Triggers

Triggers is a science fiction novel by the Canadian writer Robert J. Sawyer, published in 2012 and originally serialised in Analog. It is set in the near future and begins in Washington, D.C.

Kadeem Adams is a war veteran about to undergo a highly experimental memory-editing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at the Luther Terry Hospital. The President of the United States, Seth Jerrison, is rushed to the same hospital after being shot in an assassination attempt.

The treatment goes wrong because of an electromagnetic pulse from a new kind of bomb planted by terrorists, which destroys the White House just as the procedure begins. It becomes clear that the attackers have infiltrated the Secret Service.

When the President recovers consciousness he can remember Kadeem Adams's life as well as his own, and Adams finds himself able to remember the life of somebody else who was nearby. Others in the hospital are affected in the same way, which raises the possibility that somebody has access to the President's most secret military plans.