The description lingered in Jamie’s mind, short-circuiting his thoughts. That wasn’t how he’d describe his own memories; his felt the complete opposite. Not a black hole, but a supernova, exploding over the details and blinding out everything in existence.
Though Zoe was a stranger, something about her seemed so familiar it pulled on his curiosity. Jamie scanned his own memories to see if he could place her, but nothing came up. Yet, a certainty tugged at him, a knowing that they’d encountered each other before.
Despite a sea of heads in his view, he could tell her eyes stared ahead with a palpable intensity. The chair beneath him squeaked as he leaned forward to hear her better, as if the extra few inches could explain why she drew him into her orbit.
Was she from one of his bank robberies?
“Really, most of my memories start from about two years ago.”
Two years ago?
Those few words turned curiosity into urgency.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
For nearly two years, Jamie had purposefully not sought out his other life. Every time the thought appeared, something ran interference, telling him to stay ahead of it, to keep going.
But he’d never been this close to it before. To even the remote possibility of it.
Zoe took in a breath and the group waited for her to gather herself. Jamie went down the rabbit hole of his own memories, but nothing placed her face. Instead, a rapid-fire punching of what-ifs hounded him, demanding an answer.
He’d vowed repeatedly to never use his abilities when he was off the clock. Being the Mind Robber, dealing with banks, that was work. Reading memories, that was a skilled task. Using it in real life would be a violation, make him a true villain rather than an act he put on.
Yet given the circumstances, the decision came with surprising ease.
Just this once.
“I live my life. I have a job, a home.” Zoe hesitated, took in a sharp breath, paused to scratch the back of her head. “But I just wonder, is this it? Is this what I was meant to be? Shouldn’t there be more? And it feels like all the answers are hidden behind this...” Creases formed across her face, mouth twisting into a frown. “This wall. And I don’t know how to break it.” After about thirty seconds, he locked in, and a flood of images transmitted from her brain to his. A different kind of guilt came to him, not the mystery one that arrived with his missing past, but the sense that he was violating the most personal of private spaces by doing this.
The images were neatly stacked, thumbnails in a filmstrip speeding by: a nearly empty studio apartment, a view from the roof, a hallway with even worse lighting than the meeting space.
“It’s funny, because I listen to people when they’re stressed or need help. I guess you could say I’m a therapist of sorts.”
As Zoe began diving into her share, her emotions turned up and her guard went down. The pictures slowed, became brighter, sharper, bigger, more focused.
“Sometimes, I can help them.”
She took in a breath, and a single image appeared, most likely the active memory she currently pictured in her mind’s eye. An older man in a business suit stood in an alley, tufts of silver hair on the side, glasses slipping off the bridge of his dark brown nose.
Whoever this man was, it was clear that something was very wrong. His eyes were wide, his mouth was open, his hands were up. And his image, a weird outline kept obscuring him, like someone scribbled a highlighter of pulsating red, the intensity fading in and out.
“I help them through it. Which is part of the problem, isn’t it? If you’re the one everyone relies on, if you take on people’s burdens, sometimes there’s just not that much left of you.”
Zoe’s view whipped around back past the frightened man until centering on a blurry figure with a similarly fuzzy outline. It gradually sharpened into a bulky male silhouette.
Gloved hands. Fingers curled around...something. A handle of some sort. Zoe’s memory camera pulled back, and the rest of the object came into focus.
A knife.
“Especially when you don’t know who you are. Then you do stupid things. Like drinking before work.”
Things snapped into real time, though her own movements felt like fast-forward. From her perspective, she whipped around. One dodge of the knife. Then another swipe and miss. A second mugger appeared, a similar stance and a similar weapon. They stepped forward and Zoe immediately darted to the left and leaped against the wall, faster than seemingly possible, legs compressing in before propelling her sideways. Then another jump. Then she was behind the duo. Emotions didn’t normally transmit to Jamie, but a palpable thrill rippled in this memory.
In one move, Zoe slid between the two. Thwack. Her forearms hit the backs of their legs, buckling and staggering the muggers. Crunch. Zoe’s fist flew up and slammed both men in the jaw, and she stood. Whoosh. Her leg whirled around with a roundhouse kick, boot connecting from one head to the next. Euphoria washed over her, so strong that it made Jamie cringe. “That sense of self I’m missing. Even when I’m helping people. No matter what I do, I just wonder if it’s enough. If it’s who I’m meant to be.”
The muggers slumped down, the colors over them dissolving. Behind her, the old man rushed up and grabbed her by the shoulder. Zoe turned to find an ear-to-ear grin. “The Throwing Star,” he said, “I can’t believe it’s you.”
Jamie pulled out of her memories and returned to the YMCA, though he couldn’t fight the pit in his gut. Zoe looked up and once again they locked eyes, but unlike before, she lingered on him.
“I think that’s it,” she finally said. “Thank you for listening to me. I feel...” For the first time since arriving, a small smile crept onto her face. “I feel a little better. It’s nice knowing that people care.”
But she wasn’t just Zoe. Jamie sat silently, horrified at himself for breaking the sanctity of the group. As the moderator thanked her, the lights flickered again.
* * *
Some ten minutes later, Jamie stood in the break room struggling with the coffee machine. He considered probing the mind of the moderator for any inkling of how to use the damn thing, but opted against it—not just because he was talking about the latest in dementia-related research or due to the sanctity of the group, but poking away at needlessly complicated coffee makers took his mind off of Zoe.
Had he been a little slower today, things would have been completely different. She would have caught him, he may have tried to erase her mind in self-defense, and who knows what would have happened from there. Broken bones for him, a disabled brain for her, or something in between.
Instead, here they were, under crappy lighting with a coffee machine that was seemingly smarter than everyone in the building.