Memories May Lie

by Vanessa Muir

  Germiston clucked like a hen, then put down the tubes and placed the pipette in a matching steel holder. “I’m Doctor Germiston to both of you,” he said, accent thick so that he rolled the “r” in “doctor.”

  “We were told you’d give us your time,” Charlie said and lifted the plastic bag which held the MemXor pill bottle. “Do you have some to spare, doctor?”

  He sniffed and removed his latex gloves, then shoved them into his lab coat. “What is it you need? I received no information about your requirement, other than the fact you had put in a request for work to be performed.”

  The man spoke like a robot and looked like a mad scientist, with tufty white hair poking out at odd angles from his crown. But he was the lead, part of it, at least, and Charlie wasn’t about to give that up.

  Charlie took a breath. “I pulled this bottle from the mouth of a murder victim. We suspect he may have been using MemXor in his private research at home, without authorization.”

  Germiston put out his hand and took the plastic bag from her. He stretched it taught over the bottle and examined the label, scratched from where Shane Mitchell’s teeth had broken it. “And you want me to fingerprint it? Extract trace DNA?”

  “No, doctor. I need you to test the pills. The effects of them.”

  Germiston raised a bushy, silver eyebrow. “The effects of MemXor? This is well documented.”

  “By Mem Store itself,” Charlie said. “I want you to take this on as a personal study. On live subjects, if possible.” She inwardly cringed at that, but she shouldn’t have to – after all, hadn’t Mem Store claimed MemXor was one hundred percent effective and safe? Still, it felt wrong on a base level.

  Germiston squished the pad of his thumb to the plastic and sniffed. “Live subjects. It has been a while since I’ve done such a thing. It might be interesting, from a strictly scientific perspective.” He lifted his gaze to her face, speared her with intensity in eyes the shade of lavender blooms. “They will not appreciate this, Agent Spede. The State and Mem Store will not appreciate a study.”

  “You don’t have to publish a paper on it. Just tell me the details. Do an experiment, or whatever it is you people do,” she replied. “If there’s any reason to suspect that MemXor isn’t what it seems, I want to know about it as soon as possible.”

  “This is dangerous. I threaten my position here with this. What do I stand to gain from this encounter? You draw me from my work, from my analyses, to test a drug which has been verified by the largest scientific body on the planet?” Germiston smacked his lips. “Pah. It is folly.”

  “A man died because of this,” she said.

  “And? I am living still.”

  Eli cleared his throat. “Charlie, we should –”

  “No,” she snapped. “Listen to me, doctor. There’s something strange going on with these pills. In the last month, I’ve investigated two murders which revolve around MemXor and Mem Store.”

  Silence.

  “Have you had your memories removed before? Has your family?” Charlie asked the doctor.

  “No,” Germiston replied. “Of course not.”

  “Why?”

  “It is – I do not trust – It is not an issue I will discuss out loud.”

  “You don’t trust them,” Charlie replied and swept up that drop of uncertainty. “And if you don’t trust them, you a scientist who believes in hard facts rather than superstitions, there must be a reason for that.” She licked her lips. “Mem Store’s never going to release all the data. And they’ve crushed every independent body who’s even thought of testing their drugs. They can’t crush SSG.”

  “You sound sure of that,” Germiston said, evenly.

  “They won’t,” she replied.

  Germiston nodded once, his silver-white hair waved in that self-created wind. “Very well. I will contact you when I have results.”

  She tried not to show the relief outwardly. Just like that, Germiston had made his decision. She had no real jurisdiction here. She could request that they test the pills, but they had the right to refuse if it is was out of the scope of their capabilities.

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  Charlie nodded to him, then beckoned to Eli and exited the DNA extraction room, removing her lab coat as she did. It didn’t suit her one bit. Reminded her of the pressures her father had placed on her.

  “Wait up, Spade,” Eli called, jogging behind her. “You’re steaming ahead here. Where the hell are you going?”

  Charlie kept her gaze laser trained on the exit to the labs. She dumped the coat in one of the glass receptacles lining the main hall, whizzed past shocked lab assistants, women and men holding clipboards.

  “Spade!” He grabbed hold of her arm.

  She iced him with a look. “To Tatiana’s apartment,” she said and tapped her temple, bringing up the details they’d collected about her during processing. “She’s our other lead.”

  “Oh,” Eli said and released her. “You think she’s a –”

  “If you say Black Mars agent, I can’t be held responsible for the pain I inflict upon you.” She patted him on the cheek, the most physical contacted she had ever initiated with her partner, then set off again.

  Questions needed answering. Her hopes rested on more than just a couple rats and a bottle of MemXor.

  9

  “It’s getting dark, Charlie,” Eli said, this time leading them up the path to the front of the apartment building.

  Tatiana lived in Corden Prime Alpha Sector, far from her father’s home and from the rush of traffic which drove Charlie mad. The peaceful atmosphere worked wonders for her temperament.

  Trees lined the sidewalks here, lampposts with glowing orbs that emitted gentle blue light, rather than the harsh fluorescents from Central. Daylight had already faded, and the purple hour settled on the buildings – glass and steel, still, but accented by outcroppings of greenery, shrubs attached in translucent pots or planters.

  “This is a nice area,” she said and followed him up the steps to the front door. She turned, fists on her hips. “Really nice. How is she affording this?”

  “Her dad was a researcher. They get paid well.”

  “Really well, apparently,” Charlie said.

  “Spade, are you sure we should be here, right now? It’s late. Surely, she’ll want some time to herself. Her father just died and her mother –”

  “Is missing in action.” Charlie had sympathy for her, but this couldn’t wait. Dread stalked toward them, whether Eli wanted to acknowledge it or not. The guy in the suit at the office and the hooded figure in the alley weren’t figments of her imagination. They were real ass people employed by Mem Store. Or the State. She hadn’t worked out which yet.

  Charlie pressed the buzzer beneath the number 27 and waited.

  “H-hello?” Tatiana’s voice crackled through. “Who’s there?”

  “Tatiana Mitchell? This is Agent Spade. Do you have a minute to talk to me? It’s imperative.”

  A beat passed. Surely, she wouldn’t turn them away, though she’d have every right after the way SSG had dragged her into an interrogation room.

  Finally, the door buzzed and clacked ahead of them. Tatiana didn’t verbally acknowledge the invitation, though.

  “This feels wrong,” Eli said – he was such a golden boy, always sticking to the rules.

  “Live a little.” Charlie pushed the glass front door open and hopped onto the revolving staircase which took them higher, and higher, past the first floor, and up to the second. She tucked her arms behind her back and stepped off it into Tatiana’s hallway.

  Number 27 was at the far end of the corridor, the front door of misted glass obscuring everything but a few shapes behind it, what might’ve been a potted plant or an end table.

  Charlie knocked once. Eli sighed and checked his watch for notifications.

  Finally, the door’s mist cleared and revealed Tatiana Mitchell, already in her nightgown and a fluffy robe. The resemblance to her mo
ther was uncanny, except she had her father’s straight nose. She tugged the robe closed and tied it, then clicked a button beside the door.

  The glass rolled back.

  “Agents,” she said. “I didn’t expect company at this hour.”

  “My apologies, Miss Mitchell, but this couldn’t wait.”

  “You can call me Tatiana.” She waved them inside and led them into a vast living room. The walls were glass, looking out on the street and the distant spires in Corden Prime Central. Tatiana clapped her hands once, and the lights brightened, the windows went opaque to afford them privacy. “Please, have a seat.” She gestured to the backless sofa.

  “Nice place,” Eli said.

  “It was my father’s summer home,” she replied, stiffly. “He didn’t like living with us most of the time.” Tatiana remained standing.

  Charlie positioned herself on the sofa, tapped her temple. “I’m recording this conversation, Miss Mitchell.”

  “Tatiana,” she repeated. “And what’s this about? I gave you all the information I had at your headquarters.”

  Her lip twitched at the last word. Just how roughly had they treated her?

  “And thank you for your cooperation,” Charlie said. “I want you to understand that we’re doing everything to make this as painless as possible. It has come to our attention that you were very close with your mother. Is that true?”

  Tatiana’s head dropped along with her gaze. Her shoulders trembled. “Why is this relevant?” she whispered. “What does it matter if I was close to her or not? She was my mother, and now she’s on the run because she murdered my father. What does it matter?”

  “Your father recorded a series of memories which included you and your mother and a series of disagreements. Most of it was garbled,” Charlie said, “but what we did work out is that your father may have been doing something unethical.” It was a wild guess, but it added up – the pills, private research, removing memories. “If you have any information regarding that, we’d like to know.”

  “Information about my father,” Tatiana said and looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “Not my mother.” The last was a whisper.

  “That’s correct,” Charlie said and gave her partner the side-eye. Tatiana’s connection with her mother was a red flag, wasn’t it? She scanned the living room, but there weren’t any photographs of family, nothing but a bland painting – a landscape which could’ve been from any countryside location in the world.

  “My father hid something in the house,” Tatiana said and gulped. One of the tears escaped her eyelid and made a bid for freedom. “In his office. Look, I felt for a long time that things weren’t right. I told you that, remember? The house, the vibe, it was off. I don’t know what it was, just, yeah. In his office. I walked in on him once, and he jumped like I’d caught him committing a crime.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing. But I heard a noise. A click like a door or a drawer closing. He was over by the painting above his mantelpiece. I don’t know if it’s useful information.”

  “It is, Tatiana, thank you. The sooner we know more about this, the sooner we can resolve this issue.”

  The teen lowered her gaze to the tiles again. “Whatever helps,” she said.

  “Whatever helps,” Charlie agreed.

  10

  They’d had to wait until morning before they trekked over to Shane Mitchell’s apartment, and the night had seemed the longest of Charlie’s life. She’d stayed up, staring at the ceiling and putting pieces together. Some of them didn’t fit, others did, but in one hundred different ways.

  All of it revolved around the memories locked in the cloud.

  Jones, who had information which Mem Store had under their control. Dr. Mitchell, who’d recorded his memories which had consequently been altered.

  Answers drifting just out of reach.

  Charlie took the stairs to the front door of the apartment two at a time, grinding her teeth at the whistle-screech of a shuttle in the street behind her.

  “Here we go again,” Eli said and wrinkled his nose at her. “Back to the scene of the crime.”

  “Relax, partner,” Charlie replied. “They already removed the blood and brains.”

  “Did you have to put it like that?”

  Charlie laughed a short, muted chuckle, then typed in the code on the keypad beside the front door of the building.

  An exclusive set of apartments, one per floor and expensive as hell, two streets from Mem Store’s Research Facility. How many nights had Dr. Mitchell returned here with armloads of work? And what exactly had that work been?

  The door clicked open, and they entered, took the elevator to the third and final floor, then walked up to the Mitchell’s misted glass entrance. Once again, Charlie typed in the access code, the pad lit up green, and the glass slid back to reveal the living room. The entire sofa had been removed, and the floor had been scrubbed clean.

  “Do you think Tatiana’s planning on selling the place?” Eli asked.

  They stepped inside, and the glass swished shut behind them, locking them in.

  “I have no idea. She can’t until our investigation is over, and that’s all that matters to us.” Charlie walked through the living room and toward the hall. She clapped her hands as Tatiana had done in her apartment, and the lights switched on and illuminated the pictures on the walls.

  Images of a family, clearly not as happy as they would have liked people to believe. In each, Tatiana’s smile was the smallest, and her eyes hooded, while Mrs. Mitchell had dark circles under her eyes. Dr. Mitchell hovered behind them, the consummate man of the family.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Eli said, right behind her, and his breath heated the back of Charlie’s neck.

  She jumped and elbowed him in the rib cage. “You startled me!”

  Eli backed off, wincing. “Easy, Spade, it’s not a self-defense class.”

  “Don’t besmirch my last name with that insinuation.” She peeked through the doorway of each room and finally located the study. Two bookshelves graced either side of a decorative glass mantelpiece. The empty grate was as clean as the bottom of a bathtub. No fires in here for an age, if ever.

  “Well? Here we are,” Eli said and did the honors of clapping his hands for the lights. “What now?”

  Charlie squinted in the sudden blaze of the recessed lights above their heads. She dropped her standard issue briefcase beside the desk. “Now, we search.”

  And they did. They went through the desk, checked for false bottoms in the drawers, tapped on the floor and the sideboards. Nothing. The silence in the apartment pressed down on them.

  Any noise they made was amplified tenfold, and the street noises from outside were blocked out. This room wasn’t glass, it was four closed off walls without windows. Clearly, Dr. Mitchell’s work had warranted secrecy.

  “Hey,” Eli said, “have you ever watched one of those old movies?”

  Charlie looked up from her search under the single leather sofa against the wall. “Which ones?”

  “You know, the ones with the hidden rooms in mansions. They’re ancient, like from the 2000s or something.”

  “I might have. Don’t really have time for films.”

  “Right, well, in them, their hidden room is always behind the bookcase.”

  Charlie froze, her butt in the air and head examining beneath the sofa. She looked back at him. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Eli said and gestured to the shelves of books. “There’s always a book or wall sconce that you pull back, and then the door clicks and the whole thing swings open.”

  “Sounds a bit farfetched.” But farfetched was the best they had. Charlie scooted out from underneath the sofa and hurried to the shelves. Eli stepped up beside her and started pulling books back, one by one.

  They stacked them in a pile next to the monstrosity of a wooden desk, checking inside each hardcover book before placing it. The tower of books became two towers and then three
. They worked their way down the shelves from left to right.

  “Can I ask you a question, Charlie?” Her partner placed another book on a pile.

  “All right.”

  “Why did you join SSG?”

  She licked her lips. Why? To spite her father? To show him that she didn’t have to be a lab researcher to be successful? “Because I want to know the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything,” she replied. “Doesn’t this all seem a little too perfect to you? The peace and quiet. The forced happiness? No wars. No drugs except for MemXor?”

  “Huh.”

  “What?” She frowned at him, placed another book, waiting for his answer.

  “You don’t believe in happiness or something?”

  “It’s not that.” She swallowed. She’d never believed in happiness. Only the constant quest to prove herself. To make herself worthy of that joy. “Fuck me, what about you? Why are you in SSG?”

  “My brother was SSG,” he said, softly.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, he was Boss in Phi Sector. Smaller than Central, I know, but he was great at what he did.”

  “What happened?” Charlie took another book, placed it. She studied her partner, his expressive eyebrows and the dimple in his chin were prominent now.

  “He died on the job. Killed by a streeter’s pimp. I joined because I wanted to do what he did. Continue the good work, you know? He was all I had left after my parents died.”

  “Man, I’m sorry.” She’d had no idea. The case and her personal quest had been all consuming.

  Never let anyone close enough to hurt you, Spade.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said and gave her a half-smile. “Damn, if I don’t hit the bathroom now, I might ruin all of Dr. Mitchell’s books. Gimme a second. Don’t pull anymore down without me.” Eli hurried out of the study, and his footsteps faded.

  Charlie frowned. Don’t pull anymore down without him? Why?

  She continued, tugged another book, and a clack and scrape echoed throughout the room. A small section of the shelf popped up and revealed a hidden compartment underneath.