Triggers

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “It’s like I know this place,” Nikki said. “Like I’ve been here before.” She began walking again, looking around the living room. When she came to the bookshelf with the “Champ” medallion on it, she gently picked it up.

  “What’s it for?” Jan asked.

  “Hmmm?” said Nikki. “Oh. He got it at the hospital, five years ago. He brought in the most donations for the Christmas charity drive.”

  Jan half smiled. That was Eric, all right: forever trying to help those in need. But the smile quickly faded. This woman would always know him better than Jan ever could. “It’s cruel,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This—this thing that’s happened to us. Why couldn’t it have been reciprocal? Why couldn’t you be linked to the same person that’s linked to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Nikki said. “It is what it is.”

  “Yeah,” said Jan, very softly.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  Jan looked at her, then looked away. “I’m sorry, it was stupid. I just didn’t know what to do. I, um, you—you know everything Eric knows, and, well…”

  “He really does care about you, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

  Jan did manage to meet her eyes. “Actually, no. I don’t have any doubts about that.”

  “But you keep asking yourself, how can he like me when he knows this about me, or that about my past, or that I did whatever, right?”

  Jan nodded.

  “Different people react differently, I guess,” said Nikki. “I know comparable stuff about Eric. But he and I didn’t know each other before the linkages, so, um, like…okay, you ever read People?”

  “What?”

  “People, the magazine. Or Us. Or any of those. The magazines that tell you all about the private lives of celebrities.”

  “Sometimes in my dentist’s waiting room, I guess,” said Jan.

  “Well, Eric is like that to me. He’s like Angelina Jolie or Johnny Depp or some other celebrity that I don’t know personally, but I know everything about. Yes, I know his dirty secrets—minor though they are—including all kinds of stuff I’m sure he wishes really was private. But so what? It doesn’t affect me, and it’s not like I’m going to do anything with the information.”

  “I know, but…” Jan blew out air. “Sorry. I have no idea how to deal with this.”

  “But surely you must be going through the same thing, no?” asked Nikki. “You must be linked to somebody else, right?”

  “I was,” said Jan, softly. “He died.”

  “Oh!” said Nikki, and Jan saw her eyes flicking left and right rapidly as she assimilated Eric’s memories related to that. “Oh my God—just this afternoon. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  “Sure, of course. Sorry. But, Jan, it’s like that with me and Eric. I don’t like to dwell on my own past, let alone anyone else’s.”

  Jan. Every little thing Nikki did reminded Jan of just how much Nikki did know about her private life. “I know, but it’s like he’s gossiping about us, like he’s talking about me behind my back.”

  “He isn’t. And I don’t know your details, you know. I know what he remembers, not what you remember. But I do know he really does like you. And, yeah, there is the age difference, obviously. And, sure, people are going to gossip about that. They’re going to say he’s having a midlife crisis—but you know what? He already did, five years ago. Ask him about it; it’s no big deal, and he’s over that; it’s in the past. He’s not attracted to you because of your age; he’s attracted to you despite your age, and—”

  Nikki fell silent.

  “Yes?” said Jan.

  “He wants to have sex with you.”

  Jan looked away. “Oh.”

  “But it’s not because he’s horny—although he is. It’s because he’s scared. You’re thirty-two; he’s fifty. He’s afraid you’re going to be turned off by his half-century-old body.”

  “What? That’s silly.”

  “Maybe. But that’s what he thinks.”

  “How do you know? I thought all you could do is read his memories, not his thoughts?”

  “That’s all I can do. But he told someone that, and I can recall the conversation.”

  “He was gossiping about me?”

  “More like seeking advice. He’s at Luther Terry now, right? He ran into—well, I know him, too; I met him earlier and went a little nuts, I have to say. He’s been talking with Jurgen Sturgess, another doctor there.” Nikki shook her head then went on. “It’s funny; I shouldn’t even care. All of this is really none of my business.”

  “So what did Dr. Sturgess say?”

  “He wasn’t one to give advice. He mostly just listened. But, well, I guess I have a vested interest in seeing Eric be happy. No point in my having to share a bunch of unhappy memories, after all. So let me give you some advice: don’t let me stand in the way of you being happy with Eric. He’s a good guy. Believe me—I know.”

  AT Seth Jerrison’s insistence, they’d set up a computer for him in his hospital room. A forty-two-inch LCD monitor had been mounted on a small table at the foot of his bed, and he’d been given a Bluetooth ergonomic keyboard with a little trackpad attached. Despite lying on his back with his chest only propped up slightly, it was actually pretty comfortable to use, although he had to slide his bifocals way down his hooked nose to get the screen in focus.

  Seth had always been a news junkie, and while Nurse Kelly watched him attentively from her seat, he used the computer to read about the assassination attempt. It was fascinating, in a macabre way, and it gave him a small taste of what the coverage might have been like had the attempt succeeded—although he supposed if he had died, the Huffington Post would not be grousing that “You’d think Jerrison would know how to give a speech in a presidential way instead of sounding like a tenured academic who doesn’t have to worry about job security. The RNC would do well to hire him a media coach.”

  Damn it all, he had a media coach. And he really had tried to pay attention to her. She’d gone over everything with him time and again, including the way he held his head, when to use a hand gesture for emphasis, and the speed at which he should read from the teleprompter. He’d initially spoken much too quickly, she’d said, clocking him at 11,000 words per hour. He’d told her that was a holdover from his days at Columbia; there was an awful lot of history to cover, and only so many classroom hours to cram it into. She said a dignified pace, and one that most people could comfortably follow, was more like 8,500 words an hour, and he’d practiced slowing down. For instance, the speech he’d been giving at the Lincoln Memorial was 1,734 words, and when he’d rehearsed it, he’d come in bang at twelve minutes, not counting time for applause. Of course, he hadn’t gotten far into it when, as an article on MSNBC said, “the crack of a would-be assassin’s rifle split the cold November air, and—”

  And a thought came to him. He opened the document containing his speech and highlighted everything from the beginning to the point at which he’d been shot; he’d seen the clip repeatedly now on the news (and found it oddly compelling to watch—Kadeem had seen the news coverage before he had, and so Seth remembered it the first time he saw it; it felt an awful lot like he was viewing it from outside his own body). He searched the menus until he found the word-count command. “Words: 281” appeared on the screen along with some other statistics. Oh, well. It had been a good thought, but—

  But he’d marked it from the beginning, including the title and other things. He scrolled back to the top of the document and redid the highlighting starting after the words “Speech to be delivered by POTUS at Lincoln Memorial re the Chicago bombing. Check against delivery.” Then he issued the word-count command again. “Words: 247.”

  Tell Gordo to aim for 2-4-7…

  He went down to the end of the marked block and read aloud the last sentence he’d said before the bullet hit: “If my students could take away only a single l
esson, I always hoped it would be the famous maxim that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

  Repeat it. Like an echo.

  Tell Gordo to aim for 2-4-7 for the echo…

  Lots of people had access to his speeches before he gave them; it would have been easy for Secret Service Director Hexley to have seen the text in advance and have gotten copies to other people, including Gordo Danbury—copies marked up with each word numbered so they could plan precisely. Hexley had been telling someone to convey to Danbury that the perfect echo—the perfect blast from the past—would be to take down the current president, as he was standing in front of a statue of the first president to have been assassinated, while he was reflecting on history repeating itself.

  And, Seth thought, history almost had.

  Just then, Susan Dawson entered. “Good afternoon, Mr. President. Bessie Stilwell and Agent Hudkins are in the air. They should be at Andrews by 10:00 P.M.”

  “Andrews?” asked Seth. “Not Reagan?”

  “No, Mr. President. They’re taking an Air Force jet back.”

  “I said they should travel on a civilian plane.”

  Susan’s eyebrows went up. “Um, sorry, sir—what you actually said was they should fly out to L.A. on the next commercial flight. You didn’t say anything about the return, and Darryl figured you wanted Bessie to be protected as much as possible, so they’re coming back on an Air Force plane.”

  “Damn,” said Seth.

  “What’s wrong, sir? I apologize if—”

  “No, no. What’s done is done. But…damn.”

  CHAPTER 41

  NIKKI Van Hausen was driving home from her meeting with Jan Falconi; she hoped the poor girl could find some peace. In her trunk were a couple of “Open House” signs that she’d need tomorrow; Sunday was a big day for such things.

  Open house.

  Letting strangers in, letting them poke around, letting them imagine their own lives superimposed on the bare bones of a building: this place, but with their furniture. People would come in and try to decide whether this was a suitable spot for laying down years of new memories.

  It was snowing. Nikki turned on her windshield wipers. As she drove along, she was distracted by Eric’s memories—a press conference this afternoon, the surgery yesterday morning. So much had happened in such a short time!

  And those were just his new memories. Eric was fifteen years older than Nikki. It was strange to think that she now had more memories in her head of his life than of her own—a decade and a half more, to be precise: another fifteen Christmases, a dozen more vacations, the big bash when he’d turned forty, the more subdued one when he’d turned fifty, splitting from his wife, burying his parents, watching his son head off to college.

  Despite the fact that the streets were slick and wet, the traffic was sailing along. She had her radio set to DC101. The current song was “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls, and she realized as it played that Eric didn’t know it at all; it didn’t conjure up any memories for him—he was the wrong generation.

  A car cut in front of Nikki, bringing her attention fully back to the road. She hated aggressive drivers at the best of times, and when it was snowing, there really was no excuse for it.

  The Pussycat Dolls sang their final refrain and a traffic report came on. Things were moving surprisingly well, and—

  And another maniac came careening past her, cutting in and out of traffic, and—

  And the car in front of her, a white Ford Focus, swerved to make room. Nikki hit her horn, two other cars veered, she heard the squeal of tires and the sound of a high-speed impact, and she saw the Focus roll over as another car plowed into it. She pumped her brakes, but—

  Damn! She hit the car in front of her, and her air bag deployed. She pitched forward into it and heard more groaning metal plus the sound of shattering glass, and, muffled by the air bag, screams.

  She was dazed for a few moments, then the air bag deflated, and she saw a red carnation bloom of blood on it as it pulled away from her face. She reached a hand up and it came away wet; she looked down and saw blood dripping onto her pantsuit.

  Nikki turned off her car, then flipped down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror on the back of it. Her nose didn’t seem to be broken, thank God, although it was certainly bleeding.

  Her back hurt, but not severely. Her windshield had cracked in a thousand places, and that made it almost impossible to see what was in front of her. She went to check her rearview mirror—and saw only the stem that had attached it to the window; the mirror itself must have gone flying in the impact.

  She used her sleeve to wipe the blood from her nose; she really needed something to stanch the flow, though, and her purse had gone flying, too, apparently.

  Nikki looked out her side window. Another crashed car was right up against her door—she couldn’t get out that way. And so she undid the seat belt and hauled herself across to the passenger seat. As she made her way over the center hump, she saw her purse way in the back, on the shelf beneath the rear window. She continued across the front and tried to open the passenger door. It was stuck and she was afraid that it had been damaged in the crash, but—

  But no; it wasn’t stuck—it was just locked. She never used this door, and it took her a second to find the release, blood falling like rain from her nose onto the tan upholstery.

  The door opened. She hauled herself out into the early-evening darkness and surveyed the damage to her own car. The front end had accordioned. She had the presence of mind to worry about whether the gas in the tank was going to explode, and she bent down—an action that sent daggers of pain through her—and looked underneath to see if gasoline was leaking out. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she didn’t think so.

  And then, hands on hips, she surveyed the scene. In front of her, all three lanes of traffic were blocked by smashed vehicles that were now skewed across the road. The asphalt glistened in the streetlamps, and snow continued to sift down. She went over to the guardrail on the right side and climbed on it so she could have a better view.

  Another wrecked car and a smashed pickup truck were blocking the road in front of the three cars she’d already seen. Some of the other drivers and passengers were out of their vehicles now, too. She looked behind her and saw cars backed up as far as she could see. Horns were blaring, and there was another sound: someone screaming, “Help! Help!”

  The source was off to her left: the furthest of the three cars blocking the highway. She headed over to see what was going on, and—

  Damn! Her feet almost went out from under her, and she felt a jolt of pain; the road was slick with ice. She steadied herself by grabbing onto the side of one of the other wrecked cars. Its driver was now outside, too, but he was just leaning against his front fender, looking dazed, his face bloodied. She made her way over to the car the screams were coming from—and, as she got closer, she saw that the entire windshield had shattered and fallen away, and the front end of the car was pushed in even more than her own had been. She approached from the car’s right side. There were two people within: a male driver and a female passenger, both white, both in their forties.

  “Are you okay?” Nikki said.

  “My legs!” the woman shouted. “They’re pinned!”

  Nikki craned to look inside; the car had been compacted enough that the dashboard was right up against the woman’s chest; there was no way to get her out.

  “And my husband,” the woman said, imploringly. “My husband!”

  The only way to get to the other side of the car was by clambering over the trunk, which was still reasonably intact. Nikki did so and made her way along the driver’s side to the front door.

  “It’s locked!” Nikki called out. She tried to reach through the space where the windshield used to be, and the pinned woman stretched as much as she could, trying to reach the unlock button; it was the passenger who got to it first, and the door unbolted with a sound like a gunshot.<
br />
  Nikki opened the ruined door—it took all her strength to get it to swing outward, given how twisted it was. The steering column was bent downward. The male driver had been thrown forward and his neck had smashed against the top of the steering wheel; the car either was too old to have a driver’s-side air bag, or it had malfunctioned.

  The man had been exposed to the elements longer than Nikki had, and he wasn’t wearing a winter coat; Nikki could see his parka draped across the backseat. Still, she thought, it wasn’t that cold; he shouldn’t be turning blue from the chill, and—

  And it wasn’t from the chill; it was from lack of oxygen! She didn’t want to move him—he might well have a neck injury, but if he wasn’t breathing, then any other injury wouldn’t matter in a few minutes. She steadied his head and neck as much as she could with her hands as she gently tipped his whole body backward into the seat.

  His throat was caved in, right below the jawline.

  Nikki stood up and looked around again, but nothing had changed. There was no way an ambulance could get to them.

  “Help!” she shouted. Perhaps eight or nine people, in various states of injury, were visible outside their vehicles, some bloodied, a couple lying down on the asphalt. “This man needs help! Are any of you doctors?”

  A few of the people looked at her. One man shouted, “No,” and a woman called out, “Let me know if you find one!”

  Nikki inhaled deeply then let the air out; it was cold enough that she could easily see her own breath, and that of the woman pinned in the passenger seat—but there was no sign of any breath coming from the driver.

  She felt herself beginning to panic. Christ, what to do? What to do? She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them. Then she brought them to her face to blow on them, and saw them—covered with blood.

  And it came to her: this man needed a crike—an emergency cricothyrotomy—right away. No, no, not right away: stat.

  And—yes, yes, yes—Eric knew how to perform one, and so she knew how to do it, too.