A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (5 page)

Felix Hiatt sat i
n a lab in Horizon Research's Northgate facility and, gingerly, touched a diagnostic cable connected to the memory implant behind his right ear. It still wasn't a sensation he was used to. "Sometimes I wonder about what happens to me if this thing borks out and I lose everything."

The tech, peering
at readouts on a screen hidden from Felix's view, spared a quick glance up to ask, "Everything?"

"Yes, Neal, everything
.
Tout le monde
, the whole nine yards. Hey, did you know 'the whole nine yards' refers to using the entire length of an ammo belt in World War Two?"

Neal chuckled.
"Can't say as I did. You've got quite a bit in there, don't you?" He pointed at Felix's head.

"Oh, plenty.
And more of it dealing with asparagus than you'd guess, too," Felix joked. "That's why I wonder so much. We know this thing somehow affects my own memory, so what happens to me if it all blanks out? You have to admit, it's an interesting question. At least I have to admit it; you're free to admit whatever you wish. Though I wouldn't admit you picked out that tie without a lawyer present."

"
My wife bought me this tie."

"Say no more.
" Felix grinned. Feeling this chatty was hardly a unique mood for him, but sometimes during his checks he spent the time just trying to learn all he could about how his implant actually worked. By now, he figured he'd gleaned as much of the technical stuff that he could grasp without a degree, so lately he was usually content to try to drag Neal (perhaps kicking and screaming) into a philosophical discussion.

Apparently satisfied with what he saw on the screen before him, Neal leaned back from the terminal, clasped his hands behind his head
, and asked, "So you wonder how you'd know where you live, who your friends are? Like that?"

"Y
ou're being too topical. I mean, what happens to Felix Hiatt. How much do my memories affect who I am?"

Neal shrugged. "
I think even if you forgot all you know, you'd still be you. Amnesiacs don't suddenly take on different personalities."

"Ah, but what if this thing's different?
When you guys stuck it in me you were just trying to add someone else's memories to mine, but then we find out it's augmenting my ability to remember new things, too. It's not just tacked on like you all thought it'd be, so if it goes, who knows how much it takes with it?"

Realistically, Felix hadn't had a blip of trouble since six months ago when he was helping Diomedes and Flynn to
find the vigilante Gideon. Horizon had fixed it quickly enough then that the search wasn't hindered. Diomedes also killed Gideon in cold blood shortly thereafter. Okay, so things didn't always turn out well, but that didn't have anything to do with the implant.

"You're in here for testing every month,"
Neal assured him. "It won't go."

Felix grinned again.
"And don't think I don't appreciate it, even if you've got no choice." The project was long since shut down, but the Cybernetic Research Act of 2038 made researchers responsible for taking care of any lasting effects. The litigation that would result from failure to do so made it much more cost effective for them to not abandon their test subjects. In a world where the police were falling apart, it was the lawyers who enforced the laws. "But what I'm getting at here, if you'd listen, is the question of how much of who we are is dictated by our memories."

"That's philosophy.
" Neal smiled. "I'm a scientist."

Yep,
kicking and screaming. "You ran a project on downloading the entire memory record of a human brain. You mean to tell me you didn't at least consider the question?"

"I didn't run it, Mr. Supposed Photographic Memory, just assisted."

"Close enough. You've never thought about it?"

"I've been doing your
tune-ups for this long and we've never had this discussion before, either," he said. "So, no. Not in those terms, anyway. Did you become any different when you suddenly had another man's lifetime of memories in with yours?"

"It's let me see someone else's viewpoint on things.
I think it did affect me in some ways. But did it change me completely? No."

"There's your answer, then."

"Ah, but I know those aren't my memories kicking around in here. I knew who I was when they got put in. It's different."

Neal apparently noticed something on his screen and leaned forward again.
"Probably better not to worry about it. And you check out just fine here."

Felix nodded and began to unplug.
"I didn't say I was worried, I said I wondered. You can relate to that? Wondering?"

Neal
gathered up the cables. "Yeah, but I'm not getting paid to wonder about this anymore. The project's shut down. The data's been sold off. You, my friend, are simply housekeeping as far as anyone here is concerned."

Felix laughed.
"Nice to know where I stand."

Neal led Felix toward the exit.
"I mean as far as the company is concerned. I don't want you to lose your memory any more than you do, but to answer the kind of question you're asking would take a psychologist or something. I'm just a humble neurological cybernetics research technician." He opened the door for Felix and smiled. "See you next month."

"I
sure hope so!" He headed out the door, but then stopped and turned back. "You wanna tell me who they sold the data to?"

Neal chuckled.
"Every month you ask me that, and every month I tell you I don't know."

"Oh, come on.
I'm nice enough to come in here, let you test me every month, and irritate you with questions you don't have the answers to. The least you could do is a little sleuthing for me." Felix tried out his best grin.

"See you next month."

"Not even willing to risk his job to satisfy my curiosity." Felix made a show of sighing and teased, "I don't know. This may jeopardize our friendship."

The shrill ring of Felix's phone sounded before Neal could respond.
It was Caitlin. "I'll see you later," he told Neal with a wave. Neal locked the door behind him as Felix stepped down the corridor a few paces to take the call.

"Caitlin
, hi!"

"
Hullo, ducks.
Did your appointment go alright?
"

The sound of Caitlin's Welsh accent was always a pleasure to hear, but s
omething felt wrong that he couldn't quite put his finger on. "It went fine. You sound a little. . . off?" It was a routine check-up. She knew that. It wasn't like her to be bothered by such a thing.

There was a pause on the line.

"
Felix, I may have just seen Gideon. He's alive.
"

The others sat on Marc's bunk awaiting his answer
while he paced his quarters. The clock on his visor display read nearly ten p.m., and Marette hadn't arrived yet. The signal at the door minutes earlier had instead turned out to be Nick, Gunther, and Elsa, come to ask his help a second time. It was two hours since Nick had first tried to get Marc's help with hacking into ESA's system at Alpha Station.

It was six hours since the incident.

Shouting and confusion in the darkness had filled the moments after Namura's aborted scream. When they restored the power shortly thereafter, she was collapsed over her smoking rig.

Instantly
-summoned ESA personnel rushed into the room and swept Namura off to a medical bay while Marette ordered the rest to wait behind; they'd only be in the way. The hackers were left alone in the room, stunned into silence.

It hadn't lasted.
Nearly everyone spoke at once. What happened? What went wrong? Did ESA know such a thing would occur? A lack of available answers led to a renewed silence before someone suggested they go find out, despite Marette's orders.

Marc was primarily in shock up to that point, unsure what to say and afraid of what happened himself.
But he rallied and managed to keep in the room those who wanted to leave. Be patient, he urged, someone would be back soon. He had no loyalty to ESA, but he needed to support Marette. Letting the hackers run unescorted through the complex would be a security risk on multiple fronts.

Marette returned soon after.
The look on her face spoke before she did: Namura was dead. They would all return to Alpha Station while the Space Agency determined what went wrong and how to proceed, if at all. She was composed, solemn, and professional. Marc guessed she was as frightened and saddened by what happened as the rest of them, but she was used to dealing with a more disciplined group that would draw its focus and strength from that sort of leadership.

To the hackers, it
had only made her appear cold. Shouts erupted anew. Elsa and Gunther spearheaded. Demands came again for answers, for assurances, and finally, for just some visible show of emotion on Marette's part.

Marette
had remained calm.

It was a reaction that
had launched Elsa across the room at her. It took Maria and Nigel to hold Elsa back from actually striking Marette. In those moments Marc saw a pain slice through Marette that she hid before the others could see.

The confrontation
had ended there. Guards escorted them back to the shuttle. Marette did not join them.

It wasn't until an hour after they landed at the stat
ion that Nick had approached Marc in his quarters; he, Gunther, and Elsa were going to hack the base computers and find out what they could, and would Marc help?

Now, two hours later
and all the more weary, Marc gave them much the same answer as he'd given Nick the first time: "I can't help you with this."

"You can't,
" Elsa asked, "or you won't?"

"Both!
ESA brought us here? If they catch you hacking Alpha Station—"

"Yeah, but if you're helping us, w
e won't get caught!"

Marc sighed.
Nick had said the three had already tried within the past hour. Marc's initial attempts at persuasion hadn't been enough, but they'd only gotten so far before hitting a wall.

"You've
already been in there once," Marc said. "You didn't find anything, and from what you tell me, you barely got away undetected."

"That's why we need you!" Gunther
said. "With a fourth we can do it. I already know how."

"But you don't know if there's anything there worth the risk!
ESA's just as shocked about what happened as we are. They wouldn't send us to test something like that. And they couldn't kill someone through their own rig, even if they wanted to!"

"Oh, there's
something
in there." Elsa shot to her feet. "The three of us found a whole partition about the complex that's blacked out with cryptog. You can't tell me they're not hiding something! And you can't tell me that ESA bitch felt anything for Suzanne! You saw her when she came back in the room!"

Marc's fists clenched
. He faced her down. "She's in command of the whole place, she can't wear her heart on her sleeve! If you'd looked in her eyes instead of taking a swing at her maybe you'd have figured that out!"

Gunther stood up as if to step between them.
Elsa just stared Marc down, and he broke under the weight of her gaze.

"Yeah, okay, come on, Marc," Nick
tried. "We need you. Maria's too spooked and Nigel won't risk it, either."

"Sounds like they've got the
right idea." Marc didn't know how much about
Paragon
ESA kept in the Alpha Station computers, but he needed to do his best to keep the information secret.

"We need a fourth," Gunther repeated.

"We
need
a cryptog specialist," Elsa growled, "but the best one we had is dead. Or is that just coincidence?"

"Elsa," Gunther warned.

Marc scowled back at her. "Oh, come on, you can't think that—" The door signal cut him off. He put off Elsa with a wave of his hand and checked the door. "It's Marette."

"Chief Clarion?"

"On a first name basis, I see," Elsa muttered.

Marc
shook his head at Elsa's comment as much as his own. Using Marette's first name was likely harmless, but still bad for appearances. "Just hang on. I'll see what she wants."

What should he do?
He needed to talk to Marette, but what would the others do if he let them go now? Yet how persuasive could he be against Elsa's anger? Could he trust them not to make another move without a fourth?

He moved so Marette would see the others behind him and opened the door.

She stood there, perceptively drained but still composed. Her eyes flicked from him to the others and back. "Mr. Triton. I need to speak with you."

"He's busy," Elsa said.
"Come back later." Marc glanced back at Elsa, hesitating.

"It has been a long day," Marette
said. "We are all tired and saddened by the loss of Ms. Namura—"

"Are you?"

Marette bristled. "I will need to speak separately to all of you, and I wish to begin with Mr. Triton. Now."

Elsa stepped up behind him before anyone else could s
peak. "
We
are speaking to Mr. Triton now. Go talk to Maria or Nigel," she hissed. "They're not doing anything."

"Loo
k, maybe you guys better go," Marc said. "We can finish this later." Maybe they would wait to do anything if they thought they could still get him on board.

Elsa's comment was not encouraging.
"So
that's
how it is."

S
he left without another word. Gunther and Nick followed, with Nick pausing just long enough to leave him with, "Yeah, um, we'll talk to you later."

Marette stepped into the room as Marc watched the others disappear down the corridor.
He let the door close and turned to rest his back against it. "God, Marette, things aren't good."

"No," Marette leaned
her hip against the edge of the desk. "They are not. But they are better than they might have been. I saw you cut Nicholas's interface before. . . things happened."

"I
— Yeah." Arms crossed, he stared at the floor. "I tried to reach for the connection hub. I keep asking myself if I couldn't have reacted sooner. Maybe if I went for the hub first instead of pulling Nick's cable. It probably wouldn't have made a difference, but. . ." He shrugged and shook his head before meeting Marette's gaze. "I don't know."

"You acted.
You saved Nicholas. You can rethink it all you like, but that gives no second chances." She faltered for a fraction of a second before continuing. "You did not stand by. Remember that."

"So did you
. You cut the power."

"Yes, I acted.
" It seemed to give her no comfort. "This time."

She clasped
her hands and tapped her thumbs to her lips. Marc opened his mouth to say something before realizing that he didn't know what to say. He let his gaze follow Marette's to the floor instead. He'd acted, yes. So had she. But he couldn't just leave it at that so easily—just turn the guilt off like a switch—no matter how healthy it might be to do so.

As if echoing his thoughts, she said, "I find it difficult to follow my own advice."
He looked up in time to catch her shake her head once as if to clear it. "We do not have the luxury to dwell on such things. ESA is weighing its options and I have orders to determine if your part of the project can be salvaged. They will likely attempt to continue if your group is willing. I shall be speaking to each of you tonight, though I will obviously not tell the others these details."

"I think I can
tell you what they'll say."

"Based on Ms. Litzenburg, I am not optimistic."

"She hates you, and I don't know her well enough to say whether or not that'll boil off. I can tell you that they're all three suspicious of ESA now. Maria and Nigel, I haven't talked to them myself, but it sounds like they're nervous at the very least. I hear Maria's downright scared." He stopped and weighed how to tell her about the hacker's plan. "What's more, we might have a security issue. Elsa and the rest were just here to enlist my help hacking Alpha Station. They've already gone in once, which made them think they needed my help."

Marette froze
. "Did they find anything?"

"I don't think so.
Nothing specific, anyway. But they said they found a bunch of encrypted data and they're convinced it's got something to do with what happened to Namura."

"It may well have.
Most of the critical data is kept at the Omicron Complex, but they could find a hint of what
Paragon
really is." She waved a hand. "Or it could be unrelated."

Marc nodded.
"Well, I'm sure things are contained so far. They think ESA may have known about a fatal risk, but they don't have cause to think the crater is anything other than a new research base. I don't think that they'll risk going in again without more help, though. They seemed pretty sure they'd be caught without a fourth."

"They may have already placed themselves in danger."

"What do you mean?"

"Marc, if
ESA thinks there is a possibility they know anything about what the site really is, they will do their best to make sure that information does not get out."

"
You think they'd arrest them?" Marc asked.

Marette shook her head.
"Someone in prison may still contact the outside world, Marc.
Non
, I do not think ESA would arrest them."

M
arc blinked. "You mean they'd kill them? Just like that? This isn't some shadow conspiracy group we're talking about, this is a visible, public organization."

"A visible organization that has so far concealed a major discovery from the rest of the world.
ESA has quarantined the mining crew that uncovered the site for the past six months. And you and I are
part
of 'some shadow government conspiracy.' One that does
not
believe in taking lives. I have been in the contingency meetings, Marc. ESA is prepared to use deadly force to conceal their secrets." Her fists clenched, her face flushed, and suddenly she was glaring at him. "I reported this to the AoA!
Mon Dieu
, how could you come here and not know what was at stake!"

"
I came here to help with the hack!" he stammered. "I only had time to read what was important!" Well that came out wrong.

"What was important?
This is important! Conserving lives is
important!
"

"That's not what I mean!"
Damn, he didn't want to be yelling at her!

"How could you not know this?"

Marc heaved a sigh and sat down on his bunk, rubbing his forehead. "I didn't mean lives aren't— I meant 'important' to the immediate details of the hack. I heard at the Council meetings what ESA would do to keep things secret. I just thought they'd need more than suspicion. Detain, publicly ruin, yes, but kill? On suspicion only?"

"
I believe they would."

He sighed again
. "I don't know, maybe I just didn't want to think they were capable of that. I'm behind a screen for most of what I do. It's not something I usually have to deal with like this." He shook his head and looked up at her again. Would she now think him heartless?

Marette regarded
him in silence for a time before she finally spoke. "I think about it every day," she whispered. The chill was fading from her voice.