Syphon: Guardians of the Fractured Realms (2 page)

“Oh come on detective! He’s still handcuffed to the bed. What do you think he’s going to do? Carry the bed away with him? Gnaw his arm off? He’s still suitably restrained with your… your cuff on him. I just thought it would be better if he could hold his own glass of water instead of needing one of us to do it, unless you’d like to volunteer to have someone from your precinct do it?”

The detective started to take an angry step forward before his partner laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Of course. The handcuff is more than sufficient Doctor. My partner was just thinking about everyone’s safety is all. He tends to get carried away about stuff like that.”

Her partner started to open his mouth, but she elbowed him in the ribs before continuing.

“Isn’t that right, Frank?”

“Yeah, yeah… Let’s get on with it.”

Dr. Greene moved over to the corner.

“Don’t stress him out too much or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Frank started to open his mouth again, glanced at his partner, then snapped it shut.

“That’s fine. We just have a few questions to ask your patient to try and determine what happened at the spot where we found him.”

Glancing toward him, she continued.

“Hello, I’m detective Cora Blanchett and this,” she said, motioning to her partner, “is detective Frank Giani. As we mentioned, we’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay?”

He slowly nodded before she continued.

“First of all, when we found you, we couldn’t find any identification on you. So can we get your name?” she asked as she pulled a notebook out of her pocket and flipped it open to a page, her partner mirroring the action.

He started to open his mouth to answer, then paused. A tinge of fear started to form before the pulse of warmth melted it away again.

“Uh…” he started, looking over at the doctor with a worried expression growing on his face. He tried again, concern starting to color his voice.

“Uh… I uh… I don’t know… What happened to me? Why can’t I remember…?”

“Likely story…” Frank muttered under his breath. Cora gave him a dirty look before focusing on the doctor with a raised eyebrow, vaguely waving toward him while he struggled to remember his name.

“Well, it is possible he could be suffering from some form of temporary amnesia,” he began, flipping through some charts. “While the CT scans showed something odd…” he trailed off as he mumbled something to himself. After a brief pause, he glanced back up.

“Other than reports of a lump on his head by one of the EMT’s that brought him in, there’s really no way to be sure whether it’s temporary, permanent, or being faked. Assuming the EMT wasn’t mistaken, then it’s entirely plausible for the patient to be suffering from some form of memory loss due to head trauma.” Looking over at him, he asked, “do you know what day it is?”

He started to open his mouth, but then shut it while shaking his head no, concern flashing across his features again.

The doctor went down a quick list of questions before he looked back at the detectives.

“Well, from the sounds of it, he hasn’t lost all his memory, or he wouldn’t be able to talk to us. He seems to be able to move in a coordinated manner, so that part of his brain is functioning fine as well. Since the CT scans don’t show any permanent trauma, other than a strange shadow that we want to investigate with an MRI, I would assume it’s just a temporary loss of memory. There’s no way to be sure though since the mind is a funny thing. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Giving his partner a dark look, Frank started to turn toward the door.

“So at this point he’s a John Doe…? Seriously…? This is bullshit Cora and you know it. He’s hiding something and I’m going to find out what it is. I wanna know why he was in that warehouse where we found him and why he was surrounded by dead bodies.”

“Frank…” Cora started to say as John sucked in a sharp breath when they mentioned dead bodies before he started coughing violently.

Everyone stared at him with varying levels of concern as his coughing grew increasing more violent. Doctor Green rushed over to him just as he gave one final, violent cough before wiping his mouth, a slight trail of blood streaked across his lips. He started to reach for the cup of water, but the doctor interrupted him.

“Open your mouth,” he commanded, pulling out a pen light as he gently grabbed his chin with the other hand, “let me take a look.”

Dr Greene shined the light in his mouth for a minute, turning his head from side to side before letting him go.

“Well, your mouth looks okay. Not sure where the blood came from since I don’t see any lesions or cuts. I’ll order up some more scans to check your lungs. Might be some internal damage we’ve overlooked since all the test results haven’t come back yet.”

Glancing back at the detectives, he waved his hand at them in a dismissive manner.

“My patient needs to rest. He’s still recovering from whatever happened to him. Come back tomorrow.”

Detective Blanchett started to open her mouth, closed it, then reached into her pocket as she stepped forward.

“Here’s my card if you remember anything,” she said as she laid her business card on the table next to the pitcher, ”we’ll be in touch.”

As she spun away, she glanced back over her shoulder at him as he reached for the cup of water. He gave a slight start as he noticed for the first time the large piece of jewelry on his left hand before regaining his composure. Grabbing the cup, he turned back to the detective as she spoke.

“Since you can’t remember your name, do you mind if we call you John for the time being?”

Taking a long sip of water, he nodded at her, noticing the thoughtful look she cast him as he replied.

“At this point, that seems to be as good a name as any.”

Glancing back at the doctor one final time, she nodded to herself and strode out of the room, her partner following closely behind her. Doctor Greene started walking toward the door, following the detectives before he stopped and looked back at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure your memory will come back in short order. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to use the call button.”

He waited a few minutes after everyone had left before he looked down and opened his hand. Staring back at him was the blood-covered bullet he’d coughed up.

§§§§§§§§§§§§

“Do you think we overdid the good cop/bad cop routine a bit?”

Cora glanced over at her partner as the elevator doors closed.

“Probably.”

“So what was your impression of our John Doe?”

Frank scratched the back of his head before looking back at her.

“He’s hiding something, I can just feel it. I mean, look at how calm and collected he was… When was the last time you saw someone that relaxed looking after losing their memory?”

“Yeah, I thought that was kinda strange as well. The other thing I thought was strange was the readings that were showing on the heart-rate monitor. Did you happen to notice how low they were?”

“Nope, was trying to catch him in a lie, but I have to admit, if he’s faking it, he’s doing an impressive job of it.”

“Yeah, it was weird. I’ve never seen someone in his circumstance so relaxed. When we came in, the monitor said his heart was beating at a steady forty-five beats a minute, so that along with his build makes him some sort of high level athlete. What caught my attention though was when we asked questions to try and get a rise out of him. For the most part, the only reaction I saw was maybe two or three beats that came faster, then it leveled back down to that unusually low pace. One of the times it spiked was when we asked him his name. Betcha he’d nail a lie detector test.”

“Probably…”

“What do you make of that jewelry he’s wearing? He kinda looked surprised to be wearing it.”

Frank paused a second as they exited the elevator before continuing.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. It concerns me that they couldn’t figure out how to remove it. It also bothers me that they stopped trying after burning out that first blade trying to cut it off.”

“I’m with you. I don’t like it when a suspect gets to keep something like that, but they did have a valid point. Their cutting blade didn’t even scratch it and they ran a risk of causing an injury if they continued trying. I wonder what it’s made out of.”

“Don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s pretty tough. I’ve watched those cutting blades go through case-hardened metals before without a hitch, so whatever it is, it’s a lot harder than anything I’ve come across before.”

Cora opened the car door and climbed inside.

“Just another mystery to add to the pile I guess.”

Frank nodded back.

“Looks that way.”

After the detectives and doctor left, he struggled to remember who he was. After several fruitless minutes of going around in circles, he flung the bullet across the room, angry with himself for not remembering anything. With a bit of a shock, he watched as it bounced off a couple walls before landing in the garbage can in the bathroom.

What the? How the hell did I do that…

Shaking his head, he tried taking stock of himself. He figured he was probably around six foot or so and apparently worked out pretty regularly based on how his six-pack looked. There wasn’t any mirror that he could look at, so he ran his hand over the smooth skin on his face.

Guess I shaved recently.

Reaching up, he ran his hand through his hair, which felt to be about shoulder-length and wavy. Bringing a lock of it forward to look at, he noticed his hair was black, like onyx, and shimmered under the harsh florescent lighting. Letting it go, he started examining the piece of jewelry on his left hand and arm.

Turning his hand left and right, letting the light play over it, he blew out a silent whistle, marveling at it’s craftsmanship. The overall design was of a finely-wrought dragon, varying in color from cobalt to icy blue. The size of the piece itself was surprising since he didn’t even notice he was wearing it until he noticed it when reaching for the water.

The head of the dragon covered most of the back of his hand while a sword appeared to be sticking out its mouth. Backing up the impression was what looked like a crossguard that spread across the back of his knuckles, giving the impression of a knuckle-duster. What would go for the hilt of the sword was a set of rings that traveled down his middle finger, ending just short of his fingertip, a blue gemstone covering the nail.

In the opposite directly, the neck seemed shorter than what he expected a dragon’s neck to be, but he couldn’t see all of it since the wings covered a majority of the neck and body. The wings also covered the entire length of his forearm and wrapped slightly around it. The tail of it coiled gracefully around his upper arm several times, ending just short of his shoulder. Turning his arm over, he saw that the legs of the dragon gripped his arm, the clawed toes interlocking with each other to keep it from coming off. It was so lifelike that he could almost imagine it having walked down his arm before perching on his forearm to take a nap.

As he examined it, the word vambrace popped into his head.

How would I know what a vambrace is… Is my memory starting to come back?

After fiddling with it for a few minutes, he realized he couldn’t figure out how to take it off. It was almost as if it had been crafted around his hand and arm instead of being slipped on.

All of it was fully articulated, moving fluidly as he flexed his hand, wrist, and arm. He also realized after a few minutes that it was also completely silent. There wasn’t a hint of clicking joints or rattle of loose fittings. As he looked closer at it, he could almost make out the glistening of the blue-tinged iridescent scales on the body of the dragon. With that level of detail and quality, he came to the conclusion that it had to be worth a small fortune.

Where would I get something like this. More importantly, how could I afford it? Am I rich?

As he pondered the question, he noticed the eyes for the first time. As he looked at them, he felt that whoever the artist was had outdone themselves. As he stared, he almost felt like there was an intelligence behind the sparkling blue facets, glittering in the light. If he had to guess, he suspected they were sapphires. If that was the case, and based off the quality and detail of everything else, it wasn’t that hard to believe.

As he stared at the eyes, he felt like they were drawing him in.

“Time for your night meds.”

The sudden voice snapped him out of his revere. Looking up, he noticed the nurse that had undid his restrains earlier entering his room. Cracking a smile, he nodded to her.

“Thank you for unstrapping me earlier. It made me feel kinda helpless.”

“Oh, it wasn’t any big bother. I honestly don’t like it when any of the patients under my care have to be restrained. I mean, I understand if they’re a danger to themselves or others, but from the sounds of it, all you did wrong was have the misfortune of was being in the wrong place at the wrong time… Or at least that’s what I heard…”

She trailed off as she focused on swapping out the empty bag of saline for a full one. Turning back to him, she handed him a small medicine cup with a few pills in it. As he took it from her, he raised an eyebrow.

“Something to help you get some more rest. I can get you something for pain if you need it.”

Fumbling slightly with the pills and the cup of water, he shook his head slightly.

“Honestly, other than a slight headache, I feel fine.”

“Well, if it gets worse, just hit the call button.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, I’ll be back in a little while to check on you and refill your pitcher.”

Smiling, he slipped his loose hand behind his head.

“I guess I could hang out here a little longer then… I’ll see you later.”

She chuckled slightly as she walked out the door.

“See you then…” she said as she clicked off the room light.

§§§§§§§§§§§§

His eyes snapped open. He wasn’t sure why, but something was wrong, something that was causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. He slowly glanced around the room, trying to figure out what had startled him awake. As he glanced around the room, he almost felt a magnetic pull drawing his eyes toward the corner of the room, the one farthest from the door and window. As he stared, he started to notice indistinct movements coming from the shadows, almost like an afterimage. At the same moment, he felt a chill travel up his left arm.