Chapter 2 : The Name Game
[St. Thomas' Hospital, Social Services Office — April 16, 2010, 10:12 AM]
Sandra Mitchell's desk told a story.
Three stacked case files threatening to topple. A coffee mug with a ring of dried brown around the rim — fourth cup today, judging by the faint tremor in her hands. Framed photo of two kids, school-aged, the glass smudged with fingerprints. Wedding ring tan line on her left hand, but no ring. Divorced. Recently, from the way she kept reaching to twist something that wasn't there.
I cataloged all of this in about four seconds, which was new. Yesterday, I wouldn't have noticed half of it. But the system had completed its calibration two hours ago, and my eyes had been doing things like this ever since — latching onto details, sorting them, filing them away without conscious effort.
[CONSULTING DETECTIVE SYSTEM v1.0 — BOUND]
[HOST: NATHAN COLE]
[LEVEL 1 — AMATEUR SLEUTH]
[STATUS: ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]
The notification had arrived at 8:03 AM, while I was midway through a bowl of porridge that tasted like wallpaper paste. One moment I was chewing, the next my vision sharpened like someone had adjusted the focus on a camera. Colors brighter. Edges clearer. The man two beds over — I could see the nicotine stains on his fingers, the specific wear pattern on his shoes that said factory worker, the way he favored his left side that meant old injury, not new.
A full status screen had unfolded in my mind — attributes, levels, skill points. Like a character sheet from a tabletop RPG, except it was me. OBS 10, DED 8, CHA 12, KNW 15, CMP 8, PHY 6. Numbers that described a person. Numbers that described me.
I'd had about ninety seconds to process this before the ward nurse told me social services was ready.
So here I was. Sandra Mitchell's office. Playing the part of my life.
"Right," Sandra said, opening a fresh file. She had a kind face. Tired, but kind. The sort of woman who'd gone into social work because she believed in people and stayed because leaving would feel like abandoning them. "So. Let's start with the basics. You don't remember your name?"
"No." Half-truth. I didn't remember this body's name. "But I've been thinking about it. I'd like to go by Nathan. Nathan Cole."
She wrote it down. "Any reason those names feel right?"
"They just... fit." I shrugged. Kept my voice uncertain, my posture open. Confused amnesiac who was trying to be cooperative. "Sorry. I wish I had more to give you."
"Don't apologize. This happens more than you'd think." She pulled a pamphlet from her desk drawer — Support for Undocumented Persons in the UK. "Here's what we can do for you right now. Emergency housing — there's a hostel in Brixton with availability. It's not luxury, but it's safe and clean."
"That works."
"We'll also set up an appointment with immigration services. Your accent suggests American, which narrows things down. They'll run you through their databases, see if anything matches."
They wouldn't find anything. Whatever poor soul this body belonged to before me, he'd apparently vanished so thoroughly that even A&E hadn't matched him to a missing person report. Good for me. Terrible for whoever he used to be.
"There's a small emergency fund," Sandra continued. "Fifty pounds. It's not much, but it'll cover food and transport for a few days. And I'll refer you for a psychological evaluation — standard procedure for amnesia cases."
"I appreciate it. Genuinely."
She paused. Studied me for a moment with those sharp social worker eyes.
"You're remarkably calm for someone with no memory."
Careful.
"Am I?" I leaned back. Let out a small laugh, self-deprecating. "I think I'm just... numb, maybe? It hasn't all sunk in yet. Ask me again in a week when I'm eating beans out of a tin."
She smiled at that. Good. Humor was disarming. People didn't suspect the guy who could laugh at himself.
"One more thing," she said, sliding a document across the desk. "Temporary identification. It's not official — it won't let you open a bank account or anything like that — but it confirms you're in the system. Nathan Cole, care of St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust."
I picked up the document. My name — my new name — printed in bureaucratic typeface on NHS letterhead. Temporary. Provisional. But real.
Nathan Cole exists now.
Something loosened in my chest. Not relief, exactly. More like the moment you stop treading water and your feet finally touch the bottom.
[Quest Update: Establish Legal Identity — Phase 1 Complete]
[+5 SP]
The system notification drifted across my vision. I didn't react. Kept my focus on Sandra as she walked me through next steps — hostel check-in by 6 PM, immigration appointment in two weeks, follow-up with her office in one month.
---
The hospital changing room smelled like industrial detergent.
I stood in donated clothes — jeans a size too big, cinched with a belt that had been punched with extra holes. A grey jumper that someone's grandmother had probably knitted, soft from a hundred washes, carrying the ghost scent of fabric softener. White trainers with someone else's wear pattern pressed into the soles.
Nothing fit right. All of it borrowed, handed down, given away.
I caught my reflection in the small mirror above the sink. Brown hair, slightly overgrown. Face I was still learning. Jaw that looked like it wanted to be stronger than it was. Eyes — grey-green, tired, carrying about a decade of someone else's life behind them.
This is you now. Get used to it.
The jumper was warm. That was enough. I tugged the sleeves down over my wrists and found myself almost smiling at the absurd dignity of wearing actual clothes after twenty-four hours in a hospital gown.
Small victories. The only kind I could afford.
I gathered my worldly possessions — temporary ID, hostel voucher, fifty pounds in mixed notes, and a leaflet about mental health services I'd grabbed from the waiting room — and shoved them into the pockets of my too-big jeans.
Nathan Cole. Level one. Fifty quid. No plan past Tuesday.
Not bad for a guy who was dead yesterday.
---
[St. Thomas' Hospital Main Exit — 11:40 AM]
I stepped through the automatic doors and London hit me.
Not gently. London didn't do gentle. The noise came first — traffic on Lambeth Palace Road, a siren in the distance, pigeons fighting over a discarded sandwich. Then the air, cold and damp and tasting of exhaust and rain and river mud. The Thames was right there, past the car park, grey and muscular under an overcast sky.
The scale of it. That was what stopped me on the pavement, standing like an idiot with my hands in my pockets while people flowed around me. In my old life, I'd visited London once — a two-week vacation, tourist stuff, the Eye and the Tower and pubs that charged ten dollars for a pint. That London had been a postcard. This London was a living thing, vast and indifferent and humming with ten million lives that had nothing to do with mine.
Somewhere in this city, 221B Baker Street existed. A real address with a real door and a real knocker. Sherlock Holmes was in there right now, or at Bart's harassing Molly Hooper for body parts, or somewhere else entirely, being brilliant and impossible and bored out of his skull.
John Watson was in his bedsit. Still limping. Still dreaming of sand and gunfire.
Jim Moriarty was out there too, building his web, smiling his smile.
And here I stood. Outside a hospital in borrowed clothes with fifty pounds and a hallucination that gave me stat points.
Get moving, Cole. Standing around won't keep you alive.
I oriented myself. South bank of the Thames. Brixton was south — maybe forty minutes on the Tube, if I could figure out which line. The hostel voucher had an address. I had until 6 PM.
That gave me about six hours. Six hours to start figuring out how to survive in a fictional universe that was, as of this morning, my only reality.
I turned south and walked.
The city swallowed me whole.
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