Free The Gate by Kaitlyn O'Connor

on the potential of Devlin’s
discovery as everyone else seemed to be.
    Free, unlimited energy? It boggled the
mind.
    But how was he going to figure out how
to capture it without his lab?
    “We’d like to hear what happened,” the
lead speaker prompted after a few minutes.
    That dragged Carly from her
speculations and she looked at Devlin expectantly.
    He seemed hesitant to speak and she
wondered why. Was he reluctant because of the trauma of his
experience? Or was he afraid he couldn’t maintain the illusion that
he really was Devlin Bear because he hadn’t been there at
all?
    “I don’t actually know what happened,”
he said finally. “I sensed that something was wrong just as I began
powering up the reactor to open the gate. I’ve tried since then to
figure out what that something was or if it was anything at all.
All I can remember, though, is this … sinking feeling that
something just wasn’t quite right a few seconds before the
explosion. And then a blinding light.
    “It seemed that a lot of time passed
before I became aware of my surroundings again.”
    He stopped. “I’m a scientist,” he
continued after a long pause. “I won’t speculate about what
happened—either before or after the explosion. I couldn’t remember
anything at all at first—not even my name. I knew there were people
around me, or thought I knew. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard
them.
    “I finally began to get my memories
back after I was …. I can only say that it’s clear I was severely
injured in the explosion. I didn’t have any sense of my body
anymore until I woke up in this unit. I’m not sure how much of me
is cybernetic—most, I think—but I am Devlin Bear. I did survive the
explosion and … I remember my research, which, I think, is the most
important thing.”
    The silence that followed that
revelation was longer than the first. Carly was abruptly swamped by
guilt for doubting him. No wonder he seemed so aloof! It must be
horrible for him to realize the damage was so extensive that he’d
had to have so much of his body replaced with
cybernetics!
    “Oh my gosh! Heaven!” somebody near the
back gasped out loud, stunning the entire group for several
minutes. “The light! So many people that died and were resuscitated
have talked about it! And the awareness of others! The energy! It’s
the souls! He found the gate to heaven!”
    “You don’t really believe that
superstitious tripe?” a man retorted angrily.
    “She’s right! It does sound like the
stories I’ve heard about people passing over and then being pulled
back! And we know he couldn’t have survived that explosion! It’s
the only explanation that makes sense if you think about it! This
universe he found … it’s the hall of souls!”
    “Hold on!” Devlin said, trying to
intercede before the speculation could get any wilder, appalled
that anyone had leapt to such a conclusion based on the little he
recalled. “The brain can survive as long as five minutes without
the body before it begins to die of oxygen starvation. If I was to
guess, I’d say that is what happened. That would explain the sense
that I didn’t have a body and also explain why I could hear but not
see. Hearing is the last sense to go. The explosion itself was the
source of the light—or possibly the death of the ocular nerves ….
Clearly the trauma to my body was extensive, but I survived it or I
wouldn’t be here to talk about it. No doubt it was complete chaos
when the emergency personnel arrived and in the confusion
….”

    “That makes a hell of a lot more sense
than that bullshit about heaven!”
    “Because you don’t want to believe!”
the first woman said angrily. “You’re like the pessimist who always
thinks, because they look at the worst possibilities, that they
have a practical outlook—and they’re no more practical than the
optimist! You could at least be open-minded enough to consider
it!”
    “I don’t believe because it doesn’t
make