The Conversion
Page 28
me which floor you’ll be transferring me to?” Even though it won’t make a difference to me, I still want to know.
“The 7th floor,” she says.
One more time I say a mental goodbye to Nicole, Sophie, and Gabriel. I would give a lot to see them again, but I have to put Micah first. I need to be able to say goodbye to him.
She clears her throat impatiently. “Alina, please continue.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I mumble.
“From the beginning, please.”
“I think it was a fifth or sixth session when things started to go wrong,” I say, breathing heavily.
“Go on,” Dr. Kismen demands.
I look at the ceiling as if the words that I need to say are written on it, and I just need to read them aloud. “I don’t know how to explain it,” I tell her.
“You will need to try if you want me to help you.”
“OK,” I say, gathering myself. “So, Mentior picked a very sad memory on one of these sessions. If I may, I’d rather not get too much into details of the memory.”
“Fine. So what happened?” she asks.
“Simply put, I… escaped the memory.”
“Pardon?” Her mouth hangs open.
“Yes,” I say. “I cheated my memory.” I try to sit up in the bed, but my wrists are still strapped to the bed. Dr. Kismen is still turning over what I’ve said and doesn’t register my struggling. “I’d love to sit up, if I could,” I say.
“Oh, right. Sorry about that.” Deanna reaches out to release me.
“Can you please go back to the part where you said you cheated your memory? I definitely need to know more.”
“Look, I have no idea how it happened. I just chose not to relive the pain and gloominess of that memory, so I just… ran away from it.”
Again, Dr. Kismen just stares back in confusion.
I continue, “I actually thought you would be able to explain it to me, but I take it you don’t really know what happens when you’re plugged into the Mentior?”
“Well, theoretically I do.” She looks to the side as if trying to remember everything she’d learned about Mentior. “To be perfectly honest I have no idea how you managed to escape your memory, in theory, it’s not supposed to happen. In any case can you please explain why you stole my keys and sneaked around Ultima? “Let me finish,” I say. “I just need a few seconds more.”
“Sorry, please take your time.”
“Well, on that day when I first experienced that I could be in control of everything I do. Even in Mentior: I didn’t want to relive sad, awful memories, so I chose to leave them behind. Kind of like in life: we don’t need to linger in the past, we have to move past it.” I catch Dr. Kismen’s eyes.“Simply put, I just started to run—randomly. I had no idea where I was running to. I eventually ended up at a police station.” As soon as the words come out, I realize that right now I’m deciding Nicole’s destiny too, and if the glitch is fixed, she will never see Sophie again. It will break her heart. I feel my eyes burning with sadness.
“What happened at the police station?” she asks, trying to keep me on track.
“I met her,” I say.
“Who?”
It takes a minute for me to get going again with my confession.
“Nicole.”
“Nicole who?”
“Nicole Williams.” I take a breath and continue. “She’s one of the—”
“—Dators…” Deanna interrupts. “So let me get this straight: during one of your sessions, instead of reliving your memories, you decided to run from it. And on your journey, you somehow ended up at the same place as Nicole Williams?”I nod as Dr. Kismen eyes me suspiciously. “What happened next?”
“Well…” I crack my fingers, the sound echoing distinctly in and around the room’s concrete walls.
Deanna moves her chair closer to the bed. “Alina, I know you are not telling me the full story. I need to know everything.”
“There is nothing else to tell,” I say. “Each session after that, Nicole and I would run away from our memories, and meet somewhere in the city.” I turn my head and stare at the Mentior. “I got to know Nicole and her story very well. Then one day she just mentioned to me that she doesn’t want to go through The Conversion. And me, thinking I can save the world, decided impulsively to rescue her from her jail cell at Ultima.”
“We don’t have jail cells at Ultima,” Dr. Kismen says, clearly offended. “We take care of our patients here. That being said, how’s it even possible that she has changed her mind? Something else must have had happened. So please explain.”
“I don’t know why she changed her mind,” I say indignantly.
“There has to be something that triggered it,” she counters firmly.
“There was nothing,” I insist.
“All right then, it’s clear to me that you don’t want to cooperate, so there is nothing I can do for you, Alina. You will be staying at Ultima full-time starting today.”
“But I’ve told you everything!” I say, my voice desperate, trying to stop Dr. Kismen from walking out on me. Tears fall from my eyes.
“You didn’t tell me everything—we both know that. Obviously, there is some sort of a bug or a glitch in Mentior. Participants are not supposed to communicate with each other while plugged in. I want to know the rest of the story.” Her persistence overwhelms me and my hands tremble.
“Anyway, I will call up Lilian, and she’ll help me to transfer you to the 7th floor,” she threatens nonchalantly.
“Please,” I beg, “I want to say goodbye to my brother, and he needs that money to live.” I sob uncontrollably and suddenly realize that I should have thought about it before deciding to break the rules.
Dr. Kismen slowly and mercifully makes her way back to the bed, and I can sense her compassion. “Alina, this is by no means a personal attack on you. The Conversion is a unique technology, but like every new technology, it has its faults. I need to know what defects Mentior has.” Deanna sits in the chair, waiting for my revelation.
Even though I’m still debating how to respond, I know I don’t really have a choice but to tell her everything. I want to be genuine; I want to open up about my feelings for once in my life. It felt so good to talk about my pain with Gabriel. Possibly talking to Deanna will make death feel less tragic. I feel helpless.
“Well...After I had run into Nicole at the police station, she told me about her life—about her pain. Then we agreed to escape our memories again and meet at Fantasy World the next day.” My voice is gaining confidence. “That’s when things really got confusing.”
“Good. Then what happened?”
“While we were there, we saw a little girl, and she was talking to us. We figured she was one of the Receivers since she was too young to be a Dator.”
“What was the girl’s name?” Deanna cuts in.
“Sophie, though I’m not sure of her last name. Neither Nicole nor I cared to find out.”
I hear my breathing and feel my heart beat—it distracts me for a moment from my story.
“Continue,” she says.
“After we met Sophie, we wanted to make sure she wasn’t a Dator because that would just be outrageous, to use kids for The Conversion.” I cough.
“You’re a kid,” Dr. Kismen says.
“Nicole said the same thing,” I reply. “Anyway, Sophie gave us a description of where she is staying, and Nicole and I concluded that it was a Novus center. The three of us ended up there, and for some reason, I decided it would be a fantastic idea for me to wander around. I ended up and the University of Technology campus.” I close my eyes and remember that session—the first time I saw Gabriel. It makes me emotional just thinking of him. I can’t deny my desire for him. I don’t even know if I will see him again if I will touch his soft lips if I will melt in his embrace.
I wipe a tear from my eye. Dr. Kismen, being as tactful as she can, reaches for the box of tissues, tucked next to the Mentior.
“I met Gabriel,” I say. “Holding—Gabriel Holding.”
“You’ve met Gabriel Holding…” Dr. Kismen says, half to me, half to herself.
“Yes.”
“This is all very interesting,” Dr. Kismen says.
Desperate for answers, I grab Dr. Kismen’s arm with my sweaty palm and plead, “Can you at least tell me if my encounters are real? Do Sophie, Nicole, and Gabriel actually exist? Or is it just my imagination.
She removes her forearm from my grip, stands up, and heads to the computer next to Mentior. The bright light from the computer screen comes on, illuminating her face. Without looking up from the monitor, she says, “Everything I am about to tell you is off the record.”
“Absolutely,” I agree. “Frankly, I’d hoped this whole story would be off the record.”
“All three of them are real people, just as you are,” Deanna says.
I look at her expressionless face. “They are?”
“Yes, they are,” She says, her eyes still locked on the computer screen. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I admit. Who knows if she’s lying to me, how can I trust her? I wish I could see Gabriel and Sophie in reality, and then I would know for sure they exist.
“This is not how I pictured the preparation process.”
“I can imagine,” Dr. Kismen says.
“After that first session, I thought that all the future held for me was a miserable existence at home and here at Ultima. But I was wrong…”
I tear a corner of a tissue and throw it to the floor.
“Instead of