Memory Lane

by Milo James Fowler

  "We'll have to make it stick this time, Mr. Neville," Sneed said aloud. "But we'll provide you with a whole new life this time so you won't go bothering all those nice people from your past." The emotional strain of pretending not to recognize him—for his own good, of course—was something those people couldn't be expected to continue indefinitely.

  The good doctor frowned, recalling his conversation four days ago with Neville's wife, at which time he'd alluded to Neville's memories eventually resurfacing. After what had been going on for the past twenty-four hours, such would not, could not, ever be the case. For his own good, the next brain reformatting would have to leave Herman Neville a stranger even to himself.

  * * *

  Herman didn't want to face the cab driver. He kept his back to the curb as he attempted to reenter his pin number, followed by his account number, at the ATM in front of his bank. Good thing: he had a photographic memory. Bad thing: his bank account, like everything else in his life today, was no longer in existence.

  "I'm sorry, I seem to be out of cash?" he muttered aloud, rehearsing how he'd break the news to the driver. The cab's meter had to be reading hundreds of dollars by this point. "Any chance I could work off what I owe? Wash all the vehicles at the depot, maybe?"

  Herman had no idea what would happen next, but he had a sneaking suspicion there would be a collections agency involved in the near future, followed by union/mafia types who would break every bone in his body, starting with his little toes and moving up from there.

  So it was with almost a sense of relief that he greeted the Central Health ambulance. It pulled squealing to the curb, and muscled paramedics charged straight for him.

  "Herman Neville?" one of them demanded.

  "Yeah?" He stared.

  One plunged a hypodermic needle into his neck and squeezed. The other one threw him over his massive shoulder.

  "What's going on here?" the cab driver protested. "That's my fare!"

  "Not anymore, pal," grunted the paramedic. His partner threw open the rear doors of the ambulance to deposit their patient inside.

  Light all around Herman dimmed as the world tilted strangely on its axis. He smiled pleasantly. Soon there would be only impenetrable darkness to smother his senses.

  But not before he heard the voice of his wife call out, "Don't you forget me, Baby!"

  * * *

  Sharon Neville stopped short, having run full-tilt at the ambulance before the paramedic slammed both doors shut with his partner and Herman inside. Her mobile had alerted her of an unauthorized attempted transaction on their joint bank account, and she'd driven there as fast as she could.

  "Move along, ma'am. This is not your concern."

  "I'm his wife!"

  "Not anymore." The paramedic stepped toward her with menace tightening his frame.

  "What the hell is going on here?" The cab driver ambled forward.

  "Don't try following us." The paramedic jabbed an index finger at her to make his point, then turned to climb behind the wheel of his vehicle.

  "It's not like I don't know where you're taking him!" Sharon shouted as the ambulance tires squealed to reenter traffic. "Central Health Nazis!"

  The cab driver cleared his throat. "You-uh know that guy? The one they took? He owes me a bit of money..."

  She already had her credit card out of her purse.

  "Scan it," she muttered, watching the ambulance disappear into the distance.

  * * *

  Dr. Sneed was ecstatic. The post-sensory-deprivation-chamber scans had come back much better this time. There were absolutely no pockets of residual memory in Herman Neville's mind. He was, as the cliche goes, a clean slate.

  "This will be your new lifecoach," Sneed introduced the man formerly known as Herman to the angular, graying, chocolate-colored woman in a white lab coat. "Coach Jackie, meet Herbert Johnson."

  The man formerly known as Herman blinked. "Herbert. That's my name?"

  "That's right, son." Coach Jackie smiled warmly and took his pale hand in both of hers. "Don't you worry now. We'll get everything sorted out. It'll just take a little time is all."

  "And Jackie's got plenty to spend on you, Herb. You're her only patient at the moment. She's helped dozens of folks find their way after bouts of temporary amnesia."

  "Amnesia?" Herbert repeated, uncertain.

  "That's right—and temporary," Jackie emphasized. She glanced at Sneed, who nodded.

  Of course he wouldn't tell her that the effects in this case would be irreversible, unlike previous patients. She would have her work cut out for her, building a new life from scratch for this man.

  As Coach Jackie escorted Mr. Johnson out of his office, Sneed reclined in his plush nubuck desk chair and clasped lanky-fingered hands behind his head.

  "Ah yes," he sighed. "Another situation contained. Job well done, Dr. Sneed. You are one of our nation's unsung heroes, without a doubt."

  The intercom buzzed. Stifling a well-deserved yawn, Sneed tapped the corner of his desktop.

  "You have an incoming call, Doctor," said the attractive secretary, smiling at him on the screen.

  "The Health Czar waiting to congratulate me, perchance?" Sneed chuckled.

  The secretary's smile faltered. "I'm sorry, Doctor. It's a woman named Sharon Neville—"

  "Put her through." Sneed sat up, his expression wiped clean of any self-satisfied remnants.

  Mrs. Neville's face, haggard with alabaster brow furrowed, greeted him full-screen.

  "Dr. Sneed, I demand to know what you've done with my husband. It's been over a week now since we came to see you, and I can't get a straight answer from any of your staff. They won't even let me in the building! What have you done with Herman?"

  "Mrs. Neville, I understand this has been a difficult time for you—"

  "When can we go home? When will Herman be ready?"

  Sneed nodded slowly. "I regret to inform you that Herman will not be returning to the life you once shared, Mrs. Neville. The operation necessary to reverse the damage done to his mind required a complete brain reformatting. He no longer retains any residual memories of his life with you. But the good news is that you can now go back to your home. Your husband, however—the man you knew as your husband—has begun a new life." He reached to end the call, creasing portions of his face to show due pity for the woman. "Please do not attempt to contact me again or visit our center, Mrs. Neville. If you do, I will be forced to notify the authorities."

  He tapped the corner of the screen, and the woman's stunned face faded to black.

  Sneed sighed, reclining again as he awaited the Health Czar's congratulatory call, bound to come through sooner or later. It wasn't every day a Central Health doctor saved the government's Opiate program from discovery. Sneed shuddered to think what could have happened if Neville had been sent to one of those private sector medical centers. If the hidden data stream were ever detected, the populace would likely revolt, refusing to use social media of any kind. And then the federal government would actually have to govern.

  Sneed dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand as he reached for his WORLD'S BEST NEUROSCIENTIST coffee mug.

  * * *

  Coach Jackie patiently gave Herbert Johnson a tour of his home, guiding him to his workstation—he was a modestly renowned author—and logging him onto his social network where hundreds of unfamiliar faces waited, filling the screen of his Slate.

  "Who are all these people?" Herbert said with a perplexed frown.

  "They're the most important people in your life, Herb." She smiled at him like a doting mother would have. "Fellow writers, editors, publishers, agents—the folks who've helped you get to where you are today."

  He nodded. "And my…family?"

  Coach Jackie rose.

  "Come with me," she said quietly.

  Down the long hallway of his two-story, well-furnished, rustic home, Herbert found lines of photographs framed in artificial mahogany, people of all ages smiling both indoors
and out at parties and celebrations, barbecues and weddings. But unfortunately, Coach Jackie told him, they were all dead.

  "It's probably best you don't remember. Tragic, so very tragic."

  "What happened to them?"

  She bit her lip, weighing her words. "You were scheduled to go to a big family reunion on the island of Maui. But fortunately for you, your agent had already scheduled a meeting with a publisher that you couldn't postpone, so you'd planned to book a later flight." She paused. "You never had to."

  "You mean…?" He swallowed, staring at all the happy faces.

  "A flock of seagulls—or was it geese?—happened to be migrating at the time, and they took out two of the plane's engines. The pilot did what he could, but the plane broke apart on impact. Rescue crews spent months retrieving all their remains from the Pacific."

  "That's awful." Herbert trailed off.

  "It truly is." Coach Jackie looked away and cleared her throat.

  * * *

  Herbert Johnson waited until his live-in lifecoach was sound asleep and sawing enough logs to warrant her arrest before he crept out of his room and sneaked downstairs, passing the photos of strangers he was fairly certain had come with the price of the frames. He'd retrieved Coach Jackie's mobile, knowing his own was probably bugged by Central Health.

  Paranoid? By now, he had every right to be.

  He called up a local taxi service and met the driver at the curb before the man could start honking his horn and waking up the neighborhood.

  "Not you again!" The driver shook his head as Herb slid into the backseat. "No, uh-uh. You get out right now. I don't want any more to do with—"

  Herb handed him Coach Jackie's credit card.

  He'd asked for this driver by number. A photographic memory had its benefits, after all. He'd recalled the ID tag dangling from the rearview mirror with crystal mental clarity.

  "Okay then. First things first. I like that." The driver scanned the card without a moment's hesitation, looking Herb over as he returned it. "You clean up all right, mister."

  Herb smiled. His slacks and sweater were a far cry from that awful hospital robe he'd worn before. "Drive."

  The cab pulled away from the curb and into the night. "Where to?"

  Herb winked at him in the rearview.

  "Memory Lane."

  Be the first to find out about Milo's new releases

  Join The Crew, See other worlds

  Click here to sign up

  About the Author

  Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. When he's not grading papers, he's imagining what the world might be like in a dozen alternate realities. His short fiction has appeared in AE SciFi, Cosmos, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and Shimmer. His novel Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the Space-Time Displacement Conundrum is forthcoming from Every Day Publishing.

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/milojamesfowler

  Twitter: @mfowler76

  Website: www.milojamesfowler.com

  Also Available:

  Immaterial Evidence

  A detective with a price on his head.

  An invisible criminal with nothing to lose…

  The vault door never opened. The bank went into lockdown in less than a minute. Yet the security footage was unmistakable: a hundred silver bars had simply vanished.

  Ever since the city's most dangerous crime boss put a price on his head, private investigator Charlie Madison has lived as an exile in Little Tokyo. But now an old friend and police sergeant has lured Madison back into the city to hunt down an invisible criminal—if he can.

  As Madison makes his clandestine return, high-profile people start disappearing. And when federal agents swoop onto the scene to take matters into their own hands, they offer Madison a deal he can't refuse—as long as he agrees to work with them. With Japanese freedom fighters and refurbished killing machines threatening to take the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, the United World government needs all the help it can get.

  Embroiled in an unimaginable mystery, one private eye must rely on his wits to solve a case where the evidence is immaterial, and the odds are stacked high against him at every turn.

  Coyote Cal – Tales from the Weird West

  This volume collects all six weird westerns in the Coyote Cal Adventure Series:

  "Fool's Gold" - In this thrilling tale from yesteryear, Coyote Cal and Big Yap encounter their most challenging adversary yet: a Portuguese wizard able to change his shape at will. Our heroes will have to rely on their wits, skills, and loads of hot lead if they hope to foil this shape-shifter's evil schemes before he ends them, once and for all.

  "Coyote Cal's Guide to the Weird, Wild West" - Coyote Cal must match wits with Donna "the Witch" Jamison, a master of the dark arts intent on planting him in the ground. Cal has stood toe to toe with his fair share of villains in the past—but this time, he's up against something altogether different in the form of a metal-mouthed gunslinger named Sleepy Rider and his dead brother, Easy.

  "El Diablo de Paseo Grande" - Something's attacking the livestock outside the little town of Paseo Grande, and our heroes are hot on the monster's trail. But Coyote Cal, Big Yap, and Donna "the Witch" Jamison may have bitten off more than they can chew this time, and only one of them will be able to save the day—or die trying.

  "The Black Ace" - Coyote Cal and Big Yap have met their share of villains in the past, but this time around, the line dividing good from evil isn't as clearly drawn at first, and our heroes find themselves pitted against an entire town in order for justice to prevail.

  "The Last Laugh" - Coyote Cal and Big Yap are on the trail of an escaped criminal convicted of scaring over a dozen honest folks to death. Will our heroes be able to bring this killer to justice? Or will they fall prey to his bewitching laugh?

  "Harbinger of Arroyo Seco" - Like many heroes, Coyote Cal was once a boy… There's a storm brewing over the town of Arroyo Seco, and a sheriff with his uncanny eye on the future sees nothing but trouble for our hero-in-the-making. In love with an older woman and hunted by a gang of outlaws seeking retribution, young Calvin must walk a fine line between protecting the one he loves and becoming a ruthless killer.