“Wiped or deactivated,” corrected Neffy, turning over his arm so Fred could go to work. “As for the memory loss, that may be normal. I’ve had a condition since long before the Academy. I have blackouts and experience missing time. My timelog on the holo keeps me functioning, though, and helps me sequence things. Without it, I have no way of knowing what’s going on.”
“What kind of condition?” Fred was clearly more fascinated by the revelation of the medical condition than he was with the immediate technical problem.
“Something to do with my neurons having a different shape and composition. My father had the condition too, but he went mad from it. Over-stimulation of the cortex, the doctors said.” He glanced at his mother. Her back was to them, and she didn’t interject.
He continued, “It never got so bad for me, but I started having blackouts about the age of 14. So, it’s nothing new. It’s just something I need to manage. Something I can’t manage without my backup.” He glanced down at his arm. Fred perched on the bed and double tapped at the implant to pull up the blank screen.
“Wow – I would never have guessed. You were always so capable in classes. Who would have thought you were keeping such a secret?”
“Yeah. I know,” Neffy looked down, slightly embarrassed by it all.
His mother had finished putting the flowers into the life-stand on the far counter. Now she didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. Neffy thought it would be decent to bring her into the conversation.
“Mother, this is Fred. We were in the same class at the Academy.”
“Hi, Mrs. Klingerman.” Fred smiled his goofy, slightly crooked smile.
“Hi, Fred,” responded Diane, deciding not to correct him about her title. She could tell they had more important things to discuss.
“Fred works in the Department of Technology and Communications,” explained Neffy.
“Ah! I’m a full professor now,” he exclaimed, “with my own department and interns to do my bidding.” He beamed, pleased that he could report such a coup.
“Brilliant!” congratulated Neffy. “You didn’t tell me this before, did you?”
“No, we haven’t seen each other for about five years now…” confirmed Fred. “Apart from the compulsory grad networking over e-DNA of course.”
“Right…” That was good; he hadn’t forgotten anything recently.
“What’s the last thing that you remember?” asked Fred, his fascination turning gradually to genuine concern.
“Well, I think I was on a mission, but I don’t remember exactly what it all involved. I’m lost without the prompts on my holo. When I see my notes, it tends to all come back to me quickly. I think I remember having a few days off at home.”
“And where’s home now?” asked Fred.
“Reykjavik. At Fed HQ.” He knew that much at least.
“Well, that narrows it down. Let me have a look at that holoscreen then…”
Fred flicked at the blank screen. There were no options, no menus. Nothing for him to navigate through.
“I’m going to have to go in and reboot…” he said, getting up and moving towards the flowers. Neffy and Diane watched in interest as he peeled back one of the leaves to reveal some kind of microchip taped to the underside.
“I took precautions.” He grinned at his own cleverness in smuggling in the microchip. Neffy smiled to encourage him, despite the pain.
Walking back, Fred put his finger to his lips as if to say “shh” to Diane. He must have sensed her good-girl tendencies, and hoped that she wouldn’t rat him out to whichever authority was responsible for the guard outside. Gently taking Neffy’s forearm again, he placed the chip over the top of his implant. Then, taking a magnet from his pocket, he waved that over the top too.
Something in Neffy’s arm “popped”, and Fred looked up at Neffy to see if he had felt it too. Neffy lifted his eyes, a little surprised. He’d never seen that done before.
Fred smiled, then triple-tapped the implant. A holoscreen popped up – full of code, in a language Neffy had never seen before. Fred winked like he was letting Neffy in on a secret, then started flicking through the code to see what was going on.
“It was definitely deactivated, but rather crudely. There is a simple on/off clause here.” Fred waved a finger at the code as if Neffy could understand it.
“Uh huh,” Neffy acknowledged, wondering if Fred was expecting him to actually read the code.
Minutes later, Fred was still poking around. Eventually he straightened up a little and folded his arms, still looking at the screen.
Neffy looked at him quizzically.
“Well, it seems that less than an hour before this deactivated, you were teleported…”
Fred looked serious – and almost scared.
“How do you know that?” Neffy asked, curious to find out all he could.
“Your coordinates. One second you were in the Cygnus quadrant. The next, you were, well…in the center of the Academy.”
“Weird,” he mumbled, trying to fathom what might have happened, but not sharing Fred’s sense of anxiety.
Fred put his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “I would say so, yes. Especially since the Academy doesn’t have any teleporters in that building, let alone right in the foyer on Level 3.”
Now Neffy was definitely confused. “What?”
“I’m not joking. It seems that you teleported directly into the busy foyer, about 11:13 on Monday morning. That must have been quite a sight to behold.”
Neffy found this hard to accept. “There must have been witnesses. And holo footage.”
Fred knew what was coming next.
“Do you…” Neffy started, and Fred finished his sentence.
“…think I could find that footage and send it to you? No problem. Can I do it without calling attention to the fact that I’ve done it? Probably. Might take some time, though.”
Neffy glanced at his mother, realizing that he didn’t even trust her to be listening to this conversation. He didn’t have the luxury of choice at this point. “If you could, it would certainly help. I’m scrambling to piece together what is going on, and it’s hard to know who I can trust.”
“Let me see what I can do,” Fred said, getting up to leave. “The holo is working fine now. And it doesn’t look like anything has been erased or tampered with.”
Neffy breathed out, slowly. “Thank you, Fred! I appreciate you coming down like this. I really do.”
Fred headed toward the sliding door. “Sure thing old friend. This one was an easy fix. I’ll be in touch!”
And with that, he was gone.
Diane looked at Neffy. He knew in that instant that she hadn’t changed. Everything that had just happened in this room was going straight back to Trent.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Looks like you simply cannot obey orders, Captain,” Trent’s voice boomed through the opening door.
Neffy’s heart leaped into his mouth as he opened his eyes and turned his head on the pillow to watch. Trent marched into his hospital room. His mother had gone and it was getting dark outside. Neffy had no idea what time it was, but the pain in his neck was much less than earlier. At least, the physical pain is less, he thought. He glared at his commanding officer.
“Appears so, Colonel,” he responded, “judging by the guards outside my door.”
He’d always had a smart mouth when it came to Trent. Even when Trent was displeased with him, he knew that the man was inwardly amused. Besides, he liked being able to retain some power of his own. Trent was too accustomed to both flattery and obedience, especially as he landed one promotion after another.
“Yes. And you’re going to have to deal with the consequences this time, young man.” The door slid closed behind him, and he took a seat next to the bed.
“I wish I knew what I had supposedly done. Then perhaps I could face the consequences with more acceptance.” He was mocking Trent’s pseudo-Zen philosophies. Trent obviously picked u
p on it but chose to ignore it.
“Do you remember anything?” he asked.
“No,” Neffy lied, “someone deactivated my holo.” He nodded toward the implant.
“Yes, we needed to do that. Galactic security.”
“Well, if I had access to my notes, I’d be able to jog my memory.” There was a hint of resentment in his voice, but he attempted to keep it polite. Trent might just pull rank on him. He did that from time to time, but only when Neffy pushed him too far.
“I’m surprised your friend from tech couldn’t get it working again for you…” Trent sneered in mock surprise, revealing that he did know that Fred had paid a visit. Good to know I can trust my mother, Neffy thought. Predictable to the last.
He opened his mouth to make some comment about his mother, but Trent nodded towards the guards. “You think these guys are just big dummies?”
“No.” He relaxed back into the bed, realizing the futility of trying to deceive Trent on Academy grounds, or anywhere else, for that matter. He had eyes and ears everywhere, both mechanical and human. Of course he was going to find out – even if Neffy’s mother hadn’t told him on this particular occasion.
“So what now?” His tone was flat, with an undercurrent of anger. He didn’t care. He didn’t need to pretend with Trent. The man knew him through and through.
“Well, there are questions about what happened on the Aegelweard. We don’t know exactly what was going on, but we do know that there was an incident with an airlock. We know that you lied to the Drewdonians. We know that you failed to secure the prototype, and we also know that the colony is still on high alert, under threat of all-out war, with tensions at the highest possible level. We also know that if it wasn’t for your participation in my programs over the years, you’d be dead right now.”
“The airlock…” Neffy had glanced through his notes before Trent’s arrival, and some of his memories were coming back. But the airlock. That would explain the white blood cell count. The last his log told him was that they were awaiting Federation Fleet Ship Troy, and that he had been fighting with Ally about lying to the Drewdonians to maintain the ceasefire.
“So, I went out the airlock?” he asked Trent, still hazy on the details.
“It would seem you did. And thanks to the implant we put into your brain, you teleported back to the Academy.” Trent’s voice was nonchalant. He might as well have been discussing the weather
“The implant you put in my brain?” Neffy burst out, trying to recall such a procedure. That certainly wasn’t one of the enhancements he’d received at the Academy. He knew that much.
Trent was unfazed by Neffy’s reaction. “You remember the cognitive assessment programs you participated in as a child?”
Neffy nodded.
“Well, during one of those trials, we realized that if ever anything happened to you, we needed a way of getting you back here safely. After we tested it on monkeys, I was quick to get you implanted before the board could shut it down. It’s the kind of tech that could give us a massive advantage, but it wasn’t without risk of course. Normal brain tissue always struggles with dissipating the energy a chip like this creates. I took a risk with you, knowing that if the chip was ever activated it would only be because, well…because we had lost you anyway.”
Neffy was horrified to hear Trent talking about him like any other lab monkey. He had to be more than that to the man who had raised him – didn’t he? Neffy tried to hang on to the connection he felt, even though his rationalizations sounded like nonsense even to him. Trent talked about him so coldly because he had to stay professional, but underneath it all there was so much more…
He knew how the man really felt. Or at least he thought he did. Trent was just so closed-down most of the time. Especially since they’d stopped interacting for any reason whatsoever except work.
Trent went on in the same bland tone. “If you were ever in mortal danger, the chip would detect the shutdown in your brain and trigger the teleport. The coordinates it would bring you back to would always be the same. Because our research facilities were bound to move around over the years, the safest choice was the foyer of the Academy. So, that’s where we installed the hidden teleport device, linked to your chip through quantum entanglement. The medic’s office is on that floor, so they were able to stabilize your condition before we got you to the hospital for full treatment.”
Trent looked at Neffy and his face finally softened. There was a hint of concern there – and perhaps relief.
Neffy didn’t know how to respond, so he chose to sit quietly, processing the information he’d just received. Wondering what he was going to do next.
“You’ve actually activated it once before,” Trent revealed. His voice was quieter, as if confessing a secret. “We erased that memory for your own safety.”
Neffy had no idea what to say to that. He had unintentionally hurt Ally’s feelings joking with her about something similar, and now it turned out it had happened to him. Or to both of them, maybe? Maybe his insensitive joke in the car had been the ghost of a memory…
His mouth opened and shut. He wanted to know more, but his own thoughts interrupted him. “What if one of my blackouts triggered it?” He tried hard to hide how horrified he actually was.
“That wouldn’t do it,” Trent said dryly, “we tested that thoroughly.”
Incredible! He didn’t doubt that they would have induced the blackouts just to see if they triggered the chip. Neffy stared blankly at Trent in sheer amazement. He didn’t know if he wanted to punch the man or give him a hug. Trent had saved his life, but had completely disregarded his bodily autonomy. “I suppose I should say thank you.”
“Well, don’t get too excited,” Trent warned, “Since we got the report from the Aegelweard, it’s not looking good for you. You’re under investigation, and what with the allegations of deceit, you may be looking at charges.”
Neffy opened his mouth to express his outrage, but Trent put up his hand to silence him.
“There’s more. Your partner has disappeared, so we don’t really know what your intentions were, or what really happened.”
“Ally’s missing?” Neffy suddenly remembered the feelings of betrayal and being suspended in space, unable to breathe.
“That’s right. Know anything about that?” His voice was stern now, as if he were conducting an interrogation.
“No. I’m as surprised as you are. She would have been the one controlling the airlock. It must have been an accident…” His voice trailed off, as he lost himself in those last few moments before he was ripped from the Aegelweard. “She couldn’t have done it on purpose. But then, why would she disappear?”
And why, Neffy thought, but did not say aloud, when I got blown out into space, did no one come out after me?
“Well, it seems she has disappeared. The Drewdonians are eager to find her, but there are more pressing things going on for them right now, as you might imagine. We’d like to recover that prototype and prevent an all-out war, so we’re a little too distracted to track down a rogue synthbot.”
Neffy started to correct him about calling her a synthbot, but at this moment it was unimportant.
“I can’t imagine…she must be in trouble!” Neffy scanned his memories, trying to find anything that would provide insight into what was going on with Ally. Anything that would prove her innocence.
“Well, we’re investigating, but you’re on lockdown until you’re cleared of any wrongdoing.”
“I was only doing my job!” exclaimed Neffy, his cheeks flushing in anger. He couldn’t believe that Trent would really keep him on lockdown like some criminal, especially when he needed to get back out there and secure that damn prototype. “The best thing you could do is put me back out there to find Ally, and finish resolving this clusterfuck with New Atlantia.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Trent said curtly, rising to leave and straightening the front of his uniform. “Focus on getting well again. You’ll h
ave a council hearing in a few days. You’ll need to be able to defend your decisions. Now that you have your holo back, make sure you can justify everything in your decision log.” He nodded toward Neffy’s implant as he spoke, then he hesitated as if he wanted to add something else. Deciding against it, he turned and left.
Neffy couldn’t believe him. He couldn’t believe that the council actually thought he had done anything wrong. He couldn’t remember everything that had happened, but he felt fairly certain he was innocent.
On the other hand, he could not be sure.
+++
“Ready to go?”
Neffy slipped on his sweater and pulled his dark hair out from the collar. He was able to raise his arms comfortably now, and the pounding headache was now just a muffled heaviness than seemed to sit on his brain.
“Yeah,” he answered, zipping up his bag of gear. The Federation had sent it from his apartment in Iceland while he had been bedridden.
Neffy felt ready to go home, but neither the hospital nor the Federation wanted him travelling. Each had their own reasons, of course. Neffy’s Mom had stepped in and offered to keep Neffy at her place. While Neffy was reluctant, at least it would mean he would be out of the way of Trent’s cameras…mostly. He had no doubt that his mother would report on him, but he would have more freedom.
Plus, Vienna was nice this time of year. If you were into that kind of thing. Neffy wasn’t, but imagined he could try to be that person for a week or two.
Unexpectedly, the door to the corridor opened, and Trent marched in. Seconds later another man appeared by the door frame, his presence stopping it from closing. He was younger, tall, and wore a brown space-ready jacket: the kind that were all the rage about five years ago.
“Not so fast, young man,” Trent started.
“What now? You need to fit me with a locator chip? Or you need to assign some more bullshit paperwork for me to fill out before I leave?” Though pleased to see Trent, Neffy didn’t trust him right now. He resented the fact that Trent didn’t seem to be pulling strings with the council for him. At the same time he didn’t want Trent to grasp quite how much he was missing him.
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