Triggers

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Seth shifted a bit on the bed. The fire continued to crackle. “‘I prayed to God for advice, and discovered that you had no similar memories, that you’d never prayed, that you don’t believe in the Lord. I’m shocked and saddened. It’s another thing you lied about on the campaign trail. But I also know, because you discussed it with your campaign director Rusty, that you think it’s possible to be moral without God, that you believe an atheist can be a good person.’”

  Seth closed his eyes but continued to listen.

  “‘I can’t argue politics or national security with you. I don’t know enough about them. But I do know this. You told Rusty that after you leave office, you’re planning to come out as an atheist. Your political career would be over, anyway, but you wanted to show the world that an atheist had successfully led a democratic nation. You wanted to strike a blow for the acceptance of atheists in American society. But if you do what you’re planning to do, you will hurt the cause of atheism, Mr. President. People will say only someone who didn’t fear God could have done something so monstrous.’”

  Jasmine scrolled her screen, then went on. “‘It’s a small argument, I suppose—but it’s the best one I can give you. If you go ahead with Counterpunch, you will damage your cause beyond repair.’”

  Jasmine looked up. “And then she closes with, ‘God bless the United States, and God bless you, too, Mr. President.’”

  Jasmine put the laptop back on the desk and came over to sit on the edge of their bed. She took her husband’s hand, the back of which had a little cotton ball taped to it, covering where Dr. Snow had inserted a needle a short time ago.

  President Jerrison and the First Lady sat in silence for a time. “No,” said Seth at last.

  “Pardon, dear?”

  “No. I can’t do what Bessie wants. Sweetheart, something happened while you were in Oregon.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Yes,” said Seth, “but there was something else.” She’d been briefed by her staff about the memory linkages, of course. Seth went on. “A young Army vet made me experience something. He’d been with Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Seth knew all the facts and figures, of course. The war had begun under George W. Bush on March 20, 2003, in large part as a response to the 9/11 attacks; it had ended, more or less, under Barack Obama, on August 31, 2010—except that for Kadeem Adams, and thousands like him, it had never ended.

  “Yes?” said Jasmine.

  “He made me share a flashback to that war, to Iraq.”

  “God,” said Jasmine.

  “It was horrific. I can’t put our soldiers through anything like that ever again.” He looked into his wife’s eyes. “We have to end this. We have to stop it, once and for all. Counterpunch is going ahead.”

  DOGWOOD, the cottage at Camp David that Darryl and Bessie were being held in, had two well-stocked bathrooms. Darryl had shaved, removing the stubble from his face and head, and he and Bessie were now eating the elegant dinner that had been brought to them.

  No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep from being inundated by her memories—after all, there were so many more of hers than of his own. He knew now what it was like to be white, as well as to be a little girl, a teenaged girl, a grown woman, a middle-aged woman, a woman of a certain age, and, yes, at last, what it was like to be old. The being-old part was worse than he’d ever imagined it would be: constant pains, fading vision, failing hearing, a melancholy sense that one had once been so much more vigorous, more acute, more attractive, more everything—and, always in the background, a haunting awareness that time was running out.

  Perhaps it was the last of those that prompted Bessie to speak. “Everything is going to change soon,” she said, “what with what Jerrison is planning to do.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Darryl.

  “Things will be different.”

  Darryl sipped his coffee. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And, well, if it’s all going to come to an end, then I need to say something.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For the things I’ve thought all these years. You’re right. I’ve never really known—known someone like you. You’re a good…” She trailed off, looking embarrassed.

  “You were going to say ‘boy,’ weren’t you, ma’am?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What would you call a white man who was more than fifty years younger than you? Would you say he was a good boy?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Then it’s fine, ma’am—and thank you.” Darryl glanced at the wall clock, which, like everything here, was ornate and beautiful. “It’s almost 8:00 P.M.,” he said. “Time for the president’s speech,” he said. “It’s going to be televised—want to watch it?”

  But Bessie shook her head slowly, sadly. “No.” She looked out the large window at the forested grounds, which were shrouded in snow. “I already know what he’s going to say.”

  CHAPTER 47

  “I am not happy about this, sir,” Dr. Alyssa Snow said.

  Seth Jerrison shifted slightly on his bed. “I’m not going to address the nation lying down, Alyssa. Now, come on, help me.”

  Dr. Snow, who had changed into her Air Force captain’s uniform, and the First Lady, who was wearing a stylish salmon-colored dress, helped Seth out of the four-poster bed and into the wheelchair that had been brought here. He was wearing a blue suit—Jasmine and Dr. Snow had struggled to get him into it an hour ago. Susan Dawson stood to one side.

  Seth grunted repeatedly as they moved him. His chest hurt, and his head swam for a moment; it was, he realized, the first time he’d sat up since they’d taken him out of the Beast on Friday morning.

  The presidential bedroom was on the ground floor, and the residence had a direct connection to the press center. Susan Dawson wheeled him along, with Jasmine on his left and Dr. Snow on his right. The corridor had been cleared: there would be no photos of him arriving in a wheelchair.

  They reached the green room, which was small but comfortable. Seth briefly looked up at the official portrait of himself, hanging on the wall: smiling, confident, healthy. The makeup lady glanced at the photo, too, as if assessing the magnitude of her task. She then set about getting him ready to go on camera.

  When his makeup was completed, he thanked the woman. Dr. Snow touched Seth’s wrist to check his pulse, felt his forehead, and then reluctantly nodded. She and Jasmine helped him to his feet, and Susan Dawson handed him an ornate cane. He nodded his thanks and immediately shifted much of his weight to it.

  Jasmine put a hand lightly on each of his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I won’t say break a leg, sweetheart, because that’s the last thing we need. But good luck.” She kissed him gently and then exited through the other door, heading out into the press room. Seth took a few moments to compose himself, then started walking. Each step was painful, but he refused to grimace. “Hail to the Chief” began to play over the speakers, and as he stepped out into the press room, everyone rose and spontaneously applauded. When he made it to the podium, he gripped its sides for support—his media coach be damned.

  The roof was angled, and the walls were paneled halfway up with dark wood; the rest of their height was painted beige. An audience had been brought in for the speech; Seth was still a university professor at heart, and he spoke better when there were warm bodies in front of him. The twenty-four people—more like a graduate colloquium, he thought, than a freshman lecture—were seated in six rows of chairs split by a central aisle that contained the camera and its operator. Vice President Flaherty was in the front row, and Jasmine was sitting next to him. The rest of the audience members were uniformed Navy and Marine officers, drawn from the camp’s staff. Seth nodded to let them know they could sit down. The teleprompter screen was mounted in front of the camera lens, and he read from it.

  “My fellow Americans,” he began, as all presidents always did. “We are faced wi
th an unrelenting enemy, but we cannot allow the terrorists to win. We either cower in fear, or we march forward with our heads high—and the American people, I know, opt for the latter. This country, the greatest the world has ever seen, will not be held hostage by the demands of the disgruntled few. I say here resoundingly and definitively, on behalf of us all, to those in every corner of the world: we will not tolerate terrorism, and we will treat with equal severity terrorists, those who harbor terrorists, and those who ignore terrorists in their midsts. There is no friend we will not protect, no ally we will not help make secure—and no foe we will not oppose with all the resources at our disposal. This is not a battle between civilizations; rather, it is a battle to save the very notion of civilization, and—”

  And he felt himself faltering. The teleprompter continued to roll for a few lines before the woman operating it realized he’d stopped speaking. Seth tightened his grip on the sides of the podium. The members of the audience—those here and the countless millions watching worldwide—were doubtless waiting anxiously for him to go on.

  And Seth wanted to go on, but to talk was suddenly beyond him—and yet it would make headlines all over the planet if he didn’t: “Jerrison Hesitates During First Post-Shooting Speech.” “Is US President Unfit to Lead?”

  But the words on the teleprompter were too much for him. Not that he hadn’t rehearsed them, not that he didn’t know what they meant, not that any were tricky to pronounce, but every term suddenly triggered a dozen vivid memories. He was supposed to say, “We will rise to this challenge as we have risen to every challenge since the days of the Founding Fathers.” But the word fathers brought to mind countless recollections of his own dad, who’d been an expansive storyteller and womanizer, and of a handsome black man he recognized as Kadeem’s most-recent stepfather.

  He wanted to shake his head, to fling the images from his mind, but he knew he’d lose his balance altogether if he did that. These memories were every bit as vivid and immediate as those he’d experienced while sharing Kadeem’s post-traumatic flashback.

  He summoned his will and tried to resume his speech, but he suddenly became conscious not of the teleprompter but rather of the TV camera behind it, and—

  And images of other cameras came to him: old-style TV cameras, motion-picture cameras on cranes, tiny digital cameras, Polaroid cameras, SLR cameras, all of them superimposed. And each camera had a story to tell; indeed, he suddenly recalled his visit to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where Abraham Zapruder’s Bell & Howell 8mm, or one just like it, had been on display.

  “Mr. President?” said Dr. Snow, sotto voce. She had stepped into the press room but had stopped short of entering the camera’s field of view. “Are you okay?”

  Seth couldn’t find the words to reply to her. More memories came at him, and the deluge made him think of Professor Singh, whose equipment had started all this, and that brought to mind Kadeem meeting Singh for the first time, with the young private listening oh-so-skeptically to what the Canadian had to say.

  His heart pounded painfully. Some audience members were whispering among themselves, clearly wondering what was going on. Seth wanted to slide his hand across his throat in a cut gesture, but he still lacked motor control.

  His faltering finally proved too much for the vice president. Paddy Flaherty got up and moved to the podium, doing what he was supposed to do: acting for the president when the president himself could not. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, standing next to Seth and leaning into the microphone, “President Jerrison has, of course, undergone a great deal lately. I’m sure we are all grateful for…”

  Seth felt his legs going out from under him. Dr. Snow surged in, catching him and putting an arm around his waist, helping to hold him up. Seconds later, Jasmine was at his side, too.

  More images—and sounds—and smells—came to him, some from his own past and some from Kadeem’s, piled on top of each other. He closed his eyes, hoping to shut all the images out, but that reminded him of horror films and trying to get to sleep and a dust storm in Iraq and countless other things. Now that he was being supported, Seth did try to fling everything from his head with a violent shake—but that just brought to mind memories of whiplash and comic double takes and watching tennis games.

  The First Lady carefully walked Seth toward the green room. He was surprised that Agent Dawson hadn’t brought his wheelchair close, but as they entered the room, the reason became clear: Susan, who perhaps had been leaning against the wall when Seth had started his speech, had slipped down onto her rump, her back still against the wall and her head tipped toward her chest.

  Dr. Snow quickly got the wheelchair and she and Jasmine helped Seth into it. Seth tried to make out what Flaherty was saying in the other room, but the present was overwhelmed by the cacophony of the past.

  Susan looked up, and it seemed to take a moment for her eyes to focus. “Sir,” she said, and then a second later she added, “…’kay?,” presumably as much of, “Are you okay?” as she could get out.

  He nodded, or at least thought he did.

  Suddenly, Susan’s eyes went wide and she managed to say, “Ranjip’s in trouble.”

  NIKKI Van Hausen had finished showing her last house for the day. It had probably been a lost cause—indeed, the whole day had likely been a waste. She’d often told those wanting to sell homes that they should bake cookies and put flowers in vases—but she herself was still bruised and bandaged from yesterday’s accident, not to mention exhausted—hardly the sort of sight that made people feel good about buying a house. Hopefully she wouldn’t look quite so mangled by next weekend.

  Nikki was driving a rented Toyota. Her car had been a total write-off, but it had also been seven years old; she was still contemplating what she would purchase with the stingy amount her insurance company would eventually cough up.

  She pulled into a 7-Eleven, got a coffee, and, as she walked up to the cash register, the cardboard cup slipped from her hand and hit the floor. The plastic lid she’d put on moments ago popped off, and coffee splayed out in front of her.

  She saw the middle-aged man behind the counter make a pained expression, half oh-shit-I-have-to-clean-that-up and half Christ-if-she-scalded-herself-will-she-sue?

  “Sorry!” said Nikki. “I’m sorry!” She staggered forward, almost slipping on the now-wet floor, and grabbed the counter, right next to the hot-dog roaster. Her head was swimming.

  “Geez, lady,” the clerk said. He doubtless saw the bandage on her left hand and the one on her forehead; perhaps he simply took her for a klutz. But then he added, “You okay?”

  Nikki issued a reflexive, “I’m fine”—but she wasn’t, and she knew it. Her head was pounding. It was like back at Luther Terry when she’d first been linked to Eric Redekop, magnified a hundredfold. Images of his life ran through her mind as though she were flipping through a magazine. She took a deep breath, but doing so seemed to draw the strength from elsewhere in her body, and she slumped down onto the tiled, wet floor, next to the counter.

  Another customer thought better of his planned purchase and just put it down on the nearest shelf and left the store. The clerk came around from behind the counter. “Lady, what’s wrong?”

  Nikki tried to speak again, but no words came out.

  “Should I call 9-1-1?” asked the man. When Nikki didn’t respond, he started backing away. “I’m calling 9-1-1,” he said decisively.

  Memories kept coming forth, more vividly than ever before: scenes from her life and Eric’s, depicting other convenience stores, spilled beverages, open houses, and—bam! bam! bam!—multi-car pileups.

  She vaguely heard the clerk talking on the phone, and then his footfalls returning. But she was having flashes in her vision, like a migraine was coming on, and she didn’t dare lift her head to look at him since it would mean also looking into the overhead lighting panels.

  “An ambulance is coming, miss,” he said, crouching down beside her. “Can I get you anything?�
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  She shook her head—as much to fling out the invading memories as to answer his question.

  “Do you want to stand up?” he asked.

  Another wave of memories washed over her—of getting to her feet after falling while skating, of Eric being stood up for a date decades ago, of stand-up comedians she’d seen in the past. She wanted to say no, but still couldn’t find her voice.

  “Here, come on,” the clerk said, and she felt his hands grabbing her naked wrists. But after he’d lifted her bottom a few inches off the ground, he suddenly let go of her, and she dropped back to the floor—and he tumbled backward into a rack holding snack cakes. She heard him say, “What the fuck?” over and over again.

  Chimes sounded as the door to the store slid open. “Oh my God!” said a male voice. “Are you guys okay?”

  Nikki still couldn’t bring herself to look up, but the new customer approached. “What happened? Was it a robbery?”

  The clerk said, “No. God, it’s like…like…shit! It’s like someone else is inside my head.”

  At last Nikki managed to speak. “Join the club.”

  CHAPTER 48

  AT Camp David, leaning into the microphone on the podium, Vice President Flaherty came to the end of the speech. “…and so this government will protect its citizens and its allies today, tomorrow, and forever. God bless America. Good night.”

  There should have been applause, and indeed there was a smattering, but there was also an immediate din of conversation.

  In the adjoining room, Seth leaned back in the wheelchair, grateful for it. Memories of his life and Kadeem’s continued to overwhelm him, involving basic training, and press conferences, and Ironside reruns, and a hundred other things.

  Dr. Snow’s BlackBerry rang. “Hello?” There was quiet while she listened, then: “All right. Bring them to the infirmary. We’re heading there now.” She ended the call. “It’s official,” she said. “Bessie Stilwell, Agent Hudkins, and Professor Singh are all affected, too—everyone here who was part of the linked group at LT.”