by A. G. Riddle
Desmond rose and moved slowly over to the glass wall.
“Why?” His captor’s question was laced with malice and, to Desmond’s surprise, hurt. The man seemed enraged but also vulnerable somehow.
“Who are you?” Desmond asked.
The man sneered and spoke with a thick Australian accent. “Drop the charade, Desmond. I don’t believe the whole amnesia bit.”
“Look, I have absolutely no idea who you are. I woke up in a hotel room in Berlin a few days ago with no memories. I didn’t even know who I was.”
“We’ll see about that.” The man brought a handheld radio to his face and said, “Proceed.”
Inside the cell, a soft hissing began. Desmond looked around, searching for the source: the slot in the wall, where he had assumed food was passed. He was unconscious within seconds.
Awareness came in slow, fuzzy waves. Desmond’s head felt heavy. He heard distorted voices, like people conversing quietly at the top of a well, with him deep inside.
The light overhead was blinding. He was strapped to a chair similar to a dentist’s chair, his legs fully extended, his head strapped back. An IV was connected inside his elbow. A machine beeped somewhere beyond his vision.
“What have you done with Rendition?” It was the blond, scar-faced man.
“He’s conscious,” another man’s voice said.
“Dose him again!”
“You’re giving him too much. You’ve got to let it wear off.”
“Do it.”
When Desmond awoke once more, he was back on the narrow mattress in the metal and glass cell. His mind was sluggish, still drug-addled.
Just beyond the glass, the blond man sat on a folding metal chair next to a small table, studying a tablet, his legs crossed. He set the device aside when Desmond stirred. His demeanor had changed: the hatred in his eyes was gone, replaced by a more serene, contemplative gaze.
Desmond sat up. “You believe me now?” he asked.
“Yes.” The man stood and walked to the glass.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Conner McClain. Does that mean anything to you?”
Desmond shook his head.
Conner turned his back to the glass. “Right now, events are taking place that will forever alter the course of human history. Behind the scenes, behind the headlines, a war is raging. Very soon, it will explode around the world.”
Headlines, Desmond thought. “The outbreak in Kenya.”
“Yes.”
“You’re responsible. You started it.”
“No, Desmond. We started it.”
The words hit Desmond like a Mack truck. He searched his feelings, wondering if it was true.
“We’re running out of time,” Conner said. “I need your help. I need you to tell me everything that happened to you. I need you to help me stop what’s going to happen to all of us.”
“Let me out.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Consider my position, Desmond. I don’t know what happened to you.”
“What do you think happened to me?”
“I see two possibilities. The first is that one of our enemies got to you. And they’re using you to try to stop us.”
“One of our enemies?”
“Yes. Until a few days ago, you and I were partners.”
“Partners in what?”
“The greatest scientific endeavor in history.”
“The Looking Glass.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because of the second possible reason you might have lost your memories.”
“Which is?”
“That you did this to yourself—that you betrayed us and our cause. That’s actually the more frightening scenario. Either way, I’m not sure whose side you’re on, Desmond. But if you recover your memories, you’ll know the truth of what we’re facing. You’ll know that we’re humanity’s only hope—that the Looking Glass is our only hope.”
“There are three pieces,” Desmond said. “Rook, Rendition, and Rapture.”
“You remember?”
“No. The journalist told me.” Desmond’s mind flashed to the man, the fear on his face when he’d said, They have my fiancée. “What happened to him?”
Conner averted his eyes.
“I asked you a question.”
“We sent him on an all-expenses paid trip to Disneyland, Desmond. What do you think happened to him?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Rendition.”
“What is it?”
“Your life’s work. Your piece of the Looking Glass.”
Sitting on the narrow bed, Desmond tried to remember anything about Rendition. Nothing came to him. The word evoked no memories—only a feeling: it must be protected. Instinctively, Desmond knew that if Conner gained possession of Rendition, an unimaginable catastrophe would occur, a loss of life on a scale never seen before.
He looked up. “What about the other components of the Looking Glass?”
“Rook is my project. It’s almost complete.”
“And Rapture?”
“Is safely secured by our partner. Listen, Des. It’s imperative that you remember what you’ve done with Rendition. Lives are at stake; the very future of the human race.”
The two men stared at one another, each trying to read the other.
The hatch to the corridor opened, and a man and woman marched in. They set a laptop and a flat-screen monitor on the table where Conner had been sitting. They turned the screen to face Desmond’s cell.
“What’s this?”
“We’re going to try to help you remember.”
The woman typed on the laptop, and a picture appeared on the screen. It showed a young, blond-haired boy, perhaps seven years old, standing next to a tall, ruddy-faced man in overalls. An oil rig towered behind them.
Desmond studied both faces. “It’s me, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Do you remember him?”
Desmond had seen the older man’s face once before—in a memory.
Out of pure instinct, Desmond lied.
“No.”
To the woman, Conner said, “Keep at it. Call me if you make any breakthroughs.”
Chapter 39
When Conner had slipped out of view, Desmond again looked at the picture on the screen. Seeing it did bring back a memory. An unpleasant one.
Soon after arriving in Oklahoma, Desmond learned why Charlotte had been so hesitant to put him on the airplane. Despite being his next of kin, Orville Hughes had no use for Desmond, or any five-year-old boy for that matter. The man was tall and muscular, with a mean face, constantly arranged in a sneer.
He lived just south of Oklahoma City, in a small farmhouse outside Slaughterville. Orville worked on the oil rigs, usually on two- or three-week shifts, after which he’d be home for a few weeks. Desmond was largely left to fend for himself. He looked forward to the time alone.
When Orville was home, he drank whiskey late into the night and slept half the day. Sometimes he listened to music, mostly cowboy songs. The rest of the time he watched reruns of old Westerns. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Have Gun—Will Travel were his favorites. Desmond wasn’t allowed to speak or make noise in any way when a movie with Charles Bronson, John Wayne, or Clint Eastwood was on. He was, however, required to cook and clean. His uncle meted out punishment only once for non-compliance. That was enough for Desmond.
He soon identified a pattern to his uncle’s drinking. The first half of a bottle barely affected the man. The remainder was like a potion that changed him completely. He got meaner with every swallow. He talked more, sometimes to himself, sometimes at Desmond, his English accent growing thicker by the minute.
He talked about his childhood, in London, after the war. Everything was prefaced with after the war.
“You think your life is hard, boy? You don’t kn
ow a thing about hard living. After the war, that was hard. You’re soft, boy. Your daddy was soft too. He took over that sheep ranch from your mother’s family, lived the soft life. Raised a soft little brat.”
He talked about work on the rigs, how hard it was, how heroic he was. Late at night, when he was deep into the bottle, he talked about the accidents: men losing fingers, hands, entire limbs. Deaths. The stories were gruesome. When Desmond couldn’t take it anymore, he got up to leave. That was a mistake. His uncle yelled at him not to walk away when he was talking to him. “You’re so soft you can’t even bear to hear about real men’s work, can you?”
He took another swallow of whiskey.
“Can you?”
He studied Desmond.
“You watched them die, didn’t you? Then you ran away. That’s why you got them scars on your legs—from running.”
He had argued then. That was his worst mistake of all. He learned after that. His uncle only wanted a verbal punching bag. It was like Orville was using his words to drain the poison out of himself. He didn’t want that poison returned. Desmond learned to sit in silence.
A few weeks after he arrived in Oklahoma City, Desmond learned why the bitter man had taken him in. Orville was standing in the kitchen, the phone cord stretching from the wall, muttering about how much the call to Australia was costing him. When the line connected, he demanded to know when the money would arrive. Desmond sat in the living room, listening.
“I don’t care if it’s burned worse than the gates of Hell! You sell that bloody property and send the money. That was the deal.”
A pause.
“Well send the money or I’ll send the snot-nosed brat back, and you can deal with him.”
Desmond felt the tears welling in his eyes. He couldn’t bear to let that monster see him cry or to stay there another minute. He grabbed the rifle by the door and ran out of the house, into the early March afternoon. He had decided: he was running away. He would live off the land, build another fort, live there until he could get a real job and get away.
An hour later, he sat in a tree, waiting. He missed the white-tailed doe with his first shot. The old rifle kicked like a mule, and Desmond nearly fell out of the tree—and the doe was gone before he could work the .30-30’s lever and load another cartridge. But he held on and waited. Snow began falling, scattered flakes at first, then a steady downfall.
Desmond had never seen snow before. In Australia, his father had said that it only snowed in the mountains of the Victorian High Country, in the northeast.
He watched as the white flakes blew in the wind.
When the next doe emerged from the far tree line, he was more patient. It was smaller than the last, younger, less cautious. He waited as it meandered closer, sighted, held a breath as his father had taught him, and squeezed the trigger.
The animal fell and flailed on the ground.
Desmond was out of the tree in seconds, making tracks across the open field. He finished the poor doe quickly.
As he studied his kill, he realized the foolishness of his plan. He had no way to clean the animal, store the meat, even cook the portions his empty stomach cried out for.
But he could take it home, show his uncle that he could earn his keep. That he wouldn’t be a burden. Seeing the doe would change his uncle’s mind. Desmond was sure of it.
He took it by the legs, began dragging it through the snow. He didn’t get far. Desmond was nearly four feet tall and strong for his age, but the animal weighed nearly twice what he did. He would have to run back and get his uncle’s help.
He trudged through the snow, which was a few inches deep now. The cold wind whipped at his face and beat past the jacket Charlotte had sent with him.
With each step, the white wall became more complete. He didn’t know it then, but he was marching through a rapidly forming blizzard. The winds tossed him from side to side, disorienting him.
It was like the fire in Australia: he was again caught in an inferno, only this one was made of ice.
He got turned around so much that he had no idea which way home was. He knew the bush and paddocks around his parents’ station like the back of his hand. This land was foreign to him. There were no markers to guide him. He was completely lost.
He would die here, in the cold, alone. He was sure of it. He had survived the fire, had been brought back to life by an angel, only to die here, in the ice, left for dead by a devil.
His legs ached. He desperately wanted to sit down, to rest. But somehow, he knew if he did, he would never get back up.
He pushed forward, clutching the rifle. He knew dropping it—losing it—would be a death sentence. He tried to fire it in the air to call for help, but he couldn’t get his fingers to work.
Through a break in the snow, he saw a column of smoke rising from his uncle’s home in the distance. He made for it with every last bit of strength he had.
When he reached the porch, he expected the door to fly open. It stayed closed. A yellow glow from the fire inside shone through the windows. Salvation.
He threw the door open, leaned the rifle against the wall, and rushed inside. His uncle never looked at him, only shouted for him to close the door.
Desmond eyed the bottle. It was nearly empty. He would have to be careful to stay out of the man’s way.
Chapter 40
Outside the brig, Conner marched down the corridor, his footsteps echoing loudly. The entire crew of the Kentaro Maru was bustling, preparing for the next phase. They would have to work very quickly to assemble the Looking Glass. Delay could cost billions of lives, perhaps even every human life.
If he didn’t find out what had happened to Desmond soon, their cause would be in trouble. Desmond held the key to the Looking Glass and to everything they had worked for.
Inside the infirmary’s conference room, screens on the wall displayed x-rays, MRIs, and other scans Conner didn’t even recognize.
“What did you find?” he asked the three researchers conversing at the end of the table.
A younger physician swiveled in his chair. “His body’s a horror story. I’ve never seen so many fractures—”
“He had a rough childhood. Now tell me: What. Did. You. Find?”
Dr. Henry Anderson, an older scientist with white hair, spoke up. “An implant in his brain. It’s located in the hippocampus.”
“What kind of implant?”
“A Rapture Therapeutics model. It’s been modified, though.”
“Modified to do what?”
“That’s not clear,” Anderson said, “but the added component looks like a data receiver and transmitter.”
“What would it link up with? A satellite?”
“Possibly. But I count that as unlikely. Not enough power. It’s probably something shorter range. Bluetooth. WiFi, maybe.”
The younger scientist spoke again. “Could be used to communicate with a smartphone, which could act as a bridge to the net. It could be downloading instructions that would unblock memories.”
“Interesting,” Conner whispered. Louder, he said, “How would it work?”
The older scientist shrugged. “Who knows? This is all pure speculation. I was never a Rapture employee and didn’t work on the project; everything I know is from their published research. We know the original Rapture Therapeutics implants were used for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, and other psych conditions. They monitored levels of key brain chemicals and stimulated the release of neurotransmitters. Basically, they helped balance the patient’s neurochemistry.
“The later versions of the Rapture implant, like the one inside Hughes, focused on other areas of the brain. Their published trials focused on dissolving brain plaques. The implants targeted the plaques and released a protein called GP3, which dissolved them. The approach has the potential to cure a wide array of neurodegenerative diseases—Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and more.”
Conner held his hand up. “How does that apply here? You foun
d plaques in his brain?”
“No. We checked. We found something else, though: an unknown substance throughout his hippocampus.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I can only speculate—”
“Speculate away,” Conner said, losing patience.
Dr. Anderson inhaled deeply. “A few years ago, researchers at MIT discovered a way to actually isolate the location, in the brain, of specific memories. It was a breakthrough—the revelation that individual memories were stored biochemically in specific groups of neurons in the hippocampus. I believe the substance in Hughes’s hippocampus binds the neurons associated with specific memories, making them inaccessible—in a manner similar to the way that brain plaques affect memories in Alzheimer’s and physical abilities in Parkinson’s.”
“And you think Rapture Therapeutics put that substance there. And that the implant in his hippocampus has a way to dissolve the substance, unblocking the memories—similar to the way GP3 dissolves brain plaques?”
“Yes, that’s our hypothesis. We further hypothesize that the communication component that’s been added to the implant is a triggering mechanism. A Bluetooth-enabled phone or WiFi-connected computer could tell the implant to unlock the memories. Those triggering events could happen based on a set schedule, or when certain events occur. Or perhaps even when Hughes arrives at certain GPS locations. It’s also possible that certain cues, emotions, images, or sensations could unlock memories. The implant could be keyed to determine which memories are safe to reveal.”
Conner leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Well, gentlemen, it seems there’s a very simple way to confirm your plethora of suppositions. Call Rapture Therapeutics. Ask them. After all, we own the company.”
