Miller was laid flat on the stretcher, and the black body bag was zipped shut. Two safety straps went over the bag and were fastened to keep it firmly secured to the stretcher, and Captain Amy Travers and a physician left with the body to begin the autopsy.

Once the body was gone, James Cowan moved in to begin investigating the cause of the fatal failure of capsule three.

Chapter Three

James Cowan was, by far, the most knowledgeable person when it came to the inner workings of the sleep program. Fourteen years before, he signed on to assist Dr. Henry Sullivan, who was the world's leading expert in the concept of long-term sleep programs at the time.

Over the years, they'd had many successes and only minimal failures. Eventually, their experiments led to a need to progress from animal experiments to placing humans in a sleep state for long durations. The original idea had been to use this technology for lengthy space exploration. As the project progressed, other suggestions for the technology were discovered, including possibly putting a person to sleep until a cure for a specific disease they were afflicted with could be found.

The subject of the first human experiment had been a graduate student named Randy Rominski. He and eight other students answered an ad, offering them one thousand dollars to take part in an unusual sleep experiment. After physical and psychological examinations were complete, Randy was selected, and the test began.

This first human experiment involved a simple sleep capsule and a crude version of the sleep-inducing formula (SIF) which was continuously infused into the sleeper's body through IV lines. A unique mix of gasses was administered by face mask, while the subject remained asleep. The breathing gas, in conjunction with the SIF formula, created what was known as the Sleep Effect. During this experiment, continual monitoring and adjustments to the dosage of SIF were required. A physician or specially trained nurse needed to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, prepared to make the necessary adjustments. That first human experiment lasted two weeks and was considered by most to be a success, even though it took almost twelve hours for the young volunteer to regain consciousness.

Randy Rominski began forceful vomiting six hours into the waking process. While vomiting, he aspirated and later developed a severe case of pneumonia. After regaining full consciousness, Randy remained delirious for the next twenty-four hours and needed to be restrained. It took a full week before he was back to what could be considered 'normal'.

Further test results showed nearly all body processes had stopped during the sleep cycle. Food he'd ingested before the experiment remained undigested in his stomach. There was also evidence that skin and blood cells hadn't died off as they usually would have had the subject been awake.