Triggers (7 page)

She gave him another quizzical look, then: “I said, that was quite a surprise when the power went off, wasn’t it? I didn’t think that could happen here.”

“Oh, yeah. Yes, it was.” He was only about three feet away from her now, and he could see that her makeup was perfect—a little eyeliner, a little blue eye shadow—and her eyebrows had been recently and expertly plucked; in fact, he had a flash of seeing herself as she’d leaned toward a bathroom mirror, and he recalled a constellation of pain-points as she’d done the deed.

But thinking about her eyes brought forth other memories—memories of her
crying
—crying as someone screamed profanity at her. It was so shocking, so
wrong,
that Eric instinctively stepped backward.

“Janis,” he said, this time getting the full name out without hesitation—although he realized at once that it wasn’t the
full
name; her
full name actually was Janis Louise Falconi, and Falconi was her
married
name; her maiden name was Amundsen, and—

And he had to finish the sentence he’d begun! “Janis, um, are you okay?”

“As well as can be expected,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he replied, but he found himself backing further away.

SUSAN
Dawson had an odd feeling as she came into the room on the third floor, and it took her a moment to identify it; it was something she’d heard of but never experienced. The incongruity of having
déjà vu
for the first time made her head spin.

And it was indeed that: this room, this little office tucked away inside a hospital she hadn’t visited before, seemed familiar. It wasn’t just that many institutional offices looked alike—neutral colors, venetian blinds, tiled floors, fluorescent lights. No, there was more to it. The desk, the top of which seemed to be made of pine and was a distinctive kidney shape, looked…

She shook her head slightly, but…

But there was no denying it: it looked
exactly as she remembered it.

And yet she’d never seen it before. She
couldn’t
have.

Oh. Maybe she’d seen one like it in the IKEA catalog; they sold lots of stuff with pine veneers. But the silver-gray roller chair also looked familiar—as did the blue tennis racquet leaning against the wall, and the trophy, there. She knew what it was for, even though she couldn’t
read the engraving on it from this distance: it was the top prize from the recent LT tennis tournament.

And the wide bookcase, with its dark green shelves and rows of journals with identical spines, somehow were familiar, too. A memory came to her, and this one she did recognize as her own: her anger many years ago when
National Geographic
had done a special issue on oceans and had given the magazine a blue cover and spine instead of the traditional yellow one, breaking up the lovely set she’d been collecting ever since her grandfather had started sending her gift subscriptions when she was a little girl. And here, in this office, one of the journal volumes had a green spine instead of the wine-colored ones all the others had.

She looked at the wall. On it were three diplomas, including one from McGill University; she was pleased with herself for knowing that it was in Montreal. There was also a framed photograph of a brown-skinned woman and three similarly complexioned children, and—

And the woman’s name was Devi, and the children were Harpreet, Amneet, and Gursiman.

But she’d never met them before. She was sure of that. And yet—

And yet
memories
of them were pouring into her consciousness. Birthday parties, vacations, Harpreet getting in trouble at school for swearing, and—

“Are you Agent Dawson?” The voice was richly accented.

She spun on her heel and found herself facing a Sikh wearing a jade green turban and a pale blue lab coat. “Ranjip,” she said, the name blurting out of her.

His brown eyes narrowed slightly. “Have we met?” He looked to be perhaps fifty; his beard had wisps of gray in it.

“Um,” said Susan, and “ah,” and then, at last, “no—no, I don’t think so. But…but you
are
Ranjip Singh, right?”

The man smiled, and Susan belatedly realized that he was quite handsome. “As my son would say—”

“‘That’s my name; don’t wear it out.’” The words had come to Susan in a flash. She found her hand going to her mouth, startled. “I, um—he
does
say that, doesn’t he?”

Singh smiled again, his friendly eyes crinkling. “So do lots of kids his age. He also likes the one about the chicken going halfway across the road to—”

“To lay it on the line,” said Susan. Her heart was pounding. “What in hell is going on?” She found herself taking a half step backward. “I don’t know you. I don’t know your son. I’ve never been in this room before.”

Singh nodded and gestured at the office’s single chair—the familiar and yet unfamiliar silver-gray roller. “Won’t you have a seat?”

She normally would have stayed standing—it was a stronger position. But she was feeling unsteady, so she took him up on his offer. For his part, Singh leaned against the dark brown bookcase with the green shelves. “As you say,” he said “something is going on. And I do fear it may be my fault.”

Susan felt her eyebrows going up. “You were doing an experiment here,” she said. “Well, not here; down the corridor, in room, um, 324. It’s—damn, it’s too technical; I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

Susan stopped. “No, you haven’t. What in hell is happening?”

Singh blew out air. “I’d initially thought just my patient and I had been affected, but I see
you
have been affected, too. I didn’t anticipate that. And it seems you can access my memories?”

“‘Abso-freakin’-lootely,’ as your son would say.” She paused for a second. “God, it’s
strange.”
And then it hit her. “So, can you read
my
memories?”

“No,” said Singh. “Not me. My patient—he’s accessing your memories. That’s how I knew you were here with Dr. Griffin; he told me.”

“What about you? Are you…how did you put it? Are you accessing someone?”

“Yes. I know his name, but it’s no one I’ve ever met.”

“Is it someone here at the hospital?”

“Yes. A surgeon named Lucius Jono.”

“But—but how did this happen?” Susan asked.

“I was doing an experiment, attempting to modify a young man’s memories.
The lights went off—which should
never
happen in a hospital—then there was a power surge of some sort.”

“More than that,” said Susan. “There was an electromagnetic pulse.”

“Ah,” said Singh. “Perhaps that explains it. In any event,
this
seems to be the result.”

Susan looked around, getting her bearings. “Room 324 is just down this hall, isn’t it? I was right next door, in the observation gallery above one of the operating rooms. I was maybe a dozen feet from you when the lights went off while you were doing your experiment.”

“Yes,” said Singh. “So I guess people within a certain radius were affected.”

Susan felt her eyes go wide. “But the president—God! The president was even closer, but down below—maybe eight or ten feet down, on the second floor.”

Ranjip nodded solemnly. “Yes. I know all about the operation—because Dr. Jono, the person I’m linked to, was there; he was one of the people assisting in the procedure.”

“Shit! If someone’s reading the president’s memories—Christ, national security goes right out the window.” Susan ran out the door and down the corridor to the third-floor nurses’ station. She whipped out her ID. “Susan Dawson, Secret Service. I want this building locked down immediately. No one gets in or out.”

The stocky nurse looked flabbergasted. “I—I don’t have the authority…”

“Then get me Dr. Griffin—
stat!”

The nurse scooped up a telephone handset.

Susan caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She wheeled. A broad-shouldered white man was walking briskly toward the elevator. “Freeze!” she shouted.

The man had doubtless heard what Susan had said to the nurse, but now was pretending not to hear. He reached the elevator station and pressed the down button.

“I said
freeze!”
Susan snapped. “Secret Service!” She unholstered her SIG Sauer P229.

The man turned; he was perhaps thirty-five, with light brown hair and round rimless glasses, and was wearing a blue business suit. “I’m just a visitor here,” he said.

“No one is leaving,” Susan said.

The man at the elevators spread his arms. “Please. I’ve got a crucial meeting across town. I
have
to be there.”

Susan shook her head. “No way. Step away from the elevator.”

The phone on the nurse’s desk rang; the nurse picked it up. “Yes, ah—good. Hang on.” She offered the handset to Susan, but Susan was holding her pistol with both hands and had it trained on the man.

“Is that a speakerphone? Put it on.”

The nurse shook her head. “No.”

Susan frowned, then motioned for the nurse to give her the handset. She used her left hand to hold it while keeping the gun in her right. “Dr. Griffin? It’s Susan Dawson. I want this hospital locked down.”

“I can’t do that,” Griffin said. “There’s been an explosion only a mile from here, for God’s sake. We’re an emergency-services facility.”

“They evacuated the White House in time.”

“Regardless,” said Griffin. “There’s been a terrorist attack. We need to be open.”

“Mister
Griffin, the president is in danger. Lock this building down!”

Just then, an orderly pushing a gurney crossed in front of Susan’s line of sight—and line of fire. The elevator doors opened, and the man who’d been standing by them hurried inside, just as the orderly was eclipsing him from Susan’s view. Susan dropped the phone and started to run, but the elevator’s door closed before she got to it.

“Where are the stairs?” Susan barked over her shoulder.

“There!” the nurse shouted, pointing.

Susan found the door, pushed it open, and pounded down the two flights, almost colliding with a startled doctor who was climbing up.

The elevator must have stopped on the second floor on the way down because she arrived in the lobby just as it did. A portly woman was waddling out of the car, followed by the man she’d seen upstairs.

“Freeze!” Susan called.

The woman did just that, but the man still kept walking. Susan moved herself between him and the doors leading outside and pointed her pistol at him. “I said freeze!”

People in the lobby screamed, and another man tried to make it out the front door, running toward it. But the automatic door didn’t slide away, and he collided with the glass.

A deep voice came over the intercom: Dr. Griffin. “Attention, everyone. Attention, please. We have a situation here in the hospital, and I’m locking all the doors.”

The guy who’d come out of the elevator mouthed the word, “Fuck.”

Susan strode over to him. “Come with me.”

“There’s seven figures on the line here,” he said imploringly. “I have to get to that meeting.”

“No, you don’t. What you have to do is precisely what I tell you to do.” She pulled out her handcuffs and snapped them on his wrists.

THE
man who had tried to escape the hospital turned out to be a lawyer named Orrin Gillett. Susan Dawson took him to a room on the third floor. There was a TV in the room, and she put it on and turned to CNN. She’d hoped for an update on the attempted assassination, but the current story was about the destruction of the White House. Susan watched, mesmerized, horrified; she’d spent most of the last three years in that historic building.

The camera was panning left and right. The mansion reduced to rubble. The two wings gutted by fire. Billowing smoke.

Susan fought back tears. Gillett looked on in shock, too, his jaw hanging loosely open. The voice-over was talking about echoes of 9/11, and Susan flashed back to how stunned and terrified she’d felt when the Twin Towers had collapsed. Back then, she hadn’t yet ever held a gun, hadn’t yet ever fired a shot, hadn’t yet been trained to be cool and calm during a crisis. But she felt no better able to handle this now than she had in 2001; it was just as overwhelming, just as heartbreaking.

At last, the ruins of the White House disappeared, replaced by the
lined face of a news anchor, himself looking as devastated as Susan felt. She forced herself back to the here and now, back to her duty. She got a security guard to lock Gillett in the room, then she half walked, half staggered down the hall to see Professor Singh in his office. “Your research subjects,” she said as she entered, more of Singh’s memories bubbling up in her consciousness, “suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Singh was seated in his roller chair. “That’s right. They have terrible flashbacks, mostly related to events from whatever war they were in.”

Singh’s patients weren’t the only ones suffering from post-traumatic stress, she thought: the whole damned world had to be experiencing flashbacks today. Still, information about Singh’s technique came to her. “And you were trying to erase those bad memories?”

“Yes.”

“But the…the
effect
wasn’t well contained, was it?”

“Something happened,” said Singh with an amiable shrug. “I honestly don’t know what. When the electricity came back on, there was an enormous power surge through the equipment. And these—these
linkages
—are the result.”

“Terrorists blew up the White House,” Susan said. “That’s what caused the electromagnetic pulse I mentioned.”

Singh sagged back in his chair and his bearded jaw dropped. “The White House is…gone?”

It was still almost impossible to contemplate. “Yes,” Susan said softly.

Singh lifted a questioning hand, but it was shaking badly. “A nuke?”

Susan struggled to stay focused, stay in command. “No. Same kind of bomb as in Chicago, SF, and Philly. Non-nuclear and with a very limited E1 component to the pulse. They disrupt electronics but don’t do much permanent damage. The pulse is just a side effect; the real destruction is done by the intense heat.”