~ Alyson ~

By Marjorie Brashier

By the docks of a midwestern city, a man walks aimlessly, the wind shirring back his shoulder-length brown hair as his shoulders hunch against the October chill. It's a handsome face, with a suggestion of humor in the lines tracing away from the eyes, but its bitter, angry cast discourages any eye contact from the few people who meet him and hurry on the other way. His ambling takes him to the end of a pier where he stands staring down into the oily brown water, seemingly intent on watching the stray pieces of flotsam bobbing to the surface and then briefly sinking again as the water washes over them. Movement at the corner of his eye finally catches his attention and he turns his head to see a trawler being loaded with supplies. He reads the name painted on its prow and stiffens with shock, rubbing his eyes with disbelief. The Gemini is preparing to set sail.

He watches uncertainly for a moment, the old torments awakened as he tries to decide if this boat has anything to do with him and if he knew it was there. Seeking a way to move closer, he studies the larger boat moored between himself and the Gemini. Its gangplank stretches invitingly to the dock, hidden from the view of the two men by the bulk of the ship. He can see no crew on the deck of the Urbana, but the fragrance of soup carried on the breeze and the murmur of voices punctuated by laughter suggests that lunch is being consumed in the mess. Shrugging his wrist clear of his corduroy jacket, he shoots a quick glance at his watch and decides he'd better move quickly before the crew returns to the deck.

He treads quietly up the gangplank and moves cautiously towards the side of the ship nearest the Gemini, taking a circuitous route to avoid the windows of the messroom. He keeps low as he looks over the edge of the ship, but the two men some eight feet below never look up as they load the last few crates below deck and bolt the storage hatch. He watches with some surprise as they walk off the boat and disappear from sight, their hollow steps on the pier quickly lost in the creaking of slowly rocking boats and straining ropes. He stands motionless for a quarter of an hour, searching for any sign of movement on the boat, but all seems silent.

The voices on the Urbana suddenly grow louder as a door is opened and he can hear footsteps on the deck. He tosses his black leather bag on the deck of the boat below, then springs to the ledge of the gunwale, balancing for a few seconds before leaping free and landing hard on the Gemini's deck. The force of the landing throws him to his knees; instead of rising, he quickly grabs his bag and pushes his body tight against the cabin wall, waiting tensely for footsteps running to investigate the noise. But as before, all remains silent.

He cautiously turns the handle of the cabin door, wincing at the small squeak as it turns in his hand. He stands for a moment without entering, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. The murky gloom inside reveals a compact area with a neatly-made bunk, two easy chairs, and an efficiently tidy metal desk with only a few charts scattered on its surface. He crosses to the desk, hoping for some clue about the Gemini's destination and past voyages. Intent on trying to decipher the nautical charts, he fails to hear the faint heel click outside the door.

"Hello, Tom," a melodic voice entones. Shock jolts through his body and he knocks the charts to the floor as he spins about, silenced for an instant by stunned disbelief before blurting incredulously, "My God, it's you!"

She presses the button of a intercom on the wall and announces, "He's here." The engines instantly hum to life, idling as they build up power. Tom studies the pistol gripped by her small hand, calculating the odds of making it to the door. Reading his intention, she smiles, tossing her long dark curls back over her shoulder and says, "I wouldn't, Tom. Just because I didn't shoot you the last time, don't think I won't do it now. I'm harder now. I know how the game's played and I don't intend to lose."

She motions towards one of the chairs with the gun. "Why don't you just sit down? In a few moments, we'll be well out on the lake and there'll be nowhere to go unless you want to swim for it."

"And just where are we going?"

"Just a little cruise," she croons. "to give us a chance to talk. After all, a husband shouldn't be too long away from his wife." Mockery dances in her eyes as she reaches with her free hand to toy with a lock of his hair. He clenches her wrist in a rock-hard grasp that causes her to gasp and thrusts her hand away. Rage darkens her eyes for a moment, but then her face relaxes again in a victorious smile as the boat moves away from the dock. She takes the seat across from him and rests the weapon on her knee.

Twenty moments pass in silence, Tom's face implacable, hiding the bitter emotions coursing through his body at the sight of this woman, who had shattered his love with betrayal and deception. He notes with curious interest the dark shadows that strain has painted beneath her eyes and the hard set of a face once so warm and open. Her only motion is to recross her legs from time to time and to check the time on the watch adorning her slender wrist. Finally, Tom can stand it no longer.

"Well, Alyson," he drawls, "or whatever your name is, just what is it that you think we need to talk about? I thought we did all that back at the photo studio."

She slides the pistol into the pocket of her black dress and says, "I need your help."

Laughter shakes his body as he exclaims, "My help? You've got to be kidding!" He shrugs and says bitterly, "Well, sure. Hell, you've given me so much help, my dear little wife, how can I say no?

She flushes and tries to look entreating. "I know I can't expect you to trust me, but please, try to believe me. I've had no more choice in this than you have. Less, really, because you're stronger. You've been able to fight them. I still don't know how I got involved in this."

"Damn you!" he rages. "Do you think I do? Hell, I don't even know my own damned name anymore! They've screwed me around so much I don't know who I was or what my life was before they started playing their games with me. But one thing I do see clearly is that you're one of them and have been from the start."

"No, I'm not!" she cries, "or at least, I wasn't. I was trapped into this just as much as you were. Give me a chance to explain."

"Well, OK, then Alyson," he says, putting a heavy emphasis on her name. "Let's start with who you are and how you came to be my wife. They did arrange for us to meet, didn't they? They must have been delighted when I was chump enough to fall so deeply in love that I wanted to marry you."

Her voice falters as she quietly replies, "Tom, we were never married. The first time we met was the night I turned you away from the house in Evanston."

"That's not possible!" he protests, "We must at least have had some time before the night in the restaurant."

"Tom, nothing you remember happening that night before you left the restroom in the restaurant was real. You were programmed, with the memories they wanted you to have implanted."

Tom's mind reels. He wants to deny it, but he knows by know that it's all too possible. He's seen too much by now to doubt the scope of their power and technology.

"Just tell me one thing, then," he challenges, "Who am I?"

Alyson's voice rises in panic, "I don't know! I swear I don't! Please, please, believe me, I didn't know what they were doing when I became involved, the terrible things they could do."

"And just how did you become "involved"?

"I was a psychology student," she replies, "Dr. Bellamy was my mentor. He said they needed my help with this experiment. I had no idea what it was about. They said I just had to read lines that they prepared and be there to respond during your hypnosis sessions. They said the only time we would ever meet was after the erasure when you were sure to go to the house. Imagine how shocked I was when you turned up in the back of my car."

"Well, my sympathies," he gibes, "So sorry to have upset you! But if you remember, I wasn't exactly having fun and games myself. Especially after you turned me over to the police and had me carted off to a mental hospital. And not just any mental hospital-- one of the organization's little fun houses."

"And if you're just an innocent little psychology student, you haven't explained why you continued to play along with them. Why didn't you get out or warn me? Why the charade at Christmas time and the phony coma story later?"

"I couldn't get out," she cries. "I knew too much. They would have killed me. As long as you were still on the run and believed in me, I was of some use to them. Now I've become a potentially embarrassing liability."

"Well, then, maybe you should have killed me in the photo studio. Why didn't you, by the way?"

"I couldn't, Tom," she says, "by then I'd fallen in love with you."

Seeing the derision on his face, she hurriedly insists, "I did! I mean it! I came to admire you for never giving in, for always fighting for the truth. When I met you at Christmas time, I saw how vulnerable you were, how much you still loved the woman you thought I was despite the hurt that someone you had loved so deeply could betray you. When we made love that night, I so much wanted to take away that hurt, to make you believe again. Then they pulled me away and left that heartless little card, but Tom, I couldn't stop caring about you."

"And that's why they're after me. They know, or at least they suspect. Because I failed to bring back the negatives after the coma deception and I couldn't bring myself to shoot you, they no longer trust me. I'm afraid that at any moment they're going to kill me, or worse, grab me and take away my mind. You've seen what they do at Cold Springs and Calaway. Those are only two of their facilities. They have them all over the country, doing all sorts of experiments that would never get approved through official channels."

"Well, this is all very interesting," he waves a hand expansively, "and I'm all choked up worrying about what might become of you after all we've shared together, but get to the bottom line. Supposing I should believe you after all the lies you've told. What do you want from me?"

"I want you to help me get away from them. You've escaped from them many times. We can go away together, far away where they won't find us."

"We'd pretty much have to go to Borneo to do that," he laughs shortly, "and that wasn't one of my favorite places. Assuming, of course, that I actually was there. But say we make it to Borneo or wherever, what do we do then? Spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, trying to live happily ever after?"

"We can build a life together," she implores. "You loved me once, or at least you thought you did. We can build on that and maybe some day you'll come to love me again as much as I love you now. And we won't have to always be looking over our shoulders. I know enough about the organization from the inside that I can cover up our traces. No one will ever know where we went as long as we stay there."

"Well, that's a hell of a choice," he retorts, "Life on the run with some hope of finding my identity if they don't kill me first, or life in exile with my own little Jezebel. You've got a long ways to go to convince me that you're the better option."

"They're closing in, Tom," she cries, "They know you're in the city and they're ready to move in. Project Gemini is over and you ruined the experiment for them. They can't afford to leave you alive. You still don't know what it was about, but there's too much of a risk that the wrong people might start listening to you. You need me as much as I need you. We can help each other get away."

The fight went out of him, "It seems I have little choice. OK, let's take the boat and go. What's our next port of call?"

"We can't do that. The pilot is one of them. He's a friend and helped me set this meeting up. But he wouldn't risk his own neck helping us escape. No, two hours from now we'll be docked back where we started. You'll disappear into the city and we'll be the only three who'll know we ever met today."

"Just how did you set this up, Alyson?"

"You've been here for three days, Tom," she replies, "and you'd strolled along those docks twice already. That's a little careless of you, don't you think? Anyway, it didn't take much work to find an idle trawler, change the name and moor it close to shore. The paint dried on the letters just a few hours ago. How could you resist investigating a clue like that?"

Tom tries not to show how shaken he is at being so easily manipulated. "You've gone to a lot of work just to talk to me. What makes you think I won't just keep running if you let me go?"

"Because, Tom, you need to find out who you really are. And if you help me escape, I can help you find some of those answers."

Tom struggles with the question of whether to believe her. She looks so sincere, but she's shown in the past how easily she can pledge a lie. This was the woman he once thought he knew so well that every emotion was open to him. But that life was a lie, this woman a stranger. How could he know when to trust her?

He finally sighs and says, "OK, I'm with you, for now, at least. So when do we meet again?"

"Tomorrow, in Chicago. They'll be watching O'Hare, so we'll fly out of Midway. I'll leave a ticket for you at the Southwest ticket counter in the name of Bruce Richards. There's a flight to Denver leaving at 10:00. I'll be on it, too, but I'll sit several rows behind you."

"What are we going to do in Denver?" Tom asks.

"That's where we'll find some of the answers about your identity. I know someone who can help. There's just one catch, Tom, and you're not going to like it."

He senses what she is going to say before the words are out of her mouth, "In order to help you, we need to have both sets of negatives."

She hurries on, "I know what you're thinking and it's not another trap. For all we know, both sets could be fake, but we'll never know if you don't let my friend see them. He has the equipment to tell if they've been doctored and enough access to the internal files to give us an idea of where and when it was done. Knowing what parts of them are real could be the first step to finding out who you were before they got ahold of you. Please, Tom, trust me. I'm on your side."

"And what will you bring to this little party? Do you have any tangible shred of proof to offer? Or am I just supposed to say, "Fine, here they are" and hand over the only thing I still have to prove that I ever existed?"

"I do have one thing. Richard Grace's file on your erasure. I'm not sure what value it has, because he apparently didn't know the full story, or even the true one. But I can bring it to you."

"How did you get it, Alyson?" he queries, "Why do you have Grace's files?"

"I was his secretary," she falters.

"And his mistress?" he demands, his voice hard. "I saw some photographs. Ironic, isn't it, that the photos I most would have liked to have been fake turn out to be real."

"Not by choice," she protests, "I couldn't say no. He was my boss and he could have really hurt me in the Organization if I didn't go along with it."

"Well, Alyson, you never do seem to have a choice in anything, do you? But since you were never my wife, I guess I can't be too upset about your being unfaithful to me."

The boat gives a small lurch as it taps the pier and the engines quickly shut down. Alyson turns to him beseechingly and says, "Go, now. We'll stay behind and take care of the boat. You will show, Tom, won't you? Please don't let me down."

Midway has the same frenzied bustle as its gargantuan counterpart further up the highway. Cars jam the curb and long lines bunch and snake haphazardly up to the ticket counters. Tom looks hopelessly at the crowd waiting at Southwest, then steps over to a young woman who has just switched on her terminal. "Excuse me," he says, "Where do I go to pick up a ticket that's being held for me?"

She snaps her head up, the automatic apology and request to move to the end of line freezing on her lips as she looks into a pair of astonishingly blue eyes in a face smiling very charmingly at her. She finds herself smiling back and saying, "Let me see if I can find it here, Mr. .... ?"

"Richards. Bruce Richards."

She types the name into her computer and presses a button to print out the ticket. "Here you are, Mr. Richards. Boarding in twenty minutes at Gate 7."

He smiles and thanks her, leaving her gazing after him thoughtfully before a stout matron taps the counter, thrusting a pair of tickets at her.

Tom chooses an aisle seat at the back of the plane, deciding that he'll be the one to keep an eye on Alyson. She boards a few moments after him, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth when she sees his ploy. She seats herself three rows ahead, but on the other side of the aisle. Despite the bustle at the airport, the flight is less than half full, leaving the seats beside Tom and Alyson empty.

The flight passes uneventfully, save for a brief period of turbulence over Nebraska. Tom scarcely waits for the plane to come to a full stop at the gate before rising to his feet. As he anticipated, Alyson waits for him to pass, continuing to look straight ahead as if unaware of his presence. The small needle pressed between his fingers would have been imperceptible if anyone had turned around as he lurches and grabs her shoulder for support. She gives a small gasp and sinks back against her seat. He checks around him, then reaches into her shoulder bag, taking out a file. He takes an envelope from his own pocket and folds her fingers around it.

Four men wearing dark suits and sunglasses watch the deplaning passengers from Chicago. One nudges his companion with his elbow and nods his head towards Veil supporting a woman whose dark hair hides her face as she leans on his shoulder. "Hey, are you the welcoming committee?" Tom calls, "Yeah, I mean you. Look, man, she's sick. Better bring the car around right away."

Startled at their quarry greeting them, the men consult in whispers. "Come on!" Tom cries impatiently. "Are you going to leave her standing here? Let's go."

One of them motions Tom to follow. Alyson tries to stumble along, but her steps are weary and slow. Tom sweeps her up in his arms, her head again resting on his shoulder. He sets her in the passenger seat of a dark blue Mercedes and starts to walk around to the other side of the car. Alyson leans her head against the door frame and feebly grasps the wrist of the agent. "Go back inside and wait for Granger," she whispers, "I'll stay with him and lead him to the lab as planned."

He hesitates and she whispers urgently, "Go! You'll make him suspicious and ruin the plan."

The Mercedes moves away from the curb, Alyson still leaning slumped over against the door until the airport is behind them. Tom speaks for the first time, "So what's in the file, Alyson?"

She sits up straight and opens the folder he hands her. Inside are nothing but empty sheets. Tom laughs hollowly and says, "Same old Alyson."

She pulls off the long, brown wig, the sun glinting on her cornsilk hair. "Is it over, then?"

"It's not over, Em," he replies, "because it was never there to begin with."

She smiles sympathetically and asks, "Where to, then, Tom?"

"Let's pick up some boxer shorts and go home."

A piece of paper lies beside the envelope on the small table in front of Granger. Anger knits his brow as he reads once more the block letters: "NICE TRY, ALYSON. CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR."

"You let him get away again, Alyson."

She weeps again from red-rimmed eyes. "It's not my fault. I did my best. I tried to bring him to you. He even agreed to bring the negatives."

"Did he?" he asks forbiddingly, "And where are they? Where is he, for that matter?"

She shrinks into silence.

"I'm not sure you have our best interests at heart, Alyson. We could have had him on the boat, but you promised the negatives if we waited. Now once more he's free and we're back at square one."

"Please, give me another chance," she pleads.

"I'll give you another chance. A chance for a new life, my dear."

He switches off the table lamp and steps out of the room, his heels echoing on the wooden floor. Alyson sits on a stool in a cage centered in the cavernous room, the flickering from the fireplace illuminating her stricken face framed by her dark, curly hair over the white straitjacket.

Her anguished cries of "Noooooo!" waft through the windows of Cold Springs Sanatarium.

c1996 by Marge Brashier brashier@tcccom.net