Robert Sawyer - Triggers

Susan nodded. “We think it’s possible, sir. We’ve locked down the hospital because of it. Don’t worry—no one is getting in or out.” She turned to Singh. “But it isn’t this Adams who is reading the president, right?”

“He certainly has given no indication of that,” said Singh. “We don’t have a lot of data yet, but it seems the links are not reciprocal. Rather, they appear to form a chain. The president is reading Kadeem Adams; Kadeem is reading you, Agent Dawson; you are reading me; and I’m reading Dr. Lucius Jono.”

“So then this Jono is the one reading the president?” Susan asked.

“Let us hope,” said Singh. “We don’t know how long the chain is, or whether it closes into a circle. However, from what I’ve seen, the linkages are first-order, shall we say? That is, you can remember what I remember, but you can’t remember through me to what Dr. Jono remembers, isn’t that right?”

Susan frowned. “Yes, I guess that is the case. I can’t recall any of this Jono person’s memories.”

“And, Mr. President, is it safe to say that you recall what Private Adams recalls, but not what Agent Dawson remembers, even though she is the one Private Adams is reading?”

Jerrison considered, then: “Yes, that’s right. Even looking at you, Susan, I can’t recall your memories.”

“Okay, good,” said Singh. “At least we don’t have a cascade.” A pause. “I would like to speak to Private Adams and see how accurate the president’s recollections are. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes…”

Susan nodded, and she moved aside so he could leave the room.

Seth was grateful for a chance to stop talking—it was all so much to take in, and he was more exhausted than he’d ever felt in his life. Sheila came over and adjusted one of the drip bags attached to his arm. He looked over at Susan and saw her touch a finger to her earpiece. “Copy that,” she said at last. She then looked at Seth. “I’m sorry, Mr. President. We didn’t tell you yet that the would-be assassin is dead. But they’ve positively ID’d the body now, and—” Seth saw her glance at Roger Michaelis, who looked shocked; he’d presumably just heard the same thing Susan had through his own earpiece.

“Yes?” Seth prodded.

“It was Gordon Danbury,” Susan said. “He was one of us—a Secret Service agent.”

Once he’d left nurse Janis Falconi, Eric Redekop went by his office and got his Bose noise-canceling headphones. He’d originally bought them for long flights, but now used them at the hospital when he needed to sleep. Eric liked to sleep on his side, and he’d thought there’d be no comfortable way to wear the headphones when doing so, but the hospital had a supply of donut-shaped pillows for people with broken tailbones or hemorrhoids to sit on, and he’d found that the hole nicely accommodated the large earpiece.

He headed down to the staff sleep room on the first floor, turned the headphones on, turned off the lights in the room, and lay down on one of the cots. He’d hoped to fall right to sleep, but…

But being here, on his side, in a semifetal position, made him think of…

…of lying next to a man like this, turned away from him, trying to pretend the man wasn’t there, and—

And it was Tony Falconi, Janis’s husband. She lay like this every night, trying to ignore him, hoping he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t initiate the ninety seconds of pounding away that was his idea of sex, wouldn’t leave her unfulfilled.

Damn it, damn it, damn it. He did not want to know any of this. He had no idea what the hell was going on, but—

But there had to be a rational explanation.

He was so tired—the surgery on the president had been grueling.

The headphones were doing their job—eliminating the actual background noise of the hospital. But the background noise of Janis Falconi’s memories continued unabated, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to shut them out.

Susan Dawson had to sit down. She’d known Gordon Danbury for years. He’d been a military sharpshooter in Afghanistan, and, upon his return to the States, had decided to try his luck with the Secret Service. That meant taking the ten-week Criminal Investigator Training Program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, followed by the seventeen-week Special Agent Training Course at the James J. Rowley Training Center, just outside DC.

Susan had first met Danbury at Rowley; active agents spent two weeks every two months there honing their skills. He’d seemed like a nice enough guy although he didn’t drink. Still, he was buff with a great face. Or, she supposed, he’d had a great face; apparently, he’d landed on it when he fell in the elevator shaft, which was why it took so long for anyone to recognize him.

She looked over at Agent Michaelis; he’d known Danbury, too. He was shaking his head slowly back and forth as if he couldn’t believe the news.

President Jerrison was lying flat on his back, tubes going into his arm from drip bags, a small oxygen feed tucked into his nostrils. “Danbury,” Jerrison said. “I don’t think I knew him.”

“You wouldn’t normally have run into him, sir,” Susan said. “He was one of the sharpshooters deployed on the roof of the White House.”

“The bomb,” Jerrison said.

Susan nodded. “Yes, it seems likely he was the one who planted it. He’d have had easy access to the White House roof—although how he got a large metallic device through security to get up there, I don’t know.” She listened to her earpiece again, then: “Anyway, they’re sending investigators to his house; see what they can find.”

They were all silent for a time, until Agent Michaelis spoke. “This is crazy.”

Susan thought he was referring to Danbury. “Yeah. You think you know a guy…”

“Not that,” said Michaelis, “although that’s crazy, too. I mean this memory stuff.”

“Are you experiencing any outside memories?” Susan asked.

“Me?” said Michaelis. “No.”

“Professor Singh’s memories are coming more easily for me all the time,” Susan said. “His phone number, his employment history. I even think, if I thought about it hard enough, that I could speak a little Punjabi—not to mention some bad Canadian French.” She paused. “Why would the president and I have been affected and not you? We were all pretty close together. You were just outside the O.R., right?”

“Yeah,” said Michaelis.

“Did you leave that area at any point?”

“No. Well, no, except to go the washroom. In fact, that’s where I was when the lights went out.”

“And you stayed there through the blackout?”

“Sure. It didn’t last long.”

“No, it didn’t,” said Susan. “I’m no scientist, but—”

“The blackout?” said the president.

“Um, yes, sir. There was an EMP when the bomb went off at the White House—same as what happened in Chicago and Philadelphia.” She turned to Michaelis. “How far was the washroom from the O.R.?”

“Halfway down the corridor. Maybe fifty feet.”

“Did anybody take your place outside the operating-room door?”

“No. I signaled Dougherty, who was on my right, and Rosenbaum, on my left, that I was going off station for a moment; they had line of sight to each other, so…”

Susan nodded, then: “Singh’s lab was more or less above the operating room. So the effect probably was limited in radius—and you’d stepped outside it at the crucial moment.”

Singh came into the room, accompanied, coincidentally, by Agent Dougherty, whom Michaelis had just mentioned.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Susan said to Singh. “I can even access your most recent memories, including new ones since the power surge.”