The Chemist

“Other Daniel?”

“The one I can see in these pictures!”

She whirled and grabbed a handful from the desk, jabbing the computer once angrily in passing.

“Look,” she said, shoving them toward his face, peeling off one after the other and dropping them to the floor. “It’s your body” – she smacked one photo against his shoulder before letting it fall – “your face, see? But not the right expression. There’s someone else looking out of your eyes, Daniel, and I’m not sure if you’re aware of him or not.”

But there it was again, the recognition. He was aware of something.

“Look, for right now, I’d settle for you just telling me what you see in this picture.” She held up the top photo, Other Daniel skulking in the back door of a Mexican bar.

He looked at her, torn.

“I can’t… explain it… it doesn’t make any sense.”

“You see something I don’t. What is it?”

“He…” Daniel tried to shake his head, but it barely moved, his muscles were so fatigued. “He looks like…”

“Like you.”

“No,” he whispered. “I mean, yes, of course he looks like me, but I can see the differences.”

The way he said it. Of course he looks like me. The transparent honesty again, but something still withheld…

“Daniel, do you know who this is?” A real question this time, not snark, not rhetoric. She wasn’t playing psychiatrist – badly – now. She felt for the first time since the interrogation started that she was actually onto something.

“It can’t be,” he breathed, closing his eyes less out of exhaustion and more to block out the picture, she thought. “It’s impossible.”

She leaned forward. “Tell me,” she murmured.

He opened his eyes and stared at her searchingly. “You’re sure? He’s going to kill people?”

So natural, his use of the third person.

“Hundreds of thousands of people, Daniel,” she promised, earnest as he was. She used the third person, too: “He’s got access to a deadly virus and he’s going to spread it for a psychopathic drug lord. He already has hotel reservations – in your name. He’s doing this in three weeks.”

A whisper. “I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t want to either. This virus… it’s a bad one, Daniel. It’s going to kill a lot more people than a bomb. There’ll be no way to control how it spreads.”

“But how could he do this? Why?”

At this point, she was nearly 65 percent convinced that they were not talking about one of Daniel’s multiple personalities.

“It’s too late for that. All that matters now is stopping him. Who is he, Daniel? Help me save those innocent people.”

A different kind of agony twisted his features. She’d seen this before. With another subject, she would know that his desire to be loyal was warring with his desire to avoid more torture. With Daniel, she rather thought the war was between loyalty and wanting to do the right thing.

In the perfect stillness of the night, as she waited for his answer, through the weak sound barrier of the foam, she clearly heard a small prop plane overhead. Very close overhead.

Daniel looked up.

Time slowed down while she analyzed.

Daniel didn’t look surprised or relieved. The noise did not seem to signal rescue or attack to him. He just noticed it the way someone might notice a car alarm going off. Not relevant to himself, but distracting from the moment.

It felt like she was moving in slow motion as she jumped up and raced to the desk for the syringe she needed.

“You don’t have to do that, Alex,” Daniel said, resigned. “I’ll tell you.”

“Shh,” she whispered, leaning over his head while she injected the drug – into the IV port this time. “I’m just putting you to sleep for now.” She patted his cheek. “No pain, I promise.”

Understanding lit his eyes as he connected the sound to her behavior. “Are we in danger?” he whispered back.

We. Huh. Another interesting pronoun choice. She’d never had a subject anything like this before.

“I don’t know if you are,” she said as his eyes drooped closed. “But I sure as hell am.”

There was a heavy concussion, not immediately outside the barn but too close for her liking.

She put the gas mask securely on his face, then donned hers and screwed in the canister. This time was no drill. She glanced at her computer – she had about ten minutes left there. She wasn’t sure it was enough, so she tapped the space bar. Then she jabbed a button on the little black box, and the light on the side started blinking rapidly. Almost as a reflex, she covered Daniel with the blanket again.

She shut the lights off, so the room was lit only by the white gleam of her computer screen, and exited the tent. Inside the barn, everything was black. She searched, hands out in front of her, until she found the bag beside her cot and, with years of practice guiding her, blindly put on all of her easily accessible armor. She shoved the gun into the front of her belt. She took a syringe from her bag, jabbed it into her thigh, and depressed the plunger. Ready as she could make herself, she crept into the back corner of the tent and hid where she knew the darkest shadow would be if someone came in with a flashlight. She pulled out the gun, removed the safety, and gripped it with both hands. Then she put her ear to the seam of the tent and listened, waiting for someone to open the door or a window into the barn, and die.