Chapter 6

Des returned to the living room to find him still sitting as still and patient as when she had left.  In fact, the only part of him that seemed to move much at all was his head.  He had been looking around the room but as soon as she entered, his focus was only on her.

Des found it slightly disconcerting to have him staring so intently at her, but at least his eyes were still soft brown.  She approached him slowly but stopped directly in front of him.  Part of her wanted to sit back down on the coffee table – it had been a long night.  But standing gave her a small sense of being in control.

“What’s your name?”

The man was silent in response to her question, though Des thought she saw his eyes flicker.  After a long moment she decided to try a different tactic.

“I’m Des, Des Quinn.  And you are?”

This time her question earned her a frown before he finally spoke.

“Is Des short for something?”

Des arched an eyebrow at his question.  That was a question she got a lot, but it wasn’t what she had expected him to say.

“Yes.”

He looked at her expectantly, but she had no intention of telling him what it was short for until he told her his name.

It was almost as if she could see his mind working.  Whether he was trying to figure out what Des was short for, or was trying to figure out whether or not to tell her his name, she didn’t know.  But she could also see when he came to a decision.

“I don’t know what my name is.”

Des stared at him hard, trying to figure out if he was lying or if he really did not know what his name was.

“How old are you?”

This time the man didn’t hesitate.

“Thirty-eight.”  He cocked his head to the side.  “Or, at least I was thirty-eight in 2012.  But you said its 2032, so I would be fifty-eight, I guess.”

“You don’t look fifty-eight. You barely look thirty-eight.  You always look younger than your years?”

He frowned slightly as if trying to remember something and then shrugged.  “Not sure.  I don’t think so.  Of course, I don’t think I even know what I look like now.”

“What do you remember yourself looking like?”

The frown returned, and Des started to recognize it as a sign that he was trying to remember something.

“Brown eyes?”

The fact that he said it questioningly told Des more than anything else that he truly did not remember.

She nodded in encouragement.  “Yes, your eyes are brown.  Well, a very light brown, almost hazel, I’d guess.”

“What else?”

He continued to think for a long moment.

“My hair is black, and curly.”

Des quirked a smile at him.  “I suspect you’re right, if your eyebrows are any indication. But not sure about the curly since you don’t have any hair right now.”  At least, not on your head.  But she kept that thought to herself.

He reached a hand up to his head in surprise.  She watched as he rubbed his hand over his cleanly shaven head.

“You’re not used to being bald?”

He looked at her and shook his head.  “I don’t think so.  I remember having short hair…and…I remember being told to get a hair cut…by someone.”

She could see that he was getting lost in vague memories and she needed to bring him back to the present.  Or at least as close to it as she could get considering he thought it was 2012.

She decided to try some direct questioning to see if he would be able to remember better if he was able to respond more automatically.

“When did you break your nose?”

“When I was fifteen.”  He looked at her in surprise at how easily that response had come.  “I was playing baseball and got hit in the nose by a line drive.”

“How tall are you?”

“Six feet nine and a half inches.”

Des was a little surprised that he wasn’t the seven feet that he appeared to be to her, but six-nine and a half was pretty damn close!

“How much do you weigh?”

“Three fifteen.”

Des nodded, and then made an educated guess.

“What’s your rank, soldier?”

“Lieutenant.”  This response brought him up short and Des saw something flash across his face before he gave a hesitant smile.  “First Lieutenant Michael Scantorri of the U.S. Army.”

Des returned the smile.  “There you go.  Your name is Michael.”

“How did you do that?”

Des shrugged, “You seemed to be having more trouble with the open-ended questions, so I thought I would try a few direct ones to see if they would help jog your memory.”

“How did you know I was in the military?”

Des finally moved to sit down across from him again, her legs and back starting to protest the amount of time she had been on her feet.  She was still sore from the cage fight from the other night, and starting to feel the effects of the fight she had been in with him just a few hours before.

“It was a lucky guess.  You hold yourself like a soldier, so I took a chance that you would be able to remember your rank, if not your name.”  She cocked her head to the side.  “You don’t look like a Michael, though.  Do you prefer Mike?”

He said the name aloud as if to test it out, then shook his head.  “I don’t think so.  Mike just doesn’t feel right to me.”

"But Michael does?”

He thought on it for a moment before giving a slight shrug.  “It’s better than Mike.”

Des nodded.  She could work with that, even if she was now curious about what he preferred to be called.  At least now she had something to call him.

“Des is short for Desdemona.”

His eyebrows arched up, “Pardon?”

Des had to laugh at his expression.  “You asked me earlier if Des was short for something.  It’s short for Desdemona.”

He managed to school his face back into a serious expression, but she could see he wanted to laugh.

“Go ahead and laugh – most people do.  Why do you think I go by Des?”

He nodded even as a small smile snuck through.  “I can understand that.”

“Good.  Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we need to talk about a few things.”

The small smile disappeared and she could see a look of wariness cross his face.  “A few things?”

“Well, maybe more than a few.”

Des leaned forward with her arms on her knees.

“What are you?”

This time he did laugh out loud.

“What do you mean, ‘what’ am I?  I’m just a man.”

Des snorted.  “A naked man, in a box, who thinks that it is 2012, can’t remember his own name, and who has eyes that glow silver, is not ‘just a man’.” 

“Wait.  What do you mean my eyes glow silver?”

Des shook her head at him.  “I shouldn’t be surprised that you wouldn’t know that considering you didn’t even know your own name until five minutes ago.”

“My eyes?”

Des nodded.  “They’re not silver now, but they were before when we first came into the safe house.”

He blinked rapidly, “When it was dark?  So they glow in the dark?”

Des almost nodded but then she thought about the transporter and shook her head instead.

“They were also silver back on the transporter when you were trying to kill me.”

She saw him tense at her words and wondered what was bothering him.

“I tried to kill you?”

Des stared at him in silence as she began to have a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.  Her assumptions about his origins, of who and what he was, were beginning to feel all too real and possible.

 “What’s the first thing you remember about tonight?”

He responded quickly.  “Your hair.  I remember crouching over you and touching your hair.” 

His eyes went to her hair now and Des could feel his eyes like a touch.  Des sat away from him slightly, feeling a little self-conscious and also a little wary of the way he was looking at her.  She mentally shook herself.  She didn’t have time to be self-conscious.

“You don’t remember being in the box?  Or grabbing me?”

His frown deepened.  “No, I don’t remember being in the box or grabbing you.”

“You don’t remember me scratching your face or grabbing you in the…” she stopped and eyed his groin meaningfully.

His eyes widened when he realized where she was looking and his hands came up to rest in his lap almost reflexively.

“You grabbed me in the..” He trailed off too, as if he wasn’t sure what words to use.

Des took pity on him.  “You were choking me and I had to make you let go.  I tried scratching your face but you managed to push me away, so I went for your other sensitive area.”

“Why was I choking you?”

Des didn’t have an answer for him.  “Based on what you’re telling me now, I think it was just a reflex.”

She could see that he was becoming even more confused by their conversation and there were still too many questions they had to answer.

“Let’s try a different tact.  What were you doing before you remember being crouched over me?”

He looked at her almost blankly and Des thought he was ignoring her question until she realized that his eyes had a light sheen of silver over them again.  There was something going on in his head but she could still see his irises, similar to how he had looked in the dark. 

He wasn’t likely to attack her again but she got up from the table and moved across the room to be safe.  Until she knew fully what he was capable of, she was going to take the change in his eyes as a warning to back off.

This shouldn’t be so hard, he thought as he tried to dig into his mind and find the answer to her question.  It had been a simple question, one that should have been simple to answer.  But there seemed to be nothing but darkness where his memories should be.

He had started to give up, could feel the first twinge of pain in his head as he tried to force himself to remember, when he saw a flash of something, a mixture of sounds and images, almost like a movie.  He started to speak aloud, telling Des what he was seeing.

“There’s smoke, lots of smoke and gun fire.”

Des pushed away from the wall where she had been leaning and moved closer to the couch.

“We’re under attack!”

Des ventured even closer, “Who’s we?”

“My unit.  We were returning to our base after delivering supplies to a few remote villages.  We were almost back when the lead truck in the convoy was hit.”

“How many trucks were there?”

His eyes remained open but still silver-glazed as his brows drew together in a frown.

“Four…no, five trucks.  I was in the last one, bringing up the rear.  They’re firing on us now!”

“What else?”

“Fire…there was fire from the first truck burning.  We maneuvered the other trucks into a tight circle and started firing back, but we couldn’t see anything.”

“How long were you under attack?”

He shook his head.  “I don’t know, I just kept firing and reloading, firing and reloading until I was sure I would run out of ammo.”

Des was back to her perch on the coffee table, intently listening for clues as to where he had been.

“Shane’s yelling something at me, but I can’t tell what he’s saying.”

“Who’s Shane?”

“My best friend.  He’s trying to tell me something but then…”

He trailed off and Des saw something change in the way he held himself.  Where he had been ramrod straight on the couch, he now seemed to slouch, his shoulders dropping.  Something about the memory he was seeing had caused this, and Des started to ask him another question to urge him to continue speaking, but he started again on his own.

His voice was lower, barely above a whisper.  “Shane was hit in the chest.  I tried to help him, tried to stop the bleeding but I couldn’t.”

His head came up then, his eyes flashing at her.  “I was leaning over him, pressing on his chest and then…nothing.”

Suddenly he groaned and lurched forward, his hands going up to clutch his head as he doubled over on the couch.  The move was so sudden that he nearly landed in Des’ lap where she sat on the coffee table.

She jumped instinctively until she realized that he wasn’t attacking her.  Then she realized that he was in pain.

Des moved to place her hands over his and tried to get him to lift his head.

“Michael?  What is it?”

He turned pain-filled sheer silver eyes to her and turned his hands to clutch hers.

“My head.  When I try to remember, it hurts.”

Des nodded as if she understood, but she truly didn’t.  Why would trying to remember something make his head hurt?  What would cause something like that and how did she help him now?

She tried to think about it logically.

“Are you still trying to remember something now?”

He shook his head once in a jerky motion before he groaned again, dropping his head further down.

“Michael, look at me. I need you to look at me so that I can see your eyes.”

With her help he managed to lift his head and Des saw that they were still covered in a silver sheen.  He may not realize he was still remembering something, but she had the feeling that until his eyes went back to brown, he would still be in pain.

“Michael, I need you to concentrate on something else, something in the present.”

“Like what?” he managed to grit through his teeth.

Des thought frantically and then remembered how he had reacted to her hair.  She took his hands and placed them against the sides of her head and then leaned her forehead against his.

“Concentrate on me, Michael.  I’m in the present.  I’m here now.  Concentrate on me.”

She repeated herself softly as she felt his hands clutch and then tangle tightly into her hair.  It was painful but she knew that he wasn’t trying to hurt her.

She could feel his harsh breathes against her face and noticed again just how hot his skin was.  His forehead against hers was like a hot compress, and she could feel the heat of his hands as well.  She tried to catch his eyes but they were too close together for her to be able to see them clearly.

She continued to chant softly to him until she finally felt his breathing slow and the grip he had on her hair loosen.  She pulled away from him slightly and caught his gaze, now hazel-brown again.

She winced slightly as his hands in her hair pulled on her scalp.  She saw him grimace and then move to untangle his hands.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Trust me, compared to earlier, pulling my hair doesn’t hurt at all.”

He flushed at her words.  “I seem to keep trying to hurt you but you’re helping me.  Why?”

Des shrugged, “You need help, I provide it.  It’s what I do.”

Her words caught his attention.  “It’s your job to help people?”

Des considered his question before she responded.  It would be easier to just say yes, but even she knew that it was more complicated than that.  She finally settled for a half-truth.

“It’s something I do to make the world better.  I don’t have to help people, but I feel as if I should.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

Des paused before responding again.  She knew her hesitations were telling him more than she intended, but for some reason she couldn’t just give this man the glib answers she normally gave others.

“It depends on the situation.  Sometimes I get money.  Other times I get the satisfaction of seeing someone return home to their family.”

“The people you help pay you?”

Des shook her head.  “No, it’s not like that.  If I’m helping someone, I don’t expect money from them in return.”

He surprised her by giving her a lop-sided grin.  “That’s good, because I don’t seem to have any money.”

Des returned his smile with one of her own.

“No, you definitely don’t seem to have any money.”

“So, how do you sometimes get money for helping people?”

Des squirmed a bit on the coffee table, not sure how to answer his question.  Though she and Esme had never committed a crime by Four Crossings’ standards, she wasn’t exactly proud of some of the jobs she had taken on.  They had all been for a good cause, whether she had earned money, or found some lost children.  But that didn’t make her ready to just share them..

For some reason, she cared what this man thought of her and she didn’t know how he would feel about her actions or her tactics.

She mentally shook herself.  Why was she worrying about what this man thought about her?  She didn’t care what others thought of her.  She had even been known to feed their fears at times, especially when their fear made her work easier.

 But you do care, she heard a voice whisper in her mind.

She finally looked at him and realized he was still awaiting her answer.

She sighed heavily.  “I’m a sort of ‘Jill of All Trades’ if you know what I mean.”

His brows arched but he nodded.  “Like a Jack of All Trades, you do anything?”

Des shrugged slightly.  “Pretty much, though I draw the line at anything that is illegal.”

Michael nodded.  “So, you won’t steal anything?  Or kill anyone?”

It was Des’ turn to flush.  “Those things aren’t always illegal here in Four Crossings.”

She could tell that she had stunned him as he sat there staring at her with a look of horror on his face.  She hurried to reassure him.

“Though I have never killed anyone when it wasn’t in self-defense.”

He seemed to digest her words and then nodded as if in acceptance.  “What about the stealing.  How is that not illegal?”

Des chewed on her lower lip as she tried to think of an easy way to explain the concept of “stealing” in Four Crossings.

“You can’t actually steal something that doesn’t exist.”

“I don’t understand.”

Des sighed heavily.  “In Four Crossings, well, actually in any of the Joined Cities, items that are delivered must be registered on a manifest and then signed over to their rightful owner.  If an item is not included on a manifest but it finds its way into the city, then it is fair game.  If you can take it, then it belongs to you.”

“What keeps someone else from taking it from you?”

“Nothing, if you don’t register it.  But depending on what the item is, you may choose not to register it.”

“If registering something would make it legally yours, why wouldn’t you do it?”

“Taxes.”

He sat back slightly on the couch.  “Taxes?”

Des nodded.  “Yes, taxes.  You register something, you pay the Government twenty percent of what it is worth.  And since the Government sets the value of the item, you could end of paying more than it is actually worth.”

“I guess some things never change.”

Des smiled, “You remember paying taxes, but you don’t remember the rest of your life?”

Michael grunted softly.  “I remember there being a saying that there was nothing for sure in life except for death and taxes.  Looks like that’s still true in the future”

“The taxes part I agree with.  But I wouldn’t be so sure about death.”

He looked at her questioningly.  “Last time I checked, death was pretty permanent and happened to all of us.”

Des looked down at her hands, wondering if she should express verbally what she was now thinking.  When she looked back at him, she knew that she really had no choice.  If she was going to get this man to be her ally, she was going to have to be as honest with him as she could be.

She blew out a deep breath.  “Death may be permanent for most of us, but I have a funny feeling that it wasn’t permanent for you.  Michael, I think you died in 2012.”