With These Hands

By Robert Moriyama

They found him in the trash bin behind Lenny's Steakhouse on the Danforth. The emergency room staff found traces of lead (of the lead pipe variety) embedded in the skin and hair around the worst of his scalp wounds. That, and a night spent in near-freezing temperatures, had made him a good candidate for the obituary pages.

Somehow, he survived. The doctors speculated that the heat from the decomposing kitchen trash had saved him from death by hypothermia; the thickness of his skull did the rest.

It was almost a week before he opened his eyes, and even longer before he could communicate in any way.

The first words he spoke were not "Where am I?" or "What happened?" These things he had been told again and again in the time since he had emerged from his comatose state.

Instead, he asked a question which neither the doctors nor the police could answer.

"Who am I?" he said, and Sharon Doherty, the duty nurse, shook her head sadly and replied, "I'm afraid we don't know."

His wallet and any other identifying papers had been missing when he arrived at the hospital, presumably stolen by his assailant. The police had received no missing persons reports matching his description and his fingerprints were not on file anywhere in the country.

This much they knew: he was white, of average height and weight, with hair and eyes of an unexceptional shade of brown. He had no tattoos or other obvious identifying marks, and no distinctive dental work; he spoke English with an accent that he could have learned anywhere from Edmonton to Kingston.

He remembered nothing of his family background, education, or occupation, but his vocabulary suggested that he was a college graduate, and his hands bore none of the marks of a manual laborer.

Detective Sergeant Manny Gilder showed him pictures of the area where he had been found, but he recognized nothing. Pictures of other parts of the city, and of other cities, brought the same lack of response.

He was the perfect John Doe, average in every way, missing from somewhere, but not missed enough for anyone to search for him. For all he knew, and for all the police could tell him, he could have appeared out of thin air just in time to be mugged.

He made a joke of it. "I was mugged, therefore I am," he would say, and the hospital staff would laugh politely. But the night nurses had heard him crying softly in his bed, and there was nothing more they could do to comfort him.

Weeks passed, and still the police could not identify him. They did computer searches of missing persons reports dating back several years, in case he had deliberately disappeared some time in the past, but found no descriptions close enough to be likely matches.

They investigated old reports that described men ten years younger or older than John's estimated age, and thirty pounds lighter or heavier; John's age was nothing more than an educated guess, and weight could change drastically over time.

Nothing matched. In each case, some detail — an old fracture, a scar, dental work — eliminated John as a possible Harry Tuttlebaum or Frank Mazerewski or Ian Milhous.

They transmitted his picture and fingerprints to INTERPOL.

No response.

John healed slowly, but he healed well. The scars from his head wounds were barely visible six weeks after his arrival at the hospital. The episodes of pain and dizziness that had plagued him at first decreased in frequency and intensity to the point that he could control them with occasional doses of ordinary headache pills.

There was no reason for him to stay in the hospital — but he had nowhere else to go.

Finally, the small circle of police, hospital staff, and social services workers who had effectively adopted John convinced him that he had to start living again. Acting as his de facto guardians, they obtained a social insurance number and other papers identifying him as John D. Brown, age 33, a Canadian citizen. They arranged tests so that he could obtain a driver's license and a high school equivalency diploma, but they were unable to find a way for him to qualify for any post-secondary degrees.

John was not particularly upset about this last point. He said, "I don't remember if I ever had a degree, let alone what it might have been. I can't miss what I don't remember."

They found him a job as a trainee in a computer consulting firm — even without clear memories of his formal education, John displayed a remarkable affinity for electronics and computer-related work. With the encouragement of his surrogate family, he enrolled in night courses to give official standing to his apparent qualifications.

Behold the man: John Doe Brown, trainee programmer at Armor Consulting; his only friends, the police officers, doctors, nurses, social services case workers who have built a new life for him; his past, a void.

Even under hypnosis, John had been unable to remember anything of his past. Ichiro Benkai, the psychologist who handled John’s counselling and therapy at the hospital, told him that the neurology team had found no evidence of significant brain injury in the x-rays and CAT scans, but also warned him that even invisibly small bruises and blood clots could have unpredictable effects on his memory and cognitive skills.

In spite of this, John took to his job at Armor Consulting as if he had been a classic "hacker" in his forgotten former life, in love with the intricacies of operating systems and interfaces. He had no clear memories of any of the hardware or computer languages used at Armor, but somehow they felt instantly familiar.

His night classes were also going well; there was always a sense of deja vu in every computer-related concept that was presented, and the programming exercises seemed as easy as breathing. He had found several new friends among his classmates, who were impressed by his skills and grateful for his eagerness to give help whenever it was needed.

Terry Vernon, an administrative assistant who hoped to move into systems analysis, became especially close to him, and he found himself talking about his past — or lack of it — as much as their class assignments. She was fascinated by his problems, and sympathetic, but she agreed with his mentors at the hospital: he had to "get out there and live" instead of passively waiting for someone to reveal his past to him.

Over coffee, doughnuts, and the usual pile of computer printouts, the conversation drifted back to John's lives and times.

"Maybe you had a wonderful life," Terry said, "but maybe your life sucked, and you're better off here." Her eyes —'somewhere between the colour of an LCD screen and broccoli', in her words — twinkled under comically arched eyebrows.

John laughed, charmed as usual by Terry's wonderfully mobile face. "Gee, thanks, Ter. You really know how to make a guy feel better."

She pouted, cuffing him lightly with her chocolate-smeared hand. "You know what I mean! You were probably a hotshot consultant or something — you're too good at this stuff to be really learning it for the first time — but who knows what the rest of your life was like? You probably had a shrew of a wife and a neo-Goth-punk-slacker teenage kid or three making you miserable."

"Instead of a blonde secretary using me for a hand towel?"

Terry glared at the stain on his shirt as if challenging its right to exist. "It'll come out in the wash. Anyway, at the rate you're going, you'll be back up there — consulting or something, I mean — in no time. "

John shrugged. "I don't know. Even if I'm brilliant — which remains to be seen — it takes a good track record to make it as a consultant. And who knows what else I've lost?"

Terry reached across the table to take his hand. "Who knows what else you've gained?" she said softly.

John blushed and pulled his hand away. "Terry, I just can't — "

Terry shook her head. "Why? Because you might have been married or something in your — your other life? John, you can't waste your time worrying about things like that now; that life may be gone forever!"

John sighed. "Or it might start coming back tomorrow," he said. "Terry, I really like you. You're smart and funny and warm and beautiful and — "

"And what?"

"And I wish I had more to offer you," John said. "I don't have much money — I know, you're going to say that it doesn't matter — but I don't even really have myself."

He massaged his face with both hands, as if trying to squeeze the right words from his damaged brain. "I don't know who I am," he said slowly. "I don't know if this person you seem to like so much is real, or just a dream that could end at any moment."

Terry frowned and reached for his hand again. This time, he linked his fingers with hers, needing the contact to anchor himself.

"Sometimes I have nightmares," he said. "I wake up soaked in sweat, the sheets tangled or even torn, feeling like I've been running for my life."

Terry squeezed his hand gently. "I'm not surprised," she said. "Maybe you're remembering trying to get away, the night you were mugged."

John shook his head. "No, it's not that. I can't really remember all the details, but I'm sure it's nothing as — as simple as a mugger that has me so frightened."

"Tell me about it," Terry prompted. "Talking it out might help."

John nodded thoughtfully. After a moment, he gently pulled his hand free of hers for the second time that evening, and stood. He began to pace back and forth, his eyes half closed, remembering.

"I'm walking down the street," he said. "It's late, so most of the storefronts are dark, but the streetlights make it almost as bright as day.

"There aren't many people around, and it's very quiet. I can hear traffic noise — engines revving, brakes squealing, occasionally horns and sirens — but it's muffled, maybe miles away."

He paused to pick up his coffee mug, and made a face as he sipped the now-cold brew. Terry took the mug and refilled it from the coffee maker; he wrapped his hands around it, grateful for the warmth.

"I'm walking past a narrow opening between the buildings, and I hear a noise. I look down the alley, and I see — I see — I don't know what I see, it's just a blur, half-hidden in the shadows."

He began to pace again, still clutching the coffee mug between his hands.

"Whatever — whoever it is — I go into the alley," he said. His voice rose in pitch, and Terry saw his hands tighten around the mug.

"I go into the alley. I go into the alley, and it's bright, so bright! Blinding me, the light's blinding me, I don't know where it's coming from. I hear something, moving toward me, I try to run, I try to run, I —"

The coffee mug cracked in his hands, spilling hot coffee in a scalding wave over his face and chest. Startled, he stumbled back until his hips slammed into the refrigerator.

"John!" Terry was by his side in seconds. She soaked a towel in cold water and pressed it against his face and chest, then wrapped it around his bloodied hands.

Without speaking, she led him back to the table, and pressed him gently into a chair. He seemed stunned, his body limp and barely able to stay upright in the chair. Terry ran from the room, returning a moment later with a first-aid kit and another, larger towel.

She soaked this towel in cold water, and applied it to John's face and chest as before, peering closely at his skin to assess the severity of the burns. When she was satisfied that the coffee had done no real damage, she discarded the large towel and turned her attention to his wounded hands.

Again, the damage was not serious. There were two inch-long gashes in his palms, but they were very shallow, and had almost stopped bleeding. Terry swabbed the cuts with disinfectant and applied antibiotic ointment, then covered the wounds with gauze pads and wrapped John's hands in bandages and tape.

Through all of this, John remained impassive. He seemed to feel nothing when Terry cleaned his cuts, although she knew from personal experience that the disinfectant must have stung considerably.

"John, please say something," she pleaded. "Are you all right?"

After a few moments, John began to blink rapidly as if startled out of a deep sleep. His eyes focused on the bandages on his hands, then swept over the floor with its litter of broken crockery, coffee, and bloodstained towels.

"What? — What happened? My hands —"

Terry sat down across the table and gently trapped his hands between hers. She shook her head in a gesture of wonder and fear.

"It was pretty spooky, John," she said slowly. "You were talking about your dreams, and then it was like you were dreaming. Then something frightened you — terrified you — and you squeezed your coffee mug so hard that it broke."

John shook his head and slid lower in his chair. "I don't remember," he said. "I don't remember describing the dream, and I don't remember breaking the mug, and I just don't remember!"

He looked at Terry and laughed bitterly. "Doc Benkai told me there might be days like this," he said. "So I guess you see why we can't — I can't —"

Terry frowned. "Doc Benkai — he's the psychologist who was looking after you?"

John nodded. "Him, Doctor Grossman in neurology, Sharon Doherty, Maureen Simms, and Charlie Hanes — they call Charlie the Marquis de Sade ‘cause he makes physiotherapy like torture – they all looked after me."

"Did you ever tell any of them about your dreams?"

John shrugged. "I didn't start having them until I'd been out for a while. And like I said, I don't really remember them well enough to describe them."

Terry laughed. "You don't remember remembering them, but trust me, five minutes ago it was like you were right there in that alley."

"But what good is that?" John asked. "All it's done for me so far is ruin my sheets — with sweat stains, I mean, so don't start — and make a mess of your kitchen."

Terry squeezed his hands, releasing them quickly when she remembered his injuries. "John," she said patiently, "Your memory is coming back. Your conscious mind is still blocking things out, but some of what happened in that alley is breaking through."

John nodded. "I see what you mean. Do you think I should go back to the hospital?"

Terry rolled her eyes. "Yes. No. I don't know, John! They might be able to help you. I think — I think you should at least tell Doctor Benkai that you're having these dreams. I can tell him a little about what you described to me, even if you can't remember yourself."

"I don't want to give up this life I've started to build," John said. "I don't want to crawl back into that hospital and hope that my mind comes back from wherever it went."

"Stop making excuses," Terry said. "I mean, you don't have to live in the hospital, just go in to talk and maybe have some tests."

"Tests," John groaned. "Oh, Terry, you have no idea how much I hate that word. Blood tests, x-rays, CAT scans, psychological tests, aptitude tests, eye tests, EKGs, EEGs — I've had them all, and some of them more than once."

Terry hit his shoulder playfully. "Don't be such a sissy. Do you want your life back, or not?"

Then she let her hand fall as she realized what she'd said. "Oh, God, John. If you do get your memory back, I might never see you again."

John stood and moved to kneel beside her. "You'll still be part of my life, Terry," he said softly. Then he drew back and grinned his best evil grin.

"As long as my wife doesn't find out!"

Terry howled and chased him out of the kitchen.

Gina Marikian, Armor Consulting's "receptionist, secretary, supply clerk, and den mother", had a state-of-the-art ergonomic chair. It had controls for adjusting height, seat angle, back support position, back support angle, and (she claimed) power steering and brakes.

At any given time, John could glance across the office and see her rolling happily back and forth between the phone, the fax machine, and her word processing station. If she knew she had an audience, she would grip an imaginary steering wheel, and make engine and brake sound effects.

Roger Morgan, the president of the company, had told John that he lived in constant fear that a prospective client would see her and assume that the entire firm was staffed by lunatics. Gina cheerfully pointed out that the prospective clients would be correct.

The half-dozen analysts, programmers, and hardware specialists who worked for Armor Consulting were a moderately eccentric bunch (Roger Morgan and John D. Brown included). They were also very good at their jobs, as they had to be to overcome the trepidation that their freewheeling style tended to arouse.

"We could be as serious as Big Blue," Roger Morgan liked to say, "but as long as we're faster, cheaper, and better than they are, we can afford to have fun."

Armor Consulting dealt with small-to-medium businesses, creating customized accounting and inventory systems, and "cleaning up the messes other companies left behind." John loved the place; he was learning the inner workings of a different system every few weeks, and honing his skills in a variety of computer languages.

On this particular morning, John was neck-deep in an inventory program, fiddling with a routine to automatically order items when their "on-hand" stock levels hit a certain level. The program was stubbornly refusing to pick up the correct re-order points, placing orders for items already overstocked, and doing nothing for items out of stock.

Somewhere, there was a misplaced comma or parenthesis, a missing semicolon, or a faulty comparison. John hummed tunelessly as he followed a transaction through the debugging screen, waiting for a test value to go astray.

Suddenly, the image on his monitor twisted out of shape, then shrank and disappeared. At the same moment, John heard a short, strangled cry of pain, followed by the crash of something heavy striking the floor.

He looked up, and saw Gina Marikian sprawled across her desk, her beloved chair on its side behind her. He was on his feet and across the room before any of the others had emerged from their cubicles.

Gina was unconscious, and apparently not breathing. John saw the power cord from Gina's computer, its insulation worn and split, on the floor near Gina's toppled chair, and realized what had happened.

Gently, he rolled her onto her back, tilting her head into position for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As he bent to place his mouth against hers, Roger Morgan said, "Jesus, what happened to Gina?"

John pointed to the frayed power cord as he emptied his lungs.

Gina's chest rose and fell in perfect synchronization with John's efforts, so he knew that she was getting air; but she showed no signs of regaining consciousness, or breathing on her own.

John was vaguely aware of Roger Morgan dialling "911", of his half-hysterical description of Gina's condition, but his attention remained locked into the shared rhythm of his and Gina's breathing.

"C.P.R.," Roger said. "Can you do the cardiac massage? I can take over the mouth-to-mouth."

"Okay," John gasped. He was winded from the sustained effort of forcing air into Gina's lungs, and needed relief. He quickly moved around the desk to allow Roger to reach Gina's mouth, and positioned his hands over her chest.

"Ready?" he asked. When Roger nodded, he lowered his hands and pumped five times, pausing while Roger exhaled into Gina's mouth. They repeated the process dozens of times, and still Gina did not respond.

"We're losing her," Roger muttered.

"No! Keep going, until the paramedics get here."

They continued, working beyond the point of exhaustion, because none of the other staff knew the technique well enough. They had traded places several times when George Finster came in, his face white.

"The elevators are out!", he said. "All three of the main ones, and the freight elevator’s down for maintenance. There was a big presentation at Hardtek on the twenty-seventh floor, and when everybody tried to leave at once – "

Roger and John exchanged looks of horror. They had already been working on Gina for almost ten minutes without reviving her; every minute that passed reduced her chances of recovery.

"The paramedics," John said. "Where are the paramedics?"

George shook his head. "They’re trying to take the stairs with just the essential gear, but it’s thirty-four floors, John, it’s gonna take time."

John felt his own heart jump in his chest. "Gina doesn’t have time," he groaned.

"John, we have to keep working," Roger said. "Work the chest, John, we’re all she’s got right now!"

Fighting back tears of despair, John repositioned his hands on Gina’s chest and performed five compressions, his muscles twitching with fatigue.

"Come on, den mother, don't leave us now," he said. "Come on, come on, wake up!"

Roger forced air into Gina’s lungs for what seemed like the thousandth time and signalled John to go again.

John pressed down on Gina’s chest, using his weight to compensate for the trembling of his arms.

Pump "Gina!" Pump "Come on!" Pump "Wake up!" Pump "Wake up!" Pump

He felt strange, dizzy; the fluorescent lights seemed to be brightening and dimming in sympathy with his heartbeat. It felt like a horde of tiny insects was swarming down his arms and over his hands. Roger straightened, his face red, and signalled him again.

Pump "Come on, Gina!" Pump "Wake up!" Pump

The insect swarm seemed to gather under his hands, and suddenly the bugs weren’t just crawling, they were biting. John gasped, resisting the urge to pull his hands away from the stinging shock of it. He managed to do another chest compression, even though it felt like he was climbing an electrified fence.

Gina's head moved. At first, John thought her body had shifted from the continuing rhythm of the cardiac massage, but then her whole body convulsed as she took a deep, shuddering breath.

George jumped back in surprise. "Son of a — she's back!"

Harvey Noble grabbed Gina's wrist, brushing John aside. He consulted his watch, shaking his head in wonder. "Pulse strong and steady, 80 beats per. You'd think she'd just come back from a walk in the park."

Gina sat up, groaning and pressing one hand to her bruised and tender chest. "What the hell — how did I get up on my desk? And who’s been feeling me up?"

As Roger began to explain, John surrendered to a surge of vertigo, and slid slowly down the wall.

"John? Hey, John, are you all right?"

"John?"

"The paramedics are here!"

The voices of Roger, the paramedics, and Gina (thank God, Gina) followed John down into unconsciousness.

"I don't know, Doctor Benkai. I really don't," John said. "We’d been working on her for so long, too long, and the paramedics were stuck climbing the stairs. I thought we were losing her; she was going to die right there on the desk. I was panicking, really panicking, at the thought that someone I really care about was dying."

"So you healed her?" Benkai asked. He pushed his glasses up with one finger, and they immediately began to slide back down his nose.

"I don't know what I did, or if I did anything at all," John protested. "We'd been giving her C.P.R. continuously from within a minute of the time she got knocked out. Maybe it just took that long for her to come around — maybe it was just the sound of my voice, talking to her."

"And the sensations you described? The dizziness, the tingling in your hands, the visual distortion — and the weakness afterward? How would you explain these things?"

John rolled his eyes. "I was tired — exhausted — from giving her C.P.R. myself. I was under a lot of stress, my blood pressure was probably screwed up. So I got dizzy, and when she woke up, I passed out because I was so relieved that she was all right."

Benkai smiled. "I congratulate you for your tenacious grasp on what passes for reality."

John spread his hands in supplication. "What do you want me to believe? That I'm the second coming of Christ? Trust me on this one, Doc, I'm not qualified to cast stones at anyone."

"Oh, no, John — I'm sure you're no saint," Benkai laughed. "At least, not a Christian saint. Buddhist, maybe — just kidding. But I'm not sure that you're — from around here."

John frowned. "I'm not sure where I'm from. What does that have to do with magical healing?"

Benkai shrugged. "That depends on just how far you are from home. A few thousand miles — it would have nothing to do with it. But a few dozen light years, that could be important."

John groaned and covered his face. "This is therapy, right? You're trying to cheer me up by convincing me that you're a U.F.O. cultist — the doctor crazier than the patient."

Now Benkai frowned. "First, I’m a psychologist, a Ph.D.-type doctor rather than an M.D. And second – John, I had hoped for a little more imagination than that. I am not a U.F.O. cultist — I may be crazier than you are, but I am not an anything cultist."

He pushed his glasses up again, scowled as they slid down, removed them and set them on the desk. "When I was an undergraduate, the psych department had a few elective courses on parapsychology. Mostly it was the usual nonsense with Rhine cards to test for telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, but we also looked at some of the really fringe stuff – poltergeist phenomena, other types of alleged hauntings, and – U.F.O. sightings."

John laughed. "And back then, the taxpayers were footing most of the bill!"

Benkai shrugged. "I can think of worse uses for tax money. But let me continue."

"Since I’m not paying for your time, I guess I’d better indulge you," John said.

"Who said you’re not paying?" Benkai retorted. "Just kidding." He went on, "The courses usually explained U.F.O. sightings in terms of mass hysteria and suggestion – the modern equivalent of visions of saints — and the ignorance of the observers – mistaking Venus or meteorological phenomena for spaceships – but there were a few cases where the explanations were harder to believe than the stories themselves."

"So Occam’s Razor made you a believer?"

Benkai nodded. "Enough so that I’ve retained an interest in such things. And, of course, I’ve always been a Trekker."

John grinned. He had no memory of the ubiquitous television and movie franchise from his pre-coma existence, but had inevitably been exposed to it since. "I still don't understand why you're so eager to assume that I'm an E.T."

Benkai shrugged. "E.T., maybe E.D. or E.C. Or maybe you're right and it was just a coincidence that Gina came back to life only when you told her to do so."

Before John could interrupt, he explained, "E.T. is extraterrestrial, yes? So I coined terms for extradimensional and extrachronal visitors — people from parallel worlds or from other times."

John made a face. "Extrachronal?"

Benkai sighed. "Extratemporal might be better, but that would be E.T. again. Too confusing. Anyway, let us consider all the facts in your case, not just the recent ones."

He held up his right fist, then extended his fingers, one by one, as he spoke.

"Point one: you appeared out of nowhere. There seems to be no record of you anywhere, no one has reported you missing, and you recognize no landmarks.

"Point two: you recovered remarkably well from what could easily have been fatal injuries. Even though we found nothing different about you in the many tests you endured, we were looking for problems, not hunting for evidence of extra-whatevers.

"Point three: your partially-remembered nightmare bears a resemblance to — I'm sorry, but this is a fact — reports by people who claim to have had contact with extra-whatevers. The bright light, the inability to run — these things suggest that you have at least been touched by something unusual.

"Point four: Gina's recovery. She was unconscious, without voluntary breathing or detectable pulse, for quite a long time, C.P.R. or not. Yet she shows no signs of brain damage or even discomfort from the electrical burn to her legs."

John closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to laugh hysterically. "So, you think I'm from 'out there', or I've been kidnapped and, uh, modified by somebody from 'out there'. Gee, Doc, that makes me feel so much better about my life."

Benkai sighed. "I see you are less than thrilled at the idea. But John, you may have extraordinary gifts, whatever their origin; you should be happy about that, at least."

"Extraordinary gifts?" John said bitterly. "I'm a thirty-something year old man with no past. Most of my friends and acquaintances are doctors, nurses, or police officers, all with some involvement with my case."

He struck the desktop with his fist, hard enough to set the steel-ball pendulum in motion. "I don't want to be extraordinary," he said. "I don't want to be a case of anything."

Benkai nodded. "I understand. But will you indulge me for a moment? I have one little test — not a medical test, John, don't give me that look — that I would like you to try."

John shrugged. "As long as there are no needles, probes, or clamps, or electrodes involved, I guess I can put up with it."

Benkai smiled. He went to the bookcase behind his desk, and removed a small glass globe set on a flat black base.

"Do you know what this is?" Benkai asked.

John examined the little device more closely. Inside the globe, four small metal squares (he guessed) were attached to a horizontal "X" of fine wire, so the squares hung perpendicular to the base. At the center of the "X", the wires were embedded in a cone-shaped piece of glass or plastic, which in turn balanced on another, thicker, metal spike set in the base.

"It's a thermo-something-or-other — no, a radiometer," John said. "The black sides of the squares absorb heat, and the white sides reflect, so a bright enough light will stir up the air and make the thingumajig spin."

Benkai nodded. "Very good, John. But please don't confuse me with all those technical terms."

He positioned his desk lamp so that it shone directly on the little globe, and, as John had predicted, the wire "X" began to turn like a miniature weathervane.

John watched the spinning squares for a few moments, then said, "Well, gee, Mister Wizard, that's swell. Now what?"

"Now you try to stop it," Benkai said.

John tilted his head to one side and squinted at the neurologist. "Say what? You want me to turn off the lamp?"

Benkai winced. "No, John. And I make the jokes here. Therapy, you know. For me, if not for you."

He took John's hands, and placed them around the base of the glass globe.

"With these hands, I believe that you reached inside Gina Marikian and somehow revived her," he said. "To make this toy stop spinning should be trivial by comparison."

John started to say something, but he saw that Benkai was serious about this "test". He turned his full attention on the spinning "X" of wire and glass and painted foil, trying to feel the movement of the air inside the globe.

"This is silly," he complained. "Even if I do have some sort of power, maybe it only works on living things. Maybe —"

"Just try, John. That's all I ask."

John grimaced and stared at the globe. As his eyes tracked the endless, flickering movement of the black and white squares, he felt his mind begin to drift.

What would make this thing stop? he wondered. Cut off the light, and wait for it to cool off. Push against the squares in the opposite direction to the spinning. How did I wake up Gina — if I really did?

I wanted it to happen.

"Stop. Stop spinning," he said aloud. "Show me that we're not both crazy. Stop. Stop."

The dizziness returned, followed by the crawling sensation in his hands and arms. His vision blurred, narrowing until only the globe and his hands remained clear.

"John! Look at the globe! You've done it!"

Looking at the globe was not the problem, John realized. He found himself unable to look away from it.

The metal squares hung motionless on their wire supports, held by something flowing through his hands.

"John, this is wonderful! We must make a record of this — John?"

The metal squares quivered, then began to spin in the opposite direction.

"John, you can stop for a moment. John?"

The metal squares spun faster, dissolving into a uniform gray blur. A tiny wisp of smoke or dust emerged from the glass cone at the axis of the wire frame, and was instantly dispersed by the miniature whirlwind.

"John, I think — my God, what's that light?"

The room was suddenly filled with a brilliant, sourceless white glare, a glare John had seen once in reality, and a thousand times in his dreams. He pulled his hands away from the globe, and heard what must have been the disintegration of the frame and its metal vanes under the stress of their impossible rotation.

He turned slowly away from the desk, knowing that he must face the thing that had terrified him for so long.

Floating in the light, he could see vague shapes, man-like, but unmistakably not human.

A voice, smooth enough for any network news anchor, said, "It is time for you to return to your own world."

John shook his head. He tried to shield his eyes with one arm, but the light was everywhere; even the insides of his eyelids seemed to be full of light.

"I want to stay," he said. "I have a new life here, and whatever I left behind, this is my world now."

"This was only a test," the voice said. "It was never intended that you stay here so long. Only the damage you suffered when you arrived prevented us from returning for you before this moment."

"John, what do they mean? These gifts you have — do all your people have them?"

John shook his head, then realized that Benkai could not see him. "I don't know, Doc," he said. "I don't care. You, Gina, Terry — you're my people now."

"I want to stay here," he repeated.

There was a pause, then the voice said, "We cannot permit this. You do not belong in this time; your talents would be disruptive."

John felt anger rising in him, burning away the awe and terror he had felt before.

"You kidnapped me from wherever I came from, for this test," he said softly. "Then you dumped me in this world, where I nearly got killed before I even knew where I was. You took away everything I had, and everything I was. Now you want to do it again?"

He opened his eyes wide, accepting the light, making it part of himself, and raised his hands. He felt the power growing at the center of his body and expanding outward to the tips of his fingers and beyond, the dizziness replaced by a sense of euphoria, the tingling replaced by fire and ice.

"I'm not going with you," he said, and moved toward the floating shapes. The shapes twisted away, but he followed and caught one by the arm.

For the fleeting moment that he was able to hold on, he saw the creature clearly. It was small, and soft, with the body and face of a distorted angel, beautiful and ugly at the same time. It looked at him with an expression that could only be surprise and fear, then slid away and was lost again in the glare.

"You must come with us. You have no choice."

John felt the power flicker inside of him, like a candle close to burning out. He knew that if it faded completely, these creatures would take him home — wherever, whenever that might be — and he would lose everything he had gained in his new life.

"'Maybe you had a wonderful life,'" Terry had said, "'but maybe your life sucked.'" Whatever he had lost before, he did not remember it, and did not miss it. But he would miss Terry, and Roger, and Gina, and Doc Benkai, and all the rest.

He would miss bagels and popcorn and even Big Macs. He would miss the beauty of the sunsets, even knowing that it was dust and smoke and industrial fumes that painted the skies so gloriously.

"No," he said hoarsely, "I do have a choice."

And inside him, the dying candle flame of his power grew bright and strong, and then flared like an exploding sun. He staggered from the sheer force of it, eyes squeezed shut against the chaos as space and time twisted, and the white light and the creatures who hid in it were swept away.

His knees folded under him like a broken lawn chair, and he sat down, hard, on the floor.

"John."

John opened his eyes, and saw Doc Benkai standing shakily in front of him.

"Hi, Doc. I'm still here," he said.

Benkai retrieved his glasses from the desktop, cleaned them on his shirt, and put them on. He leaned against the desk, surveying the apparently undamaged office.

"I'm amazed anything is still here, after that little episode," he said.

John climbed slowly to his feet, and joined Benkai by the desk.

"Did I pass the test?" he asked innocently.

Benkai nodded vigorously. "With flying — and very bright — colours. No more tests for you!"

John smiled wearily. "In that case, I think it's time we both went home."

Terry was waiting for him.

Copyright © 2001 by Robert Moriyama

Robert Moriyama is a 40-something systems analyst busy analyzing the systems at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, part way through a multi-billion dollar development project. He has been reading SF, horror, and fantasy for most of his life, and writing it every now and then. Stories have appeared in the late, lamented Titan webzine, Dementia webzine, and Aphelion, most recently The Final Lesson (Aphelion, August). bmoriyam@pathcom.com or Bmoriyama@aol.com

E-mail: bmoriyam@pathcom.com

Bmoriyama@aol.com

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