Robert Sawyer - Triggers

“Looks the same,” said Smith, then, “Oh!”

Oh, indeed, thought Cheung. There was a difference: one single word, the very last word in the file. Instead of ending with “Praise be to God,” in his earlier draft, Gordon Danbury of the United States Secret Service had written, “Praise be to Allah.”

Eric Redekop woke with a start in the staff sleep room. The door had opened, and someone else had come in to use one of the other cots. He rolled onto his back, resting his head on the donut-shaped pillow, and looked up at the ceiling.

Eric knew that dreams were a key part of the brain’s process of consolidating memories—of determining which of the day’s events were important enough to store permanently. He only remembered his dreams when, as now, he awoke during them. But this dream was—

It was the most astonishing thing. He never recalled colors from his dreams. He’d always imagined that was because the act of dreaming predated the advent of color vision in primates. Dogs dreamed, after all, and they didn’t see in color. He’d read about the experiment that had eliminated the part of a dog’s nervous system that caused sleep paralysis—the effect that kept one from acting out one’s dreams. Not surprisingly, it revealed that dogs dreamt about running and hunting and humping.

But he had just dreamt about…well, it was hard to say. The imagery was the usual surreal dreamscape mishmash, but there was vibrant color in it: a scarlet dress, an azure sky, someone with striking emerald eyes, someone else with copper-colored hair.

He’d heard that artistic people were more likely to have vivid dreams, and, of course, Jan Falconi had made the original tiger illustration that a tattoo artist had faithfully transferred to her skin. He guessed that he was now consolidating her latest memories, flying through them the way she herself would have: Janis and the amazing Technicolor dream float.

He opened his eyes and saw a short, thin Asian woman: Christine Lee, the anesthesiologist who had worked on Jerrison. She said something, but he couldn’t make it out; he moved one of the noise-canceling earphones off his ear. “Pardon?”

“Sorry to wake you,” Christine said. “Who’d have thought putting other people to sleep could be so exhausting?”

Eric interlaced his fingers behind his head. “That’s okay.”

“I just need to lie down,” Christine said, apologetically.

“No problem,” Eric replied. He was still tired but was grateful for the intrusion; anything was better than the craziness swirling through his head.

Christine moved over to another cot and sat on its edge, holding her head in her hands.

“Are you okay?” Eric asked. The room was dimly lit, and he couldn’t quite make out Christine’s expression.

“I guess,” she said.

Eric removed the headset and propped his head up with a crooked arm. “You did great earlier today, Christine.”

“What?” she said. “Oh. Thanks. It’s not that.”

He didn’t say anything more, but after a minute she went on. “You know David January?”

Eric did his best Peter Lorre impression. “You despise me, don’t you, Rick?”

He’d hoped for a smile, but all he got was a nod. “That’s him. Little bug-eyed man.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve known him for a few years,” Christine said. “But not well. But now I know all sorts of things about him. It’s like…”

She trailed off. Eric felt his heart pounding. He wanted to say, “It’s like you can access his memories, right?” But he couldn’t say that—that was crazy.

Christine didn’t say anything else, and Eric stared at her, wondering what to say. He felt like he was going out of his mind, but—but—

It hit him. God, yes. He’d been so discombobulated by his encounter with nurse Janis Falconi that he’d forgotten what had happened earlier. But suddenly he recalled Nikki, the distraught woman who had accosted Jurgen Sturgess. She had known his name. He sat up on the cot. “Christine?”

She was still sitting there, head in her hands. “Hmmm?”

“Something very weird is happening.”

Susan Dawson went to the round lobby, which had a very high ceiling; people on the second floor could look down on the comings and goings. Except of course that, right now, there were no comings or goings. Susan had a brief word with the uniformed security guard who kept individuals from getting into the hospital proper without showing ID, then she crossed over to the cafeteria, passing people who looked dazed, people who looked inconsolable, people who looked scared to death.

Inside the cafeteria, there were hospital staff and visitors with food in front of them, but they mostly weren’t eating. Rather, they were talking in low tones about what had happened. She saw one man comforting a woman who was sobbing softly, and another man with his head down on the table in front of him; he seemed to be crying, too.

The first couple of people Susan asked didn’t know Dr. Lucius Jono, but the third person, a woman with eyes wide open as if still half in shock, did, and she pointed to a compact man with wild red hair sitting with three other men; they were all wearing white hospital smocks. Just as Singh had said, a discarded half of a bacon cheeseburger and most of an order of onion rings were still on a plate on the brown tray in front of Jono.

“Dr. Lucius Jono?” Susan said as she came up to the table. She pulled out her ID. “Susan Dawson, Secret Service. Might I have a word with you in private?”

Jono lifted his eyebrows—he really should trim those things, Susan thought; they looked like orange caterpillars that had been given electroshock therapy. He crammed one final onion ring into his mouth, excused himself from his colleagues, and stood. “What’s up?”

“This way, please,” Susan said. She led him across the wide lobby, past the security guard, and into the hospital. They took the elevator up to the third floor. Susan had decided to co-opt Professor Singh’s office for her use—after all, crazy as it seemed, it was intimately familiar to her; she knew, for instance, where to find the paper clips if she needed one. When they got there, she sat behind the kidney-shaped desk and motioned for Jono to take the other chair.

Susan hesitated, not quite sure how to pose the insane questions she needed to ask. Finally, she simply dove in. “Something odd is going on here at the hospital involving memories, and—”

“You mean it’s not just me?” asked Jono, looking relieved.

“It’s not,” said Susan. “Tell me about what you’ve experienced.”

“It’s like—God, it’s like I know all sorts of things I shouldn’t know, like, um—where do you live?”

Susan was startled by the question, but answered it. “Kenilworth.”

“Interesting neighborhood,” he said at once. “Average house price this past quarter was $223,000. Some wonderful old homes, although they tend not to have enough bathrooms—but I know a couple of excellent fixer-uppers.”

“What are you talking about?” Susan said.

“Real estate,” said Jono. “It’s like I suddenly know all about real estate. And I’ve never known anything about that. I moved here five years ago, after having a long-distance relationship with the woman I live with now; she already had a house here. I’ve never bought a home in this part of the world, but I know all the districts, average selling prices, and so on, not to mention a whole bunch of techniques for closing a deal.”

“What do you know about the president of the United States?” Susan asked.

“Medically?” said Jono. “Tons now, of course. He’s in good shape internally for a man his age.”