Chapter 27 : The Collaboration
The lab was empty when I arrived the next evening. Gene the cow chewed cud in her stall. Walter's record player sat silent. The equipment hummed its eternal background hum.
Walter stood at his workbench, back to me, hands clasped behind him.
"Close the door," he said without turning. "And lock it."
I did.
"Sit."
I pulled up a lab stool. Walter turned around. His expression was the most serious I'd ever seen on him—no whimsy, no scattered thoughts, no pudding-related tangents. Just the focused intensity of a genius preparing to address something important.
"I've been watching you since the thermometer," he said. "September ninth. The flight. You walked into that airport with information you shouldn't have had, and you've been accumulating impossible knowledge ever since."
I opened my mouth to respond. He held up a hand.
"Don't. Not yet. Let me finish." He began pacing—short, precise steps, nothing like his usual wandering. "The thermometer showed a temperature spike consistent with active biological integration. Not infection—integration. Your cells were adapting to something in real time. I've only seen that response in Cortexiphan subjects, and you weren't in the Jacksonville trials."
"Walter—"
"Your reaction to the light box test. You FELT Olivia's Cortexiphan activation from across the room. Your pupils dilated. Your breathing changed. Your electromagnetic field fluctuated in ways my equipment could measure." He stopped pacing, faced me directly. "And yesterday, you tracked a Cortexiphan broadcast like a radio antenna. Peter told me. You found Nick Lane in forty minutes."
Silence. The cow chewed. The equipment hummed.
"I don't know WHAT you are," Walter said. "I've theorized. I've speculated. I've considered possibilities ranging from government experiment to alien hybrid to something my previous self might have created before the asylum. None of them fit perfectly." He pulled a chair close to mine and sat down, knees almost touching. "But I know this: you're connected to Cortexiphan in a way that shouldn't be possible for an adult. And you're developing capabilities that could be extraordinary or catastrophic, depending on how they're managed."
I measured my words carefully. "You could report this to Olivia. To Broyles."
"I could." He leaned forward. "But I'm not going to. Because reporting you accomplishes nothing productive. Studying you, however—helping you understand and control what you're becoming—that accomplishes a great deal."
My heart beat faster. "What are you proposing?"
"A collaboration." Walter's eyes were bright with something I recognized—scientific hunger, the same look he got when a case presented an interesting puzzle. "Private sessions, outside of normal lab hours. I teach you to control the sensitivity that made yesterday so painful. You tell me—honestly—what you're experiencing as it develops."
"And in exchange?"
"In exchange, I learn. I document. I satisfy a curiosity that's been growing since September." He spread his hands. "It's not entirely altruistic. Nothing ever is. But I believe it serves both our interests."
I considered the offer. Walter had the expertise I needed—seventeen years of Cortexiphan research, direct experience with dimensional mechanics, and enough ethical flexibility to work with someone who couldn't explain his origins.
But he was also Walter Bishop. The man who'd kidnapped a child from another universe, run drug trials on children, and created weapons that could destroy reality. The man whose genius came bundled with a capacity for terrible decisions.
"You're asking me to trust you," I said.
"Yes."
"Why should I?"
Walter was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was different—softer, more honest than I'd ever heard.
"Because I know what it's like to carry abilities you don't understand. To wake up every day wondering if this is the day you lose control and hurt someone." He met my eyes. "And because I spent seventeen years in St. Claire's learning that secrets kept in isolation become prisons. I don't want that for you."
The sincerity hit me harder than I expected. This wasn't the scattered, whimsical Walter I'd watched on television. This was the man beneath—damaged, brilliant, desperate to do something good with the time he had left.
"Partial truth," I said finally. "That's what I can give you. Not the whole picture—not yet. But enough to work with."
"I can accept that."
"I have... a system." The word felt strange spoken aloud. "An adaptive biological mechanism that absorbs and integrates energy signatures from external sources. Cortexiphan was the most recent integration. It's given me sensitivity to dimensional phenomena and to other Cortexiphan subjects."
Walter's eyes widened. "Integration. You mean your body is physically adapting to—"
"Translating. That's the term that fits best. When I'm exposed to something compatible, my system translates it into something my biology can use. Cortexiphan was... painful. But it worked."
"Fascinating." Walter was already reaching for a notepad. "The implications for neural plasticity alone—and if the integration extends to dimensional perception—" He stopped himself, set down the pen. "Apologies. The scientist in me runs ahead."
"It's fine. That's why we're here."
Walter nodded slowly, processing. Then he did something unexpected—he extended his hand, the old-fashioned way, formal and deliberate.
"Partners," he said. "For however long this takes."
I shook his hand. His grip was warmer than I expected, trembling slightly.
"Partners."
Walter held the handshake for an extra moment, looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "I haven't had a proper research partner in seventeen years," he said quietly. "Not since Belly. I'd forgotten how much I missed it."
Then he released my hand and grabbed his notepad, already sketching.
"We'll need a training protocol. Controlled exposure to active Cortexiphan stimuli—start low, build gradually. I have equipment that can measure your integration response in real time." He glanced up. "Though for the most effective controlled exposure..."
"What?"
Walter's pen stopped. He looked at me with the particular intensity that meant he was about to suggest something complicated.
"For the most effective results, you'd need proximity to an active, integrated Cortexiphan subject. Someone whose abilities are developed enough to provide consistent baseline exposure."
I saw where this was going. "Olivia."
"She doesn't need to know the specifics. We can frame it as monitoring her development—which I should be doing anyway. You observe, I measure, we both learn." Walter resumed sketching. "Step one: controlled exposure to Agent Dunham. We begin tomorrow."
He circled the words twice, the way scientists do when they're excited about a hypothesis.
I looked at the napkin—covered now in Walter's spidery handwriting, arrows and notes and the beginnings of a twelve-step training regimen. Step one was circled twice. Controlled exposure to active Cortexiphan subject.
"Walter."
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
He looked up from his notes, surprised. "For what?"
"For asking instead of exposing. For offering help instead of demands." I stood to leave. "Not everyone would have done that."
Walter's expression softened. "Not everyone has made the mistakes I've made, Mr. Clark. Some lessons require decades to learn." He returned to his sketching. "Same time tomorrow. Don't be late."
I walked through the empty lab, past Gene's stall, past the silent record player, past the equipment that had measured my secrets without telling anyone. At the door, I paused.
"Walter."
"Yes?"
"In the original—" I stopped myself. Started again. "There's a children's song about the cow going over the moon. The words go—"
"'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,'" Walter interrupted, smiling suddenly. "'The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.'" His smile widened. "It's one of Gene's favorites. I sing it to her when the equipment is too loud."
I nodded. Left.
Behind me, I heard Walter begin to hum the tune as he returned to his work, and I thought: this is how alliances form in impossible worlds.
Not through grand gestures or sworn oaths. Through small offerings. Shared songs. The quiet recognition that neither of us could do this alone.
Tomorrow, step one would begin. Controlled exposure. Gradual development. A path toward control I'd been fumbling toward since the day I woke up in the wrong body.
I walked out into the Cambridge evening and headed back toward my hotel, my mind already racing through the implications.
Walter Bishop had just become my teacher. My collaborator. My first real ally in a world where I'd been surviving alone.
The twelve-step program on his napkin was about to begin.
And step one—controlled exposure to Agent Dunham—meant getting closer to the woman who'd been building a file on me since September.
Dangerous. Necessary. Complicated.
Just like everything else in this new life.
Support the Story on Patreon
If you are enjoying the series and would like to read ahead, I offer an early access schedule on Patreon. I upload 7 new chapters every 10 days.
Tiers are available that provide a 7, 14, or 21-chapter head start over the public release. Your support helps me maintain this consistent update pace.
Patreon.com/TransmigratingwithWishes