A Wake

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. The cement walls compliment the folding table and folding chairs. I am handcuffed to the table and I do not know why. There is a man sitting across the table from me. He is staring at me directly, as if he is waiting for me to answer a question I was never asked. How did I get here? My quick glances around the room make me dizzier and dizzier and the man must have noticed my progressively sickening spiral because he asserted: “Seriously, I think you should have some water.”

I paused before speaking. Suddenly my head was throbbing as if I hadn’t had any water in days. “Okay.” The man calmly got up. It was only once he was standing that I saw the full extent of his fully decorated police uniform. He had everything. Bulletproof vest, nightstick, pepper spray. It fit him well. He walked to the door and opened it.

“Somebody get me a water bottle!” He shouted it and, without answer, closed the door. “It should only take a minute.” He sat back down across from me. He pulled out my purse and wallet and placed them on the table. He read my drivers license pretending he was looking at it for the first time. “So, Monica Chase, do you want to tell me how you ended up with a backpack full of Home Depot dynamite underneath the capitol building?”

“I WHAT?!?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“There is no need to yell. I am sitting right here.”

“I’m sorry officer. I-”

“Officer Smith. I know, original right?”

“Officer Smith, I do not know what it happening here! I would never do anything like that. I don’t even-” I was interrupted by the door slamming open.

“Detective, here is the water. Do you need anything else?” A younger cop, with less accessories, stamped into the room handing the bottle to him. He seemed anxious to please.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate your hustle. Bring me the laptop with the footage from the tunnels. I think we need to jog this one’s memory.”

“Right away sir.” He was gone as soon as he appeared, closing the door behind him.

“Now, what were you saying Monica?”

“Just that I… I don’t even know how I got here. Or what you’re talking about. I would never do anything like that. I’ve never done anything like that! This has to be a mistake.”

“Well, Monica. I am not surprised to hear you say that.” He paused as if he knew the door was about to open and then it did. The Lieutenant flew in carrying a laptop and opened it to begin his frantic sprint through the login procedure to prepare it for Officer Smith. “I am going to show you a video, and you tell me if it looks like you.” The Lieutenant finished and angled the laptop towards Officer Smith who, in turn, clicked a few buttons before angling it at me. The Lieutenant again scrambled out of the room, for some reason he seemed scared. I couldn’t tell if it was of me or his commanding officer. Then the video began.

It was a dark hallway. It looked like it had been built in the 1800s but rewired to include terrible lamps that were meant to look time period accurate. They failed in that endeavor. This definitely was a government building. Then, out of the darkness, I, or someone who looked exactly like me, walked into the frame. They were wearing the exact same clothes I am now. They were carrying my exact purse; the same one Officer Smith just manhandled in front of me. They walked slowly forward, barely blinking, as if in some kind of daze. The one thing that looked unfamiliar to me, that wasn’t with me now, was a ragged backpack that I have never seen before. Strapped carefully to their back.

Officer Smith paused the video. “Is that you?”

“It… it looks like me. But I don’t remember any of that! I can’t…”

“Well wait a minute before saying anything that may undermine your credibility; because this next part is how I know it’s you.” He unpaused.

My doppelganger, or me, continued forward, steadily. When suddenly, from both in front and behind them, a swat team encircled them, guns drawn, and started screaming at them to get on the ground. She continued forward, the swat team shouted some more about possibly firing. Then, one cop came forward, and grabbed her and put her in handcuffs, sweeping her legs and forcing her to the ground. She kneeled down complicitly. The cop took his helmet off, revealing the worn tanned face of Officer Smith. Who then stopped the video.

“I took you, the person right in front of me, from the location in that video, to this station and this room. My eyes have been on you the whole time. I haven’t gone to the bathroom. You didn’t say a word to me until I brought you in here and offered you some water. Then, your whole demeanor changed… Any of this ringing any bells.” His face was soft and entirely genuine. His tone suggested he believed I didn’t remember any of this, somehow.

“I… I don’t remember anything until I was in this room. And you told me ‘Seriously, you should have some water.’” Saying it reminded me the bottle of water on the table was for me. I reached to open it awkwardly maneuvering the handcuffs and chains pinning me to the table. I opened the cap and took a deep drink. Officer Smith watched my every move.

“So, you don’t remember anything until I asked you for water… What about before that?”

The obvious question awoke greater confusion. I was here now. I was in the tunnel then. Where was I before that? “I was… I was having a few drinks at a dive bar. I had had a terrible week at work and I wanted to forget it. I went to O’Riley’s Pub. Right down the street from… the capitol building.”

“Monica, I don’t know how to tell you this. It’s Tuesday morning. Friday, at least the most recent Friday, was four days ago.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” My head was really spinning now.

“It doesn’t.” He leaned back into his folding chair that was slightly nicer than my own. “Unless something, or someone, stopped you from remembering any of this.”

“How… What do you mean? How could that happen? Was I drugged?!” The tears came to my eyes before I could stop them. At least for now, it seemed like Officer Smith was on my side. But what in the world happened to me?

“Monica… what if I told you this isn’t the first time I’ve had a case like yours?”

“I don’t know what to think about any of this!” I was doing a poor job holding myself together.

Officer Smith continued in an even calmer voice. “Well, someone, or some group, seems to be finding people, like you, and getting them to do extremely dangerous and illegal things. When we catch these random people, they don’t speak at all. But when we get to the station, and try to interrogate them, they snap back to life and act like a regular person. Like you are now. In fact, you are the third one this month.”

The story was hard to believe. What happened to make me forget. Officer smith continued as if he was reading my mind. “We don’t know exactly how they do it, but we have some theories.” He paused for a moment and took on a more serious tone. “Monica, what these people are trying to do, what they tried to make you die doing, it is evil. We need to stop them… Are you willing to help us?”

Suddenly all his kindness made sense. They needed something from me. “Officer… I… I feel terrible. I don’t know if I ate. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t feel capable of doing anything.”

“Well, Monica, there is a bit of a carrot and a stick in this situation… We found you under the capitol building with a huge bomb.” His tone changed again. “You are going to help us. You can do it from a cell, or you can offer it willingly, and we can get you home as soon as possible.”

“You are going to threaten me?! I’m a victim here! I was kidnapped! Drugged! God knows what else! I don’t know if I’m even okay, medically. Has a doctor seen me?”

“Not yet… but we will arrange that. The thing is… these episodes. They are getting more frequent. We need to find out the source of them soon or… who knows what will happen. Who knows who will get hurt.”

“Well… you aren’t giving me much of choice are you.”

Officer Smith grinned widely at me for the first time I remember. “I am not.” His sick sense of humor was showing. “Lieutenant!” He shouted loud enough he would hear him down the hall. “Bring her to the hypnotist.” He stood as he said it and began gathering his laptop, and my belongings, preparing to leave.

“Wait a second! The hypnotist? Where am I going?”

“Like I said Monica, we have some theories.”