“It’s the only reason I gave him any of your information, Cole. This procedure could be a miracle. I thought it could save you. It still can.”
“Fergus told me they paid you for my information.”
Dr. Tyson looked as if Cole had just slapped her across the face. “He lied, Cole. I would never have taken money for that. They did give me information, but it was information I could use to help you and help other people.”
“The Company…they kill people. You know that, right? They harvest the memories of the young and beautiful and sell them off to the highest bidders.”
“I never asked questions,” answered Dr. Tyson meekly. “I only exchanged data.”
“You gave them data that helped them to get their clients addicted to other people’s memories.”
Dr. Tyson shook her head. “That’s not true. I only gave them data that proved the obvious—that people do get addicted to memories. It’s like injecting heroin straight into your cerebral cortex. It is the essence of life. They didn’t change a goddamn thing based on the information I gave them.” She now looked at Cole with a pitying stare. “They didn’t have to.”
“I was going to quit,” said Cole. “It was only the bombing that brought me back.”
“That’s good, Cole,” Dr. Tyson said, though Cole could hear the skepticism in her tone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cole’s anger was devolving quickly into sadness.
“Because you would have been against it.”
“Of course I would have. They’re an evil company.”
“That’s not what I was worried about. You would have been against it because you wouldn’t have wanted any of the memories you’ve inherited to be deleted from your brain.” She was right. Cole knew it. “You would have tried to stop the research before it could get anywhere. All I wanted was to give the research a chance, to give you a chance.”
“Why do you keep talking like that, about saving me and giving me a chance?”
“Because I thought that if we could delete at least some of the other people’s memories from your brain, we might be able to bring back part of the real you, assuming your own memories are still in there.”
“But this is the real me,” Cole protested.
Dr. Tyson shook her head. “You’re an amalgamation of other people. You don’t even know who the real you is anymore. I do. I remember him. I see him in you every now and again.” Cole had no idea how to answer her. He had no idea what to say. No magic words existed that would break this spell. Instead, Dr. Tyson went on. “But that’s not important now, Cole. You said it yourself: We don’t have a lot of time. We’re not talking about deleting all of the other memories. We’re only talking about deleting one person’s.”
“Ivan,” Cole said the name out loud only to make sure that he could.
“Yes,” Dr. Tyson confirmed again.
“But you said that Ivan’s memories might be protecting me.”
“They might be. I’m not going to lie to you, Cole. I think that diving into the bomber’s memories could be very dangerous. To date, you’ve only ever remembered the memories of victims, never a murderer. We don’t know what those types of memories might do to someone. I am not sure that you should do this. But I don’t think you were asking for my opinion. You’re asking for my help, and this is the only solution that I’ve been able to come up with.”
“If I were to go through with this, would you be the one to do the procedure?”
Dr. Tyson shook her head. “I have neither the experience nor the equipment. There’s only one place in the world that I know of where this procedure has been done successfully.”
“You expect me to let the Company operate on my brain?”
“If they’ll even do it,” Dr. Tyson clarified.
“Why should I trust them? Why should I trust you, for that matter?”
“You shouldn’t. But you don’t seem to have too many other choices.” Dr. Tyson paused. “I never meant to hurt you, Cole. I only wanted to help you then, and I want to help you now.”
“So they’ll erase Ivan’s memory completely?”
“If the procedure works. The Company’s clients wanted a guarantee. When you spend millions of dollars buying other people’s memories, you want to be sure that you can get rid of them if they don’t meet your standards.”
“All of this was so the Company could offer a money-back guarantee?”
“They don’t give them their money back,” said Dr. Tyson. “They merely promise to give them back their uncluttered mind if they’re not happy with their additional memories.”
“I can’t keep even a piece of Ivan’s memory?”
“No,” answered Dr. Tyson. “That’s not how the procedure is supposed to work. If it works at all, then the whole memory needs to go.”
“How do we get in touch with them?” Cole asked. He was afraid of the answer that he received.
“I know how,” said Dr. Tyson. “I can ask them if they’ll help us. I think they will.”
Chapter 17
TWO DAYS AND SEVENTEEN HOURS UNTIL THE SECOND BOMBING
Fergus had agreed to help, and to Cole’s surprise, he attached no conditions. He told Dr. Tyson that he and the Company would do whatever it took to stop the next terrorist attack. Initially, Fergus demanded that Cole come alone. Dr. Tyson refused. She knew they needed the Company’s help, but that didn’t mean she trusted Fergus any more than Cole did. So the two of them were sitting in the back of a windowless SUV, blind to the world outside, being driven to the compound where the Company would perform the procedure. Dr. Tyson had suggested performing the procedure at a regular hospital, but Fergus said that wasn’t possible. The equipment they needed was at the compound. Dr. Tyson wasn’t sure if the equipment was immovable or if Fergus was simply worried it would be confiscated once the procedure was over. Despite Fergus’s willingness to help, he clearly didn’t trust Cole or Dr. Tyson very much either.
Cole marveled at the interior of the SUV. They sat in cushioned, fully reclining leather seats, with heating and massage options. A fully stocked refrigerator was in one corner, though there was a sign on the door recommending that people scheduled for a memory transfer avoid alcohol for at least forty-eight hours before the procedure. For them, the refrigerator had high-end water in thick glass bottles and exotic fruit juices. A television screen took up most of the back wall and speakers were inlaid across the ceiling and floor. Cole couldn’t see any door handles on the inside of the vehicle, but still, the tiny area was nicer than any hotel room he had ever been in. Even with more than a dozen people’s memories in his head, he couldn’t remember anything like it.
“So this is how the other half lives,” Cole said as he gazed around at all the amenities. “I guess when you’re paying millions of dollars for a product, you get the pampering thrown in for free.” Dr. Tyson didn’t say a word. “Of course, it could also just be a distraction meant to keep people from trying to figure out the direction that they’re going. It wouldn’t matter, though. I’m sure we’re not traveling a direct route anyway.”
Cole was doing his best not to think about what he was going to do. Part of him wished that Dr. Tyson had let him make the trip alone. If he were alone, he could use these moments to remember more of Ivan’s memories, to give them at least a portion of the sendoff that Cole thought they deserved. But he felt like doing so in front of Dr. Tyson would somehow prove everything she’d said about him was true. If she was right about his addiction to Ivan’s memories, then maybe she was right too about how he’d slowly buried himself beneath other people’s memories until barely any of him was left. He had heard those accusations before but not from her, not from the person who knew him the best.
“Are you afraid, Cole?” Dr. Tyson asked, breaking a long stretch of silence.
“Afraid of what?” Cole responded, unwilling to simply reveal how terrified he was.
“Are you afraid of what we discussed? Of what might happen if Ivan�
��s memories aren’t there to protect you anymore? Do you think you’re ready to share memories with a terrorist? You can back out.”
“No,” Cole said. “I’m not afraid of that.”
Cole’s inadvertent emphasis wasn’t lost on Dr. Tyson. “Maybe you should focus on her memories now, while there’s still some time. Maybe you can prepare yourself that way, help your brain build up a defense.”
“Okay,” Cole agreed, though they both knew whose memories Cole was going to spend the rest of the ride remembering. Cole closed his eyes. When he did so, he felt Dr. Tyson’s hand reach over and grip his own. She didn’t let go until hours later, when the SUV stopped moving.
Chapter 18
TWO DAYS AND SEVENTEEN HOURS UNTIL THE SECOND BOMBING
Bernard wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have woken up at all this time, or if he was meant to remain unconscious until they extracted the memories from his brain. He suspected the latter. He’d woken up once before alone in a small cell, but this time he was lying on a gurney with all sorts of medical machinery strapped to his body. He almost began ripping off the suction cups and tubes but stopped himself, realizing that doing so might set off alarms, summoning brutes to sedate him again.
Instead, he carefully stood up, doing his best to keep everything in place. He noticed that one of the machines was a heart monitor, so he called in his meditation experience and began using his breathing to keep his heart rate under control. Another machine was monitoring his brain activity. He did his best to control that as well, to make his conscious thought seem like little more than an overactive dream.
The room he was in was about eight by ten feet. A bench lined one wall. Two walls were empty, solid gray nothingness. In the middle of the fourth wall, Bernard noticed a door with a small window. Fortunately for him, everything in his tiny room was on wheels, so he could drag it all along with him as he stepped slowly toward the door.
Before trying to open it, Bernard gave a furtive peek out the window. He glanced quickly and then ducked down again, hoping to avoid being seen. In that first quick glance, he saw nothing worrisome outside the door. He saw no guards. He saw no signs of life at all. Encouraged, he took a longer look. He was right. No one was outside his door guarding him. Instead, what Bernard saw was an empty, sterile room. It looked something like the bastard child of a hospital waiting room and the common area of a prison. In the center was a circle of empty benches. Between the benches and the walls, there was enough space to wheel a gurney with people walking on either side of it. Surrounding the room were seven other doors, each with a small square window in its upper center. Bernard looked from room to room, wondering if he might see somebody in another cell staring back at him. He didn’t. Either the rooms were empty or the people inside them were still unconscious, lying on gurneys, waiting to have their memories harvested and their bodies discarded.
Only after Bernard was sure that the outside room was empty did he try to open the door. There was no handle on the inside but Bernard could clearly see the door’s outline in the wall. He gave the door a push. It didn’t budge. Bernard looked out the small window at the other seven doors. On the outside of each door was a simple bolt lock and door handle. There were no fancy electronics, nothing that could be hacked or rewired, nothing that could be automatically opened in the case of any emergency. Wherever he was, the fire code didn’t seem to be a priority. The only way out of one of these cells was to have someone on the outside unbolt the lock and turn the door handle. The odds of accomplishing that were not in Bernard’s favor.
Bernard slowly walked back toward the bench that lined the far wall and sat down so that he could think. Seeing no way out, he began to eye the contents of the cell itself. Based on what he saw, he was even more certain that he wasn’t supposed to have woken up. The giveaway was the lack of a bathroom. There wasn’t even a hole in the ground where one could get rid of waste. The cell was completely barren except for the gurney and the equipment strapped to, or inserted in, his body. Everything moved in and out of him through tubes. If Bernard was going to do anything, he would have to use the equipment that was monitoring and feeding him and doing whatever else the tubes and wires were supposed to do. The machine was plugged into the wall. He could take a piece of metal off the machinery and jam it into the socket. If he could manage to hold on long enough, he might be able to electrocute himself. He knew that was unlikely, though. He was more likely to simply knock himself out, essentially doing their dirty work for him, leaving him unconscious, waiting for them to remove his memories, all his memories, even the ones that he was willing to die to protect.
Bernard thought about using the needles. They were sharp enough. If he was able to keep his heart and brain calm, perhaps the machines wouldn’t register the removal of an IV needle. Then he could use it to slit his wrists. That death would be slow, though. Besides, in either option, the Company would still have at least forty-eight hours to harvest his memories before they started to materially deteriorate. However he was going to go out, he needed to sufficiently damage his brain. It wasn’t going to be easy.
Bernard stood up again and walked slowly back to the window. This second look did nothing but confirm how dire the situation was. It would take a miracle for Bernard to be able to die while taking his memories with him.
Chapter 19
TWO DAYS AND FIFTEEN HOURS UNTIL THE SECOND BOMBING
The SUV stopped. A moment later the door swung open. It was almost as dark outside as it was in the windowless SUV, but Cole could see a few stars high above them. They must have been far enough from the city lights for the light from the stars to slip through.
Cole’s eyes drifted down from the sky. Fergus was standing immediately outside the now open door. Two other men were standing at his sides. He was wearing a sharply tailored navy blue suit with a maroon tie that reminded Cole of the color of blood. The suit did little to hide the breadth of Fergus’s shoulders and the mass of muscles contained underneath his jacket and shirt. Fergus’s bald pate shone brightly under the fading daylight. The men standing beside him were even bigger than he was, which was no small feat.
Fergus was staring into the back of the SUV as the door swung open. His face contorted into an impish grin as he glanced at the two travelers inside. “Cole,” he bellowed, “it’s so good to see you again. You have no idea how excited I am to finally be working on the same side with you. I was worried after our last meeting that you would see me as an enemy.” He didn’t need to say any more. They both knew what he was referring to.
Fergus and Cole had met only once, but unbeknownst to Cole, their lives had been connected for some time. For years, Fergus had been receiving Cole’s medical information and using it to enhance the Company’s offerings. Primarily, Fergus was using Cole to study what happened over time to people who inherited multiple memories, to encourage repeat customers for his black market memory business. He found the fact that Cole had grown addicted to inheriting crime victims’ memories especially intriguing. He believed that if Cole could become addicted to the memories of these losers, these nobodies, then his clients would surely become addicted to the memories that he paid his beautiful young recruits to create. Fergus and Cole didn’t actually meet until Cole realized that the police were finding bodies that had already had their memories removed and he began to investigate. The investigation quickly became ugly.
The only time they had met in person was in the Miami airport over a year earlier. At that meeting, Fergus informed Cole that he’d managed to have a trigger planted inside Cole’s brain that could be set off with a simple odor, one that most other people would fail to even notice. Fergus told Cole that he could simply put the odor on an envelope or a keyboard or an article of clothing, and Cole would never know until it was too late. Fergus promised Cole that if he didn’t lay off his investigation of the Company, they wouldn’t hesitate to set the trigger off. The only reason they kept him alive at all was because the Company could learn from him. Afte
r all, he had been the recipient of more memory transplants than any other person on the planet.
Cole had borne witness to the aftermath of Fergus’s setting off the trigger in someone else’s brain. He had never seen anything like it before and wished that he’d never seen it at all. Cole watched up close and firsthand as a wealthy and seemingly happy businessman named Carter Green blew his brains out the back of his head, only minutes after Fergus had set off his trigger. Cole didn’t need much more to get Fergus’s message. That’s why he hadn’t taken another victim’s memory in so long. He had planned to quit. That was, up until the bombing. He hadn’t told anybody, not even Ed, about the Company. As much as it pained him, he’d done nothing to try to stop them. The only thing that he had done was end his relationship with Dr. Tyson so that she could no longer pass his data on to them directly.
“And you must be Henrietta,” Fergus said, turning to Dr. Tyson. “It is so wonderful to finally meet you after working with you for so long.” Fergus extended his hand toward Dr. Tyson, offering to help her climb out of the SUV.
Instead of accepting his offer to help, Dr. Tyson shook Fergus’s hand. “I would prefer it if you called me Dr. Tyson,” she informed him before stepping out of the SUV on her own. Cole knew about Dr. Tyson’s predilection for avoiding the use of her first name in professional settings. She didn’t have an issue with the name Henrietta per se. She simply found that, as a black woman, she was better served by constantly reminding people of her credentials. It pleased Cole greatly to see the tension between Dr. Tyson and Fergus. Perhaps Dr. Tyson had been telling him the truth.
“Okay, Cole, Dr. Tyson, please come inside. We’ve been prepping the equipment but there’s some preliminary work we’ll need to do on you, Cole, before we can put you under and rid you of these troublesome memories.”
“What sort of preliminary work?” Dr. Tyson asked.
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