Cowboy Bebop

Masquerade

By Amos Whirly

Chapter Two: Picking Up the Pieces

     He lay in the bed, drowsy but unable to sleep.  The nurse had given him a sedative of some kind, but if it had been intended to put him to sleep, it had not worked.  He lay staring at the blinding ceiling with his one functioning eye, desperately trying not to panic. 

     The sedative hadn't even worked on his nerves.

     I hate hospitals, he thought. But why?  And why can't I talk?  What's wrong with my voice?  And why can't I move?  What happened to me?

     The door opened, and an overweight man in a white lab coat that was far too small for him stepped into the hospital room. 

     "Good morning, Mr. Doe," the man smiled brightly. "My name is Dr. Murphy, and I've been keeping tabs on you since you came to us."

     He opened his mouth to speak, but again, no sound came out.

     "Hold on," Murphy dug around in the pocket of his lab coat. "Here."

     Murphy handed a strange device to him.

     "It's a vocal chord amplifier," Murphy explained. "It'll help you talk, and it will eventually get your vocal chords back in working order."

     He set the amplifier against his throat.

     "Where am I?" he said.

     His voice had a mechanical hum to it, but at least the words were intelligible.

     "St. Alpheus of Mars Hospital."

     "St. Alpheus?"

     "Yes."

     "That's for terminal cases."

     "Yes.  Well, Mr. Doe, we never expected you to wake up."

     "Mr. Doe?"

     "Yes, I'd call you by your real name, but no one seems to know what it is.  Speaking of which, we're going to need some information about you.  By the way, what is your name?"

     "I—I don't know."

     "Hm," Murphy mumbled. "I was afraid of that.  According to your file, you had a number of serious injuries when you first arrived here."

     "When?"

     "Oh, about a year ago," Murphy smiled. "That's why you can't talk or move.  All your muscle tissue has atrophied."

     "How?"

     "When you don't use your muscles, they tend to—"

     "No.  How did I get injured?"

     "You don't know?"

     "No.  I don't remember anything."

     "Well, that's not good," Murphy made a note on his chart.

     "What about my eye?  Is that one of the injuries?"

     "No, actually.  Your right eye was cybernetic, and due to the seriousness of your injuries, most of your body systems starting shutting down.  The eye was designed to function as long as your body functioned.  When you started dying, it died.  So we removed it."

     "I see."

     "Probably not very well, though, huh?" Murphy laughed raucously.

     He stopped when his patient did not join him.

     "Sorry," he said. "Little joke."

     "It wasn't funny."

     "I got that," Murphy made a notation on his chart. "Sir, all we know is that some guy found you in the wreck of a building and brought you here.  A lot of people died that night.  You were just about the only one who came in from that wreck that actually survived."

     "How many were there?"

     "At least fifty or sixty," Murphy shrugged. "The building blew up.  Some folks say it was a syndicate coup or something.  I don't know.  That was a bloody week."

     Murphy kept rambling, but his patient fell silent, trying to remember something—anything.

     "So can I get out of here?" he finally asked.

     "Sure," Murphy made another note. "You're fit as a fiddle as far as I can tell.  I mean, you'll need a week or so of rehab to get your muscles to working again, but the process doesn't take very long anymore.  Not with the new techniques they developed four months ago."

     "Great," his voice held no excitement.

* * *

     Dr. Murphy's week became three days as his amnesiac patient responded well to the treatment.  Soon, he was walking around and moving as if he had never been in a hospital bed in his life.  His voice responded well to the treatment also, but his memory, however, was completely gone.

     He sat alone in the gym of the rehabilitation wing, stretching his arms and legs out.  For some reason, it felt familiar.

     "Mr. John Doe?" a whiny voice interrupted him.

     He turned and glared at the skinny woman in the doorway.  Her glasses were at least an inch think, and her nose took up most of her reddened face.

     "Are you Mr. John Doe?  Dr. Murphy said Mr. John Doe was practicing in the gymnasium area." She pushed her glasses up. "Since you are the only person in this facility, I therefore assume you are Mr. John Doe."

     "Well that's what they're calling me," he answered darkly.

     "Yes, yes, yes," the woman ambled in on legs like toothpicks. "Total loss of memory.  Ocular inhibition.  No sense of humor."

     "What?"

     "Apologies," the woman pushed her glasses up again. "I was just reading Dr. Murphy's notes." She gave a snort of laughter. "No sense of humor!  That is amusing!  Ha-ha!  Ha-ha!"

     She pushed her glasses up once more and turned to him.

     "My name is Dr. Gertrude Hetzendorf.  I am with social services.  I am here to place you in a housing facility that will provide adequate solutions to your present disabilities."

     "My present disabilities?"

     "You are missing an eye, Mr. Doe," Hetzendorf pointed out. "That is qualified as an ocular inhibition.  I am here to assure you will be situated in a housing development specialized for the optically challenged."

     He rolled his eyes and returned to his stretching, saying, "I don't need your help."

     "Once you are settled, you will be able to see an ophthalmologist of highest quality who will fit you for a new cybernetic optical device."

     "I don't have any money."

     "Well, that is a definite hindrance as your medical bills for your extended stay at St. Alpheus are insurmountable at best."

     "Just buzz off, lady.  I don't need your help."

     "Very well," Hetzendorf signed a sheet of paper and handed it to him.

     "What's this?"

     "Your discharge," she nodded sharply. "You are hereby released from St. Alpheus, with the knowledge that you have accumulated a rather substantial amount of fees, fines, taxes, and other such invoices as government shall dictate."

     "Fine," he snatched the paper out of her hand.

     "You are expected to vacate the premises of St. Alpheus by noon today," Hetzendorf said. "Thank you for choosing St. Alpheus for your medical needs.  I hope you will consider us again when your personal well-being is in jeopardy."

     She turned and ambled out of the room.

     He watched her go and rolled his eyes, glancing at the paper.  He let a curse escape his lips at the multitude of digits on the final tally of his medical expenses.

     "You've got to be kidding," he mumbled. "There's no way I can pay that.  Unless I remember I'm a wealthy billionaire or something."

     He crumpled up the paper and shoved it in his back pocket, slowly returning to retrieve his spare set of clothes.

* * *

     He sighed heavily and pushed the creaky, broken door open.  The light from the hallway spilled over the dirty carpet and stained wallpaper of his "new" apartment.

     "A few scratches," he grumbled, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him, "a little smelly, a dead roach or two—oh well.  No questions asked."

     He turned the light on and looked around.

     A twin bed sat in the corner, looking suspiciously like an army cot.  A dilapidated chest of drawers built into the far wall seemed to be infested with termites.  An old black-and-white news monitor sat in the corner.  The bathroom was small but serviceable, and the little closet in the corner was more like a cave.

     He sat down on the bed and stared at the mirror across from him.

     "I've got to find a patch or something," he commented, poking the bottom lid of his empty eye socket.

     With a sigh, he stood and turned the monitor on.  It flared to life with the sound of crackling circuits, and the screen projected the image of a black man in a western outfit. 

     "Shucks, howdy!" the man on the television shouted.

     The rest of his speech was garbled by the malfunctioning volume chip on the monitor.

     A blonde woman also appeared on the screen, saying something excitedly.  The screen flashed images of some rather unscrupulous characters along with reward amounts listed below them.

     "What is this?" he mumbled, leaning closer to the screen.

     The volume kicked in at that exact moment, blaring stridently in his face.  He fell backward and cracked the back of his head on the wall.  The sheet rock gave out at the contact, and his entire upper body crashed through the wall!

     He lay dazed for a moment, half his body laying in a pile of rubble, listening to the monitor that continued to talk.

     "Big Shot," he muttered. "Big Shot.  That's what it's called."

     He sat up in time to see the end credits of the show.

     "Big Shot," he mumbled again. "It's a show for cowboys, for bounty hunters.  Why?  Why do I—?"

     *The metal floor felt cold beneath his bare feet as he ran through his stretching routines in the low-gravity chamber at the front of the ship.  Perspiration beaded on his face as he focused on the movement of his muscles.

     A voice broke into his concentration, a gruff, no-nonsense kind of voice.

     An image—a man with a beard and a blowtorch.

     Bell peppers and beef--?*

     The bed collapsed.

     As it fell, it took him and the rest of the wall with him.  He lay still in the mess, trying to keep his mind focused on the images.  But they were fleeting.  Soon, everything he had seen was gone—awash in the muddled depths of his shattered mind.

     "It was cold," he mumbled. "I could see stars.  Stars.  That's it."

     He struggled to his feet, grabbed his bag of spare clothes, and headed for the door.