MirrorWorld Part 2

"Ex-girlfriend it is!" Shotgun says, pumping an imaginary shotgun, "Chick, chick," and firing it into the air. "Boom!"

As the duo retreats back to the couch-throne, the woman turns to me again, looking a little less sure of herself.

"That's why we call him Shotgun Jones," I explain.

"Right," she says, straightening her pumpkin suit. Her smile disappears. The eyebrows descend. "Do you want to be here?"

"I want to smell the new pavement," I tell her.

A mix of confusion and disappointment contorts her pretty face.

"You know I'm crazy, right?"

"With a capital C," she says. "I've been told. But you're not crazy."

"You know my real name?"

"Lowercase c."

"Oh. Then what am I?"

"I'll let your doctor explain it to you. Later. Right now, I need a very plain yes or no answer. Do you want to leave this place? Or do you want to spend the rest of your life waiting to see who replaces Drew Carey on the Price Is Right?"

"He's funny," I say.

"Bob was better."

"I don't really remember Bob."

"You don't remember anything past a year ago." She makes sure I'm looking in her eyes. "All but two days of your remembered life have been in this place. Before that was two days in a jail cell and an hour at a bar. Am I wrong?"

"No."

My eyes turn to the floor and then back out at the view. "Would I be leaving today?"

I see the motion of her nod in my periphery.

"Yes," I say. "I want to leave."

"First," she says. "I need proof."

"Of what?"

"Step one. What do you think of me?"

I look her up and down, appraising her. I stop on her eyes. "You're intelligent. Driven. Brave. You're also hiding something, but who isn't?"

"Is that all?"

"I'd also like to sleep with you, but you already knew that."

"What makes you say that?" she asks.

"Have you looked in a mirror? Who wouldn't want to sleep with you?"

She looks down at the bright orange poncho. "Most of me is covered."

"Your face would more than make up for any flaws beneath it, and not everything is hidden." I glance down at her chest, from which the loose poncho hangs, and am only slightly surprised to find my right hand cupping her left breast. A complete lack of fear means that I sometimes act without thought. Fear acts as a social buffer, giving most people time to contemplate their actions and the ramifications. Not only do I lack that buffer, the potential negative effects of my actions don't faze me. Only my strong moral code keeps me in check, but on occasions like this, it's all hindsight.

"Very good," she says, like I've pa.s.sed a test.

I withdraw my hand and apologize, but she waves the words away like they're some kind of stink. "Step two." She reaches up and slides her fingers beneath the collar of my shirt. For a moment, I think she's going to repay the fondle with one of her own, but she takes hold of something that she shouldn't know is there. The chain slides out from under my shirt. Having it is technically against the rules, but the few times they've tried to take it, I've gone actual crazy. I don't know what it is, where it's from, or why I cling to it, but I know I can't live without it. And that I would kill to retrieve it.

The pendant at the end of the chain falls free, hanging on the metal links. It's a colorful mash-up of melted plastics formed into a crude circle.

"Are you afraid?" she asks.

"I'm resisting the urge to break your hand."

She turns the pendant around, reading the single word etched into the flat backside. "Evidence." She frowns for a moment but covers it up quickly. "Do you know what this is?"

It feels like my soul, but I know that's ridiculous, so I shake my head. "It's the craziest thing about me, so you better put it back."

She does, slipping it inside my collar and letting it drop.

"Now, step three." The vinyl of her poncho makes a shhh sound as her arm rises. Her hand emerges holding a ceramic three-inch blade. "Stab yourself."

"Why?"

She squints at me. "Are you afraid?"

"I'm not stupid, if that's what you're trying to figure out."

She looks out the window to the long driveway that ends a quarter mile away, the gates blocked from view by lush oaks. "There is an ambulance waiting at the end of the drive. They'll be here within minutes. You'll be rushed to the hospital."

"Only it won't be a hospital," I say. "Where will it be?"

She smiles; this time it's forced. "Won't be here."

I reach out and take the blade from her. "Run."

She looks horrified for a moment, hearing a threat where there was none intended.

"This isn't going to go over well." I look around the room.

Understanding widens her eyes. She backs away slowly, turns around, and hurries for the metal chain-link gate, which Chubs opens from the other side.

Knife in hand, I look out the window. It's a beautiful day. I bet it smells wonderful.

A scream tears my eyes away from the window. "Dollar ninety-five! Dollar ninety-five!" It's Seymour, repeating what he'd just seen on TV. Both hands flail in my direction. At my stomach. "Help! Help! Help! Dollar ninety-five."

"Chick, chick, boom!" Shotgun says, shooting his imaginary weapon straight at me, his face twisted up in horror. "Chick, chick, boom!"

As the large room explodes with activity, I look down. Two inches of the knife's blade are currently buried in my torso. Someone's going to have to clean this floor tonight, I think, and fall to my knees.

"Do you know what you did?" the paramedic asks me, her thick British accent distracting me from the question. Her face is hidden by a surgical mask and thick gla.s.ses. An explosion of hair frames her nonface. Graying. Maybe fifty-five. Despite the accent, I hear the bewilderment in her voice and replay the question in my mind.

A full twenty seconds later, I lean up and look down. My shirt is missing, but the plastic pendant still hangs from my neck. Which is good for everyone in this ambulance. I turn my gaze lower. The knife handle sticks out of my gut like the first skysc.r.a.per built in Dubai. "I stabbed myself."

"More accurately?" she asks.

"I stabbed myself in my right kidney."

She presses on my torso with her gloved fingers, feeling all around the wound. "Actually, you missed it. Nothing but muscle and fat. Mostly muscle."

"Even better," I say.

"But why?"

"Because I wanted to leave."

"What I meant," she says, "is why did you choose to stab yourself in the kidney?"

"You mean, why did I choose to stab myself next to my kidney?"

"Right."

I shrug. I don't recall making the decision, but I understand the logic of my subconscious. "If I missed and struck my kidney, who cares? I have two of them. If you ever need to stab yourself, keep that in mind." I lean back. "I can't feel the wound."

"I've given you a local anesthetic so we can take care of this."

I look around the ambulance's interior. It's what you'd expect, except I'm alone in the back with this woman. I think there are usually two people in the back. But what do I know? Aside from where my kidneys are and what Dubai is like. While I don't remember the events of my own life, I know a lot about the world. "Aren't you a paramedic?"

She pulls out a hooked needle and thread. "I'm your doctor."

"My doctor?"

"For now." She threads the needle, ties a knot, and cuts the remainder. "Not afraid of needles, are you?"

I motion to the knife in my gut. "I stabbed myself."

"I was joking." She places the needle on a tray as the moving ambulance bounces over something in the road. My doctor leans toward the front and raps on the door. It opens a crack. "We're starting now, so do try to avoid any more b.u.mps for a few."

"Trying," says a man. "But it's hard to with all this-"

She shoves the door shut. "Right. Enough of him."

"Who is he?"

"Your driver," she says. "Try to hold still." Before I realize it, she's dousing the knife with alcohol. "Still nothing?"

"Fine."

"Wonderful." She takes hold of the knife and slips it out of my gut. The ceramic blade clangs against the tray, and she scoops up the needle and thread. She leans over my exposed stomach and starts sewing. Her hands move quickly and efficiently. She's done this before. Not just st.i.tching a wound, but while on the move.

"You were in the military," I say.

"Handsome, fearless, and perceptive," she says without looking up. "My, my."

She's clearly not going to say anything more, so I don't bother digging. There's something else I'd rather know. "Why am I fearless? The woman I met told me my doctor could explain it."

"The woman?"

"Who told me to stab myself."

She gives the needle a few tugs, cinching my skin together. "You trusted a woman, whose name you didn't know, who asked you to stab yourself?"

"I don't know my own name," I tell her. "Or yours."

She pauses, turns to me, and offers me a b.l.o.o.d.y gloved hand. "Doctor Kelly Allenby, at your service."

I shake her hand. "I'm Crazy."

"With a capital C," she says, the phrase old hat.

My mind freezes up for a moment. How did she know? Before I can ask, she turns to me and says, "Winters filled me in. She's the woman you met. Jessica Winters."

"Who is she?" I ask.

"Not my place to say."

"You're avoiding my question," I tell her.

"Winters will brief you later," she says.

Brief me. Definitely military.

The ambulance sways from side to side for a moment. I hear the engine revving loudly. We're moving fast. But the siren isn't wailing.

"I wasn't talking about Winters," I say.

She smiles at me. I can't see her lips behind the mask, but her eyes crinkle on the sides. "Short-term memory seems to be fine."

"Please."

She turns back to st.i.tching. "Do you know what the amygdala is?"

"A region of the brain," I say, though I have no idea how or why I know the answer to this question.