“That was a crude recording. This time we'll have more sensitive instruments. I'd very much like to see what it looks like.” Poe looked at me and flashed a smile. “Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em; and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. Augustus De Morgan, who was inspired by Jonathan Swift, I believe.”
Poe said nothing more, but I got the drift.
* * * *
When we arrived at the hospital, I wasn't surprised to find Clarissa already there. She stood outside the room where the hospital staff had isolated the female hibernator. The hibernator's condition had not changed. Several uniformed guards positioned themselves on either side of the door. They didn't flinch when I walked up. Instead, their gaze drifted to Clarissa.
So now I knew who was in charge. Not me, but Clarissa.
Poe fidgeted behind me, anxious to get inside and talk to the attending physicians.
“Can we go in?” I asked Clarissa.
Clarissa pondered the question for a moment. Then she gave a nod to the guards, who stepped back.
“But I'd like to talk to you,” she said, beckoning me down the hall.
Since patience didn't seem to be one of her virtues, I told Poe to go into the room without me. I followed Clarissa into a private office that appeared to belong to one of the hospital directors. A picture of a happy family adorned a gigantic mahogany desk. Old medical gadgets dotted the wall shelves. Clarissa sat down in the plush chair behind the desk and gestured for me to take one of the other chairs.
I didn't get a good feeling about this meeting.
“We believe that you've accomplished all that you can do,” she began.
“So the project's completed?”
“Your role in it is.”
“I see. You're taking over?”
She shook her head. “There's not much left to do. As soon as the female dies, which is expected shortly, the only issue is what to do with the six remaining hibernators. I suspect they'll go to a government lab somewhere for further study, or perhaps disposal.”
The government usually didn't send a person to deliver a message unless it had teeth. “And what about me?”
Clarissa frowned, as if pondering a difficult subject. “Your performance has been slipping lately. Although this project was brought to a successful conclusion, at least thus far, you were hesitant during several key phases. We're worried about your psychology.” She gave me a pitying look. “We've decided to cancel the balance of your current enlistment period.”
Technically, I'd been fired.
It didn't come as a shock. I thought maybe they would wait for a while—put me in some out-of-the-way office until my enlistment ran out. The only surprise was that they decided to cut the cord cleanly.
The beauty of the system, as least from the government's point of view, was that disgruntled personnel couldn't cause much harm. That's the way the system was set up. I couldn't damage national security because I didn't know anything other than a small amount of inside information on the government's surveillance techniques. Which was little enough; I might be able to game the system only marginally better than the hospital orderly.
I suddenly wondered if he was ex-security too.
The most important issue was my identity. Would they finalize it?
“Because of your meritorious service,” said Clarissa, looking at the ceiling as if it displayed my service record, “we will institute the identity that you have requested. All business receipts, tax records, government databases, employment documentation, affidavits, and personal recommendations will be cemented into place. You will become—”
“I don't want it.”
Clarissa looked at me, astonished. Frankly, I was a little astonished myself.
“I don't understand,” she said.
“I want to be me. Who I was born as. I want to be Rex Kimball again.”
She made little stammering noises as she opened and closed her mouth, reminding me of the goldfish I'd seen in the aquarium in the hospital's waiting room.
“That's my name,” I said. “Rex Kimball.”
“You can't,” she said, recovering her voice. “You haven't assumed your birth identity in a dozen years. Don't you realize that there would be a gap in your résumé that you'll never be able to account for? Nobody will hire you because they'll assume the worst—that you've been institutionalized or imprisoned in some foreign country, or that you've been a criminal all these years. We won't back up your claims to the contrary—we can't. We can't allow people to learn how many security agents we hire, where they've been, where they come from. That would be giving the enemy a break. We'll permanently establish a new identity for you but we won't publicly acknowledge your service. Surely the reasonable thing for you to do is—”
“For once, I don't want to do the reasonable thing. I don't want the ID. I'll go back to being who I was originally.”
“What about your family? What about your significant other?”
“If she's really significant, she'll understand.”
* * * *
I left Clarissa still sputtering in the office. No doubt she would soon make a report announcing that Marlon Mathers a.k.a. Rex Kimball a.k.a. whatever codename they used for yours truly has gone start raving mad.
And maybe she was right.
Someone gently grabbed my elbow. I realized I'd been ambling down the halls for nearly an hour. I stopped and glanced up to see Krystal Weffle staring at me. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Never better.”
She didn't appear convinced.
I moved the conversation forward. “Any news?”
Krystal hesitated. Finally she said, “Poe's looking for you.”
She guided me to the stairway, up two flights, and down the corridor to a computer room. Poe sat in front of a large console.
“The patient died, didn't she?” I said.
“So to speak,” said Poe.
He started to say something more but stopped. I noticed the looks that passed between Poe and Krystal.
“You found something interesting?” I prompted.
“It's what I didn't find that's interesting.” He waved a hand at the screen. “They continually monitored her EEG, and they made a record of it. We have plenty of data. At present her brain waves are almost absent, and she's comatose. But earlier the record shows a remarkable pattern.” He pointed to the screen.
All I saw was a bunch of squiggly lines. “Same as the last transfer?”
“Basically. But the nested patterns are not present this time. There's no substructure.” Poe looked at me. “And we should have seen them if they were there—this equipment is an order of magnitude more sensitive than the voltage chart we were looking at before.”
“Which means what?” I thought I already knew the answer, but Poe didn't seem to want to discuss it. I couldn't blame him—he'd stuck his neck out enough already. “They succeeded, didn't they?”
Poe nodded. “Hypothetically,” he added cautiously.
“They got rid of their parasites,” I said. “Do you think they need to inhabit bodies and brains to do so?”
Poe shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe they can't adjust their rhythms and patterns without some kind of firm medium. Purging the substructure may require the mental equivalent of a sledgehammer.”
“Or maybe,” said Krystal, “they just take the opportunity every once in a while to touch and hear and see and taste and smell. And do some housecleaning at the same time.”
I said, “Since they're afflicted with parasites, these beings—these traveling consciousnesses, or angels, to use Krystal's term—know what infestation is like. I guess that's why they don't tend to do the same thing to others. I believe that the presence of the prepared bodies shows they prefer going that route instead of infesting other living, conscious beings.”
“Don't be too quick to attribute such gentle qualities to them. Maybe they can't infect anything already conscious.”
“The c
hicken-and-the-egg problem suggests they can, or could at one time.”
Poe nodded. “You raise a good point. But that's entirely speculative.”
Krystal chuckled.
“What's so funny?” asked Poe.
“Oh, nothing,” said Krystal, clearly amused. “I was just thinking, Poe, how often I've heard you marvel at our civilization and our science and technology. It's all so grand, you keep saying. And now you have to deal with some new data. You've discovered the existence of advanced beings who regard us as a convenient scratching post.”
Poe flushed, but a smile broke out a few seconds later. “I never said there wasn't a lot we've yet to learn.”
* * * *
I wondered about Clarissa's real name. Who was she? Where had she been born, what were her goals? Had she lost herself as badly as I had? Or perhaps her conscience was clear—nothing upon her back to bite her.
But she seemed reasonable enough for me to work out a deal.
“You want the other six hibernators,” said Clarissa slowly, churning the idea through her mind, “to be maintained at Poe's lab?”
“If he'll agree.”
“Poe's a nut job.”
“I don't think so.”
“His theories are absurd.”
I just smiled.
Clarissa went on: “There are security issues to be addressed.”
“Ah, but Clarissa, the government has lost interest, haven't they? I mean, what's the threat of a silly genetics experiment that produces harmlessly befuddled drug addicts? That's the government's view, isn't it?”
Clarissa frowned. But she knew I was right. “If your offer is accepted,” said Clarissa, “and I suspect it will be, I would like to point out that this shows the government isn't as paranoid as some people make it out to be. We're willing to meet people halfway. Honestly, I don't understand why so many agents lose their enthusiasm for the job. Our mission is to protect and serve.”
“And intrude. And tell lies. Yes, Clarissa, you also protect and serve. But I'm tired of it. I want to tell the truth for a change. And you know what? Maybe someday we'll discover a way of doing that and protecting people at the same time. Who knows? The answer may be out there,” I said, sweeping my arm skyward. Then I pointed to my head. “Or in here, locked away in a place that your sensors can never reach.”
I went straight to Poe.
“I can't pay you very much,” he said, embarrassed. “But I'd love to maintain those hibernators in my lab. If one of them wakes up again . . . think what we might be able to learn.”
My thoughts exactly.
“I'll take whatever bottle-washing job you can give me,” I said. “I've got to start rebuilding my résumé.”
Copyright © 2011 by Kyle Kirkland
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Novelette: TRIGGERS: PART II OF IV
by Robert J. Sawyer
What is the ultimate breach of national security?
The story so far:
An al-Qaeda splinter group named al-Sajada has been attacking US monuments with new, highly portable explosives. On a cold November morning, President Seth Jerrison attempts to reassure his distraught nation by giving a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, but a would-be assassin's bullet tears into his back. He's rushed to Luther Terry Memorial Hospital, accompanied by Secret Service agent-in-charge Susan Dawson. There, surgeon Eric Redekop and his team labor to save the president.
In the same hospital, memory researcher Ranjip Singh is using experimental equipment to try to erase the painful memories of a young Iraq War veteran named Kadeem Adams, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
An al-Sajada bomb is discovered on the roof of the White House. Everyone is evacuated, but the bomb goes off. As it does, a power surge goes through Singh's memory-erasing equipment.
Meanwhile, the surgical team is losing President Jerrison. His heart stops, and Jerrison—a closet atheist—undergoes a classic near-death experience, including a life review. But, as he tells hospital CEO Mark Griffin when he's revived, it's not his own life that he saw.
It soon becomes apparent that twenty or so people at the hospital have had their memories linked in a circular chain: person A reads the memories of B, B reads the memories of C, and so on. Susan Dawson can read the memories of Ranjip Singh, and Susan herself is read by Kadeem Adams. Dr. Redekop is reading a much-younger nurse named Jan Falconi and he, in turn, is read by real-estate agent Nikki Van Hausen. President Jerrison can read Kadeem Adams (it was the young vet's life he saw flash by), and someone, as yet unidentified, is reading President Jerrison. Recognizing that this represents an enormous threat to national security, Agent Dawson orders the hospital locked down, and begins a systematic search for whoever is accessing the president's memories.
Unbeknownst to Dawson, the United States is about to embark on a massive clandestine military operation code-named Counterpunch, aimed at the terrorists who have been attacking the US. Secretary of Defense Peter Muilenburg is supervising preparations from the Pentagon.
The man who shot Jerrison is killed trying to escape, and is soon identified. Shockingly, it was Gordon “Gordo” Danbury, a Secret Service agent. The attempt on the president's life was an inside job—and it's anyone's guess how high up the conspiracy goes.
* * * *
Chapter 15
Susan enlisted Professor Singh to help her interview the other potentially linked people: he'd speak individually to half of the remaining group, and she'd take the other half. They could have gotten through everyone even more quickly if she had the other Secret Service agents do interviews, too, but she didn't know who among them she could trust. But Singh, who she recalled had enough psychology courses under his belt to know how to effectively question people, had no secrets from her, and she could access his memories of each interview once it was done; it was almost as good as being in two places at one time.
Susan's next interviewee was a young woman named Rachel Cohen, who worked in accounts receivable here at Luther Terry Memorial Hospital; she'd happened to be on the fourth floor, passing directly above Singh's lab, when the memory-linking effect occurred.
“I don't understand,” Rachel said, sounding quite distraught. “This doesn't make any sense.”
“We're all still trying to get a handle on it,” Susan said. “It was an accident.”
“But it's . . . God, it's freaky. I mean, I wasn't aware that anything was wrong until just now.”
“It seems the foreign memories don't come to mind unless something triggers them, or unless you actually think about them. Some people knew at once that they'd been affected; others, like you, didn't know until they were asked about it.”
Rachel shook her head in dismay. “But now that you have asked me about it, I can't stop recalling things he knows.”
“He?” said Susan, leaning forward. “Do you know his name?”
“Sure. It's Orrin.”
The chances of there being two Orrins around struck Susan as pretty slim, but: “Orrin what?”
“Gillett.”
Susan hoped she was keeping her face from showing distaste; Orrin Gillett was the lawyer who'd tried to run at the beginning of the lockdown. She asked Rachel a few questions about Gillett, just to be sure: the names of his law partners, which law school he'd gone to, and so on, and then she verified the answers on the law firm's website.
“How—how long is this . . . this pairing . . . going to last?” Rachel asked, when Susan was done.
“I honestly have no idea.”
Rachel shook her head again. “This is so strange. God, it feels weird. I mean, he's a man, you know? I've always wondered what it'd be like to be a man instead of a woman.”
“Maybe when this is all over, you'll write a book about it,” Susan offered.
Rachel seemed to consider this. “Maybe I will, at that. It's . . . it's fascinating.” And then, after a moment, almost to herself, it seemed, sh
e added, "He's fascinating.”
“Okay,” said Susan. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Cohen. We're still keeping people here at the hospital for a while, but please give me your cell number, so I can find you easily again if I need you.”
Rachel dictated it then left Singh's office. Just as she did so, Susan's earpiece buzzed. “Hudkins to Dawson.”
“Go ahead, Darryl,” Susan said.
“We've located nineteen of the twenty people,” said the voice in her ear. “But one seems to have gotten out of the building before you initiated the lockdown.”
“Shit,” said Susan. “Who?”
“Bessie Stilwell, a woman who was visiting her son. And I'm the one reading her—which is strange, I gotta say. She's visiting from Pascagoula, Mississippi—at least, that's what I recall.”
“Do you know who she's linked to?”
“No. And I'm not sure where she's gone; I'm trying to recall it, but it hasn't come to me yet. I just went so see her son, Michael Stilwell, but he's pretty much out of it, I have to say; he had a major heart attack. He's got no idea where she might have gone today.”
“If you're linked to her, why can't you just recall it?”
“I asked Singh about that. His guess is that it's because she's elderly—she's eighty-seven, her son said. Bessie has trouble recalling things herself; she's not senile, or anything, just old. Singh thinks it may clear up for me; he suspects I might re-index her memories as time goes on, using my younger brain. But at the moment, well, let's say I now know how my grandma feels when she's struggling to recall something. It's frustrating.”
“What hotel is she staying at?”
“She isn't. She's staying at her son's place. I've got the address, and will get the DC police to stake it out.”
Susan didn't want to become paranoid—and she'd known Darryl for four years now—but it was suspicious that he was both claiming not to be linked to Jerrison and was having trouble corroborating that he was linked to someone else. Still: “Copy,” Susan said. “But find her. Oh, and Rachel Cohen is linked to Orrin Gillett—can you tell Singh to add that to his chart? And I guess I better speak to Gillett now; might as well do this in some kind of order. Can you get him and bring him to 312? I've got him locked up in 424.”
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