Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)
Kelly Oram
This one’s for you, Dad. Because you’re my Superman. (And I have the pictures to prove it!)
I am not a patient person. I’d suspected this for a while now, but as I sat in a tiny, freezing doctor’s office watching the minutes tick away and holding my breath for the most important news of my life, my suspicions were confirmed. I hate waiting.
At least they’d let me change back into my clothes from that awful cotton gown. Is it really a gown when the entire backside is missing?
I hopped off the hard cot—the crinkly paper stuck to the backs of my legs as I jumped up—and pulled a tiny spiral notebook from my purse on the counter. The booklet serves as a journal I carry with me wherever I go. I write down all the things I learn about myself in it as I discover them.
Everything I know about who I am is written in that notebook, because about six months ago I woke up in the Nevada desert with absolutely no memory—no idea of what happened or who I was. Age, birthday, likes, dislikes…nothing. It was all gone. Even the name I use is made up.
There were many things I could do—like read and tie my shoes—that I didn’t have to relearn because even though I couldn’t remember how or when I learned them, I still had the rudimentary skills. But I couldn’t tell you what songs I’d liked or what movies I’d watched prior to my accident. I couldn’t even tell you what songs or movies existed if I hadn’t heard about them in the last six months. Most pop culture and history references are wasted on me.
I’d just flipped to the section of my notebook reserved for personality traits when the doctor finally came back. Dr. Rajeet was a small man with a heavy Indian accent and a thick mustache. At my same height of about five eight, he was right at my eye level when he stood face-to-face with me. His almost-black eyes were very direct, which had creeped me out at first, but now they were filled with so much compassion I couldn’t help softening toward the man a little. He held up a manila folder and said, “I’ve got your results, Miss O’Neil. Why don’t you have a seat?”
He waved toward a chair in front of his desk instead of at the cot I’d just hopped off of. As I sat, I took a pen from a jar on his desk and turned my attention to my notebook again. Dr. Rajeet watched me add impatient to the bottom of my list and chuckled. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.” He took a seat behind his desk and set the folder between us. “I admit I got caught up in your test results from your MRI and your EEG. I’ve never seen brain activity like yours.”
Great. “Happy I could entertain you.”
“It wasn’t entertaining, Miss O’Neil. It was puzzling. You are a mystery. An impossibility.”
He opened the folder and handed me several pictures. I picked up one of the scans and frowned at the rainbow of color exploding from it. I had no idea what I was looking at.
“Your case is simply fascinating.”
“Awesome.”
The doctor laughed again and pointed to my notebook. “Do you have sarcastic written on that list yet?”
I was in a horrible mood, but I smiled at that. “It’s at the top.”
“What about smart? Do you happen to have a genius IQ? Photographic memory, maybe? With the way you use your brain, even an extrasensory perception wouldn’t surprise me.”
I stiffened. All of my physical senses were extra perceptive, but my doctor wasn’t supposed to know that.
My boyfriend, Tony, says I’m special. Like, should-have-my-own-comic-book-series gifted. I have a whole truckload of superpowers. He says my powers are the reason I have no memory, and that people knowing about my abilities is how I ended up with amnesia.
Tony’s special, too. He’s telekinetic, meaning he can move things with his mind. I guess there was this evil research company who held us as prisoners because of our abilities. They did all kinds of experiments on us and eventually took things too far. I caused some kind of superexplosion that helped us escape, and now I can’t remember jack.
Tony said the company believes we’re both dead, and that’s the only reason we’re free right now. He insists Visticorp would snatch us right back up if they ever learned we were still alive. Needless to say, I keep the superpowers thing to myself. “Extrasensory perception?” I asked.
“A psychic ability.” The doctor looked sheepish for a moment. “No such gift has ever been proven, but I’m not a skeptic. The human brain is certainly capable of a lot more than we understand, and you, Miss O’Neil, use more of yours than anyone I’ve ever met.”
I relaxed. Of all the freaky things I have to deal with, being psychic isn’t one of my quirks. “Sorry, doc. No psychic abilities that I’m aware of, and if I’ve ever had my IQ tested, your guess is as good as mine.”
I was joking, but the doctor was serious when he answered me. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you have above-average intelligence. There have to be some kind of side effects from having your amount of brain activity.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with my brain?”
“Not wrong, Miss O’Neil. Extraordinary.”
Dr. Rajeet handed me a long strip of paper with a bunch of squiggly lines on it. It looked less like test results and more like someone had let preschoolers loose in a pen factory. If this weren’t Johns Hopkins and the entire wall behind Dr. Rajeet weren’t filled with framed degrees and plaques of excellence, I’d have thought he was trying to pull a fast one on me.