by Todd Wynn
Jeremy was caught off guard. He felt Sara squeeze his arm behind the door.
“We can help her,” Mindy said. “I trust she has confided in you about her condition.”
“Yeah.” Jeremy nodded.
Stewart smiled as he listened from the edge of the woods overlooking the side of the house. He saw what Mindy had done with that last statement. She gave the kid an opportunity to feel special, and he took it. Mindy was a natural at this.
“Would it be okay if I talked with both of you about what’s going on?” Mindy asked, giving him plenty of space so he didn’t feel pressured.
“Can you hold on one minute?” Jeremy asked, holding up a finger.
“Sure.” Mindy flashed a warm smile and Jeremy disappeared behind the door, where Mindy could hear whispering.
The other seven members of the team had the house surrounded as they listened to the conversation in their earpieces.
Jeremy popped back around the door and asked Mindy to come in. The team heard Mindy sit down at the kitchen table, followed by introductions that included Sara Baker.
“Yours is a very complicated story. And I’m afraid I’m not the most qualified to tell it.” Mindy’s voice broadcasted through seven different earpieces.
“But you know about me?” Sara asked.
“Yes, but just the broad strokes. My purpose for coming here is to make sure that you would be comfortable speaking with some people who can fill you in on all the details of who you are and what you’re going through.”
As Stewart listened, he was quite impressed. He had gone out on a limb allowing Mindy to handle this first contact, but his instinct had told him she was up to the challenge. And apparently she was.
“Who are these people you’re talking about?” Sara asked.
“Some are with our government, and some are with another government. None of them were involved in what happened to you, but they have experience with this type of situation, and they’ll be able to help you get your memory back.”
“Which other government?” Jeremy asked.
“A friendly government who developed the technology that was used to block Sara’s memory,” Mindy said.
“And who blocked her memory?” Jeremy asked.
“She did.”
Sara and Jeremy were dumbfounded. They sat in silence, trying to digest this.
“I would really like to get the others in here to explain the rest—if you’re ready,” Mindy said. “Would that be okay?”
Jeremy and Sara took turns nodding at one another until the decision was made.
“I’ll go get them,” Mindy said as she walked to the front door, leaving Jeremy and Sara at the kitchen table.
“Are you ready for this?” Jeremy whispered, placing his hand on hers.
“No, not really.” She smiled.
He could feel her hand trembling.
The living room was soon crowded with unfamiliar faces, all standing around Sara and Jeremy, who sat side by side on a sofa against the wall. Dexim and Stewart were clearly the leaders. Stewart did the introductions, explaining that his team was from the US government and that Dexim’s was from a foreign government.
“I’m not sure how much you know, but I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Dexim said. “And we need a secure place to have this conversation. So, are we alone here? Are you expecting any visitors? Is anyone likely to interrupt us?”
Jeremy shook his head no to all these questions.
“Okay, good,” Dexim continued. “So, to start with the very basics, the reason you can’t remember certain things is—”
“My memory’s been blocked—yeah, that’s what she said,” Sara interrupted, pointing to Mindy. “But why?”
“You have a secret,” Dexim replied. “And it’s such an important secret that you felt you had to protect it, by blocking your memory.”
“I did this? . . . to myself?”
“Yes.”
“So, how do we unblock it? Who does that? Do you unblock it? Do I?
“The first thing we need to do is determine just how much of your memory is blocked. So, we’re going to ask you a few questions.”
Jin took his cue and sat on the edge of the coffee table, eye to eye with Sara. “Where were you born?” Jin asked.
Sara shrugged and shook her head.
“What are your parents’ names?”
Another shrug.
“How did you get here?”
“She doesn’t remember any of these things,” Jeremy said, taking her hand and sensing her discomfort.
“I know this is difficult,” Dexim said to both of them. “But we’re here to help.”
“How do you do it?” Sara asked. “How do you restore my memory?”
“The same type of device that blocked your memory is used to restore it,” Tobi said, from the corner of the room. “It’s a pulse generator that stimulates your senses to allow access to your subconscious. It isn’t painful or even uncomfortable, but during the process, you will lose all senses except hearing. You will focus on my voice, and I will lead you through the procedure. Now, based on your answers, it sounds like this is a fully integrated block, which is very powerful.”
“And what happens after the procedure?” Sara asked. “I just suddenly remember everything?”
“Well, not necessarily everything—” Tobi was suddenly cut off by a quick glare from Dexim.
“What does that mean?” Sara asked.
“Well . . .” he looked to Dexim to see how to proceed.
“It’s different for different people,” Dexim said. “There’s no way to say exactly what your experience will be.”
“How is it different?” Sara said. There was a strange pause, and she wondered what they were trying to sugar coat.
“What about those cubes?” Jeremy said. “Those little wooden things? One makes you tell the truth. Isn’t that right?”
Stewart smiled. He was beginning to like this kid.
“Then, why don’t you hold that thing and then answer our questions?” Jeremy said.
“You might lose your memories from those last eight months, everything that happened between the blocking and the unblocking.” Tobi finally came clean.
“There’s a slight chance—” Dexim said.
“There’s a huge chance,” Tobi corrected him, “that every memory you collected over the last eight months will be lost.”
“So, she won’t remember this?” Jeremy asked, swirling a finger around the room.
Tobi shook his head. “Probably not. There are some cases where minimal to total recollection has occurred, but that’s not likely. And with such a deep block being in place for such a long span of time, there’s not much hope of salvaging any of these interim memories.”
Sara could see from Dexim’s reaction that there would be no need for the quoret—Tobi was laying all the cards on the table, even the ones Dexim had wanted to hide.
“Interim memories,” Jeremy repeated, “meaning everything after her memory was blocked, up to the moment her memory is restored?”
Tobi nodded.
“Meaning me,” Jeremy said. “So, you want to wipe me out of her memory. What happens then?”
“When her memory is restored, we will be taking her back home,” Dexim said.
“Where’s home?” Sara asked.
“It would really be best if we restored your memory first,” Dexim explained. “It would make all of this a lot easier to understand.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Sara said.
“We’re turning you back into who you were,” Lyntic interjected. “Why wouldn’t you want that?”
“Because I don’t know who I was,” Sara replied. Lyntic rolled her eyes.
“It’s still who you are,” Lyntic snapped.
“I don’t care,” Sara said. “I want to know what’s going on before I decide.”
“Decide?” Lyntic said.
“That’s enough,” Dexim commanded. He turned to Sa
ra. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Dexim dropped into a chair and rubbed his eyes. “We might as well all have a seat,” he said. “And somebody better bring me a quoret.”
With the ring at the bottom of the wooden quoret glowing in Dexim’s hand, he laid out the whole tale. Dexim used the quoret from Sara’s collection, since Jeremy and Sara had confidence in it. Still though, the story was hard for the young couple to take in—aliens, spaceships, intergalactic research missions, government cover-ups, and hidden power drives. Just as Sara and Jeremy were coming to terms with one, Dexim would hit them with another.
“So, you’re saying I’m not human?” Sara asked.
“Of course you’re human,” Lyntic fired back.
“Human, yes—one hundred percent,” Dexim explained with the tact his sister lacked. “Just not from Earth, not earthling.”
Sara looked to Jeremy—still holding his hand. “Does any of this make sense?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back, then turned to the others. “Can you give us a minute?”
Dexim reluctantly called the others out of the room. As the team members waited in the hall, Sara and Jeremy tried to get a grip on what they had just heard.
“Could it be?” Sara said.
“Well . . . does any of it sound familiar?” Jeremy asked.
“I don’t think so.” She tried to jog her memory, but she had been doing that for eight months now.
In the hall, Jin rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Did we give her enough information? Maybe we should tell her more about—”
“It’s not up to her,” Mindy said. “You have to convince him. He’s the one she trusts.”
“It’s not up to either of them,” Lyntic said. “We just drag her back home, and she’ll have to come around.”
“Go ahead and call the ship,” Dexim ordered. “Have it pick us up here.”
Lyntic nodded and headed out the front door to make it happen.
“We’re not leaving without her memory being restored,” Dexim said. He turned to Mindy. “Do you think you can convince the boy?”
“I think he’s already convinced,” Mindy said. “He just needs a little time.”
“Time for what?” Jin asked.
Mindy couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t it obvious? “He’s about to lose the girl he loves. He’s about to tell her to forget all about him.”
On the sofa, Jeremy was trying to talk this out. “We really don’t have to believe all of this,” he said. “If they can restore your memory, you’ll know what’s real. You’ll know your story for yourself.”
“But what if it’s too weird?”
“It won’t be too weird for you,” Jeremy said. “It’s who you are. It’s your memory.”
“An alien, though?”
“Forget all that,” Jeremy said. “You have memories. And they’re offering to give them back to you.”
She nodded. “But what about you? They said there’s a good chance—”
“You’re not going to forget me,” he said.
“But I’ve forgotten my parents, and my friends, and . . .”
“Look at me,” he said, squeezing her hand and gazing into her eyes. “You’re not going to forget me.”
A smile rolled onto her face.
“I’m going to be right here the whole time,” he said. “And you will remember me.”
34
Waking Sara
“The first thing I’m going to do is check your eyes to determine which method of transference was used,” Tobi explained, as he slid his chair closer to Sara’s. Both of them were sitting at the kitchen table. Jeremy was sitting next to Sara, holding her hand—because that’s the way she wanted it.
As Tobi looked into her eyes with a handheld scope from the medical bag, he explained that the process of restoring a memory was called waking. “And when we perform the restoration process, we say we’re waking a person.”
“I’ve been sleepwalking, huh?” Sara said.
“In a way, I guess.” As Tobi continued the exam, he explained that he was looking for scars on the iris.
“Scars?” Sara asked.
“Microscopic dots in the iris,” Tobi explained. “They’re formed as a reaction to a buildup of adrenaline, which is a product of the memory-blocking process. But we can tell which process was used because they generate different doses of adrenaline in different rhythms, causing the radial muscle of the iris to—” He dropped off as he switched to the other eye. After a quick look, he sat up and nodded, hoping his fake smile would cover his concerns.
“Dexim,” Tobi said, twisting his head around to find him. “We’re about ready to start here. Can I have a quick word with you in the other room?”
As the two of them left, Sara turned to Jeremy. “What was that?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
In the living room, Tobi advised Dexim that he couldn’t determine which process was used.
“What does that mean?” Dexim asked.
“It means that she probably did this under extreme stress when her adrenaline was already flowing and it didn’t leave the usual markings.”
At this point, Lyntic arrived in the living room and shrugged at them.
“He’s saying he can’t tell which process was used,” Dexim said.
“So try one,” Lyntic said. “And if that doesn’t work, try the other.”
“No, no, no, no,” Tobi said, “it doesn’t work that way. If we use the wrong process to try to reverse the block, it will wipe her memory.”
“Leaving her where?” Lyntic asked.
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be a great girl, but she won’t remember one damn thing about one damn thing.”
“How bad, exactly?” Dexim asked.
“Exactly like I just said—she literally won’t know which way is up, or what up means.”
“Isn’t there some way to know which one she would have used? Isn’t there a protocol?” Lyntic asked.
“No.” Tobi shook his head. “Any machine could be set to either process.”
“Isn’t there some logical way you can figure this out?” Lyntic said.
Tobi shook his head. “Aeosic is used eighty percent of the time,” he said, “but there’s no guarantee that Protetic wasn’t used.”
“Well, if one of them is used four times as much, wouldn’t it be stupid for us to try the other one?” Lyntic reasoned.
“That’s still a big gamble with someone’s entire memory,” Tobi said. “Can’t we just take her back as she is and try this at a later time, maybe after we gather some more information about—”
“No.” Dexim shook his head. “We need to know what she knows before we transport her out of here. Unless you have some strong reason to believe it was the twenty-percent method, we’ll go with the eighty percent and take our chances. Those are pretty good odds.”
“Pretty good odds?” Tobi said.
“Look, we can spend half an hour discussing it,” Lyntic said, “just to arrive at the conclusion that we don’t have a choice, since she may have information vital to this mission. Then we’ll spend half an hour wrestling over which process to try, and we’ll inevitably decide on the one with the greatest odds of success—the one that’s used eighty percent of the time. Being decisive saves us an hour. You have to learn to manage your time in the field.”
Tobi nodded. Lyntic was not a person to argue with, and her confidence was contagious.
“What’s going on?” Sara asked, as Tobi returned to his seat next to her.
“I just wanted to make sure we had the supplies we need,” Tobi said with a smile. “We do. We’re fine.”
“Well, which is it?” Jeremy asked.
“What do you mean?” Tobi said.
“Which process was used?”
“Oh, it was Aeosic.”
The three other members of Dexim’s team and the four members of Stewart’s team stood around
the edges of the kitchen, watching Tobi prepare the equipment. The device he pulled from the supply bag looked like a dull-gray version of an iPhone. He detached two wireless earpieces from the base of the unit and set them in front of Sara.
“Put one of these in each ear,” he said, “and you will hear a low hum. That will build into a slow, throbbing rhythm. Then your vision will start to fade, and your other senses will go as well, until you feel like you’re floating in darkness. You will be hyperfocused with perfect clarity. The only thing you will be able to hear is my voice, and your attention will be so sharp that it will seem like you can see, feel, smell, and taste my voice. I will guide you through the process of accessing your subconscious and freeing your memories. It’s a matter of ordering your subconscious to remove the block from your mind. But your subconscious will only take this order from you. You will be fully aware during this process. If you have any doubts, it’s not going to work. You need to make your decision before we start and stick to it.”
Sara nodded as she picked up the first earpiece and examined it.
“Wait,” Jeremy said.
Sara turned to him.
“What if. . . . What if you don’t. . . .” He swallowed hard and started again. “You’re going to remember me—I know you are—but in case . . . in case something goes wrong . . . in case you don’t remember . . . maybe we should . . .” The words caught in his throat. “Maybe we should say good-bye.”
Sara’s heart broke at the sound of this, as did Mindy’s, Tobi’s, and Lyntic’s (not because Lyntic cared about these two, but because their story was so close to her own). Even Lambert had to turn and look out the window, pretending to have something in his eye. Despite the fact that these two had been together only two days, there was a deep bond between them, a bond that even the others could see. Splitting them up didn’t feel right, but it had to be done.
Sara and Jeremy stood from the table and made their way out the back door. They never actually said the words, but everyone knew they needed a private moment—at least as private as they could get with the teams gathering at the windows to watch.
“I just wanted to take you to lunch,” Jeremy said. “Then you chased me away with all this crazy talk about losing your memory. But I couldn’t stay away.”