We got a lucky break and stumbled onto a stray memory of her brother, Dan. Because our memory charts were far from perfect, we followed several different mental pathways. The memory strand began with a private conversation. The grainy, black and white image displayed on the plasma screen showed Dan sitting on the opposite end of a couch in front of a roaring fire place. He was speaking softly and I got the impression he was about to make a confession of some kind.

Their dialogue, mostly obscured by excess static, made a sudden jump forward to what appeared to be the end of their discussion. Dan was crying and Kristen simply held him in a troubled embrace. We have no idea what transpired during that time interval.

Then the memory came when she learned of her brother’s terrible automobile accident. She sobbed while looking at Dan lying in the ICU of Indianapolis Memorial Hospital. Even after an emergency surgery, the doctors said his chance of survival was slim.

He woke up long enough to notice her presence. I can’t imagine the hurt she must’ve felt when he failed to recognize her. She knew the concussion was responsible for his catastrophic memory failure, but it probably wasn’t much comfort.

The next memory link jumped back in time almost six months. She and Dan stood in the funeral home he owned. They were talking with a police detective in Dan’s office. He asked routine questions about Macy, his recently missing wife. Dan stood silently as Kristen tried to console him. The investigator left unsatisfied with the answers given and considered the matter to be a suspicious mystery.

After a dozen different memory links, we came back to the hospital. We saw Dan lying in the ICU room with a monitoring device hanging close by. Time stretched out; no doubt, she’d spent many long, lonely hours at his bedside.

Dr. Valken continued observing Kristen in the testing room as I watched her memory play out on the video screen. The video monitor still looked down on her brother. He’d fallen asleep again. The memory intensity caused some physical manifestations. We were stumped as to why this caused such a reaction. The doctor theorized that the memory stimulation might be causing her to anticipate the traumatic incident.

While the professor busied himself assessing Kristen, I kept him updated, via two-way radio. I described how she stroked her brother’s hair. The doctor made an interesting observation. He noted that her arm, only strapped at the elbow, moved back and forth to coincide with her movements in the memory event. There could be no doubt about it, we weren’t just watching a memory play out in her mind; Kristen was subconsciously reliving it.

I watched as she took her brother’s hand. Her gaze swept over his face. An oxygen mask covered his nose as he slept. An IV line ran from his arm to a bag of fluid; I couldn’t read the label. His heart monitor pinged a steady but slow 50 beats per minute. His respiration was shallow and weak. He couldn’t be far from breathing his last.