The Power of Forgetting

by A M Russell

  'These are all non-programmed forms,' said Oliver. He pulled back the gauzy coverlet on one, 'this is the same.' He folded another over and over again, revealing the marble whiteness of perfect skin.

  It was beautiful in a way. Like a painting that hasn't been finished. There resemblance to nearly every woman you would ever see. Average and yet extraordinary. A minute change here or there and she could have looked like any one of a number of people. There was a downy covering on the crown of the head that curled with baby softness around the ears in short fine curls. The eyes were closed and seemed like those of a doll. There was no expression in the face. For even in sleeping faces we see the shadow of the person who is dreaming in another place.

  'Come on,' said Oliver, 'we need to see what is in the next room.' He put the covers back just as before, and then we passed to the end of this room and through some double doors into a warmer more brightly lit place. It was white. White shelves, white, floor, white chairs around one white bench. And beyond that a wide space with what looked like large oval shaped coffins with glass tops and white glassine mouldings; arrange yet again in sixes around central stalks of glass tubes filled with light. There were racks of lab equipment and many drawers that could have contained allsorts. But we went forward to examine these bulbous shapes.

  At first I could make out what I was looking at. There was no internal light in the pod shaped cabinets. I leaned over the glass of one. My breath misted on its surface.

  Oliver came and stood beside me, his expression one of seriousness, with just a hint of caution. He ran his fingertips over an indented panel at the top end.

  Softly and slowly a light came on inside this pod. The light was bluish and like early morning light, and it shifted very slowly for two minutes through the spectrum of daylight to an imitation of a cloudy bright daylight that softly hovered round the face and torso of this creature. I could not move; I could not wrench my eyes away. I was transfixed now by a sight so alien. There was a woman, laid in a cocoon of soft pale fabric. She was naked, except for a light gauze cloth across the hip area. She had a sweet mouth of pinky fullness, and the swelling ripeness of a pretty bosom. There was a slender waist and long shapely legs. Yet she was petite, like some kind of fair pixie. There were piles of fine pale hair around the head, as if there was altogether too much of it. Her eyes were closed.

  I thought for a moment that she was in some kind of suspended animation, like those in the other room. But then I detected a faint rise of the chest area, and there was suddenly a twitch of the muscle in the right wrist.

  'Oliver?' I turned. He was looking in drawers systematically, opening them, then letting them slide back on smooth runners and close silently. He took a case out of one.

  'Drugs.' He said and glanced at me. I turned back to this pixie in a box. A living doll. I wanted to wake her and see what she was. I looked again to the pale creature, and saw a flutter for a fraction of a second on the eyelash. Or was it? Perhaps it was my imagination...

  'So,' said Oliver, 'there is another room beyond this one. Shall we see....' he caught my eye, '.... what did you do?'

  'Nothing. What do you mean?' I looked down again. The figure in the pod-like bed was waking up.

  The eyelids fluttered then opened. I was caught in a moment of internal silence, I did not hear the soft hum that rose and fell. Oliver was opening more cupboards.

  The eyes were large and luminous, and they seemed glazed, but then pulsed and appeared to focus on me. These eyes blinked slowly and the pupils moved in synchronisation scanning my face. How did I know? There was more than just understanding, there was recognition. Something like a slight drawing together of the brows for a microsecond; and the lips parted in an exhalation. As yet she had not moved any other part. The flush of pinkness on the cheeks was faint yet seemed to heighten in another breath. Her left hand slid slowly up her breast and touched her lips with two fingertips, and then the hand turned outwards and towards me in salutation. She was the honey in folds of petals and those violet eyes regarded me with innocent openness. Drawn irresistibly towards her I felt around and found a catch along the side of the pod. Something released. The glass slid down and to one side. The lips parted with surprize.

  'Jared!' Oliver's voice jarred me back into awareness of my surroundings. The sound that had been rising and falling for the last two minutes became louder.

  'Shit!' I said, and ducked behind the pod. I felt with my hand and pressed the switch again. The glass slid shut just as a bunch of people swarmed in. Oliver signalled to me from behind a cabinet. I flattened myself down on the floor.

  There was some low level muttering. Then someone moved to the other side of the circle of pods.

  'There's room here.' said a voice with a slight hint of welsh. I noticed Oliver slide his knife out and give me a sharp eyed meaningful look. I shook my head slightly.

  'I think it would be better if we took them to Alexander first.' said a second voice. At this I pricked my ears up. There was a pause, as if someone was thinking. I could almost hear them breathing. The pause seemed too long. Oliver was trying to catch my eye. I shook my head furiously as he started to slide out from under the cabinet. The first voice suddenly cracked across the tense pause: 'Well of course we could use the other lab. It's closer to the exit.... that's if we need to get out quickly of course.'

  'Yes....yes, that's fine. We'll tell the technicians right away.'

  The two people moved away and left by another door. I stayed still listening carefully. But Oliver was already on his feet and had moved to the pod.

  'Hell Jared! Why do you always attract trouble?'

  'What?' I stood up. The woman was staring at him through the glass.

  'She must be the replacement for Janey's double. What must we do with her?' He turned to me, 'don't worry,' he added, 'I'm not about to commit any kind of genocide.'

  'Oh....right...' I pressed the catch again. The glass slid open again. Oliver felt around underneath the pod. Suddenly the whole top cracked apart and lifted up and slid upwards tipping towards the central core of glass tubes.

  There she was.... a perfect woman.... well she was to me. The spilling length of pale gold strands tumbled in a slippery stream around her shoulders as she sat up.

  Oliver moved over to one of the cupboards and quickly pulled out some fabric: garments that would fit the girl's petite form.

  'Jared?' the voiced was soft and light; inflected with the slightest hint of an accent.

  'Yes?' I must have looked alarmed. The girl reached out to me and touched my lips with her fingers. I shuddered. Her touch awoke a vicious sense of rawness and emptiness; a hollow longing that could not be answered by logic or argument. She cupped her hands round my cheeks. I was shocked by my reaction to her. You might suppose that it was to do with the shock of a naked woman in close proximity. But it wasn't.... well kind of; I'm not saying that didn't have a bearing on the situation. But I was afraid to fall; too far too fast. And I felt then; as I do now that that moment was the one where I knew.... for certain what was really true. And Amber....for it was her inhabiting that lab-made body; concocted out of the base ingredients of life and infused with a double helix in which substituted parts of the spiral where part elemental.... she taught me that. Then I knew that I loved so deeply no other but Janey.

  Amber looked up at me and said, as one who never knew any other person on the human side in this way: 'I came for you Jared; I want you to know that we are all here for you. All my sisters and I will follow you. I tell you this; because you will need us all later. And Janey will need us most of all. We will watch over her for you; and bring her to a safe place....do you see?'

  I just stared at her, hardly knowing how to react. The trouble I found with these kinds of creatures was to understand the effect that they had on certain men. It clearly wasn't working on Oliver in the same way. He eyed her with a wide-eyed surprise that was part reactive male instinct, part the self-discipline of the trained soldier.


  'Under suit,' He said, and pressed it into my hands, 'we need to be quick.'

  I quickly unfolded it in my hands, it was fine as silk. She immediately cooperated. The irony of the moment! Some skills do come in handy. I'd had more practice getting girls out of their clothes; but it worked in reverse just as well. Oliver handed me the over suit and belt. She slipped into that as well and then swung herself over onto the floor and pointed. She fastened the girdle tight and collected some items out of a nearby drawer. She slipped on the boots I had brought to her, and bent to lace them up.

  'I don't know how.' she said, with the ends in each hand. I knelt down before her and took the laces and quickly pulled them tight and fastened them. She was searching my face all the time. I glanced up, and she had her head slightly to one side. It was a gesture that Janey herself used. I felt a flush of heat in my cheeks rising upwards, and fanning downwards towards my chest. Oliver meanwhile had finished circling all the pods in the room.

  'She is the only one in here.' He said and then checked all the closures on his suit. He stopped and looked at me, 'you need to get dressed Arden. The next room is a cool one.'

  'Where did they go?' I asked as we began to tighten fastenings and check the linking tube for the small face mask. I felt back and released my hood ready to pull up if needed. Amber stood with her weight balanced on both feet. Then seeing what we were doing turned away to a drawer just under the table. She pulled out something long and stringy looking. It proved to be a fabric made of a honey comb lattice and looped it over her head.

  'They could be back. But I doubt it.' said Oliver, 'either way we need to move.'

  The whitish fluid fabric seemed to cling to her hair and spread down it. She touched it just above her forehead; and then it tensioned and then shaped seamlessly around her head. She turned slightly so I could see. The tube at the back got narrower and narrower, constricting the silky fine strands of palest gold into a neatly wrapped braid. The honeycombing seemed to have shrunk proportionally too, so it made a pattern in smaller figures all the way down the length of the hair, compared to the hexagons on the top edge near the hair line. She pulled the braid over her right shoulder and then curled it neatly round and round the back of her head. The stuff seemed to cling to itself and create a neat spiral. She took another thicker fabric suit out of the large cupboard- unmistakably a version of our ice suits with an integrated hood. It was a soft dark blue; almost exactly like Lorraine's version. She quickly fastened all the clips, and adjusted the wrist closures.

  'You will need a breathing set.' said Oliver, holding out the pack to her.

  'Yes. Of course.' She said, and took it and swung the whole thing onto her back in one motion. She had it fastened and set up before I had time to ask her if she needed help. She turned to me and met my gaze. Oliver motioned with his hand. We backed into the corner near the cabinets.

  'They are all empty- the rest of the pods.' He said, 'I think they were talking about using these spaces as some sort of holding tank for our team; and then to Amber: 'what is the last thing you remember before being woken up by Jared here?'

  She stared at him, opened her mouth as if she was thinking for a suitable reply: 'I was waiting for the right moment.' she said, 'and before that there was a fight on the entrance near the fence, in the way into the base. It....hurt. I had another body, and they killed it.... killed me.'

  'Amber I'm so sorry....' I began.

  'Shut up Arden,' Oliver cut in, 'and then what happened?'

  She glanced at me quickly; a reflex that was a replay of Janey's reaction, but answered without hesitation: 'I first took the form in this place; it was the obvious choice to come back to this place to find a new one. I did not think that there would be any more; but I found this one.'

  'And why did you appear to Jared before?' Oliver asked with a slight edge in his voice.

  'I have a job to help him and his sister. I am an old friend. But not, as you see Human. But my desire is to protect and to help. And I will use whatever means necessary to do this. I am bound by a code...as you are Mr Reece, but my prime mission is a protective one.'

  'Who sent you?'

  'I do not understand.'

  'Who asked you to do this?' Oliver seemed satisfied with her previous answer, and his tone was softer and more sympathetic.

  'I was sent by a Lady with whom we share a common friendship. She is called Auntie Zee. She lives near Jared's home. A short distance.'

  'You mean in Yorkshire?'

  'Yes of course.'

  'Not London?'

  'No.'

  'Do you ever....travel to London?'

  'I have not been to that place.'

  'Do you know what it is?'

  She frowned and seemed perplexed; 'I don't know this place...' she looked at me for a clue to what this was.

  'Okay Arden,' said Oliver, 'I'm convinced. You can fill her in about the delights of our capital city as we go. But just one thing?'

  'Yes?' Amber responded.

  'Do you know a way out of here?'

  'Of course. That is set on the edge of the hills about five miles away from here. It is a doorway. It needs a key.'

  'Let me guess.... you have the key?' Oliver grinned.

  'Of course. I am as you say: being prepared.'

  'It's "Be Prepared" if you are talking about the Scout motto.' Oliver rolled his eyes at me.

  'Then I am a Scout?' she said to me.

  'Is the door way visible to the people here?' I asked her.

  'Oh, no....it has a colour. But it is not Angel's colours or the scientists' collapsible doorways that are very unstable. I have the means to create invisible err.... Jared? What is the name for something that links the past to the future?'

  'What do you call it?'

  'I thought it might help if I used your name for it rather than mine.'

  'Yours will do just fine.'

  'It is a Various Conduit in a Fake Construct Aperture.'

  'Various....as in it connects both past and future, as well as different places?'

  'Yes! Very good...Mr Arden.'

  'Please, called me Jared and he's Oliver.'

  'And I am....Amber; when we are in company.'

  'I understand.' I took her hand, 'do you have gloves?'

  'There are some weapons here.' said Oliver peering into a cupboard.

  'What kind?' I asked him. Amber pulled out some fine dark material from a pocket and slipped her hands in quickly and expertly.

  'Not nice ones.' said Oliver darkly, and pulled out a hand gun, and two full clips of ammunition. He saw my face and continued pocketing more clips. He handed four clips to me and then offered me another hand gun. Our eyes met.

  I think I knew at that moment that day would be a day that would not end well. There was something in his eyes; it was more than just determination. But because he had been insightful about Amber I trusted his judgement. I took the gun and automatically checked the butt. No clip. I slid it into a right hand pocket. Amber pulled her mask across her face then. The expression could not be read. She straightened up and looked to Oliver.

  'Here, take one of these.' Oliver quickly took the belt and holsters from the shelf.

  'Is that all?' I quickly stored it in my pack.

  'Yes. I've cleaned it out.'

  'Okay. Where now?' I pocketed the remaining clips and made ready to move.

  'That door.'

  'Temperature?'

  'It's cold. There's a panel on this side, look.'

  We moved to the door; the first of three double doors. We pushed our way through the first set.

  'Zero.' said Oliver.

  'Yes. Same here.' I was staring at the wrist viewer.

  'The next wall panel says minus nine.' Oliver sounded doubtful.

  'It's a fucking liar.' I said peering through the window. I tightened the mouth piece. And felt the ease of the filter warming the air.

  'He's right.' said Amber, 'the crystallisation of moisture on the wall in the next are
a indicates a temperature of minus twenty-one.

  'I can here you.' I said.

  'Of course,' said Amber, 'the hood and earpiece can automatically detect local frequencies and lock in to com links.'

  'Can anyone else hear us?'

  'Not at the moment. There is no one else in range detecting communications. It's very quiet indeed.'

  'It's nearly seven Am.' said Oliver.

  'Not yet time for rush hour.' said Amber.

  'What's that?' Oliver asked examining the doorway.

  'Everyone gets up. They run the water and switch things on and off. It's very disruptive.'

  'You can.... detect this?' I asked her. Oliver turned to me; 'I think this door is fine,' he said, and added: 'Not alarmed.'

  We pushed through into the next space.

  'Minus twenty-one.' said Oliver, and to me: 'for once your tendency to attract females is proving useful.'

  'My what?' I said, but Oliver ignored me. I couldn't see what Amber's expression was as we examined the final door to the freezer zone in these labs. She balanced her weight on both feet, and seemed calm and alert.

  'This is interesting.' Oliver pointed, and I bent down to peer at a small panel near the floor.

  I saw those same roman numerals meaning "Four" and a six-digit number following.

  'What does it mean?' I traced it with a finger.

  'It is a key code.' said Amber through the com.

  'A key to what?' Oliver was sharp, and stood up suddenly. He looked through the glass to the lab beyond.

  'I think it is the integration day for this section of the building.' She said.

  I was still staring at it. The numbers teased me as if I had seen them before. Something was familiar, and creepy.

  'I think I might have seen this pattern before.' I said.

  'When did you see it?' Oliver bent down again.

  'At the base... I mean before we went on the expedition. It was on something... but I cannot remember what it is....' there was a crumbling of the specifics the minute I tried to think about the context of the message.