Enzo and I talked some more on the flight while nearly everyone else had drifted off to sleep, including Scott. Scott made sure to eye us a few times before he went to sleep, as if he were making sure that we hadn't found parachutes and were about to jump overboard to escape. We made sure to stop talking, appearing as if we were asleep or bored out of our minds when he turned around to peek at us. Shortly after deciding that he could do it, he drifted off, evident by his breathing pattern.
For the better part of an hour and a half, Enzo and I threw random things in the air to see if something jogged our memory. We talked about relevant things, such as food and sports, right down to odd things like the textures of different objects and clothes and animals. I learned that he was a very introspective person, but, unfortunately, could not remember anything concrete. Neither could I, but I was more interested in what he could recollect.
"What about pie?" I asked him.
"I think I might like pecan... What does pumpkin pie taste like again?"
"Sweet. Pumpkin pie is sweet. What about candy?"
"Candy... That name sounds terribly familiar. Like it's a woman's name, one I know. But I like Hershey's Kisses. I think."
"Ever been to Hershey, Pennsylvania?"
He chuckled quietly. "Now you're just grasping at straws."
I nodded, smiling. It was true, however. I was trying anything and everything to get something to come back to us. "Do you remember where you're from?"
"Not entirely. Although my accent suggests I'm from the UK. Well, that and the fact that Scott told me that's where I lived before the British got all power hungry and decided to create an army of me. What about you?"
"I'm not one hundred percent sure, though my accent suggests I'm from the states."
"I'd say your accent drops you in Texas. Howdy, y'all," Enzo said, mimicking my accent.
I rolled my eyes. "Alright. Somewhere in the southern US. That and the fact that Scott also told me that I lived in the states before the US government decided to get all tyrannical as well. Had the same intentions as your people, apparently."
"Coincidence?"
"Who the hell knows?"
"Hell..." Enzo echoed. "Do you believe in it?"
"Do I believe in what?"
"Heaven and hell," Enzo half asked, half pondered.
I paused to think. I dug and dug and dug for the better part of three minutes before I answered him. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. Enzo knew that I was thinking, knew that was something that I didn't particularly want to dismiss for some reason. And in that, he had his answer before I said anything.
"Yes. I think I do, at least. I mean, I believe in a higher power," I told him. "You?"
"I think so," he said slowly. I nodded. It made sense. Maybe he didn't think he could harm anyone because he had a suppressed faith that his subconscious remembered.
Even though I knew I believed in something, that something didn't make much of a difference. I knew I was not one to lay down and take something because I believed I was going to hell if I fought back and accidentally stepped on someone's toes, or life, in the process.
We were silent for another thirty minutes. We both tried to close our eyes and go to sleep, but we were both too strung out.
After that thirty minutes, Enzo's quiet voice filled my ears again.
"We could run away, you know."
I had my eyes closed. I contemplated keeping them closed to pretend that I had drifted off, but his words warranted my attention. Plus, Enzo was no idiot.
"What?" I asked, opening my eyes to stare at him.
"We aren't trusting these wankers, are we?"
I tried hard not to laugh at what he'd called Scott and Nico. "I don't know about you, but I'm not trusting them. But, Enzo, where would we go? We have no money, no where to run. We have no one, except for these two guys who say that they want to help us."
"So, what then?"
I took a deep breath. "I don't know. Alright? Something has to come back to us. Our memories, I mean. It seems like a bit of amnesia. If we both suffer from it indefinitely, we'll know that they're behind it. But otherwise things should start coming back to us soon. Right?"
"Don't ask me. You're the bloody doctor."
I stared hard at him.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly.
"We're on the same team, right? Do you have any better ideas?"
He shook his head.
I closed my eyes again. I thought about how odd it was that he'd propose a plan that made no sense without even thinking about the situation we were in. "I just learned something about you, Enzo."
"Oh, yeah?"
"You're impulsive."
*********************
We arrived in Toronto around noon local time.
Although the sun was bright, the air was cool. It was sixty degrees outside, at most.
We were quickly ushered by Nico and Scott to a cab that awaited us outside of Toronto Pearson International Airport. The air was like a splash of cold water on my face. It struck a note.
I breathed in the cold air, closed my eyes for a second while we were walking. I begged the memory to return, wanted so badly for an image to pop into my head so that I could make sense of what was going on.
The memory that appeared in my mind was unintelligible, of course. I didn't recognize it.
I saw someone in front of me, running. I ran behind the person. I realized that the person I ran behind was a guy.
We were exercising, running in snow. I followed him as he led the way on a snowy road that cut between white trees. The tall, muscular guy had shorts on, as well as a cut off t-shirt, which made me believe that he had to be freezing.
I noticed that I was watching his legs, the way they worked to push him forward. I saw his arms, the way they were flexed, showing off his large biceps.
Then I noticed myself. I wore shorts shorter than his, along with a thin t-shirt. In the memory, I wasn't cold. I was no where near being cold. If I weren't cold and wore the same thing he did...
He was like me.
I mentally looked at him again, at the back of his head. His hair was shiny and black and somewhat thick, the kind of hair you want to run your hands through just because it looked so soft.
"El."
My eyes snapped open, and I realized that I'd stopped. Scott stood at the backdoor of the car, holding it open for me to climb in. Enzo already sat in the back.
I thanked Scott for holding the door for me as I got in. He followed me, which forced me to sit between he and Enzo. Nico had climbed in the front seat. The cab driver took off.
I suddenly felt claustrophobic and incredibly vulnerable.
I shifted my eyes to the right to peer at Scott's hands. He held them in his lap, one hand clutching a cell phone.
Think.
I didn't believe they'd try to pull something. I had nothing to work with, and being so close to a potential enemy made me nauseated. I pulled my right arm, the arm closest to Scott, across my lap. As if I were just casually repositioning it. If he tried something, maybe I could elbow him in the face. I had a feeling it was not my best plan in the history of my forgotten schemes, but it'd have to do for right now.
I waited a few minutes, staring out of the windshield of the cab at the tall buildings of Toronto as they passed. The traffic wasn't horrendous, for the most part, and we rolled along at a steady speed.
Since Scott hadn't tried to rip my throat out or stab me in the gut with a knife within the three minutes I gave him, I allowed my mind to travel back to my memory. I couldn't prolong it. I could only see the fragment I'd clung to before Scott's voice interrupted it.
I didn't know the guy in my memory, the one that ran in front of me, the one I followed along behind. I knew that he was not American. I wondered if he was associated with the bald man in the Metallica t-shirt that popped into my mind before.
Probably not. The two were on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
Scott's voice separated me from my thoughts once more, making me slightly angry.
"Do you like cities, El?"
That was something I had to think about. Sure, I liked cities. The larger they were, the smaller, more insignificant I felt. Cities made me feel young, like they'd gathered and remembered the knowledge that flowed through them on a daily basis, making them old and wise. What they saw, what they heard in a day, was more than I'd ever know. Or would ever want to know, for that matter. Every city had a different story to tell. Every city had a different knowledge base that was unique to itself. It was too bad that I couldn't remember any other city I'd ever been to. I couldn't name a single one.
I liked cities, sure. But I wouldn't say they were my favorite.
Although I couldn't remember visiting certain places, I knew what they felt like.
I tilted my head toward Enzo so that I saw Scott out of the corner of my eye. "I'm more of an ocean person."
*******************
We were still in the middle of the city when the cab driver stopped us in front of a tall building.
We had gotten deeper into Toronto, and the traffic had become more thick. The cab driver was holding up five cars behind us as he let us out.
The large building that Scott informed us was their headquarters, our new safe house, looked as if it were made entirely of windows. As Scott pushed us all to the large doors, I saw us, as well as the rest of the busy street behind us in the mirror-like windows. I looked up, and the blue sky reflected off the higher floors' windows. I caught a glimpse of Nico in the windows as I looked ahead of me again. I wondered if he ever looked happy.
"Alright. Enzo, El, welcome," Scott warmly said as we walked into the main entrance.
The lobby of the building was small, only a white water fountain occupying the space on the far wall. The floors were a shiny tan marble, as well as the walls. Two white large double doors were on either wall to our left and right, with large square electronic plates stuck on the wall beside both doors at the level of my chest.
Scott went to the set of doors on the right and stuck a hand up to place his palm on the electronic plate. A moment before he touched it, he stopped.
"Enzo, will you do the honors?" he asked.
Enzo looked confused, but stepped forward and put his palm on the plate, looking at Scott with raised eyebrows.
The doors made a loud click and Scott opened them, leaving Enzo and I to look confusingly at each other before following him. Nico followed along behind us.
Scott talked while he walked, leading us through a large hallway to a set of elevators. "This is where we track you. Where we try our best to find and keep up with you until we think it's time to bring you here."
"What's the criteria for that?" Enzo asked.
We reached the elevators as Scott replied. "When you're no longer safe. If you're safe, we leave you. Most of the time, you're not safe."
We were silent as we waited for the elevator to reach us. When it did, we shuffled in. Scott pressed the button for the 16th floor.
"So who else occupies this building?" I asked.
"Oh, you know. A local law firm owns part. A paper company owns another part. We own part."
"Really?" I asked, surprised at how the lobby was set up and how there were no directions to which floor belonged to what company.
"No, not really. People think that's who's here. It's only us, but we have to keep a low profile. What would the public think if they knew a secret organization owned and operated out of one of the biggest buildings in Toronto?"
"Something is fishy?" Enzo guessed.
"Very fishy, my friend."
"Okay," I interjected, "why do you need-" I looked at the elevator buttons. "46 floors?"
Scott smiled. "We have offices designed to track you, labs designed to figure you out. Housing for you and the others here who are like you. Training facilities. Organizational things."
"Secret organizational things," Enzo said quietly, skeptically. Scott ignored him.
"How many more do you have here?" I asked.
"How many more what?" Scott asked. He knew what I meant, though.
"People. Like us."
"Only a dozen. We're in the process of tracking more who need retrieving. That's why we retrieved you first. It's a process."
The elevator dinged and the silver, shiny doors slid open. The hallway we stepped out into had black marble floors and deep tan walls.
"This way, please. We need to have a short meeting about your purpose here, so that no more confusion will be present," Scott said to us all. "Nico, you're dismissed."
Nico dropped back as Enzo and I followed Scott to a large conference room. Windows lined two walls, showing us a breathtaking view of Toronto.
Scott walked over to a set of controls on the wall and hit one of them. The windows began to grow cloudy, then were blacked out completely.
Scott gestured for us to sit at the large, black table, so we did. He walked to a shelf and pulled two folders off, then came back to the table to stand in front of us.
He gently laid the folders on the table in front of us.
"One for each of you," he told us.
I didn't immediately grab and open the folder. On the inside, I wanted to reach out and tear it open like a Christmas present. "What is this?" I asked, slowly sliding it closer to me.
"Who are these people?" Enzo asked, staring inside the folder. He wasted no time opening his.
Right away, I recognized the people shown on the large blown-up photographs I found when I opened my folder. In fact, I had to hide a gasp and the millions of questions that flew through my mind at that moment. I didn't know why, but I held my tongue.
The first picture was of the older man wearing the Metallica t-shirt in what memories I could pull from the trench in my brain that everything seemed to fall into. This particular picture was obviously from some security camera. He was walking in the doorway of a building. Two people walked behind him, their images completely blurred out. He had shades on, and, of course, the black Metallica shirt and a pair of black jeans.
He looked a little too old for his getup.
The next, and last, picture was the picture I had to control myself over. This picture was from the same security camera that had captured the older man as he walked into the building. In this picture, the person who wasn't blurred out was the guy who'd popped into my head earlier, the one that was running in front of me in the snow.
He was extremely good looking.
He was Asian, his dark hair thick and wavy on his head. The dark t-shirt he wore poked out here and there from his muscles. Two other blurred out people were in the image. A person walked in front of him, as well as one close beside him, both blurred out. Asia looked intensely at the smaller blurry person walking beside him, something in his eyes. Fear?
I forgot Enzo asked a question until Scott answered. "These people are dangerous."
I tuned them out as they talked. The pictures...
I held both of them up, side by side. I realized they were the same picture, only different people were blurred out to focus on one, either the older man or the Asian man.
"Scott," I blurted, interrupting the two. "These people are together?"
He looked at me, nodding. "Good eye. Yes, these two are together."
"Was it really necessary to blur the third person?" Enzo pointed out.
I looked at the third person, the one the Asian man looked at with concern.
"Well, the third person is no longer with these two. Not a factor anymore. No longer a threat." He smiled.
I still stared at the picture, wondering how I had suppressed memories of both of these men and what the odds were of them being the only people I could remember. And then I wondered about the odds of only their pictures being in this folder.
More importantly, why were they dangerous?
"Rule number one. You need to know the enemy. This safe haven runs on the fact that we want you safe. In order to be safe, we must eliminate the enemy. We must restore human morals."
"Who's the enemy?" Enzo asked. He must have been thinking the same thing as me: the two people in these pictures didn't look dangerous.
Scott nodded towards our folders. "You're looking at them."