Diazepam, better known as Valium, was used both as a painkiller and an anti-anxiety drug. I knew this because my own doctor had prescribed me Valium for anxiety. In fact, my doctor had prescribed it to me in the same dose as the original Dogwood's doctor had prescribed it to him. I stopped taking the Valium after a few days because it completely sapped my energy and essentially halved my ability to work.
I hadn't seen any Valium among the original Dogwood's belongings when I returned to the Nordhausen for the first time. He must have either left the drugs behind in Zum City or thrown it away when the side effects became too difficult to handle.
There was one major difference between these medical records and the medical records of my first life. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an alcoholic. Sure, I drank from time to time, but it was never really a problem for me. The nicotine addiction, on the other hand, was accurate. I really needed a cigarette.
"Excuse me, ma'am," I said with a smile as I peered over the pages. "Do you know when Lieutenant Heinrich Vultee will be out of surgery?"
"Not for another few hours, I'm afraid," the nurse said with a frown. "You can leave a message for him, if you want."
"Sure, I guess," I said, scratching the back of my head. "Tell him to send a message to me and Ramos when he wakes up."
"I'll do that," the nurse said.
I went back to the papers arranged in front of me. There was just one more piece of information that I wanted to glean from the medical records. I flipped through the papers until I found what I was looking for.
EMERGENCY CONTACT
Name: Victor Dogwood
Address: 54 Castellan Avenue, Third District, Quintzem
Phone Number: +105(309)232-4191
My emergency contact was named Victor Dogwood, huh? He was undoubtedly a family member of mine, though he lived in one of Side 3's other colonies. My guess was that Victor Dogwood was either my father or brother. I picked up a pen from the nurse's station and quickly wrote two lines of text on my wrist.
401 Artesia Road, 7th
105(309)232-4191
"Thanks for your help," I said, pushing the papers back over to the nurse.
After collecting my revolver from the front office, I stepped out of the hospital. For the first time in my life, I saw the interior of a space colony at night. The other side of the cylinder was 6.4 kilometers away, and a million small lights lit up the sky like a tapestry of stars. I was only able to meaningfully distinguish Zum City's sky from a starry night on Earth by squinting at the dark spaces between the lights.
The sight put me into a philosophical mood. It was sublime in the historical sense. I had difficulty believing that anything other than God the Father could create such a thing. The humans of my world barely managed to put one man on the moon, yet the humans of Dogwood's world were able to put hundreds of county-sized constructs in orbit around the Earth.
It made me wonder if the people of Zeon felt the same whenever they tread upon the Earth. Was Deikun right? If humanity truly did have some spiritual connection to the Earth, could it be that its deprivation had harmed the Spacenoids in some way? On Side 3, the Earth was blocked by the Moon. If someone was born in Zum City and never left, he could live his whole life without ever seeing the Earth. Perhaps this alienation from the Earth had driven the denizens of Side 3 insane.
There was one big counterpoint to this argument: myself. I couldn't claim that the reason I went along with everything they did was due to alienation from the Earth.
I sighed, put my hands in my pockets, and kept going about my business.
There was a car rental place nearby. I rented a cheap convertible for five days for $50. Evidently, the dollar used in Zeon was worth more than I was used to. Back in my timeline, such a purchase would cost a few hundred dollars.
The convertible's glove box held a series of maps to help navigate through Zum City. On the top of every map was a line saying, "ALWAYS REMEMBER TO TAKE THE HIGHWAY IN AN ANTI-SPINWARD DIRECTION!!" Flipping through the maps, I realized that the space colony's districts were arranged in order from the spaceport to the aft. There were fifteen districts in total, so the district holding my home was halfway across the colony.
The car did not rev when I turned the key. It seemed strange to me, but that was consistent with what I knew about electric vehicles. All cars in the space colonies were electric, since they couldn't afford much pollution with such an atmosphere. When I began driving off the lot, the car began to play an artificial whirring noise through speakers. Something about that annoyed me for some reason.
As I drove down the road, the memory of the last time I drove a car played in my mind. The final moments of my last life were on a highway. I had been driving in the darkness of night after a long day at work, and the driver in front of me had slammed on his brakes. I couldn't brake in time, so I swerved to avoid a collision. My brakes locked up, and I spun out. What a mundane way to die.
Did I actually die? Even if I had slammed into the median, it wouldn't necessarily have killed me. It would have hurt me, sure, but I should have survived. I should have sustained about as much damage as Dogwood did immediately before I took his body.
Maybe the original Dogwood had taken my body when I took his. Instead of committing war crimes and mass murder, he was currently dealing with an office job and insurance premiums. He was facing mundanity while I was facing hardship and turmoil. Which one of us got the better end of the deal?
I had no idea if I was right. My original body could just be dead. Another car I didn't see might have killed me. The idea was strangely comforting, however. I liked the idea that I hadn't simply stolen Dogwood's body, and he got something out of the trade.
Deep in thought, I drove for more than ten minutes. Eventually, nicotine withdrawal caused me to stop at a convenience store, and I stepped inside of Zeon's equivalent of a 7/11.