Lost Past (3 page)

             
There clearly was nothing else in his apartment. His doorbell startled him and when he moved, there was the stiffness of having spent too much time in one position, but his pain was manageable, even though the pill must be wearing off. He looked through the peephole, worried that his background would give him enemies, but it was Cara. She brought Chinese food and groceries.

             
The meal was for both of them, and he pulled the chair from his desk up to his tiny dinette table. He must not have company often.

             
“I have a session with a patient I’d like to show you,” Cara said, pulling out a DVD and putting it in his computer drive. “You would never do this before and I have his permission . . .”
             

He reached over and ejected the DVD, Arthur’s warning ringing in his ears. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be doing things I refused to do before.”

“You might expand your horizons,” she said suggestively. She was obviously thinking about more than the interview with the patient.

             
He shook his head, but was smiling. Cara led the conversation away from psychiatry. John let himself get lost in the pure pleasure of talking to someone who was interesting and entertaining. She brought up current news stories that had no impact on either of them, such as unemployment and interest rates. John was not surprised he knew about these topics from his computer’s history, but he was surprised she knew about his interest.

Cara made no further attempt to push intimacy on him, which allowed him to relax while they talked. After she left to return to work, he analyzed the conversation and realized Cara studied his interests. Again, he wondered why he wasn’t having a relationship with her, since there was a mutual attraction. “Mutual attraction” didn’t say enough, but he apparently hid his strong feelings. Why?

He used emptying the trash as an excuse to walk around outside, meeting a neighbor who parked next to John’s car. She identified herself and asked if he was feeling better. The buildings in the neighborhood didn’t seem familiar to him, but instinctively, he knew he paid little attention to these buildings because he was much more interested in the people. The economically built apartments didn’t reflect the people, because people lived here for the location, not for the architecture. The cars gave clues to character. He knew which cars were expensive and which had a reputation for being reliable. 

As he walked back to his apartment, he understood why he studied cars. The type of car a person drove was a clue to his personality, but he would need to know about cars to understand the clue.

Arthur’s prediction that he would discover he wasn’t behaving naturally was fulfilled. He wished Arthur gave him a hint as to why, or at least
told
him where he could
find an explanation. There was a voicemail message when he returned. He was frustrated that he didn’t know the password to retrieve it. Caller ID said it came from Arthur. He tried returning the call, but the phone went into voice mail. He replied, explaining his inability to retrieve the voicemail, then for good measure, went to his computer and dashed off an email to Arthur, duplicating the information. As he did so, he realized why he had not bothered to password protect the accounts on his computer. The computer contained no secrets.

             
He took more pain medicine and slept. When he woke, there was an email from Arthur:

             
“John, we must talk. I’m in an airport in Melbourne and boarding soon and I’ll see you when I get back. Arthur.” The message said that i
t was sent from his cell phone.

Another twenty-four hours, John thought. More than that if I give him time to go home, shower and sleep. Two days at the most and then I’ll find out what the hell is going on. He tried to put it out of his mind and rested.

INTERLUDE 1

             
Jorxt
hated being interrupted when he was budding. Admittedly, he just started, but any fool could see what he was doing. A package with material to implant a catheter was open, but untouched, within reach.  He was naked, had an IV in, and the remains of a huge meal were on a tray on the counter. A tube of flesh with a knob on the end projected out from his side. The knob would first enlarge and then take the form of a biped. It wasn’t really a
Plict
, because Buds were different. They weren’t true
Plict
, and didn’t have full
Plict
rights, which was proper.

             
Jorxt
-Bud VIII should have seen the situation, apologized, and left, ideally taking the tray away. Instead, the idiot signed that he needed to communicate in writing.

Scratch that thought, he’s not an idiot. He has my brain, at least, as it was a year ago. Not my looks though. Buds lacked mouths and many internal organs. The Bud’s face with the missing lower jaw looked inferior to
Jorxt
.
Jorxt
-Bud VIII did have a beautiful gray complexion, a well-placed blowhole, and lovely pink eyes.
Jorxt
was immensely proud of his pink eyes, because most
Plict
had orange or purple eyes.

             
Jorxt
-Bud VIII handed him a slate with the words, “Recordings from Earth you must see. Hernandez is out of control.”

             
“Later,”
Jorxt
said. “It’s too early in the Budding process.”

             
Jorxt
-Bud VIII left, showing a proper amount of servility.
Jorxt
knew the servility was an act, because his Bud wanted to leave permanently, which is why
Jorxt
was budding so soon. He had to admire
Jorxt
-Bud VIII’s negotiating skill. He knew exactly how much he could push. He told
Jorxt
that he would stay a full year and a week, to allow
Jorxt
to bud again, but
Jorxt’s
share of his future earnings would be one-fifth, not one-fourth. It was worth it, because hiring someone else’s Bud never worked out as well. Buds I through VII
were
out there, earning money.

             
Jorxt
was smart enough to realize he must keep his skills current to make his Buds able to earn more, but he was tired of the work that took. A devoted Bud’s presence made the work more bearable and
Jo
rxt
was getting lazy. He was more
tempted by short-term gain
than he was when he was younger
. It would be nice to have enough money so he wouldn’t have to worry about the future. The only real way he saw for that to happen was if the bets on that human Hernandez paid off.

             
For the next hour,
Jorxt
concentrated on budding. After a point, it became automatic, but the beginning took effort to get right. Eventually,
Jorxt
-Bud VIII came in and silently handed him the remote.
Jorxt
usually read during the passive part of budding, but this would be entertainment enough.

             
The first segment was a series of news stories from Earth about the bombing of a school. There were subtitles in
Vigintees
, and the heroism of John Graham was mentioned. Well, surprise, surprise. Zhexp was being noble. So what else was new?
Jorxt
-Bud VIII shouldn’t have interrupted him for that.

             
Jorxt
was mentally composing an insulting speech to his Bud when the recording from Hernandez’ implanted camera came on. There was little sound at first, but enough showed that identified Hernandez placing the bomb in the school. How many deaths were there? He backtracked to the newscast to get the number. Eighteen, he thought with excitement. He started calcul
ating the totals. He would earn
one thousand
credit
s for the first murder, two thousand for the second, that’s three thousand. Three thousand for the
third, that’s six thousand. He realized that was too much to do a running total in his head while budding, and resolved to figure it out afterward. But it would be a satisfying total, which he predicted before Hernandez was born. Eleven thousand
credit
s was a huge amount of money to bet, but when he looked at Hernandez’ genome, he was sure Hernandez would be a killer.

             
He went back to where he left off and saw an edited version of Hernandez’ bringing
Katrine
to a restaurant near the school. What was Hernandez thinking?
Katrine
shouldn’t be on Earth. Her immune system wasn’t good enough.

             
Jorxt
-Bud VIII mercifully left out the boring details. Hernandez gave her a phone, told her how to use it, and dialed a number.
Katrine
spoke about being alone and afraid and how she needed John to help her. Hernandez returned to a spot where John would pass, allowing him to detonate the bomb just before John came by the school.

             
Then there was a replay of the number of deaths and a calculation, giving 171,000
credit
s. Not bad, almost three year’s income. Of course, he would have to pay taxes on it, but he couldn’t risk making his bets at places that didn’t report taxes. They might not pay up.

             
Next came a recording of the kidnapping of Arthur Saunders.
Jorxt
was unhappy about that; Saunders was a
Plict
citizen, even if he was from an inferior species. They shouldn’t have risked Saunders. Actually, they shouldn’t have kidnapped Saunders to begin with, but Hernandez probably was unaware of the legal technicalities. Would this mean that Hernandez wouldn’t earn him any more money on bets for future actions?

             
A subtitled news story from Earth came next.
Jorxt
subtracted one from the report of the deaths, because presumably Saunders was still alive. Hernandez was sure to be stopped after this. But wait, each of his successive Buds had worse handwriting, because
Jorxt
only used the cumbersome print that the computer could read so his Buds would be able to program. He would have his new Bud write a report, and
Saxant
would have trouble reading it. The delay might give Hernandez time. Nevertheless, the calculations that came on the screen showing a total of more than eight million
credit
s were very satisfying.

             
He finished the budding process several hours later, lost in the pleasant thought of all the money he would have. He was no longer worried about problems with collecting the money. They would use it as advertising and others would make long-term bets, just on the remote possibility that they would become rich in the future.

             
His Bud,
Jorxt
-Bud IX, finally disconnected and stood up shakily.
Both the Bud and his progenitor were the same size,
adding up to what
Jorxt
was before. Fortunately, neither was too thin, since t
hin Buds didn’t live as long
,
and
too
thin progenitors often had health problems.

             
The two of them implanted the catheter, which would keep the Bud alive for another forty years or more, if he was lucky. He felt sorry for his Bud. He would never feel the pleasure of eating or of sex. Twice a day, he would connect to a machine, which would both feed him and clean his blood. Buds were inferior to mouthed
Plict
, even if they had the brains of them. Something about being a Bud changed them.

             
When the task was done,
Jorxt
-Bud IX found a tablet and wrote, “Congratulations on your successful bets. What a wonderful day for me to start my life as a Bud.”

             
His handwriting was as bad as
Jorxt
hoped.

CHAPTER 4

             
The phone rang. “John, this is Mary. Mary Chen. Do you remember me?”

             
“Yes, from the hospital.”

             
“Your memory hasn’t returned?” she asked.

             
“No. What’s wrong?” From her voice, there was obviously something wrong.

             
“Arthur’s plane crashed. They think there are no survivors.”

             
“Where are you? I’ll be right over.”

             
MapQuest gave him directions and he found their condo easily. This time, Mary accepted a hug from him, the kiss in the hospital forgotten. Somewhat to his surprise, John found himself in charge. Mary answered his questions and showed brief annoyance when she answered things he should have known. She then accepted the questions and John realized she found the distraction of the questions better than the alternative of just waiting. There was nothing to be done until more news came out.