Recall

by M. Van

  “My designation is 959, and I am an enforcer in the service of the Tenebrae Enforcer Department, property of ArtRep Enterprises, and your comment could be considered an insult punishable by law,” I said. The words fell from my mouth as if I were on the streets, sighting some criminal.

  As if she hadn’t heard me or didn’t care, the woman scoffed before she said, “Well, it’s not nice to interrupt a person while they’re talking.” I glared at her, taken aback at her audacity. I had never heard of anyone dare to speak in such a careless manner to an enforcer.

  She got up from the stretcher and strolled over to the desk where she sat down in the chair across from me and said, “I was supposed to take this slowly, but I guess they haven’t been able to wipe the stubbornness from your mind.” I narrowed my eyes at her, unsure of what she had meant. She grinned, but despite her cockiness, I could tell she seemed nervous by the way she bit her lower lip.

  “My name is Saera,” she said, “and the other girl’s name is Maecy, or Maece, as she preferred, but I could never quite bring myself to call her that.” Her grin almost widened into a smile as she seemed to reminisce in some distant memory. I had always wondered how that must feel. The pain inside my skull flared up again.

  “This also happens to be your name,” she said. I gripped the sides of my head and blinked. My eyes filled with tears, and it was hard to focus on anything.

  “Memories can be a bitch, can’t they,” she said. The tone of her voice had changed and had gone soft as if she had decided to leave out the snarky parts to spare my feelings.

  I wiped a hand over my eyes as the pain faded. My fingers came back wet, which added another new sensation to confuse my circuits, and I wiped the tears on my suit. I watched the woman carefully as I tried to decide how much of a threat she actually was. She seemed to be able to incapacitate me by saying a simple word—namely, the name of a child.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but I know you—I have known you ever since we were kids,” she said. “You just can’t remember right now.”

  “I have no memories,” I said in defense, as if she didn’t know that already. “You’re just messing with my CPU.” My processors kicked into overdrive. This had to be some ploy—a way to harm the current administration. “You’re a rebel,” I said, raising my voice as I jumped up from the chair. She dismissed my accusing glare and shook her head. Then she lifted her hands as if she didn’t want to be perceived as a threat and stood.

  “I’m just gonna turn on the overhead light,” she said and pointed at the switch near the door. I nodded but stood ready to grab her if she decided to take off. She still had some explaining to do.

  The lights flickered on, and I closed my eyes. As I opened them, the hard light stung for a moment, but then my eyes adjusted. I noticed Saera wore the white doctor’s coat over the same garments she had worn yesterday. The black outfit and sturdy jacket let anyone identify her as a Subterra resident, and the doctor’s coat didn’t do much as a disguise.

  Her blond hair was cropped short at her neck but was longer up top. Her blue eyes held a hard gaze and stood out against her pale skin. Her tough exterior might have come across as threatening if it weren’t for the twitch of her mouth and her teeth digging into her lower lip.

  Saera raised a hand and gestured behind me. I kept a cautious gaze on her, but she hinted again at whatever it was that seemed to be behind me.

  “Just brace yourself,” she said.

  Leisurely, I started to turn, but I kept Saera within my peripheral vision. But all the diligence programmed into my CPU disappeared as I found myself staring into a mirror.

  My head didn’t hurt as much as it had before, but the mere sight of myself took me aback. I stumbled backward and landed on my butt on the desk. This was wrong—this was all wrong. The woman staring back at me in the mirror looked at least ten years older than the kid in the picture, and my hair was shorter and not as frizzy anymore, but the resemblance was uncanny.

  I stood and moved to the mirror as if to examine myself for the first time. It felt as if it was the first time, although I must have noticed some of my features over the years—I had just forgotten. More accurately, it had been wiped from my mind.

  I removed my gloves and inspected my hands. They seemed so strange, and my skin had a much darker shade than most of the population living in the City of Umbras. Amazed, I lifted my hand to touch my face. It looked nothing from what I had imagined. The only things I had to compare myself with were the other enforcers, and they had all been tall, broad-shouldered, and mostly male. I was clearly female, still an impressive presence in my armored suit, but also much leaner. How had I not noticed this before, or perhaps I had and couldn’t remember?

  Saera stepped closer to stand beside me and watched me through that same mirror.

  “You’ve grown to be quite a stunner, sis,” she said, and for the first time, I witnessed a smile on her face that reached her eyes.

  Shocked at her admission, I turned to face her and then abruptly turned back to the mirror to compare our unmistakable differences before looking back at Saera. Her skin was almost as white as the walls of this hospital. She flexed a muscle in her sharp-edged jaw as I peered into her blue eyes. I imagined those eyes could appear cold as ice, although they weren’t now.

  I shifted my gaze back to the mirror and inspected my jet-black hair and my dark hazel eyes that, even though my irises projected this weird glow, matched the color of my skin.

  Facing Saera again, I said, “Us being sisters is as impossible as me having a…” I hesitated. I wanted to say past. Anything beyond of being an enforcer, but that picture might be the proof that I had.

  “Listen,” she said and hesitated as if she needed the time to think through her next words. “I want to explain, and I will, but I don’t want your brain to fry or for you to suffer in agony. So if you want to know and if you’re willing to trust me, then you’ll have to come with me.” Her hand reached out as if to touch me, but instead of letting her, I flinched and stepped back.

  There was too much going on inside my head, and I didn’t know which line of thoughts to trust. Was this a trick? Had a virus slipped into my processing unit or was she telling the truth? Her hand froze in midair, and the smile that had brightened her face faded. But what if she were telling the truth? What would that mean?

  It would mean that I wasn’t an artificial representation made by a bioprinter out of human remains with a computer stuck in my head. If this was true, then it was worth finding out, and if it wasn’t, then I still had my enforcer abilities to get myself out of this. If needed, I could even arrest her.

  “Will you come with me?” she asked. Her whispered words reflected doubt or maybe fear that I would refuse. I watched her for a moment as I would have if I was wearing my heads-up display. The device would have recognized any anomalies in her story by measuring the diameter and size of her pupil. Not many realized what a traitorous entity their bodies could become, but even without the gadget propped on my head, her story rang true to me—if only because of the nagging pain resonating from the back of my skull. I nodded and replied, “I’ll come with you.”

  It wasn’t hard to recognize the relief washing over her as Saera took a deep breath. I reached for the heads-up laying on the desk. Her hand took mine before I could grab the device or pull away from her.

  “You don’t need those,” she said as she seemed to struggle for control of her voice. “You don’t need anyone to tell you what to do.” The touch combined with her soft-spoken but emotionally filled words didn’t ease the strain in my muscles. I couldn’t help it; my body had been wired for diligence for too long and seemed to react on its own. And yet her unknown familiarity embraced me in a warm blanket.

  “I can’t just leave it here,” I said, not wanting to convey distrust but unwilling to part from the device that had guided me for as long as I knew.

  “You should bring them,” Saera said with a nod. “Just don’t put them on.
”

  Because Saera held on to my hand, I grabbed the heads-up from the desk with the other and then let her guide me to the door.

  Chapter five

  Maece

  Saera stopped at the door and looked slightly up to face me. She stood a little shorter than me, and from the scan I had made the previous night, I remembered her to be five foot seven. Her frame was lean and borderline thin. One hand held on to mine while the other rummaged through a pocket of her white doctor’s coat. I noticed a tattoo on the back of the hand holding mine. Flames drawn in black ink extending from under her sleeve seemed to engulf her hand. I wondered if these markings on her hand had anything to do or were connected with the ink I had spotted on her neck and collarbone.

  Thinking about the possible shape and size of the tattoo created an uncomfortable sensation in the back of my head. Afraid to set off another painful memory, I shook the thought from my mind. Saera, unaware of my discomfort, pulled out a pair of dark shades and held them out to me.

  “You’ll stand out too much otherwise,” she said. I glanced at the heads-up in my hand and secured it with a clip to my belt.

  “It’s not as if I won’t stand out in this,” I said, gesturing at my armored suit. “Black isn’t exactly an inconspicuous color in these parts of town.” In the same movement, I gestured at her clothes that, besides the white doctor’s coat, were as black as mine.

  “We won’t be in sight long enough for anyone to notice,” she said.

  “So then why do I need to wear these?” I asked as I took the tinted glasses from her. Her mouth twitched into a mischievous grin as she said,

  “Your eyes kind of freak me out.”

  “Ow,” I said, placing the glasses on my nose.

  “Don’t worry,” she added without a hint of embarrassment. “They’ll turn back eventually…I hope.” Without further notice, she opened the door, and I followed Saera into the hallway.

  Even with the new shades, I felt strangely naked without the heads-up hiding my face as Saera led me by the hand. Walking through the hall, I noticed nothing much had changed. Doctors and nurses kept themselves busy with patients, cleaning drones mopped the floors, and the information desk still sat unattended.

  Three doors down from the room we had exited, Saera crossed the hall and opened a door that led to a staircase. I closed the door behind us. Saera shot me a quick glance, and the determination in her expression was obvious as she led me by the hand down the stairs.

  The steps seemed to go on and on, and we had to be at least four floors beneath the surface when Saera stopped in front of a metal door. She hesitated with one hand on the nob.

  “Listen,” she said and hesitated again before she turned to me. “These people you’re going to meet, they might seem intimidating, but they’re pretty nice.” She looked at me expectantly, but I had no idea what to say. “I know it doesn’t make sense now, but you have to believe that I’m trying to do what’s best,” she added. With that, she squeezed the hand she was still holding and opened the door.

  I followed Saera into a dark hallway. Emergency lights hanging at large intervals were the only thing that kept us from being completely surrounded by darkness. Walking in the semidark without the help of my heads-up felt ominous, and the sunglasses bridged on my nose didn’t help either. Something could jump at us without either of us having seen it coming. Still, I ignored the urge to unclip the goggles from my belt and decided to rely on my natural senses instead.

  We made several left and right turns, and as we exited another door, it became obvious we must have left the hospital grounds. The dark but impeccable hallways turned into tunnels that seemed to have been carved right from the stone holding up the walls around us.

  Gravel crunched underneath my boots, and the staccato of sound started to annoy me. Saera stopped when we reached a part of the tunnel where the lights guiding us ended. For the first time since we’d started our trek, she released my hand. Then she removed her white doctor’s coat and clicked something on her wrist. A highly focused beam of light shot out from the device and cut a path through the darkness.

  “I could try the HUD,” I said as she reached for my hand. “It still has the night-vision function.”

  She took my hand and shook her head. “You can’t use that thing anymore,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it helps to keep your memories in check,” she replied. I glanced at her while we started to walk again and thought about it.

  “How does that work?” I asked. She flashed her light into my face, and I flinched.

  “How the hell should I know,” she said.

  “It could be that the HUD emits a signal that travels via the optic nerve to the visual cortex and from there is able to reach different parts of my brain,” I said. “That might be possible, couldn’t it?”

  Saera sighed, which might have been out of frustration.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Why can’t you just accept that it is what it is, Maecy,” she replied, sounding frustrated. “This is exactly the kind of thing that has you venturing into shitty situations like this.”

  Pain erupted inside my skull and shot down my spine. The sensation overwhelmed me, and I dropped to my knees. Saera kneeled next to me while I clamped my teeth to stifle a scream.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she wrapped an arm around me. “I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”

  I gulped air into my lungs and waited for the painful moment to pass. Saera tightened her grip around me.

  “I have to tell you,” I said between gasps. “I’m not…getting…any of this.”

  She squeezed my shoulder and shifted back to sit on her haunches. The light strapped to her wrist bounced off the wall before it settled on the gravel at our feet.

  “I won’t pretend to know how the technology exactly works, but it has something to do with memories,” she said. “Everything that takes place in the present is fine, but things that happened in the past will trigger this pain you feel.”

  “So how come your face doesn’t trigger these flashes of pain anymore?” I asked as I fought to catch my breath.

  “I don’t know exactly, but this guy I know, Kyran, has something to do with it,” she said, “and it’s been two years. A lot has changed.”

  Almost as an afterthought, she said, “I have changed.” I watched her as she seemed to disappear in her own thoughts. Shadows darkened most of her pale face, and she looked almost see-through as if some fading hologram. I glanced around and could only feel darkness pressing down on me inside this underground tunnel.

  All of this—ignoring a broken heads-up, accepting a strange meeting in a hospital and now following this woman into the bowels of the earth—seemed so alien to me and yet so familiar. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go back to my life as an enforcer, because what if there was a chance I could be more than that—more than an artificial representation. I needed to know, and following Saera felt like something I had always done, although in avoiding the imminent pain, I tried not to think about it too much.

  Besides, heading back to TED would probably mean wiping my memory, and all of this would disappear or worse. If they’d determined something was wrong with me, they’d put me out of commission and throw me in a waste disposal furnace.

  “Come on. They’re waiting for us,” Saera said as she climbed to her feet.

  “Who is they?” I asked. She held out a hand to help me up.

  “People that can help you,” she said, “but I think we should probably keep the talking to a minimum. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and fry your brain again.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she gave me a look that stopped the words from exiting my mouth. Instead, I placed a hand on the back of my neck and stretched the muscles there. My head throbbed, but the pain had become bearable. Still, it seemed wise to keep our mouths shut for the rest of the way, wherever it was that she was taking me.
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  It felt as if we had walked for hours when a door stopped our progress. I looked over my shoulder to see only blackness and knew it would be difficult if I needed to get out of these tunnels on my own. The route we had taken to get here had us going around several corners, and although I had counted them, I knew it would be a near-impossible task to find my way back.

  Saera traced her light over the door, which seemed to be made of solid steel. She held the beam steady on an apparently insignificant part of the wall next to the door and then placed her hand flat against it. I watched as the area around her hand lit up. Something clicked and then a voice that made me jump sounded from out of nowhere.

  “She came,” a hoarse male voice said.

  “As you can see,” Saera replied. Her words immediately triggered my eyes to trace the walls for surveillance equipment, but it was too dark for me to identify anything, and Saera kept her light pointed at the ground. She was clearly not interested in finding the device.

  “Any trouble,” the voice said.

  “None,” Saera replied. For a while, the voice stayed silent, and I shot Saera a glance. She shrugged.

  With a click the tunnel bathed in a green mist while lasers traced our bodies, covering every millimeter. The scan ended within seconds, and then the voice came to life again. “You may enter.”

  “Your friend’s not very talkative,” I said just as a whoosh of air pulled at strands of my hair. I expected the door to swing open, but instead, the wall seemed to start moving up. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the wall that was moving up, but that we were going down.

  My stomach churned as the platform we were standing on seemed to drop at an enormous pace, and subconsciously I took a step toward the middle. With the knowledge rendered from my information database, I had identified this form of transport as a magnetic lift and knew there was nothing to worry about. The idea that this information might come out of some residue memory instead of programming did have me a little worried.