Sleep Journal - 190115 - Fairge Anma

[kimurho]

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Sleep Journal
15 January 2019

Craig crossed the distance between office door and desk, slapped the folder in his hand down on top of the stack already waiting on his desk, and dropped into the chair behind the desk. He spun himself around to open the laptop.

She hadn't been there.

First lecture he gives in the course and it's first one she misses. It wasn't fair.

The sign-in screen loaded. Craig input name and password.

He really wanted to hear what she had to say, get her opinion of his lecture. She had a unique perspective, fresh, off-beat. More folklore than science but the way she approached it was almost logical.

The desktop loaded. Calling up his schedule for the next month with one hand, attention on the screen, he reached behind him with the other for the folder he'd just put down. The overly-tall stack quivered but held.

She forced him to re-assess his opinions, evaluate his logic, defend conclusions. It was ... exciting. Intoxicating.

The top page in the folder was the list of six students he was calling back for re-testing. These six had scored significantly in the initial trials. All but one had agreed to return and had given him a list of days and times they'd be available

All but one. How could she be absent? Today of all days?

He had their free times, now he had to see how to their schedules fit into his research times.

Maybe he should call her. He could get it, easy. Students were required to fill out forms at the start of the semester, current address and phone number, contact information, that sort of thing. For emergencies; but if she was sick, wouldn't it be friendly to check on her?

Justine popped her head in, hands on either side of the doorjamb so just her upper body intruded.

"How'd it go?" What reason did she have to be so cheerful?

"Fine! It went fine! Why wouldn't it?"

She laughed. At him. "No need to growl, grumpy. What happened?"

"I'm not growling. I'm busy." She waited until he sullenly added through gritted teeth, "Nothing happened. I went. I lectured. I left. End of story."

"Did you talk to the call-backs?"

"Yes!" A single word, cut short. She took that as invitation to enter, coming up to the visitor side of the desk. Craning her head, she read the open document onscreen in front of him.

"You got them all to commit to coming back in?" Her eye fell on the list he was working from and her mouth rounded. "Oooo. No you didn't. Well, that explains why you're in a snit."

"I am not in a snit." Craig shut the folder, leaving it beside the computer. He turned to face her. Might as well, he wasn't going to get any work done until she left. He never did. And she wouldn't leave until she was good and ready to. "Do you have a reason to for coming in?"

The 'or are you just here to be annoying' part of the question was left unsaid.

A year ago, it wouldn't have been.

If Justine heard what he didn't say, she didn't show any sign of it. In fact, she moved even closer, coming around to the side of the desk and picking the folder up from beside him. She started flipping through it.

"Did she refuse to participate, then?"

"She wasn't there." Craig heard the plaintiveness of his voice and scowled.

Justine set the folder down again, giving him a concerned look.

"She wasn't? That's odd. Isn't it?"

"How would I know?" he snapped.

She chuckled and began fiddling with the folders on the stack, opening each one briefly to look at the contents before setting it aside.

"Do you mind?" Craig snapped, reaching out to protect his system. The stack was starting to slip. "I know where each one of those is. You're messing it up."

"Not at all. But I think Tina does." Tina Logan was the office manager for the Parapsych group. "She says if you don't start taking out your take-out trash, she's going to take it out of your hide when the ants and mice find it."

Justine found what she was looking for in the stack.

"That's not what I meant," he snapped.

"I know." She flipped through the sheets of paper in the folder, looking briefly at the top page of each set before going on to the next. Craig caught a glimpse of each as she turned it, enough to recognize that she was looking at the results of the last set of trials.

"That's what I thought," she muttered under her breath. Extracting one set of papers from the rest, she turned it around so the writing faced him. "Look at this."

It was the schedule of tests; names arranged by day and time.

"Yeah. So?"

"I thought I recognized the names when you showed me the list of call-backs, but I wanted to double-check." She pointed to one block of time - a single day. "What do you see?"

"What am I supposed to see?" he countered warily. Then he looked again and his eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute." Craig took the page out of her hand and read the names again. He turned around and pulled out the list of call-backs, comparing the two. "How did I miss this?" Five of the six names were present on both lists. The five highest scorers. All five of them had been in on the same day.

"Look at the order of the tests," Justine continued.

He saw it. Each one of the high scores had occurred after the computer broke down and they were forced to revert to the paste-board symbol cards. Three different researches had turned the physical cards while the students guessed. Sarah ...

Actually Sarah was an outlier of the group. He'd included her not because she scored high but because her score was unusually low. Only four percent correct, which was unbelievable. An accuracy of twenty percent was random chance.

She was also the only student Craig had turned cards for that day.

Justine and J.J. had turned cards for the other four. No discernable difference in the scores of the students they'd worked with. Scores in the 30s for each.

So the increase in scores could be due to the students, which was the fall-back assumption in the on-going research project.

It could be due to the cards themselves, which was unlikely but should be tested so it could be eliminated.

It could be due to the person turning the cards. Barely possible, especially with Craig participating. He tested flat on all extra-sensory trials.

Craig frowned at that thought. It was a sore point with him, that he tested others for abilities that he himself lacked.

His frown deepened as he looked back up at Sarah's unusually low score to the high scores of the other four. He couldn't remember off the top of his head where either stood on the Rhine scale, but it might be significant.

On the other hand, the increase in the scores could be a direct result of the computer malfunction.

Electromagnetic fields are known to affect human brain function, that was why there were occasional calls by health professionals to limit mobile phone use among children. There was some evidence ... but none definitive ... that living under high frequency power lines can cause certain illnesses. So why not triggering episodes of mental telepathy and precognition?

It made certain logical sense.

"Justine, this is brilliant! The computer in testing room A, I know it's been moved out but do you know ... Never mind, I can ask Tina." He stood up, forcing Justine back as he pushed past her to the door. "She's not there," he announced. He turned around, considering his next move. "It doesn't matter. She must have sent it to Tech Support. I know someone ..."

His mobile? Where was his mobile?

In his pocket. Of course.

Justine stood in front of him as he selected the number for campus tech support.

"Craig, I think you're ..."

He held up a finger, silencing her. Someone was answering. A girl.

"Is Neil there? Neil Carter. He works there. This is Tech Support, isn't it? He's one of the technicians. Yes, that one." He sniffed, glanced over at Justine. "Idiot reception ..." The girl spoke again, she sounded irate. "What was that? Who am I? Craig. Stevenson. Doctor Craig Stevenson. Would you just get Neil on his phone? Thank you. She put me on hold."

"Maybe she heard you?" Justine observed drily.

"What do you mean 'maybe'? Of course she heard me. I was on the phone with her."

"I mean ... oh never mind. Look, Craig, about the results ..."

"Hold on a minute. No not you. The person here. Sorry. She's babbling at me. Look, I was wondering, did you do the repair work on that computer for Parapsych ... you haven't yet? No, that's great. In fact, that's perfect. Yeah. I need to take some EMF readings on it, can you fire it up for me. Thanks, man. I'll be right down."

He'd need some control readings, the two test rooms as well as the computer itself. Then get the computer back up here and check it in situ and turned on. He had to push past Justine again, she was getting in his way for some reason, trying to talk to him. Which reminded him ...

"Great news, Justine. He hasn't even cracked it open yet."

The shelves where he stored his electronic gear were as uncluttered and organized as the rest of his office wasn't. He got what he needed immediately.

"We can get it back here and test out your hypothesis." Cracking the EMF case open, he checked the charge on the batteries. Should be enough, but he grabbed up some fresh batteries just in case.

"Craig, wait. Listen to me, please!"

"No time now. I'll be back a little while. And, for the record, that was really sharp of you to notice. If this actually works, I'll make sure you get credit." With that, he rushed out the office and was gone.