I woke into my new life as I had the previous ones, lying naked in the remembrance capsule, amniotic gel glazing my body. “Mnemonic levels show all green,” said one of the recall technicians from inside their control room. “What is the last thing you remember, Doctor Fedorov? ” Irina, her hair like a halo of fire in the dying light of the day. “The color red,” I said, though it was not the last thing I remembered. Even with the hurt it causes, my last memory of Irina is the only thing worth remembering.
As a code engineer, I have seen in the deconstructed code of others how deeply memories of pain and regret engrain themselves, how they scar the mnemonic code and stain it like wine stains old wood. Irina is my scar; A winehaired stain forever etched into my code. The recall technicians whispered briefly among themselves. “Welcome back, Doctor. You have been in memory transit for one-hundred thirty-two days. ” “Why so long,” I asked. Something was wrong. They should have retracted the memory needle sheathed at the base of my skull when I answered the recall question. “Slight complications in the code layering process.
Nothing to be worried about. Doctor Szaranov worked it out. ” “Irina,” I said without thinking. “But she is–” “Forgotten. ” I did not expect Doctor Emil Szaranov to be at my recall. The job of monitoring routine awakenings falls to the androdyne humans, the andies, not real humans, and certainly not the Ark Director. “You remember killing Irina, don’t you, Dimitri? ” The memory sheath at the back of my neck grew warm. They were scanning me. I said nothing, thinking Emil’s voice was an audible hallucination, just my mind sorting out imprinted memory fragments as it adjusts to the new life. I asked you a question,” said Emil.
His tone indicated he did not consider my silence an acceptable answer. This was no hallucination. “I did not kill her. ” “Are you certain, Dimitri? ” Emil sounded like an Ark Inquisitor offering the condemned one last chance at redemption through confession. “I advise you to think very carefully. ” The needle hummed inside my brain. Memories billowed up from the darkness like bubbles from a sinking ship and threatened to drag me into the depths along with the wreckage. The memories did not feel like mine, as if given to me to replace forgotten dreams.
Irina’s vibrant green eyes looking up at me. My hand cradling the back of her head. Something spilling through my fingers like warm ink. “I… don’t know. ” Thad no choice but to answer honestly. Any indication of deception on the tech’s monitors meant deep core scans, a return to transit, and having memories scrubbed. If the scans showed mnemonic corruption, the Ark would forget me and purge me from the Ark Bank. More whispers from the control room, then a short silence in which the Director determined my fate. “After you get cleaned up, come see me,” said Emil.
The needle retracted. I wiped the amniotic gel from my eyes and looked to the control room but Emil was already gone. *** On the gravlift ride to Emil’s office I studied myself in the gravlift’s polished doors. The last time I saw my reflection the face of an old man stared back. Now a young man stood before me wearing the old man’s hand-me-down, grey arksuit. I cinched my belt a notch tighter. My previous body, having gone through sixty years, must have put on weight that this new body in the prime of youth had yet to find.
I was also a centimeter shorter than in my previous life. Even with a perfect ArkDNA sequence variations are to be expected when being recalled. A bit taller or shorter. Hair a shade darker or lighter. Slightly more or less muscle mass. A three percent physical variation is acceptable when the Ark remembers a person, six percent for andies. The only thing that matters is that the mnemonic core is restored intact. “Emil could have forgotten you. ” Irina’s voice. I closed my eyes.
The lift emerged from the shadow of surrounding buildings and the afternoon sun reflecting off the lift doors washed the inside of my eyelids fire red. “If he forgets me, he forgets you,” I said. “I am already forgotten, Dimitri,” said Irina. “You are the only one who remembers. ” But I did not remember, not completely. My brain was still piecing together the unsorted memory fragments after so long in transit. opened my eyes, turned my head to the sound of her voice. Nothing, just the sun at my back and the steady flash of dull red lights marking the passing of floors.