Project Recollection

by A A Woods

  But, unlike my Bi-Bike, they’re made for open spaces.

  That’s something in short supply down here.

  A smile unfolds on my face as I accelerate, headlights slicing open the darkness before me. At first the ceiling is high, sloping down from the cavernous remains of Times Square and filled with the rumble of engines. Something hits the wall by my shoulder—the wires of a taser—but I lean sideways. My wheels slide, humming as the fans in the middle spin uselessly. My leg scrapes against stone, compounding the pain in my knee.

  And then I’m in a tight corridor no wider than my bike.

  On one side of me are the dilapidated restaurants and shops of what was once Ninth Avenue. On the other, the unbroken wall of a factory warehouse, built over what the hurricane leveled. Such places were once a vital organ used to re-make a broken city. Now they’re vestigial. Forgotten.

  Like everything down here.

  The roar of police hovers fade, the three vehicles stuck at the alley’s narrow mouth. Shouts struggle to reach me, barely audible over my bike’s engine, and I let myself sink into the stillness that presses in, the dusty silence of what was once a thriving city center. I whoosh past restaurants—Italian, Mediterranean, pizza, Thai—and wonder if the Sky Market holds a candle to what this street once was.

  I double-check that there’s no one behind me before I leave the narrow alley. My knees are even more scrapped and bruised from hitting the walls, but it’s still uncomfortable to abandon the security of closed spaces. I speed toward the river, arcing over bulldozed homes and darting through perforated warehouse walls. The opening blooms ahead, a door of solid light, despite the late hour.

  They say New York was a city that never slept. Well, if that’s true then Nova is the city that doesn’t even know what sleep is.

  I send a flicker of thought down my cable and feel the wheels shift below me, tilting to the side, fans accelerating. There’s a shudder and a catch as I bounce over bits of debris. My bike coughs, stutters, and then the wheels finish their transition. The fans whir to life.

  With a final swoop, I launch through the gash in Nova’s flank, sailing into open air.

  And I’m flying.

  Three taxis flash past, bright yellow and rising into high-town like popped corks. In the distance, the glow of New Jersey looks like an irradiated pool. As I turn, angling myself toward the city center and away from whatever teeming chaos is left of the Gaming ring, I take in the view through the bike’s cameras.

  The super-scrapers stretch toward red-tinted clouds like talons ready to rake open the sky. Aerial vehicles—manned or automated—dart like bees between behemoths of concrete and glass. In the distance I see the Chain, making its slow ponderous way between public centers, carrying late-night workers and tourists and excitable youths ready to record raunchy memories at strip-clubs and bars.

  And there, looming in the middle of it all like an unholy lightning rod, stands Project Recollection.

  The tower is a thing out of a dream, gossamer and delicate, with a shimmering grace that makes it look like chiffon over an open window. As if it might blow away.

  Just another one of their illusions.

  ProRec isn’t going anywhere. Its roots go too deep, wrap around too much of this city. When it first stepped onto the scene in the midst of the Neurowiring craze, Project Recollection was meant to be the world’s first memory bank. A library where anyone with an IRIS cable could experience anything. But the idea couldn’t be contained in a simple archive. Project Recollection mutated, became a web that caught the world. Nowadays, cables are as ubiquitous as computers, as necessary as network access. News, entertainment, school, nothing has been spared. It can all be done with a shared memory, packaged and delivered by ProRec itself. People everywhere are plugging in, remembering everything, experiencing nothing for themselves.

  Society has been brought to heel without even seeing the leash.

  I glare at the dizzying curve of the windows, fighting the urge to crash my bike into them right now. It would be pointless; I’d bounce right off the reinforced glass. But it’s nice to imagine smashing through, rolling upright, plugging into their system.

  Solving the mystery my brother left behind.

  “I’ll find it, Zhu,” I whisper. “I won’t let you down.”

  But the words are stolen by the wind and lost, like so much else, in the city’s unstoppable current.

  Memory File of Dr. Jon Fischer, PhD.

  Project Recollection Wireologist

  Time Stamp: Tuesday, September 18th, 2195

  5:11 A.M. EST

  The room is so white it looks bleached, marred only by the shock of color in the middle. White scrubs can’t quite dilute the blue hair, rainbow-dyed eyes, or the jewels embedded on the man’s cheekbones. Through the bulletproof glass, you watch him strain against the straps around his ankles, wrists, neck, casting nervous, pleading glances toward the figure on the other table. The other man’s steely gaze doesn’t leave the ceiling.

  They are both plugged in, ports glowing red around their IRIS cables.

  Your own heart thumps as you watch this strange creature shout for you to free him, voice muffled by the glass shield. After a second, you turn away, fingers tangling in the holographic computer controls hovering over your workstation.

  “Quite a sight, eh?” asks a voice to your left.

  You glance at the woman next to you, a short, plump figure with chopped hair and a smile that could flay skin from bone.

  “I know trophy wives who’ve had less surgery than this MemHead.”

  A halfhearted chuckle rumbles through your chest and you turn back to your monitor. “You’re sure Carson took the relaxant?”

  The woman snorts but there’s tragedy in her eyes, the cold steel of someone bracing themselves for horror. “It doesn’t matter. We all know it’s not gonna work. I don’t understand why we’re even bothering, but I suppose the boss is in a rush.”

  Your shoulders lift in a shrug as the controls in front of you spin, numbers cascading in eddies of code. There is a distinct panic in your pulse as it pounds in your ears, blood rushing with something intoxicating. Excitement? Thrill?

  Fear?

  Again, you glance at the man tied to the bone-white table. He looks like the caricature of a person, like an alien’s animation of what human beings should look like. His eyebrows are thin, arched, dyed a silvery blue to match his implants. His teeth are perfect, skin flawless, his nose too straight for comfort. The difference between him and the stone-faced, stiff-limbed person on the other slab is the difference between a peacock and a barn swallow.

  “My friend is starting to do this,” says the woman beside you in a hesitant voice. You don’t turn, keep working, but her voice fills the room like a prayer. “She’s hooked on that Lifestyles channel, the one with the expensive vacations. Told me she’s gonna sell her house to finance a trip where that Russian model went last month. Some resort in Belize.” The woman stops and you’re holding your breath. “Guess they really are just like us.”

  “Memory addicts,” comes a hard voice from behind you, “Are not like us. They are weak-willed and useless members of society. Which is why we use them for the Ankh Program.”

  You spin in your chair, popping to your feet in the same moment so that you’re standing as Yasmin Abergel strides into the room, wearing a pressed straw-colored button-down, black pants, sharp heels, and an impenetrable mask of an expression.

  “Miss Abergel, the trial is ready.”

  The words come smoothly from your lips, but your heart is pounding. Your face is hot. Your hands shake once before you fold them in front of you.

  “Good,” Yasmin says, brushing past you and your coworker to stare at the two men, one pleading, the other locked in iron silence. “Proceed.”

  You take your seat, hands flying with practiced ease over the floating controls. The memory addict’s protests rise, as if he senses danger approaching. As if he knows he’s prey but doesn�
��t yet know what shape his predator takes.

  The other man takes a shuddering breath and closes his eyes.

  Yasmin’s shoulders are stiff, her posture full of angles. Her black hair is chopped short, curling tightly over the crown of her head and smudging into the dark shadow of her skin. Her eyes are reflected in the reinforced glass, hanging like twin nuggets of obsidian.

  “Everything’s ready,” says the woman beside you, sharp tone dulled by Yasmin’s presence.

  You clear your throat. “Initiate sequence.”

  In tandem, you and the woman twist your wrists in a motion much like turning a doorknob. The holographic controls shift and begin to spin. You feel yourself inhaling, as if you’re about to dive underwater and are gathering yourself for the plunge. But it seems the plunge has already happened. You don’t move. Your eyes lift to watch the two figures, lip caught between your teeth.

  For a moment, the three of you only observe with frozen expressions, still as statues.

  And then the room goes dark.

  The glass flickers and turns into a display. Data crams the screen, obscuring the prone figures behind it like a fog. A band of light begins to make its way from one side of the screen to the other. A progress bar? It inches across, marching with the resolute stubbornness of a glacier.

  Yasmin doesn’t move. Her hands are clasped behind her. But the technician next to you is twisting her fingers.

  Your own arms fold around your narrow chest, squeezing. Waiting.

  Suddenly, the addict stops struggling. He falls limp, a porcelain doll hanging from the table.

  “Purge successful.” Your voice is strained with repressed eagerness.

  The other, sterner figure bucks, his body pulling taut as a bow string.

  The bar of light has all but filled the screen.

  “Almost there,” mutters the other tech.

  As if responding to her voice, the screen flickers. The white light on the glass surges, fills the workroom. You squint, blink, momentarily blinded.

  When your eyes readjust, the screen has cleared, become transparent again. A single word flashes in the lower right-hand corner, a spill of treacherous red ink.

  Error.

  “Shit.”

  Yasmin doesn’t react to the woman’s curse. In fact, she doesn’t even blink. She glares at the now-empty bodies and you watch, slumped in your chair as your hands go back to the holographic control.

  You swallow hard.

  “Mission… failure. The transfer couldn’t reach the pineal gland.” You take a ragged breath. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It seems that even with our updates, an unaltered IRIS cable is not strong enough to transmit the necessary data.”

  Yasmin turns and her cold eyes find yours.

  “Very well. It seems we must fully embrace the program’s new direction.” Her heels click as she steps between you, toward the door. “Pity. I don’t relish the alternative, but we have no choice.”

  “What about Dr. Carson?” asks the woman with a catch in her throat.

  “He was a brave man, an explorer. We will have a private memorial and his family will be compensated accordingly.”

  Yasmin stops at the door, her slender fingers hanging on the handle. She turns back toward you. For an instant you catch a glimpse of fire in her eyes. It’s there, hidden beneath her calm authority and flashing with the kind of desperate fervor that can set the world ablaze.

  Something flutters in your stomach, the feeling of jumping into open air.

  “Continue as planned,” she says at last. “I want better results in the next trial.” Her eyes flick to the bodies on the white tables, the two husks that had moments ago been men. “You have until Saturday.”

  And with that, the C.E.O. of Project Recollection disappears into the hallway, leaving only the cracking-ice sound of heels in her wake.

  Tora

  Tuesday, September 18th, 2195

  6:32 A.M. EST

  Our apartment blends in like a middle-aged businessman on the Chain. It’s neat but not nice, compact but not tiny, rough but not rusty. With a balcony hanging over the lower city, it sits nestled in steel and glass, taxis buzzing back and forth between our high-rise and the neighboring super-scraper. As I guide my Bi-Bike over the rail and settle onto the concrete overhang, I see through the eyes of the vehicle that the shades are open, leaving the meager inside of our two-bedroom open to the prying eyes of passing aerial vehicles.

  That means Mom never went to bed last night.

  I sigh and gently extract myself from the computer system of the bike, pulling my IRIS cable free. I hate the plunge back into darkness, but I resist the urge to whip out my PAP. There are eyes everywhere – in passing UAVs, private hover-cars, even on neighboring buildings—and my use of the handheld device to see is odd enough that it could be tagged by ProRec and used to track down the one member of the Sidana family who hasn’t yet been ‘interviewed’.

  I swing my leg free and take a deep breath of topside air. It smells of roasting vegetables and the ever-present city smog. I wonder if the clouds will clear enough for the sun to peek through today, and then I wonder why it matters.

  I won’t see it anyway.

  I slide open the balcony door, strangely relieved that I can’t see the inside of the apartment. But that doesn’t stop me from picturing the take-out containers littering the counter. The blankets, sweaters, and socks tracing a haphazard trail from Mom’s room to the kitchen, collecting in a thick orbit around our Central Access Port. And just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean I can’t smell the food as it goes bad or the noxious aroma of used clothing and dirty litter.

  I wish I could have kept driving, swooping around the city and letting the smoggy air clear my head. But unfortunately, the old batteries in my Bi-Bike need to recharge.

  So here I am.

  “Mom?” I call, taking an exaggerated step over the lip of the door, holding the frame for stability as I embark into the room.

  Something tangles between my shins and I almost crash to the ground, barely catching myself on the doorframe.

  “Damnit, Pixel,” I mutter, reaching down to lift the cat away from my feet. “One of these days you’re gonna knock me off the balcony.”

  Zhu was—is—the cat person. Like Mom, he finds their antics amusing, their aloof half-interest endearing. But, in that strange twist of feline nature, Pixel’s always been attached to me as if by magnetic force. No matter how much I set him aside, close my bedroom door, or remove him from my lap, he comes back like an error code on a bad program.

  I place him down beside me and make my careful way through the room, toeing along piles of clothes and stepping high to avoid tripping over the meowing cat.

  “Mom?” I call again.

  “Mei?”

  Her voice floats up from the couch I know is next to our Central Port, calling my real name in a halfhearted plea. My heart squeezes around my lungs. She sounds lost, dazed, as if speaking to me through a fog of interrupted sleep. But she wasn’t asleep. Not really.

  “What time is it?” she asks.

  “Dawn,” I answer, probing my way to the back of the couch and trying not to picture her sprawled on the threadbare cushions of a sofa I found on the street, skin papery from months without sun, her bird-like body taking on a starved boniness.

  Her IRIS cable pulsing red, unbanded, unaltered, but no less dangerous than a Gamer’s.

  A few weeks ago, I’d stopped plugging into the apartment’s cameras. It’s less painful to stumble around blindly than to see what my mother has become.

  “Is it really?” Mom shifts below me, her breath sighing like wind through leaves. “I lost track.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Her voice trails off and I imagine the line forming between her eyebrows, the way her hand goes to her forehead as she thinks. Is there still chipped paint on her fingernails, the last remnant of her once-glorious nail masterpieces?

&n
bsp; I swallow and reach into the pocket of Zhu’s jacket. Pull out a Cheetah Bar.

  “Here,” I say, tearing off the aluminum wrapper and holding the bar out, my nose twitching as the citrus smell temporarily masks the rot. It’s lemon flavor. Her favorite.

  It disappears from my hand and I hold my breath until I hear someone chewing.

  The silence stretches, broken only by the Pixel purring as he rubs against my boots.

  “Where were you?” I ask at last, knowing the answer but still wanting to make her say it.

  “Zhu’s fifth birthday.”

  Her voice is reverent, as if she’s speaking in a church.

  “What happened to that new channel I showed you? Brushstrokes?”

  “They call that art?” my mother snaps in a pale imitation of her old self. “More like toddlers with finger-paint.” She snorts. “I gave up after the fourth memory of some girl doing a self-portrait.”

  I move around the couch, swinging my legs up and settling onto the armrest.

  “Maybe we can find you something else.”

  “I don’t need something else.” Her voice cracks, but whether with anger or sadness I can’t tell.

  I don’t say anything.

  Pixel leaps up next to me and begins to butt his head into my arm despite my resolute silence.

  “I’m sorry, Mei,” she whispers. “I can’t give him up.”

  Can’t or won’t, I want to say, but I swallow the anger before it can bubble out of me. Before it can destroy the sad remains of our family.

  Dad used to call his wife a woman on fire, made of passions. Art. Sculpture. Clay. It didn’t matter, Mom loved anything she could do with her hands. She changed interests the way people changed clothes, excelling in everything. Her touch was golden and the empires of Nova knew it. Half the lobbies in the city still boast her art on their walls or in their atriums, and the rest wish they did. Even Project Recollection has a Liling Sidana piece, a stretching sculpture that takes up more than six floors.