In the murky dim light of the infirmary buried deep beneath the medical complex, Varynda Rogue, once respected scientist highly-placed within the governments New Initiatives group, lay upon a small bed with crisp white linens covering up to her chest. A woman once clothed in the finest accoutrements available in the Underworld, her breast was covered in the simple blue dressing gown of a committed patient. Sick with age, her once deep umber hair was straggly, dry and white with little order than the mess of an old woman just waking. She had been awake for some time however.
“You’ve done what, Habian?” She exclaimed boisterously. She had always been a loud and largely animated individual. “The color schematics of emotional response was one of my earlier discoveries. Do you remember, it was just about the time that you married that first lousy whore of yours? That’s about when I had the breakthrough, yes. What was her name? I can’t remember.”
Dr. Jarrod Rogue stared at the floor. It was dull gray with little decoration other than the wear of many years of being walked upon. His mother’s voice saddened him. Though love was never something he had felt from the woman in her virile days, he still loved her simply for the woman that she was and respected her for the great work she had done in those younger days. It was work that was the foundation for his own successes. “Mother, your brother Habian has been dead for many years.” He glanced up at his mother’s crackled face, the remnants of red lipstick smudged on the side of her lip. “I’m Jarrod, your son.”
Varynda’s deep brown saucer eyes stared back, wide and unmoving. “Continue, Habian. You were never the scientist I was. I’m surprised to hear you speaking of neuropathy. You aren’t one to use your own brain let alone study anothers.” Varynda’s head fell back in a stout chuckle.
Dr. Rogue’s eyes wandered about the room for a moment, the cold steel furniture glistening in the soft yellow light of a single fixture that hung from the ceiling. His mother’s words were troubling to him. He knew however that her condition had worsened before he stepped in to visit with her. This was the first time she had been convinced in the dark world of senility that she floated within that he was her brother. The way she spoke and the times that she referenced were all of before he was born. He began to accept that within her mind, she didn’t have a son. “You always focused your work on Alpha and Beta waves; the human consciousness alert and active. Yes the neurons are easily read then. Emotional response displayed like the pages in a book.”
“Well of course,” the old woman barked. “It’s electricity, Habian. Reading the levels and mapping the responses enables us to apply the color grid against it. You know color is easily as complex as the various electrical responses. Do you know how many colors are possible depending upon the circumstances, the levels and shades?” Varynda leaned forward and reached out to Jarrod’s arm, clutching it with her spiny hand. “It was some of my finest work paving even more unique studies of the human consciousness.”
Dr. Rogue tugged his arm towards him, releasing his mother’s frail grip. Turning to look directly at her once more, he sighed. “You never delved into the Delta waves though, mother. Unconsciousness is cleaner, easier to interpret.”
“Sleep is unfocused. Easy to read because there is only nonsense. And I have delved into unconsciousness. It was a waste of time.”
“Patience never served you well.” Jarrod stood, stepping to the side of the room where a dresser of the same colorless steel backed up against a dirty white wall. There were small vials of make-up upon its top including the thin tube of lipstick that was smeared upon the old woman’s face.
“Haven’t you gotten uppity, my dear brother. New whore in your life?”
Turning back towards her, Rogue ignored the comment. He was here for a visit, and for the occasional secret released from the vault of brilliance that was her aging brain. Her words tugged at his emotions, however, causing a deep and breathless ache to form within his chest. “The brain’s state changes in sleep, mother dear. But deep within and beneath the nonsense there is still an organ that is ripe for analysis and full of interesting data.”
Varynda Rogue shook her head and released a huff. As she seemed as though she were shutting down and disinterested, her eyes turned back and sparked with recognition. “Jarrod?” she said.
Jarrod Rogue stepped back towards the bed. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m Jarrod, your son.”
“You’ve been continuing my work. Toying with my discoveries. You were never able to start anything on your own.” Varynda shook her head once more.” “But tell me, what have you found? Delta waves. Unconsciousness. Why even go there?”
Jarrod’s sense of excitement stirred. He was proud of his own discoveries though they were birthed in the work of his mother. Still, he had taken her work to a new level. She had never believed in him, considering him not worthy of her genes for so many years. As Varynda Rogue peeked out from the realm of sickness, Jarrod desperately grasped at a moment for her to realize that he was as brilliant as she had been. “Mother, applying the color schematic to the neuropathic pulses was just a beginning. Psychs have the ability to see deeper into the consciousness, even into the sleeping mind. They can see through the dreams, cause the Deltas to pulse with knowledge. It is a neuron scanning the impulses from another neuron. Then applying…”
Varynda broke in, suddenly uninterested in the conversation. “My son is such an idiot, Habian. A thorn that was plucked from my innards, he continues to grow less intelligent each day I swear. I’ll be taking care of him until the day I pass.”
Rogue exhaled a deep sigh as his shoulders drooped. She was gone again, back into the dark abyss that was the disease overtaking her brain. Though her words were harsh and painful, he had heard such rants before, had always known she held no admiration for her son. The words spoken impacted him only in that his moment of glory, of talking about his own brilliant discovery with a brilliant woman had passed before she could realize that her son was a great man. “Mother,” he said in an attempt to regain her recognition of him.
Varynda turned her head sharply to the right and then to the left, clearly searching for something. “Where is that useless housemaid of mine? I must dress. Habian, fetch me my mirror. I don’t know where it is.”
“Mother,” Rogue said once more. “I’ve built a magnificent device. It can capture the waves emitted from a psych giving me control to use the power. With it, I can dig deep into anyone’s consciousness and scan the mind, interpret the thoughts. I applied the basics of your neuron schematic…” Rogue stopped in mid-sentence. His mother was gazing up at the light, cocking her head to and fro, clearly lost in the depths of her own uncalculated thoughts. She was in nonsense; words that he had heard her use many times before. “Well, I guess I shall leave.”
“Psych power begins within the neurons. But their electrical impulses transcend the barrier of the body; a signal that is still within their control.” Varynda ceased her gaze upon the ceiling and looked across at her son. Her eyes suddenly seemed focused once more. “I was able to reproduce the wave in my laboratory several times.” She sat up further, her mind in recollection of scientific discoveries. “The more I refined the wave, the more I discovered interesting nuances. I was able to nudge a glass off a table top.”
“Yes,” Dr. Rogue said, stepping closer to his mothers’ bedside. “I’ve found the same. The wave has frequencies.”
Varynda nodded as a lock of her sloppy white hair fell across her pale forehead. “I believe the psychs can control whether the wave moves through a wall or whether it crashes through it.” With a wave of the hand before her, she accentuated the burst through the wall analogy with a quick outstretch of her thin fingers that were capped with long yellowed nails. “I’ve had a few in my lab. Miserable and ungrateful young folk.”
Rogue lowered his out of shape body to a knee aside his mother’s bed, bringing himself closer to her, to look directly in her eyes. His mother it seems had returned again. “You’ve never told me that before. Mother I’ve come to be the leading expert on psych abilities.” Smiling with the pride of his accomplishments once more, Jarrod Rogue glowed with the possibility that his mother may finally hear of the wonderful accomplishments her son has made; to be proud of him at last. “They are at my disposal. Some come to me, some have no choice.” Reaching outwards, he placed his hand upon her bed, just short of her hand. His mother had never been a hand-holder. “Why have you never shared your work with the psych phenomenon with me before?”
“It was classified work,” Varynda answered with little hesitation. “The president desperately wanted their power for a short time. The woman that she always was, her interests changed direction before long, and so did we. Moved on to ionic phasing, I believe. But we did have some good breakthroughs.”
Dr. Rogue was mesmerized with her words. Had she done some of the work he was currently doing before, he wondered? Did she find more than he had? “Tell me more, mother. What did you use to synthesize the impulses?”
Varynda’s gaze again grew quickly disinterested. “What impulses?” She barked as if the question was rooted in insult. “Habian, my mirror,” she commanded with a wave of the hand.
Rogue pressed down upon the floor with his hand to push himself back to a stance. While there was a bit of a struggle against his own aging body, he stood and turned towards the door, disappointed once more. “I’ll stop by again in a few days, he said. With his hand on the door latch, he turned back for a final glance at his mother, the brilliant and renowned Varynda Rogue. She was again gazing upwards at the ceiling fixture while pushing the lock of hair that had fallen forward to the back of her head with her rickety right hand. With a brief memory of her in younger times in his mind, though there were few memories of his mother that delivered a positive feeling within him, he tried to appreciate for a moment the great woman that she once was. That woman was gone, he accepted. “I’ll send you a nurse for your mirror,” he said before opening the door and making a quiet exit.