Page 14 of Empress of Savages

He nods with his reassuring smile each time. “Where you are?”Shake.“Your name?”Shake.“Your date of birth?”Shake.“The names of anyone here?”Shake.

He smiles and nods. “That’s good.”

I tell him, “I don’t think it is.”

He smiles again and says, “I’m the doctor.”

He watches me as he waves a sweet-smelling thing under my nose. Then a thing with a bad smell.

He wraps an inflating sleeve around my arm. As he connects a clip to my finger he says, “You’re awake now and you’re conscious. You’re lucid and articulate.” He smiles. “After a shock, the mind sometimes shuts down some or all of the memory while it pulls itself back to health. Like it needs a vacation.”

The Emperor tells him, “We don’t have time for a vacation.”

After a slow blink the doctor says, “The more space and time we can give her to heal and come back, the quicker and, more important, the more completely she will recover.”

He puts a device against my ear. I think that’s for taking my temperature. He turns my hand over and holds my wrist as he looks at his very nice, expensive watch. Then he starts writing on a clipboard.

I say, “I thought the thing you clipped on my finger took my pulse.”

He looks up and smiles. “It does. And also your blood oxygen level. I like to take the heart-rate the old fashioned way, though. It gives me a feel for the rhythm and regularity of your heartbeat.”

“Are you a heart doctor?”

“No. I’m a brain doctor.”

“How is my brain?”

“It looks great as far as I can see.”

“Even if it can’t remember anything?”

His smile deepens. “Your brain is good for a lot more than party tricks.”

The Mastermind has returned to the room. When he sees me, the look in his eyes makes me judder and shake. He steps in to join the Emperor and they both move toward the bed.

Where is my warrior?

He was here, but now I don’t see him.

The Emperor says, “Don’t you think we should try talking about familiar things, remind her of who she is? Use her name? Use all of our names?”

The Mastermind tells him, “You know what the doc says. She’s processing a big shock. The best thing for her is to allow her to come back to recognition and recollection at her own pace.”

The doctor looks back at the Mastermind, as the Emperor says, “Yeah. That’s part of the whole, ‘The mind is strange and it can be unpredictable.’ talk.”

The doctor takes a long breath. “Dissociative amnesia is complicated. It can have many causes. If you drop random facts or memories into a disassociated mind, you can’t know the effect it’s going to have on the patient. The brain is best left to choose its own path to recovery. Especially at first. We should wait for her to recognize things. People. Places.”

“So you say.” There’s an edge in the Mastermind’s voice.

Patiently, the doctor goes on. “We should avoid giving her jogs or jolts. As much as possible we aim for the conscious to recover organically.”

The Emperor’s eyes tighten. “Okay, only two things bother me about that. One is, it sounds like it would be torture.”

The Mastermind looks at me. “It really does. How does it sound to you, little lost kitten?”

“What the fuck do I know? I mean, literally. I know nothing.”

The doctor says, “It’s a natural process. Whatever we want, however we feel about it, it will take the time it takes, and it will not be hurried. All that we’re looking for is her best and most complete recovery.”

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