Plasma Frequency Magazine: Issue 12

by Arley

  She reaches out and grabs Woods' hand. Etched across his palm: PR324181M.

  "You're political?"

  "Back in the day. Not so much now. Little call for it on a planet like this." He grins. She finds it surprisingly disarming.

  Behind them, Dick Brain, as she now thinks of him, grunts. Then she hears movement. He's up, Woods' arrow in his hands. He's used it to cut through some of his bindings, and now he lunges at Woods with it. Automatically, she produces from up her sleeve a small blade she didn't even know she had and sticks it in him. It slides in easily, straight between the ribs and up. It's an economic and deadly efficient move. She can see herself doing this before...to another man...men. They deserved it too.

  Dick Brain gurgles and slumps down. The dilemma of what to do with him has been resolved. Woods retrieves his arrow. As he bends down she can't see his face, but she reads the tension in his body.

  "He was going to kill you."

  "He was going to try. Wouldn't be the first. It was you I didn't see coming. You're quick with that blade. I didn't even know you were packing."

  "Neither did I."

  "Full of surprises, aren't we?"

  There is a dense silence between them.

  "Do you want help with the body?"

  "No, it's okay, thanks. I can handle things."

  "I'm sure you can, sister."

  A fresh start. She'd liked the idea, but already there is blood on her hands. She feels her past creeping up on her, even if she can't remember its name.

  "By the way, I shan't be mentioning this, unless you want me to. You might want me to, though. There's no harm in having a reputation down here. Keeps the dogs at bay, though the worst of the packs are over in the hills by Nomansland, too far away to be of bother. You've landed on the good side of the land mass."

  "Great. What else do I need to know about the planet?"

  "Its official name is Osiris IV, but folks here call it Mother. There's more than enough space for everyone on Mother, if you keep to this side of the land mass. Some people find it lonely, but it suits me. I'm naturally anti-social. On that note, steer clear of folks until you know what's what. For all this is the good side, Dick Brain there would have been in good company. Go with your gut. Memories can be e-razored, but deep instincts can't. So until you know, trust no one."

  "What about you?"

  "Not even me."

  Woods is checking his bow and reclaimed arrow as he is speaking and, before she has the chance to ask how he knows things like the planet's real name if he's been e-razored like everyone else, he steps back into the undergrowth and disappears into it. She goes to look for him, but he's gone.

  ~

  It's just her now, her and her little piece of Mother and a fresh start. The demands of the survive-and-settle program keep her busy. They can be ignored, but she doesn't want to. She has no real memories to keep her company, just the occasional disconcerting flashback, and it helps to be busy. She doesn't know whether to be grateful or curse to hell and back the authorities who deprived her of her past self.

  At first though, it's the least of her worries: survival is where it's at, but seasons pass, crops get planted and grow, the clearing becomes a compound, becomes a homestead. From time to time there are even visitors. Some come and go; welcome distractions. Others arrive without warning and are not so welcome. Few of these leave; men mostly. Her instincts regarding the male urge to combine violence with sex remain razor sharp and without tolerance. She suspects it's something to do with her past, but she doesn't know. The lack of knowing becomes a problem. She is growing a new life, constructing new stories, but the need to hear the old stories and understand the flashbacks is increasing, and now it keeps her awake at night, gnawing into her sleep. Who is she really? How much of herself has she lost along with her memories?

  ~

  It was a night of three full moons when Woods came visiting again. She was already awake, tossing and fretting about unremembered things. Woods approached loudly and stood in front of the homestead, clearly visible in the tripartite light. His bow and quiver were laid on the earth at his feet. Laurel went out to him.

  Close up, it was clear he had aged. The white had stained more of his beard and hair and the lines on his face had become gullies.

  "Long time no see, Woods. How're you doing?"

  "Getting by. You've done wonders here. What do you feed the crops on to get 'em to grow so strong?"

  "I get good fertilizer from the recycler. The odd visitor helps out."

  "That's what I heard. Got yourself a reputation as someone who's strong and straight, but don't take no prisoners when crossed. Someone it's best to avoid."

  "I guess that's fair."

  "I guess it is."

  He really did look old and unwell.

  "So what can I do for you, Woods?"

  "I got a favour to ask. I wouldn't normally, but I'm not so well these days, and I could do with some company and a helping hand from time to time or, I guess, I need a different sort of helping hand. Either way, I figured you'd be the right one to assist."

  "So what's wrong with you?"

  "I'm no medic, but I'd say cell corruption. The sort they'd cure back on the homeworld. The sort I'll die from here in Mother's tender care. I reckon it's not long now, but I'm thinking it ain't gonna be pleasant. So I'm here."

  "Why me?"

  "I been watching you, on and off. You're straight, clever, and are willing to do what's necessary. I find I ain't so willing when it comes to myself and by the time I'm willing, I may not be able. But folk come visiting here who don't leave. I'm aiming to be one of those folk, though how long I get to stay is down to you."

  "How long?"

  "I been watching you? On and off ever since we first met. How long I got? Not long. Weeks at most, I reckon, maybe much less, depending on things. On you."

  She wasn't used to others depending on her. Perhaps she had been in the past, she didn't know, but not now.

  "If you let me stay, I'll help with the crops and the homestead while I can and trade you knowledge and past stories when I can't. When one of us can't cope no more, and you'll be the decider of that, I'll help with the crops in a different way, I guess. I'll be one that came and didn't leave."

  "What knowledge and stories you got that I might want?"

  "A long time on Mother and stories from back on the homeworld. I've got memories from when Osiris IV was nothing but a blip on the star chart."

  "You got your memories back?" If there was shock in her voice it didn't show on her face, even when Woods suddenly collapsed on the ground in front of her, pale and clammy like sweating wax.

  Woods regained consciousness to find himself in a proper bed within the cabin.

  "It's been a while since I lay in a bed."

  "Don't you have one at your place?"

  "Made do with a hammock. Never put down real roots 'cause I always thought I'd be going home some day. Should've known better, I guess."

  Laurel was thoughtful. "This is the only home I can remember. Ain't got nothing to go back to."

  Woods' thoughts were focused elsewhere. "I wasn't expecting to wake up here. I wasn't even sure I'd be waking up. Thought your recycler might've been keen to make some fresh, rich fertilizer?"

  "You promised me stories and memories. I ain't got none of my own. The crops can wait for their feed. So how can you remember? Did your memories come back on their own?" She paused. "You gonna answer me, Woods? Woods?"

  The next time he came round, Laurel wasn't there, but there was a cold mug of stew on a chair beside the bed and an unconfidently written note: Your stories better be good. Specially the memories.

  He half ate, half drank the stew, despite the grease on its surface, and fell asleep again.

  Laurel was peering dubiously at him when he opened his eyes next.

  "'Bout time you told me some of those memories," she said as she handed him a mug of stew, warm this time. So he did.

  He tol
d her of the blue-green planet that was the homeworld, of its beauties and its ugliness, its inequalities and the corruption he had fought until it caught up with him.

  "I felt sure they were gonna execute me, but there was a change at the helm before sentence was passed, and I got exiled here instead."

  "And they didn't e-razor you?" Laurel asked expectantly.

  “Oh yes, they did. I woke up planet side as clear as a new born baby, just like you did: Johnny No-Name and with nothing but the survive-and-settle imperative to keep me going."

  "Then I don't understand. Where do your memories come from? Did they grow back?"

  "Patience, Laurel. I'll tell you all, but first I gotta rest."

  Laurel begged for more now, but Woods was already asleep. Laurel realised her only hope to learn more was to keep him looked after and alive long enough to hear all he'd got to say. She guessed he realised that, too. She just hoped he didn't drag out the stories for too long.

  Woods surfaced briefly to find another note and another mug of something cold, but was too weak to pay much attention to either. After that, Laurel woke him to make him eat or drink something hot and to tell her some more memories, but while he was always willing to unwind his past in front of her, he was always vague about how he got his memories back.

  "At first, one or two came back unprompted: snippets of high emotion, like the birth of my daughter. I could remember her in detail with her wet, straggly brown hair, but I couldn't remember my wife. Then there was the death of my dog, but I couldn't remember him alive. I focused on those instances long and hard, and slowly I got glimpses of other surrounding memories: Abigail's first steps, Benjy bringing home a live rabbit." At that point, he'd deviate to tell her the story of some inconsequential domestic event that interested only him, but nothing about when the memories started coming back for real, or why, or how long it took to get them all grown back.

  Laurel was becoming increasingly anxious. Each time Woods fell asleep, he slept for longer. Each time he woke, he stayed awake for less and was clearly in pain. She needed to know how to get her memories back, how long she'd have to wait before there was hope. Eventually her impatience to know won out.

  "You're fading, Woods. You ain't got many more days in you. You gonna tell me what I want to know?"

  His grin was sickly. "Or what? You're gonna hurry things along and make me into fertilizer a couple of days early?"

  "There wasn't an 'or what?' intended. I was just asking. I figure you owe me and that maybe there's still stuff you want to say before it's too late."

  Woods sipped his broth slowly. "Yeah, you could be right. No time like the present.

  "It was about two years into my sentence here with Mother. I allowed myself to get close to a newcon, called herself Jane. A pretty young thing, but edgy, always edgy. She weren't one to back down from a fight, but, unlike you, she weren't that good at it. She picked one fight too many and got herself killed, but the bastards took their time doing it. I found her. Had to finish her off myself. Hated myself for it and her for causing it and them most of all for what they'd done. That's a big wave of emotion to ride, and happened it was big enough to wake up some strong feelings from my past. Abigail's birth was the first one, then Benjy's death. Of course, once I got the taste, I wanted to remember more, but nothing else came for a long while.

  I spent at least another year focusing on what memories I'd got, before the secondary ones revealed themselves, but no more after that, regardless of how hard I tried, and I tried very hard.

  "Then I got to hear there was a guy out by Desperation Lake as had found some old kit that could jolt your memories back into place. Spent a year traveling to see him, and he did the business on me."

  "It worked? How did it work? What did he do? How do I find him?"

  "Whoa, slow down, Laurel. I need another rest."

  He'd never seen her look so emotional.

  "Not now, Woods. Please not now. I need to know more, before it's too late. Please."

  Woods struggled to keep his eyes open.

  "What do you need to know for, Laurel? You're doing all right for yourself here. Could be doing a whole lot worse. Memories aren't always for the best. I got stuff that broke my heart when it happened and broke my heart all over again when I remembered it. There are some things I wish I never knew. Maybe you got things like that too?"

  "Possibly, but I don't know and, right now, it's the don't know that hurts. They took more than memories away. They took a large chunk of me away, too."

  "I used to believe that but found it's not as cut and dried as I used to think. There's gut and instinct and the person I might've been if things had worked out different. He's the one that paid for my memories. You get your memories back, you lose something in return. It balances. You ready for that?"

  Laurel didn't answer, but despite his exhaustion, Woods was on a roll.

  "You think I was ready to remember how the authorities tortured my wife to death just to find me? How they put my Abigail up for sale to any taker as an unwanted child? You think I want to know such stuff, to carry it around with me for the rest of my days, worrying who bought her, how they treated her, if she's okay. Wondering if I'm ever going to see her again and if I do, if I'll even recognise her? Wasting the time I got hopelessly planning how to get away from Mother to go home and find her?"

  "Woods, I'm sorry."

  "Not as sorry as me, sister. Not as sorry as I am knowing there ain't gonna be no going home." His eyes closed, and he slept.

  Woods came round once more while Laurel was out checking animal traps. When she got back home, there was a poorly scrawled note lying on the chair by the bed: a name and a briefly described location out by Desperation Lake, plus the message: Remember, you could do worse. Beside it, Woods was dead.

  ~

  Laurel didn't think of herself as soft, but she couldn't bring herself to dispose of Woods' body in the recycler. She dug him a grave the old fashioned way. Digging was good, and it took her mind off things while, ironically, giving her space to think.

  A name. A barely recognisable location. Not much to go on, but they might be enough to help her get her memories back; help her find herself—the woman they had taken and locked away when they dumped Laurel on Mother. She'd have to abandon the homestead to go find the memory man—he was on the other side of Osiris IV—but if he'd got what she wanted, she could always try to come back home. Except it wouldn't be home anymore. Home would be where her memories were, and it was likely she'd never be able to go home ever again. If it turned out to be a wasted journey, and she didn't get her memories back, she'd have given up all she had for nothing.

  She opened her palm and stared at the purple number, still as clearly legible as the day it was tattooed. She could almost remember having it done, the prick and the throb of the needle, but the memory was hidden behind a thick, impenetrable curtain. What had she done to earn LoD. Did she want to know, and was she prepared to pay the retrospective bill, however big it was?

  Laurel finished digging the hole. She placed Woods's body in it and said a few words, though to what, or for whom, she wasn't too sure. Standing by the open grave, she thrust her hands in her pockets. Woods's last note was folded up in one of them: You could do worse.

  "I probably could," she said out loud. "I've known worse," and as she said it, she realised it was true. She still couldn't remember, but her gut could.

  Laurel looked at her convict number in the palm of one hand and Woods's note held in the other. Then she glanced around the fresh green of the clearing and all she had made of it. Slowly she made a fist and crumpled the note, throwing it into the grave hole. Then she began to shovel the soil back in. She still had a lot of work to do today—the homestead wouldn't maintain itself.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J.S.Watts lives and writes in Britain. Her poetry, short stories and reviews appear in publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and America including: Acumen, Envoi, Mslexia and Orbis and have
been broadcast on BBC and independent radio. A poetry collection, “Cats and Other Myths”, and a poetry pamphlet, “Songs of Steelyard Sue” are published by Lapwing Publications. A novel, “A Darker Moon”, a dark psychological fantasy, is published by Vagabondage Press. See: www.jswatts.co.uk orwww.facebook.com/J.S.Watts.page.

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  By Rachel Kolar

  They were going to have the fight again.

  Brian stood outside the door of the apartment, hand hovering over the knob, trying to ignore the lingering pain at his temples where the student loan officer had removed the neural probes. He didn't want to go inside. As soon as he went inside, he'd have to tell Danielle how much money they still owed, and then they'd have the fight again.

  Don't be so sarcastic this time, he reminded himself; then he took a deep breath and opened the door.

  His wife was sitting at her easel by the window, stippling something in green. Her head jerked up as he came in, and she wiped her hands on her ratty smock. "How did it go?"

  He kissed her forehead, trying to ignore the knots in his stomach. "Good. The memories scanned in fine, and the loan officer said U Maryland would unlock my transcripts and send my journals and stuff from junior year in a week or two."

  Danielle nodded, but he could feel her body tensing. She knows. She knows I don't remember meeting her yet. If I did, I would have mentioned it right away. "What about us?"

  "I remember seeing you. We both knocked out our science requirement with—"

  She pulled back, eyes bright. "Did we talk?"

  And here it starts. He might not be able to remember their past, but he knew the next few minutes of their future well enough:

  "Eleven thousand dollars? How can we get that with a teacher's aide paycheck? We can barely even pay rent."

  "I'd be pulling in more if you knew how to budget. I'm not the one who got our educations foreclosed."

  Sometimes she'd blame him for not helping her to budget, but usually she'd start yammering about her art. "At least I'm doing something to get us out of it. My last painting made—"

  "—almost as much as you spent on the oils!"