“I don’t remember being a child.” He squints at the kids skating on water. One of them splashes a large wave on a little boy whose hair is the color of wheat grain. “I know that before, I am little, and I am reaching up to take things from kitchen table. And I am standing on my toes to do it. But I am not remembering it.”
Ify wants to tell him this is because he’s a synth and those memories weren’t his to begin with. But she restrains herself. Let him speak. Maybe this is part of his therapy.
“I am singing song that I am hearing long long ago. But I am not remembering I am singing it. The only reason I know I’ve sung that song is that my sponsor recorded me singing it when I was newly adopted. It was soon after I’d arrived here. When I was in bed, I am hearing my own voice. It is Paige playing back my recorded voice. I am not remembering singing it. I am not remembering those words. But I know I sang them, because there is that recording.” His speech patterns are changing. Maybe more evidence of trauma exerting itself. Is he reverting?
Ify watches him lift one arm and consider his wrist.
“I know I was in the hospital, because Paige and Amy told me. And they’ve been taking care of me more than usual. And my body feels it. My body is telling me that I have been lying down for long long time.” He shakes his head. “But I am not remembering any of it.”
Something niggles at the back of Ify’s brain. A hypothesis. A light shining a path to an answer. “Do you remember . . . do you remember being captured? And . . .” She heaves a large, nervous sigh. “And tortured?”
He inclines his head toward Ify. “Did that happen to me?”
She breaks his gaze and focuses on the teenagers playing on the water. “I . . . I don’t know.” An idea occurs to her. “Do you remember ever holding a gun?”
He furrows his brow in concentration. “No.”
“Do you remember my name?”
When he looks up at her again, tears well in his eyes. “No.” His bottom lip quivers. He turns his gaze to his lap. “I am remembering that my name is Peter because that is what they are calling me.” He gestures with his head at Paige and Amy, still chatting with their neighbors. “But I don’t remember who is calling me that first. Who is giving me that name.” He sniffles. “I will never remember.” Something shifts in his jaw, and he stops crying. Tear streaks glisten on his cheeks. He looks at the teenagers laughing and playing. “I will not remember this either.”
Ify wants to ask him about the girl in the refugee ward, whether he remembers connecting with her. She wants to ask if they were having a silent conversation, about food and family and where they came from.
Whatever you downloaded is likely the source of the virus, she thinks.
It might try to connect on its own.
Breath catches in Ify’s throat. An entire ward filled with children. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, any number of whom could be cyberized. Any number of whom might even be synths. Any number of whom might have the entirety of their memories wiped away.
CHAPTER
18
It is not difficult for me to be finding hole in fence that is surrounding junkyard. There is footprint of many many people going through here so that when I am seeing it, it is looking like single groove in ground like mark made by tire.
I am slipping through and everything is smelling bad, like humans doing all of their living here. It is smelling like under Falomo Bridge but worse. And I am wondering if people are dying here too and they are being buried under metal.
Some things are tall tall above me and are blocking out light from moon, but I am still seeing everything. And some pieces of metal are crunching beneath my feet and I am thinking these are maybe small computers or hard drives, and then I am seeing on the ground and hanging from windows sometimes arm or leg, and they are metal like mine are when I am peeling back the skin.
I am searching and searching and I am hearing beep in my brain and I am seeing with camera in my mind certain pieces of metal and other pieces of metal and I am knowing what they are made of, what alloy they are being and what is their previous use. I am knowing this is being part of carbine rifle and I am knowing make and model and I am knowing this is part of undercarriage of spider mech and I am knowing this is piece of Bonder and this is arm and this is leg and this is broken braincase and—
I freeze. It is like root from tree is coming from ground and wrapping around my ankles, then my legs and my whole body.
I see it. It is being guarded by four soldier, and I am knowing their pattern of walking, and I am knowing how far each is going in each direction and where they are looking, and cone of light is forming in front of their face and I am knowing that this is their range of vision. I am thinking that I am knowing these thing because I am soldier once. But they are standing with their back to it, and even though it is night and even though moon is not shining on it, I am seeing it like it is daytime.
Xifeng’s trailer.
I am seeing the trailer and the four soldier guarding it, then my mind is emptying, and when I am waking up again, I am waking up covered in blood, and arm and leg and head is covering the grass like rubbish. I am not taking time to think about what happen or why I am covered in blood and there are no more soldier just pieces of them. I am just breaking the lock to the trailer with my elbow and hurrying inside and feeling the fresh cool air of the inside and closing my eyes because it is like feeling Xifeng whenever she is holding me during my epileptic shaking.
I am sitting on metal floor and hugging my knees to my chest and blood is on my face and my fingers and covering my knees, and my fingers are slipping on my pants where they are holding them but I am sitting and rocking back and forth and closing my eyes and thinking of Xifeng and thinking it is being long long time since I am hearing her voice.
When I am opening my eyes again, I am seeing around me stack and stack of hard drives.
I am not sure how I am knowing but I am knowing that police or soldier or both is going to destroy all of this and I must save it. So I am taking cord from my neck and putting it in hard drive after hard drive and downloading the rememberings so that they are pouring like water into my brain. My brain is never filling, but I am sometime hearing voice many voice and sometime if I am closing my eye I am feeling sand between my toes or I am feeling big leaf SWISH SWISH on my face or I am putting my lips to lips of other girl or I am riding on the shoulder of man I am calling father.
My eyes are opening fast fast when I hear voice outside.
There is window and I am wiping it but it is making blood on it so I am using shirt and wiping blood and dust off window, and I am seeing far away soldier bringing out children who is looking like me and making them to fall on their knee and is lining them up. And these children are having collar around their neck and having restraint over their hands and their forearm. And I am looking closely and my mind is scanning them without me telling it to and I am seeing that they are having outlet like me at the back of their neck. And I am seeing under their skin that their bones glow blue like mine when I am looking inside myself sometime.