“How did you learn to do that?” the girl called to Naz. She wiped a wet trail on her forehead. For a moment, Naz thought it was blood, but then she realized it was just smeared with dirt.
“I was an archer,” Naz answered at last. “I was training for—for the Olympics.” It was such a strange thing to say in this new world.
She saw the words slowly register on all of their faces. “An archer,” the girl said to her father, as if in wonder. Their shadows talked to each other as well, silent mimes. Naz watched all their dark shapes face one another and fidget on the asphalt. It was mesmerizing. “That’s impossible luck.”
The man in charge had moved closer while Naz was talking, close enough that he could peer into the shelter. He could see Rojan lying there, pale and near death. Naz watched his eyes study them, taking the situation in. “We could really use your help. Come back with us. Meet the General,” he said gently.
“No,” Malik growled softly, warning, but the leader ignored him. Naz could see the look in the pale man’s eyes. It was the same look her coach had when he first met her, young and terrified, clutching her passport in the Boston airport. Naz knew if Malik had been the one in charge, the group would be gone already, and she and Rojan would be alone once more. He was a man who trusted no one, just like Naz—but the other was a man who trusted everyone, just like Rojan. He was looking at her like family.
“Join us,” he said again, taking another step forward. “Both of you.”
“Watch it,” Naz said as she pulled the bowstring tighter against her cheek, arrow aiming this time at Malik. She looked at the girl. The other man was the leader, but this was better insurance.
It seemed less and less like a trap the more they talked, but Naz was hard to convince. There were so many of them and just one of her. But she and Rojan were also starving to death.
In the end, it took fifteen minutes for the man to lure her out from her hovel, and even then, she walked the whole way to the jerky meat offering with the bow still drawn on Malik, arms burning with acid to let the arrow fly. Later, when she thought back on that day, she couldn’t imagine what his daughter, Vienna, must have been feeling in those long moments, her father trapped at the mercy of Naz’s exhausted, terrified fingertips. Naz would never forgive herself for it, for aiming death so long at Malik like that as she came forward—even though later Malik said it was what convinced him she would make a great lieutenant in their army.
The One Who Gathers
“HE’S NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE, APPARENTLY,” DR. ZADEH said. They were in the car again, on their way to the hospital from the hotel for their third visit. The amnesiac wasn’t sure he’d slept at all last night, but he didn’t feel the least bit tired. “Confided in anyone about his elephant research or pulled the cables off his head like that. Dr. Avanthikar hopes it’s a promising sign. Did he say anything potentially helpful when the alarms were going? The microphones couldn’t pick up anything.”
Magic. “No,” the amnesiac lied.
Dr. Zadeh frowned. “Nothing?” he asked. “What was he talking about?”
“Just how he felt,” the amnesiac said. “He’s afraid of what he can’t remember, but he’s also embarrassed by it. It’s a strange feeling, to be surrounded by people who you know have a better understanding of you than you do.”
“Shame is a powerful emotion.” Dr. Zadeh nodded sympathetically. “It can be a huge obstacle.”
It wasn’t that the amnesiac didn’t trust Dr. Zadeh or Dr. Avanthikar. He just didn’t understand how to explain to them what Hemu had said. Hemu needed their help if he ever hoped to stop his forgetting, but they already had him under virtual arrest, confined to two rooms inside a hospital wing. He was more experiment than patient. What would they do if the amnesiac told them what Hemu had revealed and made him seem even more impossible and confusing?
“NOW THAT YOU’VE ESTABLISHED SOME RAPPORT, LET’S HAVE you ask him specific questions about his past today,” Dr. Avanthikar said as the amnesiac took off his shoes to enter Hemu’s transplanted living room. “Childhood, family, Zero Shadow Day, the moment when he first started to forget.” She clicked a few screens on her computer. “Maybe you’ll be able to better help him pinpoint something relevant than we can, now that you two have quite the bond.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
Dr. Avanthikar put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. “I know you’re worried about his decline, but we still have plenty of time. Okay?”
“Okay.” He tried to smile. Dr. Avanthikar opened the door.
“My American friend,” Hemu nodded from inside his little wired web as the amnesiac walked in. He apparently didn’t mind having the cables on again, now that he’d managed to pass his secret on. Or perhaps he was only pretending to be calm, waiting for another moment. Or perhaps he’d already forgotten what he’d said. “Any American food?”