Active Memory

by Dan Wells

  “You watch your mouth,” snapped Sergio.

  “Why?” asked Marisa. “Out of respect for the half-dressed chango screaming about how he doesn’t get everything he wants?”

  “Easy,” whispered Sahara, tugging gently on her arm.

  “That is no way to speak to an officer of the law!” shouted Sergio.

  “I’m not speaking to an officer of the law,” shouted Marisa, “I’m speaking to a mobster in a uniform!”

  Sergio stepped toward her, but Hendel planted herself between them. “Everybody calm down!” she roared. “This is my precinct!”

  “You’re a whore,” said Sergio, growling at Marisa over Hendel’s shoulder. “You and your damn father.”

  The front door slid open, and Omar was shouting at Sergio before he even entered the building. “What have you done?”

  Sergio never took his eyes off of Marisa. “Not now, Omar.”

  “Father’s on his way here,” said Omar, stepping inside. The door closed behind him. “Spitting nails. You’ve stirred up a whole chingado hornet’s nest, Sergio.”

  Sergio whirled on him. “If he’s coming, then I’ll talk to him in person,” he said, “not his jumped-up little mini-me.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” asked Omar. “Because it is not going to be pleasant for you.”

  “Why’s he mad at me?” asked Sergio. “I’m the one trying to protect this family while you’re out telling our secrets to every little slut with a nice pair of—”

  “You will speak with respect in my building,” boomed Hendel. Her voice echoed so loudly through the foyer Marisa thought she must have amplified it somehow. Maybe with a hidden implant.

  “I’m sorry,” said Omar, and he turned on his charm as he walked toward Hendel. Even at four in the morning his smile could stop a freight train. He stuck out his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Detective. I’m sorry that you’ve gotten caught up in this.”

  “I’m delighted by it,” said Hendel dryly. She shook his offered hand. “Before tonight I didn’t realize how easily the Maldonados could go over my head.” She shot a glance at Sergio. “Or how thoroughly they’d infiltrated my own department.”

  “We have nothing but the utmost respect for the LAPD,” said Omar, “and for the brave work you do every day enforcing the law.”

  “What little of it we’re still allowed to enforce,” said Hendel. “How much longer before your family incorporates fully, and starts making and enforcing your own set of laws?”

  “They’ve been doing that for years,” said Marisa.

  “And you’re not going to be in her station forever,” said Sergio. “Remember where you live.”

  “Is that a threat?” asked Marisa.

  “It’s not a threat,” said Omar.

  “It sounded like a threat,” said Hendel.

  “Detective Hendel,” said Omar, trying to regain control of the conversation. “I called Chief Grace to get those files released, and when my brother found out about it he called my father, who is now on his way here. Frankly, I don’t know whose head he’s going to cut off.”

  “Yours,” said Sergio.

  “Possibly,” said Omar. “It is my recommendation that none of us be here when he arrives.”

  “And let Officer Diamond take the brunt of Don Francisco’s rage?” asked Hendel, gesturing at the officer still standing behind the front desk. “I don’t think so. If something needs to be hashed out, let’s hash it out.”

  “You won’t like the way my father hashes things,” said Omar.

  The front door opened, sensing an approaching figure, and Marisa heard a programmed voice drifting through the night air: “Your heart rate is approaching dangerous levels. You should rest.”

  “Triste Chango,” said Sahara.

  “Papi?” whispered Marisa.

  Carlo Magno came puffing through the door, wearing loose hospital scrubs and leaning heavily on his cane. “Marisa Carneseca Sanchez!”

  “Papi!” shouted Marisa, running toward him. “What are you doing here? You’re going to rip your stitches!”

  “Then I’m going to take you down with me,” said Carlo Magno. “You told me you were doing homework tonight! You promised me! And now I find you in the police station! Qué no me vengan las maldiciones de una hija tan malcriada!”

  “Why are you even here?” asked Marisa. “How did you know?”

  “My father called him,” said Omar.

  “And I’m twice as angry as he’ll be,” said Carlo Magno, and roared at Marisa: “This is the second time I’ve had to pick you up from a police station in the middle of the night! What do I have to do to get through to you?”

  “I’m here reporting a crime,” said Marisa, “not committing one.”

  “And that means you didn’t lie to me?”

  “We caught the guy who had the hands,” Marisa shouted. “And he wasn’t even dangerous, he was just a bioprinter! Detective Hendel can tell you!”

  “I told you seventeen times tonight that you shouldn’t have been out,” said Hendel, “and I’ve tried to send you home seventeen more.”

  “Thanks for the support,” muttered Marisa, and pulled her father toward a chair. “Sit down before you fall apart. I don’t want to have to catch your liver when it tumbles out of your gaping, unhealed surgery hole.”

  “It is called an incision,” said Triste Chango, pressing in close and extending a servo arm with a hypodermic syringe. “Please hold still. You need medication.”

  “I know what it’s called,” muttered Marisa.

  Her father swatted at the syringe. “Get that away from me.”

  The medical nuli switched targets, from Carlo Magno’s chest to his hand, and managed a solid hit with the hypodermic syringe. It let out a loud puff of air, applying a contact medicine directly to his skin. He gasped at the touch—hypodermics didn’t prick your skin, but they still stung—and Marisa finally managed to sit him down in a chair.

  “You’re going to put yourself back in the hospital,” she said.

  “Better me than you,” wheezed Carlo Magno.

  The door opened a third time, and there he was: Don Francisco Maldonado, his black suit neatly pressed but his face puffy from sleep, and his thinning hair hurriedly plastered to his head with too much gel and water. He was flanked by two hulking enforcers, each of them heavily rebuilt with menacing bionics. All three of them froze in unison when Francisco saw Carlo Magno.

  “I told you not to come here.”

  “And I told you I don’t care,” said Carlo Magno.

  “Finally,” said Sergio. “Let’s get rid of the whole family once and for all.”

  Hendel put her hand on the sidearm holstered at her hip, completely unintimidated by the massive Maldonado thugs. “Like hell you are.”

  “I don’t mean kill them,” said Sergio, and turned to Carlo Magno in a fury. “I mean run them out of town! Get them out of our sight for good!”

  “You be quiet,” said Don Francisco, hissing each word through clenched teeth. “I give the orders, not you.”

  “Then give this one,” said Sergio. “We’ve tolerated them long enough.”

  Whatever the feud was about, Marisa realized, Sergio knew it as keenly as both of the patriarchs. And it infuriated him.

  Don Francisco looked at Carlo Magno. “Maybe it’s time.”

  “You promised,” said Carlo Magno. “Protection for me and my family.”

  “Why!” shouted Sergio. “Just because you—”

  “I told you to be quiet!” Don Francisco’s voice was a mountain of sound, shaking Marisa’s ears like a tangible force. “There are some things we don’t talk about!”

  “She’s not worth protecting,” Sergio spat.

  Marisa was done dealing with their nonsense. “Just get over yourselves,” she said. “Screaming at each other like children. You’re mad at Sergio for talking? Talking is the only way any of this is ever getting solved.”

  “Mari,” her
father warned.

  She ignored him.

  “You’re mad at Omar for releasing the police files?” she continued, stepping toward Don Francisco. “He thought he was helping find his own mother. How was he supposed to know you two pendejos”—she pointed at the don and her father—“were the ones who helped her run away in the first place?” She looked at Omar. “That’s what we found in the files, by the way: our fathers lied to the hospital about the body in the accident. She didn’t die fifteen years ago.”

  Don Francisco stared back at her, his face a careful mask of cold, seething fury. “This is the part,” he said softly, “where you back up three steps and apologize.”

  Marisa planted herself directly in front of him, her hands on her hips. “You don’t know me very well.”

  “Marisa, back up,” said her father.

  “You’ve heard what he says,” she shouted, “and you’ve heard what he thinks of you—don’t you dare start taking his side in this!”

  “You don’t even know what this is,” said Francisco.

  “So tell me.”

  “Leave it alone, Mari,” said Carlo Magno.

  “Somebody just say something!” she shouted. “Anything!” She felt her frustration boiling inside of her like a cauldron full of superheated magma, threatening to explode out the top and melt through the sides. She shouted again, and realized that she was crying. “You’re not the only ones in this! You’re not the only ones who get to know! You lost your wife? I lost my arm, and years of my life, and any trust I ever had in my father!” She clasped her hands together, flesh and metal in a viselike grip. “Just tell me where Zenaida is. Just tell me why I was in the car. Just tell me what happened.”

  And then she was there, popping into existence without a sign or a sound or a rustle of air. She stood behind the bionic enforcers, dressed differently than before and staring at Marisa over Don Francisco’s shoulder.

  Zenaida.

  Marisa took a step back.

  “Oh, now you back up?” asked Don Francisco. He saw the direction of her eyes and looked over his own shoulder but didn’t seem to see anything.

  “Are you okay?” asked Sahara.

  Zenaida walked forward, passing through the enforcers and Don Francisco like they weren’t even there. She never took her eyes off Marisa.

  Her face was cold and cruel and triumphant.

  She walked straight toward Marisa, raised a gun, and fired.

  FIFTEEN

  Marisa screamed, covering her face and flinching away from the attack.

  Nothing happened. She opened her eyes, and Zenaida was gone.

  “Did you see her again?” asked Sahara.

  “Who?” asked Carlo Magno. He was on his feet, shuffling toward her, but Marisa hadn’t seen him stand.

  “Zenaida,” said Omar, looking at Marisa. It wasn’t a question but a statement. “She attacked you.”

  “You saw her?” asked Marisa, but Omar shook his head.

  “Not here,” he said, and glanced at his father—just for a second, never making eye contact—and then looked away. “But I’ve seen it before.”

  “We’re leaving,” said Don Francisco. He spun his finger in the air, right at shoulder level, gathering his people with a single gesture. One of the enforcers stepped toward the door, triggering the sensor, and held it open with a heavy metal arm. Sergio followed without a moment of argument. Francisco looked at Hendel, and Marisa tried to decipher the look on his face: authority, yes, and resolution, but also . . . fear?

  Did he know what Marisa had seen?

  Was Zenaida haunting him, too?

  “Seal those files,” he told Hendel. “You can wait for Chief Grace if you want, but she’ll call and tell you the same within the next ten minutes.” He turned and walked out, and his enforcers followed.

  Omar followed last of all, his head hung low.

  “Mari,” said Carlo Magno. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it off and stepped away.

  “Don’t talk to me,” she said.

  “Marisa,” he said again, though this time his voice had sharpened from consolation to impatience. “We’re leaving too. I’ve called a cab—”

  “I’m not going with you,” she said, and walked toward the door. The last thing she wanted to hear right now was more excuses, or more hollow platitudes of love or family or letting go of the past or whatever other idiocy he was going to repeat. “And don’t follow me.”

  “Marisa!”

  The door opened for her, and she walked out into the predawn haze.

  Four thirty in the morning. The city was already shifting from black to dark purple, the ambient light growing faintly stronger as the world slowly came awake. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and tilting her head up toward the sky.

  “Hey,” said Omar. Marisa looked to the side and saw him leaning in the shadow of a palm tree.

  “I thought you left,” she said.

  “I left the building,” he explained. “But I can’t be with my father right now.” He jerked his head toward the door behind her. “Sounds like you said the same to yours.”

  “I don’t know if I can ever see him again,” she said. “He just makes me so . . . I don’t know. Mad, angry, furious, frustrated, confused . . .”

  “Betrayed,” offered Omar.

  “Exactly,” said Marisa. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing Carlo Magno inside the police station, talking to Detective Hendel. “Let’s get out of here before he comes out.”

  “I have my car,” said Omar, but Marisa shook her head.

  “I just want to walk around for a while.”

  Omar nodded, and fell in step beside her.

  Los Angeles was never really asleep, but this time of day was its quietest. Nightclubs and bars and such were finally closed or closing, and nothing else had opened yet except maybe a bakery here and there, or a twenty-four-hour diner selling coffee and artificial eggs. The street with the police station had none of these, and no traffic aside from the omnipresent passage of nulis overhead, shipping goods and documents and everything else in the world, back and forth in an endless dance. Marisa stuffed her hands in her pockets, feeling the different sensations from one hand to another. Even advanced cybernetics couldn’t feel things exactly the same way flesh did. It had become a part of her life, familiar and even comforting at times, but now it only made her feel broken.

  She walked without purpose, willing to go wherever her feet pointed her. After the third turn she realized that Omar was leading her subtly. “Where are we going?”

  “On a different route than an autocab will take your father,” said Omar. “Even if he’s not following you, I assume you don’t want him to accidentally spot you with a Maldonado.”

  “Ugh,” said Marisa, simultaneously grateful for his foresight, angry that it was necessary, and embarrassed that he would accept so calmly his role as a villain. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry that . . .” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Sorry that their families couldn’t figure this out? Sorry that they kept giving each other so many reasons not to? There was a time she wouldn’t have been caught dead with Omar in any capacity, let alone just the two of them, walking in the dark and sharing . . .

  Sharing what? Silence? Emotional weight?

  “My mother tried to shoot you,” said Omar.

  Marisa nodded. She hadn’t said it out loud, and yet he knew, which could only mean: “I assume she’s shot at you, too?”

  “A couple of times,” said Omar. “It’s one thing to have your mother run away from you, but to have her pull a gun . . .”

  She put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know. But I . . . can’t stand to see you like this.”

  He stopped, and turned toward her. His eyes were as dark as onyx, and she was suddenly struck by the way he looked at her—intense and probing, like he was looking at her and into her and through her all at on
ce. She swallowed, and realized her hand was still on his arm. She left it there.

  “My sister saw her, too,” said Omar, his voice soft but strong. “I only know because I heard her talking in her sleep. I’m amazed anyone can sleep in that house anymore, but . . . I was up the other night, sitting in the library, which is just down the hall from her room, and she started talking to her: ‘Mama, please come back. Don’t run away from me. I don’t want to hurt you.’ She’s seeing the same things that you are, and that I am, and for all I know our whole family is, but my family never talks to each other. We can’t. We can’t open up, and we can’t trust anyone, and as big of a wreck as I am right now, I think I’m doing better than any of the others because I have . . .” He shrugged. “You. To talk to. And they don’t have anyone, not even each other.” He turned away suddenly, and took a step away to continue down the sidewalk, but she tightened her grip on his arm, no longer touching it but holding it. She felt his arm move under his sleeve, and his muscle tense under his skin.

  “Thank you for trusting me,” she said. “And thank you for being someone I can talk to, too.”

  He turned back, and looked at her again with those dark eyes.

  She stepped closer.

  “Do you ever wish,” she said, “that we could just forget who we are? Forget what we’ve done, and where we come from, and our families and our fathers and everything else and just . . .” She watched his mouth, tinted blue in the morning light. “Just be?”

  “Be what?” It was more of a breath than a sentence.

  “I guess that depends,” said Marisa, and looked up from his mouth to his eyes. “What do you want to be?”

  He stared back at her, not speaking, until finally he whispered, “I want to be here.”

  Marisa swallowed again. “So do I.”

  His arm was warm under her real fingers, and she wanted to know what he felt like on her metal ones. She reached up and touched his other arm, feeling the texture of his shirt, and the strength in his bicep, and—very slowly—the warmth of his body coming out through the fabric. The rest of her body felt suddenly cold, and she shivered. He stepped toward her, putting his hands on her waist.