Rememberers

by C. Edward Baldwin

  As a group of giggling teenage girls flocked past him, he wondered if his ruse had been successful in putting the authorities on the scent of the Alliance of Initiates, thus impeding A.I.'s efforts to find him. A.I. was particularly troublesome, as it no doubt had elicited the help of one who shared Principe's unique “remembering” ability. He didn't know the exact number of others like him, but A.I. would only need the one anyway. And it had been him, Principe was certain, who'd given A.I. the names and locations of the other gate-openers. Only with the help of a Rememberer could A.I. have successfully foiled his two previous attempts. But Rememberers could be fooled, Principe thought.

  Suddenly his stomach growled and he realized that he hadn't eaten dinner. As he walked toward the escalators leading to the food court, he felt an uncannily welcomed uncertainty about his future for the first time since his remembering ability had first manifested itself. Perhaps Beamer's sacrificial death had borne fruit after all. Another time-cycle perhaps? It was an intriguing possibility.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kallie headed back to the boarding house as darkness and rain fell. Through the Honda's rain-pecked windshield, streetlights twinkled dimly like fallen angels as she drove by. She hadn't expected the visit to Dr. Frost's lab to turn out as well as it had. To be honest, she hadn't known what to expect. All she'd wanted and needed were answers about her déjà vu sensations, which was why she'd walked over to the lab immediately after Professor Sampson had suggested it.

  The good thing was she learned that although daily déjà vu sensations were rare and troubling to her, they weren't exactly unique and were most likely related somehow to memory issues, issues that, once identified, could possibly be sorted out, enabling her to resume a normal life, one that wouldn’t feel as if it was a rerun. Josh said there were a couple of cited cases for the condition. It affected about one person in 700,000. He'd added, “It might even be more than that, since some people may be living with the condition and not saying anything about it for fear of being considered mentally ill.”

  Living with it! Josh's words echoed in her head as she turned the Honda onto her street. Living with it meant not dying from it. She could fully embrace now the realization that a fear of dying had been what had mostly bothered her about the sensations. She'd thought she was dying. She'd thought the déjà vu sensations had been an indication of cancer or some other brain disease, especially since her mother had died from brain cancer. Kallie had thought that the disease was something that she herself could one day inherit. In hindsight, she supposed that she could have gotten a MRI earlier to alleviate her concerns. She could have found out sooner if she'd had cancer or a tumor. But then again, she acknowledged, there'd been a measure of hope in not actually knowing. Rational thinking or not, the not knowing of something bad seemed equal to the whisper's chance of finding out something good. But her conversation with Dr. Frost had changed her outlook, convincing her that getting her brain scanned was not only a good thing but a necessary one. Frost had said that the test was the first step in trying to determine what was causing her sensations, which could be a number of things and not necessarily anything life threatening. It had been the 'not necessarily life threatening' part that had most convinced her. Now she wasn't afraid to have her brain scanned. In fact, she welcomed it, despite the fact that the tests could still reveal something sinister like a tumor. At least now she understood that there were other possibilities as well, potentially fixable possibilities. Friday could not get here soon enough!

  She approached her driveway and saw that her parking space was occupied by a gray, late model Volvo. “Just perfect,” she said as she found a place to park at the curb. Evidently, one of her housemates had a suitor who'd had the unmitigated gall to roll up in here like he owned the joint.

  She entered the house and started to make a mad dash upstairs to her room. She didn't want to see the offending culprit who'd parked in her spot. She already didn't get along with two of her housemates. Having to curse out one of their boyfriends sure as heck wasn't going to lead to a sharing of warm fuzzy feelings.

  She'd gotten halfway up the stairs when Maggie called out to her. Kallie stopped and turned. Maggie came out of the living room. Maggie with a boyfriend? she thought. Maggie was the only housemate she got along with and actually liked. She was a pretty girl, though a bit chunky in places where girls never wanted to be chunky, particularly those who entertained thoughts of movie dates and park walking with members of the opposite sex. Maggie had once told Kallie she was at Bengate to get an education, not a husband. And as if to punctuate the declaration, Maggie dressed in the frumpiest clothes she could find, which didn't at all compliment her body dimensions. To make matters worse, she didn't wear makeup and rarely did anything about her hair, often choosing to let it flop about her face. Maggie had taken to Kallie because she'd thought she'd found a kindred spirit in the 'take me as I am species.’ The difference was, as Maggie herself admitted; Kallie's ‘as I am’ had come in a much better package than Maggie's had. Still, Maggie was a confident woman who was very comfortable in her own stretch-marked skin.

  “You have a visitor,” Maggie informed her.

  “Me?” Kallie asked as she slowly descended the stairs.

  “Yes, you,” Maggie said. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. You can't look like that without expecting someone to notice eventually.”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny. Who is he? What's his name?”

  Maggie scooted past her and headed up the stairs. “Why don't you go into the living room and see. Apparently, he's loaded. That's his car in your parking spot.”

  As soon as Kallie entered the living room, she heard Maggie bursting with laughter upstairs. She looked over at the figure sitting on the loveseat. Seeing her, he stood up. Kallie's eyes widened. Her visitor was a minister.

  Reverend Johnny Swag was the twenty-five year old charismatic preacher of New Vibe Community Church. He was strikingly handsome with piercing blue eyes and a square jaw line cleft-dimpled ever so slightly. He was dressed conservatively in a black suit, complete with a white clerical collar. He smiled hesitantly, extending his hand. “I assume you're Kallie.”

  Cautiously, Kallie shook his hand. His grip was firm. His hand felt cold. “Yes, I am.”

  “I know what you're thinking,” Swag said. “Why am I dressed like some sort of Puritan preacher? Trust me, there's a logical reason for it. I know if I dressed this way all the time, I wouldn't get near the number of young people to join my church. But the truth is, if I don't dress like this some of the time, I'm going to lose some of my elderly. So you might say this is a kind of compromise. I mostly wear this suit on Mondays when I visit some of our sick and shut-ins. There's something about a black-suited preacher that's comforting to many of our seniors. They feel the suit is a reverence to God, and therefore He might look more kindly on my prayers for them.”

  Kallie nodded and motioned for him to return to his place on the loveseat. She sat in the flower-printed recliner. She wondered why he was here.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “I received a call from an Octavia Hunt this morning…”

  Oh, Kallie thought. She might have guessed. She visualized her grandmother hurriedly looking up Swag and New Vibe as soon as she'd hung up with Kallie this morning. Oh that woman, Kallie steamed.

  Swag continued. “She told me her granddaughter was a member of my church and she asked me if I knew that her granddaughter wasn't feeling well. And if I didn't, then shame on me for not checking on the wellbeing of a member of my flock. Of course, I tell her that although New Vibe is not a mega church, I do have a right good-sized congregation. It's not entirely possible for me to know when someone at the church is sick unless someone calls and tells me. She said, ‘I am calling.'” Swag chuckled. “So, I thanked her for the call and that's why I'm here. Your grandmother is very concerned about you. Now, tell me what's going on.”

  “As you can see, I'm not sick,” Kallie said. “In fact, I've never f
elt better. Earlier, when I'd talked to my grandmother I was a little stressed about school and all because I have several mid-term exams coming up. I guess she took it the wrong way. But I'm fine, really.”

  “Your grandmother mentioned something about déjà vu sensations.”

  Kallie rolled her eyes and inhaled. “I had a couple of episodes of it. But, it's fine now. Like I said, I was worried about mid-terms before, but now I'm not.”

  Swag leaned toward her. “The sensations have gone away?”

  She didn't want to lie to a reverend. But she also didn't want her grandmother to continue worrying. Mentally, she sent up a quick prayer of contrition. “I hadn't experienced any for a while. Plus, I talked to a school counselor and he agreed that they were most likely stress related.”

  Swag leaned back again. “Well then, that is good news. I'll be sure to call your grandmother and let her know. I told her that I'd call her after I saw you at Bible study.”

  “Bible study?”

  “Yes, we have it on Wednesdays, noon and 7 p.m. We have a lot of college kids attend the noonday session. Can I expect you at that one?”

  “I don't know. Wednesdays are pretty hectic for me.”

  Swag glanced at his watch. “Well, there's always the seven o'clock one. I don't know how late your grandmother stays up. I'd told her I'd call her after Bible study.

  His veiled threat worked. “Okay,” she said. The last thing she needed was for the pastor to call her grandmother back and tell her that Kallie had never before stepped foot in his church. “I'll be there at noon.”

  Swag smiled. “That's great. Then, I'll see you Wednesday.”

  “Yeah, Wednesday,” Kallie mumbled. She escorted him to the door and stood watching as he drove away in his Volvo. Her grandmother was definitely a piece of work.

  * * *

  By late Tuesday afternoon, Kallie had experienced three déjà vu sensations. The first two times hadn't been too disconcerting for her, as both had occurred at familiar places with her going about her usual routines. There was nothing weird about brushing her teeth in the morning or ordering her favorite sub at the campus cafe, so those two sensations had meshed almost seamlessly with her same ole—making her feel more like being in a rut than being caught in some kind of time warp. But her day's third bout of déjà vu, occurring during her General Psychology class, was unnerving.

  Her psychology professor, William Jones, was sixty-something with a full head of cotton-white hair. He stood at the front of the class droning on and on about a topic which he lately seemed to be wildly obsessed with. “Man wants to be God,” he was saying. “Or at the very least, he wants to do what only God so far has shown the capability of doing, and that's to make life.” He paused, looking about the room as he often did during his lectures, daring one of his students to challenge his assertion. After several moments, it was obvious no one was willing to challenge him on this one. Jones started to continue, but then one of his students, a freckle-faced lad sitting in the second row, hesitantly raised his hand.

  Jones nodded in the lad's direction. “Mr. Johns, you wish to object?”

  “Uh,” Johns said. “I don't know. Just…well how can you speak for all men? I don't want to make life. At least not like that,” he added quickly with a light chuckle.

  “Maybe, you're not a man,” a male classmate sitting behind him said, playfully hitting him on the shoulder.

  “More man than you,” Johns retorted.

  Jones smiled. “Settle down, gentlemen. Excellent question, Mr. Johns. You're rejecting my premise on the grounds that it may have been too narrowly centered, correct?”

  Johns flushed red. “I…I, uh, guess I am.”

  “Good,” Jones said. “I see your point. What man represents all men?”

  “Right,” Johns agreed enthusiastically.

  “Okay,” Jones said. “Now I could go all biblical on you and say that the actions of one man, Adam, essentially affected all humanity. But seeing how Adam at the time was the only man alive, I'll leave that discussion for another time. Instead, let me just say that man in my statement represents the consensus thought, whether consciously or unconsciously formed of all men. I admit it's not scientifically based. But I believe it's as sound as a young person's 'they.' As in, 'they' are always keeping us down. Or, is that ‘the man’ is always keeping us down?” He chuckled. “I always get 'they' and 'the man' mixed up. Anyway, man, the man, they, and the politician's 'the American people' are simply terms used to connote the assumed collective thoughts or desires of the believed majority.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, and then a red-haired girl sitting in the front row asked, “So when a politician says the ‘American people’, he's not saying he's speaking for everyone but almost everyone, since there is no singular 'American people,' but rather a nation of many, vastly different individuals.”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Jones said.

  “But how can they or you make that claim?” the red-haired girl asked.

  Jones looked over the class and posed the question, “On what basis do you believe a politician feels comfortable speaking for the American people as a collective majority?”

  “Polls,” someone said from the back of the room.

  “Elections,” someone else offered. “Majority rules. If you win elections, you get to say that you speak for all the people. It's our system, our rule of law.”

  “It's not exactly law,” another student challenged.

  “Well, it's certainly tradition,” someone else shot back.

  Jones smiled, regarding the class with a smug look. “These are all great observations and thoughts. But the truth is, it doesn't matter on what authority the phrase ‘American people’ or the term ‘man’ is used. The hearer of such terms will either agree or disagree with whatever the person using the term is purporting. Outside of a few people occasionally questioning who they are, no one seriously challenges the use of the terms. And eventually, there will only be the original assertion which will be either accepted, rejected, ignored, or discussed. It will be out there for the public to digest one way or the other, which is often the intent anyway.”

  The red-haired girl frowned. “So you're just making a baseless claim?”

  “My claim is not exactly baseless. It's one I sincerely believe I have the evidence to support, although not scientifically.”

  “Well, show us the evidence,” the redhead said.

  “With pleasure,” Jones said. He looked around at the class. “What do popular movies such as The Terminator, The Matrix, I, Robot, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, to name a few, have in common with each other?”

  “They've all made the actors and producers boatloads of money,” Johns said to a chorus of amens.

  “So true, Mr. Johns,” Jones said. “But what else do they have in common?”

  It was when the professor's question hung in the air that Kallie experienced her day's third unnerving feeling of sameness. When one of her classmates answered, “They all feature machines run amok,” Kallie silently mouthed his response alongside him, matching him syllable for syllable.

  “Exactly,” Jones exclaimed. “But not just machines, manmade machines!”

  “But what does that prove?” The redhead and Kallie said in unison, before looking at each other and saying, “Jinx.”

  “Uncanny,” The redhead said to Kallie, which Kallie could have said as well, but decided not to, preferring to get off the verbal tic for tack.

  Jones regarded them both curiously for a moment. “Some people say that fiction is man's truth.”

  “Another baseless claim,” the redhead said.

  “Perhaps,” Jones said. “Still, man creating machines that ultimately become living, breathing entities is a theme that shows up repeatedly in literary and theatrical works.”

  “And that's the basis of your original claim?” The redhead said incredulously. “God,” she said in complete unison with Kallie, “Man's ego knows no bounds.”
r />   Jones regarded the redhead curiously. “My ego, Miss Wilson, or man's ego in general?”

  “I would say both,” the red-haired Miss Wilson said. “Yours because you're assuming that, based on the creations of a few individuals, you've somehow figured out man's greatest desire. Man's in general, because what can I say, the statement's simply true. Man's ego is freaking boundless.” The class erupted in laughter.

  * * *

  Her sleep that night was ragged and fitful. Twice she snapped awake, pulled from a dream that made no more sense in wakefulness than it had in the realm of unconsciousness. In the dream, she stood naked in an explosion of light. The light was in rainbow colors and it seemed to have come out of nowhere, bringing with it a myriad of indistinguishable sounds that she could somehow taste, feel, and smell. She stood in the center of it as it washed all over her. It was like she'd become one with some kind of formless entity. Then all of a sudden, she found herself standing in a field, surrounded by white snakes. Her mother was there, clinging to her arm as if Kallie could somehow navigate her through the snakes and out of the field. However, each time she started to lead her mother out, she awoke before taking the first step.