Mind Games

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Burt said, his exasperation no longer hedging his voice but tromping all through it. “He’s made no progress. We’ve been at this for weeks. None of the others took this long and he seems to be getting suspicious.”

Marie gazed blandly through the thick black frames of her substantial glasses. She didn’t blink. She didn’t fidget. She seemed utterly impervious to Burt’s frustration over their current John Doe. After spending a moment studying her colleague, Marie tilted her head ever so slightly and tapped the top of her clipboard with her pen.

“This is what we hired you to do. We’re not paying for a neuroscientist who took a deep dive into psychiatry to work with our easy cases. You knew we were starting small and moving up from there. This is the big fish.” Marie leaned aggressively into Burt, popping his widely respected doctor bubble. “Bring him over or we won’t be needing your services anymore.” She pivoted sharply, clicking off down the sterile hallway to seek solace within the walls of her cubicle on the third floor. Burt watched her go with a sour twist in his stomach. He took a deep breath, turned the brass knob to the room on his left, and put on a fake, clinical smile.

“John, how are you doing today?” Burt greeted, slipping through the door and behind the desk in a few strides. His patient was a young man with curly light brown hair and hazel eyes. A good-looking fellow with a pleasant expression who seemed to Burt a classic schizotypal personality.

“You know, I was looking in the mirror today and decided I look more like a Benji than a John,” the young man announced.

At last, Burt inwardly reveled. He tented his fingers and raised his dark eyebrows.

“Is that something you remembered or something you decided?” Burt asked.

“Does it matter?” Benji retorted with a chipper smile.

“It does matter,” Burt insisted. “That’s why you’re at the memory center. To help with your amnesia.”

Benji held up his finger, still smiling. “Nuh uh, we have not agreed on that just yet, Doc.”

Burt resisted rubbing his temples. Gain an inch, argue for a mile.

“Right. You think I’m trying to get your memories for some reason, rather than help you to recover them. Remind me again where that idea came from?”

“Now who’s got the faulty memory?” Benji laughed. Benji leaned back, interlacing his fingers behind his head as he set his heels up on Burt’s gleaming wooden desk. “I woke up here with what you tell me is amnesia, which, we both know is a soap opera disease. Somehow, I had no ID or people looking for me or anything at all to indicate who I am. And the only things I can’t recall are things about myself.”

“And I’ve told you repeatedly that this is not unusual in cases of amnesia.” Burt pressed his mouth into a curt line. “Unless you forgot.” He ignored his patient’s hearty chuckle and tried to move to a different track. “But I am glad that you have chosen a name for yourself that you are comfortable with.” Burt prepared to pretend to take notes. “What made you decide on Benji?”

“I remember a movie or two with a dog named Benji.” The young man smiled sweetly. “Saved some mountain lion cubs or something. Good dog. Good name. Why didn’t I forget that, Doc?”

This was what they didn’t understand. Burt had spent hours in a room with someone who he wasn’t positive even had a memory issue. They were so certain that their plan would work on this one like it had on all the others that they wouldn’t even consider that maybe, just maybe, the wipe hadn’t been successful. What were the odds that he would guess his own name? Then again, why would he purposefully let Burt know that he knew his name if he was trying to pretend he had no memory? Burt was momentarily so wrapped up in deciding whether or not Benji was messing with him that he forgot to answer the man’s question.

“So? Why do I remember the movie?” Benji pushed. “And how to tie my shoes. And what pants are. I could make you a great lasagna if you asked me to— if I liked you and didn’t think you were trying to trick me.”

“Trick you into what?” Burt asked.

“Giving you covert information.”

Burt just barely stopped his mouth from falling open. He cleared his throat, scribbling a quick doodle on his paper and shaking his head.

“You’re starting to sound paranoid,” Burt said. “We can adjust your medications to help that.”

Benji set his feet back on the floor and waved his hand laconically through the air.

“Don’t bother. I don’t take them.” He put his elbows on his knees. “I’m not paranoid. I’m following the soap opera bread crumbs. The only ones who get my kind of amnesia are the ones who have something priceless in their heads.”

Oh thank God, Burt slumped ever so slightly with relief, it’s just more of his idiocy. Burt glanced up and caught Benji watching him, the young man’s eyes darting to the bookshelf to his right as soon as he was caught. Burt’s own eyes narrowed. Isn’t it?

“So, you think that it’s more likely that this is some kind of evil lab bent on convincing you that you have amnesia so that we can trick you into recovering your memories and telling them to us in the hopes that you hold some kind of secret, valuable information, rather than you having an accident and no identification and being sent here to try to recover? Is that what you’re saying?” Burt smacked his lips skeptically.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Benji admitted with an irritating snicker. Then he fell serious. “On the other hand, why do you keep me here when I am clearly not a danger to myself or others? Seems illegal.”

“You can leave whenever you have a place to go,” Burt countered. “But we’re not going to turn you out on the street.”

“So kind,” Benji smirked. “It’s just the sort of kindness I would expect in The Matrix.”

“Blue pill or red pill?” Burt muttered before he could stop himself.

“Finally, some humor from Dr. Smith.” Benji’s grin faded and for the first time in their months of sessions, Burt was aware of the desk barrier between them. “So come on now and just tell me the truth.” A keen intensity flickered in Benji’s hazel eyes.

“I’ve told you many times now that we just want to help you to get back to your life.” Burt avoided looking directly at his subject. He had the instinctual impression that Benji might have a sense about liars coupled with the unfamiliar sensation that he was now the one being scrutinized. “The sooner you decide to trust me, the sooner we can make some real progress.”

Benji’s solemn façade dissolved into another benign smile as he slumped back into the gentle squeaking of his worn leather chair.

“Hmm. Agree to disagree.” He buzzed his lips lazily. “Do you think I’ve aways been this intransigent or is it from whatever knocked my thoughts to bits?”

“Head injuries have been known to alter a person’s personality,” Burt reluctantly allowed. He saw the sly expression that crept across Benji’s face.

“You didn’t think I knew a word like intransigent, did you, Doc?” He started counting on his fingers. “Tie my shoes, know how to use sarcasm, know movies and appropriate pop-culture references, excellent vocabulary, but don’t know my name or where I’m from. Still making sense to you?”

“Let’s take a walk,” Burt suggested, rising to his feet. Benji hopped up happily to follow, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The pair headed off down the hallway, taking a few turns before exiting the building to a small, tidy courtyard. There was a pea-gravel path cutting at right angles through the neatly trimmed grass, creating sharp frames around the precisely spaced trees.

“Ah, nature,” Benji beamed. “Seeing it like this really makes you believe in some kind of intelligent design.”

Burt bit his tongue. It was his job to keep the patient focused on the process. It was a whole lot easier with someone who wanted to regain their memories.

“You’ve seen the other patients here,” Burt said.

“I’ve seen them leave.”

“Yes, after participating in treatment. You happen to be at the best facility of its kind.”

Benji fell in step beside his doctor, linking his hands behind his back.

“Ah yes, and where exactly are we again?” he asked, wrinkling his brow.

“Norway. Near Oslo.”

“Yet I speak English, you speak English, and no one seems to have to have an accent. Or am I not supposed to remember what a Norwegian accent sounds like?”

“There is no such thing as something you’re not supposed to remember,” Burt sighed. “This facility attracts the best in the field from all over the world. At the very least, we can deduce that you are an American so you must have gotten here somehow. Can you think of what it’s like to be on an airplane?” The gravel crunched under their shoes. “Can you describe to me the last airplane you were on?”

Burt watched Benji gaze up at the bright blue sky and wondered if he was actually sizing up the height of the white plaster walls hemming the little garden.

“I think I was flying it,” Benji said at last. “Seems there were a lot of buttons and lights and levers for a coach seat.” He shrugged. “I could have crashed. Lost my memory that way. Maybe I am a regular old pilot.”

Burt perked up. This was the first time the young man had offered any kind of scenario.

“We don’t know much more than when you were found unconscious in Oslo, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t a pilot.” Burt chimed encouragingly. “That could be. Can you see anything else in the cockpit?”

“I can’t see a black box but I know there would have been one if I crashed a plane. And maybe passengers. News reports—”

Never mind. He’s messing with me again, Burt thought, rubbing the back of his neck.

“—something a spy could probably do. That would explain the lack of media coverage,” Benji concluded. They continued in silence for about half a lap until Benji bumped Burt lightly with his shoulder.

“You know you agreed to that suggestion way too fast, right?” he pointed out.

“Ye-” Burt stopped short. His patient had just about gotten him that time. Burt shot Benji a brief glare, further annoyed to see the amusement on the young man’s face.

“I want you to feel supported. This is the first memory you’ve offered, even if the context is… less than accurate.” Burt focused on regaining his composure and the upper hand. Each time he let his irritation show, he lost ground in his professional relationship with this subject. It was imperative to create that wise, tepid, never-rattled-always-in-control persona in order to convince agents like Benji that he knew better than they did. No one else had been so much trouble. Burt had tried to convince them not to take on an agent of this level until the process was more streamlined, more reliable. But his bosses were impatient and Benji became unexpectedly, conveniently available. Maybe too convenient, Burt considered for the first time. A whole mess of quality agents go missing, wouldn’t you send one of your best to go find them? Burt tried to keep his stride metered and easy despite the tension now building in his body. Benji was quite comfortable it seemed, hands back in his pockets, taking in the sights of the confined courtyard for the umpteenth time with the same easy pleasure as a man walking through a scenic park.

“Maybe we should end for the day,” Burt suggested, trying not to sound brusque. “This memory of an airplane is a big step for us. If you have some time to continue to think on it, you’ll get further down that path.”

Benji nodded thoughtfully.

“I’m surprised you would want to back off now instead of pressing,” he admitted. “Going for the breakthrough is pretty popular.”

“I don’t think that would be beneficial for you,” Burt said robotically. “I think that you have a tendency to firm up under pressure. Since I have nothing to gain, no timeline, I don’t see any reason to hurry this along. Your progress is for you and you alone. I just want to help if I can.”

“That’s touching, that really is,” Benji cooed, pressing his hand to his heart. “To know that you don’t care if I tell you anything I remember, that if I walk in tomorrow and tell you I remember everything and am ready to go you’ll hold the door open for me with no questions asked, now that is a true philanthropist. That makes me feel so much better about our sessions together.” Benji smiled, eyes twinkling, holding out his hand. Burt forced a pinched upward curve to his lips and took Benji’s hand in a firm shake.

“Of course, Benji,” Burt said. “Anything I can do to make you more comfortable. I’d really like you to journal this tonight.” He let go and immediately took the opportunity to depart, striding quickly back towards the building, towards people he could share his suspicions with, people who would have a plan of how to handle a potential breech like this. Maybe they would take Benji back to the wiping facility, run him through another time. So what if it scrambled his brain at this point? They weren’t getting anything from him anyway. Burt almost glanced back at his patient as his hand hit the cool brass of the doorknob, but thought better of it.