Lisa Stone - The Doctor

‘Alisha, how nice to see you. How are you?’ she asked, barely able to hide her surprise.

‘I’m not bad, thank you.’ She looked very thin and pale and had dark circles under her eyes, but she managed a small smile.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but have you seen our cat, Tibs? She’s been missing for twenty-four hours.’

‘No, I haven’t. But I’ll ask Amit when he comes home tonight.’

‘Thank you. Can you ask him to check your garage and that outbuilding in your garden in case she’s got shut in?

‘Yes, of course.’ She didn’t immediately start to close the door as she had done before.

‘Your husband has certainly gone to town on your windows,’ Emily couldn’t resist commenting. ‘Is that because I trimmed the hedges?’

Alisha nodded, embarrassed. ‘Amit worries about security with me in the house all day. We were broken into where we lived before.’

‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry,’ Emily said and felt slightly guilty. ‘Has he done the back windows as well?’

‘Yes, even the upstairs. I’ve told him we’re safe here, it’s a nice neighbourhood. But when he gets an idea into his head he won’t listen to reason and there’s no stopping him.’ It was the most Alisha had ever said to her, Emily thought.

‘I understand,’ Emily said. Robbie began whinging. ‘I’ve got to go now, but won’t you come in for a coffee? I know I’ve asked you before, but I would really like it if you did.’

Alisha hesitated but didn’t refuse outright. ‘It’s difficult. Amit wouldn’t like it. He worries about me.’

‘Does he have to know?’ Emily asked. ‘I mean, I’m not suggesting you lie, but couldn’t you just pop round while he’s at work? Or I could come to you?’

‘No, it’s better if I visit you,’ Alisha said quietly. ‘But I can’t stay for long.’

‘That’s fine. Stay as long as you like. I’m free tomorrow afternoon.’

‘OK. I’ll try to come at one-thirty.’

‘Great. See you then.’

And although Tibs hadn’t been found yet, Emily went away feeling she had achieved something very positive indeed.

That night, Amit sat at the workbench in his lab and looked dejectedly at the dead rat; its pink eyes bulging and its mouth fixed open in a rigor mortis snarl. He couldn’t understand why it and the mice had died. He’d only stopped its heart for fifteen minutes, during which time it had been submerged in ice. Animals and humans had survived much longer than that after accidentally falling into icy water; their hearts stopping as they entered a state of suspended animation and then restarting once resuscitated. In one case, a child had been brought back after being submerged in a freezing lake for two hours with no ill effect, so why couldn’t he replicate that here?

He threw the rat into the bin with the others and dug his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat. He stared at the remaining two rats in the cage. Perhaps there was a genetic weakness in the rats and the mice he’d bought, for doubtless they’d been interbred. Yet the other animals he’d tried the procedure on had all gone the same way. He knew from a science journal that dogs in a lab had been brought back to life after three hours following this process, so what on earth was he doing wrong?

Resting his head in his hands, Amit studied his notes and calculations, then opened the cage door and took out one of the remaining rats. It squirmed and squeaked as if sensing its fate. He placed it on the bench beside the syringe that was ready with the solution and held it down firmly. He’d try a smaller dose this time – see if that made any difference. Then he suddenly stopped and looked up, deep in thought.

He’d been stopping their hearts artificially, but of course when a person or animal fell into icy water, their heart was still beating as they went under and suspended animation occurred. Patients who were going to be preserved for cryonics treatment were put on a heart-lung machine until they could be submerged in ice, so they too were technically alive. Was that the answer? Something so simple: the subject’s heart had to still be beating. At what point the heart-lung machine was switched off, he didn’t know. It wasn’t a detail ELECT made public. But it was possible it wasn’t switched off until the person was frozen, so they were frozen alive, although unconscious. Could that really be the solution? If he froze the rat while its heart was beating would that allow him to bring it back from the dead?

Amit temporarily returned the rat to its cage while he took a bottle of anaesthetic from the top shelf of the cabinet and drew some into a syringe. It was the anaesthetic he used on his patients at the hospital and would keep the rat asleep while maintaining its vital signs. He would only need a drip or two as the rat’s body was a fraction of the size of a human’s. If this worked, he’d try the process on larger animals, just as scientists did in lab experiments, before he attempted it on a human.

Opening the cage, he picked up one of the rats – the other squeaked in protest at losing its mate – and set it on the workbench. Holding it firmly by the scruff of its neck, he injected the anaesthetic. Almost immediately, the rat’s eyes closed and it relaxed, unconscious, on the bench. Taking his stethoscope, he listened to its heartbeat and then placed it into the ice bath and began monitoring its temperature. Normal body temperature for a rat was 37°C, the same as for humans. It quickly plummeted to 30°C, 24°C, and then down to 20°C. Circulatory arrest happened at 18°C and its heart stopped beating. The rat’s temperature continued to drop to zero and further still. When it reached minus 90°C, following the procedure used at ELECT, Amit took a scalpel and made a small incision into the rat’s jugular vein and drained off half its blood into a bottle. He then injected preservation fluid into the vein – the same solution used for preserving organs for transplant – and returned the rat to the ice bath.

He felt hot, clammy and anxious, for despite carrying out similar procedures before, if he failed now he’d made the adjustment he’d no idea what else he could do. Failure wasn’t an option.

The rat’s temperature continued to fall down to minus 130°C. It was at this point in the cryonics procedure the body was lowered into the tank of liquid nitrogen and stored at minus 195°C. But Amit waited five minutes and began to reverse the process, gradually raising the rat’s temperature and then returning its blood. At 37°C he tentatively placed his stethoscope on the rat’s chest and listened for any sign of a heartbeat. Nothing. Not the faintest murmur. He massaged the rat’s chest, hoping to stimulate its heart, and listened again. Still nothing. It had gone the same way as all the others! Whatever was he doing wrong?

He stared at the lifeless body of the rat and was about to give up and throw it in the bin when he thought he saw one of its toes twitch. Returning his stethoscope to its chest, he listened hard, his breath coming fast and low. It wasn’t his imagination! He could hear the very faintest murmur of a heartbeat. He massaged the rat’s chest again and listened. Yes, there it was, stronger now. The irregular beats joining to form a steady rhythm. Then the rat gasped its first breath. He’d done it! He’d really done it. He could barely contain his excitement.

But scientists never rely on one positive result, he reminded himself, so he would repeat it on the last rat and then on larger animals. How proud his father would be if he knew his son was about to create immortality.

‘Come in,’ Emily welcomed Alisha the following afternoon as she opened her front door. ‘So pleased you came. I wondered if you would.’