"Do you like it?" Corri has the expression of a hopeful puppy waiting to be thrown a bone, and somehow I don't have the heart to tell her what I really think of the small dark set of rooms that I've been assigned. I settle for a gently neutral tone.
"Why aren't there any windows?" For that matter I haven't seen a single window in this whole place, not in the infirmary or any of the many long and winding hallways she's lead me through.
"We're underground at the moment. Actually the entire compound is underground for safety's sake. It is a sign of the highest favor to be given living quarters so far up in the dwelling. We are only about thirty feet beneath the earth right now, very close to Father." I wonder vaguely if she's referring to her own father or some biblical figure but I don't ask, religion being one of those touchy subjects which you shouldn't discuss with strangers and potential nutcases. Instead I try to look suitably impressed at the honor which has been bestowed upon me. I twitch uncomfortably as my stomach lets out a particularly loud growl.
"Is there any chance of getting some food? Or better yet, getting some food and meeting some of the other people who live in this compound?" She looks around nervously at the suggestion and then seems to pull herself up a little taller as though she has come to the decision that whatever problems there might be she's more than equal to the task of coping with them.
"You'll probably be allowed to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of us. The others might be wary of you, we tend to be rather xenophobic, but you are my guest and more importantly you are Father's guest so no one will dare make confront you. Perhaps you might like to get changed into more suitable clothing before we go out?" She smirks a little and her eyes flit down the length of my body making me acutely aware of the fact that all I'm wearing is a medical gown. "You'll find clean clothing in the bureau drawer. They are as close to your size as I could estimate, from you uhm, well they're just close."
"Thank you Corri, you're being very generous to me." It occurs to me, not for the first time that Corri hasn't seen fit to actually tell me what I'm doing in an underground hideout with a ton of cuts and bruises and no memory. Some deep instinct tells me not to push my luck until I've secured food, clothing, and a good night's sleep first.
"I'll wait out in the hall for you while you get changed and then I will show you the way to the cafeteria." Nodding her head politely Corri turns on her heel and shuts the door behind herself, leaving me alone in my small impersonal quarters. My hearing pricks softly counting the number of steps she takes, four, once she leaves. Something tells me that normal people shouldn't be able to hear so well.
I find a full length mirror when I open the wardrobe door and as I strip off my hospital gown I take the opportunity to make a better survey of my body. I'm not totally displeased with what I find, an even six feet tall or so, slimly but muscularly built, I'd guess my age at between twenty and twenty five years of age. There aren't any lines on my face but the development of my bone structure seems to be complete. I run my fingers through overlong dirty-blond locks of hair and note with satisfaction that I don't seem to be losing any of it. The eyes staring back from the mirror are a dark hazel and surrounded by bruise-like circles that tell me I haven't gotten enough sleep lately, despite my enforced three or four day nap. Now for the interesting part, I examine the many half-healed cuts and bruises lining my body. Two of them, one on my arm and one on my leg are concurrent with .45 caliber bullet wounds, and a large cut across my stomach appears to have been made my a large sharp bladed knife.
The most fascinating of the contusions though are the ones across the left side of my abdomen. Five deep gouges run in parallel and have to have been made by human fingernails. I also get an odd feeling as I run my fingers over them, as though I'm missing something important and it's imperative that I find this thing immediately. In fact the gouge marks itch quite badly and it takes all of my self control not to scratch at them.
A small cough on the other side of the door tells me that I'm taking a suspiciously long time to get changed and that my escort is becoming impatient. I pull the drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe open and pull out a pair of dark gray open ankle sweatpants and white boxers, and from the hangers above it I pull down a plain white t-shirt. The clothing is drab but nothing that I can't live with, in fact it seems at once comfortingly and disturbingly familiar.
I must be becoming paranoid in my old age, as I worry about the feeling of déjà vu the cuts and colors of the clothes give me, but when you have no memory you need to cling to the little things. Quickly I pull the pants and shirt on and hurry out to meet Corri.
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I sit in my office in the least dilapidated building in Terminal City, and listen with variable attention to the meeting going on in the conference room outside. My knees are pulled up to my chin and I sit sideways in the old executives chair with all of its wheels missing.
They've just told me the news, or rather Joshua and Kate have just at once shattered and rebuilt my world. I don't know what to think of it. The sense of giddy excitement that I'd first felt has been replaced with a sense of deep dread that this dead body will just be replaced by another one, a real one. Now my feelings bob violently up and down like a life raft lost on a stormy sea.
I reach my hand up absently to scratch at the barely healed marks on my stomach, but as I touch the five parallel marks a strange feeling of warmth rushes over my body and I stop and simply rest my hand there.
The sense comes to my mind like a whisper. A hint of his smell surrounds me, familiar but tainted by a faint clinical odor rather than enhanced by leather and Old Spice. Then the fear and confusion blanket me, suffocating me, before a rigid control seizes then and pushes them down. Beneath it all I feel him, love, anger, uncertainty hidden by bravery, duty circumvented by a growing sense of right. He's hurt and frightened and blown as far from himself as can be, but I'm not worried anymore.
He's alive, I can feel it now. I know where to find him but it's going to be the biggest bitch of all to get him back. Lucky for him that he's worth it. And lucky for me that I can be the biggest bitch of all.