False Memory

by Dan Krokos

  “I don’t know that name,” she says.

  “Do you like being controlled?”

  I watch her face reform into a cold, calculating look. Like a robot. This is what they’ll do to me. Make it so I can’t feel or think for myself. They’ll have to, if they want to test us on the city.

  I picture the vials in Noah’s mouth. There is still hope, however small.

  Grace places her palms flat on the desk. “I don’t mind it,” she says. “It makes my job easier. And it will make your job easier too. There is a computer in my skin, Miranda. Every time I have a forbidden thought or desire, the tattoo purges it. Over time, you stop fighting it.”

  Tattoo...I remember Noah saying the word while recalling the conversation he overheard in Tycast’s office. Before I can ask what she means, Grace grabs her hair and pulls it aside, turning so I can see the circuitry embedded in the skin at the base of her skull. It looks like a bumpy tattoo of a circuit board, just under the skin.

  So that’s why Beta team is so unlike us. And why we will soon be so like them.

  My throat is too dry to swallow. “And you want to do that to us.”

  Grace nods. “Conlin worked on the tattoo herself, and we were the first to receive them. I am not ashamed to admit Beta team received them first, to make sure it wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Us,” I say.

  “Alpha team. The darlings of Project Rose. Your team was always our creators’ favorite, everyone knows it.”

  I lean forward and Grace tenses. “Creators? More than one?” I guess I already knew that. The voice in Tycast’s office had said We’re moving ahead with the dry run. Plural.

  When I don’t move any closer, her shoulders relax. “Well, someone had to make us, didn’t they? And yes, more than one.”

  Make us. I stare at her blankly.

  Grace says, “We were grown, Miranda.”

  “Grown.”

  “Yes. God. I can’t believe we’re related. We are clones, Miranda. Clones. Of one person. Copies. No mother. No father. Do you understand?”

  I understand. I think I knew all along, deep down, somewhere hidden and dark, that there was more to us than gene therapy. Maybe that’s where my emptiness stems from—not the loss of memories, but because I’ve been hollow from the start. Not a real person. But at the same time I know that’s not true, because you can’t come from nothing. My friends are real. They matter.

  But what she’s saying, what I believe...it means we were never born. We never had parents to give us up. We never left behind old lives. It’s always been this, from the first beat of our hearts.

  Now isn’t the time to dissect my feelings. I have to stay focused, on the slim chance Noah can get those vials to us. Maybe we can fake it.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I say. Numbness spreads down my arms and legs, to the tips of my fingers and toes. I know the answer.

  “Because in a few hours, you won’t remember anything. Unless you agree to join us. Dr. Conlin has been ordered to proceed with the dry run immediately. With enough of us, we can provide a demonstration to the world that will never be forgotten. Eight Roses would be ideal, but we can get by with seven.”

  “You’re prepared to be sold off as a weapon?” I say.

  “I accept it because I must. The tattoos for Alpha team aren’t finished yet, and won’t be for some time. So we either take your memories, or you sign on without the tattoos. Forcing you to forget is something Conlin wants to avoid, as most of your experiences go with it. It renders you less valuable.”

  “It’ll never happen,” I say. “We will never help you.”

  Grace nods. “At this point I am instructed to persuade you.”

  The door to her office opens, and I half-spin in my chair. Two soldiers march Peter and Noah in at gunpoint. The soldiers shove down hard on their shoulders until they kneel. Noah slumps forward a little, head hanging. His cheek is freshly bruised.

  When I turn back, Grace smiles at me. “Different as you think we are, I’m going to guess we have some similarities. Tell me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t it always been between these two?”

  She pauses, drinking in the look on my face.

  “And now you have to choose,” she says.

  18

  Choose.

  The room tilts, but I hold on to the armrests. As far as persuasion tactics go, this is pretty awful. I made it clear we won’t help them no matter what they do to us. They’ll have to erase our memories if they want any cooperation, or give us one of those tattoos. But if I didn’t believe she would really kill one of them, my heart wouldn’t pound. My mouth wouldn’t be dry and it wouldn’t feel like I’m the one with a gun to my head.

  Grace said they only need seven. But that doesn’t mean they’d destroy something as valuable as a Rose. I have to believe that.

  She stands up and leans forward, fingertips on the desk. “Agree to help us. We can’t just take your word for it—you’ll have handlers. But cooperate and I’ll spare both of them.”

  “Don’t agree to anything,” Peter says.

  Grace ignores him. “Stand up, Miranda. Look at them.” I hold Grace’s gaze a moment longer, as long as I dare, then push myself out of the chair and turn around. Peter and Noah kneel with assault rifles pointed at the backs of their heads. Both of them manage to smile at me. It fills me with strength, and something else . . . something warm. It keeps me standing.

  “You should pick me to die,” Noah says. “Peter needs to lead us.” He says it blandly, like I’m picking something to drink instead of someone to kill.

  “Oh please,” Peter says, taking on the same careless tone. “You love Noah. If you pick him to die, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  Noah snorts. “Are you kidding? I saw you guys holding hands. I saw that shit. She hates me for what I did to her.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I say. I’m not sure what I feel, but it’s not hate. The two helmeted soldiers behind them are statues. To them I say, “I’ll remember you both, even if I can’t see your faces.” The one behind Peter tilts his head to the side, like a dog.

  “You have five seconds,” Grace says.

  I turn around. “I’m sure I have more. You won’t kill us.”

  Peter and Noah hid their fear, so I must do the same. I can smother it with reason. The creators would gain nothing by killing us. Instead, they’re about to gain four blank slates. That’s just logical. You don’t throw away a weapon this valuable to gain cooperation. They have other ways.

  And yet...

  Grace’s eyes hold a crazy sheen, some glimmer of madness.

  I was wrong. She’s going to do it.

  They don’t care who lives and who dies, as long as they have their seven Roses for the dry run.

  Peter’s and Noah’s faces haven’t broken, but this time it does nothing to comfort me. Give me a sign, I think. Let me know I’m doing the right thing. That everything will be okay. Don’t make me pick.

  “Okay, I’ll choose,” Grace says behind me. “Kill Peter.”

  Peter closes his eyes. Noah lets his head hang again. I turn around, ready to leap over Grace’s desk, but she has a gun pointed at my face.

  Behind me, a soldier fires.

  It’s so loud in the tiny office. Everything inside me dies and rots. I should have picked. I would have picked.

  Who would I have picked?

  “I wish you could remember this moment,” Grace says. She jerks her chin to the boys behind me. I turn around and Peter has his eyes closed. Smoke curls around his head. On the floor, near his knees, is a smoking bullet hole.

  They didn’t kill him. Relief floods through me, making it harder to stand than ever before. I reach out and use the back of the chair for support.

  Peter opens his eyes and they are tearless and fierce, revealing a glimpse of his true self. Pure animalistic strength. There was never any fear for him to hide.

  “Take them back to the cell,” Grace says. The soldiers ya
nk Peter and Noah to their feet, then shove them roughly into the hallway.

  She huffs a sigh and collapses in her chair. “Now we wait.”

  The soldiers pull me from the room a few seconds later, but our eyes stay locked as Grace slouches in her chair, grinning at me with big eyes. The madness clearly hasn’t faded. I don’t look away until the door shuts.

  Tattoo or not, I make a silent vow to kill her before this is over.

  They toss us back in the cell. I stand in the corner, away from everyone, and listen to my pulse slowly ratchet down. The shot plays again and again in my head. My ears ache and feel packed with concrete.

  Noah comes up behind me. He grabs my shoulder and turns me around. He takes his finger and tilts my chin up. I open my eyes.

  “You did the right thing,” he says. “They were never going to kill us.” He leans in until our lips almost touch. I kiss him. I know he wouldn’t kiss me right now for any other reason. My mouth opens and I feel his tongue slip over mine, dropping two of the small vials into my mouth. He pulls away and smiles without teeth, uses his thumb to brush some hair out of my eyes.

  Peter stands in the corner, watching us. I shift one of the vials under my tongue and give him a glimpse of the other, a flash of the yellow liquid inside. I hold out my arms like I need a hug. Someone is watching us, listening. It’ll look odd kissing Peter right after I kiss Noah, but it’s the only way to do it without bringing the vials into the open. Better to look odd than obvious.

  Peter stands in front of me. His shoulders are so wide I can’t see Noah and Olive behind him. “I’m okay,” he says.

  I put a hand on his chest. “I know. Come here.” I wrap my fingers around the back of his neck, pull him down to me. He kisses me softer than Noah. Goose bumps spring up along my arms and back. He opens his mouth and I pass the vial to him, slipping it in with my tongue. He pulls back the second he has it, but I find myself reluctant to let him go, moving forward to keep my mouth on his. Finally I pull back, lips burning, vial secured under my tongue. He looks as confused as I feel.

  We still have a job to do. I bite the cap off the vial and let the bitter liquid roll down my throat. Then I swallow the pill-sized container. The phantom I had of Tycast comes to mind—of remembering that Noah sometimes took his shots mixed with a drink, but how that made them less effective. If only we had access to a syringe.

  I watch Noah give Olive her “kiss good-bye,” and can’t help but wonder what’s going through her head. And Noah’s. I wonder if he can feel her love in that one kiss. When they break, he stares into her eyes for a long moment. For the briefest second, confusion flickers on his face. For what, I don’t know. Either because he felt something in her kiss, or felt something for her. Stop. I’m speculating. You can’t feel things in kisses; but even as I think that, I know it’s not true.

  Noah turns away from her, to Peter.

  Olive touches her lips with her fingertips, feeling his kiss. She notices I’m watching and quickly lowers her hand. I want to tell her it’s okay in some way, but I don’t know how.

  Peter hugs Noah, but I see it’s so Peter can whisper in Noah’s ear. Noah nods almost imperceptibly and heads toward me.

  How long the vials will last is a mystery, fine—but I can’t deal with just hoping it’s long enough. I need to be doing something.

  Noah puts his arms around me and whispers in my ear, “We fake losing our memories. Go to sleep. If we can trick them into thinking we’re wiped, they’ll give us shots again. Be convincing. Now start crying.”

  Behind Noah, Peter whispers to Olive. I squint so hard my eyes water, then blink a few times to shake the tears free. I’m listening to him, but it’s hard to focus when his arms are around me like this. After just kissing Peter, it’s too much. I don’t want to look at either of them.

  “Say you’re sorry,” Noah whispers.

  “I’m sorry. Noah, I’m sorry.”

  “Shh, stop. This isn’t your fault,” he says, in a normal voice now. He releases me and dabs at his eyes, too, but they’re dry.

  The cell door opens. Tobias stands there, flanked by two soldiers. He claps Peter on the shoulder, like they’re old friends. “Open your mouth,” Tobias says. Peter does. Tobias shines a flashlight around, making Peter’s cheeks glow red. I’m frozen, hoping everyone got rid of their vials fast enough.

  He points at me. “Open.” I do. He finds nothing. He does the same with Olive and Noah, makes them lift their tongues.

  Noah coughs in his face. Tobias backhands him without a word and Noah falls against the wall, chuckling, until Tobias raises a fist.

  Noah shuts up, and Tobias steps backward to the door. He appraises us one at a time. “You guys are pretty weird,” he says.

  “You have no idea,” Noah says.

  “Hopefully that goes away when you lose your memories.”

  “Doubt it,” Olive says.

  Tobias shakes his head in disgust and leaves the cell. It shuts again, and the glass darkens.

  We wait.

  19

  The desire to talk to them gnaws at me like hunger. We can’t just sit here waiting; we need to fall asleep and wake up changed if we’re going to convince them.

  That’s how it happened for me.

  Peter rubs his temples and manages to look sad. I have to remember we’re acting, we have a plan. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For what?” Noah says.

  “I failed you.”

  “Stop,” Olive says. “Don’t put this on you. You don’t get to do that.”

  Peter shakes his head, eyes unfocused. “They’re really going to erase who we are.”

  “They’ll do whatever it takes,” I say.

  We fall into another silence.

  I make the first move. “Look, we shouldn’t drag this out.

  It won’t be much longer—I’m going to sleep. I’m going to fall asleep, and when I wake up I won’t care anyway. We’ll just make new memories.”

  Noah fights hard to keep the smile off his face. I go to each of them—Peter, Olive, then Noah—and kiss them once on the cheek. Then I walk to the other end of the cell. I lie down facing away from them and pull my knees up to my chest. And wouldn’t you know it? I actually fall asleep.

  The cell door slams open and wakes me up. I roll over and blink at the fluorescent lights as groggily as I can, propping myself on an elbow. It doesn’t require too much acting. There are no windows, but it feels like the middle of the night. The cell door is open but no one is there.

  Time to convince everyone I don’t remember a thing. It’s hard, considering the glut of emotions coursing inside me. So many things to consider, to worry about, and I have to pretend I don’t have a care in the world.

  Slowly, piece by piece, I clear my mind. I think about us in here, trapped behind enemy lines, and I wipe it away. I think about the people in the city, the pure terror they will soon experience, and I wipe it away. I think about Peter and Noah. What they feel for me, and what I feel for them. I wipe it away. My friendship with Olive, if I can ever rebuild it. I wipe that away too.

  Of course they don’t really go away. How could they? Instead they vibrate in the background, humming, threatening to break though and cut my legs out from under me. But for now I can act the part. I know what it’s like to not remember.

  I let my gaze drift around the cell, taking in the others while trying to make my face blank. I add a slight furrow to my eyebrows, like I’m trying to solve a puzzle. The sound of clicking heels echoes down the hallway. In walks a short Asian woman with black hair in a bob cut and black-framed glasses. She has a white coat like Dr. Tycast wore.

  I sit up. “Where am I?”

  The woman smiles. “Hello, Miranda. My name is Dr. Conlin. You’ve all been in an accident. Do you remember?”

  “What accident?” I say.

  Peter and Noah look at me like they’ve never seen me before. Olive rubs sleep from one eye.

  “How do you know my name?” I say.

&n
bsp; Dr. Conlin licks her lips. No soldiers accompany her. The others make their best bewildered-and-slightly-confused faces.

  Noah uses the wall to stand up. “Where are we?”

  Conlin holds up her hands. “Relax. I’ll explain everything in due time. Start with telling me what you remember.”

  I close my eyes. I open them. I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say.

  Conlin nods once, then holds out her hand. “Come with me.”

  I walk past the others warily, like I’m afraid they might lash out. The cell door slides shut behind me and sweat breaks all over my skin. I feel so alone without them. Naked and exposed.

  “Where are we going?” I say. I try to recall those initial feelings in the mall, but they’re fuzzy. There was confusion, but also acceptance. I can fake it the same way.

  Conlin leads me back into the office, where my friends were kneeling not long ago. The faint scent of gunsmoke is still in the air. Conlin points at the chair in front of the desk and I sit down, wringing my hands in my lap. Then I stop— that might be too clichéd a gesture. I don’t want to appear so nervous it draws attention.

  Conlin sits behind the desk and folds her hands on top of it. “You were in a traumatic incident, Miranda. You and your friends.”

  “What happened?”

  “The four of you are at this facility for special treatment. You have a rare memory disorder, and we’ve managed to cure it with a series of shots you take daily. We tried to boost the potency, and it failed in the process. Your memories are gone, but we believe they’ll come back shortly, once we put you back on the old dose.”

  Okay, what would I be curious about next? I look over my shoulder at the door we came through. “I know those people back there? The two guys and the girl?”

  Conlin nods. She nods gravely, trying to sell it to me just like I’m selling to her. “Yes. They’re your friends. I want you to stay calm though. This will get sorted out.”

  I’m stunned at how easily she lies. It’s effortless, like she believes it herself. So real it’s enough to leave me slightly unhinged. The only thing missing is a bit of warmth behind her gaze.