“Well, I just want to know what you really think of implants. You’ve spent all your life learning about the time before they were around.” She cast her eyes down at his shoes, fluttering her eyelashes.
He sighed. “They keep us safe. Life is much better now.”
“Do you believe that, though?” She gazed back up at him with a tiny smile on her pale lips.
“Well,” he said, “it’s been sixty years since the turn of the century. How often do you hear of murders and other horrible things we do to each other?”
“Well, if the implant is in the brainstem and supposedly gathers our violent emotions or whatever you want to say they do, what’s to keep…” she lowered her voice, glancing over her shoulder again “what’s to keep them from tracking us, where we go, what we eat, do, who we sleep with.” She gave him an innocent look that looked practiced.
He broke the tension with a nervous laugh. He had to get out of here. “If you’re paying Xchange Credits for that, well, I am pretty sure it’s illegal.”
Her shoulders slumped. She finally took the hint, he thought, as she hefted her bag onto her shoulder and now looked at the exit with longing. “Well, I thought you’d be more open-minded. That’s all.” She walked toward the door, calling out as she left the classroom. “But they don’t record who you sleep with supposedly.”
As the young woman left him, tension filled his body. Amanda’s face came to mind again, but alive, happy.
He’d never gotten over losing her. After her funeral, he’d left everything behind and moved here, halfway across the world. He was intent on never talking to anyone from his past, no family, no friends, nobody, and he’d never go back. It was just too painful.
Occasionally, after waking from his strange nightmares, he’d wonder where this need to disappear had come from. The UNE had been kind to him for his sudden loss and donated a good sum of Xchange Credits so he could restart his life. He’d moved into a great flat across from the school, had nice clothes, even kept up with his Judo, but any time he felt nostalgic, he’d feel sick to his stomach. The very idea of contacting anyone from his former life nauseated him to the point he’d almost forget what he’d been considering.
Almost.
There were worries.
One time, a couple years ago, he simply forgot Dutch. He’d known it all his life. His grandmother was Dutch, even though he couldn’t exactly recall speaking it with her.
He’d been teaching when it’d happened, and Jamie found himself lecturing in English. The students understood him, most of them, anyway. He’d canceled the class, not wanting the students to know something was wrong. For two hours he’d wandered the streets, listening to strangers speaking in Dutch, ignorant to what they were saying. And then all of a sudden, while sitting in a coffee house, it popped right back into his head.
What was that all about? He never figured it out.
He left the classroom and walked a few blocks to his therapist’s office. He’d started seeing Ingrid right after the mysterious speech incident. She was tall and thick, fifty, and enjoyed practicing her English with him. She kept her thick pale hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck as though she wanted to hide her implant, at least that’s what Jamie thought of every time he saw her.
He was right on time and her two o’clock nodded at him as she left. Ingrid invited him into her office.
As always, the lamps were dim and a lilac-scented candle flickered on a table. The one window had sheer curtains that allowed them to see out, but nobody could see in.
He sat across from her in the familiar cushy brown chair and smiled at her. She returned the gesture. “How has it been going, James?”
He’d introduced himself to everyone in Amsterdam with his full name instead of his nickname. When Ingrid had asked him why in one of their sessions, he’d told her he wanted to erase any memory of his time with Amanda. Most of their sessions had him talking about her. It was the one hour a week he dove into Amanda and thoughts of how happy he’d been with her, and the rest of the week he did everything he could to destroy those memories.
“It’s been a good week. I picked up another private student for Judo, and history classes are going well.”
“Good, good. Any nightmares this past week?” She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. She was good at making him feel heard.
He never lied to Ingrid. “There was one. I was in this white room, like a hospital room. A man with black hair kept sticking me with needles. I woke up covered in sweat and rolled over to hold Amanda. I wanted to feel better, you know. But she wasn’t there and it all just came back.”
She folded her hands in front of her knees. “Can you describe the room more?”
He squinted at the window. “Seems like there was a camera. Yeah. I remember there being a camera above an air vent. I wanted to cover it up, but the man just kept coming at me with needles. Every time I tried to fight him off, he’d stick me and then I’d lose strength, like he was sedating me, but I wouldn’t go all the way down.”
Ingrid shook her head and looked deep into Jamie’s eyes. “You said ‘hospital room’.”
“It was like one, yeah.”
She let out a slow breath. “You know, James, you are the oddest client I have.”
He laughed. “Why would you say something like that to a patient? Trying to tell me I’m completely nuts?”
She smiled and picked up her notepad. “I don’t usually prescribe medications, although I’m a registered psychiatrist. I’m going to give you something to help you sleep.” She scribbled something on her prescription pad, folded it in half, and handed it to him. “Put it in your wallet now so you don’t forget it.”
He did as he was told, and they talked the rest of the hour away. His sessions always returned to Amanda. On that particular day, he described their wedding. How she wore her hair up, white flowers dangling from a tiara around her cheeks. How perfect she looked in her grandmother’s wedding dress, very 2000s. She knew he loved old-timey things.
As he left Ingrid’s office when his time was up, she reminded him to get the script filled. “Do it now, so you don’t forget.”
He nodded and left, walking straight to the pharmacy. He didn’t like the idea of taking any kind of psych med, but his nightmares were getting worse. The pharmacy had a window outside the building so people could avoid the store. Jamie got behind a family and took the script out of his wallet. Wondering what she had prescribed him, he flipped open the folded paper.
There was no prescription on the paper. Instead, it read, “Not private here. Meet at Igloo’s Coffee House at six.”
His heart rate picked up. He folded the script again and put it back in his wallet, looking around to see if he’d been seen.
What was going on? His sessions weren’t private? What did she need to tell him that couldn’t be overheard?
He walked to a bridge, took the note back out and ripped it up, dropping the pieces into the river below. He had two hours to kill. With anxiety hitting him hard, he wished Ingrid really had written him a prescription.
Chapter 5
He reached Igloo’s fifteen minutes early and just sat there, his heart racing like a rabbit. The server tried to interest him in a local grower’s goods, a new strain of marijuana that was popular, but he wanted to stay sharp and ordered a glass of water.
He wouldn’t have recognized Ingrid unless he was looking for her. It had started raining outside, and she wore a slicker with the hood up. Her hair was unbound and fell to her waist in front of her, tumbling from the hood of the slicker.
He stood to greet her. “You look different.”
She smiled, looking younger than her fifty years. She kept the hood up despite being inside. “Let’s get a table in the back.”
“Sure.”
They sat at a two-chair table and Ingrid ordered a joint and a coffee. The server knew her, but called her Jan. Jamie said nothing about it. Things just kept getting weirder.
“Let me relax a bit,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
“Yeah, I sure do,” he said, almost bursting with curiosity.
The server brought Ingrid her goods and lit her joint with a golden lighter. The server left, and Ingrid leaned back and inhaled deeply, exhaling the smoke through her nose. “This place is the only coffee house in two-hundred miles that isn’t wired.”
“What do you mean?” He leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice.
She puffed again and set the joint in the ashtray. She blew smoke across the top of her coffee, then took a sip. “No cameras, no mics. Just people being people.”
He bit his lip, then asked, “What is going on? What is all this about?”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, blondish-gray hair swaying into her face. “Let me show you something, and then I’ll explain why I have to talk to you in complete privacy like this.”
“Okay.”
She let the hood of her slicker down and turned her back to him, pushing her abundant hair over her shoulder in front of her. An angry, red scar rested at the back of her head, right where her implant should’ve been.
She only let him see it for a moment, and then tucked her hair into her jacket and pulled the hood back up.
“You don’t have…”
“I had it removed.”
“But how? Why would you do that? Wouldn’t they know? Wouldn’t you get in trouble or something?” He was baffled. So many questions flowed into his mind.
“That’s not important right now. Just listen to me. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“I work under the radar. My job is being a therapist, yes, but few know my specialty. You are my specialty.” She smiled, but looked sad at the same time.
“Me?”
“I can’t tell you too much while you have that thing in your brainstem, but I can tell you this… you have to go back. Back to Tempe.” She picked up the joint and relit it, smoking slowly.
He felt like he was going to puke. Go back there, to that hell? “There’s nothing for me in Arizona.”
“You just got sick to your stomach, didn’t you? At even the idea, yes?”
He nodded, unsure where she was going with this.
She leaned forward, holding his gaze with her blood-shot eyes. “Haven’t you wondered why you have such an, how do you say it? Aversion to going back to the States?”
“It’s obvious. I don’t want to be reminded of Amanda dying, my life with her. Anything.”
“But James, it’s all you talk about when you’re in my office. You’re obsessed. Obsessed with something that happened in Tempe, but I don’t think it’s what you remember.”
“What do you mean?” Dread slid over him like a spider walking across a web. It was as if he was about to be told all over again that Amanda was dead.
She leaned back and sipped her coffee. In a low voice, she said, “The UNE. Don’t you wonder about the implants and how they discipline?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Everyone knows there’s some kind of brain modification to stop the violent behavior.”
“Yes? Well, what is it, exactly?”
He drew a blank. “I don’t know. Nobody really knows.”
“Oh, but that’s not true.” She dropped her speech to a whisper. “I know. So did Amanda, I’m willing to gamble.”
“What do you mean? What exactly is going on here?”
She stubbed out the ember on the joint and put it in the pocket of her slicker. “You have to go back to get your answers, back to your home. Your real home. Amsterdam is not your home.”
“You’re saying there’s something more to my nightmares? To my, what you called obsession?” He rubbed his face, trying to connect dots that felt scattered to the wind.
“There’s a ship, well, more of a boat really. It’s called The She. The captain will take you just about anywhere without using your passport. You just have to pay him off really well. Here.” She handed him a piece of paper she’d pulled from her other slicker pocket. “This is where and when the boat docks. Go back, find out what really happened to you and Amanda.”
“What are you trying to tell me? Ingrid, you have me completely lost. Help me out here.”
“I told you therapy isn’t my real job. My real purpose is to find those who have been…modified by the system.”
His body tensed. “Wait, are you saying…that I’ve been…that I am…?”
She nodded and leaned forward, her face as serious as he’d ever seen it. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Things are not what they seem. Those who have been dealt a bad hand with the modification usually start getting memories through dreams.”
“My nightmares are memories? What the hell?”
“Not completely, no. Calm down or your implant will pick up the stress and they’ll come looking for you. Do you know who the Incredible Hulk is?”
“Of course I do. I teach twentieth century history.”
“Then think of yourself as Bruce Banner. You cannot get angry, you cannot have emotion. They will know something is wrong. The citizens of Earth fought hard to make it so our implants couldn’t track our whereabouts, and they cannot track yours unless you use your passport. Trust me. I’ve seen this before. Actually, I’ve been where you are right now. Go back and find out what really happened. Find out who you are. And trust very few.” She coughed, rose from her seat and touched his shoulder. “Remember, all emotions must be suppressed while you do this. I say trust very few, but I’m one of the very few you can trust. When you go back to Tempe, the ones you can trust will find you. I’m going now, and I hope, for your sake, we never speak again.”
Chapter 6
That night at home, Jamie couldn’t sleep. He constantly resisted the urge to call Ingrid to ask more questions. Was she just one of those shrinks who was as crazy as her patients? Did she believe in some kind of conspiracy theory with the implants? Hadn’t all that been disproved by 2030?
It just wasn’t possible to erase someone’s memory and make a new one. Then again, look at the Xchange Credit system itself. Thirty-five years ago, it had been a hot topic of debate. Would the UNE simply control all aspects of human life, or was it sincere in its use of using the basic chemistry of the brain stem to monitor and stop bad behavior? It didn’t work for small indiscretions, the UNE informed the public. Just for murder, rape, and pedophilia. The true nasties. Once the public voted it in and people began living an Xchange Credit lifestyle, the UNE added the thumbprint technology to sync up with how many Xchange Credits one had.
It worked. It really did, but now Jamie questioned it more than he ever had before. He didn’t know another way of living except in his extensive studies, even though the doctorate programs no longer existed. In Jamie’s generation, people were free to pursue any career they wanted and if it didn’t pay enough, they could do extras to make up for it. Good deeds, more time spent studying a field, volunteering like Jamie did for his martial arts classes.
Jamie tapped the screen on his tablet. He spoke. “What was the most common cause for arguments against the Xchange Credit system?”
The familiar voice of the tablet, Osie, spoke back in her purring, smoky voice. “The most common cause for arguments against the Xchange Credit system was that it was promoting socialism and demoting democracy.”
Of course. Why didn’t he remember that right off? He was getting rusty.
Was it possible…that Amanda was still alive? The twins?
His heartbeat picked up.
If Amanda was still alive, that changed everything. But could he uproot his life and career on a therapist’s hunch? Was that even what Ingrid was trying to tell him; that Amanda wasn’t dead?
He’d seen her at the funeral. In her coffin, very much dead. The snapshot he mentally carried, alongside her image on their wedding day, was the one of her gentle face in that coffin. His stomach turned and sweat dripped fr
om one temple. He couldn’t think about it anymore, but he couldn’t not think about it. But every time he thought of her like that…it drove him to more stomach knots and sweats.
Maybe he should push the memory some. Just a little, see how much he could recall. He’d always been able to remember every little detail. He just had that knack, and it was part of why he loved history so much. There was always another detail to discover about the way the world once was.
He laid flat on the cool wood floor and took deep breaths, concentrating on growing calm and clear-minded. Meditation was part of his Judo practice, so this didn’t take him long. He imagined a perfect day in the desert, sometime in January…a cooler day in the seventies. His mind drifted, and just as he was about to fall asleep, he snapped his memory into place and took a look at it.
There she was, Amanda, in her coffin. Her blonde curls lay beside her white cheeks perfectly. The inside of the coffin was lined with white silk, and her head rested on a satin pillow. He smelled flowers.
In seconds, his stomach lurched. He fought the urge to vomit, pushing it down like he had many times before when someone landed a kick to his gut in a match. He didn’t want to, but had to remember more.
“Who was there?” he asked the empty room. Inhaling deeply, then exhaling, he ran the meditation again.
This time, when he saw her face and smelled the flowers, he did everything in his power to keep the puke down. It didn’t work. In a moment, he sat upright and threw up what was left of his lunch into his lap. Sweat dripped off his cheeks and chin, running down his sides.
After cleaning up the mess, he lay down again and tried once more to remember anything else about Amanda’s funeral. All he could get was more retching, just as he recalled the faint scent of roses.
After an hour of concentrating and dry heaving, he was done. Jamie knew this wasn’t normal. He’d like that Amanda used to call him the strong, silent type. He’d wanted to be that for her. She even made him a little tougher. Loving someone that much can hurt sometimes, especially when things didn’t go right, like when they were trying to conceive. Or if he did some inane thing that riled her up. Maybe he should try thinking of the worst fight they’d ever had and see if he got sick.
Disconnected (Implanted Book 1) Page 2