Robert Sawyer - Triggers

Rachel thought about my girlfriend, but no memory came to her. And then—well, he was pretty buff, and impeccably dressed to boot!—she thought about my boyfriend. But the only memories that came were of her own exes, the most recent of which had left her life—or, at least, her bed—ten months ago.

And speaking of exes—ah.

Melinda.

And Valerie.

And Jennifer.

And Franca.

And Ann-Marie.

And that bitch Naomi.

She thought about them, but—

No, that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t think about them collectively; she had to pick one, and think about just her. Say, Valerie.

Ah. Blonde. Brown-eyed. Big-breasted. Rachel glanced down at her own chest: well, two out of three ain’t bad. And—oh, my! Our Val liked it a little rough, didn’t she? But…

But Orrin actually didn’t. He played it up that way, because Val asked him to, but—

Ah, in fact that was one of the reasons they’d broken up.

She tried another one. Jennifer.

Hmmm. Long straight hair, blue eyes, and…a very strong chin—

Oh my God! It was Jennifer Aniston! Orrin had dated Jennifer Aniston!

But no. That was crazy. Aniston lived in Los Angeles and she dated movie stars and—

Of course. Thinking about Jennifer now, her last name was Sinclair, not Aniston. But Rachel was conjuring up the only long-haired, blue-eyed Jennifer she herself knew, or knew of—and, of course, the character Jennifer Aniston was most famous for playing had also been named Rachel.

Jennifer and Orrin had dated for only a couple of months. And, at least as Orrin remembered it, they had parted on good terms—although he’d not heard from Ms. Sinclair since.

Rachel picked up a magazine—the cover story, like so many magazines of late, was related to the spate of terrorist attacks; the cover photo was of the smoldering remains of the Willis Tower, the building Rachel had always called the Sears Tower until the day it fell. But she didn’t put on her glasses even though she thought her new pair with the mauve frames looked great on her. Instead, she stared at the pages of fuzzy type, concentrating not on them but on Orrin’s past.

Prostitutes.

The memories were of streetwalkers seen in bad neighborhoods—but no direct interaction with them. Although those memories did slide into strippers, and he’d seen a bunch of them over the years, mostly while entertaining clients. The best place in DC, in his opinion, was the Stadium Club.

She turned the page; there was an ad for some pharmaceutical or other, and—

Rape.

Nothing.

I know she said she didn’t want it, but you could tell…

Nothing.

And, finally, just to be sure…

I can be a real asshole when it comes to…

She took a deep breath, and lifted her gaze now, looking at the featureless pale green wall in front of her.

…those damn telephone solicitors who call during dinner.

Rachel smiled, put down the magazine, folded her hands, and waited.

“Thanks, Darryl,” Susan said to Agent Hudkins, as he deposited Orrin Gillett in the office she was using.

Darryl nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Susan turned to the lawyer. “Mr. Gillett, you were in quite a hurry to leave earlier.” She was still sitting in the roller chair behind the kidney-shaped desk; Gillett had taken the seat opposite her.

“Yes, as I said, I had a meeting to get to.” He looked her in the eye and added, defiantly, “An important meeting.”

“I do apologize,” Susan said, in a tone that she hoped conveyed that she didn’t really; she was still pissed at this clown. “Still, let me ask you a few questions. Can you tell me what you were doing here at the hospital?”

“I was visiting a friend, a partner in my law firm. He was in a car accident yesterday.”

“And where were you when the lights went out?”

“In the corridor. I’d just left my friend’s room.”

“And tell me, Mr. Gillett, have you had any unusual experiences since 11:06 A.M. this morning?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “I had a Secret Service agent pull a gun on me.”

Susan had to admire the man’s moxie. She allowed herself a half smile. “Besides that, I mean.”

“No.”

“No unusual thoughts?”

Gillett narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Just that: any unexpected visions, or memories, or…?”

“That’s a very strange question,” Gillett said.

“Yes, it is,” replied Susan. “Do you have a very strange answer?”

Gillett spread his arms. “What would you have me say?”

“Well, President Jerrison is in the building, and—”

“Yes, I know.”

Susan was about to let that pass; after all, there were lots of TVs in the hospital, and hundreds of smartphones that could have been used to look at news reports, not to mention doctors and nurses buzzing about what was going on. But something in the way Gillett had said “I know” struck her. “How?” she asked. “How do you know?”

He looked like he was at war with himself, trying to decide how much to share. She asked again: “How exactly do you know?”

Finally, Gillett nodded. “All right, okay. You mentioned visions. Well, I was—it was like I was in the corridor, as the president was rushed into surgery. I was—I had a gun, but I swear to you, Miss Dawson, I had nothing to do with what happened to the president. There were these two people on gurneys, an older man and a younger woman, and there was a nurse—a, um, forgive me, but a stacked nurse—and…”

Susan thought for a moment. There’d been a security guard with the two people in the corridor; she’d since learned the two people had been scheduled for a kidney-transplant operation, and she guessed the guard had been summoned in case they got unruly at being bumped to make room for Prospector. She consulted her notes for the security guard’s name. “Ivan Tarasov—does that name mean anything to you?”

“Yes,” said Gillett. Then, more enthusiastically, “Yes! I don’t know how, but I know all about him. He’s been a guard here for four years, and he’s got a wife named Sally and a three-year-old daughter named Tanya.”

Susan asked him a few more questions, just to be sure he really was linked to Tarasov. When she was done, Gillett said, “So, can I leave the hospital now?”

“No,” said Susan. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to stay a while longer.”

“Look, unless you’re going to charge me with something—”

“Mister Gillett,” Susan said sharply. “I don’t have to charge you with anything. This is a national-security matter. You’re going to do what I say.”

Eric Redekop walked along a hallway at LT, wanting nothing more in the world than to go home. He was exhausted, and…

And, damn it all, he kept accessing Janis Falconi’s memories. He didn’t want them. He didn’t want them at all. Yes, it was flattering—and surprising!—to know that she found him attractive. But he felt like a stalker, like he was invading her life, like a total fucking creep. That they both worked at LT just made matters worse: so many things here triggered him to recall her memories. That painting on the corridor wall: he’d never really noticed it before, but she’d stopped and looked at it repeatedly. Of course: she was an artist in her own right, he knew. And that orderly, there, walking toward him, whose name he’d never known before, was Scott Edwards, who had hit on Jan repeatedly.

He didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know any of it. But he knew it all; for any question he wondered about, the answer instantly came to him. How much she made, when and where she’d lost her virginity, and—Christ—what her menstrual cramps felt like. He hadn’t wondered about that—what man would?—but seeing the wall calendar, there, had brought to mind that her period had just ended, and that had led to the recollection of the pains.