“Most of the time.”
“And do you remember your own very early life?”
“I remember my birth,” Tarasov said. “Lots of people on the spectrum do.”
“Well, there it is,” said Singh, looking at Susan then back at Tarasov. “Everyone starts out life thinking in pictures; they have to, of course—we don’t get language until much later. When we do acquire language, our indexing system for memories changes: words, rather than images, become the principal triggers of recall, and we can no longer recall things from before we had sophisticated linguistic abilities. It’s been argued that the memories are still there, but they’re inaccessible. But you, Mr. Tarasov, can access Miss Hennessey’s original indexing system, the prelinguistic one, because you think in pictures. You can remember things from her past that she herself no longer can. In fact…can you remember her birth?”
He thought about it. “I was born in Russia, at home, years before my family came here. But Dora…she’d been born—yes, I can see it now—in a hospital room with blue walls, and—the details are fuzzy; I guess infants don’t focus well—and the doctor doing the delivery was a woman with short black hair.”
“Incredible,” said Singh, his voice full of awe. “Fascinating.”
“This isn’t an academic point,” said Tarasov, sharply. “I can’t get the memories of her being molested out of my mind. They keep coming to me every time I look at my own daughter. It’s like having horrific child pornography constantly shoved in my face.”
“I’m sorry,” said Singh. “I am so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix it,” said Tarasov, and for once he looked directly at Singh. “This needs to be solved, right away.”
CHAPTER 30
DARRYL Hudkins had never flown business class, and he’d assumed he never would. But the president had, for some reason, insisted they take a commercial airliner to their destination, and the next flight heading there had nothing but premium seats available.
All of which was fine, except…
Except it was a long flight, and…
And he could read Bessie’s memories.
He swallowed and tried to be calm, tried to ignore them, but…
But she was nervous, damn it all. She was nervous traveling with him because—
Because he was black.
Because she’d heard awful things about black men.
Because both in DC and back where she lived in Mississippi, most of the crime—or so she thought—was committed by black men.
He tried not to think about what she was thinking about, tried to put her thoughts out of his mind, but—
But it came back to him. She’d thought the n-word.
The fucking n-word!
He leafed through the in-flight magazine, noting another petty indignity—the almost complete lack of black people in the ads. He looked around at the other passengers: a fat white guy softly snoring, a prim white woman reading on a Nook, two white men chatting softly about some sort of investment.
And, damn it all, he couldn’t help wondering what experience Bessie had had with black men, and—
And to wonder was to know.
Bessie had grown up in Memphis. Lots of blacks there, of course, but even after all this time, not much mixing; even after all this time, separate but not equal; even after all this time, people thinking, even if they never said it, “colored” and “Negro” and worse.
His stomach churned, and not just because the plane was experiencing turbulence.
NO sooner had Ivan Tarasov left Singh’s lab than two more people came in.
Oh, joy, thought Susan. The people were Rachel Cohen, the woman who worked in accounts receivable at LT, and Orrin Gillett, the lawyer who’d tried to get out as the lockdown was being initiated yesterday. Susan was surprised to see them back here—surely Rachel didn’t normally work weekends, and Orrin had made it crystal clear that this was the last place he wanted to be.
“Professor Singh,” Rachel said. “I was hoping you’d be in today.”
“And Agent Dawson,” said Gillett, dryly. “Always a pleasure.”
“Is everything okay?” Singh asked. “Miss Cohen, you can read Mr. Gillett, I believe? Has anything changed in that regard overnight?”
Susan thought he sounded hopeful; if their link had weakened or broken of its own accord, of course that would be wonderful.
“No,” said Rachel. “It’s still exactly like yesterday.”
“I am so sorry,” said Singh. “Believe me, I had no idea—”
“I saw you on TV earlier this morning,” Rachel said, cutting him off. “The interview you gave.”
“Ah, yes. I hear they subtitled me! Really, my accent isn’t that thick, is it?”
“You said you were trying to break the linkages.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You can’t,” Rachel said simply.
Singh smiled. “You do wonders for my confidence, Miss Cohen. I admit I don’t yet have any clue how—”
“I mean you can’t,” Rachel said. “I won’t allow it.”
“Pardon?”
She reached over and took Orrin Gillett’s hand in hers. “I like being linked to Orrin. I don’t want you to break the link.”
Susan was surprised, and so, quite clearly, was Ranjip. “But, Ms. Cohen,” he said, “once I figure it out, I suspect all the links will break simultaneously.”
“I don’t care about the other links, but you can’t break mine. It’s important to me. And it’s important to Orrin, too, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Gillett said.
Susan was baffled. “But why?”
Gillett looked at her. Rachel squeezed his hand, and said, “It’s okay.”
“Because,” Gillett said, “it makes this woman the perfect lover. Don’t you see? She knows exactly what I like; she knows everything there is to know about me.”
“And,” said Rachel, “I get to recall us making love from his point of view—him seeing me, feeling what it’s like for him being inside me.”
Singh’s complexion didn’t let him visibly blush, but he nonetheless looked embarrassed. “Well, as my son would say…” Ranjip began, and it came to Susan before he completed his sentence exactly what Harpreet would say: “‘Whatever floats your boat.’” But then Ranjip shook his head. “But, as I said, I believe it is an all-or-nothing proposition as far as the network of linkages is concerned.”
“Be that as it may,” said Gillett, “Rachel does not consent to the procedure.”
“What?” said Susan—but she could see Singh frowning.
Gillett faced her. “Before this hospital, or any other, may perform an experimental procedure on someone, that someone has to provide informed consent. And Rachel chooses not to.”
“The others want the links severed,” said Singh.
“I don’t care what the others want,” said Rachel. “You are talking about making a fundamental change to my mind, my mental processes—and I forbid it.”
“But it was an accident—”
“That’s right: what you did to me before was an accident. But what you’re talking about doing now is premeditated, and I won’t allow it.”
“Really, Ms. Cohen—”
Gillett folded his arms in front of his chest. “Listen to her, Professor Singh. Without informed patient consent, you can’t conduct any procedure on her—and you know that. And you categorically do not have my—my client’s consent.”
“This is a national-security matter,” Susan said.
“Why?” said Gillett, wheeling on her. “Because you say so? Puh-leeze. Rachel’s reading me, and I’m reading a security guard, for God’s sake. There’s no national-security issue involving us—but you can bet that we’ll bring one hell of a lawsuit if you wreck this for us.”
THE flight attendants were coming through the cabin, offering beverages. Darryl got himself a Pepsi, and Bessie had a coffee, and—
And when the attendant asked her how
she wanted it, she hesitated, that same silly hesitancy he’d seen a million times from white people who never once would have associated race with a phrase like “a white Christmas.”
“Black,” she said at last.
Bessie had the window seat. They brought down the seat-back trays—effectively trapping them until their beverages were consumed—and so this seemed like the perfect time; she couldn’t just excuse herself to go to the lavatory. Darryl took a deep breath. He didn’t want to speak loudly—he didn’t want others on the plane overhearing. “You know I know what you know,” he said.
She looked puzzled for a moment, perhaps trying to disentangle all the “knows,” but then she lifted her head, and her chin stuck out defiantly. “There is no law against having thoughts,” she said. “This isn’t the Soviet Union.”
He frowned; she was old. He tried to make a joke. “Or China, either.”
But she was buoyed. “Exactly. I can think whatever I want to think.”
“Yes, ma’am, you can. I can’t stop you. But…”
Bessie seemed content to let him trail off; she turned and looked out at the clouds—perhaps pleased to see nothing but whiteness.
“But,” continued Darryl, “I’m a good man, ma’am. I serve my country every day. I’m good to my mother, and to my brothers and sisters. I’m not what you think I am—think we are.”
“I don’t know anything about you,” Bessie said.
“That’s exactly right, ma’am. You don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. But I know everything about you. It’s none of my business—I understand that. But I can’t help it. And, you know what, ma’am? I’ve been searching—forgive me, but I have. Searching for when a black man hurt you, or dissed you, or maybe stole something from you. Searching for when one of us did something to make you feel the way you do.”
She turned back to face him. “Well, one of you is violating me right now.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand that. It isn’t right, what I’m doing, is it? But like you said, there’s no law against having thoughts, and, to tell you the truth, I don’t even know how not to think about things.” He paused. “And not to be the pot calling the kettle black”—he smiled gently to let her know that he was conscious of what he was saying—“but I’ve no doubt you’re doing the same thing with Prospector—President Jerrison. I doubt you can help yourself any more than I can.”
That, at least, got the barest of nods.
“So, I’ve tried to recall stuff about unpleasant experiences with black people. And, well, I can’t find it. So, I thought maybe you just hadn’t stored that they were black folk, although that seemed strange that you wouldn’t. And, well, I’m sorry about that guy at high school and what he did to you…but I don’t think he was black; I don’t think there were any blacks in your school. And I’m sorry about the way Cletus treated you—but with a name like that, there’s no way he’s black. And I’m sorry about all the other bad things that I can recall that happened to you.”
“They…”
She stopped herself, but he could guess. “They weren’t my fault—that’s what you were going to say, right? And you’re right—they weren’t. But they weren’t the fault of any black person. Yetyou don’t like being around black people.”
“I really would rather not have this conversation,” she said.
“Honestly? I’d rather we didn’t need to have it, ma’am. But I think we do. Stuff happens for a reason. I think the Good Lord set this up on purpose.”
Bessie seemed to consider this for a few moments, and then, at last, she nodded. “Perhaps he did, at that.”
“I know you believe in God, ma’am.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I do, too. And there’s only one God, ma’am. He made us all.”
She nodded again. “Yes, I suppose he did.”
“So, I guess all I’m saying, ma’am, is I don’t think you’ve ever had a black friend.”
“That’s not true,” she said at once, the words coming quickly. But it was a reflex response, Darryl knew, and at least she halted herself before getting out, “Some of my best friends are black.”
Darryl decided not to challenge the statement directly; instead, he just let it pass as if he hadn’t heard it—after all, on reflection, she had to know that he knew what she’d said wasn’t true. “And so,” he continued, his tone even, “I’d like to be your first.” He held out his hand.
She looked at it for several seconds, as if not sure what to do. And then she lifted her own hand and took his. This surely, he thought, must be a memorable moment for her: as far as he’d been able to determine, one of the few times she’d ever shaken hands with a black man. And so, as he released her hand, and she returned hers to—no, not all the way to her lap, where it had been, but just to the armrest between them—he let his mind search for the memory that had just been laid down, the one of that moment where his flesh had touched hers.
And he saw himself as she had coded him; of course, his mind couldn’t help but impose his actual face on whatever cues she’d stored. But it wasn’t himself that he was curious about, it was her thoughts, her feelings.
And they came to him. She’d been surprised by the feel of his hand, the roughness of his skin—and she’d been surprised, even though she’d noted such things before, by how light-colored his palm was. She’d also been surprised that he wore an analog watch—nothing to do with his skin color, and everything to do with his age; she’d expected all young people to wear digital ones if they bothered with a watch at all. He’d let go of her hand—and she’d noted him smiling at her. And, yes, she’d actually thought about whether to bring her hand all the way back to her lap, but, with a small effort of will, she’d stopped herself from doing that. And included with the memory, a part of it, a part of her, and now a part of him, were four small words.
That wasn’t so bad.
It was a start.
CHAPTER 31
DR.Eric Redekop parked his Mercedes out front of the Bronze Shield, which was a much larger building than he’d expected it to be; Jan was used to its size, he guessed, and so her memories hadn’t really encoded it as remarkable. He knew in a vague way that gaming was big business, but it still surprised him that the store was so large, and—
And it was closed! The front door was locked; he almost snapped the fingers off his hand in the cold yanking on the handle. He looked at the business hours; they didn’t open until noon on Saturday. He blew out air, watching it form a cloud in front of him.
And then it hit him, a memory—the memory he needed. The store opened at noon, but the gaming room opened at 10:00 A.M., with players coming and going by the back door.
He looked left and right, recognized left, and headed that way, and—ah!—there it was, a door painted in a pinkish beige that his old pencil-crayon set had called, back in the days of easy racism, “flesh.” He closed the distance and pulled, gingerly this time, on the handle. But, crap, this door was locked, too.
Another memory came to him: you had to knock. He did.
About ten seconds later, a guy in his twenties with long, greasy hair, wearing a T-shirt depicting Robot Chicken (Jan knew it, even if he didn’t) pushed the door open. Eric was prepared to have to explain himself, but the guy just held the door until Eric stepped into the large back room, which had five long tables set up with people seated around them, and—
And there she was: Janis Falconi.
Her back was to him, but there was no mistaking the tiger tattoo covering her left shoulder and continuing down her arm.
It was odd to be in a room that he’d never been in before and yet to know it. The washroom was over there, behind the door with the poster of The Incredible Hulk taped to it. The vending machine, next to it, was famous for running out of Diet Coke.
The guys sitting at Jan’s table all had nicknames: Luckless, Bazinga (in truth, her brother Rudy), and Optimus Prime; even Jan didn’t know the real name of the last of those.
; She was laughing—he could hear her, and see her shoulders going up and down. He changed his position slightly so he could get just a glimpse of her profile; it was so good to see her being happy. He wondered if any of those she was playing with knew that this one day a month was just about the only time she was happy when she wasn’t at work.
All the players seemed absorbed in what they were doing. At one table, they had boxes of donuts spread out. At another, some boisterous discussion was going on about something that had just happened in the game.
There were other chairs—metal-frame stacking ones with gray carpetlike upholstery, the kind you bought at Staples—stacked against the pale green wall. Several more tables whose legs had been folded up were leaning against the wall. Eric removed a chair from the stack and sat down, waiting for Jan’s game to end; everyone was so intent on what they were doing, they simply ignored him. He pulled out his iPhone, flicked until the screen displaying the Kobo app was shown, tapped on it, and opened the new book he’d bought recently, the latest Jack McDevitt novel, and tried to lose himself in it, but—
But it all seemed so…so familiar. Granted, it was another installment in McDevitt’s Alex Benedict series, but…
But that wasn’t it. He’d read this already, and—
No, no. Jan had read it. He scrolled through his list of books, looking for something else to read.
Suddenly, the D&D game at Jan’s table was over. Bazinga was leaning back in his chair, chatting animatedly with Luckless. Optimus Prime was putting away all the polyhedral dice and lead miniatures. Jan stood and picked up her chair, ready to add it to a stack against the wall, and, as she turned, she saw Eric, and her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open into a perfect O. She came over to him. “Eric, what are you doing here?”
Others were milling about as they put chairs away. Bazinga and Luckless came near, carrying the table they’d been using over to the wall.
He didn’t know if this was the right moment—didn’t know if there’d ever be the right moment—didn’t want to shatter the happiness she seemed to be feeling just now. “Umm, Jan, can I speak to you for a moment?”
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