Robert Sawyer - Triggers

He tried not to think about anything intrusive, but that was impossible. Telling himself not to wonder about her sex life had the same effect as wondering about her sex life: it immediately brought memories to mind of her and her husband Tony, and—

Damn it.

Tony pushing into her, even though she wasn’t wet.

And his inability to keep from ejaculating almost at once.

And his rolling off her, and lying on his side, his back to her, ignoring her after he was done, leaving her sad and frustrated and unfulfilled, and—

Damn it, damn it, damn it! He didn’t want any of this, and—

And he was passing a woman’s washroom now, and—

Oh, Christ, no.

But it came to him.

Her, in there.

At night.

No one else around.

And—

And Janis was a nurse, and she had access to all sorts of drugs, including ones designed to make pain go away, and she’d been in so much pain because of Tony for so long now. He saw her tattooed arm, recalling it in much greater detail than he could have on his own, knowing the pattern of stripes on the tiger, the deployment of its claws, the glint in its eyes. He knew it like—well, yes, the cliché applied—like the back of his own hand. But that arm was holding a syringe, and Janis was injecting herself.

For once, he did try to search her memories, looking for any sign that she was a diabetic, but—

But no. He knew what he was seeing, what he was recalling. She was shooting up. To make life bearable, to get her though the day.

He was sympathetic. He knew drug addiction was common among nurses and doctors, but he did not wish to know her secrets, damn it. And, for God’s sake, he was obligated to report this, but—

But what would he report? That he thought he remembered her shooting up? She hadn’t willingly shared that with him, and he hadn’t stumbled upon evidence. It was just in his head.

He continued to walk the corridors of the hospital, hating himself for invading her privacy and wishing it would all come to an end.

Orrin Gillett came out of the room Agent Dawson was using for interviews. Rachel Cohen closed the magazine and put it back on the little table next to her chair, walked the short distance to where he was, and smiled her sweetest smile. “Hi,” she said.

Orrin looked startled that she was still here. “Oh, hi,” he replied. It wasn’t nearly as sunny a greeting as before. “So I’m guessing from what you said before that you’re the person who’s reading me, right?”

Rachel nodded. “Right. Care to go for a walk?”

“They’re not letting us leave the hospital yet.”

“No. But we can go down to the lobby; the cafeteria’s there. Maybe get a bite to eat.”

“All right,” Orrin said, but he sounded distracted.

“’Kay,” she replied. “Just a sec.” She went to a nearby drinking fountain and bent over to get some water, her jeans pulling tight as she did so. It was a bit tricky to glance at him from this posture, but—yes—Orrin was checking her out. She allowed herself a smile that he couldn’t see, then walked back to him. “Shall we go?”

Peter Muilenburg and a half-dozen senior strategists were poring over weather forecasts for the target sites. The door opened, and a male aide came in. “Excuse me, Mr. Secretary.”

“Yes?” replied Muilenburg.

“I’ve just gotten off the phone with the Secret Service agent-in-charge at Lima Tango, a Susan Dawson. They’re getting a better handle on what’s happening there. Yes, it seems clear that someone has access to Jerrison’s memories, but they’re just like any memories. Unless something brings a specific one to mind, you’re not even aware you have that memory. It takes something to trigger it.”

Muilenburg looked up at the display board, and he saw the call sign CVN-74, representing the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, move a bit closer to its target position.

“Well,” said Muilenburg, “let’s hope whoever it is doesn’t read a newspaper or watch the news between now and the zero hour, because I can’t see that stuff without thinking it’s high time someone did something —and if they think that, they’ll know what that something is, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” said the aide. “I imagine they will.”

Kadeem Adams knew that President Jerrison was confined to his room in the ICU. But the man was gregarious by nature; Kadeem had seen that often enough on TV. And he was doubtless lonely. It was no fun being hospitalized, as Kadeem himself well knew. But, more than that, Jerrison was a politician; he wouldn’t be able to resist the photo op. Even bedridden by an assassin’s bullet, the president would make time to see an Iraq War vet, to have his picture taken shaking the young man’s hand, and—yes, Kadeem knew the stats—given how poorly Jerrison was doing with African-Americans in the polls, to be seen congratulating a black soldier would be the best of all.

And so he went to Professor Singh’s office and waited patiently outside the closed door until the man Susan Dawson had been questioning came out. Before she could bring someone else in, he entered himself.

Susan looked slightly flustered. “Hello, Kadeem.”

He smiled his warmest smile. “Hey, Sue.”

She didn’t return the smile. “It’s awkward, you knowing my memories.”

“Sorry ’bout showing off earlier. I don’t mean to pry.”

She nodded. “No worse than what I’ve been doing with Professor Singh’s mind, I guess. I just hope these linkages aren’t going to last forever.”

“I dunno,” said Kadeem. “It be cool, in a way. I never got to go to college. But now I got a college-level education, kinda: whatever you remember of your classes, I can remember. Don’t think geography would have been my choice of major, but I know things now I’d never have known.”

“I guess,” said Susan. “Anyway, what can I do for you, Kadeem?”

“Ma’am,” he said, “I got a favor to ask.”

She tilted her head slightly, apparently noting that he’d dropped the overly familiar “Sue.”

“Yes?”

“The president, he’s just downstairs, right?”

She looked for a moment like she was going to deny it—a reflex security concern—but there was no point; it had been mentioned on newscasts that he was on the second floor. She nodded.

“I’d like to see him. Meet him. Y’know? Something to tell my grandkids about someday.”

Kadeem had no doubt that Susan, or one of her associates, had already been through his service record in minute detail. They’d know it was exemplary, and that he even had a degree of security clearance because of the weapon systems he’d worked with. There was no reason at all to think he presented a risk.

“He’s still quite weak. He’s in intensive care.”

“I know, ma’am. And I know you’ve gotten to see him every day for years. But for a guy like me, I’ll never get another…” He stopped himself; saying “shot at this” would hardly be the right phrasing just now. “…chance. Would mean the world to me.”

Agent Dawson didn’t reply at once, and so, Kadeem added, smiling as nicely as he could, “Please, ma’am.”

He suspected she was weighing the new reality: that he’d know whether or not she actually tried to get him an audience; that she couldn’t get away with just saying she’d asked, but someone higher up had denied his request. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Seth Jerrison had been fascinated by codes ever since he’d stumbled across Herbert S. Zim’s classic Codes and Secret Writing in his school library when he was ten. Zim had outlined all sorts of ways to conceal written communication: everything from language tricks such as Pig Latin and Oppish to making invisible ink with lemon juice. He’d also demonstrated lots of substitution-cipher systems; the tic-tac-toe code had long been one of Seth’s favorites.