The Memory Agent

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  “If I can, I’ll come back to see you.”

  She nodded, kissed my cheek, and stepped away.

  I turned from her. The door opened into darkness. I had a brief vision of a wooden desk, travel posters of exotic destinations hanging from the wall . . . then the blackness reached out for me, like a living creature. It moved toward me, surrounded my vision, wiping out everything, filling my eyes and ears with a dark liquid.

  The liquid seemed to spread across my body, down into my lungs. I felt an intense weight on my chest, an almost unbearable heaviness that made it difficult to breathe. Something hard and cold was pressed against my skin.

  I felt like I was diving beneath the water. Descending into a Marianas Trench, pressed flatter and flatter until my head would crush inward, like an aluminum can beneath a boot.

  And then the pressure lifted. I could breathe normally again. I was still in darkness, but realized the darkness came from closed lids. My eyes were shut, but through them I could sense light. I took a moment to regain my senses. I was standing, held in place it seemed, and I felt cold air on my body. Thankfully I could breathe normally, but my body, chest, and lungs felt weak, like I was breathing air at a new altitude for the first time.

  8

  Parker gasped for air, his body covered in sweat, his mouth dry. He sat motionless, disoriented, his mind still trapped in the nightmares of just moments before. Too afraid to move, he sat still, his eyes slowly making a survey of his surroundings. He was in a rundown corner office of an indeterminate time. A handful of mismatched filing cabinets were pushed against the wall, leaning on each other like drunken friends. A mesh wire trash can was nearby, overflowing with papers that spilled onto a faded Persian rug the color of soggy cardboard. A fan rotated on the sill of an open window, moving stale air and muting the traffic noise from somewhere outside.

  He sat in a torn office chair, his feet kicked up on a desk. He scanned the desk: a green felt pad, a mug that read “Moonlight Diner” filled with pencils, a hospital-green telephone. He opened the desk drawers. Inside were more papers, a battered revolver, a holster, and a handful of loose silver bullet rounds. On the wall hung a calendar, a black and white photograph of a pinup girl with a month and year in bold across the bottom.

  June 1953.

  Parker had done it. He was inside the system.

  “Selberg, come in,” Parker said. “You there?”

  There was nothing.

  “Chan, Blake, anyone?”

  Silence. Parker appeared to be truly alone. He had never been in a system on his own. He had always had help from the outside. Someone to guide him through the world. But now . . .

  He wondered what had happened to the rest of the team. Charlotte had stayed behind. And if Selberg and Clayton had made it into the 1950s system, they could look like anyone.

  He should have thought of that before they went through the backdoor. He should have realized they might be separated. He should have thought of a meeting place. Now the others were out there somewhere. In a city of a million people. Just as lost as he was.

  Parker stood up, braced himself against the desk, and moved each leg. He felt like he was in good shape. He had no idea what body he was in, but it felt solid. He opened the desk drawer again, pulled out the revolver and the loose rounds, and dumped them on top of the desk. Beneath the revolver was a shaving mirror. He studied his reflection as he loaded the gun.

  He was handsome in a vintage tough-guy sort of way. Like a character from a dime-store crime novel. He had a heavy jaw that looked like it could take a punch, with a cleft in his chin and a thin line of stubble. His hands were big and thick, and he wore a loose-fitting gray suit.

  There was a frosted glass door on the far side of the room, and when Parker opened it, he saw the words PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR stenciled in gold on the front. Parker had to laugh. Whoever set this scenario up, Chan or Selberg, had put it together perfectly. In his wallet he found seventy dollars in cash, a driver’s license, and a private investigator card, complete with his name and photo. The PI card allowed him to carry a pistol and was valid through 1955. Two years. He hoped he wasn’t going to be here two hours. But at least now he could move around, ask questions, and carry a piece without attracting too much attention.

  Parker wondered why they would even need private investigators in this place. But he figured most of them must be guards. Sort of gave them a good cover story and allowed them to snoop around and look for breakouts.

  But it also allowed him to snoop around. And nobody would raise an eyebrow.

  Aside from his wallet, he had a key ring with a Chevrolet key and a couple other silver pieces that looked like they might open an apartment.

  He went to the window and looked out on City Hall Plaza. A strip of grass meant as a park was surrounded by a wrought iron black fence, and beyond that was the cluster of old stone federal court buildings. A fountain in the center of the plaza lazily bubbled water from a centerpiece shaped like a Greek god. Traffic flowed up Centre Street. They were all big, boxy American-made cars, land cruisers like coupes and DeSotos. The women wore dresses and skirts, the men, suits, rushing to and from the diners along Broadway on their lunchbreak from the offices on Centre and Wall Street.

  Just from a glimpse, Parker could tell this was a stable system. At least downtown, people seemed to thrive in their new identities. The other systems he’d visited always had an undercurrent of violence. Every dark alley was filled with menace. Characters just waiting to sandbag your skull. Arch villains disguised as regular people. But here, these prisoners seemed acclimated to their new locale. Almost made you feel like the Panopticon worked.

  Parker sat down behind his desk to arrange his thoughts.

  He remembered everything.

  His mission was to find Andrew Scott, the wealthy son of Senator Ted Scott. Parker had no idea what Andrew had done to warrant his stay here. This time around, he was paid to not know. This fact weighed heavily on his conscience. And that burden made him angry . . . angry at the Senator Ted Scotts of the world who had money and thought they could buy their way out of everything. And the Andrew Scotts who felt above the law and got away with it because of Daddy.

  Unfortunately, Parker didn’t have the luxury of a conscience on this one. Because Andrew Scott knew where Parker’s wife was being held. This fact made Andrew the most important person in Parker’s life right now. And he was going to do everything he could to find him.

  So, here’s what Parker knew.

  Fact 1: Andrew Scott. Male, white, rich, 22 years old.

  Now in this system, Andrew Scott could look like anyone. But he would still always have the mentality of a spoiled 22-year-old. Which meant he would be impulsive, immature, self-centered, and generally most likely an asshole.

  Fact 2: Andrew knew he was a prisoner.

  This was the first time Parker had broken someone out who actually knew he was in prison. He wasn’t sure how self-awareness would affect prison life. But he felt confident that whatever he was doing on the inside, Andrew was probably not keeping below the radar. He was going to attract attention somehow.

  Fact 3: There was a guard on the inside who was helping Andrew.

  This was what Parker had been told, and it was the only logical conclusion. Andrew could not have accessed the system with any awareness of the truth, ergo, he must have learned he was a prisoner from someone on the inside. The only ones with this immediate knowledge were guards. So, Parker felt it was a pretty reasonable guess that there was a crooked screw on the inside who had gotten paid off to help out Andrew.

  Which led Parker to fact 4, which was less of a fact and more of an educated guess.

  Fact (Educated Guess) 4: Andrew led a pretty cushy life in this system.

  If Scott Senior had the money and clout to pay off guards to help his son, he probably also had the same ability to ensure his son was living the high life on the inside. Parker seriously doubted Andrew was doing his time as a clerk for Liberty
Mutual or a stock boy at Gimbels. Andrew was going to be something important here. Probably had a lot of pretty girls around him. Nice cars. Nightclubs. Apartments. The best the 1950s had to offer.

  Which meant Parker couldn’t take for granted that Andrew would even want to come back out.

  Parker started by opening the phone book and seeing if there were any Andrew Scotts listed. Maybe he would get lucky. He didn’t. No such luck.

  Fact 5: Andrew was a big boxing fan.

  Now that fact was something Parker could use. The Panopticon had always looked at sports as a healthy diversion for the prisoners. So every system was always filled with athletics. Boxing. Baseball. Basketball. Every game they had on the outside, they played on the inside as well.

  And that gave Parker something to work with.

  He holstered the revolver and clipped it to his belt, hidden on the inside of his pants. He left his office unlocked and made his way down to the sidewalk below. Outside, he found a newspaper stand and bought a Post. He sat on a bench, opened up the paper, and scanned the Sports section. There was a heavyweight title fight tonight at the Garden. If Scott was going to be anywhere in town during the evening, it would be there.

  Cars were parked along Broadway. Parker calmly walked down the line, trying his key in every Chevy he found. Eventually he found his car, a nice, cream-colored ’51 Fleetline Deluxe. Inside the glove compartment he found the registration and a set of brass knuckles. He pocketed the knucks and left the registration where it was. A couple of cops in blue reefer coats and black patent leather shoes crossed Broadway. Parker kept an eye on them until they disappeared into a Ham n’ Egg joint on the corner, then he started up the big Fleetline 105 horsepower engine and pulled off down Broadway.

  The address on Parker’s new license was just off Forty-Second Street. He headed uptown, the radio playing Rosemary Clooney, the windows rolled down, that artificial air feeling pretty fine on his face. That was the problem with these systems. Sometimes the fake world was better than the real one. Sometimes it was better to live in a dream. Being awake could be the hard part. One of these days I might just retire here, he thought. Maybe he could find his wife and just kind of stay on. Try and make a go of it in 1953. Pretty good time for America. Top of the world. Just won a world war. Jobs aplenty. No AIDS, no crack, crime down, wages up. What wasn’t there to like?

  Yeah, Parker thought, maybe I’ll just decide to stay on.

  Times Square was still a bit seedy around the edges. Almost like the real thing, just with the sound turned down. A couple of hookers worked the corners while their pimp kept watch behind the wheel of a big cherry-red Eldorado parked up the street. There were a few dancing girl spots, a couple sports bars, and some diners, all while big bright neon signs advertising Gordon’s Gin and Admiral television sets and Canadian Club and Pepsi-Cola splattered yellow and red and green wattage over everything.

  Parker found the address listed on his license, a sort of flophouse building sandwiched between a tiki bar and an all-night jazz joint, parked, and walked up two flights of stairs. The yellowing halls were spiderwebbed with so many cracks it looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to the plaster. He jiggled a few of the keys in the lock on his door and was rewarded with the clunk of a dead bolt turning back.

  To describe what lay beyond as an apartment was a gross disservice to the word. It was a single room with a Murphy bed pushed up against the wall, a sink, a writing desk and chair, and a closet. And there was apparently a phone somewhere, as Parker could hear it ringing as he entered the room. For some reason the phone was tucked under the desk, almost beneath the radiator, which hung from the wall like the ribs of a starving dog.

  Parker answered and Chan’s voice came on the line. “You made it out?”

  “Looks that way,” Parker said. He felt a surge of relief that he wasn’t alone in here.

  “I’m connecting you with Clayton,” Chan said. There was an electronic buzzing sound, then another voice came on the line.

  “Hey, buddy,” a voice said.

  “Clayton?” Parker asked.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I know my voice is off. I look a little different.”

  “What happened? How did you get in here?” Parker asked.

  The voice of an old woman came on the line. “He got in here because of me.”

  “Who is this?” Parker said.

  “Ohh . . . yeah, it’s Selberg. I came into this world as an old woman. It’s the only body I could find.”

  “Kinky,” Parker said.

  “Selberg and I found another backdoor out of the underground Manhattan,” Clayton said. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “What happened?” Clayton said.

  “I don’t want to talk about that now,” Parker replied. Instead, he told Clayton about the fights tonight at the Garden.

  “You think our guy will be there?” Clayton said.

  “Don’t know. But I think it’s the best chance we have right now.”

  “All right, partner, come pick me up.”

  Clayton gave him an address off the West Side Highway just south of the Meatpacking District. Parker was there in ten minutes. The building was an old, down-on-its-luck brownstone. A grizzled-looking white man in a dingy T-shirt with jeans sat on the front stoop. His arms were heroin-junky thin, laced with veins, his skin pulled tight as parchment across his face. He stood up uncertainly as Parker pulled along the curb. “That you?”

  Parker studied the man, trying to read some sign of his friend. “Sam?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Clayton said as he headed to the passenger side door. Clayton joined Parker inside the Fleetline. “How come you get to look like you, only like a more handsome, more in-shape version of you. And I also gotta look like you, only a skinny, wasted-away version of you.”

  “Most times, it’s just luck who you get,” Parker said as he pulled away from the curb. “Next time maybe you get to be Billy Dee Williams.”

  They headed north on the West Side Highway. There were plenty of other cars on the road. Everyone seemed to be living their lives. The entrance for the Holland Tunnel was closed due to construction. Parker had a feeling that construction project was going to last an eternity. There was no New Jersey in this world. And that tunnel would never connect anywhere. Neither would the Lincoln or Washington Bridge.

  They pulled off the highway and headed east on Thirtieth Street. The last time Parker had been here, the giant beast had chased him and Charlotte across the avenue before they escaped into Penn Plaza. He had lost Charlotte not too long after that. Ahead, he saw the familiar Hotel Pennsylvania. There were so many memories locked away in that building, Parker could imagine them now, playing on an endless loop that only a few could see. People long dead still walked those halls, ghosts of the mind forever trapped inside.

  He and Clayton pulled up across from the hotel, and Parker turned his attention to the stadium. His brain whirled in surprise like a fighter on the ropes. The stadium was gone. He turned to check the street signs to make sure they were at the right place.

  “Uh, buddy?” Clayton said. “What happened to the Garden?”

  In place of the familiar circular domed stadium was a massive, rectangular, beaux arts-style building with plenty of columns and steps and statues that stretched two entire city blocks. People moved quickly in and out of the main entrance, a steady stream of pedestrians who hustled about their business, oblivious to the erasure of the most famous arena in the world.

  “Damn . . .” Parker said. “Stupid.”

  “What is it?”

  “Madison Square Garden wasn’t here in 1953,” Chan’s voice sounded in his ear. The connection sounded strong.

  “Where was it?” Parker asked.

  “I have no idea where it was. That’s why we have an Archivist. I’m working to get Selberg a direct connection to you guys now.”

  Parker studied the impressive structure. It was obviously something famous in its da
y. The people who moved in and out of the entrance appeared to be commuters or travelers.

  “Hello, idiots.” An old woman spoke suddenly, her voice sounding in their ear.

  “Selberg?” Parker said, still thrown by the Archivist’s new voice. This character shifting wasn’t unusual when moving into new worlds. But it always took getting used to.

  “That’s right. Miss me?”

  “Yeah. In a bit of a historical maze here.”

  “You’re looking at the original Pennsylvania Station, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the early 1900s.”

  “Oh great, thanks for the history lesson. I played Monopoly too. We just need to find the Short Line and the B&O Railroad and that other one and we’re going to win,” Clayton said.

  “The original Garden wasn’t constructed for another fifteen years or so from when you are now. You’re actually looking at a pretty amazing piece of history.”

  “School’s out,” Clayton said. “Where’s the Garden in this time?”

  “There have actually been four different Madison Square Gardens in the last hundred or so years. In 1953, Madison Square Garden was the third of its kind and was located at Eighth Avenue and Fiftieth Street. Maybe if you two idiots knew anything about history, you would know that.”

  “Clayton tells me you’re an old woman. How’s that feel? Because I’m like a really handsome, fit guy. I look like a cross between a Stetson model and a former high school quarterback,” Parker said as he started up the car and headed north again. “Maybe later I can push you around in your wheelchair.”

  They took Eighth Avenue north. Traffic grew thicker around the Garden. A cop stood in the middle of the avenue, furiously blowing his whistle and waving a white gloved hand, trying to get the traffic to bend to his will. But the cars weren’t moving, jammed up all the way east for blocks. Parker found an empty parking spot and dropped the Fleetline into it.

  “You got a piece?” Parker said.

  “Brother, I came alone in nothing but what God gave me,” Clayton said.

  “I got a revolver and some brass knuckles,” Parker said. “I don’t mind sharing. Which one you want?”