Day 14

I looked into the mirror today and did not shave my head. Now that I know it was the helmet I imagined, it does not make sense any longer. I had hair before, maybe growing it back will help me remember. Still the face staring back at me seems strange.

I went to meet Sinar after breakfast. He was sitting in his mess of broken electronic and tried to hammer an transponder into the outlet of a stripped down washing machine with a hydrospanner. When he saw me, he stopped and got up.

"Did anybody see you come?" he demands?

I shake my head.

He nods.

"Has there been another attempt on your life?"

Now he shakes his head. "Not yet, but I think they will try again." He points at the broken washing unit. "I'm working on an early warning system for poisonous gas, it is almost finished."

I take a long look at his construction. The barrel of the washing unit was stuffed with wires and electronic parts that were only partly interconnected. He had placed an old exhaust hood on the unit, cables were coming out of it at odd places, too.

"A good idea, but what about the meals?"

He shrugs and picks up a handful of circuit boards. "I must be careful."

I pick up an empty case for screws and a thin band of transparisteel, I argue with myself. It is not good to encourage Sinar's world view, but I need his help. And it could not become much worse than now for him, could it?

"If you have some sensors left, I could put something together," I finally say. "You would have to carry it in a pocket, but with a wristband, you should get the sensors close enough to your food to check it."

Sinar stares at me for a while. Then he nods. But instead of sensors, he gives me a colourful mix of capacitors, transistors and resistors. I take some thin wires and begin to string them together like a necklace, placing them in the case at the same time. I add an old energy cell and make sure a piece of wire looks out so I can connect it with the one leading to the wristband.

It's like playing. I wonder if I played games in my childhood, and which kind. Did I like to play Smugglers and CorSec or did I prefer toys and games inside? I can't remember. It is as if I had never played at all in my whole life.

I enjoy putting the fake poison recogniser together. And for an instant I can understand spyboy and his dark universe.

Finally, I close the case, check the connections of the wires and the clasp of the wristband. Sinar watches me, and I hold out the device.

Sinar turns the gadget over in his hands for a while. "You're good with your hands. Did you do this before?"

"I don't know. As I said, my memory is erased. But if I am hunted, I'm prepared. I found out that I am good with computers and weapons, too."

"Tell-tale signs," Sinar agrees. "What will you do next?"

I lower my voice and move a little closer to him. "I wanted to convert my pad to a transmitter/receiver for the holonet. Then I can search it for more information in secret. I have almost everything together, I need, too."

"If there is something you can use," Sinar said, indicating the mess in his room.

I looked around and soon had all the pieces together I would need. But all of Sinar's so called 'tools' were either broken or to coarse I couldn't borrow any of those. But I knew how I could get at the tools of the janitor, that would not be a problem.

After helping him put on his new poison sensor, I thanked Sinar and told him again to be careful. Then I eased open the door, looked around carefully and slipped out. I would wait until bed time to break into the janitor's closet. The security measures were not very strict. Another hint that this was indeed just a madhouse, not a disguised high security prison.

I have thought about being Mandalorian.

That would mean that I had worn armour, it would explain a lot.

It explains why my face always looked wrong to me. The helmet does a bad imitation of a face. I look at my picture and compare it to my face - the similarities are minimal. The size, the approximate shape, but you already need some fantasy to make the horizontal and vertical slits into eyes and nose. The helmet has no mouth, no ears, no cheekbones, no chin.

I wonder why I hide my face behind such a mask so much, that it seems to be more my real face than my flesh and bone features. I am not ugly or misshaped. Am I running? Hiding myself in plain view?

The armour also explains my wounds, or their absence. Mandalorian armour is harder than steel, it is made to endure. If I got caught in the explosion wearing my armour, it would have spent most of its energy on the armour. I must have been real close, to get hurt like this, almost on top of it.

But who had then taken my armour? I was not wearing it when I was found. Whoever it was, he had taken everything. Why?

Was it a trap that I had walked into? But who was I that somebody would want to be me? Or was I left for dead and the armour taken home by valiant friends? But why should they leave the body? A Mandalorain is more than his armour, is he not?

Maybe I was on my own, believed dead and my armour was taken to be sold. Would it sell?

So many questions - they make my head spin. I feel as if finding out I was Mandalorian raised more questions than it answered.

But the man inside the armour is me - this I know.