Triggers

Eric did his best Peter Lorre impression. “You despise me, don’t you, Rick?”

He’d hoped for a smile, but all he got was a nod. “That’s him. Little bug-eyed man.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve known him for a few years,” Christine said. “But not well. But now I know all sorts of things about him. It’s like…”

She trailed off. Eric felt his heart pounding. He wanted to say, “It’s like you can access his memories, right?” But he couldn’t say that—that was crazy.

Christine didn’t say anything else, and Eric stared at her, wondering what to say. He felt like he was going out of his mind, but—but—

It hit him. God, yes. He’d been so discombobulated by his encounter with nurse Janis Falconi that he’d forgotten what had happened earlier. But suddenly he recalled Nikki, the distraught woman who had accosted Jurgen Sturgess. She had known his name. He sat up on the cot. “Christine?”

She was still sitting there, head in her hands. “Hmmm?”

“Something very weird is happening.”

Susan Dawson went to the round lobby, which had a very high ceiling; people on the second floor could look down on the comings and goings. Except of course that, right now, there were no comings or goings. Susan had a brief word with the uniformed security guard who kept individuals from getting into the hospital proper without showing ID, then she crossed over to the cafeteria, passing people who looked dazed, people who looked inconsolable, people who looked scared to death.

Inside the cafeteria, there were hospital staff and visitors with food in front of them, but they mostly weren’t eating. Rather, they were talking in low tones about what had happened. She saw one man comforting a woman who was sobbing softly, and another man with his head down on the table in front of him; he seemed to be crying, too.

The first couple of people Susan asked didn’t know Dr. Lucius Jono, but the third person, a woman with eyes wide open as if still half in shock, did, and she pointed to a compact man with wild red hair sitting with three other men; they were all wearing white hospital smocks. Just as Singh had said, a discarded half of a bacon cheeseburger and most of an order of onion rings were still on a plate on the brown tray in front of Jono.

“Dr. Lucius Jono?” Susan said as she came up to the table. She pulled out her ID. “Susan Dawson, Secret Service. Might I have a word with you in private?”

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…”