“I always get off on the wrong floor. Which floor is this?”
“You’re on the seventh floor, sweetheart. Which floor do you want to be on?”
“Pediatrics?” It was the first thing to enter her head.
The old man looked at her quizzically. “You’ve got more than your floors mixed up. You’re in the wrong building!”
Savina shrugged. “I’m new here.”
“Oh, you work here?” He was looking at her suspiciously now.
“Not exactly, I’m a volunteer.”
“You’re a social worker?”
“Uh, yeah, you guessed it.”
“Aren’t you a little young for a social worker?”
“I’m older than I look. You can imagine the trouble I have buying drinks.”
The old man’s wrinkled brow relaxed, and he laughed. “My granddaughter’s got the same problem. She’s twenty-three and doesn’t look a day over fourteen. It’s the new inoculations, I think. I wish they were around when I was young.”
“You’re, what, forty?” Savina asked.
The nurse was tickled. “Forty, oh sweetheart!” He laughed.
“I’m ninety-seven, almost a hundred years old.”
“That’s amazing! You don’t look anywhere near that.”
“Are you married?”
“I’m engaged.”
“Rats.”
“Sorry.” She shrugged.
“Oh well,” he said. “Anyway, the elevator’s right down that way. You want building five for pediatrics, which is two over from the left after you’re through the main exit.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem, sweetheart. You take care.” He turned and walked away.
Savina felt she was going to die of a stroke at any moment.
She tried not to rush as she walked down the corridor toward the elevator, but she couldn’t help it. At the elevators she pressed the down button and stood waiting directly under the unwavering gaze of a security monitor. She fought to control her breathing and heart rate, but it was no use. The old guy had startled her and now she was out of control. Standing there under the monitor she felt naked and vulnerable.
The elevator was taking forever to arrive.
Savina glanced at the button to make sure it was green. It was, her call had been registered in the elevator’s queue. It was on its way. Savina stood waiting, feeling the sweat break out on her forehead. The security monitor glared down at her accusingly.
Still she waited.
Where is it? she wondered. Come on, come on! She jabbed at the button again, suspecting that the security system had shut the elevator down. She looked back down the corridor for a stairwell, but saw none. She wondered fleetingly if she should go looking for one.
She jabbed at the button again. It went click just like last time, it still glowed green. Maybe it’s broken, she thought, and jabbed it several times more. There was a low, quavering sound and she jumped. It was the elevator arriving. The doors to her left opened to reveal a beautiful woman in a white smock who smiled at her. She was blonde, wore thick make-up and had very red lips.
“Hi,” she said to Savina, her voice pleasant. “Going down?”
“Yes,” Savina said, smiling back. The woman had the badge of a full administrator, and inside Savina was quivering with nervous energy, her legs twitching and wanting to run. Any stories of being a social worker wouldn’t pass with this one; she had a headset disguised as a hair band, and there was a thin trail of ribbon running down with the woman’s hair. It was an antenna. She was wired directly into the MA computers and could check a fact with the merest thought. Savina got into the elevator with her and pressed the button to take her to the lobby. “Nice day today,”
Savina told her.
“Yes.”
“It’s hotter than yesterday, isn’t it?”
The woman nodded, not in the mood to talk. Thank God, Savina thought. The elevator stopped on the 2nd floor and the administrator got out, saying a pleasant goodbye. Savina was amazed. If she acted like she had a right to be there nobody questioned her at all.
When the elevator doors opened again she was in the lobby.
She peered cautiously out of the elevator and spotted her parents, both sitting in the huge round waiting area with the television screens in the center. There were numerous screens showing numerous stations, and her parents were in front of the JTV area – of course. Their backs were to her. She slipped out of the elevator and walked around the waiting area toward the main doors, keeping a curved row of plastic plants between her and her parents when she was in their line of sight.
A loud undulating tone blared over the P.A. system, startling Savina, and a computer voice announced, “Security report to floor seven. Security report to floor seven. Code three-nine-three.”
They found the intern! she thought. Time to throw caution to the wind. Savina bolted out the door. She leapt over a low hedge and disappeared into the throng of pedestrians filling the sidewalk, heading away from the MA complex as fast as the foot traffic would let her.
13. BULU ROAD
Saul was on the beach with his crew, sitting in his folding chair between sequences, listening to the creeching of the sea gulls and the babble of the people around him. It was pleasant, relaxing, all the sounds blending together to form a white noise, the ocean waves crashing, the breeze blowing in fresh and cool.
Then from somewhere behind him there was a long, drawn-out cry of anguish, and instead of the beach Saul found himself rushing down a road with cars coming straight at him, their panic-horns blaring like a chorus of screams. Saul found a wheel in his hands. He was in his Mitsubishi Electric ReRun 550 with a woman passenger beside him, and she was clawing at the dashboard in terror.
There had been a moment, a flash, when both things were happening at once – Saul was on the beach and in the car, with the anguished wail from behind blending and harmonizing with the squeal of terror beside him – then the beach was gone, and Saul was pulling the steering wheel hard to the right to avoid the oncoming traffic. Brakes locked and tires skidded, but no impact occurred. Cars passed to either side of him. Gasping, startled out of his mind, Saul waited for a break in the traffic then brought the car to the side of the road and stopped.
Beyond giving him a dazed, bewildered look, the woman beside him said nothing. Her eyes were red and swollen, her make-up streaked from tears. After making sure everything was safe, she turned back toward the passenger-side door and resumed her crying.
Saul himself was utterly at a loss – he had no idea who she was.
He had no idea where he was driving. How had he gotten here?
“Excuse me,” he said to the woman. “I don’t think I’m well.”
She paid no attention to him; she was too busy crying. Saul turned to his onboard computer for a clue. It answered immediately, transparent words forming in red letters on the windshield in front of him, shimmering: OUR LOCATION IS BULU ROAD, 1.4 MILES FROM CAMERON COVE
Cameron Cove? Saul thought. Where is Cameron Cove? The answer came to him slowly, like the sun rising: Cameron Cove is where he lived. He set the destination into the autopilot, which should have been driving in the first place, then turned to consider the woman beside him as the car pulled itself back onto the road.
The woman, while he could not place her, did seem familiar.
It seemed he should know her. She glanced up to see him staring, and said in a choked voice, “I’m okay. Just let me get the shock out of my system.”
It’s finally happening, Saul thought. I’m going insane.
“Okay,” he told her. “We’ll be home soon.”
She nodded, turning away. She looked familiar, so very familiar, but her name escaped him. It seemed, possibly, that he worked with her. That he knew her.
The car pulled into a large beachfront villa and parked itself in his garage. The woman got out and without waiting for him went inside. She didn’t even look behind to see if he was following her. He wasn’t, because Saul did not recognize the villa – he knew he owned it, it was his, but he could not remember ever being there.
Saul knew he’d been there – he lived there!
What’s happening to me? he thought. How can I forget that I live in a house that I know I live in? How can I forget who that woman is–-? I must know her. I have to know her. Think, think, who is she? What’s her name?
Think!
Saul drew a blank – a total black void. It must be brain damage, he thought. The Mataphin is eating my brain. Or have I always been this way? I can’t remember.
I can’t remember!
Saul forced himself to get out of the car. He made his way over to the door that led to the kitchen – he knew it led to the kitchen, and when he opened the door there was indeed a kitchen.