Both Rachel and Williams could see the blankness in his eyes. An utter lack of recognition of anything.
Repeated blinking continued for several minutes until it subsided and prompted Rachel to speak again. In a calm and soothing female voice, she said, “Can you close and open one more time?”
With some difficulty, they closed and reopened.
“Very good,” she whispered, before adding, “Don’t be afraid if you can’t see anything. That’s normal.”
It wasn’t the truth. They didn’t know whether it was normal or not. It wasn’t just the neural pathways involved. It was the signaling itself. And even more worrisome, the interpretive processing taking place in the brain.
“Don’t worry if you can’t move either,” she whispered. “We’ll start off slow. If you understand, close and reopen your eyes twice.”
He did so. More fluid this time, resembling slow blinks.
“Excellent. Now close and open them just once.”
He answered with a single blink.
“Good. We’ll use once for no and twice for yes. Do you understand?”
Two slow blinks.
“Can you tell me if you are in pain?”
Two blinks.
“Okay. We can do something about that.”
She nodded at Williams, who picked up a syringe and withdrew a measured amount of liquid from a tiny brown bottle. He then stood and smoothly injected it into the man’s IV tubing
“That should help,” Rachel said softly. “Now … are you seeing anything yet?”
One blink.
“Okay. That’s completely fine. Can you try moving again?”
After a lengthy pause, the right hand briefly twitched.
Rachel grinned. “Good. Very, very good.”
“Jesus, did we blind him?”
Nora Lagner frowned. “Maybe.” She turned from Masten to Yamada.
“I didn’t see signs of overheating in the occipital area or the eyes, but the MRIs will tell us for sure.”
Masten didn’t reply. He simply remained still, watching the video feed of the two doctors and their damaged patient.