Murmuration - Page 111
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. Your brain is a remarkable thing. As is mine. It’s not fair to compare the two, because they’re remarkable for different reasons. Do you know who you are?”
“Mike Frazier.”
“And what year it is?”
“1954.”
The man nods, as if this is the answer he expected. “Beta-blockers,” he said. “They cause memory issues. And being in stasis for as long as you were. It’s not… an exact science. Not yet. It’ll get there. It’ll have to, if they want to put men on Mars.”
“Stasis? Mars?” And the panic is there still, and he’s thinking, What do you know about schizophrenia? Or that Th
ey Came from Outer Space? This is just another dream. Another event. You’ll write it down and then you’ll wake up in your bed and it will be fine. Everything will be fine.
“We’ll get there. First, my name is Dr. Malcolm Hester. You don’t know me, but I know you. Very well.”
“I want to wake up,” Mike says in a small voice. He tries to move his arms and legs again. But they’re sticks here. Little tiny things in this horrible, horrible place. They won’t support him even if they could move. He’s a big guy, after all.
“I know,” he says, and it’s not without sympathy. But Mike thinks it’s more pity than anything else, and it’s almost cold. Detached. Clinical. “And you’re going to feel like that for a while, I would assume. We’ve never… been in this position before. There was never supposed to be an event like this.”
“I don’t care,” Mike says, and his throat is hurting really bad now. He’s got to find a way to wake up. He’s got to find his way back home to Amorea. Maybe morning will come soon and Sean will shake him awake. Sean will—
“You will,” Dr. Hester says. “I am going to tell you some things. You’re not going to believe me, and that’s fine. You will, in time, when everything starts coming back to you again. The drugs will work their way out of your system and it should come back to you, piece by piece. We think. We hope. Again, we’ve never been here before. The fact that we’re even having this conversation is far beyond anything I ever expected.”
He thinks, I don’t know what you are. I don’t know what you want. I just want to go home.
He says, “I don’t know you.”
Dr. Hester shakes his head. “I know that. You weren’t ever supposed to. What is your name?”
Circles, so many circles. “Mike Frazier.”
“What year is it?”
“1954.”
“Where are you from?”
“Amorea,” he says and he’s hit with such a pang of longing that it causes his heart to stutter in his chest. One of the machines next to the bed begins to beep annoyingly. Dr. Hester glances at it, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He reaches out and presses a button, and it falls silent again.
“Your wrist,” Dr. Hester says. “May I touch it?”
He thinks, No. No, go away, go away and leave me alone.
He says, “Will you help me wake up?”
“Yes,” Dr. Hester says, not unkindly. “I will try and help you wake up.”
“Okay.”
Dr. Hester puts a single gnarled hand on a knob sitting on the armrest of the wheelchair. The chair moves forward with a low whirring sound, until Dr. Hester is right next to Mike’s bed. He reaches up for something just out of Mike’s vision, and the bed starts to lower. It stops moving when he’s even with the man in the chair. Dr. Hester grunts as he jerks the railing, causing it to fold to the sides.
When his hands touch Mike, Mike has to fight not to shudder against it. The touch is dry and a little cold, and he doesn’t like the way it feels. His arm is being raised again, and he sees his thin fingers first, and they’re twitching. It feels like little pinpricks are being pressed along his skin and he has to fight not to grimace.
His hand starts to flop over on its own, but Dr. Hester keeps it in place. He sees the orange insert near his wrist, the tube that stretches out from it. The doctor is careful not to jostle it.
His eyes are drawn to the tattoo on his wrist. The numbers. Those damn numbers.
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