Root of Unity

by SL Huang

  “Rape?” I supplied. “So what?”

  “So what?”

  “If it was, it’s my business. It’s my life, and I say it’s nothing. Drop it.”

  “It is your life, but—Cas, please.”

  “Oh, come on!” I cried. The exclamation ripped out of me too raw, the emotions from the past twenty-four hours tearing forth in a torrent. “Why are you making such a big deal about this? Haven’t you ever forgotten anything? Like, who was the first person you kissed? What was your first computer? The first guy you ever saw play Doctor Who? See?”

  “Charlene Gilligan, an IBM 286 in my foster parents’ basement—and the first actor I ever saw as the Doctor was Peter Davison,” said Checker.

  I digested that. I hadn’t expected him to be able to answer. “You must have a freakishly good memory.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then clearly you have a skewed sense of priorities, if that’s what you’re using your brain space for.” I put as much snideness into the words as I could.

  “What do you use yours for, then?” He didn’t sound offended, only a little queer.

  “Important stuff.” I pulled away from him, turning over. “Job details. Things I might actually need.”

  “And what did you do before retrieval work?” asked Checker, still in that strange-sounding voice.

  “Kid stuff, I guess. Let it go.”

  “You guess?”

  “It was a long time ago,” I growled. “And I told you to drop it.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, I get it,” said Checker. “I do. But just tell me one thing. This thing about you not remembering your first time—that’s not a cover? You really don’t remember?”

  I blinked. My emotions were spiraling back down into depression, and I was so tired. I didn’t have the energy for this. “I said I don’t remember.”

  “So it’s not a cover for, uh, for whatever you did before.”

  I snorted. “Don’t be an idiot. If I wanted to have a cover for anything in my past, I’d have a good story; I wouldn’t claim a bad memory.”

  “That’s kind of what I thought.” He still sounded funny.

  I buried my face in the pillow. “Christ almighty, Checker. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “What was your name?” he said. “Before you were Cas Russell?”

  I felt as if I had been walking through the dark and had missed a step, even though I was still lying on the bed. The interview with the DHS flashed back to me, Agent Jones aggressive and in my face: What’s your real name? “That’s always been my name,” I said.

  “I don’t think it was.” Checker’s voice was very soft.

  “You’re on crack,” I snapped. “You’re trying to tell me what my name is?”

  “Who was it?” said Checker. “Who erased you?”

  “Who what?”

  “Prior to a few years ago, you don’t exist. I’m good, Cas. Who erased you?”

  “You background checked me?” I squawked.

  “Oh, don’t sound so shocked! Of course I background checked you. Arthur comes in with some new person, who works with you-know-who, not to mention I’m paranoid, Russell, as you well know; I background check everybody, just like you do! And you don’t exist more than a few years back.” He laughed a little, but it didn’t have much humor in it. “I always wanted to ask you who did it. Someone good, it had to be, to hide it from me—”

  “Nobody erased me!” I cut in over him. “Or maybe you did to be funny and you forgot, huh? Ever think of that?”

  “No, because it’s stupid!”

  “You’re calling me stupid now?”

  “What—no! Cas, talk to me—”

  I tumbled gracelessly off the bed into the narrow space next to it and began angrily gathering up my things. “My childhood just isn’t that interesting. End of story. I—ow!” I cried, barking my shin on something hard and sharp in the dark.

  “Lights,” barked Checker. The lights flared brightly for a moment, exploding painfully against my retinas, before Checker cried, “Dim!” and they retreated to a more comfortable grayness, leaving purple splotches dancing in my vision. “Cas,” he said more quietly, and it almost sounded like pleading. “Just tell me something. Something from your childhood. A movie you liked. Your parents’ names. A pet you had. I don’t know. Something. Please.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  “Something,” he repeated. “Humor me? Please?”

  “No. This is dumb.”

  “For love of God! Tell me something or I swear I will plague you in person and through every electronic device you own until you do!”

  I tried to look at him, but the purple splotches were still floating in front of me, and I could only vaguely see his outline sitting up in bed. I couldn’t figure out why this was so important to him.

  I cast back for the type of stupid sentimental thing he was looking for, just to end this conversation forever. It was one of those things that seemed like it should be easy but wasn’t once I started to think about it, as if I’d been told to think of five blue-eyed people off the top of my head. I’d know that I’d met five, or at least seen them in movies, but doing it on the spot?

  “Come on,” I said after a moment. “It’s dumb kid stuff. Who cares?”

  “Anything,” Checker insisted. “A book you read. A teacher you had. A friend’s name—”

  “Yeah, like I had a lot of friends.”

  “Then an enemy’s name! Something!”

  I paused a moment longer, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it, I guess. Why the hell do you care so much?”

  “Because someone erased all records of you, and you don’t remember whether you’ve had sex before, and neither of those things bother you when they should freak you the hell out!”

  “What?” The purple splotches were clearing from my vision, and I could see Checker’s face now. He was…upset. Agitated. “I just don’t want to talk about this, okay? Forget I said anything.”

  “Forget,” he said bitterly. “Like you have?”

  Anger surged up in me, hot and black and unexpected in its intensity. “Just because I don’t remember a few minor details—”

  “Cas!” With a grunt, Checker had levered himself forward to the edge of the bed, and was suddenly grabbing me, his grip surprisingly strong. “Listen to yourself! Something is wrong here!”

  I shouldered him off. “Nothing is wrong with me!”

  “Yes, there is! And you should be able to tell that by the fact that you won’t even entertain the possibility! Go ahead. Prove me wrong. You’re a mathematician—prove it, and I won’t say anything ever again.”

  “I’m not a mathematician,” I said coldly. “I’m a computationalist at best.”

  “Bullshit. Prove me wrong.” I stared at him in shock, the weight of my confession the previous night pressing down on us, but he stared back defiantly, and something in me was insanely glad he still thought of me as a mathematician even after what I had told him.

  Even though this was a pointless exercise for me, given that I already knew he was wrong. And could prove it, as soon as I thought of some innocuous, trivial fact that would satisfy his stupid requirement.

  “Did you go to an elementary school?” Checker pressed. “High school?”

  I grunted.

  “Your family? Any siblings?”

  I shrugged irritably. “Been too long.”

  “Since what?”

  “Since I’ve seen them, clearly.”

  “Were you very small, then?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “When did you move to LA?”

  “A few years ago. Can we stop now?”

  “From where?”

  “I’ve lived a bunch of places. They all run together after a while.”

  “Like where?”

  “Other cities,” I scoffed. “Who remembers names?”

  “Cas,” said Checker. His voic
e was choked. “Listen to yourself. You can’t remember.”

  “Stupid stuff,” I agreed.

  “No. Anything. Your memory’s gone.”

  I almost laughed, the emotion edged with brittleness. “No, it isn’t.” Of all the things that were fucking me up in the head right now—that was ridiculous. I’d know if my memory was gone.

  It was Checker’s turn not to say anything.

  “I remember things!” The words tore out of me, almost rising to hysteria, Checker’s thrown gauntlet hanging between us. “I remember plenty of things! It’s perfectly normal for the details to fade. That’s not something wrong with me; that’s normal; that’s—I bet you don’t remember anything from when you were five. See?”

  “My kindergarten teacher’s name was Mrs. Farrow,” said Checker. “The first day of class I tried to convince the other kids to join me in mass rebellion against authority and ended up sitting in the corner for the rest of the day. I also tried eating a yellow crayon. It was not as tasty as it looked.”

  I stared at him, shock and fear flooding me, suffocating me.

  “My foster parents at the time were named Millie and Bruce,” Checker continued inexorably, “and they had two real children named Claude and Jeannette who were perfectly dull and would tell on me for trying to light things on fire. Bruce eventually had the town fire marshal sit down with me and try to explain that playing with matches was bad. My counter-argument, that fire was spectacularly cool, did not sit well with him, and I got moved soon after that.”

  I was still staring. It was the first time Checker had ever told me this much about his childhood. I had thought—I had assumed—that everyone must remember their pasts in the same hazy, disconnected way I did, because that was normal, it had to be, it had to be—

  But here was Checker’s in technicolor detail.

  “I don’t remember everything from when I was five,” he finished softly. “But you always remember something.”

  “I…” I tried to think that far back and got the same vague image I always did, of brown people and brick and bright colors, and an indistinct impression of being among many other children in a classroom of some kind. Those were the only memories I had associated with childhood. “Stop it,” I mumbled, my lips numb. “Stop…”

  “Please. Let me help you look into this. I can help you figure this out.”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but I could feel his confusion. “What?”

  “I said no. Leave it.” My voice shook, but I had no doubts.

  “But—”

  “Maybe there’s a reason my brain doesn’t want to remember,” I said. “My brain’s pretty smart, you know.” Smart, and broken, and now starting to stutter wildly in a way I was all too familiar with, stutter and squeal and demand I lock myself in a small dark room and black out—

  I tried to make an angry exit, but I wasn’t sure I managed it. I didn’t look back at Checker to find out.

  Chapter 23

  When I got back to my apartment, I was in my kitchen collecting a blessedly full whiskey bottle to my chest before I could think about it. Then I hesitated. My mind was whirling sickeningly, the numbers dancing around me, mocking edges of emotion that were already raw and red, and Checker’s stupid, stupid jabs circling round and round in my head, a meaningless litany that was nonetheless somehow driving me mad—and this, this wasn’t going to be enough—

  I shoved the bottle violently back onto the messy counter and grabbed at the cabinet, tossing things out in a frenzy. I needed to shut my brain off—shut it off shut it off shut it off—

  Some time later I discovered I was lying on my couch, the world spinning lazily above me, wobbling in silly patterns and making me want to giggle. The math was no longer a smothering, choking mass, instead just pretty little numbers that had gotten dressed up in party outfits to parade around for me.

  I did giggle a little.

  The next time I woke up I felt a good deal less shiny and happy, and someone was pounding on the apartment door. I tried to cover my head with a pillow, but it was too small, and the pounding wouldn’t stop. I stumbled over and dragged the door open.

  “Go away,” I said to Arthur, half-falling out past him to crash into the opposite side of the hallway. I sat down hard on the floor. The wood of the baseboard was a funny texture. New discovery! I giggled.

  “Not a chance,” I heard someone say from above me, and then strong hands were under my arms, lifting me. “Up you get.”

  “You’re strong,” I slurred out, but wondered why he was lifting me sideways when gravity was pulling downward. I lurched.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” The hands caught me before I hit the floor again. “Girl, look at me. What did you take?”

  “My medicine,” I said automatically. That was the right answer, wasn’t it?

  “Good God,” I heard Arthur say grimly, from somewhere northwest of me. “Let’s get you back lying down.”

  I found myself back on my couch covered by a blanket, vaguely aware of Arthur moving around my apartment going through some of my things. He came back just as the shiny was starting to dim a little further. “Need more,” I mumbled. “It should be prettier.”

  “You’re not getting any more of anything, sweetheart. Except water.”

  I could feel a sob welling up; a tantrum to crown all childish tantrums nucleating in my chest. “But I want the pretty!” I insisted.

  Arthur didn’t bother responding. Instead, he sat on me and made a phone call while I threw my tantrum. I remembered I was angry at Arthur, so angry—and I let it all tear out, rain down on his head, the most creative profanities I could construct.

  It didn’t seem like he heard me. In fact, he was yelling, too—things like what-the-hell-happened and for-such-a-smart-guy-you-can-be-really-dumb-sometimes into the phone. Somewhere in there things got hazy again, and I wasn’t sure when the haziness of reality slipped into the haziness of chaotic dreams, dreams filled with men with guns that turned into needles.

  When I woke up with a splitting headache and a stomach that wanted to turn itself inside out and wring itself dry, I was lying on my sofa and Arthur and Checker were in my living room. Arthur handed me a cup of water. “Here. Drink.”

  My mouth tasted like socks, and I only got down a sip or two before my insides rebelled and I hastily set the cup down and threw up over the side of the couch, the mess spattering my floor. I decided I felt too sick to worry about it, and spat, trying to focus my eyes.

  “Checker,” I observed blurrily, still tasting the socks. “How’d you get up here?”

  “Desperate times, Cas,” he said lightly.

  “Wait. I’m mad at you,” I remembered in a confused mumble.

  “This is an intervention, Miss Russell,” said Arthur, in a more serious tone.

  “Sending me to rehab, are you?”

  He snorted. “Almost tempted. We’ll time how long it takes you to break out.”

  “You don’t have a drug problem,” said Checker.

  “Well, no, you do—” corrected Arthur.

  “Not a serious one,” grumped Checker.

  Arthur shot him a look. “Ex-cop here, remember? But I’m fair sure it ain’t nothing you’ll accept help with, and I ain’t think you’re no danger to yourself. Normally. Am I right?”

  I sighed. I wanted them to go away. The conversation was too loud, beating in time with the pounding in my skull. “So why are you here, then?” I couldn’t speak quite as forcefully as I wanted to. My stomach was still determined to revolt, and I had to keep it calm.

  “Because you’ve lost large chunks of your memory,” said Checker, “And we want to help you look into it.”

  My stomach gave an extra savage twist, and I quickly tried to swallow against it. I won the battle, barely. “I said no.”

  “We think something might be making you say that,” said Arthur, and I could tell they had rehearsed this. “Can you give us a good reason why not?”<
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  “Or any reason,” put in Checker, with grim blitheness.

  “Because first of all, you’re wrong, and second, it’s my life, and I say no.”

  “Not good enough,” said Checker.

  “Fuck off,” I shot back eloquently.

  “This isn’t up for discussion,” said Checker, in his watch-me-set-my-jaw tone. “I’m going to figure out what happened to you. Whether you want to participate is the optional part.”

  “That’s a violation of my privacy,” I got out, but there wasn’t all that much vitriol behind it. I was trying to feel violated and betrayed by Checker’s insistence, but it wasn’t quite coming. I was too worn out and sick. “I’m not helping you.”

  “Okay,” said Checker. “Then I’ll do it myself.”

  “Russell,” said Arthur, in a careful way that suggested he was bracing himself for something, “We’ve seen it before, people who can…manipulate. Who can make you say things, think things, that you wouldn’t otherwise.”

  Memory sparked—a slim, Mediterranean-looking woman, features fine and birdlike and serene. Dawna Polk. Pithica. A group of people trained to be so emotionally manipulative that they were, for all intents and purposes, trained psychics. The last time I had seen Dawna, she had rendered me almost catatonic somehow while she escaped, coolly hammering me with a barrage of words and questions I could never quite recall. The memory did not help my nausea. “Nobody messed with my head,” I got out angrily.

  “You idiot,” snapped Checker. “Clearly somebody did!”

  “Checker—” started Arthur, a note of reproach in his voice.

  “No, I’m sorry, Arthur! This is like the morons who don’t believe in evolution, even with infinite amounts of evidence thrust under their noses! Cas Russell, you are taking denial to the level of being stupid!”

  “Go to hell,” I muttered. Epitome of brilliant comebacks. “And get out of my place.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” said Checker. For some reason, the tone he said it in hurt, twisting up my insides on top of the withdrawal. “Come on, Arthur.” He levered his chair around and moved to the door.

  “You, too, Arthur,” I said, loudly and heartlessly, trying to stamp down savagely on that hurt feeling. For some reason I felt as if I had been the one to cause it. “Get out.”