. Her addresses were simple to find, although the fact that she owned so much property was a setback. Eventually, though, he learned that she was in a private medical clinic in the city. Getting in to see her would require still more ingenuity, he thought - and was astonished when they contacted him. Apparently, Martha Wilson had been asking for him. He hurried over to the hospital, buying some flowers on the way. +++ The old woman opened her eyes, blinked a few times and reached for her glasses. "Jamie! I knew you'd come." "Martha...?" "Well, that's the name I've gotten used to." Jamie whispered. "Matt?" "The very same. Whadda'yat, buddy?" Jamie didn't know what to say. "I just... well... your funeral... and..." The old woman nodded, sadly. "Sorry, Jamie. You must have felt terrible. I would have spared you that, but in the last few months things deteriorated, and I've been stuck in here." "Deteriorated?" "Yeah. The doctors have been quite impressed by my staying-power, I think. I was diagnosed with cancer three years ago..." Jamie started to speak, but Martha shushed him. "I reckoned that with a little bit of luck, I could last until you'd developed Door Candy, and maybe talk you out of trying it, or something... but it's been a struggle. I haven't been fit enough to see you until now." She paused for a deep draught of oxygen. Jamie looked at the time-worn and borrowed body of his friend, and struggled to understand how this seemed "fit enough" for anything. "Tell me what happened?" the old woman pleaded. "Martha, in your body... she found that photocopy you had of the front page of the Tribune, with news of her death on it. She knocked me on my ass, and ran away. Next thing I knew, she was dead, struck by a car on -" "On Rue Sainte-Catherine," the old woman finished. "I read the news. Strange to learn of your own death. But of course it was Martha's death, not mine." She paused for some more oxygen. "On the very same street where she had been destined to die, only 61 years later. Or maybe not later at all, from her perspective." Jamie frowned. "You think... fate...?" "I think, yes. But at least we tried to change things." The old woman smiled. "And you got stuck in 1951," Jamie shook his head sadly. "I'm so sorry." Martha smiled. "Don't be. I've lived a full life. I've lived through one of the best times to be alive, and tried to do some good with it." Jamie thought of all the projects that had received Martha Wilson's sponsorship, and nodded. "You did good, bro." he said sadly. "Oh -" the old woman beckoned him closer, and whispered: "I seem to remember that you were curious about the nature of the female orgasm." Jamie just coughed and looked embarrassed. "Well, if you ever get the chance to travel as I did, I suggest you take it," Matt or Martha Wilson grinned salaciously. "They're simply wonderful!" "But... you never married?" Jamie prompted. "Nah. I tried guys once or twice, but I like girls too much. That wasn't an easy choice back then, but then I became rich enough that my 'eccentricities' were generally overlooked." "All the same, I never would have tried to persuade you to go..." "I know. I've missed you, buddy." She smiled weakly. "I thought you were dead!" Jamie exclaimed. "Well," a coughing fit interrupted matters for a minute. "You might have to get used to that idea all over again, sometime soon." "I'm so -" Jamie began. "Sorry, yes: you said. Don't worry about it. Sixty years ago, I was quite angry with you, but it's a long time to hold a grudge. Consider yourself forgiven, bro. And now, if you don't mind, I need to sleep." +++ Martha Wilson lived for another four months, and Jamie visited frequently. Whenever they could be sure nobody else was listening, they shared secretive conversations, and often laughed themselves silly. The doctors were surprised that Martha never again needed her morphine pump. (In fact, Jamie had smuggled in a new drug of his own devising, far better at tackling pain than any crude opiate.) Martha's final days were contented, and full of laughter. In Matt's final joke upon Jamie, he didn't leave him a fortune in his will: instead he gave him a job. Among Martha Wilson's portfolio, Laurentides Medical Research was something of an anomaly, as it had been wholly-owned rather than floated on the Stock Exchange... and now it was transferred to Jamie. If the scientists who worked for him were skeptical when he first took over the reins of the company, they were soon impressed by some of the ideas that the apparently unqualified young man had. Within a year, his new painkiller was beginning the long, slow process of medical approval, and the future of the company looked good. Jamie's thoughts turned back to drugs of a more esoteric nature. The trouble with the transference of consciousness with Door Candy, he reasoned, was that it had been virtually impossible to control... but what if a similar drug was created in 'paired' doses with a molecule that matched? What if you administered the drug to two volunteers, while they were in a state of sensory deprivation - either simultaneously, or years apart? Now THIS, he thought, is going to be a lot more interesting than tinkering with FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. He reached for his telephone... --- Note: The sensory deprivation experiments described in this story really were conducted at McGill University, Montreal, in the 1950s. Nowadays only a very diluted form of the famous experiment is permitted, for ethical reasons. The isolation techniques described, the escorted bathroom breaks and so on, are all factual. In reality, Dr Donald Hebb's test subjects were all male, but for the sake of a FM story, I imagined that there might have been girls among the volunteers as well.