Remember Tomorrow

by James Axler

He heard someone cross the room and his head was lifted, water spilling from a cup down his chin and onto his chest. It reminded him how thirsty he was, and he gulped deeply, his parched and sore throat responding to the cool liquid.

  J.B. opened his eyes to see that a gaunt, aging man with a shock of white hair was holding the cup to his mouth. He didn’t recognize him and momentarily wondered why he was being so good to him, especially as his grim visage and the old scars around his neck suggested that he had a past specialized in being less than reasonable.

  Grant let J.B.’s head back onto the pillow that had been provided. The Armorer had been stripped and washed down while he was unconscious and the plain plank bed now boasted a thin mattress, a blanket and a linen sheet. The rest of the room was still as Spartan and unwelcoming as it had been before.

  “About time,” Grant began without ceremony. “They told me you were starting to stir a couple hours back and I came straight over. You’ve kept me waiting, all right.”

  “I’ll try to remember that, next time,” J.B. replied, struggling to move and support himself on one arm, taking a good look at his surroundings.

  “Funnyman,” Grant stated flatly. “Let’s see how funny you are when you’ve got some questions to answer.”

  “Got a few of my own,” J.B. murmured. “Why am I here? Looks like a cell.”

  “That’s because it is a cell,” Grant cut in. “Secure unit, make sure you can’t escape.”

  “Now you’re the one being funny,” J.B. replied, feeling the weakness course through his system side by side with the pain.

  Grant shrugged. “Didn’t know what kind of a mutie you might be until you woke. Could have been strong enough to cause some damage in an ordinary healing room.”

  “I’m a mutie,” J.B. snapped. “And it hurts too much to even think about escaping. Shit, I must have been fucked up if I’ve been out…How many hours?”

  “Hours?” Grant barked with a harsh laugh. “They brought you in three days ago. You were out then and you’ve been out ever since.”

  The Armorer furrowed his brow. His brain—still befuddled from the blackout—was struggling to take the information in. He’d been unconscious for three days? He tried to think back, but all he had were a few garbled images and impressions. Mostly he just remembered the water and the pain. Another question surfaced, a more immediately important query.

  “Why have you been keeping me alive, tending to me? Three days is a lot of time to spend on…an outlander.” As he said it, it occurred to J.B. that he had never seen the man in front of him before; and yet, he couldn’t clearly remember seeing anyone before. Of course he knew what people looked like, how they acted, but he couldn’t recall anyone he’d ever known.

  Grant leaned forward, studying the Armorer like he was some kind of insect. “Why d’you say that?” he asked quietly. “You say it like you think you know me.”

  J.B. shook his head, instantly regretting it as the world began to spin. His stomach turned over and he thought he was going to throw up. He gulped down the bile, took a deep breath, then answered as best he could.

  “It’s just that…just that as I said it, I realized I didn’t know if I knew you.”

  “But how can you know me? You’ve never been here before.”

  J.B. screwed his eyes tight, trying to focus his thoughts. It was a simple sentence, but thinking was still cloudy, the throb of his pain cutting through. “I didn’t say that I thought I knew you, only that I wasn’t sure,” he answered eventually, “like when you see someone you don’t know, you know that…Like you know when you see someone you do. But I didn’t know if I did or didn’t…”

  “So you’re telling me you’ve lost your memory?” Grant queried. He was now standing over J.B., almost looming. If it was meant to be intimidating, it was working, especially while J.B. felt so weak. But why the hell should he be scared? They’d kept him alive this far, so they had to have a reason.

  “Look,” J.B. uttered wearily, “I can’t explain why I feel like I do, I just…don’t know.”

  Grant stood looking down, saying nothing. He seemed to be assessing what the Armorer had said. Finally, he nodded, and went to the other side of the room where he sat on a wooden chair; it was the only other piece of furniture in the room and it had been brought in especially for him. J.B. noticed his limp as he made his way to the chair and figured that the man had earned it the hard way, to judge from the look of him.

  Grant sat down, looked at the ceiling. “How did you get to be at the bottom of a well?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “You were found at the bottom of a well, blocking the flow of water. How did you get to be there?”

  J.B. leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. He could remember being in the water, swept along by a tidal-strength wave that threw him against rocks, battered him and tried to drive the air from his lungs. He remembered those lungs burning like fire as he kept what little air he had down; darkness and the occasional surfacing to gasp in more before being dragged under once again; the darkness before, when he had the weight of rock on him, holding him down; before that the animals, teeth, fang and claw; and always that it was dark.

  He spoke these impressions as they came to him and Grant listened. He was more than just a medic. Because of his early years in sec, he also conducted interrogations of enemy or dissident forces. There was nothing he hadn’t seen over the past twenty to thirty years and he had a nose for when he was being told truth.

  He knew that J.B. was telling him the truth, as far as it went. The man could remember very little. Certainly, that tallied with the injuries to his skull. If anything, it was incredible that it hadn’t been fractured from the blows it had taken.

  But this truth wasn’t enough.

  “Very well,” he said finally, in the same flat tone as before. “I’ll tell you what I think, shall I?”

  “Does it matter?” J.B. queried.

  “It does, because it determines whether you live a little longer or whether we dispose of you now,” Grant stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” he repeated. “You were found at the bottom of a well, as I said. This was following a quake in the area, where we expected some damage to be done. What we didn’t expect was you. I think that you were in a cave system and that during the quake you were thrown into the deep river that we tap with the well and forced through the river’s channels until you arrived up here.”

  “I had kinda figured that myself,” J.B. muttered.

  “Quite, but we didn’t know this, did we? And now we do. And I also believe you when you say that you can’t remember—at least, not right now—what you were doing underground in the first place. You don’t look like one of the scum, that’s for sure.”

  J.B. shot him a questioning, puzzled glance.

  Grant shrugged. “We have a little problem with a mutie community around these parts. Mostly they keep to themselves, but they do like to do a little scavenging.”

  “Which is why you thought I might be a mutie, right?”

  “Exactly. We also considered how much of a threat you may be, seeing as you were carrying enough grens and plas ex to blow up half the ville, ammo for several blasters, and—”

  “Mini-Uzi, Smith & Wesson M-4000 and a Tekna hunting knife,” J.B. finished for him. The words were reassuring; they reminded him of a part of himself that was buried under the memory loss and something came back. He felt an assurance that he was comfortable with these things.

  “Interesting,” Grant murmured. “And do you remember what you were doing with all that ordnance?”

  J.B. didn’t answer immediately. He considered that. There was something that was struggling to get out from under the blanket that covered his past, but it just couldn’t force its way through.

  “It’s what I do,” he said simply. That was all that was clear to him.

  “I see.” Grant rose to his feet and went to the door. He tapped, waited f
or it to be opened. Beyond him, J.B. could see a heavyset man in fatigues, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. “We’ll want to talk to you some more, but rest for a while,” Grant said.

  “Who’s ‘we’? You keep saying ‘we,’ but there’s only one of you.”

  “I’m not acting alone,” Grant replied. “All these questions are on behalf of Xander and I’ll be reporting to him shortly. He’ll no doubt want to see you himself in due course. I would hope that more of your memory may have returned by then.”

  J.B. was about to ask who Xander was, but was forestalled by Grant’s abrupt departure. The man left the room and barred the door with a swiftness that was surprising in one so lame.

  The Armorer lay back on his bed. There was a lot to consider here, almost too much for someone who had only recently regained consciousness. Who was this Xander and what did he want from him? With his memory shot, what could he tell Xander that he hadn’t already told the gaunt man? What had they done with his weapons and the bags containing the ammo, grens and plas ex?

  The canvas bag…Carrying it came back as the briefest flash of memory, something he knew that Grant hadn’t told him.

  Would they give him his clothes back? At least give him some dignity? And what would Xander do if he couldn’t remember…or if he did and it wasn’t what Xander wanted to hear?

  More importantly, who the hell was he?

  That would be a start.

  THE DAY PASSED SLOWLY for J.B. After a short interval, he was brought some food by a person who also checked his wounds. The young woman was less than five feet, with long dark hair knotted into a ponytail. She had delicate hands, and a slim figure that was visible beneath the linen shift she wore. Her hands felt good to him as they wandered over his body, checking the bruises and changing the few remaining dressings on deeper cuts. She ran her left hand over his groin.

  She was accompanied in the room by the heavy-set sec man, who was holding his AK-47 at port arms, ready to step in if the Armorer offered him any trouble.

  J.B. may have been in trouble, but it wasn’t the kind that needed sec interference.

  Under the sheets, the woman’s hand began to move up and down him, slowly and teasingly. Although the rest of him was still aching from his ordeal, this part of him ached for a different reason. The sec man to her rear could see what was she doing and turned his head, trying not to laugh.

  J.B. wanted to stop her because he felt he was being used as some part of a game, but at the same time he wanted her to continue because, if nothing else, it made him forget the pain in the rest of his body.

  She suddenly stopped, took her hand away and stepped back, adjusting the sheets.

  “There, that’ll do for now,” she said ingenuously.

  The sec man laughed as the woman turned away. “You’re an evil bitch, Maggie,” he told her.

  She smiled at him and her hand cupped his groin. “You’ll find out how evil later…if you’re lucky,” she replied.

  They left the room, the sec man shooting J.B. a pitying glance as he closed the door behind them.

  Left to himself, the feeling in his groin now starting to subside, J.B. eased himself out from under the sheet, reaching down for the tray she had left on the floor. The food was basic: a stew of some indeterminate meat with a few vegetables thrown in. It looked as though it had been simmering for days to soften the coarse-fibered meat and it tasted salty, with just a hint of something hot to try to hide the lack of flavor. It didn’t work. The stew was almost inedible, but it was the first solid meal he had eaten in days, so he devoured it quickly, before taking great gulps of water to counteract the salt.

  When he had finished, he didn’t feel better for it. He felt bloated and as though he was about to throw it all back up. He sat back on the bed and closed his eyes. Gradually his stomach eased.

  J.B. began to concentrate on the rest of his body, on those parts of him still hurting the most. Left elbow was weak; okay when still, but trying to bend it was difficult as it was stiff and painful. His right shin was sore and still had some kind of cut or bite on it which needed dressing. His spine was a little stiff, but not that painful. His head still felt like someone had taken a hammer to it and he could feel that it was still swollen and sore, with contusions and cuts around the back of his skull. He thought it was a miracle that he had managed to live through whatever the hell he had actually been through.

  Adding things up, it didn’t look too good at the moment. He couldn’t remember who he was or how he had got here. Xander—who he assumed was sec chief, if not baron—wanted answers from him that he probably couldn’t give, and wouldn’t be best pleased with that fact. He may resort to torture, or just decide to have it done with and execute him. And, frankly, he was in no state to fight his way out. He had no weapons—dammit, he didn’t even have any clothes right now.

  The future looked bleak. Somehow, he had escaped buying the farm only to end up here. Thinking about it was driving him mad but that was all he could do. There was nothing else to occupy his mind.

  And so he waited, huddled under his blankets, for whatever might happen next. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too long in coming, though it seemed to be just that.

  In the cell, with no windows and the overhead light on permanently, he had no way of telling if it was day or night, or of measuring the passing of time by the movement of the sun.

  Drifting in and out of sleep, dreaming of random faces and events that may have been people he had known or may have been something from his imagination, J.B. would suddenly jolt awake to the harsh light of the Spartan cell. He may have been asleep for seconds, or hours; the time between rests may have been minutes or hours. Time had no meaning. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was always the same thing that snapped him back. He would be beaten down by rocks, then sucked into a long tunnel of water, where he found it hard to breathe. Everything came back to that and it was so strong that he found it hard to imagine that he even had a life before.

  How long would he have to wait?

  He could hear movement outside in the corridor, muted voices and footsteps. There were at least three men and he heard the sec man who had laughed at him earlier speak. The door to the cell was thrown back and Grant limped in, carrying a bundle of clothes that he threw at J.B. The Armorer separated them and recognized that they were his old clothes, although he couldn’t grasp why he should know that when he could recall little else. They had been washed. There was a battered fedora hat with them and it struck a chord somewhere in him.

  “Get dressed. Quickly,” Grant snapped.

  “What about the rest of it?” J.B. asked. “Where is my bag?”

  Grant allowed himself a twisted grin. “Please don’t think we’re stupe. That won’t help matters,” was all he said by way of replying before leaving the room.

  J.B. could still hear voices outside. They were waiting for him to get dressed. It could be a good sign. On the other hand…

  Slowly, sparing his aching limbs, J.B. dressed, then sat back on the bed and waited for the next move. Feeling in the breast pocket of his shirt, he found a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. He put them on and his vision was suddenly sharper, clearer. That was a relief. He’d put the fog through which he’d seen down to the concussion he had to have suffered. Although how his glasses had managed to survive what he’d been through was something he didn’t even want to consider.

  Outside, through a spy-hole in the door, Xander watched the Armorer as he sat back. The baron frowned and asked Grant, “Could it really be him?”

  Grant shrugged. “You know the stories better than I do. But it sounds like everything you ever told me.”

  Xander chewed his lip. The chances were too great. But if it were, then why was he alone?

  Only one way for the baron to find this out.

  Xander threw back the door and strode into the room, his imposing physique seeming to take up much of the light and space in the room. He was a big man, just over six feet, and stocki
ly built although now running to fat. He had wiry reddish-brown hair streaked with gray and a beard to match. His clothes were of the finest silk and satin. Altogether, he was an imposing presence in such a place.

  J.B. sat on the bed, unmoving, not even staring. Xander could see that it would take a lot to intimidate this man. The baron was aware that Grant had followed him into the room and was standing as respectfully far back as the lack of space would allow.

  “I’m Xander, baron of this ville,” he began.

  “I kinda gathered that,” J.B. drawled. He was determined not to be fazed by this man and wasn’t even bothered by the fact that Xander could hold the key to his living or buying the farm. The way he saw it, there was little he could do to affect the decision and he’d been through too much lately to bother about it.

  Xander smiled. The man had the icy cool of the stories he had heard. “Perceptive. This ville, by the way, I don’t know if Grant has told you—” he gestured to the healer behind him “—is called Duma. It was started by my father, who found a small ville already here and took advantage of his contacts to make it something bigger, richer. He was a trader and he wanted to settle in one place. He made this the main rest spot for convoys around here and a good place to do some trading while they were getting drunk and screwing gaudy sluts. I’ve tried to keep up my daddy’s good work.”

  “Great for you, but what does that mean to me?” J.B. shrugged.

  Xander examined him closely. “Could mean the difference between you staying here and having a good life or being a problem that we have to deal with accordingly.”

  J.B. didn’t like the sound of that accordingly, but let it slide. The baron was enjoying the sound of his own voice and he might yet say something interesting.

  Xander continued. “Grant here tells me that you’ve got very little knowledge of how you came to be at the bottom of one of my wells. And, more importantly, he tells me that what you went through has knocked your memory out of you.” He paused, waiting for the Armorer to confirm this, which he did with a brief inclination of his head. “So you’ve got no idea who you are. Grant figures that you’re telling the truth, and he’s real good at spotting bullshit,” Xander added.