Free Valley of Lights by Stephen Gallagher

elevator to take me down to the ground floor that the sole topic of conversation in the offices and corridors around me was Alex Volchak's unprofessional outburst. It was ridiculous, this wasn't even my building. Most people here didn't know my name.
    So now I was supposed to see a shrink. I wouldn't argue, but I also wouldn't go. I had other things to do.
    When I stepped out of the elevator, Woods was there.
    He was over at the enquiry counter next to the recruitment desk, half turned-away from me but instantly recognisable. He was wearing creased-looking off-white pants and a new shirt with some kind of tropical fruit or flower design all over it. He was leaning forward on the counter, his brawny arms taking his weight, as the desk sergeant laid out forms before him and explained what I assumed would be the complaints procedure in detail. At that same moment three plain clothes people, two young men and a girl, were knocking on an office door by the elevators and one of them called out, 'Come on, or I'll kick it down,' before the door opened and they all walked in laughing. The desk sergeant glanced up from the forms at this, saw and recognised me, and tried wordlessly to point me back towards the holding cell corridor and the rear exit; but Woods had seen him and was already beginning to turn around, and I walked straight over.
    It was there as soon as our eyes met; we shared a knowledge that was unique. Woods was leaning on one elbow, smiling pleasantly out of a face that I wouldn't have trusted to tell me the time.
    He said to the desk man, 'That's all right, I'm not going to make a scene. I understand that there's nothing personal in this. Isn't that right, Sergeant Volchak?'
    'It's okay, Joe,' I told the desk man. He didn't look happy, but he did look relieved and a little puzzled.
    Woods said, 'You mistook me for somebody else, right? It happens.'
    'I've heard that it can,' I said. My voice in my own ears sounded flat and neutral, which is the way I wanted it to be.
    Woods gathered up his forms, and made a shall we? gesture toward the main doors. As I went ahead of him out onto the sidewalk, I saw him drop the papers into a waste basket before following me.
    'You're not making a complaint?' I said, as we moved aside to let a visitor party through.
    'Too much trouble,' he said, and I knew then that he'd been waiting for me and that the forms had only been an excuse to hang around. He went on, 'If I want to punish you, I can always find a way.'
    'You've got a good case,' I said. 'You could get rich.'
    We stopped, just outside the doors but in nobody's way. He said, 'You know I can't use money. Not that kind of money. When I want to move on, it won't travel.'
    Small talk. Who'd have believed it?
    I said, 'You know you're insane.'
    He smiled, slowly. 'That wouldn't explain it,' he said. 'You being insane, that would be something else. Why can't you just accept what you see?'
    I said, 'I was supposed to end up like the others, wasn't I?'
    'And how would that be?'
    'Brain-dead and living on baby food. But for what?'
    'Until I came to need another.'
    This was like pulling teeth. 'Another what?'
    'Another body. of course.' He tapped the side of his head. 'In here, this is me. The rest of it, that's just temporary accommodation. I can wear it or I can throw it away for something else.'
    'Can you prove that?'
    'You've seen me do it twice, what more proof do you need? Get with it, Alex.'
    I said, 'You're enjoying this.'
    'Of course I am,' he said. 'I almost never get to talk about my work.'
    I studied him in the sunlight, wondering how much of what I was seeing was on the outside and how much came from within. This incarnation - there didn't seem to be any better way of thinking about it - came over as perhaps a dishwasher who worked out with weights in his bedroom to impress the kind of woman who'd never give him a second glance. He could smile and be calling you his pal in one minute, and then be breaking your arm in the next.