Fragment 14

"How did you sleep?" Nastasia held the drinking straw steady while I took more water on board.

The night had been far from good. I'd lost count of the number of times I'd woken from the nightmare of being burned alive in Dimentio's transparent box, and the amount of time I'd spent lying awake contemplating the highlights of my short existence. I'm sure she'd have relished hearing how torturous the night had been for me, and I wasn't going to give her the pleasure of knowing.

"Fine," I said.

"Liar." She put the drink to one side and sat down at her place beside me, her face stern. "I allowed you a full night's continuity, to enable your brain to process everything you've recalled so far, through your dreams and through waking thought. We have to be truthful with one another, 'k? I know last night wouldn't have been pleasant for you, so don't pretend to me that it was."

"Congratulations for becoming the fifth person on my hit list," I said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Who is the fourth?"

"Dimentio."

"Dimentio is dead," she said. "I told you last night. I'm sorry, Mr. L, but Mario beat you to it."

I ground my teeth. Mario was becoming more than just an extermination job. I began to feel genuine hatred for the guy. "Is he still alive? When will I get the chance to have at him again?"

"Don't distract yourself," she said. "We need to continue."

No, we didn't. I'd had enough. I wanted to be free from this paralysis. I wanted to build another Brobot, and annihilate Mario myself, only this time I'd ask my master for clearance. It was time to go over Nastasia's head. "I need to see Count Bleck," I said.

I could tell by the way her hands flew to her mouth that I'd hit a nerve. I wondered whether Bleck knew she was doing this to me. Allowing myself a smirk, I added, "So, where is he?"

She took off her glasses and wiped them. "Dimentio attacked him. You saw the state Bleck was in. He was... fatally wounded."

Fatal. Bleck... dead? I didn't believe her. But then I saw a look in her eye that convinced me this was for real. I caught my breath. Bleck - the one and only person I had any respect for. The one person who'd shown any respect for me. The one person who could - and did - give me the freedom to fulfil my potential, the way I wanted to - who gave me my continuity, which enabled me to establish my own memory and identity from scratch. Mr. L, the Green Thunder, the man Count Bleck called the one. Where did his death leave me now? Helpless at the hands of my sadistic creator, that's where. I shut my eyes and tightened my lips to contain my emotion, but it seemed Nastasia could read me too well.

"I know, I know..." I detected a wobble in her voice that seemed genuinely heartfelt. For a few moments, she was silent. Then she drew a deep breath. "We need to continue. From the moment Dimentio got to you, your consciousness was no longer yours to control. You lost that continuity, and it led to the loss of your sanity. You've come back from the brink, Mr. L. You've remembered who you are. But if you're to take control of yourself once more, we have to tackle the memories that occurred after that point. That's the difficult part."

When I looked at her again, she'd put her glasses back on, and her expression had hardened. "Now, we're going to pick up where we left off last night, 'k? After Dimentio caught up with you, you said you remembered being transported to Castle Bleck, and having the sensation of being transformed into an enormous monster. From there you said your memory cut to being in a hospital room, with two strange little creatures looking at you. Continue from there."

The recollection wasn't difficult, this time, although it did feel like a dream. I could see those two surreal creatures in my mind, their large heads looking like multicoloured toadstools. They weren't aggressive. In fact, they asked me if I was feeling well, and whether I knew where I was. I remember feeling weak and light-headed for some reason, but I was too stunned by their appearance to answer them.

Then everything changed when Mario entered the room. I remember trying to attack him, but for some reason I had no strength; my legs wouldn't hold my weight. He pushed me back and held me down. The indignity of being sat on by the man I'd been tasked to kill is something I'll never want to experience again.

"I felt so ill," I said. "I didn't realise it was me who was the patient in that room, until I tried to fight Mario."

Nastasia nodded. "Carry on," she said.

"He didn't recognise me. He must have mistaken me for someone else, because he laid me on the hospital bed and spoke to me in a language I didn't understand."

She perked up at this. "Did he call you by any other name?"

"Luigi..." I gasped as I uttered the name. It was another key. Confused images of fighting Mario spun through my head, intermingled with memories of my arms being bound to my body, of screaming and throwing myself against the walls of a white room. The name reverberated through every thought, through Mario's voice, and through others I couldn't identify. "I remember now. Mario tortured me!" I said. "He imprisoned me. Just let me at him, Nastasia, I owe it to the Count to finish the job!"

"Shhh..." Nastasia raised a hand, and I felt a numbness soothe my mind. "You've been through enough to drive any man insane. Go back to that moment when he picked you up from the floor. It wasn't that he didn't recognise you. He did recognise you. And he didn't torture you."

I tried to shift my limbs in vain. "He was mistaken. I am Mr. L, and Mario is a murderer!"

"Technically right on both points," said Nastasia, "but what Mario was looking at, was this." She bent down and retrieved something from under the cot, and set it down next to my clock. It was a small mirror on a stand, and she took great care to angle it so I could see my own face.

I stared at my reflection. I'd never given my face any consideration beyond making sure it was disguised at all times. Count Bleck had ordered me to keep it covered, and I had done so, with an eye mask and a bandit's bandanna. My face was bare, now, save for a dark, manicured moustache which curled upwards a little at the tips. I wondered who had been taking care of it during my enforced absences of consciousness. I looked tired and pale, and there was something wrong with my eyes. The pupils were missing, and it made me look blind.

And then, everything clicked together. Each time I'd battled Mario, my face had been covered. That moment in the hospital room was the first time he'd seen it bare, and he recognised it as the face of someone he knew.

"This is the face of the man you created me from." I rolled my head to look at Nastasia.

"Yes, it is."

I looked back at the mirror.

"I'll give you some time," she said, "but the mirror is yours. Think of it as a token of your identity."