They stopped in front of a dilapidated building in Hell’s Kitchen. A few neighborhood characters sat on the stoop out front, smoking cigarettes and drinking from brown paper bags. Bachata music blared from a parked car. Someone argued behind closed doors.
Selberg sat up. “Home sweet shithole.”
Parker turned to look at him. “So you’ll be ready?”
Selberg fished in his pocket for a loose cigarette. “How much is the payoff?”
“Enough.”
Selberg gripped the cigarette with swollen lips. “I’m in or I’m dead. You know that. Not much of a choice. I’ll have about five hundred bucks left after I square with the Russians.”
“Big gambler like you, double that in no time.”
Selberg lit the cigarette and laughed as smoke swirled around his face. “I’m a real monument to success.” He sighed then pulled himself painfully from the car. He leaned in on Parker’s window. Parker could smell cigarettes and cheap booze on the man’s breath. “What’s the era?”
“1953.”
“I know I’m a fuckup. But despite the booze and the gambling, I’m still the best Archivist out there.”
“There are others.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Selberg pushed himself off the car and began to slowly stagger toward the front stairs of his building. “You’d be lost in a storm without me, looking for any safe shore.”
“Sober up. Stay inside,” Parker called out. “I’ll call you.”
Selberg waved a dismissive hand, stumbled up toward the door, and disappeared inside.
The team met in the abandoned biscuit factory. Dunbar greeted them at the elevator. He wore another old-timey looking suit, like something a carnival barker might wear. The space in the center of the floor had been cleared and a large table set up. Spread across the table was a gargantuan map of mid-twentieth century New York City.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,” Dunbar said as the team stepped off the elevator. “Excuse the conditions of this space. It has certainly seen better days.”
Parker looked at the crew. Clayton looked healthy and rested, but the others looked like old sneakers. Selberg’s eye was almost swollen shut, his lips puffy and split open. Charlotte shuffled in behind Selberg, her hair still matted and greasy, her skin pale, dark circles ringing her eyes.
Dunbar seemed to sense the desperate, nervous energy in the group. He frowned as he watched them filter in. They crowded around the table and looked down at the map.
“Anyone have some water, juice, anything?” Charlotte held a hand to her forehead, her right eye wincing in pain. “My head is killing me.”
Parker realized they were all totally unprepared for this. And entering the system did not work out well for anyone who went unprepared. Parker normally would have backed out of this job. But if what Dunbar said was true, and Parker’s wife was in the same system as their target, the job might be Parker’s only chance to see her.
Parker ignored Charlotte’s question and smoothed over the map with his hand. “This is the period?”
“Yes sir. New York City, 1953,” said Dunbar.
“This is a new time period,” Selberg said. “I’ve never known them to do a 1953 before.”
“New time period. New system,” Dunbar said.
“Oh wait . . .” Selberg took a step back and shook his head. “This isn’t . . .”
Dunbar nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“Oh man . . .” Selberg ran fingers through his hair. “Fuck, man. This is not good at all. I heard about this. I didn’t think it was operational.”
“It is.”
Parker had no idea what they were talking about. “Can someone fill me in, please?”
“It’s the new supermax Panopticon,” Selberg said. “Totally different security. You can’t just enter the system anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because the system is self-enclosed now,” said Dunbar. “It’s built to detect intrusions from the outside.”
“But we just went into the system,” Parker said. “Our last breakout.”
“That was the old system. This is the new one, supposedly unbreakable. You can’t just hack into a drone. The system monitors all consciousness and checks for any breaks. The instant you land in a new drone, guards will be all over you. The drone itself will shut down. You’ll be trapped in this lifeless, immobile body.”
Trapped. Parker’s worst fear. To be trapped inside the system meant capture. And capture was worse than death.
“But you can get in, right?” Parker asked.
Selberg smiled. “We’ll figure out a way. Just more complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“They have a new program security. Called the Minotaur. It constantly monitors consciousness to detect intrusions. Supposed to be pretty kick ass. And also, as I said, it’s a closed system. People on the outside can’t communicate with people on the inside. So the Navigator and the Archivist will have to be inside the system with you.”
Charlotte frowned. “No. No. No. I didn’t sign up for that. I’m a technician. I’m not running around killing people in 1950s New York City.”
“You wouldn’t have to actually interact with anyone,” Selberg said. “You could go into the system and find a comfortable hotel room to work out of. Or a car. Or wherever. But the only way you’ll be able to communicate with Parker is by being inside with him.”
“Everyone would have to be inside? Even you?” Parker asked.
“Even me.” Dunbar coughed politely, then stroked his mustache. “Is that a problem for you?”
Parker shook his head and cast a warning glance at Selberg. “No. There’s no problem.”
Selberg sighed, sat back in his chair, and raised his hands. “Let’s talk about money.”
“Fair enough,” Dunbar said. He wrote something on a legal pad, then tore off the page and slid it across the table toward Selberg. The Archivist smirked, then turned over the paper, and stared at the number. His eyes opened wide.
“This is for real?” Selberg said.
Dunbar nodded. “I hope you will find our compensation package is adequate.”
“Shit yeah.” Selberg turned toward Parker. “Looks like I’ll be going in with you.”
This is really all happening, Parker thought. “So what’s the next step?”
Dunbar handed out a packet of information to each member of the team. Parker flipped through the stapled stack of papers and saw poorly photographed maps of New York City and statistical charts.
“This is what we know about the prison,” Dunbar said. “New York City in the early-to-mid-1950s. Population of about one million prisoners. Five thousand guards. And a few hundred thousand drones.”
“My God, that’s huge,” Clayton said. “One million prisoners?”
“The supermax facility is the largest in the world to date,” Dunbar replied. “Every prisoner from the entire Eastern Seaboard has been consolidated into one facility. They’ve memory erased all of them and put them in the new system.”
“And the reality translation was perfect?” Charlotte studied one of charts. “None of the prisoners know what they are?”
“Nobody knows,” Selberg said. “I only know because I’m tapped into the systems all the time. I hear things. But nobody else knows this place exists. It was all programmed and built with private money. Kept totally hushed.”
Dunbar looked thoughtful. “I’m sure there are a few imperfections. Every system has a handful of prisoners who know the deal. Who know the world isn’t real. But we don’t know who they are. Or what they’re doing with that information.”
“And our guy could be anywhere?” Parker asked. “That’s like finding a pebble on a beach.”
“Not anywhere,” Dunbar said. “Your target’s name is Andrew Scott.”
“Senator Scott’s son?” Selberg said.
“That’s correct.”
“What did he do to get locked up?�
��
“That doesn’t concern you,” Dunbar said. “I’m only giving you this information as it might assist in your finding your target. Andrew Scott is 22 years old. Wealthy and connected. We believe he knows he is in prison.”
“Why do you think that?”
“We have a guard,” Dunbar said. “We haven’t communicated with this guard since lockdown, but he was given instruction to seek out Andrew Scott, protect him, and give him the truth of his identity.”
Parker asked, “When was the last time you had any positive contact?”
“About a year,” Dunbar said.
“A year is a long time,” Selberg said. “Your boy could be anywhere in this population by now.”
“Perhaps,” Dunbar said. “Scott was a big boxing fan on the outside. Liked nice things. Women, cars. He’s going to be living a high profile life on the inside. His isn’t a personality that understands keeping quiet. So you can start with that.”
“I don’t know. This whole thing is a stretch,” Parker said.
“I was under the impression we were paying the best. If that’s not the case, we’ll find someone else. I’m sure your wife will be very disappointed.”
Parker stared at Dunbar for a long moment. In that instant he hated the man. But he was ready to go inside.
Dunbar walked toward the exit. When he reached the door, he turned back and faced Parker. “Oh, one last thing. Once you get inside, if you have any second thoughts about the mission . . . I don’t know, like maybe looking for your wife and forgetting about the job you’re being paid to do . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Scott is the only one who knows where your wife is.”
“How would Scott know that?”
“We’ve been planning this for a while now. Your name always comes up as being the best,” Dunbar said. “But sometimes the best needs motivation. Find Scott, you find your wife.”
5
The memory ended, and I was back in the hotel bar. I made my way back to my room. Now I knew why I was here. To find the senator’s son and bring him out. But I needed to find more memories. I needed to know what had happened. There were supposed to be a million prisoners in that system. How did I end up on an empty island?
But most important, I knew more about my wife. She was out in the system somewhere, in this prison. That’s the real reason why I was on the mission. She wasn’t dead. Now I had hope.
I walked in a slow circle around the room, trying to clear my head. Before I went into the system, my memory had been erased. I had used the existing blueprint of Manhattan as a cognitive palace to store and hide my most important memories, thus preventing the system from finding them. It seemed some of the areas were formed strictly from my own memory, like those places I had visited with Valenstein.
But many places were new to me. Someone else’s memory had brought them into the machine. I looked around the room more closely, curious now, trying to remember if I had been here before, and I began to notice something odd.
This was the same room that I had been in upstairs.
Not in the way that generic furniture and drab bedding made all hotel rooms appear the same. But the two rooms were actually identical. The same nicks were visible on the bureau. The same peeled section of wallpaper. The same dark stain on the carpet.
I felt the presence before I saw anything.
Something cold wrapped itself around the base of my spine, then crawled its way up to cling to the back of my brain. I froze. Faint rock and roll music played somewhere. I shut off my lamp and followed the sound out into the hallway. Without my lantern, the blackness was so complete, it felt as if no light had ever penetrated these halls before. A complete and total void.
But in the void, I felt a small breeze and had the distinct impression that something walked past me in the hall. There was nothing definite, just the small movement of air and a vague unease that spread through me. Down the hall, a door slammed. It was an unusual sound. Heavy and metallic. Not a room door but something else. Without thought, I flicked on my lantern and ran toward the noise. At the end of the hall was a stairwell door. I pushed it open and found nothing. Only blank, metal-lined concrete stairs. I heard another door open and close farther down the stairwell. I moved quickly down the stairs after the sound and pushed open a second metal door, which led out of the stairwell.
The light was almost blinding.
I stood on the edge of a huge party. Banquet tables were lined with shrimp and steak and bowls of freshly cut fruit. Champagne was everywhere. And on a parquet wood floor, a well-dressed crowd danced awkwardly to a cover band. I looked around, tried to piece together when this was. The styles were distinctly 1970s. Women in fringed miniskirts, men in flared jeans and trousers. Then the world went fuzzy. Like a wax-covered screen had been placed in front of my eyes, and the details faded away. I turned my head from the dance floor and the scene sharpened.
This wasn’t my memory. This belonged to someone else. And parts of this world were better stored than others. I walked slowly through the crowd, following the path of sharpness. When details faded, I moved away until things became . . . better recollected. The phrase felt right, the only way I could understand what I was experiencing.
The crowd of thirty blurry people continued to dance on the parquet floor. I followed the line of clarity, past the food tables and the cover band, until I found myself standing before a red painted door to the men’s bathroom.
Inside, the bathroom had orange painted walls with a black and white tiled floor. A row of shiny porcelain urinals lined the wall. Orange walled stalls were in the back of the bathroom, and from one of them I heard someone humming. A man pushed open the stall, his head down as he worked his thumb over something on the front of his shirt. He wore a camel-colored leisure suit with a striped butterfly collared shirt. He stopped in front of the mirror, took off his suit jacket, and turned on the faucet.
His undershirt was stained with a wide spray of blood. The man sighed, then went to work on the spots with a wet paper towel. He hummed to himself, and as he dabbed, the blood turned pinkish under the water. I moved toward him. Like a vampire, I had no reflection in the mirror. The man continued to work on the stain, dabbing with the paper towels. The facial hair and sunglasses had confused me. He sported a scruffy beard and wore light-tinted aviators. His hair was longer too, falling down around his ears and neck. But beneath all that, I was looking at someone very familiar.
Edward Selberg.
The door opened and a man and woman barged into the bathroom. They were falling over one another in drunken laughter. Selberg saw them and straightened up, stopped rubbing at the bloodstains. The couple froze with embarrassment. The man nodded an apology and they slowly backed out of the bathroom. “We’ll find somewhere else.”
Selberg shook his head good naturedly, worked the stain a few swipes more, then tossed the paper towel in the garbage and put his suit jacket back on. He did a line of cocaine off the sink, splashed water on his face, straightened his jacket, and stared into the mirror. He pointed at himself. “You. You. You.”
He turned and walked from the bathroom. I followed ten feet behind. We passed back through the crowded party, the music deafening. Selberg headed for the elevator, and I joined him in the car before we traveled upward. Alone with him, I studied his face. The same Selberg I had on my expedition. Only his eyes were different. Something harder behind this one’s eyes. Like he wore a Selberg mask over a monster’s face.
We exited and walked down an empty hall. Then this Selberg fitted a key into a door lock and we entered an anonymous room. Inside was the familiar queen-sized bed with nondescript carpeting, this room the same as the others except for the outdated black and white television on the laminate bureau and the bloody man handcuffed to the radiator.
Selberg took off his suit jacket again and sat on the edge of the bed. Next to him, already laid out on the bed, was a metal crowbar, a handgun, and a knife. The man handcuffed to the radiat
or cringed in fear. He was stripped to the waist, a gag shoved in his mouth, one eye swollen shut.
“You know, you ruined my shirt,” Selberg said. “Blood doesn’t come out as easy as the commercials make you think.”
“Please . . .”
Selberg held up a hand. “Let me speak. Now you’re going to tell me what I want to know. Or I swear I’m going to pull you apart bit by bit like Legos and stack you up on the floor right here. Do you understand?”
“Oh Jesus, yes, please, whatever you want to know.”
I stood in the far corner of the room feeling more powerless than I ever had in my life. There was nothing I could do to change the past, and there was a very real possibility this man was going to be killed in front of me. I wanted to leave the hotel room. To forget what I had seen here. But this memory was important. This was a memory of someone I was trapped inside the machine with. And I had to know why he looked like Selberg. Or why my Selberg looked like this bearded psycho.
“Where’s the money?” Selberg asked.
“I don’t have it.”
Selberg hung his head and reached for the crowbar.
“No, no, no, wait,” the man said. “I really, I don’t have it, but I can give you something better.”
“What?”
“My car, my car, I’ll fucking sign it over to you right now.”
“What kind of car is it?”
“It’s a Chevelle. Orange and black. Beautiful car.”
“Interior?”
“Beautiful interior,” the man said. He could see salvation, and his enthusiasm showed through. “Leather. Got everything. More leg room. More power.”
Selberg paused, his hand still clenched around the crowbar, his eyes distant and thoughtful. Finally he bit. “Keys?”
“My pocket.” The man nodded toward a bloody bundle of clothes piled on the far side of the room. “In my right pocket.”
Selberg reached into the bundle and pulled out a set of keys jangling on a ring.
“That car is worth three times what I owe you. Just fucking take it.”
Selberg slipped the keys into his pocket. “I will take it.”
The Memory Agent Page 19