Requiem (7 page)

For the first
time, Abigail hesitated. Seline could sense a burning question
resting on her lips but Abigail avoided it and asked another. 'How
bad was the damage to your arm?'

'Well, it's
tech from the shoulder down,' said Seline. She thought about it
then pulled her sleeve up to her elbow and held her arm up to the
light and scrutinised the bearings within the joints of each finger
as she closed her fist. Thin, polished plates of carbon fibre
concealed alloy cylinders, colour-coded wires, and tiny electronic
chips. The wireless sensors had been built right into the fibres of
the plates, serving as the skin. She liked the black, synthetic
look of the fibres, preferring it to the stem cell skin grafts that
were far too expensive anyway. She had made a mistake in her most
recent effort to update the software for the sensors. While she had
ensured that the feelings in her synthetic arm would never register
in her brain as pain the new software was triggering a memory of
the taste of strawberries if she happened to bang it into something
hard enough. The taste of desert instead of the piercing and
burning intricacies of pain was a novel sensation, at least it was
before she told Belameir about it. He had made sure she would never
be able to get the taste out of her mouth.

'A few of my
ribs were replaced as well'. Seline rolled the sleeve back down
again, suddenly becoming self conscious. She thought of telling her
about having the arm amputated by Belameir and the Russian man, and
the blackening pain of reconnecting the nerves to the synthetic
sensors but decided to let Abigail work around to her question.

'Yes. I heard
you were there and what had happened. I'm glad you managed to keep
the rest of your body intact, dear.' Abigail stared into the
remaining drops of her tea as she spoke and nodded her head gently.
'You look good. You look... healthy'.

Seline knew
that was a lie but said nothing.

Abigail sat
forward and looked up again into Seline's eyes. 'I know this
question may be demanding too much but... did you happen to know
anyone named Rodney? Rodney Shaw? He worked at one of the security
companies stationed at Ira at the time it went dark.'

'… I, ah, I
didn't really know that many people at the station.' Seline could
picture the dark, repulsive faces of her regular clients. Sweating,
panting. Their miasmic breath eating away at her skin.

'He would have
been thirty at the time with short brown hair and light green
eyes,' said Abigail. 'He had broad shoulders... he worked security
detail on the second bay – which, I believe, is where you were
living as well?'

The second
bay... where the air was so thick with dead skin and sex that the
air purifiers couldn't even keep up, where disinfectants were
sprayed out only to sink to the floor like a layer of mist, where
the homeless people would lay on the ground outside the cantinas so
they could get high off the fumes. The second bay... where the
lights were permanently dimmed. A literal Red Light District. Red
and black. Blood and shadow.

'Seline?'
Abigail repeated. A buried mourning had crept into her voice.

'Yeah...' said
Seline. 'Was... was he...'

'Rodney.'

'Was Rodney a
security guard?'

'Yes.'

Seline thought
for a moment. 'There was no security in the part of the station I
was in. The only time I remember seeing a security guard was when
the station was about to go.' Seline closed her eyes, pressed her
thumb to her bottom lip and concentrated on the memory. 'I was
running. There was fire and... bodies... everywhere. The security
guard was kneeling down next to someone. He had white skin. He
might have had dark hair, I really don't know. I was running so
fast from the explosions, I just can't be sure. I'm sorry'

'There's no
need to apologise, dear.' Abigail's tone remained trusting and
inquisitive but the pain of the words lingered in her expression.
'Did you see what happened to him by any chance? To that man you
saw?'

'It looked like
he was helping someone who'd been hurt. I had no time to even think
about stopping before an explosion cut them both down... I can't
see how they could have survived. I kept running. I'm sorry,
Abigail.'

Abigail leaned
back into the deep recline of her arm chair. She looked up at the
ceiling with her hands resting in her lap. The clock echoed in the
silence between the two chairs but its sharp metallic thuds held no
sway over a place and feeling so defiant to its measure. Much to
her own surprise, Seline spoke first.

'If I could
give you the closure you're looking for I... I'm - '

'Honey, if you
say 'I'm sorry' one more time I'm going to start thinking you've
actually done something wrong.'

Seline smiled
weakly. 'It's just, I know how it feels. Any doubt, no matter how
small, just... I dunno... pushes logic out of the way... kind of.'
Seline opened her mouth to finish her thought but swallowed it back
down. She decided it wasn't really important and that it probably
wouldn't come out the right way anyway.

'Maybe that
security guard you saw was my Rodney. Maybe he died there on that
station trying to help someone. I could accept that. But... I just
don't know. Hope is a sickening feeling when there is so much
uncertainty and so many blind spots.' She let out a shallow sigh.
'Nevertheless, I must confess, Seline, that it is for the exact
same feeling that I've been wanting to see you.' Her earlier calm,
confident demeanour reappeared almost as abruptly as it had
left.

Abigail rose
from her recliner and walked past the light of the candle on the
desk, her slow movements barely rustling the flame. Seline set her
thimble cup on the stand. When she looked up at Abigail's face, she
seemed to have lost some of her years. Seline wondered how old she
really was. She held out her hand to meet Abigail's and was given a
small, black, rectangular box.

‘I can’t say
that I knew your mother well but I still recognised her face when I
saw the video.'

There was no
malice or intent in Abigail's words but they still felt sharp
against Seline's ear. She played with the box in her hand as
Abigail returned to her chair. Her heart thumped in her chest. She
leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees still playing with
and staring at the box. 'This is an old model,' said Seline, 'I
haven't seen a memory drive like this in a long time. What does it
say? I mean... have you looked at it?'

'I tried to
look through it, that's how I knew it was your mother's. But all I
could access was a short vid – an opening message. It was a
projection of your mother saying that the blackbox was memory
encrypted. It was specifically meant for you, dear. I was surprised
that I needed to plug it in with the cable to run it. I guess
that's to protect against any remote access.'

'How did you
find the box?'

'A student of
mine had run away from one of the shelters. I went looking for him
in the Barrens – the section of town that was stripped a few years
ago. I finally found him hiding in what used to be an old office
tower. He was sitting inside a cupboard on one of the lower floors.
Your Mother's blackbox was in there with him. When NeoCorp ran
through there they must have missed it.'

Her brow
creased. 'Are you sure it's my mother in the vid?'

'Yes, I'm sure.
I had initially thought it belonged to Caleb – the boy I was
looking for – but he told me he'd never seen it before. Caleb's a
good boy; I doubt he'd lie about something like that. You had no
idea that this blackbox existed?'

'No. Well,
maybe.' Replied Seline, her voice quiet and distant. A large part
of her wanted to pulverise that small box into dust and forget it
ever existed, forget Abigail, forget this house and the rock it
clung to. It had taken years of sleep and a space station's worth
of needles and inhalers to bury the memories of her mother. That
could all be undone with a thin metal box and a handful of
pixels.

Abigail rose to
her feet. 'Let's go into the study, there's a viewing screen in
there for you to use.'

'That's... I
have a port in my arm. I can play it through that.'

'Oh, then I'll
leave you two alone, shall I?' Abigail collected the small saucers
and tea cups and was almost in the kitchen when Seline spoke.

'I'm not sure I
want to see her again.' The desperation in her voice pulled Abigail
back as if her shirt were being tugged by a child afraid to be left
in the dark. Abigail turned. She watched Seline for a moment.

'No matter how
much of a head start you get,' she said, 'you'll never outrun the
memories, dear. Just try letting them catch up for once, just for a
moment and maybe you'll see there is nothing to be afraid of.' And
with that, she smiled and disappeared into the kitchen.

Seline drew in
a breath and sat motionless in the stale haze of the room. Before
the doubt could find its way back in she pulled up her right sleeve
and opened the panel on her forearm. She plugged the blackbox in
and activated her optical lenses. The lenses became opaque,
blocking the light from the candles. She sat upright, unable to
relax her body. Shards of orange light flitted on the screen in her
eyes. More fragments of light appeared in her viewer until a
holographic image of a woman had formed.

It had been so
long since she had actually seen her but she realised that she
hadn't forgotten her face. The grainy, fidgeting frames of light
distorted the projection but through the monotoned light Seline
could imagine the deep obsidian shade in her hair and the hazel in
her eyes. The firm lines of her cheekbones and jaw, she recognised
in herself. From what she could make out from the recording her
mother seemed nervous and agitated. The hologram figurine was
pacing back and forward in silence for a few seconds before it
spoke.

'If you're
watching this recording then something went wrong. I have left this
blackbox for you, Seline and you alone. It's memory encrypted so
only you can access it. All you have to do is port it to a neural
link and think about... think about the time you sang for me. Focus
on your words, on the room, on me... The blackbox will unlock when
you play that memory for it. Everything in here is my final gift to
you. Keep it safe. I tried everything that I could... I'm
sorry.'

The shards of
orange disappeared and the vid stopped. Seline restored the
transparency in her lenses and removed the blackbox from her
arm.

The time you
sang for me?'

The words
stirred restlessly through her mind. Each syllable sent a damp echo
through her body. She had almost spent the entire later half of her
life burying the bones of the first. The memories were veiled
somewhere inside her but she wasn't sure where or if she even
wanted to know. Exhumation was a very dirty business.

Once again she
sat looking at the blackbox. Her curiosity tried to lead her to
question what might be on there and why it would warrant such high
level encryption but that image of her mother defining the darkness
at the edge of her mind kept her inquisitions at bay.

Goosebumps had
formed on her skin and her hands were shaking. She found her bag
and stuffed the blackbox inside. She inhaled slowly and
deliberately, steadily walking away from the darkness in her mind.
She looked back and saw the calm, serene expression of her mother.
For all the fear and anger fostered by that woman's face, Seline
realised with a sudden and painful admission that it possessed a
certain measure of grace.

Seline opened
her eyes, stood up and headed into the kitchen to find Abigail.

Seline had
planned to simply find the old woman, thank her, and leave but
found herself not only enjoying her company but also the warmness
and safety of those small rooms. Each one bottle-necked and drowned
in a cluttered sea of someone else's memories. It had been two
whole hours before she realised what the time was. She would have
felt she had overstayed her welcome if it wasn't for the obvious
pleasure that Abigail was deriving from her presence. Seline
listened intently to school yard stories about herself and the
other students from her class whom she could not recall in the
slightest. She watched old family vids of Abigail's long passed
husband, Etai, and her son, Rodney. The fondness in her voice and
the way Abigail spoke made such memories easy to listen to.
Everything in her gestures and tone was casual and familiar, as if
Seline's friendship had been assumed before they'd even met.

Seline found
endless pages on an endless list of subjects; from an article on
the desolate behaviour of the Ik tribe of Uganda to a journal of
the adventures of the naive Adam Ewing. The countless stacks of
books, diaries, notes, and photos helped distract her from thoughts
that she wasn't ready to confront and Abigail didn't press her to
talk about them.

As she looked
again at the time display in her optics she realised she was late
for her appointment with Sear. Abigail noticed the change in
expression.

'Something
wrong, dear?'

'No. It's just
that... I just remembered that I was supposed to meet up with
someone over half an hour ago.' She scratched the non-existent itch
on the back of her neck and stood up from her chair looking
awkwardly around for her bag.

'Your satchel
is just under your seat,' said Abigail, pointing to the spot from
the opposite side of the room.

Seline leaned
down again to pick up her bag. She tried to think of what to say.
She often found that the more attachment rendered upon any
particular idea, emotion, or, God forbid, person, the more
deliberate and careful the scaffolding and planning that were
required in erecting the words. And she immediately realised that
she hadn't laid any blueprints down for what she wanted to say to
Abigail. All she knew was that she needed to thank her and that she
would like to talk to her again.