Robert Sawyer: Triggers

Susan looked through the angled glass at the chaos below. Redekop was still squeezing the president’s heart, but the vital-signs monitor continued to show a flat line. “I think we’ve lost him.”

Rory Proctor had been using his binoculars when the bomb went off. As soon as he saw the flare of light, he lowered them—just in time to see the entire curved back of the White House blow out toward him. A plume of smoke started rising into the gray sky, and gouts of fire shot out of the shattered windows of the east and west wings. Screams went up all around him.

Seth Jerrison’s deep, dark secret was that he was an atheist. He’d managed to secure the Republican nomination by lying through his teeth about it, by periodically attending church, by bowing his head when appropriate in public, and—after numerous reprimands from his wife and campaign director—finally breaking himself of the habit of using “Jesus” and “Christ” as swearwords, even in private.

He believed in fiscal conservatism, he believed in small government, he believed in taking a strong stand against America’s enemies whether nations or individuals, he believed in capitalism, and he believed English should be the official language of the United States.

But he did not believe in God.

The handful of RNC members who knew this sometimes chided him for it. Rusty, his campaign manager, had once looked at him with a kindly smile—the sort one might bestow on a silly child who had claimed that when he grew up he was going to be president—and said, “Sure, you might be an atheist now, but just wait until you’re dying—you’ll see.”

But Seth was dying right now. He could feel his strength fading, feel his life draining away.

And still he felt secure in his atheism. Even as his vision contracted into a tunnel, the thoughts that came to him were of the scientific explanation for that phenomenon. It was caused by anoxia, and was, after all, commonly experienced even in situations that weren’t immediately life-threatening.

He was momentarily surprised not to be feeling any panic or pain. But, then again, that was normal, too, he knew: a sense of euphoria also went with oxygen deprivation. And so he managed a certain detachment. He was surprised to be conscious at all; he knew he’d been shot in the torso. Surely they’d given him a general anesthetic before performing surgery, and he must be in surgery by now, but…

But there was no doubt his mind was active. He tried, and failed, to open his eyes; tried, and failed, to sit up; tried, and failed, to speak. And, unlike some horror stories he’d heard about patients feeling every scalpel cut and stitch while supposedly knocked out, he was experiencing no pain at all, thank—well, thank biochemistry!

Ah, and now the white light had begun to appear: pure, brilliant, but not at all painful to…well, not to look at; he wasn’t seeing with his eyes, after all. But to contemplate.

A pristine, bright, soothing, inviting light…

And then, just as those who’d come back from the brink said it sometimes does, his life began to flash in front of his eyes.

A kindly female face.

A playground.

Childhood friends.

A public school.

But he didn’t remember all the graffiti, all the litter, the broken stonework, and—

No, no, that was ridiculous. Of course he remembered it—or he wouldn’t be seeing it now.

But…

A knife. Blood.

Tattered clothes.

The air shimmering. Unbearable heat. Screams. The stench of…yes, of burning flesh.

No, no, he’d been a good person! He had. He’d done his best always. And even with him agreeing to Counterpunch, he couldn’t be going to hell!

A metaphoric deep breath; he had no control over his body, but it felt like he was inhaling.

There is no hell. No heaven, either.

But the heat. The flames. The screams.

There is no hell!

All of it was explicable, a natural phenomenon: just the way the brain responded to oxygen starvation.

The images changed, the smells changed, the sounds changed. The hellish vista was replaced by a city street at night.

Another woman’s face.

And much more, in rapid succession: people, incidents, events.

It was a life review flashing before him.

But it wasn’t his life that he saw.

“EEG is erratic!”

“BP continues to fall!”

“We’re losing him!”

Eric Redekop lifted his head to look at his team as he continued the manual heart massage. A nurse named Ann January daubed his forehead with a cloth, picking up the sweat. “No,” he said simply. “We are not. I’m not going down in history as the surgeon who couldn’t save the president.”

Nikki Van Hausen looked at her hands—and an image of them covered with blood filled her mind. She shook her head, trying to dispel the grisly sight—but it came back to her even more forcefully: her hands red and dripping, and—

My God!

And she was holding a knife, and its blade was slick and crimson.

More images: cutting into skin, blood welling up from the wound.

Again: another cut, more blood. And again: another thrust, this time blood spurting.

She sat down and looked—really looked—at her hands: the smooth pale skin, the tiny scar along the side of her right index finger from a wineglass that had broken while she was washing it, the silver ring she wore with a turquoise cabochon, the painted nails—red, yes, but not blood-red.

But again images of her hands covered in blood came to her. And beneath the blood, peeking out here and there: gloves. Like a murderer who knew that fingerprints would otherwise be left behind.

Her heart was pounding. “What’s happening?” she said softly, although no one was paying any attention to her. She raised her voice. “What’s happening to me?”

That caught the interest of a doctor who was walking past her here on the fourth floor of Luther Terry Memorial Hospital. “Miss?” he said.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked again, holding her hands in front of her face, as if he, too, could see the blood on them. But, of course, they were dry—she knew that; she could see that. And yet visions of them glistening and red kept coming to her, but—

But her real hands were shaking, and the bloodied hands never shook; she somehow knew that.

The doctor looked at her. “Miss, are you a patient here?”

“No, no. Just visiting my brother, but—but something’s wrong.”

“What’s your name?” the doctor asked.

And she went to answer, but—

But that wasn’t her name! And that wasn’t where she lived! And that wasn’t her hometown! Nikki felt herself teetering. She was still holding her hands up in front of her, and she fell against the doctor, her palms pressing into his chest.

More strange thoughts poured into her head. A knife slicing through fat and muscle. Being tackled in a football game—something that had never happened to her. A funeral—oh God, a funeral for her mother, who was still alive and well.

Her eyes had closed when she’d fallen forward, but she opened them now, looked down, and saw the doctor’s little engraved plastic name badge, “J. Sturgess, M.D.,” and she knew, even though she’d never seen him before, that the J was for Jurgen, and she suddenly also knew that M.D. didn’t stand for “Medical Doctor,” as she’d always thought, but rather for the Latin equivalent, Medicinae Doctor.

Just then, two nurses walked by, and she heard one of them spouting medical gobbledygook. Or it should have been gobbledygook; she shouldn’t even have been able to say, a moment later, what words the nurse had used but…