The iFactor

  “Please return to your homes.” A bullhorn sounded. Matt became aware of flying rocks, the smell of tear gas and angry frustrated shouting from the populace that gathered in front of tenements opposite the police line. “Food is on the way.”

  A loud gun crack echoed through the street, and people started to scatter. Matt put his hand on Vanderhaar’s shoulder and pulled him around to face him. The sunlight starburst off his baldhead in a rainbow of music. “I… I have to report you.” Matt fought to retain control.

  “I can’t let you do this, Matt.” Vanderhaar said. The line of police raised their weapons to fire. People were running as the police started to fire into the crowds. Vanderhaar raised his pistol to Matt’s face. Matt grabbed his hand and struggled with him. A young girl of about seven years old broke free from the crowd crying for her mother, and the gun in his partner’s hand went off. The girl’s head exploded.

  Matt stood in shock at the horrific loss of life. “Oh, my god, Dales. What did you do?” Matt turned back to face his partner when the pistol collided with his skull bringing darkness and fireworks. Matt awoke in handcuffs, remembering nothing of the incident. Ballistics confirmed that it was his gun that killed the girl. Witnesses reported that he attacked Vanderhaar and shot the girl. Months of psychological evaluations and hearings began. Matt lost his badge.

  Matt tried to remember everything he could. He remembered reading, or that he will read the reports that Ken received when he arrived on Sirius. His treatments were working because his symptoms were mild caused by the weakening of his emotional defenses and traumatic event while under the influence of Fantasia. Even though the memories prior to, and during the event were erased, the others would return. It was only time. He saw the paperwork dated same day that authorized the job offer, and a message to a ships medic, ordering a partial dose for passenger Matt Dales.

  He had a flash of memory, a dark room with long row of faces appeared and all said in unison. “Kenneth Vanderhaar arranged to have your sleep drug shorted.”

  “Why?” he remembered asking the victims of the Trust.

  “Your memories were a threat.” They intoned.

  Memories from hundreds of questions and answer sessions beset him. It became impossible to focus on a specific session, they all blurred together, but he knew that in the days to come he would ask questions to lines of vacant faces and they’d tell him what he wanted to know. It was the Trust. A think tank of people like himself, except that they had to be kept in a state of perpetual semi consciousness. Dozens of semi aware dreamers, all remembering the future.

  “He killed Officer Perry because Perry found out that he was behind the Fantasia drug market.” The line said.

  “The person in the park was Kenneth Vanderhaar.”

  All the things that will happen, Matthew Dales remembered. Everything that he will learn from behind the large black desk where he will sit and listen to the memories of the exposure victims, started to break through. The victims of his former partner and the ones in the colonial government who colluded with Vanderhaar, they will become his tools, not theirs. Mat knew with absolute certainty that there was indeed a Trust, and it would soon be his.

  Sixteen years of images and sensations struggled for a place in the forefront of his memory, jumbling and blurring, only coming into focus and connected to other memories. He tried to focus on specific events, but they faded into the hurricane of memory. It would take time, but he knew that soon he’d know all of it, and much more.

  Matt was laughing when the cleaning staff found him under the sheets.

  “Wow, are you ever out of it.” A woman’s voice broke through his cascade of memories.

  “Yes, for a very long time,” Matt smiled. “But now I’m back.”

  Chapter 46

  Vanderhaar left his office filled with apprehension. The plans he’d been working on for so long had not come to fruition. His former partner was running free. Somehow, he’d managed to escape the detachment the Trust sent to retrieve him. The damn computer system was frustrating him, he wanted to request a warrant to locate Matt, but doing so would create a paper trail making him useless to the Trust. Perry, the damned fool, would have been able to get around that problem, but then that was why he had to have him killed. No, however he proceeded, it was best if Matt just disappeared. He could falsify the paperwork to make it look like they sent him back to Earth.

  To make matters worse, they could get rid of him now without a paper trail. Furthermore he wasn’t getting anywhere with locating the killer. He couldn’t even count on Matt to help him fix that problem before he turned him over. His personal transport, a sleek sporty model, waited for him in the parking basement under the station. He hadn’t taken two steps from the lift toward it when he heard the old familiar voice.

  “I think I’ll turn you in,” Matt’s voice echoed off the walls. “But who would I turn you in to? I’ll have to give that some thought.”

  “You’re sick, Dales. Come on out, we’ll get you to a hospital where your doctor can help you.”

  “Help me?” Matt chuckled. “I think I’ve had enough of your help.”

  “Come on out, we’ll work this out.” Vanderhaar felt his side arm for assurance.

  “Like you did in Dallas. How many people have you killed, Ken? That worker, and his family, the girl in Dallas, Perry? I’m sure there are more deaths to your credit than that partner.”

  “You got it back, huh? The medical reports said you might. Yeah, right. Who are you going turn me into? I’m the law here?” Vanderhaar laughed. “Just who do you think I work for? How do you think a Dallas detective gets a sweet gig like this?”

  “The companies are behind this?” Matt asked, just for clarification. “Just like they were in Dallas.”

  “I’ll go to the governor.”

  “Even if you make it to him, it would be your word against mine, and I haven’t been adjudicated psychologically compromised. I’ll tell them that you are insane. I’ve got so much evidence built up against you now, you’re gonna spend the rest of your days in a psyche ward.”

  “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t go that way, Ken.”

  Vanderhaar drew his gun and fired in the direction of the voice. Bullet’s ricocheted off the walls, one of them struck Vanderhaar in the leg and he dropped. “Officer needs assistance, parking garage.” He gasped into his radio.

  “They won’t get here in time.” Matt responded from a shadow. “Looks painful.”

  “Damn you.” Vanderhaar raised the gun again. Matt came up quickly from behind and kicked it out of his hand. “It’s over now. Kill me and they’ll crucify you.”

  “But what will they do when I crucify you?” Matt smiled. “You destroyed me, Ken, and the payback won’t be easy.” Matt dropped a bloody glob on the ground before him. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind. I borrowed some things from your car.” He dangled a weapon belt in front of his former friend then retracted it quickly as Vanderhaar lunged. “I’ll be seeing you, partner.”

  Vanderhaar turned his forward momentum into a dive for his gun. He grabbed the weapon and readied it as he spun to draw on his former partner.

  Matt was gone.

  “Dales?” He called. There was no answer save the opening of the lift, followed by a group of officers piling out in a defensive formation. Vanderhaar looked at the bloody palm chip Matt had dropped before him. How far can he go without money or access? Vanderhaar allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. Matt might have made himself harder to find, but every officer knew him on sight, and the crazy ex-officer was now exiled from the system. He wouldn’t even be able to open a door.

  Chapter 47

  People were scattered all around the former detective in the dim light. For the first time in years, it didn’t bother him in the least. In fact, he remembered each person moving past him before they did. Most of his memories remained a jumble, but if he focused on the moment, then he could remember everything quite clearly moments before it occurred. He mo
ved among his fellow colonists in total security as he made his way to the place the last woman was killed.

  Matt was no longer a detective, but he had a ‘hunch’ that only finding the killer would bring closure with Jill. Most of his memories were still tumultuous; his subconscious mind was growing weary of trying to sort them all out. He slumped on the ground where the last victim had died and closed his eyes to rest. He awoke sometime later.

  The light of the rising primary glinted off a small piece of metal on the grass. He scooped up the necklace and appraised it. It was Jill’s. He remembered it against her flesh as they made love. The image changed to another memory of Jill on a scaffold, high in the dome.

  “Let go, Matt, evolve!” she said. He had a vision of her bloody palm and he looks at his own. She was still alive. Somehow, she’d managed to survive. His memories were still a jumble. He was still repressing them.

  Matt knew that he had to find Jill and he knew that he had to get to her before she was shot and fell to her death. He had now completely accepted the fact that his flashes and dreams were memories; many were of things that hadn’t happened yet. It was hard to sort them out. But, most importantly, he had to find Jill, because he knew that someone was going to follow her up the dome scaffolding, and shoot her. She would fall to her death if he couldn’t save her.

  There was only one way to accomplish that. He needed access to all his memories. This meant that the last vestiges of his sanity barrier had to be eliminated, he had to “let go and evolve”. To do that, he needed something of value to trade. He looked at the necklace in his hands. No, he thought. It belonged to Jill and he wouldn’t part with it unless there was no other choice. He remembered, however, that he would shortly have another way to get what he needed.

  “Hello, Kramer.” He stepped out of the shadows behind the officer, taking the security officer’s gun from the holster before he could reach for it.

  “Dales.” He said curtly. “You are under arrest.”

  “I really don’t think so.”

  “Have you completely lost it?” Kramer sounded incredulous. “The chief backed you, gave you a chance and you shot him. We’re going to throw away the key.”

  “He told you that?” Matt asked. “Yeah, well I guess he would. I would have thought, being his dog and all that he’d at least have been upfront with you. Guess you can never tell. However, just for the fun of it, I’ll tell you the truth. That should be a nice change for you.”

  “Chief was right, you are crazy.”

  “He shot himself.”

  “Sure he did.”

  “The man has all the grace of a hippo, got himself with a ricochet.”

  “Have you lost all your marbles?”

  “No worse, for him, and you, I found them. All of them and some that aren’t even lost yet.” Matt said. “Now, give it to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Fantasia in your pocket, you have six doses. I want them all.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “I will shoot you in your chip first, so that they think you died. Then some other organ so that you wish you had. Do we understand each other?”

  “You wouldn’t…” Matt aimed the gun at his hand, sighting carefully down the barrel. “Okay. Here, take them.” The officer pulled out a package of small capsules.

  “Give me your belt.”

  Kramer complied and let it drop.

  “Now, walk forward. Do not look back or I’ll shoot you.” Kramer obeyed, turned and walked away. Matt pulled the radio out of the belt and stomped it into the ground. The belt would be useful. He pulled out the tangler grenades and first aid kit and dropped the belt next to the smashed radio. “By the way, not for nothing, but he’s keeping a lot of really damning information on you. When it is convenient, you’ll go down.”

  By the time Kramer looked back, Matt was long gone.

  He made his way to the maintenance section. No one there knew what he looked like, and in the maintenance uniform the station gave him, it seemed appropriate. Recollections continued to rise unpredictably. He tried to focus on Jill, but the memories wouldn’t fall into order. He could feel the haze caused by the drugs the psychiatrist had been feeding him. They were impairing his ability to remember. Residual effects would eventually fade, but not soon enough.

  The men who attacked him had injected him with Fantasia. They hoped it would make him docile and forget everything; it didn’t work as it was supposed to. Instead, it weakened the drugs that hid all his memories. To obliterate the wall and get them all back, he needed more. He needed a safe place to go, where he could take the drug in peace and ride out the cyclone that followed. It wasn’t a choice that brought him back to the den, it was memory. The den was where he remembered taking the drug that freed his mind, so that was where he headed.

  “Become, Evolve.” Jill’s worlds rang through his ears as he walked into the shop.

  Go to sleep and go insane,

  Past and future all the same

  The woman behind the counter agreed to give Matt a room for the night, and some food, in exchange for four of the vials. The room was small, with no windows. The only air came from the ducts. He sat on a small bed, ate a couple of soy burgers and vanilla shake, and then injected himself with both doses. He lay back in the bed, humming the song the children had been singing: “the screamers.”

  The effect came upon him gradually, and less chaotic, this round. The last time it had been as though he were hit with a million, lead, jigsaw puzzle pieces. His brain could only make sense of the ones he had most wanted to remember, those of what really happened to him in Dallas. Now the drug started placing all the memories in order, sorting them into a coherent whole.

  Matt remembered the next seven years of his life, all of it. There was no longer any question for which he wouldn’t have the answer. What he didn’t know, the rows of blank faces would tell him.

  Matt remembered a conversation that he would be having quite soon. He figured the discussion would be a charade as he could already remember the answers to the questions. Still, when the time came, he would pace back and forth before the people strapped to the chairs and ask. “Why did Jill kill all those people?”

  “Because she had to.” They would intone.

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  “For you.” They would say.

  “Me?”

  “To save you from your mistake. You shot the dome. It was damaged. It was going to break. She remembered how to stop it.”

  In his mind, he saw himself shooting the gun in the park; he saw bullets ricocheting of the metal, except for one bullet, which chipped the dome, weakening it. The dome was ready to crack like an egg.

  “Remembered? Was Jill exposed to the Mind Rip?”

  “Yes, “the voices answered in unison.

  “Why didn’t she end up a screamer?”

  “She accepted what she saw.” The faces in the darkness explained.

  “All those people, why kill them?”

  “Because she remembered doing so.” they whispered.

  “How did she know how to kill?”

  “She remembered,” they said.

  “How did she know when?”

  “She remembered.” They intoned again.

  Jill’s voice rang in his mind. “I have always loved you. I have waited for you my whole life.”

  “She killed those people, because she remembered killing them?”

  “She had no choice.” The voices intoned.

  “There is always a choice.”

  “Not for here. Each step led to the next, leading to you, leading to saving the dome and the colony. Change one thing and the chain breaks.” They said.

  “So, to save the colony,” he remembered how the lump will form in his throat as he speaks, “To save me, she had to kill?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she remembered.”

  Matt didn’t want t
o remember any more of the conversation. His chest hurt and he had important things to do. He felt the drugs losing control of him. Soon he’d be awake,

  When he finally came out of his drug-induced stupor, Matt saw a note on the pillow written in Jill’s handwriting. The same handwriting that had been on all the notes on his door. “I’m waiting my love, I’ve always been waiting.” She would be waiting and now he knew where. Matt pulled himself together and ran out of the drug den to stop Jill from killing her last victim.

  Chapter 48

  On the edge of the dome, he saw the security gate that led to the scaffolding; it was open. He paced himself as he climbed. He would need his strength if he were going to save both of them. Each turn popped into his memory as he approached. A maze crisscrossed the entire colonial dome. Clear polymer compounds a few inches thick was all that stood between him and the dense acidic atmosphere of the planet, clear polymers that were now cracking where his bullet struck.

  Finally, he reached the spot where Jill stood, a worker kneeling before her with a knife to his throat. Matt approached slowly. His heart leapt to see her alive.

  “Hello Jill.” His voice cracked with emotion as he spoke.

  A loud alarm went off, warning the population to make for the nearest bunker. He could see the large crack above her head starting to leak droplets of acid a few feet behind her. “I missed you.” She said.

  “Don’t kill him. You don’t have to kill him.”

  “I’m sorry, Matt. I wish there was another way. The dome is cracking.” She said. “I can’t have his life changing things, it’s too important to risk.”

  “There is always a choice.”

  “No,” she said sadly, “Only fate, I know what I have to do, I have always known. I have to save you. I have to save my students and their families.”

  “I know, from where I shot it.”

  “Then let me stop it.”