MirrorWorld Part 3

"Two regions," she says. "On either side. The size of almonds. Part of the limbic system. Not very big, but they regulate a few functions that are applicable to your situation. Memory and fear. Typically, a condition like yours is the result of Urbach-Wiethe disease, which destroys the amygdala. The result is a complete lack of social, emotional, and physical fear. But you're not like a sociopath. You still feel other emotions, like empathy, sadness, and joy, and you understand concepts of right and wrong, though in your case that sense of moral judgment is a bit exaggerated." She glances my way. "I read your file."

"You said 'typically.' Are there other ways to destroy the amygdala?"

She pulls the line tight and ties a knot. Scissors appear in her hand and she cuts the line. She turns away from me to put the needle and thread beside the discarded knife. "Brain trauma could do it, but it would have to be one h.e.l.l of a coincidence to destroy both amygdala on either side of the head without turning you into a vegetable."

"But it's possible?"

"Anything is possible," she replies, taking her b.l.o.o.d.y gloves off and tossing them atop the tray. The mask and gla.s.ses follow. "But that's not what happened to you."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're sitting here having a conversation with me instead of watching The Price Is Right every day, or just plain dead."

"My file is pretty detailed," I say.

She turns back around and gives me a tight-lipped smile, the kind a mother might when her child is being naughty while simultaneously adorable.

"I'm not adorable," I point out.

She laughs. "Far from it. It's just ... it's good to-"

The ambulance sways hard to the side. Tires squeal.

Allenby leans forward and opens the door a crack. She gasps. "What's happening?"

"They're everywhere," says the man behind the wheel. "I don't know if I can find a way around them."

"Can we stay here?" she asks. "Wait for them to pa.s.s?"

"I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon."

"What's happening?" I ask. I turn my head back, but the upside-down slice of the world beyond the ambulance is just blue sky.

"Just relax," Allenby says, patting my shoulder. "We're fine."

I push myself up, inspect the expert st.i.tching on my abdomen. "I wasn't worried."

Allenby is so entranced by what's happening outside, she doesn't notice me moving. I slide up behind her, angling for a view.

"We should be okay," the man says, "unless they get hungry for ice cream."

Ice cream? "What is it, a Little League parade?"

Allenby jumps, placing a hand to her chest. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. You shouldn't be up. I still need to cover that."

I push past her. The man in the front seat is short but fit. The kind of guy who's got energy to spare and can eat entire pizzas. But he's not young. Despite the full head of dark hair, the crow's-feet framing his eyes and flecks of white in his goatee give away his age.

When the driver swerves again, I look up.

The street is filled with angry people. Some carry picket signs with slogans like: RAISE MINIMUM WAGE, NO MORE PROPERTY TAXES, and my favorite, NO MONEY, LESS PROBLEMS. Some carry bricks. Others wield guns. Their voices rise and fall, repeating some kind of chant, m.u.f.fled by the vehicle's thick walls. On the surface, they're protestors, but they feel more like a mob. The violent tension brewing outside is almost explosive, a powder keg just waiting for the fuse to be lit.

We pull to the side of the road and stop. It's a downtown area. Tall brick buildings line both sides of the street. Looks familiar. Manchester, New Hampshire, I think. The driver raises his palms to the people outside the vehicle, mouthing the word, "Sorry," over and over until they're placated and move on. But there are more where they came from. Many more. All of them angry. Afraid.

"We're in an ambulance," I say. "They won't move if you hit the siren?"

The driver just shakes his head.

Allenby puts a hand on my shoulder. "It's best to-"

People move for ambulances. It's a universal fact. I'm not sure why I believe this so soundly, but I do. If staying here is a risk, then we should use the tools at our disposal.

"No, don't!" the driver shouts.

My finger is already resting on the switch for the siren. I flip it.

The siren blares to life.

But it's not a siren.

It's a song. "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"

The plucky tune puts words in my head. "Do they waggle to and fro?" I look at Allenby. "We're in an ice cream truck?"

But she doesn't respond. Her eyes are locked straight ahead on the frozen mob of more than a hundred people, all staring at us with hateful eyes. The signs lower. The chanting stops. These people have no real cause. They're just afraid and angry, expressing it as a hot-b.u.t.ton issue bandwagon. But the violence in their eyes is different from the eyes of people with a cause. There is nothing righteous in these people's eyes. Instead, I see a kind of vacant mania that was commonplace in SafeHaven. These people just lacked an outlet for their pent-up violence. But now I've given them direction. The jingle of the ice cream truck, its jovial blare like a mocking voice, has lit the fuse. All of this comes clear to me in a moment. Only one mystery remains. "Why are we in an ice cream truck?"

The crowd outside shouts at us. There are so many commingling voices that understanding the individual messages would require a supercomputer. And yet I clearly understand the communal meaning of their words: hate. But why? Who hates an ice cream truck, other than protective, corn-syrup-fearing parents?

"What are they so afraid of?" I ask, not because I'm concerned for their well-being, but because I know there could be a subtle danger that I'm not seeing simply because I wouldn't fear it.

"How do you know they're afraid?" Allenby asks.

"People only act like this when they're afraid." It's not a memory. It's simple knowledge. "I don't feel what they're feeling, but I've learned to recognize it in other people and understand the kinds of things it can lead to. There is no short supply of fear in a mental inst.i.tution."

"Things ... are not good," Allenby says. "Anywhere. People are afraid. And angry. Because they're afraid. It's boiling over into the streets. Major cities-New York, Los Angeles, Boston-are a mess. Rural areas, like most of New Hampshire, have been calm, but that appears to be changing. At first, they take to the streets, like this, latching on to whatever hot-b.u.t.ton issue affects a certain area. Here it's all about money. Wages. Taxes. The working-cla.s.s money struggle. But things eventually take a turn for the worse. Violence. Looting. Vast destruction. People are dying."

The driver turns off the ice cream truck music and rolls down the window a crack. "Sorry! Sorry! It was an accident."

"a.s.shole!" someone shouts back. "You think what we're doing is funny? That this is some kind of joke?"

Others join in, shaking their fists at one of America's most beloved summertime-fun icons. The images of Bomb Pops, orange Dream Bars, and ice cream sandwiches no doubt plastered to the side of this ambulance in disguise somehow appear as a threat to these people. Something to be dealt with harshly.

The driver rolls up the window and turns to me and Allenby. "I think we should force our way through. This isn't going to end well."

"We can't just run them over," Allenby says.

"I could," I say.

The driver shakes his head. "Of all the people to be stuck in this mess with..."

Allenby silences him with a gentle touch to his arm.

He looks back at me. "Sorry."

Hands slap against the truck's hood. And the sides. There's a click all around us as the driver locks the doors. The vehicle's interior rumbles as the people outside start pounding, venting their fear.

"s.h.i.t," the driver says. "s.h.i.t!" The fear outside the vehicle seeps inside, taking hold of him.

I take hold of his p.r.i.c.kly chin and turn his face toward mine. "What's your name?" My voice is as calm as always. My pulse is rock-solid, like a metronome. Luckily, calm can be as infectious as fear.

"Blair," he says. "Ed Blair."

"Does whoever you work for have a helicopter?" I ask.

He nods.

"Are they far?"

"A few minutes to prep and a five-minute flight."

I look up through the windshield. The buildings lining the downtown street are six stories tall, tops. "Call them," I say. "Tell them where we are and to pick us up on a rooftop."

"I'm not getting out of this truck," he says.

I pat his arm. "Just call them." Then, to Allenby, who is watching the crowd swarm toward the truck, "Finish your job."

"W-What?" She seems dazed. There were times at SafeHaven when my lack of fear put me in physical danger, causing me to later wonder about a cure for my condition. But in situations like this, where fear cripples people, I'm happy to be who I am.

"My st.i.tches," I say. "You said you weren't done."

"But the crowd. We have-"

"Time."

With Blair now dialing his cell phone, I move back into the ice creambulance's rear and take a seat on the gurney I'd been lying on. The vehicle shakes back and forth. Feels like we're on a boat. Have I been on a boat? m.u.f.fled voices and slamming fists reverberate, thunderlike, through the small s.p.a.ce.

Allenby, focused on her task, opens a medical kit. She removes a tube of antibiotic, some gauze and a roll of medical tape.

The vehicle rocks harder, knocking her off-balance. I catch her by the arms. "Just focus. Ignore them."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbles. "Lean back."

I lie down on the gurney while she quickly smears the ointment over the wound and tapes down the gauze. Just as she finishes, the door to the front opens. Rather than just looking back, Blair slides out of his seat and joins us in the rear. "Helicopter is on its way. ETA seven minutes. But we're not going to make it out of here."

I look around Blair's head as something red and rectangular spirals through the air. A brick slams into the windshield, creating a spiderweb break in the laminated-and oddly tinted-safety gla.s.s.

Allenby moves toward the back door. "We should go. Now."

"Not yet," I say. "Can I have a shirt?"

She points to a hook behind Blair, where my torn and blood-soaked olive-drab T-shirt hangs. The shirt, along with my blue jeans, have pretty much been my uniform for the past year. While many of the patients at SafeHaven wear hospital gowns, the higher-functioning patients were allowed the dignity of real clothing. The brown shoes on my feet are new, though. We wore slippers back at SafeHaven. I slip into the shirt, knowing the gory appearance will help back people away, and look back out through the windshield.

"What are we waiting for?" Blair asks. He follows my eyes, looking ahead. "The longer we wait, the-oh, no!"

I watch the green bottle's arc through the air. It was a good throw from about forty feet away. The bright orange flame trailing the improvised weapon helps it stand out from the throng. The Molotov c.o.c.ktail strikes the windshield. Flames burst in all directions, obscuring our view, but I don't need to see.

The pounding stops.

The vehicle settles.

The crowd has been repulsed by a splash of mankind's original tool of ma.s.s destruction. In minutes, the truck will be an inferno, the crowd pushed back fifty feet by the heat. But we don't need to wait that long.

"Do either of you have a weapon?"

"We're a medical team," Allenby says while Blair shakes his head, nervously eyeing the rear door.

I take the b.l.o.o.d.y ceramic blade from the metal tray. "Okay, just-"

A thump and the sound of shattering gla.s.s against the rear of our vehicle interrupts me. Flames cover the two small windows.

"Oh, G.o.d," Allenby says.

"We're going to jump through," I tell them. "It's just like running your finger through a candle. Move fast enough, and the heat won't touch you."

"I-I can't," Blair says.

I shrug, indifferent. "You can risk a minor burn, and the crowd, or you can cook alive in your very own ice creambulance turned urn."

He looks at me like I'm insane while he debates possible death against certain death. Without another word, I unlock the door and leap through the flames.

"You're on fire," someone says, explaining why I wasn't immediately greeted with violence upon flinging myself from the back of the ice creambulance.

I don't need to ask where. I can feel the heat upon my head. During my time at SafeHaven, I let my hair get a little out of control. As the stench of burnt hair wafts around me, I reach up and calmly pat the top of my head until the smoldering brown mane is extinguished.

While playing fireman with my scalp, I take in the crowd surrounding us. A circle of humanity stands twenty feet away, pushed back by the flames behind me. Some look a little stunned by my emergence from the blaze, but most still look angry and capable of violence. They're just waiting for a new trigger to push them past the fear of this fire and the bloodied man that emerged.

One man, a particularly burly specimen, is the first to break ranks and step toward me, menace in his eyes. And for what? Because I was in a vehicle that had the audacity to play a plucky tune during a protest? While I was in an asylum, the world seems to have gone nuts. I relax my body, prepared to deal with the man in a way that will keep others from making the same mistake. But he stops short and looks a bit surprised.

Allenby emerges from the inferno with a shout of fear. Her explosive hair, like mine, smolders. I shake my hand through her hair, cutting the stands of bright orange away before her head looks like a fiery troll doll.

Blair exits next, falling to the ground and rolling. "s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t!" But he's not on fire.

"Get up," Allenby says, and kicks Blair's foot. She understands that of the two dangers surrounding us, the crowd surrounding us is worse. To them, we've become the antagonizers. They don't want their pound of flesh from the government or the man, they want it from the ice cream truck. And now that it's on fire-judgment meted out-they're weighing the fates of the people who exited the offending vehicle. I consider pretending to be one of them, shaking my fist against injustice, but I can see it's too late for that. These people might not be thinking straight, pumped full of fear, but they're not stupid, either.

With a subtle movement of my hand, I tap Allenby's hip. She glances up at me. Makes eye contact, until I glance away, looking at the shop door to our left. Only three people stand on the sidewalk between us and the door, which will hopefully provide access to a staircase.

I pull Blair to his feet. "Follow her." Then to Allenby. "Slowly."

Allenby does her best to ignore the cold stares of the people surrounding us and steps up onto the sidewalk. Blair, far more shaken up, manages to stay silent and follow her. But his hands are shaking. Watching the crowd, without making eye contact, I bring up the rear. The people in front of the store-two twentysomething women and a young man-instinctively part for their elders. They're either not worked up enough to be violent or have correctly a.s.sessed my capabilities: afraid, not stupid afraid. Not yet, anyway.