We Must Boost the Signal, Page 27

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My technology won't help you.

Script

PAGE 27 (Four panels)

Panel One: View of Hope lying in a horizontal tube of her own, a dense web of electrodes attached to her head. Her eyes are closed. A digital readout in a corner of the panel shows the words I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED…I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, MAYBE EIGHT OR NINE. I WAS RUNNING DOWN A HILL VERY FAST…

Caption: With the brain-scanning technology which you helped develop…

Panel Two: Hope, looking up from a display. Her expression is sad.

Hope: I’m sorry, gentlemen, but the technology doesn’t work that way.

Panel Three: Close-up view of one of the brains floating in the tube.

Caption: Each brain is unique. The scanner only works after a long process of tuning to a specific brain, and that can only be done with a subject who is able to communicate using more normal means.

Panel Four: Hope, standing by the side of one of the cylinders, now looking up.

Hope: If it were my brain up there in one of those tubes you might have hope of communicating with it.

Hope: But as things stand now, hooking up the machine would only give you meaningless noise.

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 27 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

We Must Boost the Signal, Page 26

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Help us, neuroscientist?

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PAGE 26 (Four panels)

Panel One: Macneil, standing behind the tray we’ve just seen in the previous panel, looking down at it.

Caption: And we think that knowing why would be the key to preventing future attacks. Saving lives, Dr. Montclair.

Panel Two: Hope, looking down at one of the panels on one of the pedestals, focusing on it intensely (she really doesn’t want to look at anything else in the room).

Hope: I see this is very serious, but I don’t understand why you’ve come to me. Isn’t this a FBI or a CDC matter? Or something for the military?

Panel Three: Another view looking down at Xu and Hope from “within the cylinder.”

Dr. Xu: It’s the brains, Dr. Montclair. They’re active. They appear to be thinking. And remembering. And feeling…

Panel Four: Xu and Macneil side by side. Xu is leaning forward slightly, his hands outstretched, as if in a gesture of supplication. Macneil stands straight and looks tough and stoical.

Dr. Xu: If we could just know what they thinking, it might be a vital clue…

Macneil: We might be able to prevent future attacks…

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 26 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

We Must Boost the Signal, Page 25

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Macneil tells it like it is.

Script

PAGE 25 (Five panels)

Panel One: Macneil, counting something off on his fingers.

Macneil: Another was Grace Bluestone, a college student.

Panel Two: Macneil, continued.

Macneil: Her boyfriend actually witnessed her being attacked by a symbiote. He’s under extended psychiatric observation now…

Panel Three: Three cylinders standing in the room.

Caption: The other three we have here are unidentified. Chromosomal and DNA sampling indicates that all three were female. Two are probably Caucasian and one is probably Asian.

Panel Four: Close-up on Macneil’s face.

Macneil: And we have no real idea what this symbiote is, or where it comes from, or what kind of threat it might represent.

Panel Five: View of one of the trays, laid out next to one of the cylinders,. It contains bags with various bones and some of the clothing Grace Bluestone was wearing at the time she was attacked.

Caption: We do know that these things digest soft tissues of their victims, extrude the bones, and preserve the nervous systems.

License

(Click on the image for larger size. Creative Commons License
We Must Boost the Signal, Page 25 written and commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and drawn by Lon Ryden is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)