I lie still for a few more minutes, listening to the sounds of the city getting louder and letting the noise chase away that memory of Larry talking to me. I really don’t like remembering those times in the halo because I don’t just remember them. I’m not sure what remembering feels like for most people, but for me, it’s like I’m there again. It’s as if I disappear for a moment, only to reappear, and when it’s over, I need a moment to reorient myself.
I need to get off this scaffolding. But I don’t want to call attention to myself by climbing back down the way I came, in full view of anyone on the street. So I scoot over to the other side. But a quick look over the edge of the plywood wall tells me it’s a straight drop, maybe sixty feet into a mound of gravel inside the construction zone. I can either lie up here all day or climb back down on the street side.
By now, one of the SUVs has circled back and is trawling up the block slowly. I wait while it does two more slow circuits around the block. And suddenly my prayers are answered in the form of a double-decker, open-top tour bus.
Either this one hasn’t started its run for the day or no one wants to take a tour through Manhattan at eight o’clock in the morning. In any event, the top level of the bus is empty. I leap to my feet and run the length of the block along the top of the scaffolding, hoping I can overtake the bus when it stops at the intersection. Up ahead, the light turns yellow and then red. The bus cruises to a halt, giving me the precious seconds I need to catch up to it. The top of the bus is almost level with the scaffolding. It’s barely a jump at all and I land lightly in the center aisle. I turn around to see if anyone’s noticed, and I can see the street vendor waving at me. I give him a salute before squatting low next to one of the seats.
A moment later, the bus rounds the corner. Fortunately it’s heading back toward Central Park, and when it stops for some people in the crosswalk a few blocks later, I grab the safety railing along the bus top, leap over, and hang as far down as I can before letting myself fall the rest of the way into the road. Not a pleasant sensation for my feet as I hit the pavement, but I’ve experienced way worse.
I jog up the street, back in the direction I came from near the southwest corner of Central Park. I try to stay out of view, walking between parked cars and running next to vans and buses to shield me from view whenever I can. I’ve lost track of the time until I pass a jeweler’s window and see a few diamond-studded Rolex watches all set to 8:20 a.m.
In front of Claymore Tower there’s no sign of the SUVs, but I stay out of sight and keep my eyes peeled for Thomas. A tour bus comes to a stop at the curb, and within a minute, the sidewalk is filled with tourists.
This is my chance. Time to blend in.
I cross the street and mill about with the people who’ve just come off the bus. Okay, so blending in might be easier if these folks weren’t Japanese.
Suddenly there’s an arm around my waist and a voice in my ear. “Excuse me, could you take a picture of me and my girlfriend?”
I turn to face Thomas and pull him into a hug. Then I step back to get a better look at him.
“You left two hours ago in a tuxedo and now you’re wearing a completely different set of clothes?”
“I’m resourceful.”
“You’re a thief. Not that I’m judging.”
“I appreciate your moral flexibility during these times of stress.” He reaches over and pulls the hood on my Coney Island hoodie over the top of my head. “Better keep your head down. Who knows what advanced capabilities Claymore’s security cameras have, and the police might have facial recognition software that can peg you from here.”
I look down and pull the strings of the hoodie so that it nearly cinches closed on my nose.
“Alternatively, to hide your face from view, we could just make out constantly all the way up to the observation deck,” Thomas says.
“I don’t think so.”
“You never want to go with the make-out option, Angel. What is up with that?”
A security guard unlocks the front doors and begins directing the people at the front of the line to the set of three elevator cars dedicated to the observation deck tour. We follow the surge of chatting, laughing tourists. When it’s our turn to file into the next available elevator, we try to put plenty of people between us and the security camera in the upper corner of the elevator car.
The car rises and with it, my hopes. Can there be something useful here? Some clue, some tool, that Larry intended for me to find? Or am I being used again for something I don’t understand and didn’t agree to?
When the observation deck doors open, we spill out onto a magnificent, nearly 360 degree view of upper Manhattan, thanks to the clear Lucite walls and thin silver cords designed to make sure the view is as unobstructed as possible.
Seeing the city below—and the seeming lack of protective barriers along the edge of the roof—several people immediately freeze and then turn around. Apparently this reaction happens frequently because another elevator car is waiting to receive all the tourists with cases of cold feet. Even Thomas seems a bit queasy when someone bumps into him and jostles him closer to the edge.
“You just walk around and think,” Thomas says. “I’ll be over here trying not to look too shady or terrified.”
I step toward the roof’s edge. Around me, people are taking little steps, battling the sensation that they’re close to falling. Some of them lunge for the clear wall as if pretending to leap off. Thomas is quickly drafted into taking photo after photo of tourists posing against the skyline background. Then they pull him into their group and want to take pictures with him. Looking at him, I’m struck by the way he can ease himself into just about any situation. I have to force myself to stop staring at him, because my admiration quickly segues into worry.
We have to get him that next injection.
Which means I have to remember something useful.
I put my hands on the nearly invisible railing and look out over Central Park. Then I look north toward my old neighborhood. Out of nowhere, all these feelings hit me like a series of punches, one after the other.
Dread.
Exhaustion.
Sadness.
Longing.
I’m back in the chair, listening to that drill biting down into my skull. This time, it hurts. Not the drill, but the memory it’s seeking out . . .
“What’s your favorite food?” Larry asks.
I can feel the vibration of the drill in my jaw as I try to speak. I’m aware of each breath I take, like I have to remember to keep breathing or else I’ll stop. Maybe this is it, finally it. They’ve hit the wrong part of my brain. The “good-bye, so long, farewell” part.
“Sarah? You with me?”
“Yeah.” I think of caramel-flavored ice cream. Spicy beef empanadas. Coconut shaved ice. Jerk chicken. Chocolate birthday cake made from a boxed mix with vanilla frosting right from the can, the kind my mother thinks tastes terrible.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I have lots of favorite foods.”
“Pick one.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come on, Sarah, this isn’t a life-or-death choice.”
“I have one, I just don’t want to tell you what it is.”
“Why not? It’s a harmless question.”
But that’s not true. There are no harmless questions. Everything he asks, he asks for a reason. Every memory is a trail of bread crumbs to another memory. I’ve given them enough. They’ve taken too much of me already. What will happen when they finally have it all? Will my skull cave in once all the contents are emptied out?
“If I tell you, you’re going to take it away from me,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I know how this works. I say something, and those electrodes show you those bursts of electrical activity. You see all the lights inside my mind. Then you drill into my head and one by one you put the lights out.”
For a few seconds, I hear nothing but a dull hum of a live mic capturing the dead air between us. Dead air filled with lies.
“No, Sarah,” Larry says, and for the first time ever, his voice is choked with emotion. “Today is different. I promise.”
I’m trying to fight off the sleepy, careless feeling that the drugs bring on. They seem to make it harder to look on the bright side. To believe in the promise of this treatment. It’s like a shot of liquid “I don’t care” straight into my veins. But today, Larry’s words go deep into me, as though they bypass my awareness and instead lodge just below the surface, waiting.
Larry might be able to look into my head but he can’t know, can’t see what I’m feeling. My thoughts are more than just small, colorful electrical storms on a monitor.
I was right.
There really are no harmless questions.
I feel a hand slide across my back and I flinch.
“You all right?” Thomas says.
“Yeah.”
“Did you remember something?”
“Yeah.”
I turn and look out over the park again. Gradually I turn myself north, like my whole body is a divining rod. My old neighborhood. I’ve walked those streets several times since my return, disappointed that I felt like a stranger there. But now . . . now something is different.
Thomas takes me by the shoulders and pulls me into a hug. “Hey, come on. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I could really go for some Thai food,” I say into his ear.
He releases me and gives me a squinty look of confusion. “Um . . . what?”
“I know it sounds strange, but I have this incredible craving for Thai food.” I try to remember ever having it or seeing a Thai restaurant in my old neighborhood. I don’t recall one, not that that means anything, but why would I crave it like this, so specifically, as if I’m starving for it?
I pull Thomas by the arm, pushing our way through the crowd toward the elevators. “It’s a clue. I know it is. I can’t explain it but . . . this means something.”
“You’re jonesing for some pad thai at nine o’clock in the morning and we’re just gonna run with that?”
“I remembered . . . in the hospital. Larry asked me about my favorite food. And there was something else we talked about that day. Something important. I think that’s why he linked the two things in my mind. Anyway, I think we have to go to my old neighborhood . . .” I look at him and suddenly stop speaking, because his expression as he looks down at his phone is broadcasting distress in every language, at full volume. “What’s the matter?”
He turns his stolen phone toward me. “There’s a live street-view cam set up at Columbus Circle. This is a shot of the street in front of the building about ten minutes ago. Right after we went inside.”
There must be ten police cars parked at the curb, and several cops are re-directing traffic around the circle and setting up a blockade with yellow sawhorses. They seem to be asking the tourists to move away from the waiting line. All of them are in riot gear.
“Oh, wow. That’s quite the party going on down there.”
“It gets worse,” he says. “Here’s a video of the street right now.”
The police cars are moving off, and in their place, several unmarked black SUVs have shown up.
“I don’t get it. Where did all the police go?”
“I don’t know, but I’d rather deal with city cops than whoever those guys are.”
“If they were able to clear away the police, that means . . .”
“Yeah. Only a federal agency would be able to just come in and claim jurisdiction.”
Considering how much help I’ve gotten from federal agencies in the past twenty-four hours, this doesn’t seem like a promising development. “Come on, let’s go.”
He nudges me into an open elevator car, cutting directly in front of a group of people waiting to get on. “Sorry, folks! My girlfriend gets queasy from heights, and oddly she had chili for breakfast. Might want to wait for the next car.”
People scramble to step back, and the doors close a moment later.
“Thomas! Why are we going down there if we know they’re waiting for us?”
“The observation deck is the only thing open to the public, and this elevator bypasses all the floors with offices or private apartments. Except if there’s an emergency.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Obviously we’re going to create an emergency.”