Active Memory

by Dan Wells

  I’ll wait, Marisa told herself, and kiss that good man if he ever shows up.

  “Well,” said Sahara, starting down the ladder. “First things first: let’s go get your dad his liver back.”

  “Absolutely,” said Marisa. She paused, and smiled. “And you know what? I think I’ve figured out how to pay for it.”

  “How?” asked Jaya.

  “Thanks to you and Fang,” said Marisa. “You purged Zenaida from ZooMorrow’s records, which means that she’s free now—and so is everybody else who has her DNA.”

  “We know that already,” said Fang. “That’s why we can give this liver back to your dad.”

  “Yeah,” said Marisa, and pulled Memo’s djinni from her pocket, “but it’s also why a certain gangster is no longer being targeted for assassination. I figure Memo owes me a favor.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  On the lowest level of a forgotten parking garage, Carlo Magno Carneseca lay in a hospital bed, surrounded by makeshift walls of thin plastic sheets, to keep the area clean. An electrical choir of machines beeped softly around him, lights blinking and IV drips cycling quietly in the darkness. The residents had left for the evening, gone up to higher levels, and the stark concrete room had the feeling of a sepulcher, solemn and alone.

  Marisa sat by the bed, and held her father’s hand.

  Sometime in the night he stirred, slowly waking up from the anesthetic of his surgery. Marisa watched him as he woke.

  “Nnnnn,” he groaned.

  “Do you need something?”

  “Nnnnnnnn,” he said again. His eyes fluttered. “Dnnnnn. Dónnnde ’stoy?”

  “Estás vivo,” said Marisa. “You just came out of surgery. We put your liver back in.”

  “Murrrrisa,” he slurred, his eyes still closed. “I went. To a lot of trouble. To take that out.”

  Marisa smiled. “Sorry, Papi. You’ve got to piss me off a whole lot more than you already do if you don’t want me to save your life.”

  “I shudder to think,” said Carlo Magno. He paused, breathing slowly. “Where’s your mother?”

  “At home with Sandro and the girls.”

  “Good,” he said. “Hospitals are depressing.” He finally managed to open one eye, squinting even in the dim light of the recovery room; he focused on the plastic wall, and then his eye roamed around the room, looking at each piece of overused medical equipment in turn. “This isn’t a hospital.”

  “Not officially.”

  He blinked, and then frowned. “My djinni doesn’t work.”

  “We had to turn it off,” said Marisa. “Mine too. They wouldn’t let us in otherwise.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Do you want the long version or the short?”

  “I want the version that doesn’t involve me having surgery in a crack house somewhere.”

  “How about a gang lair?”

  He shifted suddenly, trying to sit up, and grunted in pain so strong he collapsed back onto the bed. “Eitale, qué fea.”

  “Don’t move,” said Marisa.

  “Why are we in a gang lair?”

  “Because the gang lord owed me a favor,” said Marisa. “Stay still and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Did you kill anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Did you sleep with anybody?”

  “Papi!”

  “There’s only so many ways a gang lord can owe you a favor!”

  “It’s Memo, Papi, it’s Memo and Chuy. We’re with La Sesenta.”

  Carlo Magno sighed, keeping his eyes closed and trying not to move. “Mija . . .”

  “You were dying, Papi.”

  “I saved my own life, thank you.”

  “Sort of,” said Marisa. “You mostly just postponed death. And you don’t want to hear this, but the only way to save you was to get your liver back, and the only way to do that was to track down the agent who took it.”

  “I’m hallucinating,” said Carlo Magno, raising one finger in the air. “That’s the only explanation. I’m still drugged, and I’m imagining this.”

  “We got your liver back, and we purged Zenaida’s records from ZooMorrow’s database,” said Marisa. “Which means she and you and Memo are all no longer targets. And after we saved his life, he was kind enough to offer us the use of his surgeon.”

  “Gangs don’t have surgeons.”

  “He’s kind of a . . . black-market freelancer,” said Marisa, and winced at the next admission: “From the Foundation.”

  Carlo Magno moved again. “That’s—ow!—a terrorist group!”

  “Technically, yes—”

  “Mari, how do you . . . how many times . . .” He couldn’t find the words he wanted, and sighed again instead, shaking his head in defeat. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I was hoping you’d thank me,” she said with a grin, “but we can work up to that.”

  Carlo Magno grumbled in exasperation, which turned into a groan, which soon turned into a high-pitched laugh. He laughed until his belly shook, pulling on the stitches, and then he winced again and went back to a groan. “Ay, mija. I’m so sorry. You saved my life, and I’m being an ass.”

  “Cool, are we allowed to say ass now?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m on hospital drugs, I can say whatever I want.” He paused. “I wish I could blame not trusting you on the drugs, too, but we both know that’s not true.”

  Marisa didn’t answer, only sat and watched him.

  “I love you, mija. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Which is currently next to a liver instead of a giant bloody hole, so, thank you.”

  “Don’t forget my friends,” said Marisa. “And Chuy, believe it or not. He helped a lot.”

  Carlo Magno stared at the dark ceiling, his lips in a thin line, and after a moment he nodded. “I’m sure he did.” He held Marisa’s hand tightly, thinking silently in the darkness. After another long moment, he spoke again. “You saw her?”

  “The ZooMorrow agent? Yeah.”

  “No,” said Carl Magno. “Zenny.”

  “Yeah,” said Marisa. She watched his face carefully, trying to read it. “You called her that before. That seems a little more familiar than ‘local mob geneticist who randomly decided to help my daughter.’”

  “Tell me something,” said Carlo Magno. “Am I going to live?”

  Marisa frowned. “Yeah—that’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

  “But I mean really,” said Carlo Magno. “No one’s going to kill me, the transplant’s not going to fail, I’m not going to catch some . . . evil doctor cave infection and die in this hole?”

  “I promise,” said Marisa. She pursed her lips, considering him for a moment. “Why are we talking like this all of a sudden?”

  “I have to know that I’m living, because I want what I say next to matter. This is not a deathbed confession. This is a father talking to his daughter, telling her a truth that she’s deserved to know for a long time, and . . . I’ve just never been ready to tell you before.”

  Marisa waited, holding her breath.

  “Zenaida wasn’t just a random mobster who decided to help a handicapped girl,” said Carlo Magno. “She didn’t know you, but she . . . she knew me. We . . .” He stopped, pausing to think or breathe or steel himself, and in that pause Marisa knew exactly what he was going to say, suddenly and with perfect clarity, because it was the only thing he could say, the only thing that answered all the riddles and dotted all the i’s, and her heart screamed for him to stop—for her to never have to know the secret he was about to reveal, but it was too late, and she had worked too hard, and now the time had come and he said it, and it was real: “We had an affair.”

  And there it was. Truth, like an immovable monolith, called into being by her own stubbornness. Her father had had an affair. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth, because the truth was that he had been unfaithful to Guadalupe—to Marisa’s mother—and that awful reality sank into the middle of Ma
risa’s mind like a black hole, warping her entire life around itself. An affair.

  “No you didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  His voice was calm. “I did. It was—”

  “Does Mami know?” she asked.

  Carlo Magno nodded. “Of course she does. Revealing it was the only way to make it work.”

  Marisa closed her eyes, imagining her father in the arms of another woman, betraying the bonds that formed their family. She started to cry, and her tears turned hot and her sadness turned to rage. “How could you?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “No!” she screamed. “Yes! I don’t— How could you?”

  “It was wrong,” he said, “and it was shameful. It is the greatest mistake I have ever made.”

  “Mami had a baby,” said Marisa. “A crippled, one-armed baby, and she was at home taking care of me and you were out screwing that—”

  “No,” said Carlo Magno, “it was before you were born.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she snapped. “You said it was why Zenaida helped with my arm.”

  “That was later,” said Carl Magno.

  “And that makes it okay?”

  “Of course not!” he shouted, and then grimaced and put a hand to his bandages. “Mari, look. Nothing I’m about to say is ‘okay.’ None of it is good, or excusable, or right. But it is true, and you wanted the truth. Do you still want it, now that you know what it is?”

  Marisa felt like she was tearing in half: part of her wanted the truth, and part of her wanted to run away and never see him again. Another part of her, small but furious, wanted to tear out his tubes and his stitches and leave him to die.

  “What’s the point?” she asked. “Why should I listen to any of it?”

  “To understand,” said Carlo Magno.

  Marisa stared at him for a long, slow pause, and then nodded. “Okay. Tell me why.”

  “Because I was stupid,” said Carlo Magno. He looked up at the ceiling. “It was just after Chuy was born—so yes, I was leaving your mother with a brand-new baby. We were young and in love, but we were also ambitious, and we’d started too much new life at once. Maybe not too much for others, I suppose, but too much for me. I had a new wife and a new child and a brand-new restaurant, and that’s what really did it—I worked the night shift and Lupe worked the day, and we never saw each other awake for more than five minutes at a time, and those five minutes were so frantic or preoccupied or . . . whatever. They were never happy. We were stressed, and we were unprepared for it, and we were apart so much that I guess I just . . . forgot. I lost track of what was really important, and what I need to be doing, and why I’d married your mother in the first place. And that’s not an excuse, because Lupe was going through exactly the same stuff and she never faltered for a second. I was the villain here, and I’m not trying to gloss over that. Just to help you understand.”

  He paused, like he was expecting her to say something, but she had no words to say. He watched her, waiting, and after a silence started talking again.

  “Zenny—Zenaida—felt just as alone: she hated her husband, and she hated going home, and we saw each other at church and at the restaurant and all around the neighborhood, and eventually, we just . . . made bad decisions. It didn’t last long—just a few months—and then Lupe got pregnant with you and I ended it immediately. I knew that I couldn’t be the father I needed to be—that I wanted to be—unless I reevaluated and rededicated and re . . . built my entire life. And it was you who made me realize that, Mari, or the thought of you, at least. That sounds cheesy but it’s true. I broke it off, and it was over, and I thought no one would ever know, and then when Zenaida came back almost a year and a half later with this horrible plan to regrow your arm we said yes, because why not? I still wasn’t great at thinking through the consequences. Zenaida thought it would be safe, so we all went along with it.” He paused again, though this time he wasn’t waiting for her—he was deep in his own thoughts, considering his past from every angle. The one event, the one decision, that would come to define everything.

  “I heard the car accident before I saw it,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard one, because they’re so rare these days, but they’re horrible: the tires squeal, and when you grew up with this like I did that puts you on alert already, asking yourself if this will be a wreck or just a bad driver slamming on the brakes. Is it just a squeal? Or will there be a crash? And then I heard it—two giant metal autocars slamming into each other, breaking and crushing and tearing and clanging. And I ran, and there was Zenaida, half dead on the street in a shower of broken glass. I heard . . . crying, in the car, and I found Omar in the back seat wailing away, and you next to him, strapped into a car seat, your arm in a bandage. Jacinto looked dead already. I wanted to save you first, but I didn’t know if I could move you without causing any more damage, so I went back to Zenaida, and she told me the story, and she begged for my help. They were coming to kill her, and the only way to escape was to convince them she was dead. Switching the bodies was easy, but then what? How could I convince the paramedics that I had any authority or familiarity with Zenaida’s identity? A bystander wasn’t enough—it had to be a close relative or a neighbor or a friend. I tried to spin a hundred other stories to explain it, but inevitably the truth came out. I was her lover, and I knew her beyond a doubt, and they accepted my testimony and entered it into the hospital records. When Don Francisco showed up he saw through it immediately, but he accepted the ruse as the only way to save her life. He just never accepted me.”

  “And thus the feud,” said Marisa.

  “And thus the feud,” he agreed.

  “But . . . how did Mami forgive you?” asked Marisa.

  “Lupe is a better person than I am,” said Carlo Magno simply. “It took a lot of time, and a lot of work, but she forgave me, and we stayed together, and we had three more children and a thriving business and a life we’re both proud of. It’s a life of mistakes, to be sure, but isn’t that what they talk about in church every week? That a person can change and be better?”

  “I . . .” Marisa stopped, struggling to find a grip on her own feelings. “I don’t know.”

  “I know you don’t,” said Carlo Magno. “Sometimes I don’t either. And I understand that this is a lot, and that it changes everything, and I never wanted you to know because I knew that it would hurt you. That I might lose you forever. And I’ll understand if you feel like you can’t . . . be my daughter anymore. But it’s like you keep saying: you’re practically an adult now. So maybe if you don’t want me as a father, I hope you might at least want me as a friend.”

  Marisa nodded, staring at the floor. How could she answer him? What could she say?

  “You know,” she said at last, “Zenaida told me something on top of that crane.”

  “On top of a crane?”

  “Never mind that part,” said Marisa quickly. “She told me something, and I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but now I think it is.”

  His voice was quiet. “What was it?”

  “That I didn’t realize how good you were.”

  Carlo Magno scoffed. “And now telling you my greatest shame is what finally convinces you?”

  “Maybe,” said Marisa, nodding. She looked up. “Because anyone can make a mistake, but you’re the kind of person who spends your whole life trying to make up for it. I just watched a very long parade of people do exactly the opposite of that.” She took his hand, and smiled, and used her metal fingers to wipe another tear from her cheek. “I’m going to tell you something now that my father once told me. Are you ready for it?”

  “Hit me.”

  “The past is in the past,” she said. “It can’t hurt you unless you let it. So we’re not going to let it.”

  Carlo Magno smiled. “I like that plan.”

  “I like it too,” she said, and put her other hand on his. “Here’s to the future.”
>
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book could not have been written without the unflagging support of my editor, Jordan Brown; my agent, Sara Crowe; and the many, many people who work with them. I also give huge thanks to my assistants, Kenna Blaylock and Allison Hill, and to my amazing business manager and wife, Dawn Wells. These are the people who make my books possible; I’m just the guy who writes them, usually in my pajamas.

  On this particular book I want to give an extra shout-out to my daughters. I didn’t really set out to write a series about a father-daughter relationship, but that’s what it turned into, and most of the credit goes to them for being amazing and for making me want to tell their story. And don’t worry: we don’t fight NEARLY as much as Marisa and Carlo Magno. :)

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAN WELLS is the author of Bluescreen and Ones and Zeroes, the first two books in the Mirador series, as well as the bestselling Partials Sequence and the John Cleaver series—the first book of which, I Am Not a Serial Killer, has been made into a major motion picture. He has been nominated for the Campbell Award and has won a Hugo Award and three Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses. He plays a lot of games, reads a lot of books, and eats a lot of food, which is pretty much the ideal life he imagined for himself as a child. You can find out more online at www.thedanwells.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  BOOKS BY DAN WELLS

  THE MIRADOR SERIES

  BLUESCREEN

  ONES AND ZEROES

  ACTIVE MEMORY

  THE PARTIALS SEQUENCE

  PARTIALS

  FRAGMENTS

  RUINS

  ISOLATION

  THE PARTIALS SEQUENCE COMPLETE COLLECTION