The Fifth Battalion

by Michael Priv

  “Yeah, just thinking how that could be,” I scratched my head. “ I mean that your memories are stored in a different supercompact, dehydrated form. You add water when needed. You could think of it that way, I suppose. Don’t overthink it, though. Keep it simple,” Jane suggested.

  Keep what simple? “Anyway, Norm, the impact of the field is miniscule. It takes thousands of years of exposure to make a dent. The Guards are here on a fifty-year contract, which is a vastly insufficient exposure to make any difference. So the Guards are unaffected. The members of the 5th Battalion do not show homogeneous responses to the force field either, but it gets to all of us sooner or later. It seems to normally take two to five thousand years to click off the long-term memory. It does not happen gradually. It is literally like an on and off switch. The field overwhelms us, and we become one-lifers, almost like the convicts. One lifetime you remember everything, and then your body dies, you go through the rebirth cycle and boom! You are born a onelifer, a monkey with no longterm memory. Just like that.”

  “So after five thousand years, wouldn’t we all have lost our memory by now?” “Yes, indeed, we would and we probably all have at least once by now. This memory ‘off’ switch phenomenon was first observed in Mesopotamia about 1200 B.C. by Gishimar, a royal scientist at the court of King Kurigalzu II. Gishimar was the first to study the star they called ‘Nunki,’ Sigma Sagitarrii. He knew what he was doing. Anyway, he discovered that some of his old battalion buddies had lost their memory. He used a form of drug-induced psycho-therapy at the time—experimented with local herbs with some success. It was later determined experimentally that regression without drugs or hypnosis works better. Various attempts were made through the ages to build a machine that would nullify the effects of the force field in one’s mind, but the technology was insufficient at first. The first memory machine was built…”

  “So there is a machine?” I interrupted. “Then why did Bill waste so much time and why aren’t you using it on me?” “The machines can be dangerous, somewhat unpredictable, too many variables that may lead to side-effects, even to personality disintegration.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t want to know. We lost plenty of guys that way. We always try other means first, like our symbol, the praying mantis, or discussing science fiction—these things are often enough to click the memory back on. If not, we use regression therapy,” Jane explained. “Remembering even a single event from the past may blow the electromagnetic impairment and restore long-term memory. If one event isn’t enough, we can find two or three same way. We can do four for a good measure. But the rule is that if the memory is not restored by recalling three separate past-life incidents, or at most four if three didn’t do it, the regression therapy will not be successful in restoring the long-term memory. In other words, you would recall more and more individual incidents, but they would remain disjointed, no context or continuity. Not what we call a memory. Your life experience and abilities do not get restored that way. I’m hopeful we can avoid using the machine on you. We recovered three incidents from the past so far. We have to try for one more to know one way or the other. I think it’ll be okay.”

  “One more? Any preference?”

  “The specific incident I would like to get is your first arrival to Earth. Let’s try for that, but I’ll take anything,” Jane replied. “The first incident would be the deployment of the 5th Battalion, I suppose?” “Yes, let’s go for that. Ready?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. Close your eyes please.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Perfect. Now relax and see if anything comes to mind, any images or sounds, regarding your deployment here on Earth.” I relaxed and just looked into the blackness with my eyes closed. Nothing.

  “What do you see?” Jane asked. “ I see blackness with pinpricks of light.” I peered into the blackness behind my closed eyelids alit with all kinds of sparks and patterns.

  “ Look away from the sparks. What do you see?”

  “Damn!”

  “Yes?”

  “Going down!” I informed Jane.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  The throbbing of the rapidly descending personnel carrier reverberated through my body, trapping me in its terrifying rhythm. Strapped in my seat, among about twenty others, I held on to my harness for dear life. The automated guns were silent. We did not need them but I felt vulnerable anyway. Fear tied my stomach in knots.

  I willed myself to get a grip. The Stone Age natives would not challenge our descent. Invasion—what a joke. There was nothing to invade on this miserable little planet, if you ask me, but nobody asked a lowly sergeant.

  Mia’s beautiful face suddenly emerged from that corner of my mind where no one ever visited. Mia was laughing, trotting unsteadily, her adorable little hands reaching for me. I picked her up, laughing with her, smelling her, pressing her small body to my heart… the endless sky of love opened up in me. Mia, my little daughter. Back to back missions. How much I wished to be with you, my little angel, but—hell, Daddy’s got to work, right?

  I looked down the length of the craft, taking in the scenery of my friends, suited up and strapped in securely. I heard the pilots’ chatter in my earpiece. The rest of us maintained radio silence to let the pilots do their job. I scanned the monitors. The overhead view showed the diminishing mother ship, Chettez,discharging dozens of landing crafts, identical to ours. No more than about a hundred miles away now, the blue-white planet, the quickly approaching P-3, occupied the entire screen of the landing monitor. An enormous mountain range on the screen was getting closer, most of it covered with snow. Must be cold, too. I hated this place already.

  Private Zigs, idiotically grinning as usual, chirped into my earpiece, “Yo, Surge, I heard the local girls here put out for anything shiny, so…”

  “Operational traffic only!” I snapped.

  I knew this was going be a long mission. I just knew it. Frigging endless. “Yes?” Jane repeated softly, yanking me out of that personnel carrier. I told her what I just saw. Jane gave me a long, expecting stare. I guess to oblige I was supposed to jump up in jubilation of having restored my memory. No such luck. “What was the name of the mothership?” she finally asked.

  “Chettez.” Her face fell. “Great. This is the key event in restoring memory loss because at some point you crossed the prison force field for the first time. That’s key. So that’s very good.”

  “Anything to make you happy.”

  “I’m ecstatic,” Jane replied. She didn’t look happy, not even a little.

  “That’s four incidents, right? Do what you got to do.” I tried to help her through this best I could. Jane got up without a word, pulling out a cheery looking, red iPhone from her purse. I noticed her hand trembled slightly. Suddenly looking much older, deflated, Jane walked wearily out of the office into the waiting room. I heard a semblance of a muffled phone conversation. She returned quickly with a forced cheer back in place.

  “Well, Norm, you want to see how the machine works?” “What can I expect?” I asked quietly. This was it then.

  “ The normal expectation of body life is death, right? You’re one of us. You are under surveillance. It is about to get very hot very fast and it won’t stop. I think it’s worth the risk.”

  “What about Linda?”

  “Exactly. What about Linda? Sooner or later somebody may hurt her just to get to you.”

  “So you honestly think I should subject myself to the machine treatment?”

  “Yes, I do. I’m here for you. Bill’s on his way, too.” Bill! My eternal friend, Droog, was coming here to help me. I felt better. “How does it work? Tell me more.” “T he machine approximates the exact parameters of the force field as it affects the mind. The procedure consists of finding the first instant your mind was subjected to the force field and zapping you with the exact same field. As you may know, two things cannot occupy the same space. If they do, they both self-destruct. That is the w
ay the original effect of the force field is nullified at that instant, blowing up the entire cumulative effect over time. If all goes as planned, it takes a fraction of a second and your memory is restored as suddenly as it originally dropped off. The switch clicks back ‘on’ and you’re good as new for a few thousand years.”

  “And if it doesn’t go as planned? The worst-case scenario?” Jane looked away as if she couldn’t hold my gaze. “It may take a few hours or a couple of days to recover. You can usually expect full recovery. The worst-case scenario is bad. You may end up with a near total cognitive impairment—this life-time only,” Jane explained, looking away again.

  This lifetime only. What was the point in asking? They’d kill me if it’d gone wrong. I asked anyway. “Do you mean to tell me, that if I don’t come around in some expected period of time, you’ll kill me?”

  Jane looked as if she was going to be sick. “Well, yes,” she finally said, “except ‘kill’ refers to the body, not to you. It might be better to look at it as pressing a reset button.”

  That explanation failed to make me feel a whole lot better. I had to do it anyway. “What are the odds of things going bad?” I asked quietly.

  “About eight percent per our records.” Jane stared at me as if asking for understanding. Is that all? Only eight percent. If I were a gambling man, I’d take such odds any time. Ninety-two percent chance of success— way better than I expected.

  “If I turn into a tofu, you do what you have to do, but promise you’ll take care of Linda, okay?”

  Jane nodded, “She will be taken care of, Norman. We will not abandon her.” I knew they wouldn’t. I unfolded myself from her enormous chair. Funny how things worked. I didn’t want to die. I realized I actually loved life all along. I never thought I did. “Okay, where is the machine? Lead the way.”

  I expected some terrifying, formaldehyde-soaked surgery room in a basement, the skull drilling, electrodes in the brain and all the good stuff of which the horror movies are made.

  “Right here,” Jane nodded at her laptop. “This is the machine. Sit down.”

  I sat down, staring at the laptop. “The Guards used to always seek out our memory machines and destroy them. So now we have software openly sold all over the world as two separate Apple apps, the wine-tasting one and the Angry Bird, as the key to getting the other working. You need both. These apps have been downloaded by tens of millions of users, as you can imagine. Nothing the Guards can do about that now,” Jane explained as she pulled out two electrodes from her desk drawer and plastered them to my forehead with sticky tape. This was supposed to be dangerous. Eight percent. Just as I finally found a footing in life, I may end up dead. Sucks.

  “Ready?” Jane asked with forced cheer in her voice. I nodded silently. Didn’t want my voice to betray my weakness at this moment. It occurred to me that Jane was by far not the worst last thing to see before you die, but I would much rather see Linda.

  “Can I call Linda?” Jane thought about it for a moment. “We have to assume Linda’s phone is bugged and the call could be traced to this location. But they already know you’re here. So at this point…”

  Grateful and relieved, I pressed “Linda” on my phone, my favorite entry. “Hi, Picky! Where are you? Done with Dr. Rosenthal for today?” Linda’s cheerful voice filled my entire being with joy. Linda was the only person who called me Picky after one of my infantile work buddies characterized me to her as a few sandwiches short of a picnic. She called me Picky ever since.

  “Hi, sweets! No, I’m still here with Dr. Rosenthal. Hey, you know, I quit drinking. That’s it on that!”

  “I sure hope so! Well done, love!”

  “Linda, listen, I just called to say I love you.” Damn, I didn’t mean to plagiarize the blind man.

  Linda picked up on it, “Who does your lyrics for you? Stevie Wonder? No April rain, no flowers bloom?”

  We both laughed.

  “What can I say? I taught Stevie everything he knows,” I assured Linda.

  “You did an exceptional job on him. Love you too, Picky. Bye, hon, see you soon!”

  “See you.”

  That was that, then. I turned to Jane, who was listening in with a tortured look.

  “Okay, Lady Jane, let’s do it.” “Norm, you’ll be okay,” her nervous smile was strangely encouraging. I smiled back. Shockingly, I was not as pathetic, as I thought I would be under the circumstances. I was taking it like a real—what? A real man? No, a real soldier. I was taking it like a real soldier. I wasa real soldier. I was certain now. Wow!

  “Now, think of the instant you first crossed the force field,” Jane ordered firmly. “I remember the deployment.”

  “How far from Earth?”

  “The orbit was probably about three hundred miles out or so. Right?” “ Three hundred and some,” Jane nodded. “So, you must have crossed the field some thirty-seven hundred miles back by the time your landing craft deployed.”

  “Would I feel that first instant?”

  “No, you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

  “So how would I find it?”

  “Just keep thinking back from the deployment event and I’ll pick up that instant here as a brain wave response. So just keep thinking. I’ll know it when I see it.”

  I kept thinking back from being cooped up in the shuddering landing pod with Zigs and the boys. Back, back, back. Nothing came to mind at first. Then I saw a large brightly lit chamber with hundreds of troops suiting up before boarding the personnel carriers. Then inside the pods. Nothing.

  “Think earlier,” Jane ordered. I thought earlier. Breakfast —we had none. Disappointing. No liquids and no food. We got hydrated intravenously just before the suit-up. They sure knew how to take all the fun out of hydration. Had to do these things on empty stomach and all that. Earlier…

  Suddenly somebody switched off the lights. With eyes wide open, I could see things, but I could no longer recognize anything or anybody and had no idea who I was or even that I was supposed to be somebody and have a name or any identity at all. I simply observed the shapes and colors in front of me mindlessly. All I saw was motion in front of my unblinking eyes. Light didn’t bother me. Nothing bothered me. There were some sounds, all completely unrecognizable. A prick of the arm. Then nothing.

  Finally, the oblivion that I wanted so much. In retrospect, a soso experience. Just empty, stupid nothingness.

  5 My Linda. I saw her in my dream as a little girl. Her name was Ursula then. Neighbors and playmates, we grew up together near Liege, Frankish Empire at the time, modern day Belgium, the year of the Christ 987. I was about five, when I recognized her in the three-year-old neighbor’s daughter. When Ursula, or Ussie as I used to call her, was old enough to play with me, we splashed together in our beautiful river, the Meuse. We shared our first awkward kiss when she was nine.

  Once in the pastures down the river, when she was probably ten or eleven, completely unlike her perky self, Ursula sat quietly, her back against a willow, weaving a wreath with the most beautiful flowers she could find, her lips moving in silent prayer.

  “What is it?” I asked, alarmed. She just kept shooing me away. Finally, with the wreath completed to Ussie’s satisfaction, she placed it on my head. “Before Father God and Mother Earth I choose you as my husband. Do you choose me as your wife?”

  “I do,” I mumbled, shocked but ecstatically happy— the happiest boy-man on Earth. “Forever?” Ussie asked solemnly.

  “Forever,” I confirmed.

  She kissed my lips. “Faolan, take me now,” Ussie whispered in my ear. Her silky skin and that moment in tall grass at the riverbank—so meaningful, beautiful and intense—are etched in my mind forever.

  Was our lovemaking sublime! I knew we had been lovers before and told Ursula, but she did not remember our past lives together, as usual. She thought I was crazy.

  But I convinced her that we had lived together and loved each other before. I told her how she died about a thousand years prior.
She was a man then, by the name Theoderic; we were Ostrogoth. My name was Adelheid, and I was Theoderic’s wife. We both lost our lives in a battle with the Romans, who felt compelled to cross the Rhine River and set up their stinking forts in our forests. We kept fighting those pretty Roman boys with their plumes and flashy clothes, inflicting terrible losses on them—and ourselves. We would always push them out, but they would always return to fight us again.

  Theoderic (Ursula, Linda —same person) was killed in that battle by an arrow to the throat, his death was quick. I outlived him by mere seconds. I took a spear through the chest, but not before I charged the suddenly terrified adolescent archer, who shot that fatal arrow that killed my Theoderic, and succeeded in hacking his head clean off with my heavy sword.

  When I told Ursula how she died, she cried in pain, grabbed her throat and coughed so hard that she was soon spitting blood. She was so sick for a few days, and her throat hurt so much, that I promised myself then and there to never again tell anybody their past deaths.

  From that point on, Ursula knew she had lived before. That added depth and beauty to our relationship and our lovemaking.

  6 “ What, catatonic like that? We need to activate the care drill using three special care attendants in shifts 24-7 for a couple weeks.” Bill’s concerned voice wormed its way into my consciousness.

  I opened my eyes, feeling pretty good and well-rested. “Who’s catatonic?” I asked, hoping for a splashy entrance. “Hey, sweet-tits!” I added when Jane’s beaming face came into focus. “Sorry, I meant ‘Hey, Jane!’”

  “That’s better,” Jane replied, grinning.