by Neil Clarke
Ondine was silent for a time, a strange expression on her face. “You been practicing that?”
“No.”
His exo-memory typed: You have been practicing: seven times this morning and eleven times last night. Twelve in front of the mirror, five while walking in a circle around the kitchen table, once while you were on the toilet.
He rubbed his eye, annoyed at the contradictory blurb in the corner of his vision. “Yes. Okay yes, I’ve been practicing.” He looked at her. “How did I do?”
“You did fine.”
“But?”
For the next few weeks, every time he smelled the bitter scent of strong black coffee, his mind would time travel backwards, and he’d see her as she was then. Something alive and real against the forced elegance of the restaurant and the manufactured glamour of its patrons. He would remember every detail: her leather jacket, creased with decades of loving use; her smooth skin a perfection no amount of genetic manipulation could replicate; and the sadness in her eyes as she first realised, and then rejected, his intentions.
“But, Irving,” she said, “I’m happy you’re back on your feet again. Truly happy, I mean that. And if you want to start seeing Eulalie, then I’ll agree to that. Slow at first, with me there, at my place. She wants to see her father again and I want you back in her life.” Ondine sighed. “But you and I, Irving? That’s ancient history. We had a good run. A few good years followed by a couple of terrible ones. It’s how these things end all the time, every day: in bitterness and regret. There’s no hope left for us, just the rubble.”
He gripped her hand harder. “But Ondine. You’re not listening. This restaurant isn’t an accident. This is who I am now. I’m successful, I’m a win-ner—I’m all those things you wanted me to be.”
She pulled her hand from his. The softness left her voice. “It isn’t about money.”
“Bullshit,” he said, loud enough for heads turn their way. He lowered it again. “Bullshit. It’s all you ever talked about.” “That’s not true.”
“It is precisely true. Always money: money for the rent, for holidays, organic food, fancy medicine, better schools, better fucking everything. You want me to play it back for you right now? I still have all those memories.”
As he spoke the exo-memory popped up on-retina, taking some of the heat out of his accusations: I have many examples of Ondine criticizing you for other reasons. Would you like me to list them?
Ondine didn’t get angry. Instead she sighed, pushing her two scoops of fifty dollar ice-cream absently with her spoon. “I’m sure you could play back those fights. I remember all that, too. And you’re right, it was wrong of me to put it that way. When you’re angry you reach for the cheap shots, and they were cheap shots. But it was never about that.”
“Then what was it about?”
She looked up from the bowl, her face tinged with regret. “It was about ambition, Irving. We used to dream and plan together, about our family, our careers. But you fell into this rut and never got out. You gave up on nano-tech, neglected your daughter. Me. God Irving—you spent more time betting on weather patterns and drinking gin with your pals down at the bowls club than you ever did on trying to make a career. You were just going through the motions of life, constantly looking over the horizon, waiting for your ship to come in.”
“That’s not true.”
Ondine Drinkwater is correct. She encouraged you on 103 occasions to pursue your career. You spent 2,428 hours researching and betting on weather patterns, whereas you spent 41 hours applying for jobs in the nano-technology field. An image appeared above the words, of Ondine, concerned expression on her face. If he gave his exo-memory the command the image would become a playback of Ondine, from many years before, encouraging him to pursue his career. He didn’t give the command.
The present-day Ondine continued talking, her voice overlapping with the on-retina accusations. “Remember when you won the University Prize for your thesis on nano-technology and desertification? You could have parlayed that into a career—you had some great companies offer you an internship.” She shook her head. “But you said you didn’t want to work for free. You wanted the big bucks, straight away, so you turned them all down.” He creased his forehead.
Ondine Drinkwater is incorrect about the University Prize. No record of receiving an award for your thesis exists in your exo-memory. Ondine Drinkwater’s recollections of job offers are correct. You rejected job offers from four different companies.
“I never won a university prize.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, ‘never won’?” Something itched in his mind. He couldn’t remember it. Unless . . . “You don’t remember, do you?”
He set his jaw. “I don’t remember because it never happened.”
Ondine sighed through her nose. “It was one of the best nights we ever had, Irving. We got wasted at the reception at the Chancellor’s house; we danced and danced while all the guests just stood around staring at us. Then we snuck off and did it in one of the spare rooms. The Chancellor’s wife found us the next morning, passed out on the bed. You were naked except for a smoking jacket you’d stolen from the Chancellor’s wardrobe.” She shook her head, half-smiling at the memory. “She didn’t even blink. Just told us she was happy someone enjoyed the party, and then cooked us omelettes for breakfast.”
Irving was silent.
“How can you not remember that, Irving? And what did you mean before when you said you still had all those memories of us fighting?”
“I . . . ” He broke eye contact, looked down into the black of his coffee.
She shook her head. “I knew it. I knew it. You’re selling memories aren’t you? That’s what all this—” she dropped her spoon into the ice-cream “— bullshit is. This room filled with wankers, that ridiculous suit. It’s another get rich quick scheme, isn’t it?”
“No. No it’s not another scheme.”
You have previously discussed—on twenty-eight occasions—getting rich quick through selling memories, Mister Kupfermann. Your bank account currently has over fifteen million dollars, which you have claimed, in conversation with others, has come from memory sales. While your exo-memory has no direct recordings of you selling memory, it does have twenty-three instances of you approaching a memory acquisition business. It is possible you had these sections of your memory wiped during the procedure. I have scanned the two years since you separated from Ondine and can find no other possible source of your current wealth.
“Okay,” Irving said, fists clenching against the tabletop. “Okay.” He breathed out slowly. “Okay, yeah, I sold some memories. Just to get ahead. Get my life back together.” He tried to reach for her again, but she jerked her hand away like he’d just offered her a dead rat. “I did it for us, Ondine, for our family.”
“Oh Irving, you and your bullshit. Every scheme was always for the family.” She threw one hand up, exasperated. “I don’t get it. Why would you sell something so good? If your goal was getting back together with me, why would you sell one of the best moments we shared?”
He said: “I don’t know,” but he did know. Even if he couldn’t remember the procedures, he understood the pricing structure behind them perfectly. The most emotionally potent memories always fetched the most money—that and them being unique. Wiping them from one’s own memory, so the rich client was the sole proprietor. “I didn’t see it as selling memories. I saw it as an investment in a long, happy future of new memories. Once we’re back together, I’ll never have to sell another.”
“More bullshit.” She started to get up from her seat. “And I’m done listening to it.”
“Wait.” He got up from his seat as well. “Eulalie—I do want to see our daughter. That’s not bullshit.” As the words came out of his mouth he felt the truth of them, and was relieved.
She rubbed her forehead, but he’d found the right nerve. She sat back down, gingerly, on the edge of the seat.
He took a deep
breath.
His exo-memory assumed the pause was an invitation for further information. Eulalie, your daughter, eight years old. A picture of his daughter’s face appeared above the writing. Hazel eyes like his, black hair like her mother’s, a cheeky grin all her own. Eulalie goes to North Fitzroy Montessori primary school, her favourite colour is purple with blue spots, and she has a pet goldfish called Squeak-and-Bubble.
“Are you reading something on-retina?” asked Ondine, sharply.
He refocused on her. “No.”
“Bullshit. Same old Irving. Even now, in your grand attempt at winning me back, you can’t help but put the freewave on. Is there a cricket game on today?”
“I’m not watching the cricket. I’m not watching anything.”
“I don’t believe you. It was ever thus—zoned out on some stupid live-feed every time I tried to talk to you.”
He felt his face going red. Part anger, part embarrassment. “That’s not true.”
It is mostly true: you watched sports, betting markets, or Chinese Kung-Fu films on-retina during 81% of your conversations with Ondine.
His fingernails dug into the palms of his hand.
Ondine looked at him for ten long seconds before she said: “Do you remember Luna Park?”
It was a test. And it was immediately clear it was a test he was going to fail. “Umm.”
“Do you remember Luna Park, Irving?”
“Yes.” He licked his lips. “Of course.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying—I do remember Luna Park.”
No recording of Luna Park exists in your exo-memory.
“Ah—stop!”
Her eyes went a stone-cold shade of bitter. “I will not stop.”
“No, no, not you. It’s my exo-memory, it—”
“I knew it.”
He hit the table. Cutlery danced, heads turned his way again and a middle-aged man in a red jacket suddenly appeared next to the table.
“Is everything all right here, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” said Irving. “We’re fine.”
Ondine said to the maître d’: “It’s not a problem. I’m leaving,” and got up from her seat.
“I think that would be best,” replied the maître d’.
Irving reached out his hand to her, begging. “No Ondine, please don’t leave.”
Ondine looked down at him, eyes glistening. “You need help, Irving. Professional help. You’re stuck in an endless loop of self-denial. You need to find a way out.”
She walked away.
“Sir,” said the head waiter, interposing himself between Irving and the exit as he rose to follow his wife. Irving’s lip curled in anger, but before he could barge past, the man spoke, voice an urgent whisper. “Sir, you are making a scene.”
“Fuck you,” Irving hissed. He pushed past, jogging from the restaurant, red-faced, as everyone stared.
He couldn’t see Ondine when he burst out onto the street. Squinting under the bone-white sun, spinning around, trying to glimpse her receding form in the heat shimmer rising from the sidewalk. His eyes watered from the sun. The sun: that’s what he tried to tell himself, anyway, before he sold the memory a few weeks later.
Irving stood in the huge clown mouth that formed the entrance of Luna Park, jaws three times as wide as he was tall. Eulalie waited, looking up at him, a cloud of pink fairy floss in her left hand. She was trying to tell him something, but he had a hand up, trying to stop her from speaking while he read the weather reports on-retina. He’d placed a series of bets on temperature and precipitation ranges in south-eastern China, and the official results were just coming in.
“Fuck it!” he yelled.
“Daddy?”
“Fuck fuck fuck.”
“But daddy—”
“Not now Eulalie.”
“But daddy I want to go—”
“Not now dammit!” he screamed.
Eulalie jumped, dropping the floss to the ground. Tears welled instantly.
Ondine had walked ahead, not realizing that he and Eulalie had stopped. Now she returned just to hear the end of him yelling. She seemed to be in shock for a few seconds, standing there, her smooth skin glowing in the blinking neon backwash of the amusement park.
“Jesus Irving,” she said, picking her daughter up.
“Quiet,” he hissed, eyes unfocussed as the massacre of his wagers scrolled down on-retina.
“Quiet? No. I’m not . . . ”
He tuned her out, her words background static to failure’s sting. He clenched his teeth as the news got worse and worse, and as Ondine’s criticisms started to cut through his concentration.
“Enough!” he yelled. “Enough of your nagging. Enough of your complaints.”
She put a hand over her daughter’s ear. “Not in front of Eulalie.”
“Eulalie,” he sneered, focusing now on wife and daughter. “I hate that name. Where did you get it? ‘Top ten hippest new names for children’ in the Huffington Post?”
Ondine’s mouth popped open, struggling to get out a reply.
He didn’t let her.
“No! Time for me to speak now. Time. For. Me. To. Speak.” He jabbed a finger at her with each word. “You never support my business decisions. You never listen to me. All I get from you is scorn and derision. You didn’t even let me have a say in our own daughter’s name. Eulalie? What sort of ridiculous name is that!?”
The steam started to leave his delivery as he watched the reaction of his wife and daughter. Eulalie, head buried in her mother’s shoulder, sobbing. Ondine, her perfect skin creased with contempt.
“You d-don’t understand,” he stuttered, his rage train coming off its rails.
“I understand, Irving.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Lose another bet, I take it?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Oh it is Irving, it is exactly that simple,” she said, her voice a terrifying calm. “It’s the most uncomplicated thing in the world. You’re lazy.”
“Don’t.”
“Greedy.”
“Don’t.”
“Resentful.”
“Not in front of Eulalie.”
“Cruel, isn’t it? Almost as bad as telling your own daughter that you hate her name. Well, I’ve needed to be cruel for a long time, but I’ve been a coward. Not anymore. I’m going to do what I needed to do a year ago, and I’m doing it here, in front of your daughter, so you understand that it is final.”
Eulalie had taken her head from her mother’s shoulder and was staring up at her as she spoke.
His eyes flicked to his daughter, then back to his wife. “Don’t. I’m sorry—”
“Goodbye Irving.”
She walked away. Only his daughter looked back. Watching him over her mother’s shoulder, eyes filled with tears.
Irving watched them leave, hands hanging limply at his side. Nowhere else to go, he wandered back into Luna Park. Into the cacophony of tinny music on a maddening, endless cycle, into the smell of fairy floss and sweat and machine grease, and the clown, swallowing him, while—
WARNING WARNING WARNING: these memories are property of the Mobius Group. Report immediately to your nearest Thanks for the Memories franchise for memory realignment.
Bleep bleep bleep bleep
WARNING WARNING WARNING: these memories are property of the Mobius Group. Report immediately to your nearest Thanks for the Memories franchise for memory realignment.
bleep bleep bleep bleep
“No.” Irving woke himself with the moan. “No.” He switched off the alarm and dismissed the message flashing on-retina.
He lay back on the bed, stared at the off-white ceiling. Moonlight and street light ebbed through the slatted window. The hum of the building’s hydrogen generator drifted up from below. He took control of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest slowing.
“No.”
The ubiquitous double happiness
ideogram split in two as the doors opened for Irving. The room inside was gloomy, thick with incense. A cymbal and discordant pipes of traditional Chinese music played softly from hidden speakers, and overhead red lanterns swung slightly on a breeze Irving couldn’t feel. A young Chinese man in a traditional straight-collared suit sat behind a darkwood reception desk.
“Um,” said Irving. “My exo-memory told me I had an appointment.”
The receptionist stood and bowed. “Mister Kupfermann. Omissioner Zau is waiting for you. Follow me.”
Irving tried to bow back, but the young man had already disappeared down the dim, red-tinted corridor. Irving was shown through a dark redwood door carved with stylistic, eastern dragons with large, wild eyes. The receptionist closed the door behind Irving, leaving him in an even darker room.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust. Within the gloom lay a traditional study with dark, wood-panelled walls, interspersed with red scrolls marked with calligraphy. There were white-and-blue porcelain pots sitting on plinths; leather-bounds books along the back wall; a golden bust of some old Chinese guy with a receding hairline in one corner; and in the middle of it all, an even older Chinese man sitting cross-legged on a woven mat with arms crossed, hands hidden in dark blue silk sleeves.
The old man had a strand of grey hair clinging to his chin. His eyes were closed.
Irving hesitated, wondering for a moment whether he’d caught the old bugger sleeping.
“Kupfermann xiansheng” the old man intoned, in a thick Chinese accent. “Please, sit.”
Irving jumped a little. On second glance the man’s eyes were open. Sparkling slivers in a lined old face, fixed on him.
Irving stutter-stepped forward. “Omissioner Zau?”
The old man bowed.
“I . . . I don’t remember making this appointment.”
“But you have a problem,” said the Omissioner. It wasn’t a question.