MirrorWorld

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Why would a man without fear run away? Sure, it hurt. We lost your parents, your son, who happens to be my nephew, and we lost my husband. I’ve been living with that pain all these years. It’s what drives me to keep fighting. But you … you retreated from it? Bullshit. That’s not you. It never was. You wouldn’t have gone through with it without a good reason. Or a bad one. It wasn’t the loss of your family you were meant to forget, it was something else.”

“What?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” she says, “but I hope you remember.”

Looking at Allenby, this fifty-five-year-old woman whose small stature belies a powerful resolve, I’m inspired. She has suffered deep loss, is fully aware of the kind of enemy we’re facing, and is willing to stare defiantly in the face of fear. But can I find that strength in myself, even with my memory returned? I’m not sure. Fear is new to me, and it will be new to my old self, too. I have no natural defenses against it or coping mechanisms to help me recover from its effects.

And what if I’m an asshole? What if my memories return and the thing I wanted to forget was something horrible I did? I already know I was a CIA assassin, but what if I was a murderer? What if I enjoyed killing? Who knows what my past self did. I have trouble believing it was anything but horrible.

I clench my eyes shut against the tide of what-ifs.

Allenby is right. It doesn’t matter who I used to be. Or what I’m afraid is going to happen. With countless lives and an outright war with the Dread looming, any help I can offer should be given without hesitation, even if it hurts. Even if it frightens me.

I turn to Stephanie. “How fast will it work?”

“It will be a slow spread as the retrovirus works its way through the damaged areas. The change will be one cell at a time.” She holds her hands up. “And before anyone complains, this is a good thing. Picture a lifetime of memories like a lake. Right now, all that mental water is dammed and frozen. We’re going to be thawing the ice, but we’re also removing the dams bit by bit. If it happened all at once, the flood of information would overwhelm your mind. The effects could be catastrophic.”

“Total time,” I say. “How long? Months?”

“Oh, no.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Days.”

“What’s it going to feel like?”

“If I could ask the lab rats, I’d be able to … tell…” She looks at my wide-eyed expression. “Probably should have left that detail out, huh?”

“Probably,” I say, but try to ignore that we’re talking about a procedure that’s only been done on lesser mammals. “When it’s done, if it works, will I still be me?”

“You mean, will you still be Crazy with a capital C?” Allenby asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “You’ll still remember the past year, so those experiences will shape who you are, but you’ll also be Josef, too.” She takes my hand. “Look, I know I’ve painted an unappealing image of your old self, but you really weren’t … I’ve been angry at that man for a long time. For running away. You were a good man, and a great father, despite your previous occupation. If I didn’t think bringing the old you back would help, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

She pats my hand and steps back. “If you really did volunteer to forget, with the intention of never restoring your memory, I’m not sure you’ll be happy to remember.”

“So you’re counting on Crazy to balance out Josef?”

“Something like that.”

“Okay,” I say, and climb on the table. “Let’s just do this so you don’t have to draw that gun behind your back and force me to.”

All eyes turn to Allenby. She offers a fake apologetic smile, draws the weapon from behind her back, and moves to place it on a countertop. She stops halfway when the door behind her opens.

Winters steps in. “Just what the hell do you all think you’re doing?”

Allenby swivels around, leveling the gun at Winters.

The one-woman CIA oversight committee / psychotherapist doesn’t even blink at the weapon. She glances around the room, at who’s there, at the equipment, then at Allenby. “Let me help. He’s going to need someone … close … to help him transition when he wakes up.”

“Wait, what?” I ask. “What do you mean, wake up?”

Allenby nods to Cobb. “Do it.”

I feel a pinch on my neck, hear a whispered apology from Cobb, and then drift into a dream.

43

Heads shift about randomly, a mix of dark hair and darker-colored abayas. There’s no pattern to the clogged marketplace, just movement as thousands of people buy, sell, and steal for their families. They don’t call the Chor Bazaar the “thieves market” for nothing. There are as many stolen goods being sold as there are pickpockets working the crowd.

My view is from far above the action, a half mile away and sixteen stories up, on the roof of a hotel that provides a line of sight straight down Mutton Street, right in the middle of Muslim-populated Mumbai, India.