Then I was alone, unbound except for the IV in my arm. It wasn't on a rolling stand but had a heavy, lamp-like base; I decided against removing the needle, given that someone was almost certainly watching. Instead I sat up, stretched as thoroughly as I could. I ached a little, overall, and still felt weak but otherwise reasonably decent. The IV gave me enough freedom of movement to reach the end of the bed and read the chart he'd left hanging there, which didn't tell me anything I hadn't already heard. I stood up shakily and took a few steps within my limited range of movement. I wasn't going to be making a dash for freedom anytime soon, that much was clear. Either they really were drugging me, or whatever Winters hit me with had some pretty nasty aftereffects.
    The nurses who entered a moment later were not happy about me standing up and hustled me back to bed. One of them was the woman I had seen the previous night, the other a young man named Astaverdia.
    Of course. He was wearing a Phoenix Suns baseball cap.
    "You should know better than that," McKay chided me, settling me back into the sheets.
    "Just an experiment," I told her innocently.
    "There's going to be a sudden, sharp pain," she warned, swabbing me with alcohol while the other nurse prepared the needle. They drew a little tube full of blood; for some reason, watching it fill made me feel somewhat nauseated.
    So they're saying that I hallucinated the fact that I hallucinated my entire past?
    No.
    "So, how's New York?" I asked John.
    "I dunno, I haven't been back there in a while," he replied. "How'd you know about that?"
    "About what?"
    "Where I came from? You've been listenin' in," he accused with a grin. "They say they can do that."
    "Actually, the other guy said this place was outside New York."
    "Oh, I thought you meant Long Island. I'm from the Island," he explained.
    I resisted an urge to ask him how his mother was doing. He, too, looked much the character from my... dream. "I meant, how is the state of New York City?"
    "All right. They're still rebuilding."
    "I missed a few months, apparently."
    "What's the last thing you remember about New York? Cause I can tell you, don't visit Brooklyn."
    "Rebuilding," I smiled a little. "I suppose it'll be a few years."
    "They're claiming everything'll be bright shiny and new, but y'know, I think it'll be big, dirty, and new. That's just Brooklyn for you."
    "The cement acquires a patina of filth before they pour it," I agreed.
    "One way of looking at it. We're going to run through an eye test."
    I read off the letters on the chart as far as I could.
    "Huh. Your vision's good, but not superhuman. All right."
    Hearing test, similar. They took notes.
    "And now, the big test, the taste test!" An orderly wheeled in a little cart. "If you can stomach this, you must be superhuman."
    "Ah, shut up," John advised him amiably on the way out.
    The new one's nametag said Reilly. Another close-but-not-identical match. "How you doing?" he asked kindly.
    "I'm hungry." Starving, actually. According to my no-doubt-mistaken memory, I'd last eaten a couple of doughnuts twenty-four? forty-eight? hours ago and had a really rough day after that.
    "We got for you today orange goo that might be eggs, and strips of leather that are probably bacon, and... I'm lying, this is pretty good stuff," he assured me with a grin.
    It didn't look bad, actually, although I find bacon revolting under any circumstances. "I don't suppose you have any steamed vegetables?"
    "I'll see what I can do." He walked over to a side table and opened the drawer. "We're two thirds of the way through The Last Tycoon. Do you want to finish it on your own?"
    "What?"
    "I've been reading to you at night. They say you can hear, so...." He sounded a little embarrassed as he held up the paperback.
    "Um..." That caught me off guard. They were certainly going to lengths to make this scenario appear realistic, the environment comforting.
    "I can just leave it here for you," he offered.
    "Do that."
    "Do you remember anything from it?"
    "Yes." I've only read it six times, for pete's sake. Or remember reading it. Whatever.
    "I don't know whether it helped or not, I try and do that, I was here forty minutes a night or so."
    "That's very kind."
    "If there's anything you need..."
    "I'll give a yell."
    "You eat everything and I'll come back and pick this up. I'm sure Jessica's real sorry about the arm, but there was nothing else we could do," he added.
    "Jessica?"
    "The other orderly."
    "Oh. That's okay."
    He left me alone with my new seed of doubt.

[Perspective switch: Everyone Else]

    Midafternoon drew on. Someone knocked.
    "Is it acceptable for me to enter?" the someone inquired with a French accent. The Albert stand-in, making his appearance.
    "Of course. Hello."
    "I am Dr. Smith, I was asked to come by and at least meet with you, how are you?"
    "Doing better."
    He was attempting to shake my hand. "Oh, you don't have a right arm, I apologize." He settled into the silver chair.
    "Ah yes, Dr. Smith. Nice to meet you."
    "Are you feeling all right? I'm sure you've been getting that question a lot lately."
    "This is the third time. Yes, I'm feeling all right, thank you."
    "If there's anything that you feel uncomfortable with, that you wish to discuss, anything you'd like to go over, I understand that you probably went through a period of very intense and life-like dreaming and/or hallucinations and have just recently experienced memory loss, and it's common for people in your situation to feel a degree of paranoia."
    Oh, is it now?
    "So I just wanted to let you know that I'm available to talk whenever you wish. Within a few days, once you're actually up and moving, we'll be arranging for a series of therapy sessions, probably one a day for an hour."

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