Passage

Definitely the beta-endorphins, Richard thought. He needed to look at the neurotransmitter analysis and the bloodwork, but if they were both higher than Amelia’s two previous sessions, then possibly all the core elements were endorphin-generated. Which would mean that the NDE might be what Noyes and Linden had thought — a protective mechanism to shield the brain from the traumatic emotions of dying and not a survival mechanism after all.

If the endorphin levels consistently matched, and if increased levels produced more core elements. He needed more data to prove either of those premises, which meant sending Amelia under again as soon as possible, but scheduling her for another session turned out to be almost as difficult as scheduling Mrs. Haighton for an interview.

“I’ve got a really big anatomy test coming up next week,” Amelia said, smiling apologetically at Richard. “Could we do it after next week?”

“I’d really like to schedule it earlier than that,” Richard said.

“Okay, Dr. Wright,” Amelia said, smiling at him, “but I want you to know you’re the only person I’d do this for, and if I flunk anatomy, it’ll be your fault.”

By the time they’d worked out a time, Mr. Pearsall had arrived. After what had happened the day before, he was a little worried about Mr. Pearsall’s being able to achieve the NDE-state, but he not only achieved it, he was right on the mark. His scan matched the standard nearly as closely as Tanaka’s, and in the interview afterward, he reported five core elements, including an out-of-body experience.

“I was lying on the table, waiting for you and the doctor to start,” he told Joanna. “I couldn’t see anything, of course, because of the mask and my eyes being closed, and then all of a sudden I could. I was up above the table, and I could see everything, the nurse checking my blood pressure, and you, holding a little tape recorder up to my mouth, and the doctor over at the computer. There were colored patterns on the screens, and they kept changing, from yellow to orange and from blue to green.”

“You said you were above the table,” Joanna said. “Can you be more specific?”

“I was all the way up next to the ceiling,” Pearsall said. “I could see the tops of the windows and the cabinets.” But not what Joanna put up on top of the medicine cupboard, Richard thought, and everything else he described he’s looking at right now or could have seen when he came into the room.

He was impressed all over again at Joanna’s savvy. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t asked her to work with him. Headlines in the Star: “Scientists Prove Life After Death Real,” with a testimonial from Mr. Mandrake and sidebar interviews with Dr. Foxx and Ms. Coffey the moon psychic. And no funding again ever, even from Mercy General. No credibility.

Joanna gave credibility to the project just by being on it. Sitting there in her cardigan sweater and wire-rimmed glasses, she was an island of sanity and sense in a field full of cranks and nutcases. He would never pick up the Star and find she’d decided the Other Side was real. And she wasn’t just sensible, she was intelligent, and an amazing interviewer. Without seeming to do anything at all, she elicited much more information than he’d been able to.

“What happened then?” she was asking Mr. Pearsall.

“I heard a sound, and then I was in a dark place,” Mr. Pearsall said.

“Can you describe the sound?” Joanna asked.

“It was a sort of… rumbling, like a truck going by… or a clattering.”

Or bullets hitting the wing of a Wildcat, Richard thought, wondering what the sound was that they all had so much trouble identifying. Was it a completely alien sound?

“And when I got to the end of the tunnel, there was a gate barring the way. I wanted to get through, but I couldn’t,” Mr. Pearsall said, but without any anxiety in his voice, and when Joanna asked him to describe the light, he said, “It was brighter than anything I’ve ever seen, and it made me feel peaceful and warm and safe.”

But when Richard reviewed the scans, fewer than half of the beta-endorphin sites were activated, and those showed either green or blue, the lowest level of activity, and there were only trace levels of the beta-endorphins and NPK. There were high levels of alpha-endorphins, though, and of GABA, an endorphin inhibitor.

He called up the analysis of Amelia’s most recent set of scans. No beta-endorphins, no NPK, low levels of alpha-endorphins.

And the cortisol level was off the charts.

13

“This is funny.”

—Doc Holliday’s last words

If Joanna had any illusions about subjects in a controlled experiment being easier to interview than patients, the next two weeks stripped her of them. She couldn’t get Mr. Sage to talk, she couldn’t get Mr. Wojakowski to shut up, and Mrs. Troudtheim, in spite of Richard’s attempts to adjust her dosage, still hadn’t had an NDE.