The woman touched the side of the tube. The humming grew louder.

    "Darby Jones, please state your birthplace."

    Darby closed his eyes. Names of cities and countries and stars and planets flashed before him, but nothing seemed familiar.

    "I don't remember."

    The woman touched the side of the tube again. For the third time, the humming intensified.

   "Darby Jones, what color is my hair?"

    Darby  opened his eyes, and took a proper look at the woman he'd been so afraid to see. She had red hair, pulled back into a tight bun.  Such an awful face.

    "Red. Your hair is red."

    "Very good." She tapped the side of the metal tube. It deactivated.

    "Don't try to move too much, Darby Jones. You've had some internal bleeding--"

    "Bleeding? From what?"

    She blinked (a habit of hers, it seemed) and frowned.

    "From the accident, of course."

    "Accident?"

    "Yes. The explosion." 

    "Explosion? What explosion?"

    "I expect you'll get your memory back soon," she said, with an unmistakable air of dismissal. She turned on her heels to leave.

    "No--wait."

    "Yes, Darby Jones?"

    "I can't feel anything. My arms and legs, I mean."

    "Side effect of the pain killers, I'm afraid." She gave Darby an odd look. "But you're better off not feeling anything right now. Rest up."

    Darby closed his eyes and listened to the steady tap tap of her shoes as they made contact with the floor. He didn't have to hear the door open or close to know she was gone. He opened his eyes.

    The room was dark, save for the light of the holographic galaxies that now spanned the area where the walls had been. Darby shifted his gaze toward the ceiling. Stars and planets there, too. 

    Darby wondered if that woman chose this program for him. He focused his eyes on Polaris, the northernmost star. There was something familiar there, but he couldn't name it. When that woman returned, Darby would make sure to tell her to remove this program. He'd much rather look at the walls.

    Darby's thoughts wandered back to his dream, and of the fire that had consumed and burned him. An explosion, the woman told him.  Did that mean the dream was true? Darby pressed his eyes shut. And what sort of person couldn't remember a thing about himself?

    You kept us safe.

   That damn voice again! He didn't mind being paralyzed, but he wasn't so sure he could bear the pathetic unease that came with being insane. 

    We're not insane.

    "Then what the hell is going on here?" Darby ignored the absurdity of talking to a voice that wasn't real.

    Aho! So now we're not real?

    And then--laughter. Light and unburdened, the sound trickled across his brain and centered in a small space at the back of his mind. It took Darby a moment to realize he was laughing, too.

    "What sort of thing are you?"

    We're no sort of thing.

    Darby smiled. Had he offended this Voice?

    Not a voice.

    "Then what?"

    Us.

    "Us? What do you mean?"

    Let me show you. 

    The voice never got the chance to show Darby what he meant. The stars and planets  faded, the walls returned. Footsteps, different from that other woman's, reached his bed.

    A face appeared above his. Another woman, though she was younger than the readhead. She was prettier too, but wore those same oversized glasses.

    "Who are you?"

    "Kendra," she said, out of breath, "And I'm so sorry. We should have moved you ages ago."

    She  pressed a small metal tube (smaller than the one before) against his temple.

    "What's that?"

    "Precaution." 

    She smiled, and that's when Darby noticed her left eye didn't have a pupil. Before he could inform her of this fact, the tube activated. Electric shivers ran down his spine, and Darby fell into unconciousness.