15 I am wandering down the tunnel that leads me from the Terrax lab to the terminal where my shuttle awaits. Multicolored lights are firing at me from every direction, and I turn my head with each light, looking here, no here, there, and there, and here again, the sidewalk is moving below me, always moving forward, and taking me toward some kind of destiny. I am Norrin Radd. This realization hits me like it had never occurred to me before, though more accurately it hits me like I had sort of forgotten it even as I thought only moments before that I knew exactly who I was. Didn’t I? But of course that’s the trick with memory, you always think you know exactly what you need to know until confronted with the fact that you do not. I am married to Shalla. I have a son named Joey. I, I, I…. My memory is coming back. First leaking in, in dribs and drabs, and then in rivulets that begin to grow into a flood of thoughts, feelings, events, pains, joy and glories. I am Norrin Radd and I am walking through the bowels of Arthur Chin. I live in Baidu and I am heading into space today, now, when I get to the end of this sidewalk. I kite-surf, I play guitar, my mom used to bake me cakes, and my dad disappeared. I’m running, I don’t know why I’m running, it’s as if I need to escape the rush of memories now pounding into me like a wave. O R P H A N S 58 I love the Ramones; the touch of Shalla’s hair, fingers, stomach, thighs and breasts; Joey raising his arms up toward me for a hug; the smell of fall and rain. No, wait, maybe this is not escape but something else— maybe I’m running toward the memories and letting them wash over me like a shower, fresh and intoxicating, and full of rebirth. Maybe. And now I am smiling, but out of breath and leaning against the window at my gate. The shuttle looms there outside the window, like something from another world, a bird or a dream: something, though, something magnificent . ...