Triggers

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Jono lifted his eyebrows—he really should trim those things, Susan thought; they looked like orange caterpillars that had been given electroshock therapy. He crammed one final onion ring into his mouth, excused himself from his colleagues, and stood. “What’s up?”

  “This way, please,” Susan said. She led him across the wide lobby, past the security guard, and into the hospital. They took the elevator up to the third floor. Susan had decided to co-opt Professor Singh’s office for her use—after all, crazy as it seemed, it was intimately familiar to her; she knew, for instance, where to find the paper clips if she needed one. When they got there, she sat behind the kidney-shaped desk and motioned for Jono to take the other chair.

  Susan hesitated, not quite sure how to pose the insane questions she needed to ask. Finally, she simply dove in. “Something odd is going on here at the hospital involving memories, and—”

  “You mean it’s not just me?” asked Jono, looking relieved.

  “It’s not,” said Susan. “Tell me about what you’ve experienced.”

  “It’s like—God, it’s like I know all sorts of things I shouldn’t know, like, um—where do you live?”

  Susan was startled by the question, but answered it. “Kenilworth.”

  “Interesting neighborhood,” he said at once. “Average house price this past quarter was $223,000. Some wonderful old homes, although they tend not to have enough bathrooms—but I know a couple of excellent fixer-uppers.”

  “What are you talking about?” Susan said.

  “Real estate,” said Jono. “It’s like I suddenly know all about real estate. And I’ve never known anything about that. I moved here five years ago, after having a long-distance relationship with the woman I live with now; she already had a house here. I’ve never bought a home in this part of the world, but I know all the districts, average selling prices, and so on, not to mention a whole bunch of techniques for closing a deal.”

  “What do you know about the president of the United States?” Susan asked.

  “Medically?” said Jono. “Tons now, of course. He’s in good shape internally for a man his age.”

  “No, I mean about him personally.”

  “What everyone knows, I suppose. Came out of nowhere to win the Republican nomination. Likes sports fishing. And so on.”

  “Nothing more intimate?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “Do you know, for instance, his wife’s birthday?”

  “The First Lady’s? Haven’t a clue.”

  “Or maybe the name of his high school?”

  “No.”

  Susan nodded. “Okay. Tell me: how do you think you came by all this information about real estate?”

  “I haven’t stopped to think about it. I really haven’t had many quiet moments since the surgery on Jerrison. But…”

  “But?”

  “Well, there’s this woman I know…”

  “Yes?”

  “I know her. I know all about her, but I don’t know her.” Jono’s freckled face conveyed that he was aware he wasn’t making sense. “I mean, I seem to know her, but I’m sure I’ve never met her. A real-estate agent.”

  “Her name?”

  “Nikki Van Hausen,” said Jono. “Well, Nicola, but she goes by Nikki. N-I-double-K-I.”

  “And she’s here at the hospital? A patient?”

  “Not a patient. Oh! Well, not originally, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was here to visit her brother, but they’ve locked her up.”

  “Where?”

  “The psychiatric ward.”

  “Where’s that?”

  He told her, and she headed toward it. As she approached the main door to it from one direction, a thin, bald man wearing a doctor’s smock arrived there from another. Susan was always absorbing everything around her and habitually read name badges; this fellow’s said, “E. Redekop, M.D.” She hadn’t recognized his face—because, she suddenly realized, she hadn’t yet seen it, except for the eyes, and those only from a distance.

  “You’re Eric Redekop.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Not again!”

  “Pardon?”

  “Sorry. It’s just that you’re the second person today to recognize me that I don’t know.”

  “Actually,” said Susan, “I just read your badge—and Dr. Griffin had told me your first name. I’m Susan Dawson, the Secret Service agent-in-charge here. I watched you save the president today.” She paused, trying to think of what else to say, but couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” said Redekop, looking a bit relieved.

  Susan’s job was all about noticing things that were out of place. “What’s a surgeon doing in the psychiatric ward?”

  Redekop’s handsome face was still for a few moments, as if he was thinking about what—or how much—to say. Finally, he lifted his narrow shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s like I said. Someone recognized me earlier, but I didn’t know her. She seemed quite upset.”

  “Let me guess,” said Susan. “Nikki Van Hausen, right?”

  Redekop looked astonished. “I don’t know her last name, but, yes, her first name is Nikki.”

  “Come with me.”

  SECRET Service agent Dirk Jenks slipped away from the crowd of fellow agents swarming the interior of the Lincoln Memorial. He headed down the wide marble stairs and then went around to the back. Only three thousand people had come out on this cold morning to hear Jerrison’s speech, but now that he’d been shot, many thousands more were swarming onto this part of the Mall, hoping to see the site of the assassination attempt—and an even greater number were scurrying to see the ruins of the White House: lemmings rushing headlong into dust and nothingness, into the end of history.

  Jenks briskly walked the hundred-odd yards to the nearest road and caught a cab that had just disgorged two people. He told the driver to take him to Reagan National Airport, four miles away in Virginia.

  “Hey,” said the driver, “were you here earlier? Did you see the guy take a shot at Jerrison?”

  “No.”

  “What about the White House? Did you see that go up? Jesus!”

  Jenks shook his head, and, mercifully, the driver shut up. Traffic was almost at a standstill—the journey was going to take forever. Jenks glanced anxiously out the car’s right side and saw the Jefferson Memorial for what he imagined would be the last time.

  CHAPTER 13

  NIKKI Van Hausen was supposed to show two houses this afternoon, but that wasn’t going to happen. After her encounter in the hallway with Drs. Sturgess and Redekop, the security guard had taken her to a room that she only belatedly realized was in the psychiatric ward. A few other people seemed to have been here for a while, and two more were brought into the ward shortly after her—wailing and screaming over the terrorist attack.

  Her room was cubic, with a high ceiling, and was empty except for a couch bolted to the wall. She wasn’t suicidal—but this was where they put people who were, so there was nothing that a makeshift noose could be hung from, no glass over pictures that might be smashed and used to slit wrists—and no way to open the door from the inside. There was also no bathroom. She was just about to press the buzzer that would summon a guard to let her out so she could use the one across the hall when the door opened and in came Eric Redekop accompanied by a pretty blue-eyed brunette with shoulder-length hair. She was wearing a black jacket, black pants, and black leather shoes with flat heels.

  “Hello, Ms. Van Hausen,” Eric said.

  She tried to match his formality—after all, she wanted out of here. “Dr. Redekop,” she replied, and nodded politely.

  Eric indicated the woman. “This is Susan Dawson, a Secret Service agent.”

  Nikki felt her heart beginning to pound. “Hello.”

  “You seemed to know me out in the corridor earlier,” Eric said.

  Nikki nodded. “I know we’ve
never met, but…”

  “But you knew things about me—or was it Dr. Sturgess?—that you wouldn’t normally know.”

  She had a brief moment where she thought she should lie: letting them know that she sensed things had gotten her into this booby hatch in the first place. But, no, no, she had to tell them; she had to get this fixed.

  “It’s you,” she said, looking at Eric. “I only know the things about Jurgen that you know.”

  Susan Dawson spoke. “What has happened to you happened to several others. There’s been a linkage of minds. We’re going to try to find a way to break the links, but for now we must acknowledge that they exist.”

  Eric nodded. “I’m affected, too, and so is Agent Dawson.”

  Nikki felt a wave of relief—it wasn’t just her; as crazy as all this sounded, she wasn’t nuts. Suddenly, she was angry. “But if it was happening to you, too, why didn’t you speak up when you first saw me? Why’d you let them lock me up here?”

  Eric spread his arms. “I’m so sorry, Nikki. I probably did become linked to the person I’m reading at the same moment you became linked to me. But nothing brought her memories to mind for me until I actually saw her, after I saw you—first, because I was exhausted and preoccupied with the president’s health, and, second, because we both work here, she and I; this building is mostly background noise for the two of us. But for you being in a hospital is unusual, and the sights and sounds of this place immediately brought my memories of it into your consciousness.”

  “Oh,” said Nikki. “But—wait!—does that mean somebody can read my mind, too?”

  “Your memories, yes,” said Agent Dawson.

  “But my memories are private!” said Nikki.

  “So are mine,” said Eric. “So, um, if you’d not share them with anyone else, please…”

  “Of course,” said Nikki. “Of course. But how long is this going to last?”

  “We don’t know,” Agent Dawson said.

  “I want to meet the person that’s linked to me,” said Nikki.

  Susan Dawson shook her head. “I don’t think that would be advisable. Some of those who are linked already knew each other, and there’s nothing we can do about that, but others are strangers, and I think it’s best we keep it that way. But of course we’ll get you out of the psychiatric ward. Do you have a cell phone with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me the number so that I can find you easily later. You’re free to roam the hospital—there’s a cafeteria in the lobby—but we’re not letting anyone leave.”

  “LESHIA, it’s Darryl. Are you okay?”

  “I’m…I’m fine. God, Darryl, are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You heard about the White House? My God…”

  “Awful. Just…awful.”

  “They say no one was hurt, but…”

  “But everyone was hurt.”

  “I saw you on TV just now. They were showing what went down at the Lincoln Memorial. I’m so proud of you. Where are you now?”

  “Still at LT.”

  “How’s—how’s the president doing?”

  “He’s stable, but Sue has locked the hospital down. Leshia, listen, something super-unusual is going on here. It’s happened to me, and it’s happened to other people. We’re—we’re reading each other’s memories somehow.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, baby. It is crazy. But it’s happening. So I need you to go online and change the PINs for our bank accounts and things like that.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it. Don’t you see? Somebody else knows them now; I don’t know who. But we’ve got to change them before they clear us out. Do it, and don’t pick anything I’d easily guess.”

  “Darryl, um, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I know it sounds insane, baby, but do it—do it right away. Okay, look, I gotta go. Love you!”

  THE cab dropped Secret Service agent Dirk Jenks at Reagan. He paid the fare in cash, didn’t wait for his change, and didn’t ask for a receipt. He checked the departures board and saw that there was a flight to LaGuardia in sixty-five minutes. In the wake of the explosion at the White House, FBI agents were already swarming the airport, but so far there’d been no sign that flights were going to be suspended as they had been back on 9/11.

  There was a line at the Delta ticketing counter, but Jenks flashed his Secret Service ID at people and moved to the front.

  “The next flight to LaGuardia, please,” he said.

  “One-way or round-trip?” asked the woman behind the counter.

  “One-way.”

  SUSAN Dawson headed from the psychiatric ward to Professor Singh’s laboratory, which, she knew, was six doors down the third-floor corridor from his office. As she entered the lab for the first time, it was, as Yogi Berra had famously said, déjà vu all over again.

  Singh was talking on his phone. He quickly finished his call.

  “Who were you talking to?” Susan asked.

  “My wife. Why?”

  “Did you tell her about the memory linkages?”

  “Of course. It’s fascinating.”

  “I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said. “We should keep this quiet.”

  He gestured at his computer monitor, which was showing Twitter.

  “You tweeted about this?”

  “No, no. I just searched Twitter for ‘Luther Terry’ while I was talking to my wife, and those came up.”

  Susan loomed in. There were several about Jerrison being brought here after the shooting and five about the lockdown. But there was also one that said, “Weird things going on at Luther Terry Memorial Hospital.” Another declared, “Memories being linked at Luther Terry Hosp in DC.” Someone else had chimed in with, “I’m at Luther Terry Memorial Hospital. Anybody know anything about telepathy?” Twitter was helpfully informing Ranjip that there were now four new tweets that matched his search. Instead of clicking on the link for those, though, he put in a new search: “LTMH.” Two tweets came up: One said, “Saw a woman freak at #LTMH, berating the surgeon who saved the prez. She must have been a Democrat.” And the other said, “Heard craziest story at LTMH just now about reading memories. Anybody else?”

  “God damn it,” said Susan. “We should put a lid on contact with the outside world.”

  But Ranjip shook his head. “There’s been a terrorist attack here in the city, Agent Dawson. People need to keep in touch. They need it on a human level; they need to know their loved ones, wherever they are, are well—and to let them know that they themselves are safe.”

  Susan said nothing; there was no rule book, no protocol, for a situation like this.

  “And, anyway,” continued Singh, “besides the hospital’s phone system, there are hundreds of cell phones here. Patients have them, and staff, too. And, of course, hundreds of laptops and iPads and the like, not to mention all the hospital’s computers. By the time you could confiscate them all, even if you could find legal grounds to do so, the whole world will know about the memory linkages. And if a bomb hits here—the terrorists must know where the president is, after all, and that he’s still alive—you’ll want people to have as many ways to communicate as possible, in hopes that some will function after the EMP.”

  “You’re right,” Susan said. Just then, the door to Singh’s office opened and in came Kadeem Adams. Susan knew him at once, although—

  Well, that was interesting. There was no doubt that this was indeed Kadeem; he easily matched Ranjip’s memories of him. But she was now looking at him with her own trained agent’s eyes, and seeing details Ranjip had never noted. For starters, Ranjip had had no idea how tall Kadeem was, but Susan immediately pegged him at six-one; agents learned to take the measure of a man even when he was seated. She also noted he was wearing a T-shirt advertising Brickers, a rap group that Ranjip had apparently never heard of; that he had creased earlobes; and that he was a nail-biter.

  A memory�
��her own—of one of her favorite writers flashed through her head: You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive. But that was the other war; she knew, because Ranjip knew it, that Kadeem had actually been in Iraq.

  “Kadeem Adams,” said Singh, “this is Agent Susan Dawson. As you know, she’s with the Secret Service.”

  Kadeem shook his head. “All this shit that’s goin’ down. I can see it from your point of view—the president bleeding on the steps, you and him in the limo, you looking down on him on the operating table. Been one hell of a day.”

  “Yes,” said Susan.

  “And—well, damn, girl! You had a hell of night last night, too, didn’t you, Agent Dawson?” Susan felt herself blushing. Kadeem went on. “Although, given how well I now know you, maybe we should be on a first-name basis, don’t you think…Sue?”

  Ranjip picked up a lined notepad. “I think we need to start writing this down. Agent Dawson is reading my memories. Kadeem, you’re reading Agent Dawson’s. And…” He paused.

  “And?” said Kadeem.

  Ranjip looked at Susan, asking permission with his eyes.

  Susan thought about it, then said, “I don’t think I’m actually in a position to keep secrets from Kadeem.”

  And as soon as she said it, Kadeem’s eyes went wide. “And—God!—the president is reading my memories.”

  Susan knew there was no point denying it.

  Kadeem looked at Ranjip. “I knew somebody was, from the questions you asked, guru, but…” He shook his head. “No shit! The president!” He smiled slightly. “Guess he knows now I didn’t vote for him.” He then looked at Ranjip. “What about you, guru? Who are you reading?”

  “A doctor here named Lucius Jono,” said Ranjip—and he took a moment to jot this fact on the chart he was making.

  “And he’s reading a real-estate agent named Nikki Van Hausen,” said Susan. She gestured for the pad and wrote the name down. “And Nikki’s reading Eric Redekop, who was the lead surgeon for the president. And Redekop is reading a nurse, Janis Falconi.” She wrote these names down, too. “The chain just keeps getting longer and longer—which raises the question of exactly how many people are affected. Agent Michaelis wasn’t—he was too far away from your equipment, it seems. But how many were?”