Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1)

by Donna S. Frelick

  “A booster? Jesus Christ, that’s what AL is.” Ethan’s jaw clenched. And me. I’m in this, too. Up to my fucking neck.

  “Yes,” Sam replied. “Rescue developed the alpha wave synchronizer to help returnees reintegrate into their lives. It works very well, usually. But once in a while, someone like Ida—or Asia—comes along. They’re resistant to programming.”

  “That was a good thing for her in the camp, sweets, you can believe that, no matter how much pain it’s caused her since then.” Rayna’s gaze locked on his. “It helped her survive.”

  “You have to understand, Ethan,” Sam pleaded. “What people like Claussen do for us is essential to our mission. The people we return would be lost without someone to help them adjust.”

  “I might be more sympathetic if I’d had a choice about my role in all this.” Ethan’s guts twisted with the knowledge. “Claussen told me nothing about what we were really doing.”

  “He wasn’t free to tell you anything,” Rayna said.

  Ethan pinned her with a dark stare full of the guilt he carried for Ida and Asia and all the others. “And maybe it was just easier not to mention that we were ‘reprogramming’ these poor people to forget the very real trauma that had affected them. I might not have been so cooperative if he’d told me the truth.”

  Rayna met his stare with clear-eyed calm. “Their trauma is real all right—and more horrible than you can imagine. Would you have them relive it every minute of every day? Look deep in your soul, Ethan, and tell me: if you knew a way to spare Asia the pain of her memories—if there had been no battle when her ship came out of jump to delay her return, and you truly could make her forget her time on Gallodon—would you still insist on your principles? Or would you let her forget and live her life as she was meant to?”

  Ethan felt his heart sink into his belly as he realized he didn’t have an answer to that question. Or, no, he did have an answer, but it wouldn’t be the one a young, idealistic psych intern might have given. It probably wasn’t the one he would have given six months ago, before Asia Burdette changed his life forever. He knew now that he would do anything to spare her the pain he’d seen her endure.

  “Arthur Claussen wasn’t always motivated by greed or arrogance.” Rayna’s soft voice was full of emotion now. And what she said was hard to hear. “In the beginning, he was more like you than you know.”

  The knowledge came to him at last, the fog lifting to reveal a hidden landscape. “Elizabeth had been taken, too.” Her nightmares. The drinking to avoid them. Her withdrawal. The fear masquerading as hostility. It had all been there, if only he’d had the eyes to see it. His muscles, bunched tight with awful memory, began to tremble.

  “She was one of Psychogenesis’s first cases, the reason we contacted Claussen.” Rayna confirmed everything with a slow nod. “We needed a test case for the AL protocol. He worked through another of his associates to try and help her, but failed.”

  Ethan remembered the young female therapist who’d been no more than Claussen’s puppet, but he had no idea the extent of what went on in the sessions. “Liz never told me.” His voice was a ragged whisper.

  “I’m sorry.” Rayna laid a warm hand on his arm. “She’d been taken so young . . .”

  Ethan swallowed the tears that would have choked him, called up the anger that still roiled in his chest. “Did you know what Arthur was doing? Kidnapping people who didn’t respond to the AL protocol? Was that part of your plan, too?”

  “No,” Rayna said. “Sam and I were sent in to investigate when you and Asia took off. We asked for the assignment. Asia is sort of a special project for me.” She smiled, then went on. “We found out about Ida and Conners and the others the same way you did. Claussen has a contract with a black ops agency of the U.S. government to ‘debrief’ his subjects.”

  The memory of the anticipatory gleam in Claussen’s eyes when he introduced his new research partners, the glib Colonel Gordon and the unsmiling Dr. Park, flashed through his mind. Would they have told him the truth if he had agreed to join the team?

  Ethan seethed with thick outrage. “What happens to the patients when he’s finished?”

  Rayna shook her head, her jaw tight. “We don’t know yet.”

  “There are so many out there—so many who’ve been Taken.” Sam’s face was lined with a weariness Ethan hadn’t noticed before. “Your world isn’t ready to join the galaxy. Can you imagine the panic if it became widely known that the people of Earth are being stolen into slavery and their governments are powerless to stop it? We do our best—and I know it sounds cold—but even Rescue has to pick its battles. I’m sorry, Ethan. We can’t save them all.”

  Despite their warmth, Ethan turned from them both, his face a mask pointed at the darkness outside the vehicle. He curled in on himself, struggling to keep his fracturing heart in one piece, to keep his soul from drowning in the rising black tide of his guilt, to keep his thoughts focused on the task before him despite the anger that threatened to erupt into mindless rage.

  Asia was all that mattered now. It might not be possible to save everyone, but this one would not be lost. They had to find her. They had to save her. Asia was everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  So many questions. A morning full of them. Names. Places. Years. The random bits of data that make up a life. In this case, my life.

  Where were you born, Asia?

  What was your mother’s maiden name?

  Where did you go to high school?

  What was your first job, Asia?

  What is your favorite color?

  And the one Claussen repeated like a mantra, a nonsensical “control question” thrown in at set intervals to see if I was still paying attention:

  “What did you have for breakfast, Asia?”

  For two hours, the answer had been the same: “Eggs, toast, peach yogurt.”

  “Good.” Claussen closed the laptop. “We’ll let you take a little break now.”

  The doctor heaved himself to his feet and lumbered out the door. I stood up and stretched, glad to be rid of him, but my nerves twitched with apprehension. He wasn’t done with me, and the bone-deep memories of my torture at the hands of the aliens told me the next phase of his experimentation was likely to be much less benign.

  The door opened again and the nurse poked her head in. “Need a break, hon?” She waved me in the direction of the door. “C’mon down the hall with me a sec.”

  I followed her down the hallway to the restroom, grateful for the chance to leave the room, grateful for the chance to move, to expand my vision beyond four walls. I used the facilities and washed up and would have lingered in the Spartan space if the nurse had let me, but she seemed well aware of the schedule.

  “Let’s go, hon.” She planted her feet and nodded. “Wouldn’t want to keep the doctor waiting.”

  She led me down the hallway, but she didn’t stop at the room we’d been in all morning. She kept walking, looking back at me when I hesitated. “C’mon, Asia. We’re in a different room for the next part of the test.” She spoke calmly, like there was nothing to be worried about.

  I knew better. This is where it starts. My heart thundered in my hollow chest. My mouth went dry. My eyes searched the empty halls for a place to run, even though I knew there was no place to go. I was trapped as surely as any lab monkey—every contingency planned for, the cage secure, the doors locked, the escape routes blocked. Still, everything in me screamed, GET OUT NOW!

  A door opened along the hall ahead. Claussen and two hefty orderlies stepped into the corridor.

  “There you are, Asia.” He gave me a condescending smirk. “I thought you’d gotten lost.”

  The orderlies came up to flank me, and, despite what I knew, my feet started moving. Traitors, they took me against my will to the doorway where Claussen waited, still smiling. He stepped aside, and the two orderlies behind me crowded me into the room. I wanted to stop, I would have stopped, but the big men each grabbed an elb
ow and kept me moving, propelling me toward an examination table in the center of the room.

  I tried not to panic. I fought to hold on to a life raft of rational thought in a raging sea of primitive, fear-driven physical reaction. The place itself telegraphed PAIN! VIOLATION! HUMILIATION! DEATH! though there was nothing in sight to trigger those thoughts. There was the examination table, covered in a cheerful pink sheet, with a pillow at one end. There was a desk, with a device I recognized from Ethan’s office—the alpha wave synchronizer. Not so neutral in effect after all, then. Or does it depend on who is wielding the tool? There was a cabinet, latched, its contents not visible from the outside. There was some equipment off to one side, covered and ignored as if it would not be needed.

  Yet my body was trembling, my heart flailing, my mind shrieking, Get out!

  My nostrils flared at the smell of alcohol and the hot-dusty scent of electronics. My pupils shrank against the bright lights. I looked at this room, and I remembered agony. I feared for my life. Worse, I feared for my sanity.

  Claussen was watching my reaction closely. “Asia, there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “You’ve already hurt me.” I took refuge in anger. “What you are doing to me is wrong by every standard of your profession. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “You really are rather good at manipulation, Asia.” Claussen didn’t look at me as he said this. He was busy writing something down. “I applaud your spirit. However, the truth is that I am not harming you but helping you in the long run. And helping others, too, by the way. If we can discover how you manage to resist programming so effectively, we can improve our techniques. Then you, and others like you, will never suffer from the memory of your . . . time away . . . again.”

  I stared at him. “My ‘time away’? You make it sound like a fucking vacation. And you want to know something? The only thing worse than remembering that something horrible happened to me, is knowing something horrible happened, but not being able to remember what. No one asked me if I wanted a mindfuck. Your techniques amount to rape, Claussen.”

  “An interesting perspective.” He gestured to the exam table. “If you please . . .?”

  The two orderlies scowled at me. The nurse smiled. My knees nearly buckled under me, but I took the last few steps to the table and sat up on the pink surface.

  “Lie down, please.”

  Hating myself for my compliance, I did as he said. The nurse began dabbing cold gel on my temples and forehead. Then she placed several small, round disks over the gel, connecting the wires both to AL and to a souped-up EEG readout machine she’d rolled up to the table from a corner. For record-keeping, I suppose.

  “Tell me, Asia,” Claussen said as the nurse went about her business. “If you had been given a choice when they rescued you from the labor camp, would you have chosen to remember your experiences?”

  The idea of forgetfulness was so seductive. How could I truly say I would have chosen to remember? I couldn’t have known the programming wouldn’t work for me. They could even have told me there was a chance it might not work, and I might have tried it anyway. To forget all the pain and the awful darkness of that time, the things they had done to me. Would I have wanted to remember?

  “No.” The admission scalded me. “I would have wanted to forget. But I can’t. I’m not sure anyone really can.”

  Claussen smiled down at me. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Most people can. We just have to find a way to make you forget, too.”

  He started to turn away, but I stopped him with a challenge. “And who chooses what I forget and what I remember, Doc? You?”

  He turned back to me. “Well, yes, in this case, I am in control of the process. Obviously.”

  I wasn’t sure where I was going with this. I only knew I wanted to postpone the next step as long as possible. Every muscle trembled as I struggled to keep my voice even and my arguments reasonable, to keep him talking at all costs.

  “And I don’t suppose you’re tempted to expand the scope of your little procedure to include subjects beyond my time in the labor camp?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why would I do that, Asia? What other subjects would be of interest to me?”

  “My feelings for Ethan present a problem for you, Claussen.” God knows why I kicked him in the teeth with that. No good could come of it, I knew it as soon as the words came out of my mouth. But it was too late now. I blundered on. “It would be pretty convenient for you if I forgot all about him, wouldn’t it?”

  Claussen’s expression grew furious. “Well, you have me there. It would have been a great deal better for everyone if you and Ethan hadn’t decided to play house. It took me longer than it should have to see what was happening. I trusted him. I waited for him to do the right thing. I told others he had things under control, that I had things under control. I hesitated. Now we’ll be lucky to have any say at all in what happens next.”

  He seemed to lose focus for a moment, lost in thought. Then his steel-gray gaze found me again. “Your emotional connection with Ethan is not my first priority. It’s considerably more difficult to eliminate positive associations in the brain than negative ones—ask any drug addict. I may need a lot more time to accomplish that goal.” He brightened. “But, we’ll see! First things first!”

  He turned and switched on the alpha wave synchronizer. “Now, tell me your full name.”

  I shivered and shook, unable to stay still on the table. Claussen nodded at the orderlies, who stepped up to fasten the restraints that had remained hidden beneath the demure drape of the pink sheets. Oddly, I felt more secure bound at the wrists and ankles, and the shaking began to subside. Only the roar of blood in my ears and the slam of my heartbeat betrayed my fear.

  “Your full name, my dear?” Claussen repeated.

  From a long way off, I heard my voice answer him. “Asia Lynne Burdette.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “And what did you have for breakfast, Asia?”

  “Eggs, toast, peach yogurt.”

  “What the hell is this stuff?” Sam held up a small plastic container, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “Peach yogurt,” Ethan informed him from the back seat, a spoonful halfway to his own mouth.

  Rayna pointed a spoon at him. “It’s healthy. Eat up.”

  “Why couldn’t we stop at that other place—what is it, Macdougal’s?”

  “McDonald’s,” Ethan supplied.

  “Yeah.” Sam’s face lit up. “They have those meat slabs on bread—uh, hamburgers. I like those.”

  “You like those a little too much.” Rayna frowned at him. “I can’t be waiting around for your flabby ass to catch up with me all the time.”

  “Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty, baby.” Sam, who was well over six feet of solid muscle, looked as if he’d settle for having her for breakfast. “But really, a man needs some sustenance. This ain’t getting it.”

  Rayna tossed a bagel at him. “Try one of these and shut up. I didn’t have time to get you a steak dinner.”

  Ethan smiled. “It’s not bad with coffee.”

  “That why you’re so skinny, stick boy?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes I forget to eat.”

  Sam gaped at him in the rear view mirror. “That’s impossible.”

  Ethan nodded out the window at the glass and brick building that housed Daystrom Futurgenics. “How long will we have to wait?”

  “The nanoprobes I planted take about an hour to disperse.” Rayna waved a hand at a computer screen that was currently blank. “They should start feeding data back soon. Then we’ll have the information on which to build some kind of plan.”

  Frustration ran like a buzzing current along Ethan’s nerves. “I still don’t understand why we can’t just break in there and take her.” The building was isolated, far from any others at the end of an access road in a maze-like business park. “And we drove all the way here
in a car, for God’s sake. You came halfway across the galaxy to rescue Asia—you can’t use your technology now, when it counts?”

  “Look. Ethan.” Sam spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a two-year-old. “Do you remember what I said about keeping a low profile? We can’t exactly go zipping around the atmosphere in a nil-gravity vehicle without attracting attention. De-materialization beams require energy use that can be detected and are generally imprecise without sensory data—which we lack in this case. We have to go slow or risk failure and exposure. Do you get it?”

  “But she’s in there.” He stared back at the building. “God knows what Claussen’s doing to her.”

  “We only think she’s there.” Rayna touched his arm. “We have to be sure before we bust up into the annual meeting of the National Society of Toy Manufacturers. Try to be patient. She’s stronger than you think, Ethan. She can hold out until we get there.”

  He nodded, but his heart was breaking. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to sit here helplessly while Asia endured whatever torment Claussen had devised for her only a few hundred meters away. Time was running out. He would have to act soon, with or without the help of extraterrestrials seeking to keep a low profile.

  Firelight flickered as a wet, windy afternoon turned to a night as cold and sparkling as diamonds. Wrapped in warmth, I lay and listened to Ethan’s steady heartbeat beneath my ear, his silky murmur repeating my name like a caress.

  “They can’t have been human to have hurt you like they did,” he said. “My Asia, my sweet, beautiful Asia.”

  “Asia. Pay attention now, Asia.”

  No. Firelight. And Ethan. I won’t forget.

  “Asia?”

  I groaned and opened my eyes. “Yes.”