Peering out the back, where she planned to head, she saw that the way was blocked. Chris stood with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was tugging on one of the last tomatoes. Finally loosening it from its stem, he took a bite. He then spat it out as he tossed the fruit to the garden bed. An odd memory came to her. Kent always hated tomatoes.
As he wiped his mouth with his black sleeve, Irene crept away to the hall to a set of stairs that led down to the basement. From there, she could exit the mill from the side of the building.
As she neared the stairwell, she heard a man’s voice from out front. “Irene Duncan?”
Through the front door, a man appeared with a gun. He stepped toward her and raised it to her head. Without thinking, Irene replicated the gesture with her knife.
“Irene, put that knife down before Kenneth shoots you,” a man with a scruffy beard said as he entered the hallway. Unlike the others, who were dressed in The Firsts' uniform, this man wore a long, dark blue military coat that hung open over an un-tucked white shirt.
Knowing that the gun outmatched her, Irene lowered the kitchen knife.
“And drop it,” the man commanded as he pushed his way through the narrow hall.
Irene slowly placed the knife on the floor, feeling as if she were also letting go of the last hope of ever seeing her family again. But the man aiming the gun seemed to care little about Irene’s inner crisis, for he stomped toward her, grabbed the back of her shirt, and forced her out the door.
On the mill's dusty driveway, Charlie knelt with a piece of tape across his mouth as another man aimed a gun at him.
“Charlie,” Irene whispered, unable to speak the words any louder for the fear growing within her.
He looked up at her with beads of sweat on his brow.
She was situated alongside him but allowed to stand. The man wearing the coat approached her with his hands behind his back as Chris came around the corner of the mill several hundred yards away.
“Ah, you remember Chris,” the man said, gesturing in his direction. “I’m afraid; however, he doesn’t remember you. You see, Chris did a very bad thing." The man began to circle her. "He got himself processed before we could get any information from him. He promised us so much but delivered so little. But how do you punish a man for doing something he doesn’t remember doing?”
Irene didn’t respond, and the man stared at her. “I see you’re at a loss for words. The Firsts’ processing system has created all sorts of moral and philosophical questions. It can be quite perplexing at times.”
"Why do it, then?" Irene asked as Chris looked at her with no sign of recognition.
The man laughed. “For power, Irene. We do it for power. And, I might also say, there's nothing more satisfying than manipulating people's minds. Before the war, the press did it all the time, and very few complained. Our system is simply more . . . permanent."
The word hit Irene hard. Permanent. She looked at Chris again. His demeanor had changed. He was rubbing his brow as if a bad headache had struck him. He then shook his head, apparently trying to shake it off.
“I have to say that Chris did accomplish at least one thing,” the man continued. “His entire objective hinged on getting The Discord and you to trust him—to like him.” The man moved close to Irene’s ear. “And I can tell by the way you look at him that he accomplished that part of the plan.”
At that, a sense of guilt came over Irene. She thought of her husband but found, like so many times before, she couldn’t quite picture him. It was as if his image were merely a half-drawn sketch, like Natalie’s tattoo.
The man tapped a finger against his lips. “I must confess. I have a secret to tell. Do you want to hear it? It’s a good one.” He paused for a moment and then motioned at Chris, who'd turned his back to the entire spectacle. "Chris is your—”
“What?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I have no idea what you’re getting at.”
“You mean, you can’t guess who Chris is? Maybe if I offered you the hint that his name was once Kent.”
Irene held her breath. “You’re lying. You’re just trying to confuse me.” But as she said the words, uncertainly crept into her mind. Weren’t the signs there? Chris’s sense of humor, the ever-present smirk on his face, the way they bantered, the way he never let her win an argument, and how he looked at her the way a husband would. And those tomatoes . . . She bent down on one knee as if the weight of the revelation was too much to carry.
“They lied to you, Irene. They told you a fairy tale about how you had something called The Gift of Remembering. Nonsense. No one’s memory could endure being processed. No one’s.” The man paused, and Irene felt his stare on her. He reached beneath her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come on now,” he said.
Irene wobbled a bit as she stood, and she leaned into him more than she wanted. He tried to steady her, but she pushed him away.
The man dusted himself off. “The truth is, Irene, after Kent’s memory was removed—voluntarily, mind you—we reeducated him. This made him quite eager to please. For that reason, we released him, and several other men, back into the population. Their job was to inform us of any uprisings as we went along collecting people for processing.
“With the help of his neighbor, Chris stumbled upon The Discord—Roger Stein’s quaint, little opposition group. Chris came back and told us what Roger was up to but said he didn't have a clue where Roger was hiding. We wanted to know, so we sent him back after getting some intel that Roger had never actually met your husband.
“Then lo and behold, The Discord found out we were holding you. Chris told us they planned a rescue attempt to free you. He volunteered for it, and we assisted quite a bit, allowing you to think a member of The Discord was rescuing you.
“But all that wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for The Firsts removing the memory of your husband’s identity from your mind. They didn’t take away the memory that you had a husband, you see, just what he looked like. This allowed them to use your husband, Chris, as a mole.
“It was very clever on our part. An instant bond would form between you and Chris. I mean between you and your husband, Kent. And because of your relationship with Roger, before long, Chris, I mean, Kent, would discover where Roger was hiding. We could then . . . well, you can guess the rest.
“What The Firsts didn’t count on was that your husband’s character broke through, compelling him to get himself processed again, which erased everything he’d learned about The Discord.”
Tears streamed down Irene’s face as she tried to recall Kent's face, but all that remained was an out of focus, blurry image. Perhaps if she’d taken the time, she would have noticed the symptom following her stay at the hospital.
“We knew you would join The Discord once you escaped with Chris because of your interview with Mr. Donatello. Your principles were revealed during the conversation.” The man circled about her again. “You made it quite clear how you hated The Firsts for what they’d done to your family. But, once again, The Firsts were clever. They used that emotion to get to Roger.
“The sad thing is that Roger could have prevented all of this. Your children’s memory loss, the erasing of you and your husband’s recollection of each other—it was all Roger’s fault. The Firsts asked Roger very nicely to help sell the concept of processing to his congregation and spread the news that God ordained it. With his assistance, processing could have been done very nicely. But Roger refused and fled. Again, it was because of his principles. You do see, Irene, it was his principles that caused so much pain?”
Irene looked to the other men. They seemed engrossed by what was being said. Irene knew the man was trying to turn her against Roger. It was clear that The Firsts were still interested in finding him, and they were trying to do so through her.
The man growled from her lack of a response. He grasped the back of her hair. “You are going to tell me where Roger is.”
Irene didn’t
react to his rough handling, and this only seemed to frustrate him more. He jerked her head in Chris’s direction. “It’s sad when someone you thought would never forget you does just that." The man tossed Irene's head forward and motioned to the guard standing near Charlie. “I suppose we have no choice. We’ll need to give them over to Dr. Landers for processing. His nephew was one of the guards killed in their attack. He’ll appreciate the offering.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Irene snapped.
The man waved the comment away. He nodded at one of his men, and the guard rotated his weapon about and struck Charlie in the head. Irene collapsed to the ground next to him. He seemed only dazed by the strike. She stripped the tape from his mouth when she saw he was trying to speak.
“They can’t take away what we did for those families,” he said, nearly in tears.
Irene understood what Charlie meant. What they’d done in the past—the kindness, the love they’d shown, couldn’t be undone. But Irene knew he understood the truth too: The Firsts would destroy the town and the recollection of it once they discovered it among both their memories. She placed her hands on both sides of his face as if to comfort him, but she knew the gesture didn’t match her expression.
Chapter 10
The pain in Irene's head was excruciating, as if it were the worse headache she'd ever experienced. She breathed short breaths sensing that any movement would add to her agony. But the platform she was on was unkind and moved with a sudden jerk from underneath the rectangular-shaped panel as if it were rejecting her. She let out a groan.
“What’s going on?” the doctor asked the nurse across from him.
The lights flickered, causing the nurse to look up. “Another power outage. It’s as if we’re living in the East End.”
Before the doctor could respond, the lights returned. They both seemed to pause as if to make sure they’d stay that way. When they did, the doctor turned to a control board on the machine. “I’ll need to reset the—”
Dimness overcame them once more, and then the room’s emergency lights came on.
The doctor hesitated. Perhaps seeing no change to their circumstance, he stripped off the mask he was wearing. He rested both his hands on the platform and stared at Irene. “Take the patient to her room. We’ll try again later when the electricity is more reliable.” He pealed off his latex gloves and exited the room.
Irene's pain began to ease, and she looked to the nurse. "Where . . . is . . . Charlie?" she asked through tight breaths.
“Don’t worry about him.”
“Please . . . nurse.”
“He’s out of commission,” the nurse said, lowering her voice as if afraid someone would hear her.
Panic struck Irene. “What do . . . you mean?”
“He tried to escape and was wounded. He will recover, though. But unfortunately, we won’t be able to process him for some time."
The emergency lights provided just enough light for the nurse to undo Irene’s constraints. Afraid to breathe fully due to the pain and dizziness, Irene continued taking short breaths as the nurse helped her down the hall. Seeming to sense Irene’s difficulty, the nurse paused. "Here, lean on this," she said as she positioned Irene against the wall near her room.
The moment of rest gave Irene time to recuperate. Using the wall as support, she inhaled hesitantly at first but found the pain in her head diminish with each new breath. "How . . . can you . . . do such a thing . . . to . . . another human being? You didn't . . . give me anything for the pain like . . . the first time."
“We don’t do that for The Discord—not anymore.” The nurse looked back the way they’d come. “That was Dr. Landers.”
“I . . . know.”
"Than you also know your terrorist attack killed his nephew. You're lucky the electricity went out. I think Dr. Landers would have taken not only your memories but also your life." “I didn’t authorize that attack.”
"And I guess you’d say the same thing about the two other attacks. Wouldn’t you?"
Irene’s mouth dropped open a bit. “I . . . was not aware that there were more attacks.”
"Well, I guess we'll see if you're lying when we're able to extract your memories successfully." The nurse pulled out a jumble of keys from her pocket. A small metal pendant with a symbol of a human head with flames coming from it dangled among them. Irene had seen the same graphic stitched on the men’s uniforms. The pendant, apparently distributed by The Firsts to their underlings, was perhaps a way to show solidarity. But the illustration explained exactly what Irene had just nearly experienced: the slow burning of her memories.
Overhead, the emergency lights dimmed. Irene peered up as they went to nothing, setting the hallway into complete darkness. In the distance, someone screamed.
The nurse chuckled to herself. “Someone must be afraid of the dark.”
Irene realized that this was her moment. She needed to take advantage of the lack of light. She took off down the hall as the nurse yelled a rebuke through the darkness.
Using the wall as a guide, Irene made considerable progress—more than she thought she would. Around a corner, she came to a door. Pushing on the handle, she raced down the steps. Where she was going, she did not know. She merely wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and Dr. Landers.
Descending as far as she could go, she opened a door that revealed a large open space with glass doors facing the street. It was the hospital’s reception area used when the building had been an actual hospital.
With just enough light from the moon, she noticed a team of armed men positioned outside the hospital’s entryway. They were too busy chatting with one another, allowing her to make her way across the tiled floor toward what appeared to be a gift shop on the other side of the space.
Coming to the entrance, she bent down as a petite, older woman moved about the shop with a lighted candle. “I can not believe this. Another outage,” she complained to herself.
Crawling farther into the store, Irene realized it had little to offer. Most of the shelves were bare. But the store did have doctor’s scrubs, and they were far better than the hospital gown she was wearing.
She gingerly removed one set from a low-hanging display. The metal hanger clanged against the rod, and Irene took hold of it before it struck again. But the candle turned in her direction.
“We’ll have the lights back on soon,” Irene heard a man say.
The candle moved away as the woman began conversing with a man who held a flashlight.
Irene used the diversion to stash her hospital gown behind a display, slip on some scrubs, and hunt for shoes. Finding a pair of plastic clogs, which were a bit snug, she pulled them on and remained on the floor, waiting for the conversation to end. But the woman was dominating the discussion with her complaints about this and that. "They expect me to be successful even though my inventory is depleted."
Irene let out a silent sigh. She sneaked over to the counter and discovered an assortment of beef jerky. Even amid a food shortage, somehow, there was still beef jerky. Irene grabbed a pack and tore it open. She bit off a piece of the tough meat, finding herself hungry after the ordeal she’d just endured. Enjoying the simple offering, she snatched a few more packets for later.
"Ma'am, I only work in maintenance,” the man with the flashlight said. “I would take your grievances to the operations manager.”
“The operations manager? Are you kidding?” the woman retorted. “He’s too busy erasing people’s memories.”
"Now, I wouldn't go around saying that too openly. You know that as a Level B1 associate, you’re going to need to keep that kind of information to yourself. You could lose your position and your food rations.”
The comment seemed to quiet the woman, and she walked back into the store with her candle to what appeared to be a storage room at the rear of the shop. Observing the flashlight of the man steadily moving away, Irene snuck to the shop’s entryway.
She looked about t
he open space of the reception area and was surprised it was clear and that no one had come looking for her. Possibly the nurse she'd escaped from wasn't as heartless as Irene had judged her to be and had given her some time before informing the guards.
With that thought in mind, Irene dashed to a glass door located near the back. Coming to it, she saw that the door accessed a garden and picnic area with a high wooden fence surrounding it. There was a gate as well, which she hoped would lead to the street.
Moving past the picnic area and arriving at the gate, she drew up the iron handle. It lifted freely. Swinging the gate open, she glanced through the opening to her left and right. Seeing no one, she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Picking up her pace to a steady jog, she looked back to make sure no one was following her as she rounded a corner. As she did, she slammed into something—no someone. She covered her mouth to squash the verbal reaction that tried to escape through her lips.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Chris said, sounding gentlemanly, despite the fact that he was wearing a Firsts’ uniform with a rifle hanging over his shoulder. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Irene was unable to move. It was either from the surprise of seeing Chris once more or from the fact that he didn’t seem to recognize her. But how was that possible? He’d seen her at the mill and knew then that she was part of The Opposition.
His radio crackled, snapping Irene from her state of shock. He twisted the dial on top, turning down the volume. “This thing is acting up again.” He put it to his mouth, pressed on the push-to-talk button, and spoke a few words, but the return gave him nothing but static.
Irene began to back away slowly, guessing that if the static cleared, the message on the other end would tell him a Discord member had escaped.
"Are you on break or something?" Chris asked, seeming to give up communicating through the radio.
Irene peered down at the scrubs she was wearing. She’d completely forgotten she had them on. She laughed nervously as she continued to move backward. "Yeah, I'm just taking a break. I needed some air and a little snack." She pulled a packet of beef jerky from her pant pocket. As she did, a few packs fell out, dropping on the pavement in front of her. She paused, horrified.
The Gift of Remembering Page 8
