We’re still in the Middle Build of Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid.  Obstacles continue.

According to Christopher Vogler, in the Hero’s Journey, after one has slogged past obstacle after obstacle to get to one’s goal, one reaches the Approach to the Inmost Cave, the preparation for the dark place where all hope is lost (before hope can be found.)

Ask any combat vet:  dark, it is.

As soon as the lights go out, a loud click is heard, and the low, generator lights come on.

But no one in the Transporter Room moves.

Sergeant First Class (SFC) Chekhov Sr. stands with his camera dangling to his side, making no attempt to look at the file cabinet.

“Oh, no,” Joe says.

“Yes,” Scott says, looking up at him. “No turning back now.”

“Sir,” SFC Sulu Sr. says, turning toward Scott.  “It’s…it’s no good. The worst has happened. There’s no place to go. There’s nothing to do.  All the training, it…it doesn’t matter any more, Sir.”

Joe begins to back away from the guardrail. “Oh, shit. No, no…”

SFC Uhura Sr. begins yelling into her headphones, “Push more adrenaline! Adjust the heart rate, the breathing! There’s got to be…”

Jane looks at Joe. “What’s the matter, what’s…”

“No more, Uhura,” Mr. Scott yells. “No more. It’s too late.”

Joe drops to his knees. “Oh, God, not again, no, no…”

Jane yells down, “What the hell is going on? What…”

Scott snaps his fingers.

Jane suddenly sees a figure rushing out of the darkness, down at the back of the Transporter Room. It’s a soldier, a sergeant, a medic like herself. He runs directly up to the guardrail and looks up at Joe, who is still on his knees.

“Get back, soldier!” he shouts at Joe.  “There’s nothing you can do. Get back!”

Joe grabs his head and screams, “Top!”

And then disappears.

Before Jane can say anything, another figure rushes out of the back of the Transporter Room, this time toward her. It’s another soldier, a nurse. She too runs up to the guardrail, just below Jane.

“There nothing you can do, Jane!” she shouts. “He’s gone. There’s nothing you can do!”

Jane opens her mouth to speak, looks directly at Scott—and then freezes.

“Yes, Jane,” he says. “No turning back now.”

Scott turns to look at his soldiers, still motionless.

“You know what to do,” he tells them.

Without a word, all assembled in the Transporter Room back up, forming an open path into the darkness at the back of the Transporter Room.

Jane’s eyes follow the path back. At its end, at the back of the Transporter Room, stands a figure.

“Attention!” shouts First Sergeant (1SG) Spock Sr.

Slowly the figure steps forward, into the dim lights, until he is clearly visible to Jane.

It is Leonard McCoy. Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Leonard McCoy. Looking right at her. Smiling.

McCoy turns toward Mr. Scott.  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”

Looking toward the other soldiers, McCoy merely says, “At ease, folks.  The old man’s got it.”

He then looks back at Jane.  Still smiling.

Jane was not.

“Hey, Janie,” McCoy finally says.  “Long time no see, girl. Fancy meeting you here.”

Complications continue.

At the sound of the alarm, First Sergeant Spock Sr. (1SG) yells, “Incoming!”

At that, the entire Transporter Room crew is in body armor and Kevlar helmets, rushing into action.

Mr. Scott activates an intercom.  “Bridge, this is Scott!  We’ve got an incoming alarm. Advise!”

Sergeant First Class (SFC) Chekhov Sr, apparently not filming the scene with the camera on his shoulder, begins leafing through his file cabinet. “It could be this,” he shouts, “or maybe this, or…”

SFC Uhura Sr. barks through her headphones, “Engine Room, alert the gut, the heart, the lungs. Get ready to move, and then…”

SFC Sulu Sr., muscles tensed, gets the body ready to take action.

And all the Emotions rush toward the sound, screaming at each other, some saying, “Grab it!” with others saying, “Get rid of it!”

“Stand down, everybody,” yells Mr. Scott.

All eyes turn toward him. Then a familiar voice comes over a loudspeaker.

“All OK, folks. Building security out there in our workplace is just testing the fire alarm system. No problem. We’re good. Back to work. Kirk, out.”

With that, all the crew visibly exhales, but none appears particularly calm.

“What, in God’s name,” asks Jane, “was that?”

“That, ma’am,” Scott says. “was a trigger.  That’s ‘Battlemind.’  Every combat veteran knows it well: after getting back home in your country, the sudden body rush you can feel when you drive below an overpass or see a garbage can along the side of the road. Or hear a sound like that one.”

“We get the first physical impressions of anything like that down here in the Transporter Room,” says 1SG Spock Sr., “and when we do, we move. It’s above our paygrade to figure out whether it’s ‘real’ or not. We take our cue from Chekhov Sr, and if it seems like something dangerous, our job is to prepare ourselves, no questions asked.”

“And did you see, ma’am,” says Scott, “that it took me a bit to get in touch with the Bridge? My job as the thalamus is to connect to the reasoning and evaluating parts of the brain to evaluate a stimulus like that, but that takes time. We’re soldiers down here, and if there’s a potential engagement, we all become infantry.  We act.”

“That’s why,” 1SG Spock Sr says, “combat vets like you and Joe will have immediate reactions to the smell of diesel, the sight of an overpass, the sound of an alarm. It’ll take a moment or so to come to your senses and realize what’s going on.”

“OK,” Jane says. “that I know.  Happened to me, especially when I got back. Still can happen at times, in fact, Fourth of July, the usual. If that were all I’m having to deal with, I’d make it work. But you know that’s not what is keeping me up most nights, making me hesitant to get too close to people. It’s much more specific, more real-feeling. Why does that keep happening? What happened to me in my brain? And how can that get better?”

Scott inhales deeply, then exhales slowly through his mouth.

“OK, ma’am,” he says.  “As you wish. That I can show you.”

Scott looks at 1SG Spock Sr.  “Ready?”

Spock Sr. slowly nods.

Scott then looks at SFC Sulu Sr. “You?”

Sulu Sr. swallows. “As ready as I’ll ever be, sir.”

Scott looks back up at Jane and then says. “All right. Here we go.”

He snaps his fingers. And the lights go out.

Life’s complicated.  Ask the brain.

The middle part of any story—as Shawn Coyne calls it, the Middle Build—should put complication after complication in the path of the Hero to keep him/her from reaching the final goal (and to keep the reader turning the pages).

As you’ll see in this episode, the brain is more than willing to do its part in this endeavor.

So much so, with this episode I introduce in the Beam Me Home, Scotty! page  above a “Cast of Characters” page.  Should you ever forget who’s who and what’s what, you can check it out to remind yourself of all that has to be accounted for if we are to understand combat trauma—and even more, how to move forward from it.

So, on to complications.

By hovering the cursor over a Star Trek character or location, see corresponding brain function/site.

Jane and Joe turn to see over the guardrail, down in the Transporter Room, none other than Mr. Scott.

Chief Warrant Officer (CW5) Mr. Scott, that is.

“Surprised that I’m a CW5?” he asks. “Come now! I’m just a techie, like most Army warrant officers. Started out enlisted, from the earliest days of the brain’s development, and worked my way through the ranks until now I’m the Officer in Charge (OIC) down here. Welcome to the Transporter Room, and welcome to Command Central for all the first-line logistics and military intelligence in the brain.”

“And your job would be…?” asks Jane.

“I’m the thalamus,” he answers. “In some ways, I am the Transporter Room. Every sound, sight, sensation you receive, from outside your body or inside, transports here first. My job is to make sure that every sensation that ‘beams in’ gets processed and then moved on to where it needs to go. But I’d be nothing without my Senior Crew, senior, that is, in rank and in ‘age,’ in how long they have been functioning within the brain.”

At that, four other individuals appear, all non-commissioned officers (NCO’s). Once again they look very familiar—yet very, very not so.

“Wow,” says Joe. “Talk about a time warp.”

Indeed, the senior NCO of the four—a much older Vulcan—stepped forward.

“Greetings,” he says. “I’m First Sergeant (1SG) Spock Sr. No biologic relation to my “son” up on the Bridge, but we serve similar functions. Like him, I keep track of things, but here it’s not of reason, but rather of emotions. I am the amygdala, in charge of coordinating all the basic, wordless bodily impulses that push us toward something good or away from something bad.”

“And I,” says an older Russian stepping forward, a rolling file cabinet at his side, carrying, of all things, a movie camera, “am Sergeant First Class (SFC) Chekhov Sr. I am the hippocampus, the brain organ that is the deepest, oldest keeper of memory. I’m the one who must first identify sensations as either known or unknown. I’m the one who holds together all the most basic memories that make you ‘you.’”

“And I am SFC Uhura Sr.,” says the older woman who steps forward, pulling off her headphones. “Like my so-called ‘daughter’ up on the Bridge, I am the ‘communicator.’ But down here, rather than communicating with the world ‘out there,’ I communicate with the body ‘in here.’ I am the hypothalamus, who through chemical signals to the enlisted specialists and privates down in the Engine Room—the Brainstem—gets the body either to rev up or to settle down.”

“And I,” says the final older NCO, “am SFC Sulu Sr. Like my so-called ‘son,’ I am about movement. But down here, I am about automatic, ‘muscle memory’ movement. I am the cerebellum and other structures that coordinate action that doesn’t need conscious reflection, action that simply does and responds.”

“But even then,” says Mr. Scott, coming back forward, “we couldn’t do our jobs without the help of my Junior Crew, the emotions. These aren’t complex feelings like envy or warmth. Those are officers up in the cortex. As 1SG Spock Sr said, these soldiers wordlessly identify which sensations should be approached and which should be avoided. Without them there is no thought, no reason. Without them, there is no life.”

At that, six other soldiers, of varying ranks, appear next to 1SG Spock Sr.

“As the amygdala,” Spock Sr. says, “I am actually a center for one of the most powerful basic emotions, FEAR. But working with me are emotions like Staff Sergeant (SSG) RAGE, the attacker of what is to be avoided, as well as SSG LUST, the one who keeps the race procreated. Then next to them are Sergeant (SGT) SEEKING, the basic emotion that pushes us into the world; SGT PLAY, the basic emotion that pushes us to seek out our own kind, and then…”

“Well, what do you know ,” says Joe, leaning on the guardrail. “There he is, kid. The cause of all our combat pain: SSG RAGE.” He turns to Jane. “So how many times, kid, have you screwed up your life with his…”

“Not so fast, sir,” says Mr. Scott. “While it’s true that many of you combat veterans are more than acquainted with RAGE, don’t think that the sergeant is your problem. He’s just as important as the rest of my Junior Crew for getting the job done that makes you everything you are.”

“And just what job might that be?” Jane asks.

Mr. Scott smiles, looks at his subordinates, and then looks back up toward Jane and Joe.

“Glad you asked, ma’am. Welcome to the brain’s Officer Candidate School.”

Three days in a row.  On a roll.

Technically, we are coming to the end of what Shawn Coyne calls the “Beginning Hook.”  In terms of Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey, we’re “Crossing the First Threshold.”

Put simply, there’s no turning back now.

After this episode, GI Jane ignores the warnings of her new mentor (see below) and of her old Ally, GI Joe, and demands to move forward to learn how she can “escape from the Villain,” i.e., get better from PTSD.

Oh.  Yeah.  So PTSD must be the Villain, right?

Perhaps.

Before reading, however, beware:  no story is told from a neutral viewpoint.  Every narrator has a point to make. Note that the Officers—the Reasoning Ones, the Cognitive Ones— have tried to keep Jane on or near the Bridge, assuring her that they can get her where she needs to go. Jane hasn’t bought what they are selling. Neither has Joe (though, admittedly, he remains far less ready to see what else might be out there).

So just what else might be out there?

Let’s continue.

By hovering the cursor over a Star Trek character or location, see corresponding brain function/site.

At the bottom of the steps, Jane and Joe find themselves on a large mezzanine, overlooking a larger space on a floor below.  As they approach the mezzanine guardrail, they recognize the lower area immediately as the Transporter Room.

“Maybe we’ll meet Mr. Scott?”  Jane asks.

“Possibly,” comes a woman’s voice behind them.

Jane and Joe turn to find a surprise bigger than any they’d met so far: before them is not just any woman—but rather Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Deanna Troi.

She smiles. “Yes, I know. Wrong version of Star Trek. But remember: the brain will surprise you.  Remember my job on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’?”

“You were an ’empath,’ right?” Joe says. “Like the ship’s shrink?”

“Correct,” she replies. “So think of me, of this area of the brain as the body’s ’empath.’  Below the cortex lies a layer of brain tissue with many different names and functions, but our basic job here is to maintain an eye, a ‘feel’ on what is going on in the body. I’m a ‘mezzanine,’ with a full view of the floor, of the brain structures below, but I’m not like those structures.  I’m closer to the Bridge and the Cortical Crew in rank and function. Yet if you want to know about what really goes on in the brain, from this vantage point you can gather whatever information you need, from looking right down there.”

“So why not go down there ourselves?”  Jane asks.

LTC Troi shakes her head.  “Doesn’t work that way. Regulations against fraternizing: here on the mezzanine, as well as in the cortex, while our jobs are basically unconscious, in some ways we can become more conscious, more available to the conscious Bridge. But down there, in that Transporter Room and beyond? That’s an unconscious that can never be fully known by the conscious mind.”

“That’s where my combat experiences are, right?” Jane asks.

“In great part,” Troi answers.

“So that’s what we’ve got to learn about, down there, right?”

Troi looks at Joe.

“What?” Jane asks.

“Kid,” he says.  “You know I don’t get into psychobabble. But I have spent too much time with so-called therapists, and I can tell you:  what’s down there, you really don’t want know about.”

“And even if you do,” Troi says. “You must realize: everything you learn from here on can’t be unlearned. The brain doesn’t play games. Or necessarily follow orders.”

“I was a soldier,” Jane tells them both. “I want to know if PTSD can ever  get better. When I start a mission, I complete a mission. No matter where it takes me.”

“Well then, ma’am” comes a familiar Scottish brogue behind them, though at a distance.  “You’ve come to the right place.”

We’ll keep plugging along.

For the Hero’s Journey, after our Hero receives “the call,” there is usually a second thought or two.   Christopher Vogel (and the late, great Joseph Campbell) calls this “The Refusal of the Call.”

Yet the second thoughts need not be expressed directly by our ever-brave Hero.  Just like in the old cartoons where the steer-skull in the desert warns the hapless Popeye or Bugs Bunny, “You’ll be sooooo-rry,” the archetypes known as The Threshold Guardians take over the reluctance function.

Joe and Jane turn to look at each other. I’m nowhere to be found.

But instead of being on a plane, they find themselves on a very familiar bridge of a very familiar ship.

A familiar voice then speaks behind them, “Welcome, soldiers.”

They turn, and before them is a man both familiar, yet quite unfamiliar. For standing there in the combat uniform, the ACUs, of the United States Army, is Colonel (COL) James T. Kirk.

“I know,” he smiles.  “Always shocks everybody.  Welcome to the USS Enterprise, and welcome to the brain. You see, here in the brain, you get both what you might expect and what you never would expect.  Think of us as a Joint Operation Command around here, and for your tour of duty at least, you’re working with the Army. And welcome to the Bridge, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain behind your forehead, the center of all your conscious activity. As the senior officers in charge, I and my team are more than glad to welcome you to our Command.”

At that, four other individuals appear around him, again looking quite familiar except for the green uniforms they sport. Each smiles as well, and in turn they introduce themselves.

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Spock,” says the Vulcan.  “As second-in-command, I am the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the logic center of your brain, the part that tries to make sure we do what makes sense.”

“And I’m Major (MAJ) Uhura,” says the women seated at the console. “As in the Star Trek series, I’m the communications officer. In your brain, I’m the orbitofrontal cortex, the part that picks up on the subtle communications of others, that gives us our feel for the people around us, how to respond to them.”

“And I,”  says the Russian seated before them, “am MAJ Chekhov, the ship’s navigator. In the brain, I am the sum of all the conscious memory processes throughout all the brain, pulling together all the various types of memory so that we can decide what to do, how to feel.”

“And I,” says the man seated next to him, “am MAJ Sulu, the ship’s pilot, the premotor cortex. Strictly speaking I’m in a different part of the brain, back a bit from the Bridge, but I am who makes the conscious decisions to move our arms, our legs, to take action once we all decide what to do.”

“And I?” says the Colonel. “I am what I guess you could call “The Decider,” not so much a particular part of the brain, but rather the sum total of all its functioning.  I’m you, your conscious sense of Self. And as I said, we’re here to serve and to answer your questions.”

“It’s just you guys?”  Jane asks.

“Oh, no,” says LTC Spock, pressing a button before him. “Look behind you.”

When they do, the screen that usually displays what is outside the Enterprise lights up with multi-camera views of soldiers throughout the ship, carrying out their duties, seemingly without a hitch.

“That’s our Cortical Crew,” Spock says. “The cortex, the brain’s outer part. They are the nerve centers and pathways, all officers, who make sense of our perceptions, form our language, create complex feelings, all serving as the “military intelligence” we need to decide and act. Their work is automatic, unconscious, the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of the brain that we learn through the years, that become the basis for what makes us “us.”

“So, you see, Jane,” Kirk says, “there are plenty of us officers available to answer your question:  “Can PTSD ever get better?”

Jane raises an eyebrow. “You know, Colonel, I’ve already learned much of this from my nursing training. None of these conscious processes has ever been that helpful with my combat experiences. No one else has answers?”

Joe clears his throat. “You know, kid, I’ve done this therapy stuff before, and as crazy as this sounds, this place is looking a little too familiar for comfort. I’m not sure either one of us wants to know the answer to that question.”

Now Kirk raises an eyebrow. “Well, yes, there’s plenty more to the brain than the cortex. See that staircase over there? If you walk down it, you’ll see more the ship has to offer.  Joe’s right, though: you might not like what you find.”

Jane frowned. “I’ll take my chances.”

She headed down the stairs. Reluctantly, Joe followed.