A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “Forgive my curiosity, but what kind of memories would cause such a reaction?”

  “It’s a bit awkward to explain.”

  “I don’t need to know, then.”

  “But you deserve to know. I was born on Earth a very long time ago.”

  “Unusual. Not impossible.”

  “In 1952.”

  Chen blinked a few times and sipped on his coffee. He set the cup down. “That would seem impossible, but it might explain the crowd in front of the restaurant.”

  “A crowd is in front of your restaurant? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to wake the others, Chen! Thank you for the coffee and for your company. I hope you won’t suffer for helping us.”

  “I’ll see what the crowd wants.”

  “Be careful!”

  I woke the others. In a few moments Zakiya was leading us through the restaurant, concerned that Chen might be in danger. He wasn’t. Chen returned to

  the restaurant doorway and gestured to the park across the street. “I asked them to stay back. Most of them did. What will you do?”

  “Go see what the hell they want,” I answered, squeezing past him and avoiding Zakiya’s attempt to grab my arm. I felt responsible for this. It was my big mouth that captured the interest of the memory thieves.

  I couldn’t see how large the crowd was. There were perhaps several hundred milling about in the park and a few more in groups in the street at a distance. They were all obviously intent on staying near the restaurant. I stood in the street and waited. I suppose I expected a “typical dreamer” crowd, roughly appearing to be strung-out drug addicts. Most of the people I saw appeared well-dressed, pleasant, serious, and sober.

  Then who should come rushing into the street than the leader of the gang that abducted Pete and me! A woman followed him quickly, trying to catch him. The gang leader bolted ahead of her and threw himself down at my feet. “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!” The Mustache pleaded to me.

  “You!” The woman reached the memory thief and shoved him so hard he fell onto his side. “I should have guessed!”

  The Mustache got back to his knees, then stood and looked around at all the other people who were converging on me in the middle of the street. He appeared alarmed. “Go back! Go back! Too many! The police will get interested!”

  “They should get interested!” the woman shouted. “You’re here to steal more from him, Roop! I’m calling the police!”

  “You can’t do that!” Roop the Mustache cried. “You don’t think this through! You know he’s too special, too old, too important, and he’s unprotected! You’re endangering him! Get all these people out of here!”

  “And leave him to your protection?”

  “Why are you here? For autographs and souvenirs? Do you believe the dream or not? Do you want the authorities to take him away?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Why wouldn’t they? For being too interesting! Use your imagination! He’s a damned revolution of history and experience in our pitiful, pitiful, pitiful life of boredom! Everybody and every function of government will want to suck him dry! I just want everybody to leave him alone!”

  Someone walked up behind me and took my hand. It was Jessie. The others joined us in front of the restaurant.

  ” She’s the one!” the woman gasped, almost fainting in front of Jessie.

  Pete grabbed the gang leader and pulled him close beneath his chin. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Roop cried. “I’m trying! They don’t believe me and they don’t understand!”

  “I believe you and I understand,” Pete said, releasing the thief.

  “Oh, hell, there’s five of you!” Roop said. “How can I hide five of you?”

  “I ask you to disperse,” Pete told the crowd. Pete was too used to being obeyed. He was wasting his breath.

  “We didn’t organize this,” the woman said, still staring at Jessie. “Each of us acted alone. We don’t want you to be bothered by anyone, even us. We’ll disperse as soon as you tell us how to help you.”

  “I’m surprised there are so many of you,” I said. “How did you find us?”

  “I’m surprised there are so few!” the woman answered, pulling her eyes from Jessie. “You must not understand the importance of what you’ve given us. There were many people who saw your group - and heard it - and we guessed it might be the one you were with. We didn’t know what you looked like. But the others were in your memories.”

  “What would you propose?” I asked.

  “Walk with us now. We’ll obscure you from the public surveillance scanners. We’ll let Roop decide where to take you, but we’ll share the task with his gang. We’ll provide for your needs as best we can. Some of us have considerable resources.”

  We looked at each other and understood we were in agreement to accept their offer. We moved into the crowd and began walking with them. I noticed that Pete stayed next to me, as though he was now my personal bodyguard.

  It was still not obvious to me how such a spontaneous congregation of people found us, much less would want to carry out a plan to hide five people, two of whom were tall men with memorable faces. I noted that many of the nearby persons were interacting with some who came near and moved away. They spoke to each other but I couldn’t understand them.

  I wasn’t yet fluent in the two or three major languages, all of which contained ample English vocabulary. A word could sound like an English word but not mean what it did seven hundred years ago. The modern tongues also seemed to compress and concatenate concepts, many of which required historical references to comprehend. In 20th-century English we could say the same thing five different ways. In the current dominant language you could say five things in one fifth of the verbiage. My on-board computer translated well but I was still working against that compression ratio.

  I didn’t know if people listened any better than they used to.

  I always found it incredible that, apparently owing to the legacy of American popular culture, so many people could speak to me and I could understand them. How many people of the 20th century could have understood Middle English?

  At about the halfway point in our walk, someone pressed a baton-like instrument into my hand. Each of the others also received one of these devices. After that, the crowd gradually thinned out. We eventually turned off the major avenues. The batons were illegal. Their purpose was to blind certain types of surveillance devices.

  At the end of the trek only two people remained with us, the crowd’s spokeswoman and Roop the Mustache. They apparently wanted to talk with us, judging from their reluctance to leave. Pete and I remained to talk with them. Jessie, Zakiya, and Alex went inside the place Roop found for us.

  “Do you know who I am?” Pete asked.

  The man and the woman looked at each other. Neither responded, apparently waiting for Pete to say something. He said nothing.

  “You were not named in the recording,” the woman said to Pete. “You are the one who fought in the stadium. That wasn’t real, was it?”

  “I don’t understand how you can be who you appear to be,” Roop said.

  ” You need to know that others will be certain of who I am. They’ll come for me. They won’t be polite or gentle with anyone who is near me.”

  “What will they do to you?” the woman asked.

  “I’m supposed to be dead. They’ll want to be sure that I am.”

  “The Navy wants to execute you?”

  ” You are warned. We appreciate your help, no matter your motivation. I ask you to be careful.”

  “I won’t desert you,” Roop said.

  “Nor will I,” the woman said.

  “Will the recording of Sam’s memories spread much farther?” Pete asked.

  “Yes,” both replied together. “You really don’t understand,” the woman added.

  “Everyone in Earth System will at least know of it within the next day or so,” Roop assured us. “Claudia is rig
ht - you don’t understand! Everyone who experiences the dream is changed!”

  The memory thief started to leave but Pete grabbed his shoulder to detain him. Then Pete turned to me. “Would you wish any of us to experience your memories, Sam? It seems we are ignorant of important data.”

  “I would wish all of you to share my life.”

  “I’ll bring it to you,” Roop promised.

  They moved us to another hideout the next day and Roop left us with several sets of dreamer gear and a copy of my memories. Everyone but me decided to give Jessie the first turn at dreaming my memories. Jessie noted the omission of my vote and questioned me with her eyes. I shook my head in sorrow and avoided looking back at her. “I did something bad and never told you about it. I’m sorry.”

  It was fascinating torture watching Jessie experience my memories. I almost hoped the equipment wouldn’t function with her nervous system, but it did. She reacted strongly and for long periods of time. Zakiya kept reaching for her but not touching her, concerned with the emotional stress Jessie exhibited. She seemed to relax a bit after a while, even though the tears continued to run down her cheeks. When it was over she buried herself in my arms.

  Zakiya tried to question Jessie about the experience but she wouldn’t say anything.

  There were three dreamer gear sets, with inflatable pods. They could connect them so Zakiya, Alex, and Pete could do the thing at the same time. Zakiya gave me a small smile as she sized her pod to fit. Alex seemed hesitant but finally got into his pod. Pete wasted no time fitting himself into the gear. I thought I understood what his motivation might be.

  As the recording started, I felt they should have some privacy. Actually, I didn’t want to watch them react, especially if they reacted anywhere close to how Jessie reacted. I pulled Jessie into another room and continued to hold her while she slowly recovered from the experience of living my life.

  A long time passed. Jessie seemed to look at me strangely and often, even as she snuggled closer into my embrace. I hoped that meant I hadn’t turned into some kind of monster-of-the-memory-movies. Maybe she liked movie monsters. Anyway, she wanted to be near me, touching me, holding me, looking at me.

  Too much time passed, with no news from the Gerakis Family. I had to look in on them, to see what was the matter. Jessie and I stood in the doorway and saw Alex and Zakiya sitting on either side of Pete. Pete was curled up on the floor. They were finished dreaming my memories but Pete must have had a bad reaction to it.

  When I approached them, Zakiya stood up and embraced me for a long moment, saying nothing, just rubbing my back. Alex looked at me in some special way that I couldn’t fathom, but it made me feel good.

  *

  They moved us once again.

  “This can’t go on forever,” I said. “What’s the point of it? We ought to go back to the Freedom and leave Milly alone.”

  “I can’t bear the thought of abandoning Milly,” Jessie said. “She means so much to you, and now she means just as much to me.”

  Alex or Zakiya might have had something to say but their son seemed poised to make some kind of statement and they waited for him. Pete had not spoken to anyone since experiencing my life’s memories. “I believe we’ve passed a point of no return,” Pete said. “Billions of people will experience Sam’s memories. There will be many consequences. It will be a revolution, as Roop has said, but far beyond what he may imagine. Oz will soon have copies of Sam’s life. I have no slightest idea of what we can do to stop an unwanted future. I only know what we have done to hasten its arrival.”

  I didn’t understand what Pete meant. Perhaps I was distracted by trying to analyze his mental condition. He was not the same as he was. He was more than he was. His eyes saw more, his voice told more, his face showed more.

  “What do you want to do?” Zakiya asked her son.

  “I want to save Milly,” Pete said. “I want to save Constant. And I want everyone to know who my parents are.”

  “Did you accomplish your task?” Pete asked our underworld escort as he arrived in our latest hideout.

  “Yes,” Roop replied tiredly.

  “Explain the details. Why did it take so long?”

  Roop was quite a mixture of genetic features, practically a 27th-century Everyman. He was short, dark of complexion, and not very pleasant, but I grew accustomed to him. For some reason he reminded me of a certain icon of 20th-century surrealist art. Maybe it was the wild mustache.

  “I think there’s a quiet but very intense search for you underway,” Roop said. “All my contacts have warned me to be careful. I had to do things differently. It took time. I had to think!”

  “How unusual,” Claudia remarked.

  “I think she likes me,” Roop joked.

  Claudia was our female escort, the woman who first spoke to us in front of Chen’s restaurant. Like Roop, Claudia was a typical citizen in appearance, taller and darker than Roop. Unlike him, she was employed. She was a respectable member of society. I didn’t like her as much as I liked Roop but I respected her more. She had more to lose and was not as accustomed to risk as was Roop the Mustache.

  “When do we leave?” Pete asked.

  “It’s scheduled for eighteen hundred. We’ll leave three hours before that.”

  “You contacted my people?” Claudia asked.

  “We contacted everybody,” Roop answered. “We need all the bodies we can get.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Claudia asked me.

  Pete and I always met with Roop and Claudia, minimizing their exposure to

  Alex, Jessie, and Zakiya. The two escorts asked us many questions, almost all of which we refused to answer. Roop seemed to accept this censorship but it bothered Claudia.

  “To protect you,” I replied.

  “You’ll tell the universe your secrets before you’ll tell us?” Claudia asked almost desperately.

  “You think you’ve earned it?” Roop asked her impatiently.

  Zakiya emerged from the adjoining room. Pete and I waited for her to speak and I saw Claudia looking at us, analyzing the respect we gave Zakiya. “When do we go?” Zakiya asked.

  “Fifteen hundred,” Pete said.

  “It’ll be a long walk,” Roop said. “It’ll be historic!”

  There was a brief flash of light, startling Roop and Claudia.

  “I saw a man!” Claudia said. “He was wearing a Navy uniform. They’ve found us!”

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Zakiya said. “He’s a friend.”

  “What was that?” Roop asked. “A hologram?”

  “Would you care to join us?” Zakiya invited. We followed her to the inner room of our quarters. Claudia tried to ask a question but Zakiya raised a hand to stop her. “You’d better sit down,” she told Claudia and Roop, and waited until they complied.

  Zakiya produced a cryptikon and placed it in the air, making Claudia gasp. We stood in one half of the room. The other half transformed instantly into a patio full of familiar people with a lake in the distance. As good as holographic projection was, the cryptikon was better. It was perfect. It was interesting to see how Roop and Claudia reacted to this real unreality. They were petrified with disbelief. Their eyes would never open so wide again.

  “You have visitors,” Aylis noted.

  “This is Claudia and Roop,” Zakiya said. “They’re helping us. I see Iggy has returned to you. White Bridge, you are still with us. Have you not found your home?”

  “We have found my place of origin, Zakiya,” White Bridge answered, “but Aylis wants me to stay.”

  “Aylis?” Zakiya queried for explanation.

  “What you are doing is quite inconvenient to what we are doing with the entire Fesn civilization!” Aylis complained. “We need White Bridge.”

  “You’ve made contact?” Zakiya asked.

  “Oh, yes. There are many Fesn now aboard the Freedom. They seem just as nice as White Bridge, so I’m very hopeful we can be friends. Are you sure you want to do this th
ing?”

  “I’m only sure something must be done.” Perhaps Zakiya’s tone of voice or the worry in her face made Aylis embrace her. I vaguely sensed Claudia and Roop reacting to the impossible physical contact. Or perhaps they had only just realized that White Bridge was not human. Like Jessie beside me, I was searching for Sunny among those in attendance on the patio, and had all but forgot Claudia and Roop. My description of this meeting must lack much interesting detail, as I reacted to things through a haze of emotion anchored in the close contact with Jessie and the stress I could feel in her.

  “Jessie?” Aylis queried, disengaging from Zakiya and touching Jessie’s face. “You look very different. Your feathers…”

  “I was scaring people, Aylis! The good people of Oz greatly fear my kind. Is

  Sunny okay? I don’t see him.”

  “He’s fine! Don’t worry. Here he comes.”

  From beyond the range of the cryptikon display field Mai and Nori magically appeared with two babies. Jessie rushed to Nori, and took Sunny in her arms. I followed her, anticipating too much joy and too much pain. Mai brushed past me with Zelda. Zelda? Zakiya took her granddaughter. While Jessie held Sunny close I turned around to watch Aylis approach Pete. In fact, everyone watched her approach him, including Jessie.

  Big Pete backed away from Aylis as she walked toward him. He turned away from her. She grabbed his elbow to make him stop. She rounded on him and looked up at his face. We couldn’t see his face. Aylis could. I don’t think Pete looked directly at her but Aylis reacted with pained surprise and had to turn away from him. She backed away, then hurried out of the visible reach of the cryptikons.

  I took Sunny from Jessie and held him for a little while. I began to feel overwhelmed by emotion and simply to quell it I carried Sunny to Roop and Claudia. Roop stood up and pulled the overwhelmed Claudia up with him. Sunny seemed intrigued by the mustache and I could see Roop smile. Claudia raised a hand and hesitated until I nodded at her, then she reached a fingertip to Sunny’s ruddy cheek and touched him. It was a shock to her, even beyond what she must already have experienced.

  Zakiya tried to show Zelda to her father and Pete resisted. I don’t think it occurred to any of us that Zakiya was presenting the baby to him as proof of his crime, but perhaps Pete felt it that way. I think Pete must have at least glanced down at his daughter. I hope he did.