Identity Matrix (1982) (9 page)

"Oh, Dory—I—I'm so
sorry
," I sobbed, fighting back tears. She just stared at me with those huge brown Indian eyes for a while, then sighed and shook her head unbelievingly. Finally she took a couple of deep breaths, swallowed hard, and said, firmly, "Well, it's done. I can't believe it but I've got to accept it."

"You can see why I couldn't tell you," I tried lamely. "You would have said I was crazy."

Suddenly she got up and ran to me, put her arms around me, and held on tight, sobbing again. I pulled her gently into me and started crying, too. Finally she was all cried out, although I wasn't, and let go, stepping back and grabbing a tissue, wiping her eyes and blow-ing her nose. "You—you weren't originally that Indian girl, were you?" She said more than asked it.

I shook my head. "No. But I'd accepted having to live my life in that body," I imagined, trying to get hold of myself. "I'm sorry, Dory. I had no idea they were still around. Damn! It was all going to work out, too!"

She tried a wan smile. "Who were you—originally? I think I have the right to know that."

"You have the right to know anything," I told her sincerely. "I was Victor Leigh Gonser, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins Univer-sity."

I saw Parch chuckle at that last. Dory gasped slightly. "You—were a
man
?"

I nodded. "More or less. A bald and ugly little neb-bish, really." This started her laughing hysterically, and we let it run its course.

Finally she calmed down and managed, "I don't be-lieve this. It can't be real."

She turned back to me. "I used one of your books—last semester." She sat back down on the bed, still shaking her head. Finally she turned to Parch. "What happens—now? To us, I mean?"

Parch shrugged. "Not my department. I have to get our live friend and his two dead companions out of here, of course. That's pretty tricky because we're in Cana-dian waters, but we'll manage. You have the run of the ship—enjoy. But don't get off at Prince Rupert. In a couple of hours I'll have my instructions." He softened a bit, realizing how harsh he was sounding. "Look, it'll be all right. We won't abandon you or lock you away or anything. It's just that—well, there are things I can't discuss right now until I get word from my own people. As soon as I know, I'll tell you—O.K.?"

Dory frowned. "I'm not sure I like being the property of the U.S.

government," she said with a trace of annoy-ance. "I'm not even a citizen."

"Right now you are both non-persons," he pointed out. "You, Ms. Tomlinson, can hardly go home and pick up where you left off. You're a thirteen-year-old Indian. And you, Gonser—what'll you do? You can’t
be
her, body or not, but you can't just go off and be somebody else, either, because the person you appear to be legally ex-ists. Please—just trust me for a few hours. I'm not the enemy."

I looked at Dory and she at me and we gave almost simultaneous sighs and shrugs. Parch was right we were stuck, at least temporarily.

"All right—we'll play it your way for now," Dory said. "I assume, though, that your government is now picking up the tab?"

He grinned. "Expense account. You're welcome to these two cabins, of course, and if you need any money just ask one of the boys."

There was a knock at the door. He opened it, said a few words, then turned back to us. "We're coming in to Prince Rupert," he told us. "I'm going to be busy for a while. Stay here or walk around all you want. We'll talk when I'm through."

And, with that, he was gone. For the first time since the switch we were alone.

Dory got off the bed and stood facing me. She turned up her nose a little and looked around. "Everything's so much higher all of a sudden."

I nodded. "I know what you mean. Oh, hell, Dory, I feel so guilty about all this. I've mucked up your life like they mucked up mine."

She smiled up at me. "Look, that's going to get us nowhere. We're stuck and that's that. I thought about it just now in the way Parch said—it's a war. That old woman was going to shoot you, maybe both of us. In a way we were lucky, I guess. Maybe one day they can put things back again—at least for me. Until then let's ac-cept the fact that we're innocent victims and go on from there." She paused a moment, looking at me with a somewhat critical eye. "In the meantime, maybe I can make a real woman out of you."

I laughed in spite of myself. "What on earth do you mean?"

"The way you're standing. The way you walk. I put a lot of work into building that body and I'm going to see that it's taken care of and treated right while I'm not in it. In the meantime, let's go get something to eat."

I just stared at her, openmouthed. She was some kind of woman, I decided anew. I envied her confidence and resilience. She opened the door and saw the guard stand-ing there. "Hey! We're going to eat," she told him. "Parch said to tap you for the money."

The man stared a little, a bit put off by this tiny girl giving him orders, but he took out his wallet and gave her a bill. She looked at it, then said, "Uh uh. More.

None of that cafeteria crap. We're going to the main dining room."

We talked mostly about inconsequential things through the meal, a very good one in the big, fancy dining room with the very artsy glass seal sculpture in the middle. I was impressed by the quality of the food, compared to the cafeteria, and the fact that prices were actually lower. I was also interested in the fact that I was hun-grier than I'd been in some time and ate far more than I had as the little girl. Dory showed that the birdlike appetite I'd experienced was all that that body required.

She was fascinated with the things I had been—the differences in color perception, all the senses, really. As for me, I found Dory's eyes a bit closer to my original ones in color perception—we both had blue eyes, not brown—but I found she was slightly nearsighted, and my sense of smell was a degree different from either my former male self or the Indian girl's. The world was a subtly different place depending on the body you wore, that was for sure.

Dory was making a try on some chocolate ice cream—for some reason, whether weight or complexion or some-thing else, she hadn't had any for a very long time—and I was lingering over a coffee that no longer tasted foul and bitter when Parch joined us. We were already out of Prince Rupert and still headed south. The ship had to get in and out fast, it seemed, because Prince Rupert's single ferry dock was needed for the CN overnighter to Vancouver Island. We sat on the dining room side facing the dock, and had noticed a couple of ambulances pull up and some stretchers being wheeled off, and knew that Parch had done his job efficiently.

He nodded and sat down with us, looking far more relaxed. I took a moment to study his face and decided that there was something very slightly wrong about it, although I couldn't put my finger on it.

"I radioed my field office in Seattle," he began, ordering just coffee. "The IMC

wants you, it seems, as I figured. There are very few survivors and we'd like to examine and interrogate you as to the—ah—experience."

"IMC?" I prompted.

He nodded. "You'll find out. We have a pretty big operation going, you must realize. We've been at this over six years and it's not an easy job."

"Six years," Dory put in. "That's a long time to hide something like this."

Parch chuckled. "You have a childish faith in demo-cratic institutions."

"I'll concede that," I agreed, "but it still seems hard to conceal. There's the press, political leaks, you name it."

"I'd have expected more cynicism from a political scientist," the government agent laughed. "Yes, you're right—covering up is a lot of the work. But, you see, this is one area where everybody in the know is in agree-ment. If this came out, and was believed, the panic and paranoia would be beyond belief. Be frank—knowing what you know, could you
ever
trust a crowd of strang-ers again? When your best friend might not be? See what I mean? It can give you nightmares—and on a national, even global scale… Well, you see how it is."

"You're pretty free talking about it in a public dining room in normal tones,"

Dory pointed out.

He shrugged. "Who would believe it in this context? Right now the ship's abuzz with the three kidnappers federal agents nabbed and that's excitement enough for them."

"But who—or what—are they?" I asked him. "And what's their game? They seem awfully lame to be such a huge menace, what with little old ladies and .38s."

"They're a bundle of contradictions, all right," Parch agreed. "And there's no easy answer to any of the ques-tions. We've captured a very few, mostly by sheer luck, over the years, and while they haven't been very helpful we know that one group calls itself the Urulu. We don't know where they're from or what they're like naturally, but they definitely aren't from anyplace any of us have ever visited."

"One group?" I put in, getting a sinking feeling.

He nodded. "There's more than one, that's for sure, and they don't like each other much. Or so the Urulu maintain, but who knows what we can trust? We can knock 'em out, but they don't respond to much of anything in the way of truth serums or any other stock information techniques. Their story is that they're the good guys and they're here to root out the bad guys. You will understand why we take this with a grain of salt."

We both nodded and Dory articulated the thought. "The good guys indiscriminately kill us and pull guns on us. All things considered, how bad can the bad guys be?"

"That's about it," Parch agreed. "And, of course, we have nothing but their word that there's another group. We've certainly not seen any. Either they're more effi-cient than the Urulu or, more likely, they're part of a convenient cover story and don't really exist."

There seemed little to add to that, so I changed the subject. "You're not an American," I noted. "Not originally."

"Not native born, no," he replied. "Originally I was from Belfast. When I was a wee lad the IRA blew up my parents for the crime of being Presbyterian and leading a peace march. To save me from the orphanage some relatives in Philadelphia offered to take me in and I finished growing up there. But—enough of me. My sort of job may seem very glamorous and dangerous, but it's rather boring, really. A year of plodding routine for one brief moment of action."

"What of us, then?" Dory asked. "I mean—after this exam. What kind of lives can we expect from now on?"

He sighed. "Look, I won't kid you. After the examina-tion, though, which won'

t last all that long, you can remain and work with us on this problem or we'll set you up somewhere. New identities, complete bios and backgrounds. You can walk out and start new lives on your own that way, or keep within the security of IMC and find a place with us. The choice
will
be yours."

I considered what he said. My thoughts were emo-tional and confused, but I knew what my decision should be. I had fulfilled a fantasy of sorts, even though it wasn't quite the one I'd imagined. I was young, attrac-tive, definitely the socially accepted type. I'd been obliv-ious to things when Dory was Dory, but I was already aware of being constantly eyed by men of all ages. I had a free, new start, and it had to be better than my miserable loneliness of so many years. Hell, I'd have been satisfied as the little Indian, really, as long as I didn't have to worry where I was sleeping. So what if I were female? Being male hadn't brought me much; this just
had
to be better. But there was one real hitch in this bright new future.

It was
Dory's
body I wore, and she definitely wanted it back—and I would have to give it back if it were possible. Hell, I was responsible for involving her in this. I couldn't just walk out now, particularly since Dory was such a fantastic person. I still loved her, per-haps more now than before, because of the respect she'd earned by her reaction to all this. The plain truth was that I was less in control of my destiny than I had ever been. The decisions were hers to make, not mine. I was an interloper, a usurper, however involuntary, and my life and future were in her hands.

"Actually," Parch went on, "I hope you'll join us. Both of you have very sharp, open minds that's rare in this day and time. We need people like you."

We spent the rest of the day just relaxing, doing very little and talking less.

We were in a waiting phase, really, a holding pattern. Neither of us were yet really free.

We got Dory's things from the solarium and she went through them, taking what was worth saving. Parch had promised us some time in Seattle to shop for what we'd need, so it wasn't much. There were cosmetics, though, and I got something of a short course on their uses and application, and also some criticism on general mannerisms. "No, don't walk like that—more like
this."
Dory had begun her lessons in "making a woman" out of me and I was an eager student. No matter what, I expected to be one for the rest of my life.

A car met us at the dock after we got into Seattle and Parch took us to a fancy downtown hotel and checked us in. He also gave us, to our surprise, a thousand dollars in blank travelers' checks.

"Go out on the town," he told us. "Buy yourselves new wardrobes, all the essentials."

Dory looked at him playfully. "Aren't you afraid we'll just up and leave?"

He didn't seem disturbed by the idea. "You could, of course. But that money wouldn't last long, and what would it get you? Just take care and be here in the morning—I'll have a wake-up call put in."

He left us then, but both of us knew that he would take no such chances. We might never see them, but we'd never be out of sight of one or more of his operatives.

Dory looked around the luxurious room. "Wow! They sure do it up right when it's the taxpayer's money." She jumped on one of the twin queen-sized beds and seemed almost lost in it. She bounced up and down a few times on it, looking and sounding exactly like a thirteen-year--old kid. She seemed to realize this, and rolled over on her stomach, propping her head on her hands and look-ing very, very cute.