by Kailin Gow
Scenes flicker over the walls of the viewing room in flashes, barely giving me enough time to see any of them properly before they move on. The perspective seems odd, until I realize that the view is from someone’s eyes. Jack’s? He’s slumped against one of the walls, and when I peel his eyelid up to check that he’s okay, his eyes are flickering back and forth, the way people’s eyes do in deep sleep.
On the screens around us, images of a modest house in a quiet neighborhood flash past. It’s not anywhere I know, but it looks homely, even comfortable. I spot Sebastian several times, though he looks younger in the images. Young enough that Jack can’t have been more than a small child. There’s a woman too. She’s beautiful, with eyes that are almost lavender. For a moment or two, there is nothing but the image of her smile spread across the screens.
“What is this?” I ask, turning to Sebastian. “More surveillance?”
He looks worried. Very worried. “Somehow, Jack is interfacing with the viewers. These are his memories.” He shakes his head. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m not leaving him,” I say, and images continue to go past.
There’s a birthday cake, with six candles on it, and a back yard, where a group of kids is singing Happy Birthday. The candles flicker out, and I know Jack must have blown them out, while Sebastian and the woman from before are looking on proudly.
“Who is she?” I ask.
Sebastian looks away. “His mother.”
The scene flickers, and I see Jack holding a model airplane, pretending to fly it around a room. Then he’s on a bicycle, riding with Sebastian looking on. Then he’s in a kitchen somewhere with his mother. The images are coming too fast now to keep track of, so that I only get fragments of things. Snapshots of Jack’s life.
Maybe Sebastian’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t look at this. Some things are too personal. Yet I know I can’t look away. Not when there’s a chance to finally know the mysterious Jack Simple fully. Years flash by in moments on the screen, and I can’t help watching, no matter how much I tell myself I shouldn’t.
“We need to wake him up,” Sebastian says.
“What if it hurts him?” I ask.
“It won’t hurt him as much as letting this keep going will.”
I hear the fear in his voice then, so I kneel to shake Jack. I know I’m too late when Sebastian groans.
There’s a door on the screens; the front door to that cozy little house. It opens to reveal a man dressed in black, and my stomach tightens in recognition. One of the Others. A man’s voice asks if Sebastian is home, and the woman from before answers that he isn’t, but that the man can come back later if he wants.
He doesn’t wait that long. Instead, he forces his way inside, putting his shoulder to the door. Jack’s mother tries to stop him, struggling with him, and it’s then that I see the gun. That Jack sees it.
“Run, Jack!” The words come out clearly over the hidden speakers.
There’s a panicked blur of images as the young Jack does it, but he pauses as the house’s rear door, looking back. In that moment, the sound of a shot is all too clear. It’s followed by something even worse: a bright, bright light I know only too well.
There’s another image of the hallway then. Jack must have gone back. I wish he hadn’t. However old he was at the time, no child should have to see the images on the screens right then. No child should have to see his mother with blood staining the front of her clothes as she lays on the floor, or the blackened husk of her attacker, burnt beyond all recognition. I hear the sound of sobbing coming over the speakers.
The younger Sebastian’s there then, though I don’t know if it was instant, or if Jack’s memories have simply shifted again. Sebastian’s kneeling over his wife, his hands on the ruins of her chest, trying to stem the bleeding. She looks up at him, then over at Jack, and she whispers something. It doesn’t come out over the speakers, but that doesn’t matter, because behind me, Sebastian says it even as she does.
“I love you both.”
There’s another flare of light, and as it passes, Jack’s mother is gone. Completely, utterly gone, without a trace of her.
Jack… the images are confused then, and the noise from the speakers is almost unbearable. He’s distraught, in a way I’ve never seen. I’ve seen people grieving before, but this is like all of them put together. Even given the weird, impossible viewpoint, this seems like sadness on a scale that threatens to spill over into madness.
There are more fragments of things. Jack in a car, barely raising his head to look outside. Corridors. Some kind of laboratory, where Sebastian is discussing something with an unseen man.
“Are you sure about this, Sebastian?”
“What else can I do? What happened… it’s destroying him. This is the only way. What is my research for if not for this?”
There’s an image of Jack sitting in a chair then. One I recognize, because I’ve sat in it too. The Fading machine. The one that takes memories. I see Sebastian sticking the electrodes to his own son’s head, and I turn to him.
“How could you?”
Sebastian looks grief stricken. “How could I not?”
The memories continue. Jack learning how to cook for himself. Jack taking lessons in the martial arts, facing up to bigger, stronger boys and initially getting pounded, only for later memories to show him winning easily. Jack winning some kind of shooting tournament. It’s like, even without the memories taken from him by his father, he was still driven to somehow make up for the loss of his mother. For that one moment when he couldn’t protect her.
There are fewer and fewer memories of Sebastian. Instead, there are images of him locking himself away in his study. Of Jack waiting for him to come home. Of blank spaces at school sports’ days where he should have been. Compared with those early memories, it’s almost like Sebastian doesn’t exist.
“I threw myself into my work,” the head of the Underground supplies. “I wanted to understand all the strange things that happen in our world, and I found myself spending more and more time with those who seemed to be able to supply real, provable answers.”
“At the expense of your son,” I say, looking at the screens, where there are images of Jack enrolling in the Underground, and of Sebastian, even then having meetings that he has to attend. Things he has to do away from Jack.
“He knows how proud I am of him,” Sebastian says, “and I needed to find out about the man who attacked Evaine. About the abilities she demonstrated when she died.”
I want to ask him about whether he thought about what Jack needed. About how he could just cut himself off like that. Yet I know I can’t. That’s between Jack and his father, and Sebastian will never listen to me, regardless of what I tell him. He’ll say I’m too young to understand.
The memories seem to be slowing down now. Instead of coming almost in a blur, there are spaces between them where nothing happens. They jump about more too. There’s Jack throwing a kid twice his size effortlessly. There’s him stepping back from an alley the moment before one of the Others bursts out of it, leaving Jack plenty of time to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. There’s one that seems to be from childhood again, of Jack looking up at a dinosaur skeleton in some museum.
And there’s one of him kissing me. Maybe Sebastian is right. Maybe there are some things that are too personal. Some things that shouldn’t be projected onto giant screens. I reach out for Jack.
“Do you think he’s any closer to waking?” I ask.
Sebastian shrugs. “I don’t know. This shouldn’t be happening.”
I decide to try shaking him, just gently. With the memories coming slower, it should be like waking from sleep, shouldn’t it? Who am I kidding? I don’t know enough about science for that to be any more than a guess. I do it anyway, though.
And, in the instant that my hand touches Jack, a new memory comes onto the screen. There’s a woman holding a baby. Not his mother. A different woman. She’s running, and people
are chasing her. For a moment, I think that they must be the Others, but then I see that they aren’t dressed in black. Instead, they’re dressed…
The image fades as Jack’s eyes flicker open.
“Jack?” I say it softly. “Are you okay?”
“I…” Jack shakes his head. “I don’t know. What happened?”
“You passed out,” I say. I move to help Jack to his feet, but he’s strong enough to stand on his own. “And there were images on the wall…”
“Memories,” Jack says, “I remember.”
I look around at Sebastian. So does Jack.
“You remember everything then?” his father asks.
Jack nods. It’s a tight nod, and I can’t read what it means. Are things okay between the two of them? How does Jack feel about what Sebastian did? Am I about to get caught between them as they argue?
“I remember,” Jack says. “I don’t want to talk about it. You should go and prepare for Grayson’s Fading.”
“Jack-” Sebastian begins.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Dad. Not now, anyway. Maybe later.”
The head of the Underground takes the hint, leaving in the elevator behind us. The moment he leaves, Jack turns his attention to me, and there’s an almost frightening urgency in the way he looks.
“When I was unconscious, at the end, you touched me.”
“I wanted to wake you up,” I say. “Jack, some of the things I saw-”
Jack nods. “I know. I’m sorry you had to see that, Celes.”
I shake my head. “I’m not. Your father shouldn’t have done that to you.”
“I guess he did what he thought was right. With all the people I’ve faded, I don’t know if I get to argue about it. It’s not important right now. What is important is that I felt you touch me.”
“And?” I’m not sure where this is going.
“And that memory at the end. That one of the woman. I don’t think it’s one of mine, Celes.”
For a moment, all I can do is stand there. “What does that mean?”
Jack bites his lip. It’s a nervous habit I haven’t seen in him before. “I think it means I’m going to have to do something very stupid now. Come on Celes.”
EIGHTEEN
I have to ask. “Jack, what are you planning? I should be going down to see Grayson.”
Jack looks slightly pained by that, but he hides it pretty well in the end. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he suggests. “It can be harder like that, Celes. Unless you’re planning to Fade the memories afterwards?”
I shake my head rapidly. “No. No one takes my memories. Not after all this.”
Jack smiles. “At least you probably get a choice in it. After all, it didn’t work so well the last time they tried it. I’m sure Dad could have me forgetting all this any time he wanted to.”
“Do you want to talk about that yet?” I ask. “I’ll listen, if you want.”
“I’d like that,” Jack says, putting a hand on my arm, “but not now. Now I want to do something that will give you a better idea of who you are. It might even help make things easier with Grayson.”
“Easier?” I can’t imagine anything making things easier. Grayson is about to forget all about me. “How can you make things easier?”
“By showing you that he isn’t what you’re destined for, Celes. Your life is about so much more, and I’ll show you, if you’ll let me.”
I can’t think how Jack plans to accomplish that. “What are you going to do?”
“Like I said before,” Jack says. “I’m going to break the rules. Now, are you willing to go along with me?”
I don’t hesitate before nodding. I trust Jack more than enough for this. I have, after all, seen some of the most personal memories he has. He reaches out for my hand, wrapping it in his. It’s such a small gesture, yet here and now it feels so very important. Jack leads me to the elevator and presses a button. It’s one I don’t know, though that could apply to practically all the buttons there, but this one is near the bottom, so I guess that it is important.
When the elevator doors open once more, I know it is.
There’s a corridor that looks almost indistinguishable from the one up top, complete with lights that flicker on as we step out into it, except that there are cameras every few feet, and solid looking doors off to each side. Those have retina and palm print scanners outside them, while stern notices warn against attempting unauthorized entry.
Jack leads me over to one of the doors, where he bends to put his eyes level with the scanner for it, while simultaneously pressing his hand against the palm pad. There’s an electronic beep, and then the click of a heavy lock unfastening. The door in front of us swings open.
I go to step through it and Jack bars my way with an arm. “Careful, Celes. The security isn’t done.”
He takes out his gun and places it on the floor outside before stepping into the room. He then holds his arms out wide. Green light plays across his body, and I realize something in there is scanning him.
“Potential recording device detected,” a computerized voice says, coming from hidden speakers. “State authorization.”
“Jack Alpha Foxtrot Niner,” Jack replies. Nothing happens. I assume that’s a good thing, because Jack turns towards me. “You can come in now, Celes. When you do, stand still while the security systems scan you. Oh, and you’ll need to leave your phone outside.”
I do as he says, leaving my phone alongside his gun then stepping inside for the green light to scan me. The computers running the scan don’t find anything untoward.
“What’s with all the security?” I ask.
“We keep some very important stuff here,” Jack replies. “The scans outside are to stop people getting in without someone with the proper clearance.”
“And the one inside?” I ask.
“That’s to make it harder for someone to force or trick one of us into it,” Jack explains. “No weapons are permitted in here, and recording devices or phones need authorization. There’s even a safe word that an operative can use to activate the system.”
“And when you activate it?”
“The room locks down. No way in or out without the proper codes.”
I look around the room. It doesn’t seem important enough to warrant that level of security. There are shelves around the walls, each one containing old fashioned box files, but that’s it. None of it looks very impressive.
Jack goes over to one of the files. “This is the one we want,” he says, taking it out. “I’ve studied your files, Celes, but I didn’t look through everything, and I think there’s going to be one thing you’re going to want to see.”
The file isn’t easy to open. There’s a thumbprint lock on it, that Jack has to open before we can get in. “So that they know which files we access,” he explains.
“So your father will know all about this?” I ask. “Won’t you get into trouble, Jack?”
Jack grins. “I’ll just say that you led me astray. Besides, I was in trouble the moment I brought you to this level. We might as well get something out of it.” He takes a couple of flash drives out, plugging one into his phone. “My father showed you some of our earliest ‘surveillance’, right? Only it mostly isn’t. Most of it, we take from people’s heads. This is some of the very earliest stuff we have for you, Celes.”
He turns the phone to me, and I see a woman running with a baby in her arms.
“What we saw in the viewing room,” I say.
“Keep watching.”
The woman looks fairly normal. She’s wearing a long coat and a woolen cap, suggesting that it’s cold, but that also means I can’t see much of her. She could be anyone, but I can tell that she’s scared of something.
There’s a dumpster, and the woman goes up to it, placing the baby within. I know this part, because Sebastian played it in the viewing room when I first came in. What I didn’t see then is what happens next. The woman runs. She runs, and dark clothed figures
run after her. She runs until she comes to a dead end, then she turns at bay like a cornered animal.
She fights furiously, even viciously. She’s outnumbered, and several of the men chasing her are armed, yet she still manages to resist for almost a minute, kicking and hitting, throwing men about and hurting them. She fights desperately, as if she knows that the consequences of failing just don’t bear thinking about.
Eventually though, she has to lose. There are just too many men for her to fight. One grabs her, and then another, until eventually, they bear her to the ground, finally overpowering her. They pin her quickly and expertly, not giving her a chance to fight anymore. Even then, though, it isn’t done. She looks up, and I see her eyes. They’re glowing.
It happens in a matter of seconds. She flares so brightly, energy pouring out of her in such amounts that even on Jack’s phone, it’s hard to look at. It makes even the brightness of burning up the Others back on the road seem like nothing. It burns like a miniature sun for long seconds, and then there’s nothing. Nothing at all. No sign of the men in the black outfits, no sign of the woman. Nothing.
I feel my mouth open wide in shock, and I almost fall into Jack. For several seconds, I simply don’t know what to say.
“This file is the best record we have of someone doing this,” Jack says. “Sebastian…my father didn’t want me showing you this, but I think you deserve to know. I don’t want to keep secrets from you, Celes.”
And he hasn’t. In fact, he’s broken a lot of rules to make sure that I get to see this. Even so, I need to know more. I can’t leave it at just one image, without any kind of explanation to go with it. I can’t stand not knowing. There are questions I just have to ask.
“So the baby was me?”
Jack nods.
“And the woman…” I can barely bring myself to say it. “Was she my mother?”
Jack hesitates. Apparently, he hadn’t considered that I might say that. “No. Dad… Sebastian thinks she was your nursemaid.”
“A nursemaid?” Obviously, these days we have nannies and baby-sitters, au-pairs and all kinds of other people designed to help look after children, but that choice of term seems an odd one. “That seems… I don’t know, a bit old fashioned.”
