Written in Light

by Jeff Young

  Kiersey felt briefly confused at that, thinking more clearly now than before. Perhaps they’d reduced the level of drugs in his system. “What do you mean?” His voice sounded tinny and unmodulated; perhaps he had some smoke inhalation damage as well.

  Anderev didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he reached across and pulled a slate off a nearby table. He fiddled with it awkwardly until its surface became reflective. “I’m not sure you’re ready for this…” Again, he trailed off and then brought up the mirrored screen before Kiersey.

  The rest of the room fell quiet while Kiersey went through several panicked reactions. But they were reactions that would have taken a body to act upon. His face was barely recognizable, and that was what remained of most of him. Just below his Adam’s apple, Kiersey became a ragged mass of flesh. His body was gone. A gelatinous mass of blue, a tangle of tubes, and several flexing bellows were attached to his pitiful remains. His mind… his mind, however, continued to work. Six long months, six incredibly long months, and the techs on the Ross will grow me a new body. I’ll be more than just a chunk of flesh again. Then he realized that Anderev remained much too quiet and still. “You saved my life,” Kiersey said.

  The big man’s shoulders slumped. “About the only thing I saved,” he sat down at the edge of Kiersey’s vision.

  “Now I know what you meant when you said you couldn’t carry me.” If he had a body, Kiersey would have shuddered. He’d heard before about the option of sealing the armor’s helmet in life-threatening situations. But he’d never heard of anyone using it. The handle on the top of the helmet was not just for hanging it on the wall. Then he started to think more about what Anderev said.

  “Look, we couldn’t do anything for them. It happened so fast. I’m sure they never even felt it.”

  Anderev turned back around where Kiersey could see his face. Some of the tension there lessened. “Kiersey, you don’t understand. All of those dead men and women down there, even that kid—it’s all our fault.”

  “When we get sent in, people die. It’s a fact.”

  Kiersey heard Anderev stand up to his feet. “No, you don’t know. When we were sent down to Cansec, our hyped-up immune systems carried live, infectious agents. We were full of diseases that had to develop into radically dangerous forms as they tried to overwhelm our antigens, viruses that the population of that world had no protection from whatsoever.”

  As Anderev stepped out of Kiersey’s line of sight, he heard him say softly, “Every last one of them is dead. We walked on their world, breathed its air, drank its water, and we poisoned them. We poisoned them so well that they never had a chance.”

  Kiersey heard Anderev’s footsteps and then the chuff of the airlock door as it opened and closed. He stared at the opposite wall and its blank grey metal for a long time. Everything that he saw was a product of his imagination, and none of it could be as bad as the reality. “OPS,” he said, “I think you can turn me off for a while. I think you can turn me off for a long while…”

  ~*~

  Transcript of Committee Hearing, Sylvan Seven Atrocities

  Senator Wellheim: So, you knew full well what you were doing?

  General Pressman: Sadly, sir, it is not without precedent. Our ancestors gave blankets impregnated with the smallpox infection to the Indians and achieved the same result. We did not arrive at our decision lightly. After all, it was a group of rebel farmers that started the American Revolution. Since the consolidation, the Federate simply is not prepared for another conflict. We were all aware of the consequences and accepted them as a necessary cost of winning this war.

  Senator Wellheim: You condemned all those people to death.

  General Pressman: No, sir, they accepted their fate when they challenged us. We were given little choice in how to accomplish our goal. I could just as easily lay the blame on your shoulders when your committee cut the finances to the war effort. But you do not want to see or hear that. You are only looking for someone to accept the blame. Well, I will. If you want to blame someone for accomplishing the goal that you tried to make certain could not be done, then blame me. If you want to blame someone for finishing this with no recourse, then blame me. If you want to blame someone for having the balls to do what it takes, then blame me. But don’t you ever tell me that I have failed the Federal Coalition.

  Senator, I’m done here. I have answered your questions. I have nothing further to say.

  The Luminous Blind Spot

  Cold air lanced through Perris’s lungs as the traffic shrieked by on the nearby roadway. He spun to a halt as a snowflake lit on his eyelash. Time ended as if cut off. The world crunched down into a piece of reality less than a sixteenth of an inch across, one little water crystal unique among the millions that hung in the air overhead, ready to descend. So, in that fossilized now, James Perris spun to the left and collapsed over the banister.

  Of the five senses, the one most commonly associated with memory is smell. When the air smelled familiar, it foreshadowed something. A milestone on the road to a destination, a road Perris had done everything possible to blockade—only to find himself racing down the black mnemonic highway once again with its inevitable destination…

  ~*~

  The morning of Shawn’s departure on her business venture for the biotech lab dawned, and Perris had spent the night. Over breakfast, he’d started feeling odd. One moment by moonlight, that perfect moment, he could run it back over and over again. In fact, he could run any memory from the previous night back and forth perfectly in exact detail, almost as if it could happen again in a collapsed version of time. He could recall any moment after they’d left the restaurant. When had his memory gotten that good? Putting a hand out to catch the cup of coffee he’d almost tried to hang in midair, Shawn said into the silence, “Actually, your memory was never that good, at least never as good as last night.”

  He swung around to stare at her, his mouth open, as she placed the cup on the tabletop and continued, “No, I’m not suddenly a mind reader—I just recognize the feeling and hence the expression.”

  Into the silence that followed, Perris dropped his head into his hands as his mind raced. One slightly off remark kept coming back to him, “Nice to see I’m not the only one who brings work home with them.”

  She’d given him something that they created in the lab, something to do with memory. Oh, God, he was a human guinea pig. He quickly squelched that reaction. Obviously, this was tested and nearly ready for release to the public. She loved him—she wouldn’t put him at risk. Glancing up at her, he saw in an instant all he’d guessed was true.

  ”But do you know why?” she asked, looking him in the eye.

  Perris pursed his lips. He had to admit, he didn’t see an immediate reason, and then she caught him by surprise by leaning over and kissing him. Suddenly, echoes of multiple passionate kisses rocketed through his head. If he picked one, he could follow it through and relive any one of several bouts of passionate lovemaking from the evening before. What a going away gift—a little memorable something to keep him going for two weeks.

  “It only increases the extent of mnemonic absorption now for about ten hours. But the effects as far as we can tell are long-lasting.”

  “It’s amazing,” Perris said, unwillingly spiraling through a memory fragment of drinking coffee after dinner the evening before, brought on by the aroma of his current cup, which Shawn appropriated and now sipped. The wine, she’d slipped it into his second glass of wine, and he’d finished the coffee before they’d left to take the edge off of the wine. “But how?” he asked.

  “Two things,” she said, handing back the coffee. “One, it gets easier to control. It’s like having a new sense you didn’t even know you had, like memory discretion. Two, it would take about two months to ground you in enough theory to understand ‘how,’ and even then, I couldn’t guarantee I could explain it all completely. But look, let’s just say we added something to your neural paths called a mnemocyte, a sort of nan
otech intermediary. It allows you to map your storage paths more efficiently. Sorry, that was all obviously a mouthful of vague complexities. Okay, what’s four plus three?”

  “Seven,” Perris replied.

  “Two plus five?”

  “Seven.”

  “One plus six?”

  “Seven.”

  “Nine minus two?”

  “Seven. Look, somewhere along here there is a point, right?” Perris snapped finally.

  “Yes, but bear with me, what vegetable comes to mind?”

  “Carrot,” Perris replied without giving it much thought. “What’s that prove?” he quickly amended.

  “Something fairly basic, but it’s always more visible by example. The brain stores information in an odd cross-reference system, hence carrot and the number seven occupy a similar location. The mnemocytes remember the pathways of the memories and make it easier to restore them for a more accurate and active review, hence improving recall.”

  “So, they take a load off my neurons,” Perris snorted, raising the coffee mug, which with its rich aroma, started the memory chain again.

  “Yeah, right,” Shawn snorted, getting up to come and put her arms around him from behind. “We’re going to go public in about a month and basically end up filthy rich. How would you feel about leaving Spokane and moving to wine country?”

  Perris’s jaw clicked open and shut twice before Shawn stilled his reaction with a kiss. She drew back. “Just think about it, for now. I’m sure we’ll have enough money to start a studio. You can work on your music, rather than mixing down everyone else’s. Think about that, babe. I’m gonna check my bags to make sure I’m all ready to go. Why don’t you put some more clothes on? I don’t think they’ll let you in the airport like that. Keep in mind, we’ve got to hit the road in about fifteen minutes.”

  Perris glared at his coffee. If she hadn’t gotten the drop on him, he didn’t know what happened. Eventually, he got up to pour out the remains of the coffee. After borrowing some of Shawn’s toothpaste, he stopped suddenly, staring at the water running down the drain. The memory of the coffee flowing from moments before reran in perfect detail. That was odd. Shawn said the stuff only worked for ten hours. That much time had to have passed. As he left, the faucet caught his eye, and he stared at it a moment longer, oddly confused.

  He really did mean to bring up the occurrence on the way to the small airport, but Shawn suddenly seemed so full of plans about how to spend their impending wealth, it overwhelmed him, and he pushed his worries aside to listen to her. Ten minutes found them parking in an out-of-the-way lot and walking across the macadam.

  Perris checked his watch—good, still plenty of time. As Shawn tucked her printed tickets into the outside pocket of her carry-on, Perris put a protective arm around her and sighed.

  With a smile, she glanced up at him and said, “Come on, buddy, it’s only two weeks, and besides…”

  She ran a finger along the edge of his jaw, and suddenly his mind swept into a memory from the night before, where she’d done the same thing and then…

  She laughed as his face got bright red. Thinking quickly, he turned and nipped playfully at her nose to be rewarded with a similar blush from her. “See, you’ve got a little something to keep you happy until I get back,” Shawn said with a wink.

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait to make more memories. At least it won’t be long,” Perris replied as a sign above the nearby kiosk flashed the boarding time for Shawn’s flight. He helped her to the security line with her carry-on and then accepted a lingering kiss. She squeezed his arm, stepping away. With a quick wave, she vanished into the hallway. Perris walked over to the window and took a seat in front. Two weeks, but in four their lives were going to completely change, change perhaps in a way that would make a ring a good idea.

  After a few moments, the boarding tube pulled away from the plane, and the pilot brought the 747 slowly about. In a moment, it would taxi across a small, unused runway out into the waiting queue of jets just visible on the horizon from the plane’s current location. Light winked off a small plane circling the airport as Perris stifled a yawn. Deciding he would wait until her flight lifted off, he slid back further into his seat.

  Perris shied back from a bright reflection of sunlight off the wings of the same smaller plane he’d seen earlier as it came in at an angle trying to make an emergency landing on the unused runway. As the larger plane taxied across its flight path, a woman at the counter saw the same thing Perris did and sucked in a ragged breath, a prelude to a scream. Pushing his way up out of the seat, Perris saw the smaller plane’s pilot realize his mistake and attempt to pull up. Instead of broadsiding the 747, the smaller plane sheared its landing gear off on the edge of the wing. Its momentum carrying it on, the little plane smashed through the middle of the plane to fall onto the far wing and its engine. Perris didn’t see much beyond that. He’d raced by the kiosk into the hallway. Shoving his way through the line of people who were all turning toward the sound echoing through the narrow space, he used his elbows to clear the way. When Perris was out and free, he saw the security guard turn aside to deal with the people gesturing and shouting. He didn’t hesitate. He ran through the metal detector and on into the concourse. From the shocked expressions, it took very little to determine which direction the explosion had come from. He chose a hallway, once again fighting his way through stunned people, and ran along it until the floor raised upward to a boarding tube.

  The door at the end of the tube slowly rolled back and wasn’t even locked. He pulled hard on it and swung out over open space as it squealed on popping hinges. At that point, a baggage cart had come to rest below, halted by the sound of the crash. Desperately, Perris kicked until the door swung over the cart, and he dropped into the luggage. He grasped the edge of the cart and started to swing himself over. The compression wave from the explosion of the 747’s engines threw the cart over. Pieces of metal rained down about him, ricocheting off the suitcases. Expanding balls of fire rocketed skyward. Things were getting hard to pick out as the smoke billowed, but he didn’t hesitate—he ran right into the thick of it. Sirens wailed in the distance as he stumbled over the wreckage. By the time he could see, the heat from the wing began to singe his eyebrows. Perris wavered on his feet.

  Suddenly, two strong hands grasped him from behind and dragged him backward. Overcome with smoke and heat, he didn’t struggle much. The luggage cart attendant pulled him back out of the wreckage, his heels bumping over broken pieces of plastic and metal. As his coughing rescuer propped him on the mailbag and began to treat him for shock, the first realization hit Perris. The bag, one look at the bag and suddenly the entire memory reran from there. He still remembered perfectly. The dose he’d received was off. It should have only lasted ten hours. His head lolled back, bringing the wide glass windows that he’d watched the crash from into view and then…

  The little plane running through the backbone of the 747 all the way through his charge into the fire. Perfect. It was all there, perfect for his recall. After just one little trigger, he could see the crash again in complete agonizing detail, including that indefinable moment when the realization of Shawn’s death hit him. Shawn, one thought and, unbidden, those parceled memories that were meant to sustain him through her business trip came streaming back. As his mind struggled through loop after loop of recall, he slid off to one side of the bag and became messily sick down the slick nylon side.

  ~*~

  ... Pulling himself upright with a deep breath, out of the wreck of memories’ shrapnel, Perris walked back up the steps. In the elevator, he tugged out his wallet and hunted for the name of his agent. Time to move once again—somewhere tropical, without snow. His inheritance from Shawn’s estate and the profits from the drug made such things easy, but still, there were costs. Already, he’d given up coffee—no, he couldn’t think about the list. It only started the ride again. There were just so many other triggers that could fire the mnemonic gun.
>
  As he slipped into the safe darkness of his room, he realized again that he moved in ever-decreasing circles, his life constricting down into limits. They’d tinkered with the mnemocytes and told him that their work would gradually allow the memories to decline in clarity. But could he face going through each one of the associated memories before he could finally truly forget? So far, it hadn’t happened. He’d lived a year, but had he really lived? Sooner or later, his mind would be reduced to nothing but an endless spiral of those enhanced memories. As he leaned back into the chair, despair wringing a sob out of him, he realized that even then, his memory would be perfect, never fading, one maddening, screaming infinitely repetitive groove.

  Windfall

  One second, Cole lounged nose-deep in a book, and the next—after a tremendous boom, followed by creaking, splintering sounds—he found himself in the basement. He’d blacked out for a moment. Blood ran down his cheek from an oozing cut on his right temple. Shaking his head, he looked up through the layers of his house into the late afternoon’s clear blue sky framed by ragged, broken edges.

  Then he heard the breathing. It ratcheted in and out, like his uncle, who smoked too many cigars. Cole pushed his way through the wreckage. At the bottom of all this destruction lay the body of a man. Cole jumped when the stranger took another ragged breath, his chest barely rising. His arms and legs were twisted at angles that made Cole queasy just looking at them. He stared at the stranger, who had fallen through his house.

  A bluish-green suit covered most of the twisted body, with brass-colored boots and a badly mangled helmet. Cole crept closer, trying not to bring down any more debris. When he stood near enough to look the stranger in the face, brown eyes sought his out. A hand painfully made its way through the debris with something clutched in its dust-covered fingers. Three of those digits appeared to work while the other two were twisted about and broken. The man’s eye caught at Cole, and he rasped, “Here. I can trust you, can’t I? To do the right thing?” and then the stranger thrust an amber-colored object into Cole’s hands.