The Forgetting Curve (Memento Nora)

by Angie Smibert

  I stared at the charred remains of the vehicle.

  “No place is safe now,” an onlooker said to me.

  I made for the side entrance.

  I was relieved to see Dad there as I crept by his office. He was talking to some non-Nomura suit. Was it the mayor? Jao stood outside the door next to a slick-looking guy in shades with a Green Zone tag and a Vote Mignon button on his dark jacket.

  Roger was on the phone when I walked into the lab, arguing with someone in Vietnamese. I nodded at him before sitting down at the screen. I pulled up the Chipster schematics. I could transmit an old-fashioned virus to overwrite the data.

  The Russian boards were good for that kind of shit. Okay, I was a skid. But a virus might wipe out the ID information stored on the chip, too, which I didn’t want. Maybe there was some simple command I could send that would shut down the feed. Or maybe I could override the content with something new. The thought made me shudder.

  I tried to pull up the implant specs but got shut out.

  Access denied.

  Of course, my father picked that moment to walk into the lab. Funny timing, the universe muttered. I watched Dad cross the room. I knew what was coming.

  “Aiden, why are you here?” Dad asked in a hoarse whisper. He paused to glance over his shoulder. The Green Zone goon stood by the door, along with Jao.

  “Dad, I know what’s going on. I can help,” I whispered back.

  He closed his eyes for a second and then looked me in the eye. “Stay out of it, Aiden. You’re in way over your head. And so am I,” he added quietly.

  “You’re fired,” Dad said loudly. He slipped something into my backpack. “If anything happens to me, Jao will get you to your mother,” he whispered. “Take this with you.” He shoved my pack into my hands. “Jao will drive you home.”

  Jao dutifully stepped up behind my father.

  “Don’t lose him this time,” Dad told Jao. Then he stormed out of the room, the Green Zone guy hot on his heels. Jao stared after Dad and the goon. Yeah, not good.

  And Roger was nowhere in sight.

  Jao dragged me home.

  36.0

  EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITY

  AIDEN

  Jao paced the foyer. Extra security patrolled outside.

  Me, I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the contents of my backpack, while the big screen blared the news.

  Dad had slipped a small black package into my bag. Turning it over in my hands, I still didn’t know what to do. I could just leave it and let Dad keep protecting us. But what if he never came home?

  I called Mom. Again. No answer.

  News gal reported that two dozen cities were announcing mandatory ID programs. She cut to a news conference at TFC headquarters. Some suit said Cleveland, Atlanta, Detroit, and Pittsburgh would be requiring its citizens to get the nGram ID chip by Christmas. The other cities would stagger their deadlines over the next year. All were implementing their programs with the generous help of TFC. The camera pulled back to reveal the TFC logo on the wall behind her. The camera panned to show more suits off to the side. Dad was there, sandwiched between the mayor and the Green Zone guy. Dad rubbed behind his ear as the camera passed him.

  I had to do something.

  So I opened the package. The grin on my face made Jao stop pacing. Inside the little box were a chip and microdisk, which I promptly popped into my mobile. nGram chip schematics scrolled across my screen.

  Dad had given me the exact thing I’d been trying to access in the office.

  He’d promised me interesting doors to rattle.

  And the disk contents told me two things. One. The datastream was encrypted. That is, it took one, possibly two keys to unlock this door. Normally, I could charm those keys out of someone, just like I’d done with the bank encryption.

  Except for data point two. TFC owned the code. They (and their security minions) are notoriously hard to charm.

  Someone at Nomura might have access to the encryption. They’d need it to test the chip. Maybe. One person would know.

  Roger.

  Unfortunately, Jao wasn’t letting me out of his sight until Dad got home.

  I fell asleep turning over glossy hard bits of code in my mind looking for a door handle to pull.

  When Jao shook me awake, I was slumped over the kitchen table. “Master Aiden, your father’s home—and he has company.” He said the last part with distaste as he pushed the chip and my mobile toward me. I stuffed them in my pocket.

  Dad walked in the front door followed by the Green Zone guy from the office.

  “You can wait outside,” Dad told him.

  The guy hesitated, and Jao moved toward him, bristling.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Dad snapped at the goon, “except maybe to bed.” He looked exhausted.

  The goon took up position inside the front door. Dad let it go.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him. I was afraid of what he wouldn’t remember.

  Dad nodded, but he also tapped behind his right ear. He looked from me to the contents of the backpack, still spread on the kitchen table, then back to me.

  “Aiden, don’t you have some extracurricular activity today?” Dad asked. My mind was a blank. “Some doors to rattle on maybe,” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “Jao will drive you wherever you need to go,” Dad said as he headed toward his bedroom.

  The goon at the door just stared straight ahead.

  37.0

  RETURN OF THE HUMMINGBIRDS

  WINTER

  When I woke up this morning, my head felt clear. That full of pudding feeling was gone. I hate pudding. Now, my skull felt empty, blissfully hollow. I vaguely remembered Aiden stopping by yesterday. Or was it days ago? Hard to tell. It was right before Mom pressed another damn pill in my hand. He’d banged around in my bathroom as I dozed off.

  Mom had given me another pill after lunch, too, but I spit it out.

  The hummingbirds were back.

  I held out my hand in front me. No tremor. Not a twitch.

  Thoughts began to tumble freely through my brain, no longer weighted down by the pills.

  The pills.

  My parents and that doctor had drugged me. Because they thought I was sick. Because… A hummingbird slammed into a residual chunk of pudding, and I couldn’t complete the thought.

  I needed to do something. I pulled myself out of the lounge chair. I needed to tinker. I needed to get out of here.

  I walked out the door, down the block, and took the Skywalk to the edge of Tamarind Bay. I caught the bus downtown.

  12:35 PM. SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON…

  Decision time, citizens. Tick tock. D-day approaches.

  And the little demonstration over at Tamarind Bay was just a small reminder that compound gates and security guards aren’t enough to keep you safe anymore.

  You know what you need, and you’re running out of time to get it—before Mayor Mignon’s promised crackdown commences.

  So, do you continue being a good citizen? Do you get yourself chipped and keep keeping on, fully gridded? Or do you slip through the cracks in the grid and join us below its radar?

  You may be saying, “Whoa, Meme Girl or whatever you call yourself, unwrap the tinfoil from your pointy head. It’s just a chip.”

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Let me tell you a story about a friend of a friend. It’s a short story. One day he’s a cop, bumped down to searching book bags at a high school for something he saw and reported. So he watches for black vans at night on his own time. Then he finds a group of like-minded individuals, falls in love, helps a girl—and wham. He’s shipping out to fight in the oil fields for a four-year tour like it’s his own idea. That’s another one of those stories you don’t hear.

  Next: “Going Underground” by the Jam.

  38.0

  BACK TO THE ROCKET GARDEN

  VELVET

  Do not volunteer for something unti
l you’re sure it doesn’t include manual labor. Book of Velvet.

  Maybe I need a new book, I told myself as I wrestled shrink wrap around a pallet of boxes in the courtyard of the Rocket Garden. Each of them was marked CANNED FOOD, but that’s not what they contained. Who knew the local food pantry dished out a little revolution on the side?

  I wiped the sweat from my face with the tail of my Ramones T-shirt and climbed back up to the dome. Inside Becca, Lanky Girl (a.k.a., Lina), Big Steven, and I were packing up the radios we’d made. It was almost July, and it would’ve been as sweltering inside the dome as out, if Lina hadn’t rigged up a tiny air conditioner. She was clever, but not much of a conversationalist.

  “Is Dune coming in today?” I asked. He at least liked to talk.

  “Haven’t seen him.” Steven shrugged. “The food bank guy will be here after dark to pick up the radios,” he said, changing the subject. “We need to hustle to pack this last stack of boxes and lift the pallets over the fence.” Steven had built this small crane out of spare radio tower parts to lug things around the Garden.

  “Yessir,” I said, diving back into the radio packing. When Steven had a bug up his butt about getting something done, it was best not to mess with him.

  I wrapped a plain plastic box with hand-painted dials in old paper and stuffed it into a cardboard box. Winter would have made these things look cool with gears and copper tubes and stuff. Hell, I’d never even seen a radio before meeting this crew. The radios were like something out of a history book on consumer electronics, but Becca said they could pick up the MemeCast and anything else on those frequencies. And if they picked up the MemeCast, they’d pick up the concert. It was going to be epic.

  “Incoming!” one of the guys yelled from the courtyard.

  “Hide the radios,” Steve said quietly as he strode toward the door. His bulk filled the door frame, blotting out a bit of the daylight.

  “Where?” I looked around quickly. We were in the middle of a hollowed-out piece of machinery with only a bunch of folding tables and chairs.

  “In the boxes.” Lina was already stuffing the empty boxes with radios, and I followed suit.

  “False alarm.” Steven stepped aside, and I heard footsteps coming up the ladder. “It’s your boyfriend. The new one.”

  Lina glared at me and at all the boxes we now had to empty and repack.

  “Actually, I need to talk to Dune,” Aiden said to Steven without even looking in my direction. There was something manic in his voice. It reminded me of Winter. Winter on one of her not-so-good days.

  “Aiden, what’s the matter?” I was by his side before I even realized it. He shrugged off my touch.

  “Sorry, I don’t have time to explain, but I need to find Roger.” He looked from me to Steven. I wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to or asking.

  “Don’t you work with him?” I asked.

  “He’s gone, and I got kicked out. Dad’s in trouble. I need Roger’s help,” Aiden said without taking a breath.

  Steven disappeared.

  “Slow down. What’s going on?” I’d never seen Aiden upset.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  Steven reappeared and handed Aiden a small padded envelope. “Roger left this for you. Take it and go. We’ve got work to do here.”

  That last part was directed at me. I took the hint and guided Aiden toward the door. My heart ached to see him like this. Scared. “What can I do?” I asked.

  His mobile buzzed as we hit daylight.

  “Slow down,” he said into the phone as he clambered down the steps. He stopped and listened.

  “I’ll be right back,” I called to Steven as I followed Aiden to the courtyard.

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Spring. I’ll find her.” Aiden snapped his mobile shut. “It’s Winter. She’s missing.”

  Instead of panic, though, I saw relief on Aiden’s face.

  “It worked.” He grinned.

  I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

  “Don’t worry. I know exactly where she is.” He pecked me on the cheek and took off running.

  “Bring her to the concert!” I yelled after him.

  I immediately regretted it. When you don’t know what to say, do not scream something self-centered and lame. Book of Velvet. New chapter. New verse.

  39.0

  BACK TO THE GARDEN

  WINTER

  I slipped in the back way, through the semi-secret panel in the fence. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to Grandfather yet. The hummingbirds were still battling the pudding in my brain. Damn pills. I’ll never take another one again. Not even an aspirin.

  Grandfather’s Sasuke course looked like someone had begun stripping the parts and dismantling it. Maybe he’s redoing it, I told myself. He wouldn’t give up on it. He’d used the course every day since I’d moved in.

  I pushed through the bamboo gate, through the garden, and into my workshop. I grabbed some circuit boards, a soldering iron, and a sheet of milky white Plexiglas.

  I had this vision in my head of a wall of bird wings that reacted to your movement, curling and flittering as you got closer, rippling as you walked along the wall. I scrounged through my buckets of circuit boards and found a motion activator. I cut out a test sliver of the Plexiglas in a wing shape.

  The hummingbird wings in my head calmed to a dull flutter as I started soldering chips and dipswitches and connectors.

  I’d missed this. I needed this. I was this. And I could make this installation huge.

  “Winter?”

  Crap.

  At least it wasn’t Mom or Dad. It was Aiden. I turned around to find him and Grandfather both looking at me as if they expected me to say something momentous. It was unnerving—and really bugged the shit out of me.

  “What?” I didn’t mask my annoyance very well. “Can’t you see I’m working?”

  “Yes!” Aiden did a little fist pump thing like he’d scored a goal. “She’s back.”

  Grandfather just smiled and said he’d be right back.

  “You have been a zombie—Stepford Winter—for the past few weeks.” Aiden wrapped me in a hug.

  “Stupid pills,” I muttered.

  “That’s why I substituted vitamin D for them.” The shiny things on the workbench caught his attention. He picked up my prototype. “What are you making?”

  “You switched my pills?” Why didn’t I think of that? Because my brain was full of pudding, and I thought my parents had my best interests at heart. It made me happier than I could describe to know my cousin had my back like that. “Thanks,” I said quietly. I was trying really hard not to cry.

  “You needed the vitamins. You don’t get enough sun—usually.” He was trying not to look at me.

  “Oh, shut up.” I took the circuit board from his hand.

  It was good to be back. Grandfather brought out two mugs of double-espresso, six-sugar love.

  Okay, Aiden’s had only four sugars.

  Aiden’s happy mask slipped away as he sipped his coffee.

  “It’s your dad, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “You were right about Japan,” Aiden replied.

  “I’d started to put it together before the doctor drugged me.”

  Aiden explained everything he’d figured out about the chip, his Dad’s involvement, right up to the freakish demonstration with my parents.

  “Kuso,” Grandfather swore.

  “Then there was the bombing in the Nomura parking lot—and the mayor and some Green Zone goons paid a visit to Dad at the office—right before he sent me home with Jao.”

  Aiden paused.

  “Dad came home this morning—with a chip in his head and a new bodyguard,” Aiden continued quietly.

  Holy crap.

  “We have to stop them,” he said.

  I had more questions, many more, but they could wait. We had to get our family back—all of them.

  Grandfather and I nodded.

  “Before they do whatever they’
re gonna do July first,” Aiden added.

  That didn’t give us much time. About forty-eight hours.

  40.0

  TICK TOCK

  AIDEN

  We retreated to Winter’s workshop. Mr. Yamada said he had some appointments at his shop—but not to do anything stupid yet. At least not until he got back.

  “So we need to hack TFC. Without them knowing. And then stop them. All in two days?” Winter asked.

  “Not exactly,” I replied. “Well, I hope not. We just need to send a signal to the chip to erase the embedded memories or shut down the feed.”

  “Is that all?” Winter laughed. “It might be easier if we had a chip.”

  “Good thing I have one.” I dumped my backpack on the table. The package Dad had given me and Roger’s mystery envelope lay there among the other detritus of my life. “Dad gave me this,” I said, handing Winter the package. Then I opened the envelope from Roger. Inside was a black plastic square about 3.5 inches in size. It was a museum piece. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Roger must have given you that,” she said casually.

  “How did you know?” I waggled the disk at Winter.

  She took it from me and popped it into an ancient computer under her workbench.

  “Do you know what workshop he taught at the Rocket Garden?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer.

  “How to build your own underground network out of scrap and outdated tech. Like this.” She uncovered an old flatscreen monitor. “And that,” she added, pointing to a series of routers atop one of the shelves.