by Tara Brown
Rory winces; his jaw is set.
One of the policemen walks over with a folder. He places it on the table. “This is what happened to your mother and father, Rory. They were IRA. They caused this bombing. These are the faces of the innocents. Is this what you want too? Is this who you are?”
Rory’s eyes lower and his jaw clenches so tight I swear his teeth are going to break. He lowers his face in defeat, as silent tears stream down his cheeks. I step back. I know where he ended up. I know he ended up in the military and he was young when he got there.
The doors squeal shut and I feel sorry, sorrier than I ever have for him. I skip the next floor and press five. I know where the fourth floor leads—right to the military. I know what he did there. We had a similar career.
The doors open on the fifth floor and my memories start to blend with Rory’s. We were both here on the day this scenario played out. This was the first day we officially met, though we both knew who each other was before this.
It’s the first day of testing for the mind runs.
I step out onto the floor, stunned at how much I have forgotten about how the room looked.
Dash is there. He walks across the foyer, nodding his head at me. His lips toy with a grin, the naughty one, and his eyes catch my ass as I walk past him. He was into me right from the start. It’s just too weird.
I plunk into my desk, the one I sat in that first day.
Rory walks in, taking my breath away a little. He’s strong and young and handsome and fresh from the military undercover units. His eyes are still clear, that evil isn’t there yet. I thought I might have seen it in the boxing ring, but it’s not there now.
He offers a sarcastic grin and sits next to me, just as he did when this moment really happened. “Ya think it’s going to be like those drug tests where we see the future? Or pick the right card? Like Ghostbusters?”
I stare and look back at the front of the room. A younger Angie is there. Her eyes are on Rory straightaway. She noticed him right off the bat. I wonder how much that influenced their choices in picking us: Dash gluing his eyes to my ass and Angie tugging at her collar while staring at Rory. Surely that changed outcomes.
“All right, settle in. We know yer curious, and once we have all the confidentiality reports done, we will begin,” Angie shouts at us all.
Dash dips to speak to her and she beams, shrugging and lifting her fingers up into her long red hair. His eyes draw toward me, but he nods at her, returning the smile and folding his broad arms across his chest. He’s flexing.
Holy shit!
Are they flirting?
They totally have a thing and I missed it?
My chest tightens.
I glance down at the desk, wondering how many other things I’ve missed. Have they been having an affair all along? She is always there. His family likes her. They know her so well. For a colleague, that’s so strange. She isn’t a friend, she’s a workmate.
Oh my God.
She’s an ex-girlfriend and he didn’t tell me to prevent it from being weird.
Oh my God.
I feel sick.
I am an idiot. Of course she sent me back into Rory’s brain. She’s trying to turn me into a mental case. Now that things aren’t working out with Rory, she wants Dash.
I glance at the desk, seeing the box carved in it with the four-leaf clover. I know that means that inside the desk is something to take me home.
But there’s a niggle of a whisper that tells me Rory is onto me and is setting me up. If he’s onto me, he’s making this what it is. Angie and Dash were never more than friends, and rarely hung out until I came along—as far as I recall. She knows his family because of functions his family has put on.
Or is that what they told me so it wouldn’t be weird?
Fuck!
I cover the box and stare at the head of the class.
Angie smiles and nods. “All right, we have to congratulate ya all for making the cut. Dr. Dash and I are both very excited about this trial. We think this has some amazing applications in the world of coma patients. But until it’s safe enough to use on the weak, we want to mess around with yer heads and try it out on you—the strong.” She laughs and everyone laughs with her.
I want to hold her down and make her confess to loving my man and tricking me. But clearly that is not rational. And it would make a ripple.
She looks at Dash and continues, “We are hoping some of you, at least two, will be able to make the headway we need to get this program off the ground. Ideally we’d like to see a man and a woman proceed.”
“But as this is the preliminary process, let’s move to the most important part.” Dash clears his throat. “We give you the director of this program, the vice president.”
We all clap, even I do. I might not laugh at the jokes, but I’ll be damned if I don’t clap for the man who got me my job and stepped into his own as the president after the brothel scandal.
“Thank you all. I am excited to be here today, where miracle meets innovation. We have clearly made some exciting advances in science that we can’t yet share with you, but we can share some of the ideas we are throwing around. Essentially I need you to imagine your body has all but shut down on you, and your mind is left alert and sharp. Your family is devastated at not being with you cognitively and you are frustrated at being stuck in a lifeless body. Or imagine being the victim of something absolutely terrible and having no way of telling the authorities what happened.” He paces the room, before holding a hand up to a screen as faces flash. “These are all people without the ability to tell us what happened or what is happening.” He holds up a finger and offers a grin. “Until now.” He looks back at Angie and Dash. “These doctors are a special type of neurologist. I won’t bother us all with the big words that won’t mean a lick to you or me, but just know that they are skilled in a way most neurologists aren’t. They are also engineers in robotics. We took them fresh from school and started them on this path, choosing only the best, just like you.”
“What a windbag,” Rory whispers and leans in. “Ya wanna get a drink after this?”
I pretend to scratch my cheek, but instead offer up my middle finger. He leans back, chuckling.
I glance around the room, a bit stunned that there are only three girls and the rest of the dozen are guys. I don’t recall that at all. But I don’t think I paid attention the first time.
As the VP finishes his lengthy explanation, I realize I don’t know exactly what he’s said, but it doesn’t matter. Angie again speaks and clears it all up, “We are separating boys and girls. Ladies, you are with me. Gentlemen, you are with Dr. Dash.”
She walks from the room and we follow, just as we did last time. I remember this part.
The three of us end up in a lab, where we are tested for strength, energy levels, patience, aggression, skills in combat, and much more.
I pass the tests applicable to the military with ease. But the think-tank stuff is harder. So I work harder.
Exhausted at the end of a long day, I saunter into the mess. We have barracks, a mess hall, and a lounge set aside for us and the doctors and techs. I sit and open my sandwich, yawning and then stretching my neck before I take my first bite.
“Intense, eh?” Rory asks as he sits.
“Yup.”
“Ya think yer doing all right?”
I shrug. “Maybe. I am the last girl left. The other two went home today.” I realize I don’t know how long it’s been. Just that I am tired in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
“I think I’m doing all right too. I have an in,” he volunteers with a wink as he eats a chip from the tiny bags we are allowed one of. They have cut our calories to allow for the lack of exercise we are doing, in comparison to what we are accustomed.
“An in?”
“Yup.” He chuckles and g
ets up. I notice as he walks out that his left leg has a slight limp to it. I would guess a torn ACL at one point, but that the surgery wasn’t completely successful.
I finish my meal, ending it with another yawn, catching a flash of something in my peripheral. It’s little Rory, the boy. He waves at me to come with him and then vanishes around a corner.
I get up and hurry after him, catching just a glimpse of his legs rounding the next corner. I don’t catch up to him until I round the following corner. Then I nearly bump into him. I stop, skidding. He lifts a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.” He nods his head at the open crack of a door. A noise draws my attention. I glance in, realizing it’s a storage room with boxes of computer paper and other office supplies on shelves. The noise happens again.
I turn toward it, jumping back when I see Angie. She’s bent over the spare copy machine, with her leg up on it. Rory is behind her, thrusting inside her. His hands are around her, cupping her breasts in her shirt.
She moans and he slides a hand across her lips. She starts to push his hand away, but he’s caught up in the moment. His grip is tight on her lips and his head is back as he slaps his balls against her, pumping wildly.
She spins, pulling his cock right out with the turn and slaps him across the cheek. He laughs and pushes her back onto the machine and lifts her leg again, pumping hard the second his cock head reaches her slit. His hands wrap around her throat as she moans. It’s about the most disturbing thing I could have imagined for Angie. She seems so normal.
I close the door and step back, not even certain what I just saw. Little Rory is gone and I’m a Peeping Tom. But at least seeing, even for that brief moment, helps me start to recall the mission. I’d nearly forgotten him, for example.
11. BACK IN THE USSR
My head feels stiff with all the sensors and things taped to me. It’s my first run and the patient is actually Dr. Dash. He turns and offers a soft smile. It’s not authentic. If I’ve learned anything in the last few months, it’s that he has a smile filled with promises normal people don’t discuss. “When we get inside the dream I’ve created, I want you to try to change your outfit or your hair. I’ll show you the triggers I have. Then we can talk about yours and the ones you think you might want to create.”
I nod, taking a deep breath. I feel like I’m about to be launched into space, not a video game made up of the thoughts inside someone’s head.
I close my eyes, and prepare for the words to start filling my mind. They are prerecorded subliminal messages intended to pull me in and force my brain to focus on certain aspects of my past. Or, in this case, his past.
I take a breath and suddenly the floor falls out. I’m falling into the blackness, screaming and flailing.
“It isn’t real, Jane.” His voice fills the void.
“Dr. Dash!” I call as I land with a thump in a huge yard. The sun is bright, and the garden is greener than anything I recall seeing in a long time. Everything has been gray for weeks, or months, I don’t know how long.
There’s a large pool with a statue of a boy jumping over another boy’s back. I wrinkle my nose. Movement across the pool catches my eye. When I glance in the direction of it, my jaw falls. Dr. Dash, wearing beige pants and a white dress shirt, is walking along the edge, offering me a wave.
His dream is a resort?
I think my dream is him at a resort. Maybe we share this dream.
I wave back, not sure how it feels to walk in this world—if the gravity is the same. But the moment I take a step, I see it is our world. I see how you could get lost here. How you could make it so fantastical you wouldn’t ever want to leave. It is real and yet it is made up of the things you want.
“Change your clothes,” he says.
I look down at the hospital gown I’m wearing and blush, groaning quietly. “Great.” Closing my eyes, I imagine I’m wearing a white dress. Something someone would wear to a resort—strapless and floor length, with some flow to the skirt. I don’t normally wear dresses, but it just feels right here. In here I don’t have those scars.
My pale skin almost matches the dress when I open my eyes. I need a tan. I can’t help but notice he’s got a much more Californian look to him. His white shirt stands out against his golden skin. I almost wonder what it feels like to touch it. I swear I know already.
“You feel how real this all is?”
I nod, noticing the sparkle in his green-gray eyes. He offers me a hand. I stare at it, confused and out of sorts. Do I touch him? Is that inappropriate?
“So you know how it all feels. This is just practice.”
I take his hand, squeezing and holding. He feels warm—real and fleshy—and there’s a tingle inside me. When I glance up, he offers a dazzling smile, dimple and all. I sigh, actually aloud, earning a grin instead of a smile. It’s the grin he gives when I think he’s promising something neither of us is ever going to explore.
He smiles. “See that?” He points at the small dog, a beagle I think, sleeping next to the bushes. “He’s one of my triggers. He reminds me of being a small boy and being happy.” His look turns inward, like he’s reliving something amazing and heartbreaking all at once. I yawn, stretching and blinking.
“Shall we?” He nods at the small house that’s there behind the bushes. I didn’t even notice it before. I shrug and follow him, still letting him hold my hand. We enter the house, but it isn’t what I expected. There’s more inside than I might have imagined. It’s a mansion inside, but the outside looked like any house in a regular family neighborhood.
“It’s deceptively large,” I mutter as I gaze about the foyer. I swear I’ve seen a home this large before, but I can’t place it now.
“Do you like large houses?”
“No. It’s weird, maybe something left over from my childhood. But I like townhouses. I like my house touching the neighbors’. I like knowing someone’s there, so close. Just in case.” I don’t finish the sentence with “just in case you scream,” but it’s what I’m thinking.
He smiles like he understands, but I don’t think he can. “You are different from any girl I have ever met.”
“Why? Because I can kill you with my thumb or a paperclip?” I ask, and laugh. I don’t know why I feel so free here. “Ask me any medical questions you like and you’ll see I have my weaknesses.”
“Have you killed people before?”
“That’s not a medical question.” I don’t like the question, but I answer it; I know he knows the truth. “Yes.”
“How many?”
A grimace spreads across my face as the words slip out. “Sixty-three that I know of, but there have been more. Some were group assassinations like bombings, so that’s obviously going to bring the number up.”
He coughs. “Sixty-three?”
“That’s the minimum number.”
“Does it hurt?” He has the slightest accent when he says hurt. I’ve never noticed it before. It’s English though, for sure. He must be a Brit.
“Yes. The first few hurt. You watch them fall, and you realize they won’t ever get up again. The ones done from a distance hurt the most. It feels dirty, like you cheated by using the scope. But I don’t look for people to kill. I am given a name because they are doing something terrible.”
“Is the pink mist real?”
Meaning, do I know what it looks like when a sniper kills a human being with a head shot from a distance? I’m not ashamed of killing bad people, but that is likely to show through if we do talk about it. I simply nod.
“How is someone so small so brave?”
“I’m not brave. I just don’t have anything else. This fits. The holes in my memory make it easier to not care about things.”
His eyes fill with emotion, and I see the pity everyone gets when they hear about my family or my childhood. “One thing I promise you, you won’t remember much of this trip inside
my head. The memories presented here are based on what I want you to see.” He steps closer, sliding one of his huge hands down my cheek and making a shiver run up my spine. He bends and kisses me softly.
I don’t know what my response should be, but I desperately don’t want to forget it all.
He steps back and everything starts to fall apart. He waves as his skin and body flake away, blowing in the wind created by the void taking over.
I close my eyes and scream, but when I blink I’m back out. I’m in the same room of the lab, and Dr. Dash is staring at me from his bed, and he’s holding my cat. I smile, but I’m crying on the inside.
A great realization has just crashed over me as I watch Binx jump down and saunter from the room.
Rory is in control. I am in a mind run.
Binx is telling me I am in trouble again. He is the clue.
There is no way Rory could have known what was in my head. He’s creating a cage for me, a place I never want to leave from. He’s making up lies and making me believe them.
But I don’t act like I know. I smile at Dash and get up off the bed with the help of the techs. I walk across the room, looking for little Rory or the elevator.
I have to get off this floor. I don’t know how much time has passed since I entered, but I can imagine Dash is pissed out there in the real world.
I’m in here and he’s out there.
The hallway circles, just like the block did where I first met little Rory.
There’s a part of me that fears I won’t ever find my way out, but I have faith in the little boy. And the triggering of Angie’s plan in his head and mine.
There’s no way I am willing to stay in here forever, and he doesn’t yet know I’d be happy to kill him to get out.
“Jane!”
I turn to see Angie hurrying toward me with a piece of paper in her hand. “We just got two perfect patients for ya and Rory to finish yer testing on. They will be yer first assignments. Exciting, eh!”
