Synapse

By D. August Baertlein

Synapse is a YA sci-fi novel set in the very near future, where an unscrupulous neurologist sees the damaged brain as an oyster to be shucked for its pearls of wisdom.

When Jake’s twin brother, Gabriel, is left severely brain damaged by a near drowning accident, Jake is convinced it’s his fault. Every Sunday for nine years, Jake visits Gabriel at the institution. At the point when Jake has lost hope that his brother even knows he's there, Dr. Ryder arrives on the scene. “Your brother might still be thinking and feeling, trapped inside an unresponsive body,” she says. “I could set him free.”

What Jake doesn't know is that Dr. Ryder is not driven by a desire to help the mentally disabled. She's motivated by the need to extract a lucrative secret from the brain of Terra O'Hare, a formerly brilliant scientist who suffered a near drowning "accident" very similar to Gabriel's. Dr. Ryder hopes to use what she learns from Jake and Gabriel's twin brains to get into Terra's.

Dr. Ryder has experimented before. Amnesia is one of her few surviving patients. With street smarts and a tough exterior Amnesia escapes from Dr. Ryder's death row laboratory and becomes a powerful force in the mission to save Jake, Gabriel, and Terra from certain death.

Synapse takes actual research in neurological science, and plays what-if with the idea that there can be a good and a bad side to pushing science to its limits. The novel is told from three different points of view - Jake's, Terra's, and Amnesia's. Starting separately, the stories become entwined as the tension builds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. August Baertlein
• Release date: Nov 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465870513

D. August Baertlein

I write software by day and stories by night, a combo made even odder by the fact that I started my adult life as a marine biologist/geneticist. Even though I got my Ph.D. ever so long ago I still love science, especially the biological variety, and my fiction is full of it. Science, I mean.

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Synapse

By D. August Baertlein

Copyright 2011 D. August Baertlein

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Siri Weber Feeney

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

No book is an island, and I have plenty of people to thank for assistance with this one. First and foremost is professional illustrator, Siri Weber Feeney, who created the cover image for Synapse, as well as providing literary advice and encouragement along the way. Siri and the rest of my critique group, Rebecca Langston-George, Lynn Becker, Jean Ann Williams, and Terry Pierce, are a big part of what has kept me striving and improving all these years - and not just in writing.

Several other beta readers have helped me spot inconsistencies and incomprehensibles in Synapse, including the illustrious C. S. Perryess; my sister, Kris August; brother-in-law, Rad Davis; sister-in-law, Lisa Baertlein; and my ever supportive parents, Roland and Irene August.

I was also incredibly lucky to be part of an SCBWI whole novel workshop group where the now multiply published Heather Tomlinson gave Synapse a helpful critique early on. There are many others. You know who you are. Thanks!

Lastly, I would like to thank my husband and son. Although they didn't always understand my obsession with this imaginary world, they allowed me the space to go there when I needed to.

Table of Contents

JAKE - The Accident

AMNESIA - The Robbery

TERRA - The Recruitment

JAKE - Happy Valley

AMNESIA - The Execution

TERRA - Success

JAKE - Another Recruitment

TERRA - Bioluminescent Swim

JAKE - Another World

AMNESIA - Death Row Again

TERRA - Buried Treasure

JAKE - Gabriel's Surgery

AMNESIA - Mind Under Microscope

AMNESIA - Mind Over Gray Matter

TERRA - Thoughts About Thinking

JAKE - Gabriel's World

AMNESIA - Escape

AMNESIA - Hunted

TERRA - No Longer Alone

JAKE - Connected

AMNESIA - The Sting

AMNESIA - New Occupation

JAKE - Foes

JAKE - Friends

AMNESIA - The Phone Call

AMNESIA - The Kidnapping

TERRA - A Window Opens

JAKE - To Kaho'olawe

AMNESIA - The Cavalry Mounts

TERRA - Singer Turned Mirror

JAKE - Imprisoned

AMNESIA - The Skiff

TERRA - A Visit From Burlington

JAKE - Outwitting the Enemy

TERRA - Fading

AMNESIA - The Rescue

JAKE - The Launch

AMNESIA - The Storm

JAKE - Poetic Justice

JAKE - EPILOGUE

Author's Note

About the Author

Contact the Author

Contact the Cover Artist

JAKE - The Accident

_______________________

My brother Gabriel was a blistering boil on my butt from the minute we were born. Before even. The competitive jerk kicked me in the face as he swam out of the birth canal on his way to being first at the very first thing we did. Story is we’re identical twins, but Gabriel didn’t come out with a big red blotch on his face in the shape of a foot. He got the first baby tooth, walked a month before I did, and was the one with personality, according to fat Aunt Betty. By the time we were nine he ran faster, jumped higher, and had gotten twice the academic awards.

The accident changed all that. Now the only thing Gabriel does better is drool.

I wish I could say I’d never dreamed of being an only child. In my juvenile mind it seemed like the only way I might ever be the favorite. That was nine years ago, though. Half a lifetime. Something like this changes you. Now I just want him back.

It happened on vacation at Lake Powell where the family had rented a houseboat for the week. We were anchored in a quiet cove, and Mom and Dad were taking an afternoon siesta. Gabe and I played a swimming hide-and-seek game we’d made up. Gabe was it. He counted from base, which was in the shade of the diving platform at the back of the boat. He counted in French. To one hundred and forty. Jeeze.

The rules were you couldn’t get out and hide on the boat, but we never said you couldn’t swim ashore. Gabe wasn’t worried, though. I was a loud flailing swimmer, and the key to hide-and-seek is stealth. Getting to shore without calling attention to myself was pretty much impossible, and he knew it.

That’s why it seemed like such a stroke of luck when a string of cigarette boats ripped by, kicking up a colossal wake, screaming like a dozen lawnmowers. Under cover of all that commotion I took off for shore at warp speed. As warp as my flailing got, anyway. When I hit sand I raced up the beach and hid behind a rock.

Like I said, the key to hide-and-seek is stealth whether you’re it or not-it. So when everything finally calmed down and I didn’t hear Gabe counting or splashing, I figured he was probably sneaking around under the boat trying to catch me by surprise. Maybe he was. I guess we’ll never know.

The cigarette boats raced back the other way, weaving in and out, chasing each other in circles. I waited.

I don’t know how long I sat there basking in the glow of my own cleverness. Everybody wanted to know afterwards. Still do. I remember it was long past the shivering, evaporative-chilling stage when the sun sucks water off your skin until you tingle all over with goose bumps. And it was past the relaxed toasting stage. In fact, it was just into the hot, sweaty point, where the urge to dive back into the water is practically irresistible – five minutes, maybe ten by the time I wondered why I hadn’t even seen him skulking around the boat looking for me. I had a pretty good view, too.

Finally, I got bored. Over here, you big dweeb! I shouted, coming from behind the rock and waving my arms. I swung my butt around and wagged it in the general direction of the boat. Hey! Dorko! Over here!

No answer. Just the droning of cicadas. I scanned the cliffs and bushes behind me, but couldn’t see anything boy-like, just a big, black lizard doing pushups on a rock and a couple of buzzards circling overhead. I sprouted a fresh crop of goose bumps. It wasn’t that I had a clue yet what had happened. I was more scared that somehow Gabriel had gotten the better of me again.

The sand scorched my feet as I hop-ran back to the water, and started breast-stroking slowly toward the boat. I kept my head up, watching. I swear I heard the Jaws theme song in my head. Bum-pum. Bum-pum. Bum-pum bum-pum bum-pum. Every now and then I’d kick my feet straight down toward the bottom of the lake, lifting my head as high as I could, spinning around to see farther and deeper into the murky water. I was sure Gabe was going to come up under me, grab my ankles and scare the piss out of me. At the time I remember thinking it would serve him right.

I reached the diving platform at the back of the boat, the place where I’d last seen him, and he still hadn’t attacked. That was when I first thought he might be the one in trouble, not me. I climbed up the ladder and hollered, Gabe! Gabe, where are you?

I guess the little-girl squeak in my voice must have woken up Mom and Dad, because they were beside me in a flash, hollering, too.

Then I saw him, hanging there in the water. His red swim shorts billowed like a jellyfish, puffing in the swells from a passing boat.

I’d like to say I dove in, grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him up on deck. But it was Dad. Dad rolled him over on his belly, lifted his arms and forced about a gallon of water from his lungs. Dad gave him mouth-to-mouth, and CPR. Mom called on the radio for help. I just stood there gasping and crying like the useless piece of flotsam I was.

Everybody thinks you have to be dead to have a ghost. Not true.

Nine years after the accident, with Gabe in an institution twenty miles away, I was tripping over his ghost all the time. I’d hear him singing We are the Champions in the shower, feel him hovering over my shoulder making suggestions on my English essays, see his face in the mirror when I brushed my teeth.

We never brought Gabriel home, but his ghost found its way. Mom saw it today in one of Gabe’s old baseball cards stuck way back under the refrigerator.

I don’t know what you thought you were doing, Martin, Mom said, rubbing Sammy Sosa’s dusty face across the front of her muumuu.

Dad sagged, knowing what was coming. I watched from the kitchen while Mom closed in on him, there sprawled in his La-Z-Boy.

Why’d you take us out on that god-awful lake, anyway? She swirled her gin and tonic, and the ice jangled like broken glass. We should have gone to Disneyland or someplace safe.

How was I to know? Dad said. You think I’m psychic? And who was it said, ‘Let’s go take a nap.’ Wink, wink. ‘The boys will be fine.' Well, they weren’t fine, were they?

Dad had had a few too many, too. They seemed to think alcohol would take away the pain, but it never did. Booze just brought the ache to the surface and let it spill out and stain our world. Not that our pain was ever invisible, at least not to us.

It had been easier back when we still had hope, when Gabriel lay in the hospital in a coma and we thought he might come out okay. By the look of the big pulpy wound on the side of Gabe’s head, the doctors figured the wake from those zippy little boats had hurled him up against our big solid houseboat. Getting whacked on the head and knocked unconscious is bad, but passing out underwater – that’s nearly always fatal. Gabriel was lucky to be alive, the doctors said. But the end result of this kind of brain trauma plus near-drowning is hard to predict. They couldn’t give us a prognosis, we’d just have to wait and see.

And pray. We did a lot of praying.

The day he opened his eyes we had a big old party right there in his room – pizza, confetti, the works. Of course, Gabe still couldn’t eat. Or drink. Or speak. Every afternoon after that we’d put him in a wheelchair and take him for strolls on the patio, Mom, Dad, and I. And we took turns just sitting with him, talking about old times and laughing to remind him what he was missing, what he should be fighting for. We were still struggling to be a family back then.

A few months down the line, with the help of his physical therapist, he could move his hands and legs. He’d learned to swallow. Sort of. But his brain never came back. The real Gabriel never came back.

Rita, we’ve been over this a million times. Dad’s voice drifted into the kitchen and brought me back to now. There’s nothing more we can do. It’s over. Gabriel would want --

Mom’s sobs drowned out whatever else Dad was saying. She was right. Having nothing more we could do made it so much harder. If there was nothing to do, there was nothing to hope for.

Let’s focus on the positive, Dad put his hand on Mom’s arm. They take good care of him down at Happy Valley.

You know whose fault this is? Mom shrugged his hand off.

Please, Rita. Don’t go there. It doesn’t help anyone.

I ducked into the kitchen out of sight. I knew whose fault it was. I had known from the moment I saw him floating there, jellyfish-like off the stern of the boat.

It’s Jake’s fault! she said. Remember how he used to say he wished he was an only child?

Rita, he was four. Stop. We’ve already lost one son. Do you want to drive the other one away?

Jake should have helped him. She was sobbing hard now. So was I, my head pressed against the kitchen door.

Jake didn’t know! How could he know? Dad crushed an empty beer can on the end table. It would leave another scar in the oak finish, but nobody cared.

Jake knew, Mom said. They’re twins. They feel it when things happen to each other. Twins are connected that way. I heard it on Oprah.

Oprah. Right, Dad said. He popped open a fresh can.

I slunk out the back door never dreaming that Dr. Deborah Jane Ryder would soon be along to save the day.

In her own twisted way.

AMNESIA - The Robbery

_______________________

Liquor store? Gas station? Mom and Pop shop?

Whatever.

Gun loaded. Tank full. Who gives a flop?

Belly growlin’, gnawin’ hard.

Mom and Pop then. They got food there.

Jumbo chips. Pop the Pop and grab some pop.

Ha! Good one. But I ain’t laughin’.

Never laughed. Not once this whole girl’s life.

Park the car, closest spot. Push open the door. Saunter in.

Stupid doorbell. Everybody turn. Everybody know.

Mommy, Look. That lady gots a gun.

I ain’t no lady. Ladies got pink pistol-ettes.

This here’s damn near an Uzi.

I shove the kid. Outta’ the way, my sharp eyes say.

Calm down, girl, man behind the counter say.

I got my hands in the air. Getting you the cash, now. See?

But he don’t reach for the register. Hand slips ‘neath the counter.

Maybe a gun. Maybe buzz the cops.

Squeeze the trigger. Bam bam.

Man drops to the floor.

I get the cash myself, chump!

Bam bam. Ching ching. Drawer pops open.

Lotta’ green. Maybe I eat for a week or two.

Everybody watchin’.

Stop your starin’! I wave my gun.

Six scared eyes look to the floor.

Woman cryin’, don’t know what for.

Time to go.

Whoa! Almost forgot the pop and chips back of the store.

Red can. Orange bag. But my gut wants more.

Lookin’, lookin’, don’t know what for.

Sirens blare.

Cops are comin’.

Sirens blarin’.

Cops are here. Bam bam.

Not my Bam bam.

Salty. Sticky. Bloody. Red.

Drippin’ down my sleepy head.

Black.

Cops say somebody’s dead.

Bullet only grazed my head.

Must be the other guy.

They think I’m stupid.

Truth is I don’t care. Carin’s for suckers.

Mamma never cared. Nobody cared.

Amnesia? What kind a name is that? cop say.

The kind a name I got, I say.

Mamma forgot who my daddy might be.

Named me Amnesia then forgot about me.

But I don’t tell him.

I don’t tell him nothin’.

Stupid, cop say.

I ain’t stupid. Just don’t care.

How old are you, anyway? cop say.

Don’t know. It’s truth.

Prob’ly try you as an adult, cop say.

So?

Cop’s talkin’ at me, I don’t care.

Says I’ll die in the ‘lectric chair.

Lethal injection, hanging, whatever’s fair.

All so torqued about one counter clerk.

Everybody die, that’s how it work.

Unless that Ryder bitch get hold of you.

TERRA - The Recruitment

_______________________

I should never have worn that dreadful skirt to give my first student seminar. Berkeley may be a prestigious university, but it’s not always a civilized place. It didn’t help that I was barely twenty and already in the Ph.D. program. There were those who felt I shouldn’t be there, and even more who felt threatened by my presence.

As I sat there awaiting my introduction, I pondered the merits of kicking off my discount store pumps and wriggling out of those itchy pantyhose. It