Chapter One: There was an I

    There was a room, and a bed, and definately a ceiling.  All of these things were rather blurry, but that was not of their own accord.  There was the sound of a doctor coming in, a doctor because he was dressed in white and held a clipboard, and because the bed was a hospital bed.  He was led by a nurse.  They were saying something, but it was hard to concentrate on.  There was no feeling, not the way feeling is expected to be.  Only a light dissconnectedness, distancing the sights and the sounds.
     This is in the past, but while it was the present, there was no past.
     The doctor turned to the person in the bed.  "He does seem awake," he spoke to the nurse.  "How do you feel?"
     There was no answer, because there was no real feeling, and because there was a breathing mask over this man's mouth.  You?  This man thought on the doctors words.  He knew what feeling was, but everything was blurry, and the you made no sense.  That's when I realized the you was me.
     And so there was an I.
     The doctor didn't expect me to answer with the mask on, and so removed it; my breathing sounded feeble, but I couldn't feel the effort of it.  He repeated his question patiently, and I managed to mumbled out, "Blurry."  It was the only real thought going through my brain at the time, and the new one that was struggling to exist had nothing to do with his question.  It struck me vaguely that my voice sounded rough and deep, even to me.  It was weird to have an expectation of my voice dissapointed, when there was before that time no 'I.'
     "Are you in any pain?" he asked me.
     "No," came my raw voice.  Perhaps I had not spoken in a while, I thought.
     The doctor replaced the breathing mask, done questioning me.  It was all I could answer at the moment, and perhaps he knew this, or he had no more questions.  A few low, missed words to the nurse, and he was gone.  The nurse hovered over me and her intruments briefly, then urged me gently, "Try to sleep."
     I didn't even try to nod, I just watched her movements, trying to place words to what I felt, and what was going on.  Blurry would not be sufficient.  Pain, I noted to myself, the doctor mentioned pain.  Why would I be in pain? Perhaps I am not only because of the IV dangling beside me, in my arm even though I can't feel it.  I mused suddenly that I understood names of objects, names like IV that had to be told to a person.  And I was not a child; I had not just been born in the normal sense of the word.  Why then, had I no past 'I' to build on?  Only the names of things, and not a memory of an instant before I had just woken up.  I soon fell asleep, wandering thought doing little to keep me awake.
     The next time I awoke it was with a word: drugged.  It was both as if I had just remembered it, and as if I had just figured out what it meant to me.  The feeling that was no real feeling had to be drugs, painkillers to be precise.  Once I had determined that, it was easier to describe how I felt and it was easier to look around at things.  I knew why they were blurry now.
     The nurse saw that I was awake and took off the mask.  I took a deep breath on my own, and thought it sounded better, or that I could at least hear it better.  She asked me how I was.  "Ok," I responded, almost caught off-gaurd by her addressing 'me'.  "More awake this time," I added.
     "You remember the last time?" she asked me curiously, and with a gentle smile.
     "I remember a time," was all I could tell her for sure.
     "And you feel better this time, I suppose?" she pressed charismatically.
     "I feel more."
     "Are you hungry?"
     I had to think about that one: "Yes."
     She set a tray in front of me, and to my slight surprise, began to feed me with almost no effort required on my part.  I wasn't sure how much of an effort I could make, and when I tried to raise and arm, she held it down, telling me that I would dislodge the IV.  So I let her, just letting my mind rest as much as possible.
     She cleared the food things away and then came back, informing me that there was someone there to see me.  I nodded understanding, and she took that as permission to let him in.  I made a mental note to be slightly more vocal next time, to, for instance, ask who.
     A man and a woman came in, and I wondered if they knew me.  They looked important, persistant, and kind.  As it turned out, they were there to question me, as the doctor had told them I was up for some questioning, and that I could breath on my own again.  I would not have used the word again:
     "Hello Sir, my name is Dr. Swill," the man introduced himself.  I pondered his name, but it meant nothing to me: it only sounded funny.
     The lady was next: "Dr. June," she said simply.
     They wanted me to say something.  I said, "Hi."
     Dr. Swill was the same doctor that had come in before, and he stood behind Dr. June as if she were more important.  Dr. June did most of the speaking: "We're here to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."
     "I don't," I assured her.  I couldn't think of any myself, either for them to ask me or for me to ask them.
     "Can you tell us anything about what happened?"
     "You were found on the beach," Dr. Swill offered.  It occured to me that he was a medical doctor, and June was not.
     I paused momentarily.  "Who are you?"
     The doctors exchanged a look.  Dr. Jun ventured, "What do you mean?"
     "I mean, why've you come to see me?" I managed to say.  I would have sat up, but I knew the nurse would make sure I didn't, for fear of my dislodging the IV.
     They looked relieved.  Dr June took over again, "To find out who you are, what happened to you, and why."
     I nodded.  "The beach, huh?  How so?"
     Dr Swill was forced to speak up.  "Someone saw you, and called up 911.  You were driven to this hospital."
     "How long have I been here?" was the next logical question.
     "8 days in a coma and then two more weeks to the day."
     "Oh.  What for?"  I asked it, but it felt like a stupid question.  Something bad enough to put me in a coma, obviously: they had asked me what had happened, which meant that they did not know.
     "I can show you your records later.  Sufficed to say that you aren't going to die any time soon, although you had us worried for a while."
     I nodded, proud of Dr Swill for speaking so long and almost unprompted.
     "If we're done with the medical questions..." Dr June hinted.  She was wearing green, like a june-bug.
     I took a deepish breath, then nodded.  "Yeah... can I speak to just Dr. June?  That's really all the questions I have for now, and she seems to have a lot for me...  She'll never get answers if you're all here to distract me."  I knew I was saving the june-bug, making our interview shorter, more confidential, and almsot hassle free.  The other two doctors agreed to wait outside the room: Dr Swill was relieved to do so.
     June-bug moved knelt down beside the hospital bed with this strange new man who was I on it.  "Do you remember any of your hospital stay so far?" she asked him.
     "Only this time and one other," I answered.  "I've been busy recovering, and I've been on heavy pain medication."
 June-bug nodded: she knew this.  "Well I'm glad you seem yourself now.  Would you help me fill out this form?"
     "What's it for?"
     She shrugged.  "It should give us an idea of what happened and what to do with you next."
     "Alright... what's the first question?"
     June-bug looked to about the middle of the page.  "Do you remember how you were injured?"
     "No."
     "What's the last thing you remember before your injuries?"
     I only looked at her and listened to my slightly feeble breathing.  The answer was 'nothing,' but it was hard to use that word to describe the complete void of memory, to describe the feeling that I had simply been created and left in this hosiptal bed, with not only no memories but nothing to remember.  I was new.  I didn't even have a name.  "I don't," I finally explained.  "How old do you think I am?" was my next question.
     June-bug took this rather well by shuffling her papers, taking a few quick notes, then looking me over hard.  "I'd say you look about 20 to me.  Maybe a few years older.  I'm not very good at guessing people's ages."
     That was alright, she could be as bad at guessing as she wanted to be.  She had more to go on than I did, after all.  I hadn't even seen myself yet.  "That's 20 years I don't remember," I pointed out, making sure she knew I was serious and that she understood.  Once I was sure of that, it impressed me far more that she was wearing glasses on the top of her head that, I was sure, once pulled down, would make her resemble an insect more.  I made a note to myself not to actually *call* her June-bug to her face.
     She smiled uncertainly.  "We didn't find any identification on you."
     I nodded.  None of this bothered me- there was nothing I could do about it.  What bothered me was that I was sure she was leaving something out.  "But?"
     "Well, there is someone looking for his brother.  He might be able to identify you, but he might not."
     "I understand.  Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"
     "Mostly."
     "Are there other steps to take to find my identity?"
     "None conclusive that we have not taken."
     I nodded.
     "It is possible that you will begin to remember who you are.  Memories may come back to you in flashes, or not at all, or you might even simply wake up knowing something you didn't before."
     "And what do I do about that?"
     "You talk to a psychologist about it.  You'll be seeing a physical therapist for a short while as well."
     "And what if I never regain my memory- will I still have to see a psychologist?"
     "Probably not, but that would be up to your psychologist."
     "Is there any other reason for me to see one?"
     "Not that I know of, Sir."
     I nodded.  That was good, everything seemed to be out in the open.  The only thing overwhelming about it was that she expected me to do something about it.  I just wanted to rest.  I didn't care if I never remembered, although I wasn't oposed to remembering either.  Mostly I would only miss knowing how I'd ended up in the hosipital, but since that seemed to be the reason I couldn't remember anything (perhaps I had been knocked on the head?) the mystery of why was solved, and therefore if nothing was recovered I would be alright.  "I'll just work on healing up, then, I guess."
     "That's good.  Any plans for when you get out of the hospital?"
     "I think I'll worry about that more when it's closer to happening."
     "You seem tired," she pointed out kindly.
     "A little."
     "Would you like to rest?"
     "Only if you're done with your questions for now."
     "I do have a few more, but they can wait."
     "Go ahead and ask them now."
     She shook her head.  "I'd rather prepare them better.  Needless to say, you'll be seeing me again sometime soon."
     "Are you going to be my psychologist?"
     She smiled.  "Perhaps."
     Well as long as 'I' didn't turn out to be anything that eats insects, June-bug would be fine.  I nodded, comfortable enough with her considering she was a stranger to me.  But then again, everyone would be, so I simply had to get used to it I knew.  "See you later."
     "Would you be up to seeing the gentleman searching for his brother?"
     I hesitated, not knowing what to expect.  "A little later.  Perhaps an hour later."
     "I'll tell the nurse."
     "Thank you."
     She nodded goodbye and left.

~~~~~
Chapter 2: I Took on a Name
 
 

     I was grateful for the mental rest the nurse gave me before she showed in my next visitor. As far as I was concerned, it was my first day alive, and I was easily overwhelmed, as well as easily impressed. Almost as if to make up for my lost memories, each new memory I formed was bright and clear to the point that most of them remain with me to this day.
     And so of course I easily recall the character of a man who walked into me room and knelt beside my bed. He hardly believed I was trully conscious, and sat there in a pensive manner until the nurse reminded him that I was indeed present, and not merely a type of living statue in the bed. I'm sure the only difference, to his credit, was that my eyes were open. Perhaps I had had my eyes opened before, and yet those were times I could not remember and so they mattered not to me.
     "How are you feeling?" he asked me rather gravely.
     "More," I answered as I had the nurse. I took in his studios aspect and serious manner, then asked, "And you?"
     "I'm well," he answered simply. He then added as if to excuse his first inquirary, "You, however, have been unconscious quite a while."
     "So I've been told. What else has the nurse told you?"
     He shrugged, "That you probably won't recognize me."
     "...I'm sorry." I couldn't move to show any sort of empathy, and felt at a loss for it. "Should I?"
     "I'm not quite sure..." He stopped carefully, and turned to the nurse. "Could we be left alone?"
     She seemed unsure, so I added, "I would like that."
     Reluctantly, she glanced at my visitor and reminded me, "If you need anything, just ask." Thankfully this satisfied her and she left; I got the impression that my visitor was far too much a private man to talk in front of her about what was on his mind. My best guess as to what that was, was based entirely on two facts: that he knew I had lost my memory and that I might be somehow in relation to him and simply did not know it.
     "Now if you are quite ready for a serious conversation," he began, and then left it open to me.
     "I think I might be. Do you have a question for me? Or something to tell me?"
     He smiled slightly, "You seem far more awake now. If you don't mind me bringing the subject up- I want to know, do you remember nothing at all?"
     "Sir, I'm quite the blank page."
     He started. "Sir?"
     "You haven't told me your name," I pointed out, thinking also that he struck me very much as a 'Sir.'
     "My name is Jeremy. Please, don't call me Sir; you might be my brother, and even if it turns out you are not, you remind me enough of him that I'd rather you not."
     "That's what you wanted to talk about," I urged. Me, his brother? If I was, I could not be again: I didn't have the memories of his brother.
     He nodded as if he were gauging my reaction. "I wish I were sure either way."
     "I look like him?"
     "Yes. The problem is...I haven't seen him in a while."
     "Has he been missing?" I asked, not able to think of myself as being this brother.
     "In a way. He was just coming down to see me after a long time of never saying a word- but he has not shown up. Your appearance in the hospital coincides well with when he should have arrived."
     "I think I understand."
     He paused; it seemed hard for him to believe someone could lose every shred of their memory. "It was a bad accident," he pointed out to us both.
     "I'm not even sure what it was. Was it an accident? Or a suicide, or a mugging, or what?"
     "No one knows."
     That seemed to be the end of the topic, so I asked, "What is your brothers name?"
     Jeremy looked me over as if deciding if I fitted the name he then gave up to me; "Samuel."
     "I don't even know what I look like," I pointed out, musing over the idea that I looked like his brother.
     "I must confess... I'm almost entirely sure you're Samuel."
     "What's stopping you?" I wondered.
     "The doctors aren't sure. The only thing we have to go by are the circumstances, which give us almost nothing, and my perception of your appearance."
     "You seem to be a very deep man."
     "Excuse me?"
     "Frankly I'm not worried at all about who I am- or was. I can't remember, and I doubt there's anything I can do to help that, or anything anyone else can. It will come to me, or it won't, and if I were you I would trust my instincts (of course they're all I have) and simply say I'm your brother right up until he- if you're wrong- shows up on your door step."
     Jeremy took a moment as if to recover. "Well! Quite an oppinion for someone who remembers nothing." He paused. "The doctor told me you might have drastic changes in your personality as well."
     "Not as if anyone would know."
     "Well...please, I'd like you to tell me exactly how you're doing. I probably know more about your actual health than you do, what with the doctors practically reporting to me, but I'd like to hear your view of it all."
     I hesitated.
     "You seemed to have fairly strong views a minute ago."
     "Well I think I've got pain killers in me..."
     "You can't feel anything?"
     "Well I feel tired, and I can see and hear...but I guess most of it's kind of vague..."
     "Probably hard to describe anyway."
     "Tell me more about your brother?" I asked, wanting to understand him.
     "You mean, perhaps, yourself."
     "You're the one to make that decision," I sighed, begining to feel overwhelmed and simply wanting a story to listen to.
     "Should I leave you to rest?"
     "Not yet. Tell me a little more."
     "Then I will leave," he promised. "You're not exactly healthy yet. My brother is younger than I am, and dropped out of high school the year I graduated. He left, and I have heard very little from him since."
     "How old is he?"
     "19."
     "How old are you, then?"
     "22."
     I shrugged and sighed. That was about all I could take in; I was very tired and somewhat overwhelmed by everyone's expectations of me.
     "Please rest, Samuel. May I call you that?"
     "I don't know."
     "There's no need to decide now. I'll leave you alone."
     "I'll see you later?"
     "Absolutely. Rest well." Jeremy left me to think over being called Samuel. The name carried so many things with it, and I was not sure if they pleased or terrified me.
     When the nurse revisited me, she informed me that my medication would be increased for a short while; a while I do not remember. This while, I have been assured, lasted but a few days, and when I awoke, I felt remarkably better. I was allowed, even, to sit up and a day or two later to try to walk; my medication was no longer administered through IV but rather by simple pills that I found I could take. I had, frankly, no time to think of anything but the physical therapy thrust at me for my few weeks in bed. Luckily that was not all that much as it would be for, say, a broken leg.
     What was far more excruciating were the sessions with my therapist. I risk being misunderstood, I'm fairly sure, when I explain it that way, and so I will try to be more thorough. They were painful, but necessary, just as my physical therapy was. However, they did not leave me with the impression that I could not get along without them; I'm not sure how true this is, and I expect not very, but building up my physical strength was fufilling a basic need to be able to walk around without tiring out, while therapy was for my therapist to assess my exact condition and help me understand a world I had been so rudely awakened to. There was also the added strain of being tired sometimes when the sessions occured, and this seemed to me to waste time completely. As far as I could figure, I should be left alone to sleep when I was tired, and commence with the sessions when I was not. This was somewhat of a selfish want, and so I only expressed it a few times, and at any rate, I soon became used to the physical therapy and so was not so tired for the mental.
     Jeremy came to see me often, almost everyday. He did not call me Samuel again, and I did not point this out to him. I would wonder sometimes if he had found his brother to be someone other than I, but as I got better he often talked of housing me once I was let out of the hospital. The doctors seemed to agree with this arrangement, and everyone took it for granted that I was his brother, Samuel.
     They did not take into account my reaction to this, however, which I developed a sense of just before I left the hospital.
     Jeremy asked me in his serene and serious way, "You won't mind living with me, will you?"
     "You're almost like a brother to me," I tested, partly tired of him not saying he thought I was. I wanted either a 'I'm only doing this because you have no where else to go' or else, 'you're my brother, I'm sure of it.'
     He hesitated. "I am your brother... Samuel."
     I considered this; I had heard what I had wanted to hear, but at the same time, I had heard that calling me Samuel took a great effort on his part, even to the point of hurting him. It laid expectations on us both that were unpleasant, and made me shudder, as if I had been named after the dead. "I'm just begining to understand who I am. I'll never be Samuel again, so I'll pick a new name."
     Jeremy looked uncertain, and I didn't know him well enough to displace his uncertainty for him. But I continued for my own benfit: "I need something that means 'new'..."
     "New?" he paused to think with a small smile. "Neos."
     "Hm...Neos... Well it's not like I won't stand out anyway, when people ask me where I'm from and I can't remember..."
     "True. You've got nothing to lose."
     "Do you want to pick the last name?"
     "You want to change that, too?"
     "Make it my middle then, but you can pick it."
     "Nike," he decided with a shrug.
     "Victory."
     Jeremy started- "How did you know *that*?"
     "I remember a statue called the Nike, and what Nike means. It's just a word, and a picture..."
     "Well if you can remember it then it fits you perfectly- Neos Nike."
     "You won't mind calling me that?"
     "Not at all," he assured me with a real smile. Anything was better than Samuel to him.

~~~~~
Chapter 3: Permanent Side-Affects
 

     I did move in with Jeremy, and assumed his last name of Sheltz. I was given a social security number and other such things for a new identification, then Jeremy and I were practically left alone. I had no more physical therapy except for the parting encouragement to exercise, and the only regular part of my life was my continuation with the therapist.
     Jeremy had a nice house, with plenty of room for the two of us. He did have friends, a job, and things to do, but he preferred to take his time alone when he was not paying attention to me. He declared I was a wonderful companion when I asked, and probably said the same to everyone else. I never had the impression that he lied to me, although I often thought he might know or think more than he said. There were many things I did not know any way, and so we got along rather quickly. The first few days, were of course, the hardest for me, and perhaps the most confusing for Jeremy.
     My first day there, and after visiting my new bedroom, which was far different from the hosiptal room in comfort level, I begged Jeremy to show me around the house. "You can explore it on your own as well as you could with me," he told me. "You have two feet, and they work quite well. I can't tell you anything about the place that you can't find out on your own."
     "This house is too big- I don't want to get lost in it. I want you to show me everything, and you're just being difficult."
     "Well! I wouldn't want to be difficult, would I?" he laughed, then started walking down the hall. "I'm not much of a tour guide."
     I followed him. "You've shown me where I'm to sleep, and so I want to see where I should eat, or read, or work, or whatever it is I'm going to be doing."
     "You can eat in your room if you want."
     "That's not what I meant. Show me where everything is, please?"
     "I am! There, you see the rooms we are passing are empty. There's just not much to say about them."
     I glanced down the hall we were soon going to leave, and thought I saw for a split second someone turn a corner, walking away from us. "Alright, then tell me who that was."
     "Who is who?" he asked me, and looked where I was looking. "There's no one in this house but us."
     "No pets or anything?" I fished.
     "No: nothing."
     I looked back at him and shrugged. "It must have been my imagination, then."
     "You're sure?" he quizzed seriously.
     "Yeah. So, you've got a lovely hallway. There must be more to the house than that," I prompted.
     "Ah, yes. So there is. This way is the kitchen, and here the library, as small as it is."
     I walked into the library; a normal sized room with full book shelves on all the walls, a table to sit at, and a quiet atmosphere. "It's nice."
     Jeremy shrugged. "It's nothing impressive, actually. Most of those books I'm only holding for friends or reading at their request."
     "It's nice and quiet, though."
     Jeremy lead me out of the room and commented solemnly, "Don't try so hard to approve of everything. I'm sure you will be able to stand living here, and it doesn't take your agreement on everything. I'm hardly going to tell you what to do or what you can do, and you shouldn't act like I'm going to."
     I shook my head and walked ahead of him, actively searching each room of the old house. "I'm not! And I wouldn't let you if you tried, probably. Don't be so serious all the time."
     "At any rate, I think I've showed you enough of the house-"
     "Hardly any of it!"
     "Neos, at least let me finish my thought. I have shown you enough of it, all the rooms you need to know. You're free to go any where you want, but as it's early in the morning and I have work later today, I'm going to bed."
     I nodded. "I won't make any noise."
     "See that you don't," he assured me, "or else I'll be tired for work, and that wouldn't do. Oh, one more thing- your therapist- her name is Janis, isn't it? She promised to stop by later. If I'm asleep or away, and you happen to be available, feel free to let her in for as long as she wants."
     "Sure thing. Good night."
     While he was asleep I perused the house thoughroughly, determined to know where everything in it was. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, and imagined nothing strange either. There was trully no one in the house but Jeremy and I, and even though it was a rather large house, I was sure of this. Everything was in order and serenly quiet, and so soon I began to feel tired as well. We had woken up somewhere around five am for some obtuse reason, leaving me tired with good enough reason-- I retired to my room and napped, wondering as I fell asleep what Dr. Janis June could want to do with her visit. She didn't usually strike me as a purposeless person, however she might flutter about, and she was of course deeply interested in how well I settled into Jeremy's house. I thought the matter too soon to test, and was quickly out cold from trying to think on it, and from laying in bed.

     A doorbell rang very loudly, and was answered. Janis and Jeremy's voice moved closer and conversed amoungst themselves, seeming to become clearer with time.
     "Good afternoon, Janis, how are you?"
     "I'm fine. And how is Neos?"
     "He's asleep, as I was an hour or so ago. He seems to be adjusting well, but it is too soon to tell and he is, of course, the best person to ask."
     The reality of sight, hearing, and touch all were coming into focus as they spoke.
     "Well as long as he's not here I guess I can tell you what to expect."
     "Please do."
     "I'm sorry to put it this way, but there is nothing you can trully expect. He could easily gain his memory entirely, or not at all; gradually, or all at once. You need to watch out for if he acts strangely, or upset. If anything at all happens, you should call me or bring him to me."
     "Can't I expect him to be stable? To come to me even?"
     "Stable? Not at all- and you might not know how to handle him."
     Very gradually everything came into complete focus, and I knew myself again. I was standing in the living room with Janis and Jeremy, as if I had walked there. I had heard their whole conversation, and I still felt strangely dissconnected from everything, even though I could see and understand now that I was not. They had stopped talking when I walked in.
     "Are you ok?" Janis asked me. Jeremy offered me a seat and I accepted.
     "Yeah, just sleepy," I told her. It was not exactly the truth, but it was close enough for the moment. I did not want to concern them over something trivial, passing, and hard to explain. I told Janis, the June-bug, about it later, but I left out what I had heard; no doubt she then told Jeremy. It turned out that her purpose for coming over had been to talk with me, make sure I was ok, and familarize herself with the location of the house. She declared she had become lost several times while driving over, had lunch with us, and then scuttled out of the house.
     Jeremy and I enjoyed the quiet she left behind, and it was a few moments before I asked, "Does she plan on coming over here every time she wants an appointment with me?"
     "I suppose," he answered thoughtfully, "that whenever it is a convenience to me, she will be just as happy to have me drive you there."
     "She said she wanted to run a few tests now that I'm 'settled in,' so I guess she'll have to wait until it's at your convenience," I pointed out.
     "Haven't you already been given tests? What sort of tests could she possibly mean now?"
     "The only tests she's given me so far are for vocabulary and functioning, or so she says. I can't imagine what's next."
     "You'll probably find out soon."
     "I'll be sure to tell you about it when I do."
     He paused: "Neos... you were acting strangely when you came in here. Are you sure you're all right?"
     "Positive," I answered with a nod. "I was feeling a little strange, but I'm alright now."
     "Did you talk to Dr. June about it?"
     "Yes. She didn't have much to tell me except that that sort of thing might happen. It's not life-threatening or anything, just a mind trick."
     "Could you explain it to me?"
     "I'm not sure how I ever got across the idea to Dr. June. It's just a lot like a funky dream, except that I'm really awake. I'm walking, but the things I see and feel seem like they're happening to someone else."
     Jeremy withheld any comments he had and stood up, asking, "I have to go to work- will you be alright by yourself? I could always ask someone over to stay with you."
     "I might get bored, but I'll be fine," I assured him. "I'll read a book or something."
     Jeremy took my word for it and left; I resumed examining the house, this time with the purpose of finding something to occupy myself. I ended up seated at his computer, a thing I got the sense he rarely used, and spent the rest of my time absorbed in figuring the thing out. I had seen them before at the hospital but I had never been allowed to play around with one. Now that I was it proved to be very facinating for me, as well as something I could manipulate easily to amuse myself. I got the impression that there was much to learn about computers, and that I would enjoying learning it all very much. I was just deciding that I would thouroughly study this machine when Jeremy came back. He seemed surprised to find me in the deepest recesses of his computer, a place he admitted he hardly knew existed. He left me alone with little fuss to this activity he deemed uninteresting, difficult, but most importantly, quiet.
     The only further interruption he made was to tell me it was midnight and, didn't I think I should go to bed about now?
     "Ok, ok. Hey, Jeremy? You know how I have nothing to do? Well I got an idea to fix that."
     "Go on."
     "I want to learn about this thing," I told him, pointing at his computer.
     "First you have to know a good deal about math."
     "Fine, then teach me."
     The poor man looked shocked. "Teach you? I'm not a teacher, and I'm not good at math either! I could send you to classess, but..."
     "I want to learn it here where it's nice and quiet."
     "We can check out books? But I have no idea what level you're at."
     "It's the easiest way to find out," I encouraged. I wanted to do this, just to read and try to understand it all on my own.
     "Perhaps... You do know that Mrs. June will be testing your knowledge on all the school subjects?"
     "When did she tell you that?"
     "She dropped a note off at my work listing the tests and explaining them all." He fished in his pocket and handed the sheet of paper to me. "The math test is one of the last ones, but I think we should wait for the results anyway."
     "And what will that tell me?"
     "Where to start."
     "Let's just go to the library, please?"
     "I suppose we can look around... maybe you'll recognize what you do and don't know."
     "It's worth a shot!"
     "Indeed. Well, goodnight."
     "'Night."
     I turned my bedroom light on and froze. I felt I couldn't be sure of what I saw, but real or not, there appeared to be someone else in my room. In fact, this person looked the same as the one I had seen earlier, when jeremy had assured me we were the only ones who occupied the house.
     Seeing as I had no assurance that this vision aslo had a substantial reality, I only stared at it. It had come on its own, and so I left it to leave on its own. In the meantime I had plent of time to observe its appearance as it did not dissapear. It was a lady of around 30, and she was wearing a plain grey top and bottom. Just as you might imagine a ghost to be, everythign about her, including her blue eyes and brown hair, was faded into the background very slightly.
     She was watching me, just standing there watching me, so I moved to sit on my bed and watched her back. There was no way I was changing in front of her, wether she was real or not. She shrugged and walked through the door- without opening it. I ran to slam the door open, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the hall.
     She was there! Despite the fact that she had just walked through a very solid door, she looked solid herself as she turned to face me. There was no way she wasn't responding to me, and she likely noticed the same about myself. We both appeared very real to each other, and yet she looked faded, so I felt I couldn't treat her as if she were there. Would anyone else see her? If not, I would hardly wish to make a fool of myself by, for instance, trying to talk to her.
     Jeremy opened his door. "Is something wrong?"
     I looked at him, then back at this strange lady. "No. I just thought I heard something."
     "It must have been your imagination."
     "It is-- was. Goodnight." I closed my door and sat on the bed again. Ghost woman left me alone for the night, or at least until I fell asleep, but I often saw her since, though no one else ever seemed to. She was a permanent hallucination as far as I could tell: because it seemed permanent, I felt I could handle it, and because it was so strange, I did not mention it to June Bug.

~~~~~
Chapter 4:  Inconsistencies

The phone rang and I picked it up before Jeremy could.  "Yeeeeeeees?" I answered.
    "Hey, Neos!  It's Janis."
    "Good morning Janis.  My aren't you up bright and early."
    "It's noon."
    "Oh hush.  You and your specifics!  I suppose you had a reason for calling?"
    There was a bit of rustling on the other line as if the lady's wings had come out and started flying her around the room.  "Yes.  Those tests I ordered are finally here."
    "Oh goody.  I just can't wait."
    "Be serious!  They might not help find out who you are, but you'll find out who you aren't, and what you're good at, and all that useful stuff.  Don't you think that's worth a few hours of your so far unproductive new life?"
    "Un-productive!"  I glanced down at a blank notepad I had picked up and started to doodle Janis buzzing about with wings.
    "Most men your age have a job."
    "Most men my age don't get left on the beach to die," I laughed, then turned away from the computer.  Jeremy had promised to take me to the library later that day, and until then I was killing time.  Taking a bunch of test sounded like a lot more of killing time, and so I didn't mind the idea at all.
    "I suppose that is what it looks like," she agreed.  "Anyway, can you come in today?"
    "I'd have to ask Jeremy if he can drive me, and I hate to bother him.  Like most men his age, he has a job..."
    "I guess I could come pick you up."
    "Well, that solves it then!  When will you be here?  I'll call him to tell him where I'm going..."
    With that my transportation was easily arranged for what turned out to be a defining experience.  For the first time I would be entirely aware of myself and how the world should be while I left Jeremy's secluded house, meaning that whatever I experienced I had to take as being entirely true and a valid example of the rest of my life.  I sensed this when Janis offered to stop in the city for lunch first, suggesting that I ought to "get out more."
    "Jeremy's taking me to the library today."
    "Oh, is he?  That's still not getting out much.  You don't understand what getting out means."
    I shrugged and looked back at the house as Janis started her car.  Ghost woman was standing in front of it, watching us leave.  I waved, and she waved back, which was rather creepy.
    "If it were up to you I would never come back to this place," I guessed.
    "Well it's not up to me, so don't bother exagerrating it by waving goodbye," she commented, rolling the car forward down the long driveway.
    "But it's such a nice house."
    "Nice?  It's old, and too big.  It would be different if Jeremy had more people over sometimes, but I daresay all you see there is yourself and him."
    "I like things quiet, and so does Jeremy," I pointed out, facing June Bug for a moment and then looking past the windowshield.
    "Oh, hush.  You don't even know what noise is."
    "Maybe," I admitted, "but I can imagine."  The trees we were passing were beautiful in a way that reinforced my ideas of quiet.  Quiet was never a bad thing, in my opinion, and so I closed my eyes.  Maybe Dr. June would be quiet if I kept them closed.
    "Do you always sleep in cars?"
    There went that idea.  "This is the first time I've ridden with you."
    "Jeremy told me you slept all the way there when he took you home from the hospital."
    "I was tired.  Besides, I'm not falling asleep.  I was only enjoying the quiet."
    "You and your quiet again!" she laughed.
    "I suspect I won't have it long."
    "Well you won't miss is long either.  So where would you like to stop for food?"
    "Where?  I have no idea!"
    This time she laughed from embarrassment.  "Of course.  I'm sorry."
    Just then we turned onto a larger road and past some shadowy looking hitch-hikers.  I watched them closely as we past, and came to the conclusion that they were more ghost people.  In fact, they weren't hitch-hiking at all but rather busy walking straight across the road and through cars.  It was the cars driving through them without the slightest impact or flicker that convinced me they were not real in the normal sense.
    June Bug thought I was looking at the traffic.
    Eventually the sight of people being driven through and completely ignored got a bit boring and unnerving, so I picked up a magazine Janis had lying around in her car and started to read it.  I made the mistake of picking an article about the relationship between teens and drugs, and so completely dazed off.
    "You haven't turned a page in hours," Dr. June pointed out.
    "Huh?" I asked initially, glancing up to the sight of our car heading for a man in its way with absolutely no time to stop.  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I screamed and ducked as the car went through him.
    Janis tapped the breaks before asserting for herself that the trouble was not with her driving.  She started to pull over.
    "N-no that's ok," I told her, "You don't have to.  I'm f-fine now."
    "And stuttering like a parrot on crack," she grumbled and finished pulling off unto the shoulder of the very busy road.  Mostly I felt guilty because we had made an akward stop off of a highway, and apprehensive because I felt I couldn't tell her the truth when she asked what had happened.
    "You just startled me is all," I tried to explain.  "I was reading, and then I was just thinking.  I forgot where I was I guess."
    "So you looked up and realized where you were?"
    "Yea..."
    "Being with me is that bad?" she joked solemnly.
    "Oh no-- it's just the car thing.  My first trip I haven't slept through."
    "Well I don't know what to say right now."
    "Glad I'm still seeing you, huh?  Don't worry about it."
    "It's ok if I start the car again?"
    "Yeah, I'm back to reality."
    "Ok, good.  Are you sure you're ready for those tests?"
    "I'm sure of it.  I bet they aren't as boring as that magazine."
    I was ready for the tests she gave me.  So ready, in fact, that I convinced her to give them all to me that day so that we could get the results as soon as possible, and so that I wouldn't have to come in again for them later, only for my normal appointments.  If coming out of seclusion always met me with more of those strange apparitions, I wasn't about to encourage the process.
    My days with Jeremy passed just as much with him as without.  I had the experience of meeting many of his friends when they came to visit, and of enjoying a very peaceful household when they were gone.  Most of them were quiet, studious people who worked Jeremy, and a few of them friends from college.  All of them called me Mr. Sheltz until I asked them to call me Neos, for which I got many strange looks that made the name entirely worth it to begin with.  I continued to see the ghost of the house, but never acknowledged her even when I was alone, nor did I mention her to Jeremy or my therapist; the stability of the household was already disingrating and I did not wish to speed things up.
    It was a very, very subtle disingrating.  Jeremy brought me to the library as often as I wanted books, and talked with me as if nothing had happened, but every once in a long while he would give me a strange, sad and hard look, usually when he thought I was not myself watching him.  I watched him because I was still getting to know him despite the fact that we got along so smoothly together, and then because I could tell his attitude towards me was changing.  For reasons I could not yet guess, Jeremy was falling out of love with the idea of us being brothers-- it was as plain and simple as that.  I never asked him why or challenged him.  I both trusted and suspected that he would tell me before this change became a crisis, or else would create a crisis by telling me, and just as I suspected he broached the subject one day on his own:
    "I recieved something very important today."
    "Oh?" I prompted, "Well go on.  Don't keep me in suspense.  What did you recieve?"
    Jeremy traced the edges of an envelope with his hands.  He set it next to me in a hurried, upset movement: I could tell this was no time for jokes and so simply opened it and read it.  As I read he spoke.  "A body found by the bridge was identified as absolutely being my brother.  That's the official statement for it.  You couldn't have been him anyway-- you tested far too high in math whereas my brother quit school long ago."
    "I'm sorry, Jeremy--"
    "I don't want to talk about it."    I bit my lip and tried to catch his eyes, but he wouldn't look at me.  He was very out of sorts, and treating me like I was a stranger.  It was what I suspected, in fact, what came next was hadly a surprise for me.
    "Leave," he requested bluntly.  "Just leave."
    I didn't protest.  I'd been living there for months but it was time for that to end.  Things had been disinegrating, I guessed, because he'd gotten my scores back, and hadn't told me.  I wondered what they were, but more so I wondered where I would go.  For the time being I did all that I knew for sure to do and simply walked out of the house, down his long peaceful driveway.

~~~~
Chapter 5: Left on a Beach

It started to rain as I walked.  Maybe June Bug was right.  Maybe I did need to get out more.  For instance, I reflected, I was found on a beach but I didn't even know where that beach was.  I didn't know anything about my surroundings outside of Jeremy's house.
    Walking helped me find this out.  I found out that he had a long, long driveway, that he must leave early in the morning just to get to work on time.  There were so many trees the entire way, until the last few feet where they simply ended and the high way began.  As soon as the trees stoped the rain began, falling in large, warm drops and soaking into the earth while it slid off the pavement.
    I wondered if it was normal for a driveway to connect to a highway-- probably not.  Was it normal to walk along side it, braving the cars rushing by a foot or less away from you?  At any rate, I contemplated, it was something that I didn't mind doing, as long as I didn't wander into the road, and didn't try to talk to any of the ghost people walking around.  Usually they were easy to pick out, especially when they walked through things of course, but every once in a while there would be one that looked almost solid and sometimes treated the objects around him or her as if they could actually affect them.  None of the more solid ones walked through people: I guess they thought it was weird (I sure did).
    Did this count as getting out more?  I felt confused, disturbed, and everything but surprised.  Why had it taken so long for Samuel's body to be found?  Jeremy hadn't been in the mind to tell me any of the details; he had been upset enough to kick me out without letting me call June Bug.  Perhaps we both forgot, or maybe he didn't care.  I wasn't sure if I cared-- I would have to see what this was like first.
    The highway didn't seem to have any sort of end.  It just kept going as I walked on ahead, and it was still streatched out far on both sides when I stopped to observe a sign up close.  'Morrison City Park,' it said, pointing down a side road half as big as the highway it branched off of.  A park-- that meant trees, right?
    I heard a car's engine slow and pull off beside me, or behind me rather, seeing as there was no real room beside me and the sign would have been mostly in the way.  "Hey, man!  Need a ride?"  The driver asked me.
    I shook my head.  If I had had any place I wanted to go, I might have accepted, but I doubt it.
    "You lost?"
    "No, Sir."
    We were strangers, so he shrugged in a relieved way and drove off.  I started walking towards the park, and with the aid of the signs and arrows, was soon in its midst.
    It was a beautiful place and would have been any time of the year.  At the moment it was either spring or fall, but I couldn't tell, and I didn't much care. There was hardly any light left for me to see by once I arrived, and so the trees and things looked like dark blue siluetes against the sky, which was full of the promise of visible stars.  It was still raining and the frequency had by then increased: I was wet.  It was too late to take shelter any where-- what would have been the use now that I was soaked down to the last square inch?  And yet I wanted to feel safer.  I didn't want anybody to walk by and ask me if I was lost, or what I was doing there, or even just my name.  I had an answer ready for that last one, but it would have felt like lying.  I knew my name wasn't Neos, but it was all I had to go by, but I had picked it myself so it was almost ok.
    I found the children's playground and crawled into a plastic tunnel.  With the bright red plastic surounding me, it was a tight fit, but it was also safe from prying eyes.  At least I told myself that.  I knew no where was trully safe in that way, but this one felt the safest.  I wasn't a bird, so I couldn't sleep in a tree safely, and I wasn't brave enough to lie down out in the open.  Maybe, I thought, after a while of sitting here I would dry off, and then the shelter would be worth something.
    Falling asleep was out of the question, but dozing was not and so I did that for I don't know how long.  I woke up completely when the rain stopped, and feelign watched, crawled out of the tunnel; I had a reason to feel watched: there was that ghost women standing right there.  She wasn't a bit wet.  Had she followed me?  I commented outloud that I guessed delusions tended to do that, follow the only person that allows them to exist.
    Left on a beach.  What if it was all a lie?  Everything I knew I depended on other people to tell me, but at least if I had been duped Jeremy had been as well.  He had let himself believe the lie that I might be his brother.  That for sure had been a lie, and standing there dripping and thinking about it, I couldn't help but wonder if he was ok.  Even though he had kicked me out, he might need someone at that point in his life to just be there.  The time had passed where my disobeying him could have done any harm, and now he probably needed to be checked on.  Besides, he might have come to his senses a little more and started to worry about me.  I didn't deserve worrying over, but a guilty conscious might try something of the sort.  He was the one who had shooed me off on my own.
    I looked up at ghost woman.  I could only see her because she glowed slightly.  To be clearer on that, she looked as if she were in a perfectly lighted room and it was I who lived in this dream world that didn't exist, and so she didn't glow but she was the only one I could see with light falling on her features.  Her faded features; I was real to myself and that was enough for now: Jeremy was real to me and that was enough to make me head back to his house in the dark.
    Abandoned as I was, I wasn't going to abandon Jeremy, but don't think for a moment that I followed that phantom home.  I was still struggling over the idea of her being real in any way, and something that can walk through things you cannot is not going to be of much help.  No:  I used the sound of the cars and the light of the street lamps to find my way.  Jeremy's driveway was the hardest both because it had no lights and because I was very tired by then, but I made it to his door.
    It had taken me so long that now I was dry.
    So long that now I had the courage to open his door and just walk in.
    His house was dark, and so for a terrible moment I thought he must not be home, that he had gone somewhere and I was both intruding and that I would never find out how he was faring until it was too late to help.  But biting my lip, I walked down the hall way and knocked on his door.  I noticed the light under it just before he answered in a surprised but quiet voice, "Who is it?"
    I opened his door.  "It's just me.  I came by to see how you were..."
    Jeremy was sitting on his bed with his hands folded and head drooped in a thoughtful manner.  "I see."
    "I'm sorry I didn't mean to bother you."
    "No, that's ok.  You're not."
    "Ok.  Then, um, you're ok then?"
    "Yeah.  I'm fine."
    "Look, I know what's on your mind.  Please tell me the whole story.  It couldn't have just been a letter, there had to be more than that."
    Jeremy sighed.  He was tired, but it was on his mind too much to let him sleep, so he consented to tell me by starting the deed itself.  "It wasn't just a letter, of course.  I got a call one day from the coroner's a state over, where his body was found.  They, uh, they told me all about how they'd found the body, and asked me to come identify it.  It was him..."
    "How did they know to contact you?"
    "It's the state my brother lived in.  He was listed as missing, with me as his next of kin..."  There was a pause, which I waited out solemnly, then Jeremy continued on his own.  "They found his body in a river, with his hands tied together and to a big rock.  They think he was probably thrown off a nearby bridge... but this happened months ago.  I doubt they know anything.  I'm just surprised I could even recognize him.  That paper you saw was just an official confirmation."
    Another pause.  "I'm sorry Jeremy.  No idea who did it I guess."
    "No... it just obviously wasn't suicide."
    "I'm sorry."
    "You look like you were rained on."
    "Yeah, but it was warm rain.  I'm fine.  I just went for a walk."
    "Ok..."
    "Well... if it's alright I'll use your phone to call Janis."  It seemed an odd thing to say, and yet I knew he understood the reason.  He had kicked me out, and that was a final thing; I had only come back to check on him.  This was made even clearer with his response:
    "Sure, go ahead."
    I hesitated, thinking there was something else that had to be said, but not knowing what, I walked to the kitchen and called June Bug.
    "Hey Janis?  It's Neos.  Listen, could you come pick me up?  Things just aren't going to work out here."
    She agreed in a concerned tone and I hung up, then walked to my room and packed my things.  I know Jeremy heard what I had said and noted the way I had put it, almost as if it were my fault, but certainly not as if it were his.  I finished packing my clothes and my notes (from the library books we'd checked out) and walked out to the dark living room, where the door to the house was.  Jeremy was standing there with his solemn figure outlined against the starlight the door and windows let in.
    I could tell he had trouble believing that I had fogiven him.
    Later that night I had trouble falling asleep on Janis' office couch.  I never expected her to take a patient to her house for the night, but it was still strange to sleep in an office, with people still awake and waiting on emergency phones and the such.  I felt like a domesticated sea-world whale that has been let out into the wild because it was too dangerous to keep it any longer, even if letting it go was perilous too.  I knew this would be only one stop of many, that I would be drifting free a while.  It was harder to find new barings when you could remember the old ones.  My stomach felt as if I were riding in a boat, sloshing to the side along with the waves in almost regular patterns.
    Janis checked on me and informed me I didn't look well.  She had been worried earlier about my catching a cold from the rain, and had made me change into clothes that weren't at all damp.
    "I'm fine."
    "I don't mean physically," she tried to explain.
    "Worry about it in the morning," I sighed, preoccupied.  "In the morning... could you call Jeremy then?  Make sure he's still all right?"
    "Sure thing."
    "Thanks."

Chapter 6:  The Morning Dawns

I woke up at dawn because Janis' office shades couldn't keep it all out.  "Where will I ever stay?" I asked her (it seemed an obvious question) but she told me to worry about a shower first, and then worry about breakfast.  One thing at a time.  I told her that one thing led to another and so anything was worth worrying about if one chose to.  Then I took a bath and ate breakfast at her house; as soon as I was finished I repeated the question.  I added that I needed an answer from her because I knew nothing about these things accept that I had very little control over them.
     We agreed that I couldn't stay with her.  Then we fought about where I could stay, eventually deciding upon one of her married friend's house because June Bug insisted that anything else was too difficult and had too much red tape.  Her friends were willing to keep me until I got a job and could afford my own apartment.  Janis told them they were ridiculous for expecting so much for me, but I told them that I would start applying around town and that I had an idea what feild I wanted to ultimately work in: math, computers, that sort of thing.
     I took an EOC and passed it with flying colors, just so that I could put on my resume that I had some sort of education.  It was difficult explaining that I had no school or medical records, but strangely enough I had new records that explained why and confirmed my amensia to be a truth and not something I created to cover up my past.  I simply didn't know my past.  A few more steps were taken and I worked at several minor places before landing the type of job I wanted.
     A huge computer company actually took a look at me and, once they had interviewed me and given me a few tests of their own (this was especially helpful since my level of education was unclear at best), I was hired at a surprisingly high position.  They didn't tell me what I scored: I was simply called and informed that they wished me to work for them in their security department if I would so please.
     I told them I would be delighted to keep their security systems up to date and running, and all that sort of thing, and so I stopped being a burden to Janis' friends and started living on my own.  Boy was it a relief.  In so many ways all I wanted was to be left alone to study what my amnesia had helped me forget and what I perhaps never knew.  Math was always what I studied most, which was the biggest reason I had passed their tests and landed that job in the first place, and so I saw no reason to stop once it had paid off so well.
     My life became peaceful.  Janis was the only person I kept contact with and so it seemed that I had entered a new kind of day entirely, that I had finally begun my life and overcome all that I had forgotten.  This enforced when June Bug told me that she didn't see any reason for me to continue seeing her as a patient.  She called to check up on me everyonce in a while and even met me for lunch a few times after that but overall my more solitary dwellings and my new job constituted my entire life.
     I stopped seeing her or any doctor without ever mentioning the phantoms I saw.  They didn't bother me because they were consistant without being progressive: I saw only human phantoms, and their occurance never increased or changed except with a change in scenery.  They seemed to hang around certain places not as if they were chained but as if that was where they chose to observe.  Certainly they were always observing, and so I did my best to ignore them and simply know they were there watching me and everyone else.  No one else ever noticed them or anything unusual in my behavoir when they were around, and so the thought of them faded to the back of my mind just as much as they seemed to fade into whatever happened to be behind them.
     And so it would happen that I would walk to work, up the stairs into the building, in the elevator, then past the seratary’s and other’s offices and into mine without caring a bit if I walked through a phantom, seeing as how all it did was produce a strange tingling sensation without imploding the universe or anything.  Typically I would then sit down and work without being bothered for anything but lunch until the end of the day, when I would walk home.  My only socialization was at lunch, where it seemed to me that my co-workers could tell I was a private person but, after a few of them found out I was friendly enough not to bite, my private nature mattered very little.  It simply meant that no one but my boss would stop in on me while I was working, for the simple fact that I didn’t expect to be interrupted and wasn’t much of a conversationalist when I was.
 No one asked me where I was from or anything of the sort, for which I was very very grateful.  People only asked what I was doing now, or sometimes if I had had a job like this before.  To that I shrugged and relplied no because if I replied yes they would ask me about it, and if I had worked at a place like this before, it was of no use to me now.  When people asked how old I was, I told them I was 22 because that was my best guess which I reached by adding on the years that had passed since Janis guessed I was 20.
     Everything was going smoothly, in fact, it was almost boring until my job suddenly increased in difficulty.  Our system was infected with a virus and it was my job to first get rid of it and then find out how it happened so that we could prevent a simular occurance.  I was miffed as to how anything could have infected us, but I resolved to find out exactly what it was and wipe it out entirely.
     I was hoping it wouldn’t take a long time, not because I was lazy but because the longer it was in our system the more damage it could do.  When I realized it was going to take a long time, and when we shut everything else down to slow the damage, I felt almost sick because of the pressure.  The moment passed, but the virus still had to be stopped and here I was just trying to get it dormant.  It was exciting work because it tested everything I knew at top speed, but it was also dreadful because I stayed up as long as I could every night working on it.  I wasn’t the only one working on it, of course, but I was one of the people that, if I figured out how to slow it, repair damage, or stop it entirely, a good number of people would be working on what I told them too.
     The morning would often dawn on me still working at my computer, or even just sitting there trying to solve it in my head, and one of my co-workers, Kenny, noticed this.
     “Hey, there, Neos,” he greeted me one morning, drwaing out the ‘s’ on purpose.  “You been here all night?”
     I cleared my throat.  “Yeah, I have.”
     “Well then don’t you think it’s about time to go home?”
     “Um... I guess I could catch a few hours of sleep before my shift starts,” I considered, glancing at my watch.  I could catch five hours before my normal day of seven o’clock in the morning started.  “What are you doing here so late?”
     “I wanted to come and see if my suspiscions were true,” he told me with a slanted grin.
     “What suspiscions?” I asked him, turning my gaze to the computer screen almost unintentionally.
     “The suspiscion that you don’t sleep,” he exaggerated.  “You could at least catch breakfast.”
     “Hmmmm....,” I contemplated, my attention wavering from the suggestion.  I hadn’t had dinner the night before because it had failed to cross my mind, but now I was hungry.  “That I could...”
     “Then take a break and come get some.  You look like you need it and the rest.”
     “Don’t be melodramatic,” I teased, “I’m allowed to miss a few nights of sleep.  This thing is urgent.”
     “But if ya keep it up you’re health’ll go down the drain,” he warned me in a deep, solemn tone.
     Kenny was always like this when he wanted to be serious.  “Get over it,” I laughed, “I’m coming with you for breakfast, ok?”
     “Ok, then.  That’s better.”  I locked my computer with the usual programs and passwords, a security measure that overall was unique because I had arranged it to be so, then locked my office for while we were gone.  Kenny led me to his car and started it for a restuarant he liked.  “Do you really walk everywhere?”
     “All the time??”
     “Well yes... considering the only place I really go to is work and back home, it’s not that big of a deal.”
     “No way.”
     “No way what?”
     “You never...go anywhere?”
     “I just told you I go to work.  You do see me there quite often.”
     “Yes, but... never anywhere else?”
     “Not on a regular basis.”
     “Sheesh.  I knew you needed a life, but...”
     “Ha. Ha. Not funny,” I yawned.
     “How long does it take you to walk to work?”
     “Only half an hour.”
     “Hrmph.  Haven’t you ever thought of asking for a ride?”
     “Not at all.  I like walking, and it’s only half an hour’s.”
     “You live in the computer world, Neos.  Don’t you know an hour out of your day is an eternity?”
     “So are the eight hours we’re supposed to sleep every night.  I don’t let it bother me.”
     “You’re either a fool or--”
     “I’m just content, that’s all.”
     “Even with this bug going round are computers, circling laps round us?”
     “That’s the one thing I’m not content with,” I agreed.  I was begining to wonder exactly how stressful this was for me, and made a mental note to get more sleep.
     “Well I gotta say I like you’re philosophy.”
     “The only thing that matters is loyalty,” I added, thinking out loud.
     He hesistated to respond.  “Loyalty?  What about love and all that stuff?”
     “Love and all that stuff always ends up circling around to loyalty.  If you love someone, you’re loyal to them.”
     “And what if you don’t?”
     “Then you just worry about being polite to them unless you come to odds or something.”
     “Uh oh-- what does that say about you?”
     I sat up a little straighter, waking myself up.  “Me?”
     “You’re polite to everyone!”
     “You got me there,” I replied evenly, noting that he couldn’t tell if I was joking or not.  He never had the chance to ask; we arrived at an all-night fast-food restuarant just then.

That day I resolved to take full advantage of the few hours I had until work, and so when we got back I layed down in a quiet, dark storage room of some sort on a couch with an alarm set at seven.  This was a turning point for me in many ways.  First of all, because Kenny started dropping by my office often during the day and everyonce in a while at night, and second of all because until then I had either gone home and slept for the night or worked through it without a rest, and so this was the first time that I slept at the office.  It seemed a somewhat desperate measure until you considered that at that time it was most convenient and that to walk home that early in the morning was inadvisable.
     It was the first time I has spent the night at work and not seen the morning dawn.

Chapter 7:  Threats

Everytime I came to work I turned on at least one messaging system, so that if anyone needed me for any reason, I would at least know about it and they wouldn't have to come over and actually interrupt me.  Sometime after our computers were infected, I started getting instant message threats; whenever I blocked the user giving them, another name would show up and continue the process.  For the most part I ignored this because the threats were vague, they could have been from anyone, and I couldn't block them sucessfully.
     At the same time I was making good progress, and Kenny sometimes dropped by to chat with me, especially when it was late.  "Hey there, kid.  Working hard?"
     "Yes."
     Kenny laughed, "It's supposed to be a joke!"
     "How so?" I responded, deciding to humor him so that I could concentrate on my work.
     "You're supposed to say 'Hardly working.'"
     "I don't find that very funny."
     "It's supposed to be lame."
     "Then why do you even bother repeating it?" I pestered.
     "Geez.  No wonder people don't talk to you very often."
     "I doubt that has anything to do with it," I assured him, clicking at my keyboard.
     "Then what does?"
     "I work so much.  They never see me-- they must think I'm a computer.  Who is this they, anyway?"
     "Your coworkers."
     "You come and bother me every so often.  I figure I'm set."
     Kenny laughed, then calmed himself down and asked, "No, seriously though, how're you doing?"
     "I guess I'm ok," I sighed, then turned my chair to face him, folding my hands in my lap.  "You?"
     "Couldn't be better."  Kenny looked past me at my computer; "Hey, what's that?"
     I turned on the keyboard fast, thinking something important had happened, or at the very least that Kenny was not supposed to see much of the stuff I was working on: he didn't have the same type of clearance as I did.  The only thing new on my screen was an instant message.  I scowled because it was another threat, then turned back to Kenny.  "It's just somebody bothering me."
     "Don't they only do that when they need your help?" he proded.
     I sighed and turned my attention back to the computer, not really wanting Kenny to know what kind of message it was.  Unfortunately just as I did so another one popped up and scared me half to death.
     "What's wrong?" Kenny asked, stepping around my desk and to my side, "You seem so nervous."
     "I must just be tired," I assured him, not able to close the messages fast enough without looking suspicious.  There was a pause as he read both messages.  "I um, don't worry about it.  I get these all the time--"
     "All the time?" he asked in a concerned tone, "but this one's threatening to kill you!"
     "And yet look at me, still alive," I pointed out, secretly trying to calm down.  I didn't want anybody to know about these because I didn't want there to be any fuss, and for some reason Kenny finding out about it was simply making my heart race.  I knew I was tired, so I looked away and sighed.
     "Are you sure you're ok?  These've got to be unnerving."
     "I guess."
     "You've gotten lots of these?"
     "Yeah."
     "Are they saved in anyway?"
     "My computer keeps a record for me."
     "We should show these to Anna," he asserted firmly, meaning my boss.
     "Kenny," I sighed, not wanting the trouble to be taken.
     "No, no.  No arguing.  It's the right thing to do.  She should know this is going on, even if it seems trivial now.  Even if all it ends up doing is bothering you, she should know.  In the meantime, why don't you just not use the messaging system?" he suggested, stepping between me and my computer in some sort of effort to catch my attention.
     "People need to be able to get ahold of me, and there's no other that the company uses."
     "Well I'll tell you what.  You look exhaused-- how about you go home and rest.  I'll show this to Anna when she gets here in the morning."
     "Promise you won't bug her until then," I insisted, "It's not important enough to call her in."
     "Fine."
     "And if I get here early enough, I'll show her myself."
     "Fine!  But for right now you go home," he reminded me.  "She might get here before you do."
     "Are you going to be here all night?"
     "I'll be here earlier than you will.  Come on, now... you really do look like you could use the sleep."
     I nodded.  "Yes... I could.  But just for the record, I was about to go home anyway."

The next morning, it took a great show of will to get myself out of bed.  I did so anyway, however, because my alarm was going off.  Once at work, I stepped into an office that wasn't empty or locked at all, but had my boss, whom Kenny called Anna, waiting for me.
     "Ma'am?"
     "Sit down, Neos, and call me Anna."
     I sat as she requested, and made a note to call her Anna.  "Was there something you wanted?"
     "Yes.  When Kenny told me about the threats you've been recieving, I checked your computer for the records," she explained sternly.  "That isn't all I found."
     I simply watched her, not understanding what she was refering to.  She let a small pause ensue, then continued, "I can show you what I found."
     "Well if it's on my computer I probably have already seen it," I told her with a shrug, looking to Kenny for support.  He smiled at me as if I were dangerously brave, then looked away, apparently not wanting to be part of the confrontation.
     "That's what I'm worried about.  Neos, this is the type of thing I could fire you for."
     I didn't repsond because I still had no clue what she was talking about: Kenny kept silent as if that was the best way he could defend me.
     Anna frowned:  "Are you ok?"
     "Mh-hmn.  I'm fine."
     She shrugged and turned to my computer.  "Well, then could you tell me what this is doing on your computer, Mr. Nike?"
     When she stepped to the side I suddenly understood exactly what she was talking about.  She had brought up images on my screen that only sick, sick minds look at, let alone keep.  How it had gotten on my computer I couldn't even phathom, and in rather a bad position to begin with, I couldn't seem to convince her that I had never seen that in my life, even with Kenny's help.  He stepped in whenever he could with a simple fact, but somehow Anna could always see how it supported her side instead of mine.  To make matters worse, I couldn't think of a way the files had gotten into my computer: it was well protected from any tampering, wether someone tried to invade it over a network connection, or at the keyboard itself.  No one could get into that computer besides myself.  The confrontation degenerated into an argument that I was never even close to winning, and that only ended when she told me:
     "You don't look well, and this is getting you no where."
     I paused and closed my eyes for a minute.  No matter how vehemently I denied having done this, she would remain unconvinced unless I had some logic behind my denial.  I knew this, and was beginning to genuinely feel sick.  "I can't belive this is happening," I voiced.
     "What do you want to do about it," she asked me more gently.
     "I don't know.  This feels like a waste of time.  I should be working."
     "Go ahead."
     "You're going to watch me?" I guessed by the way she dismissed Kenny and then pulled up a chair and sat down.
     "Absolutely," she agreed.  "But go ahead and work if that's what you want to do."
     Not sure what else I could do, I closed everything she had opened and worked, wishing for all the world that I could delete those files, but she would call that destroying evidence and I knew it.
 

Chapter 8: Threats Carried Out

Kenny offered to drive me home that night.
     "Naw.  I'll be fine.  See you tomorrow," I wished him, then left.  I intended to use the time it took to walk home to think.  I wasn't even sure what it was I was supposed to think about.  I had thought about my job and Anna's accusations all day, but my brain eventually settled on my current condition.  Physically, I was tired from an overall, prolonged lack of sleep.  It was only about six in the afternoon, but every other time I had gone home late (or not at all) was catching up to me.  I was also a little hungry, but I planned to fix that when I got home, by which time I would be alot more so from walking.  Mentally?  That was the question that took a bit more thinking.
     For one thing, I was tired, which made it hard to think.  But I was also nervous, and suspected that I had become increasingly so even before that day.  I wasn't sure how nervous I was, but I could tell that I was anxious and stressed, and I hoped that I could fix that with sleep as well.  The major conclusion I came to was that I was too tired to think or care much, and that if I didn't pay attention to the darkening shadows, they wouldn't make me jump.
     I stopped to rest for a moment, wishing I had taken up Kenny on his offer of a ride.  I knew I could make it, but it would have been so much easier to be driven.  Besides, then I could already have been asleep, which was what I really wanted.
     Someone approached me from the dirrection I had just come from.  "Can I help you?" I asked him or her, not able to see much except the empty space of sidewalk a few feet away that the nearest streetlamp illumined.

I woke up in so much pain I could barely focus on the world around me; my inner world was very alive with the aweful sensation of broken bones and bruised flesh in a way that prevented me from careing about anything outside myself.  I did, however, notice that someone was trying to move me, though this was perhaps only because that caused more pain.
     I tried to protest, but I hardly had the means to.  From what I could digest of my surroundings, there was more than one person and they all gave off a strange medical type feeling (perhaps I saw their uniforms).  After that, my impressions were not very clear until later when I was lying again in the hosiptal. I was told that I had been found in a side alley after an unfortunate incident involving the wrong end of a few fists.
     Then I was told an officer wanted to speak to me.  Not caring at all about the officer or the doctors, I managed to get myself out of bed and to a full-length mirror because I wanted to see how bad off I was.  I wanted to guess how people would respond to me now and after I was out of the hospital, I wanted to know how much of their concern could be explained by how bad I looked, but instead of seeing the purple bruises that I knew would be there, and instead of seeing the hospital clothing I knew I was wearing, I saw a clean, healthy, normally dressed image of myself in a full length mirror.  A woman with golden short-cropped hair and amber eyes stepped up behind me in the image and leaned on my shoulder with a smile: then the illusion ended with the distinct sickening feeling of deja vu.  I was in a hospitol gown with dark bruises outlining the features of my face, and there was no woman.
     I tried to pull the gown tighter around me, feeling uncomfortable and knowing I would be visited soon; the promised officer walked in calmly, and I waited calmly for him to begin.  We both had questions for eachother, but his were probably more informed and his time more sparingly given.
     He motioned for me to sit down and stood next to the hospital bed, then started questioning me carefully, at which point I realized that he knew less than I did, even though what I knew wasn't anything to brag about.  What did I know?  I knew that I had been walking down the street and someone approached me, dragged me into an alley way, and with the help of a few friends, beat the tar out of me.  What did the cop know?  That I had been walking home and was found later with the tar beaten out of me.  Needless to say, we didn't get very far in figuring out anything else, although he did ask me a bunch of questions about my life and my work.
     When he finally left, I was frustrated about the lack of progress.  He hadn't treated me with the most respect in the world, and it bothered me that I didn't know why, but at the same time it made me anxious to think that I would find out why soon, when the doctors decided I was ready for another visit.
     June bug, Kenny, Anna, and Jeremy were my other visitors, although Anna and Jeremy kept their visits to a respectful and formal short length.  I appreciated the gesture on both accounts, but for Jeremy I wished he would not treat me like a complete stranger, even if he did not feel comfortable in my presence.  I knew I reminded him of his brother, but I also felt he could have treated me more like an old aquaintance at the very least.  Anna I was not surprised about.  She was kind, but she expected me to be angry about her acusations earlier.  In truth I was only frustrated, but the duration of the visit was appropriate any way since she hardly knew me.  Kenny greeted me like my best friend, and June bug like a concerned sister and then doctor.  I explained to her about the threats I had been recieving, and she told the police.  Then we arranged for my recovery out of the hospitol.
     I was soon recovering and working from home, the later much to my delight.  Working on the virus from home was not the easiest thing in the world, and I could not actually work on the virus itself, but I was thankful to be working at all.  I knew the police suspected that I had gotten into trouble with drug dealers-- June broke it to me slowly that they had found drugs in my office-- and it was only with June's confidence in me when I told her they must have been planted that I was allowed to keep my job.
     The entire recovery I was expecting June to ask me more about Anna's accusations of me, since we had barely covered the subject, or even about the threats since I was still getting them even though I had changed screen names and then messaging systems, so when she sat me down to talk I had clear expectations of what she wished to talk about now that I was well enough.  My expectations were not right.
     "You look tired," was her first comment.
     "Yeah.  I woke up too early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep.  What was it you wanted to speak to me about?"
     She gave me a kind smile and explained, "I spoke to one of your co-workers today and they said something that I have to ask you about."
     "As my therapist or as my friend?"
     "Both, but think of this as a therapy session."
     I leaned forward.  "Ok. Shoot."
     "Well, on top of all the other strange things happening lately, you've been talking to yourself it seems, and in a way that concerns your co-worker."
     I shrugged, not sure what she meant quite yet because I was fairly certain that I never talked to myself out loud like some do.
     "They said it was as if you were talking to someone, only no one was there.  It sounds to me like you were just mumbling to yourself or something just as harmless, but I had to make sure.  Is there anything going on that I don't know about?"
     I really should have left it at that.  I wanted to laugh and say it was nothing, but something made me bite my lip and hesitate instead, and then there was no getting out of it.  I did not talk to myself.  Nor did I mumble to myself; sometimes at my computer, yes, but rarely.
     "Neos?" she asked me, now trully concerned.
     "Well you know I don't talk to myself..." I reminded her, "I'm just trying to think.  It sounds so odd.  Most of my co-workers are reasonable people, and if one of them says..."  I sighed and closed my eyes to concentrate on the problem.  I was a good problem solver, I reminded myself, then starting going over the facts.
     I looked up at Dr. June and felt a pang of guilt.  It took me a moment to realize why, but then I came upon it: I had never told her about the ghosts I saw.  The more I thought about it the more they seemed to be the answer to our mutual question, and I had to give her an answer.  These ghosts were, after all, barely distinguishable from real people.  They were only slightly faded compared to the people others could see and interact with, and I could remember a few times when out of the corner of my eye I had seen a ghost and thought it was a normal human being.  With all the stress I had been under at work lately, who was to say I hadn't mistaken a ghost for a human and simply did not know or did not recall?  And if I had done that, who was to say one of my co-workers hadn't noticed my mistake?
     "I suppose there is something," I began nervously.  "It's a little thing really," I tried to assure her, "I really don't talk to myself, but it's also true that I see...well, I call them ghosts."
     "Ghosts?" she prompted patiently, and I had the feeling she had a good idea of what I meant but wanted me to explain it myself anyway.
     "Yeah.  Er...they look like regular people, except that I can sorta see through them and now one else sees them at all... well, and they walk through everything.  Like ghosts."
     "So you see things?"
     "Not things, people.  Just these ghost people.  It's really not a problem.  I just ignore them but I guess-- Dr. June you can't tell anyone!  They'll just say it has something to do with everything else that's been going on and it doesn't."
     "Don't worry, Neos: these sessions are confidental," she told me quite calmly.  "How long have you been able to see these ghosts?"
     "Since I woke up in the hospital."
     "And do you see any now?"
     "Yes.  There's a short man with blonde hair and blue eyes over by the counter.  In fact, he seems kinda amazed that I can see him, or that I'm telling you."
     Dr. June nodded patiently at my embarrassment and announced, "We'll continue this another time.  For now I'll let you sleep, but I want you to consider the possibility of taking medication for this."
     "Of course," I sighed as I saw her to the door.  "Goodnight Dr. June."
     "Goodnight Neos Nike," she wished me, then left me to my apartment and my ghost.  I closed the door behind her and turned to face this ghost with blonde hair, thinking vaguely that ghosts were supposed to be white.
     "I'm tired," I told him when I saw that he was watching me intently.  "Can't you just let me sleep?" I asked as I returned his stare.  Ghosts didn't usually act as if I could see them any more than other people acted as if they could see ghosts.  It was always clear, however, that they could see us. They simply didn't expect any of us to respond.
     The blonde shook his head and stepped closer to me.  "Please," I begged him, suddenly feeling and sounding afraid.  I had the notion that if I suceeded in talking to one, I wouldn't be able to ignore them any longer and I would have to decide if I thought them real or not.
     He shrugged hopelessly and walked through a wall.  I tried not to remember the strange look of determination I had seen in his eyes before he'd walked away, and as I lay down to sleep I tried not to think that I had not seen the last of these ghost people.
 

Chapter 9: Return to the Battle Feild

Not soon enough for my taste, I was ready to go back to work.  The day I found out from my doctors, Kenny came to see me for the first time since I'd gone back home.
     He caught me quite unexpectedly, while I was trying to work.  Actually, I was sitting in a chair in front of my computer trying to figure out how someone could know what user name I used even when I changed it, and especially when I switched messaging systems.  The knock on my door startled me into a standing position and I called out, "Coming!" rather annoyed that I was being interrupted.
     When I opened the door I saw it was Kenny, but I got a strange sick feeling that I'd never noticed before in his presence.  He seemed to notice it and took my arm as if to support me, "Are you ok?"
     I cleared my throat and shifted my weight back to my own feet.  "Yeah, I must have gotten up too fast.  Nothing serious.  Come in!  I didn't know you were coming..."  I broke away from him and went to shut down my computer, pretending to be preoccupied with that while I actually wondered why his presence bothered me.  Yes, I did not like to be interrupted, but Kenny was a good friend of mine from work and I should be glad to see him.
     I watched him as he sat down on my couch and commented, "You don't look as good as I'd hoped you would.  I waited to come see you until I thought you'd be up to it."
     I nodded, wondering why he was making an excuse when I hadn't forced him to explain himself.  "I'm fine, you just caught me by surprise.  How's work?"
     He smiled under my scrunity and answered, "Funny!  I was going to ask you the same thing.  My work's fine, and slow too.  Everyone's working on trying to fix that virus or repair the damage it's done, and I just don't have much to do in that appartment.  What about you?"
     "I'm keeping in touch and helping when I can.  I've been working from home."
     "Working from home?" Kenny seemed surprised, a look I had never seen on him before.  It reminded me of a dream I'd had the night before, one which I had no trouble recalling at that moment.  Many of the dreams I'd had were related to memories I'd lost, June and I were sure, and so anything that reminded me of them I took seriously.  Kenny reminded me of a nightmare, of a man with a greedy, sure look that had suddenly turned frightened, if just for a moment.
     "A little," I responded carefully.  "I'll be going back to work soon."
     He nodded with equal caution, which bothered me.
     "Hey, did you talk to my therapist?"
     "About what?" he asked.
     "She asked me if I was seeing things.  I guess you scared her."
     He laughed the way he always did, which I was begining to attribute to fake ease.  "I guess I did!  I'm sorry, I was just answering her questions.  You did seem pretty stressed back then.  As far as that goes, you look better now."
     "Thankyou, Kenny.  Can I get you a drink?"
     "If you wouldn't mind.  I'd like some water."
     I took his request as an opportunity to collect myself a little in the kitchen as I got him a drink, but the blonde ghost was there again, watching me openly.  He waved, which unnerved me entirely, so I left him and the kitchen to face Kenny again, resolving to not let Kenny know I really was seeing things.
     As I bent down to hand him his drink, something about the way Kenny was relaxed against the back on the couch, with his feet sprawled at deliberately different angles, and the way he reached up to take the glass, gave me a flash of recognition that was either remembering a very clear dream or gaining back a memory suddenly.  A memory of another man that looked nothing like Kenny except that he was slouched against a completely different couch in exactly the same position.  With this image came to me the knowledge that the man in the image, a mand I had trusted, had pulled a gun on me because I had refused him something.
     I knew this man was not Kenny, but the knowledge was as clear as the image I had seen for that split second, and I knew I wanted Kenny out of my house.  I forced myself to make small-talk a few moments longer, then complained that I was tired in order to get him to leave.
     That night I really thought about Kenny and what I did and did not know about him.  The next day I went back to work with the certainty that he had something to do with all of the accusations against me.  He had every opportunity to have helped plant those drugs or those images on my computer, I just couldn't fathom why.  It wasn't hard to convince myself that he was involved in some manner, but I knew I had to prove it.
     The closer I got to completely irradicating the virus, the more often Kenny came to see me.  He often stayed at work as late as I did just because, but it was easy for me to keep up the friendly facade between us: I simply ignored his hidden malice the way I ignored my ghosts.  It was there.  There was no doubt that it was there, but to show others, I needed proof which I did not yet have.
     My work was a battle field not only against the virus, but against all those behind it, and I was going to prove Kenny was one of them.
 

Chapter 10: The Present and the Past

I was contemplating my slef-appointed mission one night late at work.  I hadn't been able to concentrate on my work, even though I knew I must be in the last stage of it, and so I found myself pacing instead of sitting at my computer.
     I glanced once at the standard servallance camera in the corner of the ceiling with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.  Anna had stopped watching me in person but I would not have been surprised to find her watching what that camera recorded.  I recalled with relief that I had passed the drug test they had surprised me with, so for now her suspicions of me were her own problem.  One the other hand, they kept me from telling her about my distrust of Kenny because it would look like I was just trying to take the focus off of myself.  Besides, if I told any one before I had a shred of proof, it would get back around to lovable Kenny and I would never get the evidence.
     But more than anything else the fact that if Kenny was an enemy he could thwart any progress the company made, including against this drawn-out infection, made me furious.  That wasn't just a blow to the company, for which I cared only because so many people's futures were tied to it, but a blow against the intergrity of man.  If you don't like something you fight against it fairly, not like that.  I was thinking precisely this, letting myself get furious at an enemy that I wasn't sure how to fight yet, when I saw a man with blonde hair in my office.  I recognized him immediately as the ghost that had taken such interest in me lately, and promptly tried to ignore him: I had more important things to think about.
     He wouldn't let me forget him, however.  He kept waslking in front of me and through me until I finally snapped, "What?!" knowing that the building was practically empty and forgetting about the camera.  He knew I wanted him to leave me alone but he motioned for me to wait and then, to my utter frustration, held up a card with writing on it.
     I glared at him but it was already too late: he had suceeded in communicating with me, and ignoring the message wouldn't help me a bit.  I read in painstakingly clear hand-written print:  "I know who you are.  But I can not tell you.  I can only give you this advice:  Don't look to the past for answers, and the present solves only the present."
     "I don't care about anything but the present!" I told him in a burst of energy I couldn't quite explain.  "You think you know who I am?  No one can know that but me, and I only know what I am now, not what I used to be.  What does it concern you anyway?  But I'm going to solve the present and I want a witness even if no one else can see you."
 I didn't take time to read the expression on his face but walked off in a manner that seemed to pull him by the wrist after me.  I knew what I was going to do.  I was going to take advantage of the fact that Kenny wasn't there that night and search his office.  To heck with the consequences, I was going to at least solve this for myself, and he was the only lead, however intuitive, that I had.
     As I walked down the halls I almost thought I heard feet following me, like I often did when I walked home through the dark streets.  Sometimes those footsteps only made me nervous as they did then, but sometimes they had led to other, lesser beatings than the first that I barely bothered to report because the police interviews were like a waste of my time.  But they were very painful and terrifying, so the thought of it always made my feet go a little faster.  I reached Kenny's office quickly.
     It was not hard to find what I wanted, and it was even easier to copy it.  The ease with which I manipulated my way through his computer gave me the distinct feeling that I was used to solving tougher problems, a lot tougher than the company's virus.  Computers are logical and have no actual malice, while malice and unpredictability are a distinctly human trait, both of which Kenny had.  He proved this by catching me in his office.  He further proved himself by announcing his entrance with a silent but firm hand on my shoulder which froze me like a steel rod driven through my spine.  "You know," he told me, "I was wondering why you weren't in your office.  Silly me, I thought you must have gone home with out my notice but here I find you, ransacking my office and finding things you shouldn't know.  Neos, I thought we were friends!  But now you've broken my trust and I just can't protect you any longer."
     When Kenny let go of my shoulder I took in a sharp breath I hadn't realized I needed, but the next instant I felt the cold circle of a muzzle being pushed into my back.  I wondered giddily how I knew what a gun in the back felt like and grew quite certain that it had been done to me before.  The knowledge calmed me greatly.
     Then Kenny laughed when he saw, up on the computer, what I had found.  He laughed like a man who has lost a battle but was sure to win the war, and with the same confidence he had me shut the computer off  and re-straighten his desk.  "Now," he told me in a low, calculated voice that surpressed an emotion like extacy, "I'm going to put away this gun, and I'm going to offer you a ride home that you're going to accept because we don't want to scare our co-workers, now do we?"
     "I think I would like a ride home, Kenny."
     "Good, good," he said as he quickly hid the gun back in his coat.  He put a hand on my shoulder in a gesture of intimacy as we left his office and headed for the reception room.  "You must be very tired to accept a ride home again this week."
     "I always am, Kenny, to accept an offer from you.  I like to walk."
     He laughed boyishly as we entered the reception room where three of our co-workers were talking.  I prayed silently that none of them would notice us, but before we even crossed the threshold a woman with red hair named Kelsey asked me quite out of the blue, "Neos, are you ok?  You look distracted."
     I realized that Kenny had pulled ahead of me to greet the others in his superficial manner, and that I had stopped when I had noticed her eyes on me.  Kelsey was a very perceptive woman and I had to be convincing and quick with my reply; "Distracted?  Spacey, rather," I informed her in a slow tone of slipping into badly needed relaxation.  To complete the picture I leaned heavily against the door jam as I finished, "I'm exhausted."
     I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was not entirely convinced, but my pang of fear dissapeared when I realized that Kenny did not notice.  He thought I was very convincing, and jumped in to add easily, "Which is why I'm taking him home.  Com'on Neos, I don't want to have to carry you."
     I slowly shifted my weight back to my feet and responded, "Right, right," as I followed him into the elevator, feeling distinctly as if I had a gun pressed into my back.  Once the doors were closed I didn't bother standing up straight again.  I was weak with fear, and I was begining to realize that I really could use a rest.  Kenny commented with a strange bite in his voice, "Good act, keep it up.  I like it when my kidnapees co-operate.  You're so easy, Neos, because you're so smart.  You know you can't help anyone else by starting a scene anymore than you can help yourself.  I'd just shoot you, not caring a bit for the people around.  I might just shoot them too.  You've screwed everything up."
     "I haven't told anyone," I reminded him.  "I haven't even stopped the virus yet, although if you gave me five or ten minutes I could."
     "But you know," he snapped, "And you're just self-righteous enough to tell the whole darn world."
     "That doesn't look very likely at the moment," I told him softly as the elevator decended to the last floor.  "We can talk about this later."
     Kenny's grin came back, now the most disturbing thing I could think of.  "Good!  I like a reasonable man.  I knew there was a reason I liked you.  Come on, buddy."  When we got to his car I curled up in the back like he told me too, not feeling too well.  I knew it was mostly because I was feeling so excited, what with the adrenaline rush terror gives a person, but there wasn't much I could do about it but try to be still in body and mind.  I could only try to reach a place where I could think again.
     "Where are we going?" I asked, beginning to notice how stuffy the car was.  When Kenny didn't answer, I kept silent and asked no more questions.  I had the feeling that he was in complete control of the situation, and all I could hope for was to keep control of myself and fantasize about escaping.  Before I could think about escaping, however, I had to wonder how my ghost could possibly catch up to me now.  He had followed me all the way to the car as if he'd intended on keeping me company the whole way, but as I suspected he could not ride in the car he could walk through.
     We soon stopped at a house and picked up a huge man who sat in the back with me.  I noticed a ring on his hand that matched a bruise or two of mine, and decided not to try talking to him either.
     "Since Neos is such a co-operative man, how bout we get him some drinks?" Kenny asked, raising a round of inappropriate laughs from his accomplice.
     "Yeah, I could use some," the big man stated with the causualness of a truck driver who would indeed enjoy a few drinks.
     "How about it Neos?  You feel like behaving a while longer?"
     "Absolutely," I assured him in the most neutral voice I could manage.  Luckily my tone of voice is naturally calm and so it was easy to pull off, which helped put me in a calm, neutral mood to match the tone.  When we got out of the car, and once we were in the bar, I caused no trouble.  It was tempting at first to drop a hint to the bartender, but since that would surely get him in trouble the temptation faded away and was again replaced by a calm, neutral sense of waiting.
     Unfortunately this involved having a drink or two more than I normally would because Kenny easily dropped hints that I should by making it impossible for me to refuse without harming their cover.  The best part was that my refusal wouldn't necessarily blow their cover, but it would get me in trouble with them afterwards.  I simply wasn't in the mood for drinks, but I drank them anyway: we were soon out of there.
     Then Kenny did something I had been unconsciously aware of the entire trip, as if some part of me knew he would.  He drove a few miles away from the bar, and in the cover of night and of a deserted road, pulled over and let his partner beat me up.  Nothing was said about the matter before or during by either myself or my kidnappers, but rather it was conducted like a sick matter of business.  After I was taught what could be done to me if the two chose to go further, the driving continued with one difference: this time there was conversation.
     "So how much of a co-operative man are you, Neos?  Unfortunately you don't seem like the type to sell out, but considering the alternatives, I thought that you might," Kenny began as soon as we got in the car.
     "What do you mean?"
     "You know things our enemies can't know Mr. Nike.  Do you understand?"
     "Yes, I do."
     "Is this the type of situation you were looking for?  Did you really want to put me in this position, or did you think you could get away with it?"
     "I just wanted to know, that's all."
     "Next time you gotta think more because now, you see, you've got to make a choice you don't like."
     "I will certainly have to think about it," I told him carefully, but he was not happy with my response.  He had expected me to be more frightened either in tone or in what I said: he had expected defiance or concession, not something so mediocre, as if he were offering me a car I wasn't sure I wanted.  His silence made it clear that I only had a limited amount of time to decide.
     I remained silent.
     After the second such beating, this time completely in the country with less than the hope of being found, Kenny asked me, "Thought long enough yet?  You've only got until we get there."  He started the car, but I didn't dare ask where we were going.
 His friend grinned at me as if he looked forward to impressing upon me the urgency of the question again.  I watched him as I told Kenny, "You know...I think I've met some one like you before."
     "Oh?" he asked, and I remembered that he knew nothing of my past or that I knew nothing of it.
     "Yeah.  You keep reminding me of him.  Honestly, that's what I've been thinking about."
     He seemed interested when he asked me, "Tell me about him:" his partner grinned again.
     "Well he..." I cleared my throat and closed my eyes, trying to recall every bit of the dreams I had dreamt and every second of the flashbacks I had experienced.  As I talked, it became clearer to me in sudden bursts and instances of gained knowledge or more flashbacks, as if I were re-living it and recalling it at the same time.  This made my explaination akward and interrupted, but Kenny listened anyway, as if I were citing my last will.  "He was my friend too, for a while, except that he actually wanted to be my friend. I remember I worked for the government, and he wanted me to help him break into something of theirs... when I refused, he kidnapped my wife at gun point."
     "Did you freak out?" the large man next to me asked mockingly.
     I hesitated because the image of what I was about to say had just come to me, and not only did I not want to admit what I was about to say, but I had the feeling it would come off as a threat to Kenny.  But I had to say it, because the fact needed to be said in that moment right after I had remembered, and so it all came in a rush, "I killed him.  He killed my wife.  I didn't wait for the cops, I grabbed a helicopter and left.  I crashed."  This last part I wasn't sure about, except that it made the most sense.  I had taken off across the ocean in a helicopter, right over the Bermuda Triangle, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital.
     I had the sinking sensation that there was something else I was missing, but I forced myself to listen to Kenny's response.  He seemed to be searching for something when he asked, "So you murdered someone?  And escaped the scene?"
     "Yeah...," I caught what he was getting at and added, "and the cops don't know about it."
     "Wonderful.  We can use that in our cover... if you refuse to join us, of course."
     I wasn't sure how he would use that for a cover of my death or if I lived, but I accepted his statement with silence.  He thought that the murder I had commited would convince me to commit another to keep the first one hidden, but I knew that he exposed me it would not keep the police from taking notice of my exposing him.  Perhaps he knew that too, because he kept driving towards our original destination.
     The car was silent as a large, magnificently constructed bridge came into view, and as it rolled under our tires.  Kenny shut the headlights off in order to hide the car even as we drove up onto the bridge, and I knew that this was the chosen site for my murder.
 

Chapter 11: The Past and the Future

Kenny stopped the car and began talking in a low, determined voice, the import of his words echoing off of the darkness surrounding the car.  "This is the time to decide and make your decision clear.  If you refuse my offer, I will kill you and dump your body into the river, then I will tell your therapist that you talked to me briefly last night and that you were upset over remembering the murder you have committed, and so stormed off after I rightfully advised you to tell her.  Then she will go to the bartender we saw tonight and he will tell her you got into a fight at his bar, as I will convince him to say.  You know I will suceed if you chose to die tonight, so now I ask you how much of your integrity you are willing to give up in order to keep your life and buy our silence."
     After such a long planned and practiced speech I decided that silence would be the most affective answer.  Kenny let it go on for a moment while he watched me, then opened his car door.  The car's dim lights came on, illuminating his foot as it hit the pavement and underschoring the moment he closed the door and the light shut off as well as the sound of his footsteps as he walked around to my side.  He forced me out of the car, although I didn't resist, and led me to the bridge's edge, his partner following at a large distance in the dark.
     Instead of hearing a gun-shot as I expected, I heard "Stop right there!" as several bright lights eliminated the darness on the bridge and it's waters.  Around Kenny's car in a wide half-circle on one side were cars and people that reflected the light in a manner harsh to my dark-adjusted eyes.  "Police!  If you so much as cock that gun I will fire on you," one of them assured Kenny.
     As Kenny followed instructions on setting his gun down, which had been pointed directly at me and therefore had created a hostage situation until the metal clattered on the pavement, a couple of extra police cars arrived to block the other side of his car.  I was feeling somewhat stunned, as one would expect, and didn't even react when I saw my ghost standing next to me with a card in his hands.  I read "meet me at your house in 24 hrs" on his card, and suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world, as if it were a piece of sanity in the midst of confusion, when really by all accounts it should have been a piece of confusion in the midst of a situation the police were quickly taking into their control: I was in the hands of a police officer as I watched in amazement as Kenny and his partner were both apprehended.
     The officer attending to me asked me, "Is there anyone else in that car?" to which I shook my head and turned my attention to him.  I realized that he had not asked in order to obtain information, but in order to capture my attention.  He asked me for probably the 5th time, "Are you ok?"
     "Yeah, I think I am.  Can I go home?  I'm tired and I want to sleep there."
     He guided me into the back seat of a car and got beside me as he answered, "You might be in shock, Sir.  We're going to take you to the doctor first."
     "I'm not in shock, I just want to be home."  I sighed.  "My therapist will want to talk to me too, just so you know.  But hey, if you have any questions you want to ask me... if you want a statement or something, ask me now."
     The officer frowned at me in a worried manner.  "Are you sure you're up to it?  Listen, it's pretty clear you were kidnapped.  We'll get your statement later."
     "I don't want to waste any time," I grumbled, "I want to be home as soon as I can."  I let it drop there, however, because I had been beaten up pretty badly and I honestly didn't care where I slept except that I wanted to be home within 24 hrs, as my ghost had asked, and that wasn't something I could explain to the cop.  That wasn't even something I was going to explain to Janis.
     The following events of seeing the doctor, seeing Janis, and giving my statement did seem to waste my time, but I knew that this feeling was only caused by my own anxiety about meeting my ghost, heightened by the fact that I hadn't told Janis.  If I told her, however, she either wouldn't let me go or would come with me, and I felt it was important to go alone.  The problem, then, was convincing them I should go to my house, at least for a few hours.
     But before I could do that, I made sure to visit Jeremy.
     I had something important to tell him that I had talked to the police about.
     "Hey Neos, how are you?" he asked me in a hesitant manner, like a man who wasn't used to caring but knew that this time he did.
     "I'm ok, Jeremy, but I didn't call you here to talk about me.  I wanted to ta