Level 2

by Lenore Appelhans

  Peterson, Beckah. Memory #29899

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  When I open the cage, the puppy bounds toward me and licks my fingers. I set down a bowl of water and then scratch the wriggly animal on the scruff of his neck, saying a prayer of thanks that Lincoln let me take his shift today. Volunteering at the shelter is the only thing keeping me sane these days.

  “Beckah?” Mrs. Gray calls from the front desk. “A lady brought in three litters of kittens. Can you come help me?”

  I nudge the puppy back into his cage and latch the door. As I head out to take care of the new arrivals, I smooth my blazer and brush away a small clump of dog hair.

  But suddenly I’m back in my bedroom. The air is thick with smoke as I inch my hand up the door, feeling for the handle. I press my pillowcase over my mouth with my other hand, but it’s not helping much. My breaths are shallow, but still I cough. When I finally find the handle, I snatch my hand away. It’s burning. I have to find another way out. The window. “Help!” I try to scream as I crawl toward the window, but my voice is so weak. My strength is gone, and I crumple to the floor. “I’m dying! I’m dying.”

  But this is not me. I’m Felicia, not Beckah. As real as it feels, this is not my memory. I force my mind to push out of it and enter Beckah’s console. I browse through her saved favorites until I find a memory of Beckah as a five-year-old sitting in the middle of a sunny meadow, plucking wildflowers and arranging them carefully in a basket.

  I pull out of her grooves and then sit up to examine my hands. They feel raw and look oddly red. What’s going on? I haven’t been able to feel anything, except in my memories, until now, and pain is not exactly the sensation I’d choose for my first in an eternity.

  “Are you okay in there?” asks Virginia.

  I scoot out carefully, wincing each time I put weight on my hands. “I did it! I was inside Beckah’s memories.” Only Virginia and Beckah remain in our common space. The other drones have moved back to their own chambers.

  “Really? How?” Virginia looks from me to the semiconscious Beckah and back again. “That’s impossible!”

  “I honestly don’t know. I imagined myself controlling her console, and then I was.”

  “What are you, some kind of telekinetic hacker prodigy?” Virginia appraises me as if seeing me for the first time.

  “Actually . . .” I consider confiding in Virginia, but don’t feel like getting into a bunch of lengthy stories about my shameful past. Not with everything that’s going on. “It’s nothing.” I shrug as nonchalantly as possible.

  She raises a nonexistent eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

  “So anyway, I landed in this memory of her at the animal shelter, but then it, like, switched over to her death memory.” I shudder. “Luckily, I was able to turn it off and go into one of her top tens. Maybe if we put her back in now, reliving it will calm her down.”

  “Let’s do it.” Virginia lifts Beckah’s head from her lap and grabs under her shoulders as she raises herself from a sitting position.

  I lift Beckah’s legs at the same time Virginia lifts her torso. We stumble a bit, but get her back in and her hands settled into her grooves. She relaxes instantly, a smile forming on her lips.

  “Wow. Impressive.” Virginia straightens and nods in appreciation.

  I raise my hand for a high five.

  “Felicia! What’s wrong with your hands? They’re red!”

  I groan. “I know. I burned them in Beckah’s console. In the fire that killed her.”

  “Now, that’s crazy.” Virginia grabs my hands and turns them palm-up for inspection. “How can that happen? Things don’t transfer from our memories. Because, believe me, if they did, I’d smell like Chanel No. 5 instead of a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Maybe I need to go on the network and try to find a memory of someone slathering themselves with burn cream.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “I bet it doesn’t smell too great, though.”

  “No. I bet not.” Virginia taps her chin. “You said before you went into Beckah’s console that a lot of weird stuff was going on, the system changing or something. What did you mean?”

  “Have you forgotten the siren already? Julian showing up? Seeing a boy here for the first time ever definitely counts as weird.”

  Virginia narrows her eyes. “Oh, hell no! Now you’re making stuff up.”

  Am I? My brain feels heavy, my thoughts murky. It’s always like this when I’m out of my chamber for any length of time. “Julian was here. I’m sure of it.”

  Virginia chuckles. “Wishful thinking, sweets. But if a guy does ever come, send him my way. I could use a little man action.”

  “Trust me. If I wanted man action, I wouldn’t get it from Julian.” The thought disgusts me. “You really don’t remember he was here?”

  “No. Because he wasn’t,” she says firmly. “Nobody has ever been here but us.”

  This place is starting to really creep me out. I stride over to the flat expanse of wall where I remember the door opening. Where Julian stood. I shudder.

  “Where are you going?” Virginia follows me.

  “There was a door. Right here.” I pound the curved wall, drawing back as the sound echoes dully though the hive. “It was open and Julian stood right here.”

  “A door.” Virginia looks at me like I am insane. “Really. I’m starting to think some of that smoke inhalation from Beckah’s fire has given you hallucinations.”

  I bite back my frustration and push past her, returning to Beckah’s chamber. “Let’s just check on Beckah.”

  I peer into Beckah’s chamber. Her eyes are open, staring at her lighted console, and her hands are folded across her chest. She looks peaceful. She looks dead. “Beckah?”

  Beckah turns her head and looks at me. “Who are you?” she asks in a little girl voice. “Where’s my mommy?”

  I’m speechless. Virginia gasps behind me, and then she’s beside me, reaching out to take Beckah’s hands in hers. “Beck-ah!”

  “You’re not my mommy,” says Beckah, pulling away. She scrambles as far from us as possible, which is not far. Then she pulls her legs to her chest and huddles against the smooth back wall of her chamber. “I want my mommy.”

  I exchange a look with Virginia, and we both straighten up at the same time. “Is this weird enough for you?” I whisper.

  “But what’s going on with Beckah?” Her eyes grow unnaturally wide. “Is this what is going to happen to us?”

  “Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe by programming a memory of five-year-old Beckah, I made her regress to that state?” I start to pace. It helps me fight through the sludge in my head so I can think. Ten long strides from Beckah’s chamber to the erstwhile door. And ten long strides back. “Maybe I can get in there again and try to program something else?”

  “Such as?” Virginia drops down to the stair closest to Beckah’s chamber. “The day her momma left her? The day she got beat to a pulp by her stepdaddy because she didn’t wash his dish fast enough?”

  I stop in my tracks and glare at her. “No need to be sarcastic.” Then I continue my pacing.

  From what little I know of her life, Beckah didn’t have a lot of good days, especially as she got older. And what was it going to help if I programmed in something from when she was seventeen and not five? She still wouldn’t remember us, since she didn’t know us while she was alive. At least if she were older, though, maybe she’d be more able to help herself. I know she’s tougher than she looks.

  “I can rent a comforting memory off the net for her,” I say. “Calm her down.”

  “You know as well as I do that Beckah never has any credits. No one wants to rent her awful memories.”

  That’s not entirely true. Beckah does sometimes get good credits for her careful and thoughtful reads of classic and modern literature. In literary circles on the net she has some ca
che, especially because she was often patient enough to read entire books in one sitting. She’s no S. K. Love, the top source for quantity and quality, but her memory editions get their fair share of rentals. The problem is, she spends whatever credits she gets as soon as they come in. I guess I might too if my life had been like hers.

  “I can try transferring some of my credits to her.” I amass way more credits than I can ever use. Turns out people here pay top credit for travel, and I did a lot of that in my short lifetime. It’s the new experiences and sensations people clamor for, as everything familiar tends to produce a powerful state of ennui once you’ve done it enough.

  “If that works, you can send some my way too.” Virginia grins. “I’m getting critically low myself.”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ll get right on that.” I duck back down to check on Beckah. She’s whimpering softly, chattering her teeth as if she were cold. Which she can’t be. Either our afterlife bodies aren’t sensitive enough to know the difference or the temperature stays a comfortable constant.

  “Hey, Beckah. I’m going to bring you a kitty. Would you like that?” From the memory of hers I recently experienced, I know she has a soft spot for animals, so I figure a cat is a good bet.

  Beckah nods slowly, her chin quivering. “I like kitties.”

  “That’s great! Now, if you want your kitty, you’re going to have to lie down again. Can you do that for me?”

  She considers me for a moment and then nods again. “Okay.” She crawls over and lies down in her grooves.

  “Good girl. Now close your eyes. I’ll be right back with your kitty, Beckah.” I have the urge to tuck her in with a blanket and stroke her hair, but neither is possible, considering the lack of both. I cross my fingers that my plan will work. Perhaps I wasn’t the best friend on Earth, but I want to be someone Beckah and Virginia can count on. I need to be.

  I turn to Virginia. “Why don’t you stay here and keep your eye on Beckah while I see what I can do from my chamber?”

  Virginia gives me a mock salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  I punch her lightly on the shoulder and then head back to my chamber. I pause to look around the hive—all the podlike chambers are lit up as the drones shoot up on memories. Why is it that only Virginia and I care about what happens to Beckah? God knows we’ve all been here long enough to form a strong bond, and yet most of the drones have never shown the slightest bit of interest in getting to know one another. I’ve wanted to get out of here before, but now the tight quarters start to choke me. There has to be more to death than this.

  I slide into my chamber and relax into my grooves, smiling as the warm glow of my hologram screen greets me. My body tingles in response to plugging in, like it always does. The pain in my hands is gone, replaced by tiny prickles of pleasure. The closest I can equate it to is slipping into impossibly warm bathwater filled with delicious spices on a chilly winter evening. Despite my chamber’s cold, metallic appearance, it is a remarkably ergonomic setup. Whoever designed it—God? Angels? Evil overlords of death?—sure knew what they were doing.

  The net architecture isn’t the most sophisticated, but it has never been buggy until now. Its basic function is to allow you to access and rent out your memories as well as to rent the memories of others. When you access your own memories, you can tag them with labels. This is so you can find what you are looking for more easily but also so you can advertise your wares to others on the net. So for example, the succulent steak dinner I ate with my father at a Brazilian churrascaria in Buenos Aires when I accompanied him on one of his business trips, I labeled with “Dad,” “best medium-well steak dinner ever,” and “Argentina.”

  Obviously people want to make their memories sound as appealing as possible so that the memories will sell and garner them credits. This leads to a lot of “best ever” labels that are not at all accurate in their description. Fortunately, renters have the chance to give feedback using a star rating of one through five, five being the best and one the worst. My “best steak dinner ever” is currently rated a five, and it gets a lot of rentals, even though it costs more credits than a steak dinner rated a four (totally acceptable quality, in my opinion). People love a great steak—even, I suspect, those who were vegetarians in life. In any case, it’s much more popular than my “best brussels sprouts ever.” I wonder sometimes, though, does this collective rating of memories add value to our existence here? Do certain parts of people’s pasts deserve to be remembered while others are forgotten?

  The net is a sprawling place to surf, so once you find memories you enjoy and want to come back to, you can save them in a “favorites” folder for easier access. As long as you have the credits, the net helps a lot in quelling the boredom of our never-ending days. But it does have its limits. You can’t access memories formed outside of your lifetime, so there are no journeys to the past and none to the future. I’ve tried to get around this so I can find out what happened to Neil, but I’ve had no success so far.

  It’s also not set up to “gift” credits or memories, but I’ve managed to crack the code and donate to other people before. Most simple would be to rent Beckah’s memories to bestow credits on her account. I used to do this, but once I exhausted her book collection, my rentals were more charity driven than anything else. Since I don’t want to take the time to rent a memory now—renting means playing back a memory immediately in its entirety—I opt for the hacker route.

  I search through my database for a good cat memory to share. Usually when I feel like cuddling with a cat, I call up Neil’s cat, Sugar. After school, and before Neil’s parents got home from work, Neil and I used to take naps together in his room, though Neil insisted we keep the door open to keep him from acting on his impure thoughts. Sugar would join us, lying in the crook of my arm and purring like a motor. But sharing Sugar would mean sharing Neil, and I don’t want to risk that, just in case the system is really messed up and I can’t get my memory back.

  I decide to share one of Zamora. She was the sweet-natured stray that visited us during one of our stays in Washington, D.C., between country assignments. My mother wouldn’t let us keep her officially since we traveled too much to be responsible pet owners, but she did buy cat food for her, so I considered her our cat.

  I pick one to transfer to Beckah’s account, a warm summer morning when Zamora was stretched out on my lap while I watched cartoons. It’s a long shot, but I try to copy and paste and drag and drop. Both methods produce error messages. I’m going to have to go in the back way and code my own path, something I don’t like to do because it reminds me too much of my sins. There’s a tiny button at the top of the screen, and I push it for three long beats with short pauses in between, a trick I discovered accidentally a while back. The screen fills with code, and I rearrange it, trying out various combinations and switching back to the home screen to see if it works. Finally I see the “In use” designation and give myself a virtual pat on the back.

  I hop out of my chamber to report back to Virginia, but she’s not there. Alarmed, I rush down the stairs and over to Beckah’s chamber and look in.

  It’s empty. Beckah is gone.

  CHAPTER 4

  MY SCREAM attracts the attention of Virginia and the other drones. Virginia rushes over. The other drones do not.

  “Why did you leave Beckah all alone? She’s gone!” I try not to sound judgmental, but I can’t help it.

  “What are you talking about?” asks Virginia, genuine confusion on her face. “Who’s Beckah?”

  Her words hit me hard, and I stare at her, openmouthed. This cannot be happening. If Virginia still remembers me but doesn’t remember Beckah, then whoever controls this place not only removed Beckah physically from her chamber, they must have deleted her from the net altogether. But why do I still remember her?

  “Who was in this chamber if it wasn’t Beckah?”

  Virginia scrutinizes the empty chamber and then scrunches up her face at me as if I am asking a trick question. “Uhhh
. . . that chamber has always been empty.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Seems pretty wasteful,” I say, my tone betraying my impatience.

  “You look stressed out, Felicia.” Virginia puts her arm around me and knocks her hip against mine. “Can I suggest renting a couple of my rocking parties to cheer you up? I could use the credits, and I know you’re good for them.”

  “I’m not in the mood, thanks.” I extract myself from her embrace and stalk back to my chamber. How is it that Virginia can remember me but not the three of us together?

  “Suit yourself!” She hums a Pink song. Loudly. Once I get to my stairs, I turn and catch her swaying to the beat of her music with her eyes half-closed. Totally blissed out.

  I couldn’t have dreamed what happened in Beckah’s chamber. I’m not going crazy. I’m not.

  I slam myself into my chamber and pull up my console. The memory I shared with Beckah is no longer displaying “In use.” Instead there is a flickering “Error” message. I access my labels cloud and scan it for “Beckah.” Nothing. Same in my book favorites. All of Beckah’s editions are gone. Wiped from the net as if they never existed.

  I’m stunned. All this time, I’ve known I’m dead—at least what people still on Earth think of as dead—but I’ve never felt completely dead, because I obviously still exist in this place, whatever it is, and I can access my life anytime. It never ever occurred to me I could be so easily erased.

  I heard somewhere once that people never truly die while people on Earth still remember them. As long as a person is in someone else’s thoughts, a part of them lives on. Does that mean that everyone who once knew Beckah is now dead too? Is that why she is gone from here? But surely everyone who once knew me must be dead too, considering I’ve been here for what seems like lifetimes upon lifetimes.

  Has Beckah ceased to exist? Or has she moved on to another plane? Up until the last six months of my life, I had little interest in church and religion, but I knew enough about heaven that I’m pretty sure this can’t be it. Could it be some sort of purgatory? Or even hell?