The ticking sound grew louder. The man struggled to understand. Sensation began to return. He was blind — hooded. His hands and feet were immobilized. Not bound, but strapped. He was lying on a bed. He tried to move. The restraints were soft, comfortable, and effective.
He was not hungry. He was not tired. He was neither hot nor cold. He was not frightened; he felt calm.
Tap, tap, tap-tap. He listened. A thought came into his head: if he could understand what made that sound, perhaps all else would come back.
He tried to speak, and a sound emerged. The hiss of breath.
The tap-tapping stopped. Silence.
Then he heard a creaking sound. This he recognized: footfalls on a wooden floor. They were growing closer. A hand grasped the hood, and he heard the sound of Velcro parting. The hood was gently removed and he saw a face drawing toward him. He realized, from the movement of air over his scalp, that his own head had been shaved. He had once had hair — at least he knew that much about himself.
And then the face moved into his field of view. The light was dim but he could make out the face quite distinctly. It was a man in his forties, wearing a gray flannel suit. The face was sharp. It had high cheekbones, an aquiline nose. Bony ridges around the eyes gave it a skull-like, asymmetric quality. His hair was ginger-colored and he sported a thick, neatly trimmed beard. But the most startling effect was in his eyes: one was a rich hazel-green, clear and deep, the pupil dilated. The other was a milky blue, opaque, dead, the pupil contracted to a tiny black point.
The sight of the eyes triggered something — something massive. A Niagara of memory came thundering back, all at once, leaving the man on the bed almost paralyzed with the crushing weight of it. He stared at the man bending over him.
“Diogenes,” he whispered.
“Aloysius,” the man said, his brow furrowed with concern. “Thank God you’re awake.”
Aloysius. Aloysius Pendergast. That was his name: Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.
“You’re dead,” he said. “This is a dream.”
“No,” said Diogenes, almost tenderly. “You’ve awakened from a dream. Now you’re on the road to healing — at long last.” As he said this, he leaned over and unstrapped his brother’s wrists from their leather restraints. He leaned over to fluff and adjust Pendergast’s pillow, smooth the sheets. “You can sit up if you feel able.”
“You’ve done this to me. This is one of your schemes.”
“Come now, please. Not this again.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aloysius saw movement. He turned his head. The door to his room had opened and a woman was walking in. It was a woman he recognized instantly: Helen Esterhazy, his wife.
His dead wife.
He stared in horror as she approached. She reached out to take his hand and he pulled it away. “This is a hallucination,” he said.
“This is very real,” she said gently.
“Impossible.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “We’re alive — both of us. We’re here to assist in your recovery.”
Aloysius Pendergast mutely shook his head. If this wasn’t a dream, then he must be under the influence of drugs. He would not cooperate in whatever was happening to him, whatever they were doing. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how he had gotten to this place; what events led up to this… imprisonment. But his short-term memory was a blank. What, then, was his last memory? He struggled to find it. But there was nothing — just a long, black road going back as far as his memory would travel.
“We’re here to help you,” Diogenes added.
Pendergast opened his eyes and stared into the heterochromic eyes of his brother. “You? Help me? You’re my worst enemy. And besides, you’re not here. You’re dead.”
How did he know his brother was dead? If he couldn’t remember, how could he be sure? And yet, he was sure… wasn’t he?
“No, Aloysius,” Diogenes said with a smile. “That’s all part of your fantasy. Your illness. Think back on your life, or what you believe has been your life. What is your profession?”
Pendergast hesitated. “I’m… an FBI agent.”
Another gentle smile. “Okay. Now think about that. We know all about this ‘life’ of yours. You’ve spent the last months talking about it with Dr. Augustine. We’ve heard all about the insane exploits, the wild encounters. We’ve heard about all the people you’ve supposedly killed, about your narrow escapes. We’ve heard about genetic monsters eating people’s brains and infantile serial killers living in caves. We’ve heard about underground mutant armies and Nazi breeding programs. We’ve heard about a certain young lady who is a hundred and forty years old… That, Aloysius, is the fantasy world you’re finally awakening from. We’re real; that crazy world is not.”
As Diogenes rattled these items off, each one suddenly resonated in Pendergast’s memory, bursting like a firework. “No,” he said. “It’s exactly the opposite. You’re twisting everything. You’re not real; that other world is real.”
Helen leaned over, her violet eyes looking into his. “Do you really think the FBI, the buttoned-down FBI, would allow one of its agents to run amok, killing people willy-nilly?” She spoke calmly, her voice cool and rational. “How could all that be real? Think back on these so-called adventures of yours. Could one man, one person, really experience all that and live through it?”
Diogenes spoke again, his buttery Southern accent like a balm. “You simply couldn’t have survived all the adventures you’ve told Dr. Augustine about. Don’t you see? Your memories are lying to you. Not us.”
“Then why am I restrained? Why the hood?”
“When the breakthrough came,” said Diogenes, “when Dr. Augustine finally breached the hard shell of your fantasies, you became… disturbed. We had no choice but to have you restrained, for your own safety. They hooded you because the light was bothering you. You’ve always had an aversion to light, ever since you were a child.”
“And why the shaved head?”
“That’s necessary for the treatment, the placement of electrodes. Electrical stimulation of the brain.”
“Electrodes? What in God’s name is being done to me?”
“Try to relax, Aloysius,” Helen said soothingly. “We know how difficult this must be. You’re awakening from a long, long nightmare. We’re here to help you back to reality. Try to sit up. Have a drink of water.”
Pendergast sat up and Helen adjusted the pillows behind him. He now took a closer look at the room. It was elegant, paneled in oak, with leaded glass windows opening to a sweep of green lawn and flowering dogwood trees. He noted that the windows were discreetly barred. A Persian rug covered much of the gleaming parquet floor. The only indication that this was a hospital room was an odd-looking medical instrument, set into the wall by the head of his bed, with dials, tiny lights, and a series of electrodes dangling on long, colored leads.
His gaze was arrested by a strange sight: in a satin wing chair in the far corner sat a ventriloquist’s dummy. The dummy had brown hair and scarlet lips. It was wearing a doctor’s white coat with a stethoscope draped around its neck. Its mouth hung open, revealing a dark hole. Its glassy blue eyes underneath arched eyebrows stared directly at him, unblinking. It sat up very straight, its legs sticking straight out, its polished brown shoes decorated with painted orange laces.
At that moment, the door opened and a man strode in, a big, cheerful fellow with a fringe of hair around a bald pate. He was dressed in a blue serge suit with a red bow tie, a red carnation in his boutonniere. He carried a clipboard.
Diogenes rose and extended his hand. “Hello, Doctor. We’re so glad you’re here. He’s awake and, I daresay, a lot more lucid than before.”