The weekend was equally uneventful. Nick liked to keep his weekends unstructured or at least largely blocked out for recreation and friends, and he spent Saturday helping a friend move some furniture around. He got a free dinner in return that evening—and successfully resisted the urge to voice any of the numerous opinions on fashion and interior decorating that wormed their way into his head, drinking several beers to block any more intrusive thoughts from reaching him.
Sunday he watched half of a ballgame, tried calling his mom and got her machine instead, then grabbed his keys and headed for the library to look up some early experiments that formed a precursor to his own experiments. Halfway there he spotted an open pay phone and impulsively grabbed it, fishing the requisite change out of his jeans. He didn’t even think about the number this time—his fingers dialed it automatically, and he had to repress a sudden urge to say “Hey Suzie, anybody call for me?” when Amy’s roommate answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Uh, hi—is Amy there?”
“Can I say who’s calling?” For a second his heart leapt, before the vivid image of their house mother drilling them on how to deal with harassing callers danced across his mind. So she wasn’t spacing the whole time, after all, a thought crowed, and Nick tightened his grip on the phone, trying desperately to focus on the feel of the hard plastic in his hand.
“This is her teacher, Nick Gordon.” She’ll probably recognize my voice anyway, he reasoned, so there’s no point in lying about it. Besides, I’ve got nothing to hide—I hope!
“Oh, Mr. Gordon—I’m sorry, she’s not actually here right now.” Suzie sounded a little strained. “Actually, I’m starting to get pretty worried—she hasn’t been home since Thursday afternoon, and nobody’s seen her.”
“Well, maybe she went home or something.” But it didn’t sound very convincing, even to him. And Suzie’s response just confirmed it.
“No, I called there—they haven’t seen her or heard from her, either. And she always calls home every Sunday.” He could hear a catch in Suzie’s voice. “I used to tease her about that.” So what if some of us actually have a good relationship with our parents, the voice in his head snapped with the sound of old habit, but Nick ignored it.
“Well. . . .” he hesitated, but his concern got the better of his caution. “Have you called the police yet?”
“The police? Do you think I should?”
“Well, if it’s not like Amy to disappear like this, she could be in trouble.” An image of the pile of ash leapt unbidden into his head, and he clenched his eyes shut to banish it. “It might be a good idea to call them.”
“Yeah . . . you’re right. I’ll do it right now.” There was a brief pause. “Did you want to leave a message for her? In case—in case she does show up?” Suzie sounded near tears now.
“Oh, um, right.” Nick thought quickly. Why would you call on a Sunday, you dunce, when you’ll see her on Tuesday anyway? Think! “I—I just wanted to let her know that I wouldn’t be in my office tomorrow, so she shouldn’t stop by.” That sounded lame, but Suzie didn’t comment beyond saying “I’ll tell her” and then hanging up. Nick stared at the phone in his hand for a long moment before finally returning it to its cradle and trudging down the street to the L stop.
He got home late to find a message from his friend Brian about shooting some hoops tomorrow after lunch, and another from his mom saying she was sorry she had missed him. He went to sleep early and dreamt about people shriveling into nothingness, screaming his name as they turned to ash. One of them had Amy’s voice.
The next day he typed up his report, dropping it on Carmichael’s desk his customary two minutes before the noon deadline, and then headed to the gym to meet Brian. They played for about an hour and Nick’s coordination seemed better than usual but his heart wasn’t in the game. He lost badly. Brian offered to buy him dinner to make up for it, but Nick declined, saying he had more work to do. Instead he went by the Psych department and asked to see someone for therapy.
The woman’s name was Barb, and she explained when they met that night that she was a second-year master’s student in Psych, and was doing this for the experience—the fourteen-dollar charge was just nominal, and went to the department, not to her. She was tall and thin and had an air of competence and sanity about her, with her short brown hair and her simple but nicely made blouse—I wish I could color-match properly, my choices always make me look so washed out, the voice in his head complained—but he thought about the stark furnishings of the room they were in and it went away. After introducing herself Barb gestured to the low black couch and suggested they get started.
“This is all confidential, right?” Nick asked as he lowered himself onto the cushioning.
“Absolutely.” Barb flipped open a notepad she’d brought in, clicked a pen, and sat back. “Why don’t you start by telling me a little about yourself?”
“Well, my name is Nick Gordon—” My name is Amy Feldmar, the voice insisted, although it didn’t seem as loud as it had that first time, in that other room—“and I’m a Ph.D. student in Genetics.” I am a sophomore in . . . oh, I don’t know, probably English, but maybe French, the echo countered. “Oh, and I’m twenty-five.” I am twenty-one—well, okay, I’ll be twenty-one in two weeks, anyway.
He frowned. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” Barbara asked, looking up. “The fact that you’re twenty-five? Time does tend to catch up with us quickly, doesn’t it?”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Nick explained. Should I tell her, he wondered, and then answered his own question—hell, that’s why I came here in the first place! “It’s the voice in my head—it seems to be repeating itself.”
“Voice in your head?” She leaned forward more attentively now, notepad forgotten. “Tell me about this voice, Nick.”
“Well . . .” he took a deep breath, then plunged into it. “For the last few days I’ve had this voice in my head—it’s definitely not me, and in fact it sounds decidedly feminine. It’s not always there, but sometimes when I think about something it will say something else, something I wouldn’t have said, or even thought of. Particularly when I tell someone my name.”
“It has a different name?”
“Yes, it does. It’s . . . Angie. Angie Foreman.” He had almost voiced Amy’s real name, urged on by the echo in his head, but at the last second had caught himself—confidential or not, there was no sense inviting trouble.
“Do you know anyone by that name, Nick?”
“No,” he replied honestly. “I’ve never heard it before.”
“So you said you’ve heard this voice for several days, but now you think it’s repeating itself—what did you mean by that?”
“Well, when I told you my name, it countered with its own, and it did the same with age and major—but the wording was exactly the same as the first time this happened. Let’s see . . . I’m a quarter century old.” And the voice in his head responded, I am twenty-one—well, okay, I’ll be twenty-one in two weeks, anyway.
“Well?” He had forgotten for a moment that Barbara couldn’t hear the voice as well—wouldn’t that make things easier, he thought wryly.
“It gave the same answer—‘I am twenty-one—well, okay, I’ll be twenty-one in two weeks, anyway.’ Exact same wording each time.”
“Hm—so it’s several years younger than you,” the therapist mused. “That probably indicates a desire to return to an earlier time, when you had less responsibility and more freedom. The fact that she’s of legal age allows you unrestricted movement and choice, while the difference in gender abdicates you of any responsibility for her thoughts and actions.”
“Huh?” Nick shook his head. “No no, don’t you see? Conditioned answers rather than spontaneous response, consistent wording—there isn’t a real person there. It’s more like some sort of recording. I thought she was actually talking to me, but that’s not the case—there must be some sort of memory retention or transfer involved, and whenever a thought or image comes up that relates to one of these retained memories, that gets pulled up.” To test it, he tried thinking of Amy’s roommate Suzie answering the phone, and was rewarded with Why does she always answer on the first ring? I hate that! I wish she’d learn to screen calls—there are all those weirdoes who call girls up and harass them, and once she’s answered we can’t exactly pretend we’re not there. . . .
He stretched and stood up, reaching for his wallet. “Barb, thank you—you’ve been a big help.”
“What do you mean?” There was a puzzled look on her face, but when Nick offered her the handful of bills he fished out of his wallet she stood up as well, hand automatically reaching for the money at the same time that her mouth protested.
“But you can’t leave now! We’ve only just scratched the surface—you’re exhibiting all the signs of what’s known as Disassociative Identity Disorder and used to be called multiple personalities! It sounds like you might have a full secondary personality there, formed from intense stress and an inability to deal fully with the rigors of your current responsibilities! This is a serious matter!”
“Yes, well, I appreciate your concern,” Nick told her, “but I’ve decided to just muddle along with this ‘secondary personality’ myself for a while.” He paused at the door and turned back to her with a grin. “Who knows—maybe I can work out an arrangement with it. You know, like a time-share—I get one week, it gets one week, that sort of thing. But if we need an outside mediator, I’ll be sure to let you know.” And he let himself out, leaving Barb staring at him in abject disbelief.
I shouldn’t have taunted her like that, he chided himself as he headed for the stairwell and retraced his route out of the building—but come on! Secondary personality? Inability to cope? Give me a break!
Although she does raise one good point, he reminded himself. This is a serious matter. Even if Amy isn’t haunting me like I feared, her memories seem to be trapped in my head, and I don’t know how they got there, or how to get rid of them.
Right. He got to the front door and grasped the handle but didn’t open it yet. Let’s think this through—you’re a scientist for heaven’s sake, deal with the facts! First, something odd happened to you Thursday night—whatever it was, it seems to have been more than a dream, so we can accept that something happened and deal with the how’s and why’s later. Second, Amy was there. Third, something happened to her then, something that made her go missing, and you were involved in it. Fourth, after whatever happened to Amy, you met a man named Daniel who claimed to know what was going on. Fifth, since then you’ve had what seem to be Amy’s memories in your head. Sixth . . . okay, there isn’t anything else. So what does all that mean?
Nick thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. I don’t know. I just don’t know. But maybe I can at least narrow down the possibilities. He pushed open the door and headed down the front steps and to the sidewalk—but once there he turned right and headed back toward the main part of campus instead of going to the left where the L stop was.