Malinao and Lawrence were at his side in a hearbeat, Lawrence ordering staff to get emergency medical assistance immediately.
“Which one’s him?” Malinao cried, tears stremaing down her face. There was a pile of body, intertwined with a mass of blood, but amazingly one of the heads still had a pulse. Malinao sat bawling over it, when Narang appeared behind her. Malinao couldn’t see him but Lawrence could. He was dressed so as not to call attention to himself but he had a hypodermic needle in his hand. He was bending down as if he were a doctor. Nobody was paying attention to him and Malinao was crying too hard to ntocie either.
Lawrence acted without thinking. His body took over and finished before he could decide if it was a good idea or not. He reached into the holster of a nearby security guard, grabbed a gun, released the safety and fired without saying a word. Narang fell over dead with blood gushing from a head wound. The guard was trying to grab the gun, not understanding what had just happened, but Lawrence let it go easily. Through the crowd that moved in front of him, he thought he saw Malinao kick Narang’s dead body. The emergency vehicles flew in just then and blocked out the rest of the view. The guards were throwing him to the ground then anwyay. He would be able to explain. Malinao would vouch for him. He knew he did the right thing, but he felt sick to his stomach. He had never killed a man before. Even if Narang wasn’t a man, it was still killing. Lawrence vomited. It got the security guards to back off a bit. Then he passed out.
“You can see him now, Speaker.” The Doctor said. “He’s just coming around.”
Lawrence had come with her. He looked rather tough with the bandaged head from where the security guards hit him. It had been more difficult than she expected to get them to understand he had shot the leader of the Fundys, not the Minister of Britain. Even though in truth, he had shot both.
Chong lay on a gurney in the military hospital’s VIP ward. The Doctor stopped them just short of the threshold.
“Speaker, before you go in there’s one thing I have to say.”
“Say it Doctor.”
“I don’t know who he is. I mean to say there was enough left of the two men that we were able to piece one back together. The body is technically two peopls made into one. But int he confusion, we don’t know which brain lived and which died. Security has been advised. If you make any determination, either of you,” he looked at Lawrence, “that thi sis the clone, you’re to alert us at once. Of course if it’s the real Chong we’d like to know that too.”
“That may not be easy Doctor,” Lawrence said. “The clone was able to fool me after hours and hours of conversation.”
“I’ll be able to tell,” Malinao said. “Thank you Doctor.”
They walked in the room. Chong lay with his eyes open staring straight up. His face was empty and pale. They were both next to him before he finally turned towards them.
“Speaker Malinao, Lawrence, how very nice of you come.” He coughed a bit. They could tell he was still extremely weak. He barely showed an expression. Lawrence wasn’t even sure he was happy to see them. “Mr. President,” Lawrence finally whispered.
“President Chong, is it?” Malinao smirked.
“You can still call me Chong,” the barest hint of a smile crossed his face.
“Well isn’t that pleasant. Do you remember anything of what happened?”
“I blew up.”
“You could say two of you blew up.”
Chong rolled his head back and raised his eyebrows. “So that’s it? You looked like you were attending my funeral not my get well party. Mixed up the heads did they? Typical Moon Medicine.”
At this Lawrence laughed. He had written that line for Chong during the campaign to help impugn his opponents record on health care.
“You were supposed to improve that, Mr. President.”
“No you,” and he coughed again as he tried to lift himself up a bit off the Gurney,”you were supposed to get it fixed. I was supposed to take credit,” alittle blood was coming back into his face, and he propped hinmself up higher on his pillow. “You were also supposed to be able to tell the difference between your boss and some cock-eyed clone,” he coughed again deeply making Malinao wince. “I’m writing you up for that.”
Lawrence chuckled.
Malinao leaned closer again. ” they were able to mend you but parts of you are from the clone and parts are from the real you. You’ll always be a mix. But we need to check your memories. Do you remember being kidnapped in Cana?” Chong nodded. “The memories you had up until that point were imprinted on the clone. What do you remember after Cana?”
Chong winced. “Honestly even Cana’s a little blurry. I half-remember making a jump for the clone. I sort of remember talking to Lawrence at a cafe,” he shook his head. “It’s all there, I just can’t reach it.”
“Do you remember the nosedriver?”
“The drill? ” he asked. “Yeah I remember that.”
Malinao was worried. So far everything he’d mentioned could be deduced form what she said. She had to maneuver him into revealing something only the real Chong could remember. Something after the tunnel collapsed, but before the speech in New Canaveral. Something nobody else knew of.”
“Do you remember the collapse?”
His eyes brightened and then he shuddered. “Hashimoto.”
“Yes Hashimoto died in the collapse. Do you remember anything else.”
“We fixed the minidrill. I remember that.”
That was pretty good, but still not enough to sway Malinao.
“Do you remember what we ate?”
“Chicken. They always stock those things with chicken.”
Good but still not quite good enough. By his own admission, it could have been a guess.
“Do you remember what we talked about?”
“Sure, you promised. But now I’m a frankenstein. Are you going to keep your promise? Do you still feel the same way?”
Lawrence looked away embarrased. Malinao began to cry.
“Yes, Chong. Yes I do. You remember that?”
“Of course, I do. You said if I wanted to do something about it after we got out of the tunnel, you highly encouraged it. Well get over here, I want to do something about it.”
Chong pulled her down towards her. He wasn’t very strong yet, but she let herself be pulled into a sweet kiss. Depsite the medical air, it was the sweetest kiss she had ever known. Tears of joy mingled with her lips. She cried some more and kissed him again.
When she stood back up straight, Chong was holding her hand. She turned to look for Lawrence but he was gone.
