Free Surrogate by James Ellison

SURROGATE

    Marla Buliea sighed heavily, exhaling nervous
air from her lungs as the double glass doors closed behind her,
    "Miss Buliea? Welcome to the Geil
clinic."
    "Yes, thank you." Marla forced a reluctant
smile.
    "I'm Doctor Mueller," the woman said,
extending a hand. "Joanne Mueller, but please, just call me
Joanne." She shook Marla’s hand gently, pumping it only twice
before placing another hand out to fully envelope hers within the
fold.
    The Doctor was a tall slender woman with
blonde hair in a tight ponytail that ended about midway down her
back. Her features, while pleasant, were soft and careless. Her
eyes indicated someone long accustomed to a privileged life. Doctor
Mueller's hands were soft but cold. They felt clinical, lifeless,
and her hand-shaking gesture did nothing to ease her
apprehension.
    The newspaper advertisement said the study
was for psychological research and the subject would not be asked
to take pills or shots. Marla hated shots, and pills never sat well
in her stomach. She never understood why people relied on pills for
just about everything. She always had the ability to cure her own
headaches by simply going into a dark room and clearing her mind.
Her friends told her she had a rare talent but curing her own
headaches didn't put money into the bank. The ad listed a
substantial fee for an afternoon's work, and that's why she was
here. They seemed impressed with her in her previous visits, but
they consisted mostly of guessing cards while inside an isolation
booth.
    "Let's get you settled in," Joanne said as
she led her down a long hallway, still holding Marla's hand in
hers.
    "Just to be sure," Marla asked as they
reached the end of a long corridor. "There are no needles or pills
involved?"
    "None at all," Joanne said, giving her a
reassuring smile. "We'll have to hook up some monitoring equipment
to you but they go on with tape and suction cups that can be easily
removed."
    "What will I have to do? You said in our
phone interview that this was some kind of remote viewing
experiment. Will I have to try to guess cards being shown in
another room or something?"
    No, not at all," Joanne said. "This is more
like a sleep study. All that is required of you is to relax and
clear your mind while lying on a bed in a darkened room. Don't be
surprised if you feel something, that's what the study is all
about."
    "You mean, I just have to lie on a bed and
wait to feel something?" Marla said, "Sounds easy enough," proud of
herself for finding a study that was, more or less, easy money.
    "There is one other thing," Joanne said.
"You'll have to remove all of your clothing, even your bra and
panties. Any clothing or sheets may interfere with our
experiment."
    Marla's earlier apprehension crept back in.
She wasn't sure she was comfortable with lying on a bed in a cold
examination room, naked in complete darkness waiting to 'feel'
something.
    "Since I won't need my clothes for awhile,
you think we could have them sent to the cleaners while I'm in
there?" Marla's attempt at levity was cut short when her voice
cracked.
    Joanne giggled politely at her attempt and
said, "Just go into that room on the right and make yourself
comfortable. My intern will be there in a few minutes to get you
all hooked up."
    "Okay," she said, and started down the
hallway. Marla pushed the door open, looking back to Joanne before
she went inside the room, but she had already disappeared through
another door.
    ***
    Joanne was excited at the prospect of getting
her experiment underway. She hurried into the control room as soon
as Marla opened the door to the test room. Katrina, her intern, was
setting up equipment, loading programs full of calculations and
algorhythms into the computers. She joined in, turning on the
monitors and checking the medical equipment that used to monitor
all the vitals and brain activity of both the receiving subject,
and the subject trying to project tactile feeling to her from the
room next door.
    Joanne