Rogue Memory

by Tiffany Frost

  Stephanie knelt on the floor, turning the rug over and running her hand along the seams, looking for some kind of secret compartment. She held it up to the light. She smelled it. Nothing.

  She put the rug back and stood up.

  The floorboards creaked beneath her feet.

  She stepped back over the same spot, listening for the creak in the floorboards.

  She knelt again, rolling the rug up and leaning it against the bed. She bent down on her hands and knees, pressing her ear against the floor. She knocked on the floorboards. Once, twice.

  She inched across the floor, ear to the ground, butt in the air, knocking. She felt like a crazy person.

  Then she heard it.

  The pitch of her knocking changed.

  She sat up.

  It was hollow.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Ivan?” she shouted.

  Stephanie stood up, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste to get to the door. Ivan was standing in the living room, coms open. He was facing the window and the hologram in front of him was half lost in the glare of the light.

  He turned, took one look at her, and muttered, “I’ll call you back.”

  He ended the call and crossed the room, meeting her halfway.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “There’s a hollow space, in the floor. Do you have a knife or a screwdriver or something we can use to pry up the boards?”

  He stared at her for a moment before hurrying to the kitchen. He grabbed a knife out of a drawer.

  “Where?” he asked.

  She ran back to Stephanie’s room, dropping to the floor and knocking until she found the floorboard again.

  “It’s this one,” she said, keeping her hand on the floorboard.

  Ivan knelt beside her. He slid the knife between the floorboards and pressed on the handle until the floorboard popped out.

  Stephanie peered into the hollow depression.

  “There’s a box,” she said. She wiggled the box out of the depression, turning it on its side to find the catch.

  “I can’t believe it took you five minutes to find this,” Ivan shook his head.

  “There’s a code lock.”

  “Try her birthday.”

  She tried it. The lock remained closed. She tried her birthday. Then Ivan’s. He frowned at her.

  “How did...?”

  “There has to be another number. Something important to her.”

  She tried the day they got given their first assignment.

  The number of batch sisters they had.

  Brothers.

  She tried the year the corporation was founded. The date Caroline sprained her ankle in dance class and had to sit out for the rest of the week.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. There had to be something.

  She looked around the room, searching for inspiration. Her eyes landed on the bookshelf.

  “Don’t some old science fiction novels have numbers in their titles?” she asked.

  Ivan nodded. “Try 2001.”

  Nothing.

  “3001.”

  Stephanie shook her head.

  “6082.”

  “No! Damn it.”

  “1984.”

  The lock clicked open.

  Stephanie’s hands shook as she opened the lid. Was this going to be what led them to Sanctuary? Or at least told them who knew where it was?

  Inside the box was a folded piece of paper and a faded copy of a book.

  “She left that book at the center,” Stephanie said, frowning.

  Ivan took the book from her. “Logan’s Run,” he read the cover.

  Stephanie opened the piece of paper, holding her breath.

  She thought, for a moment, that it was going to be a letter. It wasn’t. She scanned the contents of the piece of paper. It was a print out of psychologists and therapists in the area.

  She handed the paper to Ivan.

  He dropped the book in his lap and took the paper. He frowned.

  “She was seeing a psychologist?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” Stephanie rubbed a hand over her face. “Maybe she was just thinking about seeing one.”

  “Why would she do that? Why would she need to keep it a secret? Her foster mum seemed nice. A bit overprotective, but nice.”

  “Caroline wasn’t... well.” And she knew she was breaking.

  Stephanie wondered how it had started for Caroline. How long it had taken from the first symptom until she lost it so badly that the corporation found out. Less time than it had taken her, that was for sure.

  “Maybe one of these people will know something.”

  * * *

  The first three places said they’d never heard of Caroline. The fourth place said they weren’t at liberty to discuss patient records.

  “Can we just talk to her doctor for a moment?” Stephanie asked, shrugging her bag over her shoulder. She’d been reluctant to leave any of her possessions back at the house, adding Caroline’s hidden book to her things.

  “We’re not at lib-”

  “I know,” Stephanie rubbed a hand over her face. She was getting a head ache just talking to the woman.

  “We don’t need to talk about her medical history, but she’s missing and anything the doctor can do to help us find her...”

  “Look, we just need a minute,” Stephanie said, reaching out to put a hand on the woman’s, where it rested on the desk in front of her.

  “I’m really sorry. Even if it wasn’t against policy, that doctor doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “Dr. Volkov,” Stephanie nodded. “Do you have a forwarding address?”

  The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She pulled her hand away from Stephanie’s.

  “Okay, thank you for your time.”

  Stephanie turned and left the building, Ivan close on her heels.

  He waited until they were outside before speaking.

  “How did you know his name?”

  Stephanie frowned, lost in her own thoughts. It seemed too much of a coincidence that the psychiatrist Caroline had been seeing had the same name as her hallucination.

  Maybe Caroline shared him with you somehow... when she gave you the memory of Sanctuary and told you to find Ivan.

  Maybe, Stephanie agreed. That’s not the part that’s bothering me.

  What is?

  “He's been hospitalized,” she said out loud.

  “Who has?”

  “Her psychiatrist.”

  Ivan grabbed Stephanie by the shoulders, turning her to face him. He stared into her eyes, searching for an answer.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I...” can’t tell you. “I need you to trust me.”

  “Why should I, when you clearly don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t know... I don’t have a good answer for that, Ivan. Maybe someday I will, but not now, okay?”

  “Damn it, Stephanie, Caroline hid things from me too and they took her. And I don’t even know who they are because she never told me anything. But I think you know exactly who took her.”

  He was breathing heavily, eyes flashing. Stephanie shrugged his hands away and stepped back. She didn’t know where all of his anger was coming from, but if it was strong enough for her to feel it, even through her leather jacket, it was bad.

  “We shouldn’t talk about this here,” she muttered.

  “So, you do know? Was it the same people who came for you?”

  Stephanie gritted her teeth and nodded.

  “You have to tell me what’s going on. Why are people after you? How do you know things without people telling you? How did you fix my legs when my kneecaps were smashed to pieces, but butcher your arm taking out your coms?”

  Stephanie touched him without thinking, catching his face in her hands. She tried to make him calm down and listen to her. Everything was going to be okay. He just had to trust her. Except she didn’t exactly know what trust felt like.

 
He covered her hands with his and breathed out slowly. “I want to help you, Stephanie, but you have to let me in.”

  “I will.” She swallowed. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  He tugged her hands away from his face, holding them between their bodies. Pain creased his brow and made his dark eyes shine.

  “But not yet,” he said. He let go of her hands.

  Disappointment threatened to crush her.

  “We need to find out what Dr. Volkov knows first. He might be the key to finding Sanctuary and saving Caroline.”

  “Yeah,” Ivan turned his back on her, calling a car on his coms.

  She watched his shoulders round and felt a twinge of pain somewhere beneath her ribs. She’d done that. She was responsible for making strong shoulders sag beneath the weight of her distrust.

  I want to trust you, she thought.

  He didn’t turn around.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The facility Dr. Volkov was staying at was on the edge of town. Its sprawling, landscaped gardens were surrounded by a tall white fence.

  Stephanie looked it up before they got there. It was a combination facility for rehabilitating drug users, criminals, and people who had faced psychological difficulties and trauma.

  They had to sign in at the gate.

  Stephanie held her wrist band out to be scanned.

  “I’m sorry, we’ve upgraded our systems,” the man at the gate said. He was dressed in neat civilian clothes, a cardigan and a collared shirt, but something about him made the words military service flash through her mind.

  “Upgraded how?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “DNA samples only.”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow. “That’s more intense than most station security.”

  “It’s the most accurate way to run a background check,” the guard shrugged.

  “Okay,” Ivan nodded.

  “That’s fine,” Stephanie squeaked.

  She waited for Ivan to go first.

  She didn’t know how long it would take for the search on her DNA to ping back to the corporation, or how long it would take for them to send someone there. If they had someone planet side...

  Ivan finished and she held her hand out to the guard, one finger pointed. He guided it to the read-screen and she felt a small twinge as it took a sample.

  A light in the machine flashed green and the guard nodded.

  He did something to the console and the gate swung open, letting their car through.

  “You should be able to find Mingyu Volkov by the lake. It’s time for mindful practice and engagement with nature.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ivan added the information to the car and they sped off, coming to a stop on the edge of the woods.

  “This is as close as we can get,” Ivan said.

  “Can you get the car to wait? This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Yeah,” Ivan turned to his coms.

  Stephanie stepped out of the car, scanning the area. She saw the lake in the distance, an old man in a gray jacket sat on a bench by the water, feeding ducks from a paper bag. She looked around, grateful not to see anyone else.

  She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she started to walk down to the lake. She heard Ivan close the door to the car and start walking behind her, his footsteps muffled on the dirt track.

  “Dr. Volkov?” she said, hesitantly. He looked almost exactly the same as her Dr. Volkov. His hair was a little longer and had a little more gray in it. The bags under his eyes were bigger. But the watery brown eyes were the same.

  He stared at her as though he had no idea who she was and it took her a moment to realize that he didn’t

  She cleared her throat. “My name is Stephanie. Do you remember treating a girl named Caroline? She had blonde hair and was about this tall,” Stephanie measured the air beside her.

  He nodded.

  “I’m her sister.”

  “Sit down,” he whispered. “They have ears everywhere.”

  Stephanie sat down. “They?’

  “The corporation. The ones who put me here,” his eyes shifted past her and he leaned back against the bench, eyes wide with fear.

  Stephanie glanced over her shoulder. “It’s okay. That’s Ivan, he’s with me.”

  “Are you sure? They can make people.”

  Stephanie smiled. “They didn’t make him.”

  “They took her.” Dr. Volkov went back to feeding the ducks, reaching a hand into the bag and throwing pellets into the water.

  “I have to ask you something.”

  “I didn’t tell them...” he glanced around.

  Slowly, he tilted the bag to her. His hand shook.

  “You can take it,” he said.

  Stephanie reached for the bag. Her fingertips brushed against the doctor’s.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  She took a handful of the pellets and scattered them across the water. The ducks swam closer, pecking at the pellets.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said.

  Stephanie put the bag down on the bench between them and stood up.

  “Do you think...” he cleared his throat. “Do you think you can come back for me? Once you find it?”

  Stephanie nodded. Tears pricked at her eyes. “Good bye, Dr. Volkov.”

  “Good bye.”

  Stephanie waved to Ivan as she turned away from the doctor and started walking back to the car. He fell in step beside her.

  “That was fast,” he commented. “What did he say?”

  “He told me how to find Sanctuary.”

  * * *

  They went back to Caroline’s old house. Ivan’s house.

  “Wait,” Stephanie saw movement in the distance. “Dim the windows. Circle past the house. Don’t stop.”

  Ivan followed her instructions without asking why.

  They moved slowly past the property. Stephanie strained to see through the shadowed canopy of the car. She thought she’d seen...

  “Keep going. There’s someone there. How did they find me so soon?”

  Ivan peered through the window. “Were we followed?”

  Stephanie groaned. “The security check. We went through together. They must have found your address somehow.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard.”

  “What?’

  Ivan shrugged. “Property rights are public record.”

  Stephanie banged her head against the back of her chair. “I hate this planet. I want to go back to Ecrune.”

  Ivan’s eyebrows shot up. “You lived on Ecrune?”

  “It’s not that far from here.”

  “No, but...” Ivan shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. We have to get out of here.”

  “We can’t go straight to the shuttle port, they’ll be looking for us. For both of us.” Stephanie winced.

  “I have a friend. We can stay at her place while the heat dies down.”

  “Are you sure? What if it doesn’t die down? What if they keep looking for us? I can’t put anyone else in danger like that.”

  “Just me, hey?” Ivan chuckled.

  “I didn’t mean-”

  “We’ll find a way.”

  Stephanie bit her lip.

  Ivan took her hand in his. “I’m not going to let them take you.” Not like they took Caroline.

  * * *

  Who are these people? Maia said as they waited outside one of the biggest houses she’d ever seen.

  He didn’t say. Friends.

  Are you sure about this? Just because they’re friends of his doesn’t mean they’re going to be friends of yours.

  I know that, Maia.

  The door swung open. A woman stood in front of them. She looked about their age but something about her seemed more settled somehow, more mature. Like she knew her place in life and was content with it.

  Her eyes skimmed past Ivan and ran her up and down. Stephanie sagged
beneath the weight of her disapproval.

  “Who is this?” the woman asked.

  “Let us in, Katia, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  The woman’s lips tightened into a thin line but she stepped aside.

  Stephanie followed Ivan through the door, carefully avoiding brushing against the woman as she entered. The displeasure on her face was enough, she didn’t need to see it in her mind as well.

  “I’ve seen you,” the woman said, closing the door behind her back.

  “Sorry, I haven’t been around for a while.” Ivan ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up at odd angles.

  “Not you. Her.”