The Wolf Experiments

Alex patted the head of the wolf fondly and it gave a sound that was almost a purr. The big wolf had not left her side all through the while the ship had been in motion. Now that it was stopped in the middle of what should have been a jungle if not for the radiation pollution, it still stood by her side.

Alex could remember Andy’s words as he had taken her out of the hospital. “We are going home.”

He had said. Wherever this forest was, it was home. Andy unbuckled himself from the pilot’s seat and approached her. His boots reverberated with each step against the aircraft’s steel floor.

“We’re here,” he said quite needlessly. Of course they were here. Why else would the aircraft be stopping? Andy walked past her seat and moved on to the door a few feet away from her. He relaxed some latches and in a few seconds, the door sprang open.

Cold air whistled through the ship and sent Andy’s hair flapping against his skull. He tucked a blanket around her weak legs before he guided the wheelchair across the ramp. It made a sputtering sound as it hovered over the snow, self-adjusting to a new terrain.

“It’s winter here,” Andy said. “This place will seem strange, at first, but I know you will come to love it. As extraordinary as it sounds, we have animals.”

Nothing survived high levels of radiation better than wolves and cockroaches. Much of everything else that needed air, except humans, had perished. Some believed that deep ocean places still held life but it was difficult to prove. No one had seen a marine creature in decades except for filtering bottom feeders like shellfish. And in all the times that salt water mining had been going on, there had been no accidental discovery of new life, just fresh batches of dead and rotten marine life that the radioactive pollution had claimed.

Amandas limped beside her chair, intermittently holding up his paw while raising his nose to the darkening air. She kept one hand against his body, determined not to lose him again. When Andy stopped to stare into the distance, she took in the snowy ground and tall mountains that seemed to create a wall around them. Dry icy winter lay over the fields and gnarled, barren tree branches reached for the sky. She understood, without knowing why, that this was a special place. All the trees around them were long gone but Andy assured her that they were not dead.

“It’s just the season here. Winter does this to the trees all the time. Those needles and leaves aren’t brown from toxins, just the season,” he said, easing her wheelchair away from the landing pad. The hangar in this new place was bigger than the one she had left earlier. And there were even bigger aircrafts idling on landing pods all around the hangar.

In a flash, they were heading towards a structure in the distance. She could not see much of it since it was hidden behind a blanket of fog, the fog was not thick, just enough to obscure her vision.

She found the dark woodland mysterious and a little menacing, shivering when the old trees groaned mournfully in the wind. Out of all the whiteness, a dark silent blur resolved into a tall, blond man, dressed in black, wearing a gun strapped to his side. The streaks of white that shot through his hair destroyed any illusion of youth. Worry lines surrounded his eyes. He appeared like an apparition, one minute it was just plain whiteness and gnarled trees and the next; he was sauntering towards them with a big scowl on his face.

“Why is she here? I specifically told you not to bring her here.”

There was absolutely no need repeating the fact that after just a few minutes of arrival, she was not welcome at “home,” wherever that was. She felt the familiar old fears crawling back into her heart, the slight whistling of the trees in the cold seemed to be intentionally cloaking the footsteps of a malevolent presence.

“Nick, do you really want to do this right now?” Andy said, motioning with his head to Alex seated in the wheelchair with her pet wolf standing sentry beside her.

The man identified as Nick only adopted an even bigger scowl on his face. “This is no place for a child,” he insisted.

A child. Alex frowned at this. She might be only fifteen years old but that did not make her a child. Besides who was he to talk down to her like that? And why did everybody she had recently met think that they had a special right to say whatever they felt to her without the slightest consideration for her feelings? She could felt resentment growing inside her like a wall. Amandas seemed to pick up on this and he growled. It was a low and disturbing sound.

Nick looked at seemed to notice the wolf form the first time. He was alarmed and it was not because of the menacing growl that the wolf sent his way. It seemed to be deeper rooted than that. “What is that thing doing here? It should have been destroyed!”

“Nick, please,” said Andy. “Let me get Alex inside.”

Nick looked down at her face, grimacing as he turned away. Even though Andy immediately patted her shoulder in a gesture of comfort, the man’s words destroyed her excitement. She felt unwelcomed. As Nick hurried off, both Alex and the wolf watched him disappear into the trees.

I’m sorry,” Andy said. “Nick doesn’t mean to be bitter.” Andy forced a smile on his face and said: “How about I fill you in on a bit of history?”

Alex only nodded nonchalantly but that was all the encouragement Andy needed before he launched into his speech.

“Our world is characterized by a barrage of global warming and other environmental issues. As you probably know, decades ago, the only warning we had proceeding the mass extinction, was a spike in radiation levels and in a flash, the birds and bees were gone. Natural balance disappeared when the food chain ruptured and eventually had a trickle effect.”

Andy’s feet made deep marks in the snow as they headed closer to the structure up ahead. The fog was clearing bit by bit the closer they got.

“What isn’t well know is that to further complicate the demise of animals, dogs and cats were wiped out by mutations from common vaccines caused by radiation and environmental changes. Many of us are plagued by generations of political greed which industrialized open land grants and national parks—although variations in climate have further destroyed the grasslands and green belts. Without insects and birds, there is no pollination and therefore no trees or flowers.”

Alex listened with rapt attention. She had not heard any of this before although it seemed she still knew quite a bit of what Andy was talking about.

“Prior to a radioactive greenhouse effect, there was a technological boom that grew space exploration by leaps and bounds as well as day to day technology. But in the current world suffering from political mistakes and deteriorating environment, production is at a standstill as if frozen in time. There is no new technology and people have turned a blind eye.” At least this part Alex knew well enough. Maybe her amnesia was not as bad as she feared.

“Unprecedented drought has made clean water difficult to find in many parts of the world. The refineries we have at seashores all over the world are just a piss poor excuse. They are meant to mine salt water and purify it but while they do this perfectly, they have forever ruined beaches. Those things of beauty are now among the ugliest places on earth.”

Alex wondered if she had ever been to a nice beach before her accident or if all she was accustomed to was the ugly brownness that Andy was talking about.

The sky looked empty and sad, the wind roaring gustily as a large building loomed into view, backlit by the rising moon. The structure was square and built from an uninviting slick metal that glowed eerily in the moonlight. Andy called it “the complex.” It looked just as cold and barren as the brutal winter around them, a bleak institutional monument. It chilled her to look at it, and she shivered beneath the heavy blanket. There were precious few windows, and she realized suddenly how badly she needed one. If she found herself trapped inside, unable to look out, what would she do?

An automatic door opened, and her eyes struggled to adjust to the dark interior where every corridor seemed to end in blackness. Andy walked confidently, however, maneuvering her chair with rapid, determined steps.

Gradually as her eyes became accustomed to the lighting, she could see that the ceiling, walls, and floor were made of the same metal as the exterior. They passed many corridors and few doors. Soon, she felt trapped like a rat in a maze. The ceiling lights were spaced twenty feet apart and she found herself counting them as they continued. A soft hum followed them. Only that, and the sound of the wolf’s claws clicking on the floor broke the silence.

Finally, they reached a door where Andy flipped open a small box. “This is your new apartment. For now, we will program the door with just my thumbprint and yours. Later, if you want someone else to come and go freely, we can add that person”

Looking around, she wondered about the safety of the facility. It seemed awfully empty for the size. The room they entered seemed small and dimly lit. Until Andy turned on the lights, only a sliver of moonlight lit the darkness. Soft beige carpet covered the common room and bedroom. A plastic brown table, manufactured to look like wood, with two matching chairs sat just outside a tiled kitchenette. A small cream-colored couch and recliner sat across from a large screen built into the wall. It was one of those devices that rich people usually had— the kind that could reflect a window to any place in the world so that you could look at the hot plains of Africa as it looked centuries ago before lions and giraffes became extinct or just an ordinary skyline. It also doubled as a viewing screen for movies or old television shows. A smart pad sat strategically on the coffee table. Andy picked it up and transferred it into her hands. Everyone had one these days but she never had as if popping into existence from some bygone age. Andy tapped the screen and brought up the applications, showing her an endless library of books, movies, shows, and music. Sliding the page over, revealed a dozen or more games, too. Alex knew she had never played games although wasn’t sure how she knew it.

Through the open bedroom door, she could make out a large four-posted bed (faux wood) covered by a fluffy earthen green comforter. Amandas headed straight for it, jumping and circling before plopping down on the pillows.

Andy watched as the wolf got comfortable on the bed. “This is your space so if you want the wolf to get comfortable on the bed, so be it. You make the rules here.”

Alex observed a shadow by the open door just as a voice said, “Knock knock, anybody home?” It was a male voice and the speaker did not wait for a response before he padded in. He had several crates cradled in his muscular arms and he dropped these on the floor of the room. There was something familiar about him but Alex could just not place what it was.

Even when he said, “Hi, I’m Hawk,” there was still no hint of remembrance on her visage. She instead concentrated on his features. There was something familiar about his prominent forehead, broad nose, and light, brown skin—something slathered across the periodicals about his history and people. Her faulty memory frustrated her.

“Sadly, I can’t stay here for long. The holographic field malfunctioned after you entered the facility.” Hawk said. He looked straight at Alex after saying this and contemplated the puzzled look on her face.

“Fine then,” Andy said. “You can get to talk to Alex tomorrow. But before you go, can you shut the windows?” Cold air streamed in through the open space.

“Same gremlin effecting those, too, which is why I have to go,” Hawk said and he left the room in a frenzy.

When they were alone, Andy easily addressed her confusion. “Hawk is a Native American and most likely, one of the last,” he explained. “He is very far from home.”

He moved around the apartment and soon everything was within her reach even crutches. The smart pad would probably control her life like some kind of demented secretary. At the hospital, people had trouble tearing their eyes away from their device screens, oblivious to the sounds of human suffering or even joy, for that matter.

Andy smiled. “Tomorrow we will devise a treatment plan to help push along your recovery. There is even a swimming pool if you are up to the challenge. In the morning, we’ll eat with the others in the commons. For now, I will bring you a snack.”

She nodded despite feeling apprehensive about any form of exercise. Did he know how uncoordinated she was? Swimming pools were also for the rich. Most people couldn’t afford them.

He squeezed her shoulder awkwardly. “Good girl,” he said before leaving.

Alone, she reached for the crutches and wiggled out of the chair. Her legs shook unsteadily and threatened to buckle. She wished someone would explain what was happening. Did she have friends or family? What was she doing in this place? As she negotiated the few steps to the window, a dozen more questions swirled in her mind. A moment later, the cold winter air kissed her face.

The emptiness of the valley was like magic, so still and wide—so deathly silent that she immediately fell in love and filled with an unsuppressed longing to disappear into the wildness. The valley was clean, free from the poison of the city, and somehow she knew this made it unique and forgotten. The outer world had rotted away until the innards of human survival and greed overwhelmed the goodness of peoples’ heart—that goodness the earth once held. The landscape beyond her window filled her with a sense of enlightenment as if she had discovered a delightful winter paradise.

Suddenly, a ceiling appeared to shadow the outside world. It wavered like a flag across the sky. The light it reflected was both unnatural and wrong—probably the shield that Hawk had spoken about. Whatever had malfunctioned earlier had been fixed in record time.

As if sensing the difference, Amandas jumped off the bed and peered out the open window. He paused briefly before jumping through to investigate. When the wolf returned a few minutes later, he left large, wet prints across the kitchen tile. Snow covered his muzzle. He was thirsty.

She filled a bowl with water and set it on the floor. The small task exhausted her. With unsteady legs, she teetered precariously across the bed and nearly toppled over. Pain cramped her muscles as she plopped into the wheelchair while longing for the bed just beyond her reach. Her mind grew hazy as she stared at the opposite wall, and without meaning too, she drifted away like a boat lost at sea.

When Alex opened her eyes, it was the hospital all over again. Andy towered over her with a knowing smile on his face and she waited for the hum of the machines to lull her back to sleep. There was no hum and when she really observed her environment properly, there was no bed. Neither were there drapes on either side of her leading to the ward rooms of other patients. She was no longer in the hospital.

It took a few minutes but her memory started coming back to her, memories of the last few days anyway. The ride over to the facility, Amandas’ big head nestling on her laps, the scowling scientist, the strangely familiar Native American and the room with the weird holographic ceiling.

She was home.

“Rough night, huh?” Andy ventured. He lifted her back into the bedroom. It was daylight and sunlight was streaming steadily into the room. Andy headed for a cabinet and fished out a pair of pajamas. That was when Alex noticed that she was still wearing the scrubs she had been gifted by the nurse back at the hospital. She had never seen those before but the soft blue material suited her just fine. She gazed past the open door into the common room. The crates that Hawk had brought over the previous night were gone. Andy must have unpacked them.

He turned down her bed despite the daylight, fluffed the pillows, and returned to the small kitchenette. Amandas danced excitedly on his paws, his claws clicking loudly as Andy poured some food into a dish. Then, he brought her a sandwich. Alex was thankful he took care of the wolf first. For the first time, she inspected Andy but couldn’t decide how old he was. There were faint traces of silver in his hair, but he was mysteriously ageless.

She popped the last bit of the sandwich into her mouth and chewed quietly. Once she was done, he said, “You can come down to the community area to eat with us later. It’s usually better than eating alone in your room but if you would rather stay here, Hawk brought some things along yesterday. There is food, soda and juice in the refrigerator.” He pointed towards the kitchenette and Alex nodded in agreement. “It’s still early. You should try to sleep a few hours, okay?”

He left soon after that. Alex struggled into the pajamas but it was way harder than she had earlier envisaged. Getting ready for bed was even harder. She pulled the comforter to her neck and sagged into the pillows. It hurt too much to do much more than that.

When the nightmares came, she couldn’t escape them. It was suddenly the hospital all over again.

Blood crept across the floor and a terrible laugh — cold and cruel — drove away all hope with its pure evil. Caged. The key out of reach on a stainless steel table.

Alex screamed, “Somebody help me!”

Smoke filled the room, a laboratory, and Alex could hear animals screaming and howling. Wolves! They were all around her. She shook the bars, ramming her shoulders into them, but there was no way out.

“Please help me! Seth!”

But no one came. He would never allow it. No one would stand up to him. The air grew thicker and heavier; the blood flowing like some terrible river.

She woke up with a start. Her pajamas were soaked through with sweat and the pillow was drenched with some sort of liquid. Maybe tears or her perspiration? The room was dark, it was dark already. The bed was damp, the blankets stifling. She wondered if the cage was a metaphor and if she dreamed of it because of her trapped voice. But why wolves?

Outside, the wind blew fiercely, and then, she heard them. A chorus erupted close, and like a door opening, the sounds exploded through her apartment. She clutched the blankets to her chest, eyes ablaze with horror. Her dream had brought them to life, but then, she realized that perhaps she heard them first—that perhaps her mind inserted the sound in her dream afterward. A brief sigh of relief escaped her lips.

She wondered absently why the name “Alex” seemed familiar when she drifted to sleep, but in the waking world, it meant nothing. Amandas tucked his head against her shoulder and whimpered softly in her ear. She reached for the nearby crutches and pushed her aching body off the large bed. Instantly, her knees knocked together and she went sprawling to the floor. White lights danced across her vision and for a moment, she lay stunned. Her mind spindled off to nothingness, as the floor grew cold against her skin. Sometime later, she pulled herself into the bathroom and rested her cheek against the green tiled floor. Amandas padded in, surveyed the scene of carnage, and dropped down beside her.

The door to the apartment swung open at this point and Amandas rushed towards whoever was coming in with bared fangs and bristled fur. But it could only have been one person. Only one person had access to the room asides her and he stepped beside her in an instant, Amandas following closely at his heels.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Andy crooned over and over like a worn recording and knelt down beside her. “I didn’t know you were still so weak. I shouldn’t have left you so soon. I’m sorry, Alex. Why don’t we take a look and see how bad it is?”

He turned her stiff, painful body and leaned her against the wall. Blood soaked through her pants at the knees, marring the pristine floor.

“I didn’t realize you were still so weak. I should have assessed you again before leaving you alone for the day.”

She winced as he rolled the material past the knee and used a cloth to pat the blood away. There was a large purple-black bruise but otherwise, the injury was minor. His eyes held compassion, but something—something told her he practiced emotions, that they did not come naturally. She motioned for him to help her stand.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, feeling that she would endure and that is was something she often did.

“The bathroom cabinet is already stocked with everything you need. Certainly, you want to freshen up. Just make some kind of sound should you need my assistance. I’ll be in the other room.”

The bathroom door closed. She gazed at her ghostly reflection in the mirror—bags under her eyes despite the sleeping pills—sallow skin, empty, odd and unfamiliar features. With a grunt of despair, she brushed her hair harshly, holding the honey-blonde tresses to the light. Had someone ever taught her to apply cosmetics? A mother? A sister? She should remember her parents but there was nothing. She assumed they were dead or she would be with them instead of here. It made her sad to think that a beautiful part of her life was missing.

She eased some fresh clothes over her aching muscles and put the remaining items in the cabinet. Andy brought the wheelchair to her when she opened the door and swung her so quickly into the corridor that the air whistled through her ears. Amandas padded softly beside her, cautious and watchful. Soon she smelled the aroma of food. Two steel doors slid apart, and they entered a bright room filled with potted green plants and large, airy windows. Warm, comfortable colors defined the area, the walls a fresh persimmon—the floor tiles a dark palomino. A heavy snow fell outside. Hawk moved his digital reader aside, and Andy parked her at the table. Another young man carrying a tray dropped down in the chair beside her.

“Hi, my name is Eric,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I assist Andy in the laboratory.”

“I haven’t told Alex about our work here,” Andy said.

“Oh! You must see the wolves,” Eric replied. “Especially with the work you’ve done with your white one. We could use your help taming and training them.”

Amandas looked at each of them curiously but when the doors swept apart, and Nick came into the room, the wolf growled.

“Get that animal out of here. It should be locked in the cages with the others,” Nick spat out with a furious expression.

The smiling faces faded to frowns.

“I think it’s just you, Nick,” Eric said. “He was fine a moment ago.”

Nick moved toward the tables. “Let us not forget who makes the rules.”

She took the wolf by the collar, and he settled except for a ridge of fur bristling down his spine. Giving him a slight tug, she began to push herself from the room, strenuously moving the wolf and the wheelchair together. The traction control mechanism worked against the pulling wolf.

“Alex, don’t go,” Andy said. “Nick and I are stepping out into the corridor to talk.”

Nick met her with a type of repulsive coldness that instantly made her feel unwanted, and when his fist slammed into the metal wall about three feet over her head, Amandas erupted into a fit of snarls and growls. Repressing the urge to burst into tears, Alex took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Meeting Nick’s gaze, hers filled with an impassive ferocity and the things she couldn’t utter came to mind—that the wolf was hers, not his—that his oppressive loneliness would not drive her out. The sudden strength surging through her seemed surprising considering that moments earlier; she had wanted to cry.

Nick hastened to the door, departing into the corridor with pounding feet that echoed beyond the chamber in the vast network of corridors. Slowly her heartbeat returned to normal. Nick was going to be a problem. Alex made an effort to appear better than she felt, returning to the table.

Hawk smiled apologetically. “He really isn’t so bad when you get to know him.”

“We all have stories to tell and this place can heal the soul,” Eric added softly. “We all have something, don’t we?”

She looked at Eric as he spoke and saw his bright blue-green eyes lose their sparkle for just an instant. He seemed rustic and rugged, and out of place cowboy from a departed era. Turning to the window, she watched the snow thicken. It occurred to her that these people were broken in some way—that they were missing pieces. Life had made them defective.

“If the weather lets up, we’ll show you the horses,” Hawk said.

Horses.

The word sent a chill through her body. Horses were the first victims of industrialized growth and technology. They weren’t necessary like cows. Expensive pets was the way she heard it. But that was decades before her birth. She couldn’t remember when they were finally labeled extinct. Why try to maintain a field when high rises could be built on it? Landing pads? Cows and other livestock disappeared not long after. Magic existed here—the kind of magic that gave birth to trees and horses. Trees did not thrive outside of this place, only petrified examples of what once was.

“What an amazing creature,” Hawk said, and she realized he was talking about the wolf. “I’ve never seen anything like him. Is he a clone?

Alex shook her head sharply although she was unsure why she thought her answer was right? How did she know that Amandas was not a clone?

Hawk moved closer. “If we can help you in any way, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

His beauty amazed her, his flawless olive toned skin. Somehow stunned that he should speak to her so warmly, she dropped her gaze to her plate. Her awkward defectiveness made socialization difficult. Not to mention that she looked both freakish and hideous with the bruises covering her face and arms. After a moment, she pushed the food away, her appetite gone. The doors opened.

Andy approached her table. “Nick is under a great deal of stress, now. He has gone back to his cabin until he gets more comfortable with this situation. You see, Alex, Nick purchased this entire valley. It was a rare and amazing find. We leveled the original structure and built this in its place. This land had been vacant and forgotten for decades as it is far removed from civilization and difficult to access.”

“The underground levels are still from the previous building,” Eric interjected.

“Yes, but we don’t go there because of the danger,” Andy said, giving Eric a look that told her he’d revealed something he shouldn’t have. "The structure is unsound, and the lowest levels have filled with water."

Alex was sure that the look Andy had given Eric was unnecessary, she was really not that curious. Not yet anyway.

“Our valley is a secret,” Andy went on to say. “That’s why Nick became upset. He is afraid all of this would be lost if someone discovered it, that our research to benefit humanity might be shattered. A holographic filtering field cloaks the valley. It protects us from the radiation and hides our location. Anyone flying overhead or looking down from a satellite will just see rock.”

Eric added, “You have probably wondered why you don’t have internet access. It’s because Nick doesn’t want anything going out that can be traced back to us…not a photograph or description. He’s a bit obsessive about it.”

Honestly, she didn’t know anything about the internet or what she might have been missing. They seemed to think that an explanation of the valley excused Nick’s behavior in some way. It didn’t.

Andy reheated her plate with a look that indicated she would need to eat or else. But her loss of appetite could not be corrected with a threatening look. She ate slowly and spent a lot of time arranging her food in small piles. The others discussed the repairs to the shield, politics, and her future. They talked about her as if she were absent. Finally, Andy dumped her food in the garbage and pushed her out the door.

Back in the apartment, Amandas leaped out the window and the surrounding snow instantly camouflaged his body. His fur became a constellation of white snowflakes. Alex enjoyed the cool air against her cheeks, the breath of snow against her lips. In the distance, something dark moved along kicking up the ice in its wake. It appeared to be a horse with its long legs flowing rapidly across the barren ground. Despite the distance, as soon as she saw it, the animal stopped and stared, as if he could see her, too. Amandas squeezed in front of her face, shimmying into the room. When she looked back, the creature disappeared.

A sudden knock on the door startled Alex and she closed the window. She struggled across the room, uncomfortable on the crutches, to find Hawk standing outside the door smiling. She moved aside to let him in.

“We have a movie theater in the complex. Andy bought a few new releases to watch when he was in the city. Well, when you were still in the coma. So I was hoping you would join us. Amandas can come, too. We like to do this a couple of times a month.”

She nodded before she could stop herself, maybe because he made it sound like it was a date. But it couldn’t be a date because he was older and she was just fifteen. It was silly of her to think of it that way. Her eyes burned with exhaustion but he looked excited and obviously wanted her to come. He seemed like a man of great sadness and strength. How old was he? Twenty-three? Twenty-five? Would he be too old for her when she was a little older? Like eighteen?

He seemed delighted that she accepted the invitation. “It’s a bit of a hike. We should probably use the wheelchair.”

As they moved down the corridors, the size of the building astonished her. Two large, burgundy doors came into view with a padded velvet chain like a real theater. Inside, Hawk situated her in a tall, stadium seat. He set both soda and popcorn in the cup holders.

Grinning, he said, “We like the full effect.”

The men chatted loudly until the lights dimmed, speaking of mundane things like the weather. They smiled at her, but she felt ostracized, somehow separated by her disabilities. Nick was the only one missing. Dust sparkled in the air and lights flashed in her eyes. Two bright beams penetrated the darkness, shining directly into her face—like the headlights of a car. Suddenly she saw a road ahead, the center stripe only a blur. The screech of twisting metal filled her ears and she felt herself thrown forward through the air. For a brilliant moment, she seemed to hover in the sky with wings, but then she fell with sudden ferocious velocity. In the distance, almost in slow motion, she saw the vehicle shatter and then she screamed, “Amandas!”

The lights came on and someone jogged down the aisle. Andy leaned over her with calm, cool words. He flipped her wrist over and searched for a pulse. “It’s all right. It was just a dream.”

She screamed! It was the first sound she had made since the first day of her life, as she knew it. Her breath grew ragged and she tried to get away from the people crowding around her. There were too many of them, too many voices.

“It’s okay,” Andy said. “Perhaps it’s a little too much too soon.”

He said nothing more and gently loaded her into the wheelchair before returning Alex to her apartment. She tried to ignore his critical stare. Had she finally remembered fragments of the accident or was it only a dream?

“Don’t be upset. You’ve had an incredible journey, and we all have a lot to learn from it, don’t we?”

When her breath caught in response, he leaned closer and looked deeply into her eyes. “I think I should take you to the infirmary for the night.”

Involuntarily, her fists tightened and she knew her blue-gray eyes flashed with discontent, her mouth set straight and hard. Andy got the message.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. With your permission, I will come and check on you a few times during the night. Would that be okay?”

Relief flooded her body, and she nodded in agreement. As long as nothing reminded her of the hospital, she would be fine.

When Andy departed, Alex closed her eyes. She focused on the images she encountered earlier. Car lights. That was a vivid recollection—that and the stripe on the road. Her thoughts drifted. A truck. She was riding in a truck. It was a lonely road with sweeping scenery and an ugly starless sky. The bright moon told a different story. It filled the treacherous turns seemingly to outline the hazardous journey. The man driving kept glancing in the rearview mirror. It seemed strange that they wouldn’t take a hover car. No one used the old roads anymore. Especially the ones in the mountains. An ever-present anger made the man dreadful in a way. His gray hair prematurely aged him. He had ruthless eyes. Stomping on the pedal, the vehicle accelerated. At the same time, a mechanical voice warned of excessive speed. He would have disabled the safety protocols—that was like him. He didn’t follow the rules and didn’t care if anyone was hurt along the way. Lights flooded the interior. It was blinding.

Opening her eyes, Alex felt dazed and in a way, like she had lost control of the situation. A nagging feeling told her to focus harder and figure things out. The rules of the game had changed. This was a breakthrough. Even though the emergence of the memories frightened her, she dived in again with determination. It was a start. The man—he wore a white lab coat and old-fashioned spectacles. The glasses defined his need to be different—to look different. People didn’t wear glasses anymore because every dime-store doctor could perform corrective surgery. He was a doctor that hated doctors. When he stomped on the accelerator, the truck lost traction and hit the guardrail. The terrible screeching, wracking clamor echoed in her ears as clear now as it sounded the moment they had struck. Out in the open air, they floated free. If they had actually had a hover car, it wouldn’t have mattered—hover cars needed no roads—but it wasn’t and after a breathless moment, they plummeted down. But Alex didn’t fear dying—only that—and it was there again, that nagging feeling. The memories receded quickly but not before Alex caught a glimpse of something that held her heart immobile. She hadn’t been alone with the doctor. There was someone else. The white wolf had been riding in the seat behind Alex nestled up to a young man. That young man was suddenly gone.

It was all gone.

Her body jerked roughly awake only instants before she hit the rocks. She grappled for clarity and finally grabbed the smart pad on the nightstand. She needed to start an outline of events starting with the accident. As she remembered things, she would write it all down. Somewhere along the way, she would try to communicate everything to Andy or would she?

Andy checked on her as promised. His mannerisms did little to reflect that her behavior concerned him—the method in which her eyes burned into the smart screen willing the next memory to resurface. His expectations were reasonable. Eat, sleep, and exercise. Alex didn’t want to sleep. She felt like an imposter. Somewhere that girl in her memories still lingered and with her, the past.

Finally, Andy said, “Why don’t you take one of the sleeping pills the other doctor prescribed for you?”

His voice penetrated her thoughts. Dawn loomed on the horizon with the soft gray light peeking through her window.

“Perhaps you need something that would let you sleep without dreaming.”

This time she met his eyes.

He nodded thoughtfully. “I thought so.”

He took a hypodermic infuser from his pocket. The injection hurt a little and burned slightly in the vein. She continued to stare at him, searching for answers. There was nothing. He swept her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing, like he was some kind of superhero, and carried her to the bed. With a smile, he tucked her in and pulled the covers up to her chin. Amandas leaped up and circled until he found a comfortable spot. Andy remained with her until the drug became effective. As her eyes blurred, she discovered his body had multiplied. When she reached out to discover the true image, the true Andy, she grasped at the air and realized he was gone.