‘Hold your horses.’ Mahmoud intoned as he unlocked the car doors remotely and got in the driver’s seat.
Jay jerked in surprise. He hadn’t seen him come up to the car. ‘Was wondering where you had gotten to?’ he said as he slid into the passenger’s seat.
Mahmoud turned from placing the paper bags he had come in with at the back of the car and turned the ignition, backing out of the car park. He did all of these without looking directly at Jay. Jay looked at him in profile while he fidgeted on his seat.
‘Are you angry at me?’ he asked, suddenly feeling like a reprimanded child.
Mahmoud sighed as he turned to him, finally. ‘Not really.’ He answered. ‘Worried, disappointed…a bit uneasy.’ He shot a look at Jay. ‘What went on in there?’ he queried. ‘Did you see something that…reminded you of things? Stressed you out? What?’
Jay sighed as he slumped further into his seat. ‘That lady…she called me….Jemima.’ he whispered the name like it was, scary.
‘Jemima.’ Mahmoud intoned while Jay winced and nodded.
Mahmoud lapsed into silence for awhile. Suddenly, Jay noticed that he was pulling to the side of the road.
‘Why are we stopping?’ he asked in a slightly panicky voice.
Mahmoud pulled on the brakes and shifted the gears too neutral. ‘Do we need to go back and find her?’ he asked Jay. ‘Perhaps, she could fill in some blank spaces for us.’
Jay chewed on his bottom lips as he stared out of the car. Suddenly, his voice very introspective, he asked. ‘Tell me again about that night you found me.’
Mahmoud sighed and made to launch into an oft repeated story.
‘Tell me…every detail, every nuance. Tell me again like you are just telling it for the first time.’ Jay requested, turning to face Mahmoud. Mahmoud paused as he looked intently at Jay, asif trying to decipher deeper into this request. Whatever it was he saw as he looked Jay couldn’t tell but launch into the tale he did, as per Jay’s specifications. And Jay listened very intently.
CHAPTER 9
Jay waited patiently in the waiting room for his interview with a potential employer. Mahmoud had referred him to someone who had referred him to this person for whom he was now waiting.
It had been an exhilarating week so far. It was his first time genuinely out in the world alone. It had not been as bad as he had thought it would be. It was for him, a new lease on life. He had an apartment all to himself and he was learning to navigate the public transport system of this new town too. Who knew that learning the names of bus stops all around town could be so challenging? He smiled as he remembered some of the adventures he had had getting around in the past one week. He had yet to really meet any one of his neighbors but he guessed they were just a bit wary of the new guy as he was about them. That would probably change with time.
As it had wont to do, a picture of Angela flashed into his mind and with it, the memory of Achas and their kindness to him. He had wanted to go visit them before leaving town but his Team had not thought that it was best for him to become too ‘emotionally attached’ to them. He scoffed at the idea. They were the first experience of family he had had in a long time, his holey memory being what it was. He would have at least called but he had no idea what their phone number was. But he knew where Mr. Acha worked and he was hoping that once he had settled in somewhat, he would send him a letter. Even if it was just to thank him for creating those memories for him.
He shrugged off the memories of the prickles of unease that had engulfed him at odd times throughout the week as his innate sense of paranoia. After the few years he had had, it was surprising that he was not locked up in a straitjacket in some mental institution. He was thankful he had escaped that. And now, he just might have his first honest-to-goodness job.
“Mr. Jay?” The lady called and she turned over the paper leaf in her hand as if trying to confirm that there was nothing more to call.
“Yes.” Jay answered. He had come upon such reactions several times this week. It seemed people were supposed to have a first name and then a surname. He could not remember his and for some reason, he was loath to just tack one on to his name. He was Jay and it suited him just fine.
She peered at him like he was some exotic curiosity. “Mr. Sewa will see you now.”
Jay nodded politely and got up to follow her down a short hall way to a massive double door. It was imposing in an odd sort of way seeing that it was just a standard office, tan double door. He could not help the feeling of trepidation that washed over him. He shrugged off the bothersome feeling even as his mind seemed to scream at him to pay more attention. The lady knocked sharply once on the door and opened it to let Jay in. Jay went through the door and stood to the side thinking that the lady was going to come in behind him. Instead the door closed with a decisive click. He gulped down saliva that had gathered in his throat and turned to face the only other person in the room.
The man sat across from him behind a rather large desk and he was staring so keenly at him that Jay was tempted to look down at himself to see if there was something amiss with his clothes.
“Good morning Sir.” he greeted politely as he began to get uncomfortable with the scrutiny he was being subjected to.
The man did not respond immediately and when he did, his voice sounded a little breathless to Jay’s ears.
“Have we met before?” he asked softly. It was Jay’s turn to stare at him in speechless alarm as he tried and failed to remember if he had ever met him.
“I’m sorry Sir. I...I...I don’t recall...” he could feel himself beginning to gasp for breathe as he struggled to make sense of the situation. Why had it not occurred to him, to anyone of them that he could meet someone who knew him from his former life? Why had it seemed that the months of treatment, surgery and recuperation had erased not only a substantial part of his memory but that it had magically erased that life that he had lived too?
“You look so much like someone I used to know.” the man gasped. “Jemima?”
Jay refused to allow the feeling of encroaching darkness overwhelm him. He shook his head resolutely to dispel the gathering black on the edges of his vision. The man must have misunderstood his head shake for a response to his question because he seemed to relax a bit as he settled back, more like slumped back into his chair.
“How can we be of assistance Mr...” he consulted a file in front of him on his desk, “...Jay?” he asked with a look of consternation back on his face. He looked up at Jay who still stood by the door, slightly to the side, his brow wrinkling in a frown and a look of intense trepidation coming into his eyes.
“Jay? Is this your full name or a short?” he asked, a tinge of fear coloring his voice.
“Excuse me Sir.” Jay said as he pulled the door open and rushed out of the office. He was certain that he had met this man before, in his other life. He heard the startled yelp of someone, probably the lady that had led him to the office but he kept going until he was out of the building, in the glow of the precious sunlight. He drew in deep, gasping breathes into his burning lungs as he stumbled towards the road. He had barely pulled himself together when he heard the screech of a car pulling up to him. He was still trying to get a grip when he was roughly shoved into the car and it sped off.
“Welcome back Jemima.” he heard a cool voice say. His vision had barely adjusted to the dim interior of the car when he felt a prick he would always recognize no matter how long he lived or how much his memory eroded.
A needle. Then darkness.
CHAPTER 10
Mahmoud placed both his hands flat against his desk as he looked at the woman seating across from him in his office.
‘How did you know where to look for me?’ he asked, exasperated.
‘We trailed you.’ She answered simply. ‘Once we got a good feel for your routine, we knew how and when to contact you.’ She continued, picking off imaginary lint off her well made dress.
Mahmoud slumped down back into his seat
. Then shot forward to lean his elbows on his desk and steeple his hands against his forehead. He closed his eyes as he fought down a surge of panic and inexplicable sorrow. Then he breathed out noisily.
‘And now that you’ve made contact?’ he asked, still maintaining his position.
There was no immediate response from his ‘visitor’ and he almost looked up to see if she had left as suddenly as she had appeared.
‘Heads up Doctor Faizan!’ She said in a sharp tone. Mahmoud’s head shot up by reflex.
‘Your boy is in danger.’ She said. ‘He seems to have suffered some damage…mentally.’ She leaned forward as if to emphasize her next words. ‘He had a briefcase on him that night. Who has it now?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean…’
‘STOP this silly game!’ she said forcefully. ‘It’s important that that briefcase be retrieved. If it’s not, Jem is walking dead.’
‘Is he safer once this briefcase is retrieved?’ Mahmoud asked sacarstically. ‘From all you have NOT said, I know that his life is forfeit anyway.’
She sighed. ‘Why must you prove so difficult?’ she mumbled.
‘What if that briefcase was not retrieved on that day?’ Mahmoud asked.
‘It was retrieved.’ She answered assuredly. ‘If it weren’t… let’s just say, news should have filtered out by now.’
‘What was in that briefcase?’ Mahmoud asked.
Her smile became snide, ‘You mean you haven’t taken a peek?’ she answered.
“Doctor Faizan, how did Jem recover from the effects of his earlier treatments at all?” she asked in a silky voice. When Mahmoud made no response, she continued.
“9.00pm. Today. At the place where you picked him up. Do not fail!” she stood up to leave and leveled him a look. “If you care at all about that boy, then you will show up because if you don’t, it would have all been for nothing.” She turned and stalked towards the door calling over her shoulders, “9.00pm.” and the door shut behind her.
**************************
Mahmoud paced his office at the Centre. His forehead was wrinkled in worry. The door to his office opened slowly and he froze in place, staring at it like a deer caught in the headlights of a car bearing down on him. A head popped into his office with a cherry smile on her face.
Doctor Sarah Jane. Mahmoud felt a smile tugging at his lips in spite of his worries. He had not seen her in so long. Had it been six months already?
“Hey!” he greeted. “There’s a face I’ve not seen in so long!” he smiled as he happily went around the desk to grab her in a hug.
“Hello stranger!” she greeted good naturedly. “Got back a week ago actually. Had to sort a few things out before heading up this way if not…you should have seen me earlier.”
He led her to the seats for guest arranged comfortably to the side of his desk. As they sat together, Sarah Jane asked,“I hear Jay's been sprung from this joint? How’s he adjusting?”
Mahmoud sighed and released a noisy breathe. “I’m in a dilemma.” He said.
“Why?” Sarah Jane asked. “Isn’t he doing well?”
“As well as can be expected.” Mahmoud replied. He sighed again. “We never did say…Umar and I. You know what Jay was when we brought him here. You are one of the team that saw him from the earliest stages.”
“You’re scaring me M. Is he…relapsing? Has there been some unexpected side effects?” Sarah Jane sat forward.
The anxiety in her tone made Mahmoud look sharply at her. “You always were sweet on him.” He remarked, causing Sarah Jane to blush.
“He’s a sweet young man.” She retorted. “Why are you worried if he’s doing okay?”
“The drugs we administered as we tried to reverse the effects of those crazy hormones?” Mahmoud continued as Sarah Jane nodded. “Umar and I…there was a briefcase with Jay that day we found him. The drugs we used were from that briefcase.”
Sarah Jane stared blankly at him for a moment and then understanding dawned in her eyes. “So, whoever was producing the hormones also produced an antidote?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to make sense of. You see, Jay isn’t the only victim of this…craziness out there. There are more!”
Sarah Jane gasped in alarm.
“Jay was just the first that Umar and I met alive. Someone has been killing these boys…girls for years. Roughly ten years. Sometimes when their mutilated bodies were found, they would be dumped at the morgue of the public health centre where Umar worked. Their peculiar physiology caught Umar’s interest. At first, he thought there was just a preponderance of abnormal births in that locality. But every investigation, questions showed there were no such known cases in that area.” Mahmoud rubbed his hand over his face agitatedly.
“Just by chance, one day he saw a body tossed out of a speeding van in the bush.” He chuckled. “Umar is quite a hunter you know. He used to set traps all over the place…he was checking on one of those when this happened. Thank goodness they didn’t see him.” Mahmoud shook his head. “He saw that they body was just like the others he had had brought to his morgue. Just the same sort of abnormalities. So he went to a friend of his who knew of his quest and told him what had happened. His friend has been trying to get a tap on these guys since then but couldn’t. And those bodies kept showing up. He came to me when a crazy notion occurred to him. He asked me if it was possible, knowing my work with gynecological disorders, if such a thing were possible, a child of one sex being hormonally induced to be of the opposite sex. It seemed incredible but based on his autopsy reports on each of those dead bodies, he was beginning to reach a startling conclusion. Someone was playing at being God.
Then that night of the explosion, Umar had gone to airport with me. I was supposed to board a flight.” Mahmoud squeezed his eyes shut as if in agony. “It was like a nightmare! I had never in my life seen so many dead people in one place! We couldn’t go in. There were security personnel everywhere. We asked what had happened and as they tried to shoo us away, we noticed him. Something about him must have jarred Umar because he pulled me away from that scene back to the car. He just started the car and began to drive in a different direction from where we came. I asked him where we were going and he said “I have a hunch.”
“He was almost caught that night. If it weren’t for Umar's hunch, he would have been caught. We got to him first. When he passed out and Umar said to check his genitals, that was the first inkling I had what really was going on. I asked him how he knew to call him Jay and he said, “The last one had ‘K’ behind her ear.” He told me that he had put about the surrounding community that those bodies, where found be deposited at the morgue and so he was fairly certain, when he saw the sequence that he was ‘J'.
He looked up abruptly at the clock. It was 7.13pm.
“Sarah Jane, what would you do if those guys asked you to give back that briefcase?”
Sarah Jane jolted in surprise. “They…they asked? They know you?” she stuttered her question.
“Yes. And I’m frightened for Jay and…those other boys.”
“But it stands to reason that if they wanted, they could get more where that stuff came from.” Sarah Jane countered. She was quiet for only a moment before she said, with great resolution, “This is…it has to stop.” She jumped up from the seat in agitation and started pacing. “Can…have you contacted Umar?” she asked.
“No.” Mahmoud answered simply.
“Then, let’s do that immediately. He has a longer history with this and has proven that his instincts on this are good.” She flipped open her phone and made that call.
CHAPTER 11
Jay came awake behind his closed eyelids. Some long ago instinct, kept him from opening his eyes suddenly. He listened to ascertain if anyone was nearby. He was just about drawing in a much needed deep breath of relief when he heard both the turn of keys in a door and the scrap of furniture against the floor. Cemented floor? Where was he?
“He has been out fo
r too long. Are you sure that….?” The sound of footsteps coming closer almost sent Jay into a whirl of panic but he instead found himself counting down his breathes. Where had he learnt these things? What was he actually in his former life apart from being a science project?
“When are we expecting the doctor?” the voice asked again. Male.
“9.00pm. He didn’t make a firm commitment.” Another voice responded. Indeterminate.
“Oh, he’ll be here. We just sent him a little encouragement on line.” There was a sinister undertone to that comment and its delivery.
“Pictures, are such effective means of communication.”
The duo relapsed back into silence.
‘Fifty, fifty one, fifty two …' Jay kept the countdown going in his head, all the while wondering what was going on and what his fate was. He had a sickening feeling that his largely forgotten past had just come home to roost all over him. However, he did not feel the victim that he had always supposed that he had been. Rather, it seemed like adrenaline was pumping furiously through his vein, his body priming for some action he could not fully understand.
“Come. We need to prepare…” the male speaker began to say as the shuffling of feet indicated that they had probably turned to leave the room. They however stopped short at the sound of loud, angry voices coming from behind closed doors. There was the sound of doors being violently opened and then a loud sickeningly familiar voice saying rather forcefully.
“What is this I hear about a rendezvous Bismarck? And I wasn’t even invited?” this voice drawled, its cadence sneering, scornful even.
Jay couldn’t help himself. He gasped as the voice clicked into the right slot in his brain’s memory, his eyes shot open involuntarily as if it just had to see it to believe what the other bodily parts had deduced. As his eyes locked with Doctor Greene's, it all came rushing back. Every sickening, soul-wrenching detail.
Just as the stout man with his back to him took an aggressive step towards toward Doctor Greene, Jay felt the coolness of a gloved hand and the hot prick of a needle on his arm and blackness immediately swallowed him.