by Anna Gaffey
Memory’s Exile
by Anna Gaffey
Copyright © 2017 by Anna Gaffey.
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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design: Mango Designs
Memory’s Exile by Anna Gaffey. — 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-940699-16-5
For Adam
PROLOGUE
...pathologists had been unable to track the virus to any known source, although it was noted that the main symptoms were similar to those of the septicemic plague, including excessive fever, seizures, delirium and hallucinations. Point of origin was unknown and seemed to occur simultaneously throughout the world. When doctors cut open the first confirmed victim (somewhere in old Detroit, it was rumored, and “first confirmed victim” was hardly Patient Zero; rather it meant that likely many of the impoverished had trundled by on the cause of death: influenza or similar gurney bandwagon), they found his sad, halted heart had shriveled into a tiny pit, sucked dry as dust.
They called it many names in different parts of Earth: Diminuto in Madrid, Krimp in Amsterdam, Kradenyy in Moscow, in London, the Thief. In the former United States, the official designation had been SPVC, or Sudden Pulmonary Viral Collapse, but the name that eventually, appropriately stuck fast in the majority of mouths was the more succinct Japanese interpretation: rīchi, or “leech.”
Excerpt: Plague: The Death of Humanity and Life Afterward
Published 2238
Dr. Frenzi Nguyen
Eastern Hemisphere Dome 0107 RC
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: World Historical Society Publications,
UWLA, the Leech epidemic, Earth]
From 2132 to 2141, Leech effectively scythed the planet. No treatment or diet, no location, not even the outposts in Antarctica escaped its reach. A few governments mustered harried responses and collaborated with the now-defunct World Health Organization to develop emergency vaccines. Only the formulation and immunobooster developed by doctors Leah Harmon and Smita Gunaji (who were at that time frantically working in an Utikuma Lake laboratory bunker) served to successfully inoculate the remaining people who received it in time. It was perhaps fortunate that neither woman lived to see, despite their best efforts, the decay of the survivors’ immune systems.
Whether due to Leech, the vaccines, plastics, twenty-second-cent green initiative gases, or the most popularly detested political or religious faction of the time, the fact remained: the human immune system was shot...
Excerpt: Sisters in Science, introduction
Published 2211
Dr. P.K.D. Doshi
Eastern Hemisphere Dome 0001 RI
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: World Historical Society Publications,
UWLA, the Leech epidemic, Earth]
“…Personally I don’t think it mattered whether or not [Gunaji and Harmon] were successful in annihilating Leech from Earth. The end result was still a population with godsawful biological defenses. Worse, the children born after the epidemic were so promising. They flourished with health! But only at first. It was such a slap in the face. When they hit puberty their immune systems took this dip. Nothing we could do about it. Environmental tests showed us nothing. Genetic testing--nothing. We, humanity, could no longer survive without daily assistance, and no one could determine why! It was madness.
But we had the Domes, at least. More Domes went up, some more quickly and shoddily than others. For the large part, people stayed in them. What else could you do with a trashed immune system? The brains of humanity didn’t go running off into the wilderness because of a few common-sense rules for self-preservation. And we used that collective brainpower. With the Domes, we could keep the labs running, we bought ourselves more time. Sometimes I feel like that’s all we’re doing, buying time, running on a treadmill to nowhere.”
Excerpt: oral history
14 March 2199
Grenada Marquesa (2121-2201)
Western Hemisphere Dome 0050 CA
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: World Historical Society Publications,
UWLA, the Leech epidemic, Earth]
[The new human immune system] was no cure. Twenty percent of the treated population did not respond at all. The newly christened Science division put forth successive releases: Supported Human Immune System (SHIS) 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and so on, until the numbers grew ominously high...each release simply became known as the “new” series. It was a daunting biological row of Great Walls against an ever-oncoming tsunami...
Support of the SHIS required daily immune system boosters: new versions of Harmon and Gunaji’s original immunobooster, mandatory for all Dome dwellers. And the support--support wasn’t perfect, either.
Excerpt: Sisters in Science, introduction
Published 2211
Dr. P.K.D. Doshi
Eastern Hemisphere Dome 0001 RI
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: World Historical Society Publications,
UWLA, the Leech epidemic, Earth]
I wish I could describe to you the beauty of this place. I am without adequate words to do so. If the Board allows, with my next transmission I will include some of the imagery we are capturing. The planet is small and forested, very green and inviting. The station is small, too, but new. I hope you will not be offended when I say it is so like home.
Excerpt: Personal commtext to Lisaveta Chubaryan
27 April 2130
(translation, reviewed in full: 6 April 2136)
Denys Chubaryan
Mission Head
United Worlds DS 2075-5 [Selas Station]
Satellite 1H-24HM, 24HM System [updated: Eos]
[Archived: United Governance Board nonoperational/lost mission records, Earth]
“Repeat: we have lost all contact with Station 1H-24HM following their previous transmission. Efforts to contact will continue until a search-and-rescue mission can be mounted. The satellite has emergency provisions for all crew to survive for at least twelve months, which we can send via reusable craft. It is to be hoped that such efforts will reveal a downed comm buoy...”
Excerpt: streaming commtext, priority immediate
30 November 2130
Soraya Rouhani
Director, Science Division
United Worlds Commonwealth Governance Board
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: United Governance Board nonoperational/lost mission records, Earth]
…yet the Leech epidemic precluded such measures. After the triumph of life and the continuation of space exploration, the station’s fate again rose to prominence. But what would a rescue mission find? To call it “rescue” was laughable, even insulting. It had been years since that final nonsensical transmission, with no further transmissions despite the fully functioning communications satellites. This meant years with no supply deliveries.
The push for rescue was thus revised to “repair and recommission.” And in 2230 the recommissioners landed on Station 1H-24HM (now known as Selas Station) with their ticker tape and champagne, only to be welcomed by a gruesome host: the naked and frozen body of Russian mission leader Denys Chubaryan afloat in his quarters.
Chubaryan, as readers of this series will remember, is the chief suspect in the disappearance of the other twenty-nine expedition members. Indeed, he is the only suspect available. What little evidence we have (Chubaryan’s last transmission to Earth: a twenty-minute rambling recitation of religious quotation and folklore, followed by hours of distorted feedback. Four missing cargo bay shuttlepods, the most expensive equipment to be lost) indicates just as little. And space fever is not unknown, even in the most heavily vetted of space travel candidates…
Excerpt: cover article, Life (Revival Ed.) magazine
30 October 2235
[Archived: World Historical Society Publications,
UWLA, deep space exploration,
nonoperational/lost missions, Earth]
From the testimony of Lin Hernandez, Defense security officer for Icebreaker labs, Dome 0048 SP, to be read in evidence before the United Planetary International Court (Western Hemisphere 4th Circuit), of Saint Paul. Representative of United Worlds Governance Board in attendance at Examiner’s table.
Examiner: Describe to the court your entry to Icebreaker Labs.
L.H.: Well. It was dark still. Early morning testing. They checked with everyone, you know. The testing wasn’t secret, the Doctors--the Jeongs--let all of us know when they had a big test going on. Just in case anything went wrong. They usually had one of us in there with them, which is weird, now that I think about it…
Ex.: Thank you. Please continue with your entry to the labs.
L.H.: Okay. Sorry. It was dark. Like I already said. My partner Zoida and I had finished our first walkthrough of the day--
Ex.: Define walkthrough?
L.H.: Uh, general security perimeter sweep. We had just met in the middle when the alarms went off.
Ex.: And what alarms were those?
L.H.: The lab fire alarms. We went up to the door and requested entry. It was denied. Zoida tried the Defense override, and that was denied, too. We tried to comm Dr. Rebecca Jeong directly, then Dr. Jake Jeong, and got no response from either. So we tried to force the doors. They were sealed. We had to spend about five minutes cutting the seal. We finally busted it and I went in first.
Ex.: And what happened next?
Ex.: Corporal Hernandez, if you need a moment, we can—
L.H.: No, it’s fine.
[brief recess]
Ex.: Let’s resume if you’re ready. You went through the Icebreaker Labs door first.
L.H.: Yeah. And I saw--I saw Dr. Jeong, Rebecca, on one of their exam chairs, you know, for test subjects. And there were others, a lot of others there, too, all in the chairs--all covered in--I mean, there was a lot of blood. And yellow stuff, liquid, and broken glass. And they were stretched all rigid, like they were straining to get out of the chairs and stand up, but they were strapped in--
Ex.: That’s sufficient. Did you count them?
L.H.: Not at first. Zoida did a headcount later; she told me there were 23 dead. We reported 24 initially, because at first we thought Dr. Jeong--the other Dr. Jeong, Jake, we thought he was dead, too.
Ex.: And where was Dr. Jake Jeong when you entered?
L.H.: Lying on the floor face down, in front of the main lab console.
Ex.: Was there anything near him on the floor?
L.H.: Yeah, that thing there. I moved it away from his hand with my foot, to get a look at it.
Ex.: Let the record show that the Corporal has indicated Exhibit C-5, the limbic modulator. What else can you tell us about that moment, Corporal?
L.H.: Well, not a lot. I never liked Dr. Jeong much. He was kind of a dick. Pardon me. And his sister was so nice. But I didn’t want to see him dead. I was relieved when he twitched. Zoida rolled him over as we were on the comm to the emergency med unit. I remember though--he opened his eyes. He looked at us like we were strangers, and he said, “What seems to be the problem, officer?”
Day 12, 13 January 2232
United Worlds Commonwealth v. Jeong
Examination A.40
Lin Hernandez
4th Circuit United Worlds International Court
Western Hemisphere Dome 0048 SP
Earth, Sol System
[Archived: United Governance Board regional justice systems, Earth]
CHAPTER ONE
31 October 2242 AEC (Adjusted Earth Calendar)
05:00
Jake Jeong woke from his court-ordered nightmare at 05:00 precisely. He waited patiently for the blood and screams to clear from his mind, and then between one blink and the next, the dim ceiling of his station quarters swam slowly into view. For a moment he lay still and stared up at it, a frown clouding his face. What had gone wrong?
The verdict had been very specific. He could recite it by heart, thanks to the marriage of his mind and the chip.
“All correctional dreams for convicted felons are mandated by the court and the Enhanced Recall Penitence Implant Chip’s encoding to follow a specific program: once every five Standard days, the offender will have a penitence dream [nightmare] sleep cycle of at least three point five, but not to exceed five hours.”
He whispered the words to the ceiling. “. . . after which the ERPIC will induce slow-wave sleep and activate the designated declarative memory enhancement, which will subsequently run for at least three point five, but not to exceed four hours. If the offender has shown historical tendencies to subsist on less sleep, the schedule must be reprogrammed to accommodate.”
The rest was superfluous self-aggrandizement stuck into the judicial statement by the chip’s developers. The salient and confusing point was that for the first time in nine years of living with the chip, Jake had woken early from the nightmare cycle. Less than twenty minutes in. It was a minor, unheard-of reprieve.
Wait, it—it’s wrong. Rebecca had said this time. The dream still echoed in his ears, her familiar hiccup of a stutter still marring her words. H–hurts.
He closed his eyes and covered his ears until the echo passed and he could think again.
A glitch, then. Possibly a one-time event. He could follow it up in the station’s Heart computer databases, if he wanted to. With his luck, chip malfunction after successful implantation would probably be considered an operator error, punishable by something like an extra twenty years for Jake back in the Bends (professionally: the Carlsbad-Bendis Subterranean Correctional Facility, the only sanctioned prison available for northern-based Domes) and a full lobotomy. Most chipped convicts were short-term implants. They did their penitence under surveillance, and then it was chip out and ship out, or rather, ship back to the Domes with the rest of humanity.
ERPIC long-termers and lifers like Jake had an acceptable rate of return: only about five percent went nuts a few months after the procedure, and those poor bastards manifested early. A near decade of functional humanity, including both his eight-year stint in the Bends and his current deep-space exile, likely meant someone from his implant team was writing a ponderous statistic-laden success story about Jake for scientific publication. A delightful prospect. At least he was no longer required to keep more than monthly contact with them.
Light was beginning to edge the walls of his quarters, a thin thread of the unobtrusive orange glow that was the station’s virtual dawn system. With the imposition of Earth time, the star Eos gave them real dawns every forty-eight hours. The virtual system didn’t fully kick on till 06:00. But he was wide awake now, and watching the fake internal sun rise had never topped Jake’s list of needful things. Groaning, he dragged himself out of bed and escaped into the cool darkness of the head for a lengthy shit and a longer shower.
As he cleansed under the hydro-acoustic field he wondered whether
it’d be worth it to report to Dr. Lindy. His fingers knobbled over the implant scars at the nape of his neck and over his ear, and he rubbed hard at them. No, it probably wasn’t worth it. Afew hours less of the nightmarewasn’t enough toremove Rebecca from his mind. She was still there in Icebreaker lab, her face and surroundings familiar and unfamiliar, like a word spoken so many times that it’d lost meaning. Nightmare-Rebecca was better than his old memories had been, the techs assured him. They had created a new Rebecca from his intact recollections unrelated to the incident. She was supported by the chip, and her near-perfection woke every memory he still had of her so that the sharpness of his self-loathing and penitence echoed back to childhood. The familiar guilt threatened to swamp him, and Jake clenched his fist against his temple until the nausea dwindled to manageable levels.
Guilt, nausea, regret, check, check, check. The chip was still doing its job.There was nothing to report.
Furthermore, it was expedition day, and Jake had been waiting too damn long for this particular surface visit to trade it for an exploratory brain surgery, no matter how expedited Lindy’s technique.
He shut off the acoustics and toweled off. While he was brushing his teeth the auto bathroom nightlight flickered on belatedly, and Jake found himself suddenly revealed in the little slab mirror, his toothbrush inelegantly distorting one cheek.
The stark light wasn’t flattering. He looked away before he could see Rebecca’s dark, oblique eyes staring back at him and brushed till his gums were sore, then rinsed with stale recycled water. It was nothing. She wasn’t there. The drawn tiredness merely meant he’d taken too many stims again. And the light was supposed to be automatic. Maybe his chip glitch was related. Maybe he’d caught a new alien vacuum-borne virus that lodged in his head as it floated through space and time.
