Between Two Minds: Revelation

by D C Wright-Hammer

  Helen tilted her head. “Damn. Charlie had it rough as a kid. It’s no wonder he ended up the way he did.”

  Bizarrely enough, her words about Charlie stung, but I let it go. “When I saw that Charlie had lost his parents the way he did, the letter became that much more important to me. I felt like finding the family he had started could be the silver lining in it all. But it’s only led me deeper into the web of Charlie’s past.”

  Helen could tell by my tone that something was up. “What did you find?”

  “Charlie’s daughter, Lucy, is alive. I met her.”

  Her eyes became wide. “Wow. Does she know that you’re in—”

  I interrupted her. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I’m in her father’s body. I simply told her I was a friend of Charlie’s, and I had a mind migration into a new body…this eye doesn’t make it easy to avoid revealing that.”

  Helen mulled it over. “What did you talk about?”

  I inhaled deeply. “Several months after her family was secured by the people from Plan-B, Sarah sent Lucy to go live with her grandparents. Then, Sarah disappeared with Joey. Lucy feared they were kidnapped or killed, and she still doesn’t know what happened almost twenty years later. Hearing your vision makes me think Sarah took Joey to the city for the cure. That doesn’t explain why Lucy was left behind, but maybe, just maybe Sarah and Joey are still alive too.”

  Helen sighed. “So, you mean the woman I…Natalie had chased. She could have been Sarah?”

  I nodded. “Sarah had glasses. She and Joey had Spotted-Lung. They disappeared at some point. I know it could all be a coincidence, but I stopped taking things for granted a while ago.”

  She grinned through a frown. “I guess Sarah isn’t so bad in my books after all. She seemed to be one hell of a mother, and that’s how I want…would want to be…” Helen trailed off.

  We seemed to be digressing from the topic, so I tried to refocus us. “Anyway, Lucy also mentioned something else that really disturbed me. She left before explaining it to me, but apparently, Charlie had some kind of condition, something that was serious.”

  “Like a disease?”

  “I’m not sure. Junior has been trying to obtain Charlie’s medical records, so I’ll know more about what I’m dealing with.”

  I suddenly had the feeling that I had taken over the entire conversation in the middle of Helen’s story. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make this all about me. Full disclosure about the PMU fight. I was in jail for several hours before Junior got me out, and no charges were filed. Now, I promise you that’s everything. No more lies moving forward.”

  She leaned in with a grin. “Jail? Well, at least there were some repercussions for your actions. And don’t you worry. I’ll be prying a lot more from now on.”

  “Fair enough. Now, what happened with Natalie and Simon?”

  Helen sighed. “I…Natalie injured him good that night. When she tried to escape, Simon threw the machete at her head. But that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

  “Did you find anything on the Net?”

  She shook her head. “There’s no mention of a Natalie going missing anywhere back then. Nothing even on the old social media platforms. Simon is still alive, as you know. But he’s been holed up in his compound just outside the city for a long time. He did an interview with a reporter some ten years ago where he spewed his hate speech and announced the forming of PMU as the ‘group that would bring mind purity back to the nation.’ He hasn’t been seen since. PMU’s holo-page has an article a day that gives him credit as the author. They claim their recruitment numbers are at an all-time high. How in the hell has PMU gone on this long without being labeled a hate group or added to the terrorist watch lists?”

  I was filled with equal parts outrage and disappointment. “Connections to powerful people, apparently. That’s what Junior told me.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

  The conversation trailed off, and she went back to swiping through the Net pages. I realized she was being consumed by the need to know the truth exactly as I had been when I became aware of Charlie. The only way I stayed sane back then was to speak with Tony. Given everything that happened with her and me in the last week, I’d tried calling Tony a dozen times with no answer. But I knew I had to keep trying, so I got up in the dark room and walked over to my nightstand. I reached for my netphone just as lights and sounds attacked my senses.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  My 6 AM alarm went off, and my holo-aide flashed on, hurting my eyes. “Good morning, Ryan. I see you are already awake. Your tasks for the day are: Stop by work to speak with Bob, go to the eye doctor, and follow up with Junior. Did you want to add anything to the list?”

  “Call Tony now.”

  “Very well, sir.” The holo-aide disappeared, and the ringing started.

  After a couple moments, a holo of Tony appeared. “Hi, you’ve reached Tony’s holo-mail. My holo-box is currently full, but you can still send me a message.”

  “He still isn’t answering?” Helen must have seen my call.

  “No, and his message box was full last week as well.”

  “Doesn’t it take millions of messages to fill up a message box?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, “so it seems pretty hopeless. I could just kill him if I didn’t think he was already—” I shook off the morbid thought and switched topics. “What’s your schedule like today?”

  “Wide open, sort of,” she said confidently. “I already called off work. There’s no way I was going to be able to focus on generating leads after a dream like that one. I want to keep researching.”

  Having done exactly as she was doing, I wanted to save her from herself while offering an alternative. “You’re probably not going to find much searching the holos. With the garage being closed, I was planning on running errands. In the spirit of openness and honesty, why don’t you join me?”

  She smiled for the first time all morning. “Remind me why the garage is closed again. Did you get into a big fight there too? Did they call in the military?”

  I kept a straight face. “Yes, and yes.”

  Helen hit me in the shoulder with more force than I was expecting.

  “Oomph!”

  “You’ve lost your privileges to joke when I pry.”

  I laughed, expecting her to laugh as well.

  She didn’t laugh.

  After an awkward moment that I deserved, we both hopped up to get ready. We ate a quick breakfast and then took the next bullet to the stop closest to my shop. We walked a few blocks when I looked down and saw a little blood on the pavement. “This is where I beat up those goons. It’s too bad the cops stopped me, or there’d be more blood on the ground.”

  “Easy killer. They’re scum, but they’re not worth going to prison over.” Helen winked.

  She was right, but I still wanted another crack at them. We kept walking for another twenty minutes and came to the garage door with an ID reader next to it. I placed my thumb in and was immediately met with a red light. “Sorry, Ryan, but the shop is closed. Have a nice day.”

  “That’s weird.” I pulled out my netphone to call Bob but then he popped out from around the corner.

  “Hey, sorry about that, Ryan! I forgot to add you to the security group.” Bob noticed Helen. “And who is this?”

  “Morning, Bob. This is my partner, Helen.”

  “Nice to meet you, Helen! Say, does Ryan act like a know-it-all at home like he does here? He can tell what’s wrong with a classic car just by smelling it.”

  Helen didn’t miss a beat. “Yup. When he makes dinner, he knows exactly how bad it will be even before it’s done.”

  Bob lost his mind with laughter.

  “Hey!” I opened my arms and scowled. “I’m getting better!”

  Bob came down from his hysteria and lean
ed in. “Let’s go inside.” He put his thumb into the ID reader, and the garage door opened.

  We meandered in, and I noticed it was cleaner than usual.

  Bob pointed at a crimson muscle car on a lift. “That Mustang is going to be a legit war machine by the time we’re done with it. I guarantee.”

  Helen and I just followed.

  We came to the office door, and Bob turned to Helen. “Mind waiting out here, honey? I need to speak with Ryan in private.”

  She nodded. “No problem, honey.”

  Bob snickered as he walked into the office, and I followed.

  He shut the door behind us. “I wanted to…thank you for helping me with my son. The message you said to send, he replied in minutes. I apologized and told him that I would like to visit.”

  “That’s great, Bob. Glad I could help.”

  He nodded. “If I don’t go soon, I’m afraid I’ll lose my opportunity. My son will think I chickened out. More importantly, we’ll be starting the demolition project next week, and that will make it impossible to travel. So, I’m closing the shop for a few days.

  “Problem is, Jack had the same idea about leaving town, so I told him I’d find someone to check up on the shop while we’re gone. Nothing big. Just drop by a couple times and make sure everything’s intact. I was considering other crew members, but they’re such creatures of habit. Once they come to the shop, they’d probably start working on the cars, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid. Anyway, you seemed like the best candidate to just drop in and out a couple times. How does that sound?”

  I was flattered. “It would be my pleasure. You enjoy the time with your son and don’t worry about a thing.”

  He cracked a smile. “Now, don’t get all gushy on me. You’re not technically in charge of anything, and there’s no title change or raise or anything like that. I’ll be setting the security and alarm, but sometimes vandals jump the lot fence or break a window. Can you keep an eye out for that kind of stuff?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great. I’ll get you added to proper security groups, and we should be in good shape.” Then, Bob leaned in with a silly smirk on his face. “Oh, and if you want to impress your lady friend, you’ve got my permission to take out one of the muscle cars. Just check out one of our GPS trackers, and the cops will see it as street legal.” He winked at me.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “She’s not really the type to…” He started laughing, and I shook my head and grinned. “Thanks, Bob.”

  We wrapped up the meeting and went back out to the garage and Helen. “Thanks again, Bob.”

  “Thank you, Ryan. Have a good one.” He waved.

  Helen and I held hands as we walked toward the exit and waved bye to Bob. We walked to the bus stop, and Helen’s curiosity got the best of her. “What was that about?”

  I couldn’t contain my excitement and gave her two thumbs up. “Who has two thumbs and gets to watch the shop over the next few days? This guy!”

  Helen’s face didn’t budge. “How long you been waiting to use that one?”

  “Like eight years. Since I watched sitcoms from the 2000s at my grandmother’s house.”

  “You’re adorable, Ryan Carter. As for watching the shop, that’s awesome. Why you?”

  “Why not me?!” I giggled and then shook my head. “No, Bob had been too proud to speak with his son for the last couple of years. I gave him some advice on how to work it out, and he listened. He’ll be visiting his son.”

  She pondered it over and smiled. “Ryan Carter helping with parenting issues? My how things have changed. Maybe you’ll make a good father someday.”

  I grinned and shrugged. “Who knows?”

  We arrived at the stop with a bullet pulling up, boarded, and rode the ten kilometers to my eye doctor’s office, then hopped off. Having never been to the practice before, the sign begged to be ogled. It was written in the letters used to complete the old-fashioned vision tests.

  Optical Prime: Transform Your Vision to Perfect

  We made our way through the entrance of the quaint building. Once inside, we were immediately presented with the main desk. Behind it was a tall man in a white lab coat. His name tag read, “Bruce.” He was interacting with a hologram of old-fashioned glasses, manipulating their shape, color, and contour.

  Bruce became aware of our presence and without looking, said, “Morning, folks. Please sign in and pay.” He pointed across the room.

  I followed his finger to a large, white device with eye holes near the top. Helen and I strolled over, and I leaned into the machine.

  Buzz!

  I backed away as the device explained the negative response in a mechanical voice. “Invalid results. Please try again.”

  “Okay.” I leaned back in.

  Buzz!

  The errors reminded me that this was my first retinal scan since migrating into Charlie’s body and my pupil turning white. Retinal scans had always been exponentially more reliable at identifying individuals than the biometrics gathered from thumb readers. Strangely enough, they were considered too accurate, but also produced neurological side effects in many people. Decades ago, scammers would walk up and down major city streets and scan whole crowds, gathering the identities of hundreds of people at a time. They would have gotten away with it if those same crowds didn’t begin exhibiting memory loss, nausea, vertigo, and other symptoms. The government deemed retinal scans to be a serious threat to public safety and privacy. It wasn’t long before they passed the Optical Protection & Anonymity Act. Retinal scans were outlawed for public use, and heavily regulated for use by private and public organizations.

  Bruce came over to us. “This damn thing has been acting up a lot the last few weeks.” He tapped a physical button on the side of the retinal scanner, and an old-fashioned keyboard appeared. He began rattling lines and lines of commands, and after a couple of moments, he motioned for me to try again.

  I followed his instructions and got my eyes into place.

  Ding!

  I backed away, relieved that it worked. Then, the mechanical voice returned. “Scan successful. Greetings, Ryan Carter. Greetings, Charles Rios.”

  Instantly mortified, I turned to Helen who appeared to be equally stunned.

  Before I could say anything, Bruce chimed back in. “Shoot! Two results? I’m sorry, folks. Looks like you’ll just need to use the standard ID reader by my desk.”

  We were still in shock when we rigidly walked to the desk. I signed in with much better results. “Thank you, Ryan Carter. Your appointment will begin as scheduled.”

  We found seats in the empty waiting area, and Helen couldn’t contain her scowl nor her thoughts. “How did it know?”

  “Best guess…my white eye. Maybe the doc will know more.”

  We waited in silence for a couple minutes, and before we became too anxious, the intercom called my name.

  I walked back through the modest main area. As I passed the desk, I saw that Bruce had 3D printed the glasses he’d been fashioning, and he put them in a case. I entered a short hallway and went to the only one door that was cracked ajar. I pushed it open to a dimly lit room. Before my eyes could adjust, I heard a voice.

  “You’re here about your white pupil.”

  Fear overcame me because I hadn’t mentioned it when I made the appointment. “Who…what? How did you know?”

  “I can see it from over here.” It did tend to glow in the dark. But given how odd the day had already been, I wasn’t in the mood for games. “Dr. Patton? Is that you?”

  “It is. Come in.”

  I shook off my jitters, took a few steps in, and could finally see her sitting next to the observation chair. She was probably middle-aged, but even in the low light, I could tell she wore it well.

  “Have a seat, Ryan. Let’s have a look.”

  I o
bliged. She reached over her head and flipped on a light, then leaned in extra close to examine my eyes. She stared silently for just long enough to make it awkward and nodded. “Uh huh. Uh huh.”

  She hadn’t even pulled out any equipment, and it seemed like she was already diagnosing me. I had to know what she was seeing. “What is it?”

  “You recently had a mind migration, correct?” She was still centimeters from my face.

  “I did.”

  She sighed in my face. “This used to be rare. One or two a year. You’re the third one I’ve seen this month.”

  “What does it mean?”

  She shrugged. “The pigment is gone. You might find that you’re a little more sensitive to light. It’s otherwise benign.”

  “What caused it? Why does it glow?”

  “Studies haven’t even started yet. My theory? Probably a traumatic experience that your new brain couldn’t handle. Maybe something you didn’t even realize happened. Your new brain couldn’t process it, so an electrical overload occurred, and it funneled to your eye. The bioluminescence is more of that electricity escaping. Did it hurt when it happened?”

  My mind raced back to the night we blew up the old OL building. I had to actively keep myself calm. “Not really. It was more like pressure on the eye.”

  She finally sat back. “Yeah. You’re going to be fine.”

  I sighed. “You can tell that just by looking at me?”

  “Yes, and even though the retinal scan in the lobby is acting up, it still showed your vision as perfect. Any other questions or concerns?”

  I took a deep breath, acting calm. “Why do you suppose the retinal scanner mentioned two identities?”

  She stared at me for what seemed like five seconds.

  “Any ideas?” I continued.

  She turned away, and then, looked back into my eyes. “I’m sure you know why.”

  I couldn’t stop a frown from taking over my face, as if I’d been outed. I tried to compensate. “No, really. Why?”